Why do you say that, Twanny? Who’s been jailed for criticising Piano and/or his designs?

Yes Maryanne . . . and get a load of nostalgic revivalist crap with balavostri, saljaruti bil-lavur and all the bells and whistles . . . kollox barokk hux bhal tal-kavallieri . . .

The only thing that is not “OK”, apparently, is to criticise Piano and/or his designs.

I haven’t said a word about Astrid Vella, while you have been idolising Piano all over the place.

Mark, you’re quite wrong about the Grand Harbour Local Plan and the Freedom Sqr parking. When talking about Freedom Sqr the Plan mentions “the discordant proportions of the existing large open space, IMPROPERLY USED AS A CAR PARK . . ” (my blocks). It says that the present space “does not take account of the axis presented by Republic Street” and that “the square should, through building and/or landscaping between the square and Republic Street be reduced in size to respect more the human scale.” (GHLP, Policy GV27)

What you are probably referring to is the Valletta Parking Strategy Map (GHLP Fig 9) which shows Freedom Sqr not as a proposed but an EXISTING parking area. It also indicates Freedom and Palace (St George’s) squares as “sites for operational parking”, which, as Policy GV12 explains, means underground car parks. The same policy states that “no parking will therefore be allowed in Palace and Freedom Squares once the underground parking is operational.”(GHLP, Area Policies Document pg 15)

In Palace Sqr the idea of underground parking had to be abandoned because of the presence of historical tunnels (did you or FAA object to this deviation from the Local Plan?). Under Freedom Sqr there is at least one tunnel, possibly more, so presumably an underground car park is impractical there as well, for the same reasons.

Apologies to the readers of this blog for being so pedantically legalistic but, quite frankly I’m fed up of those who think they are oh, so clever in catching the PM in contravention of some misquoted policy, law or convention. My impression is that such people insist on giving us their unasked-for opinion, even on the most technical subjects, without having done their homework and having at least read through the documents they are quoting.

Even had Mark Attard been right, however, Local Plans – like all regulations – are subject to periodic reviews if it is deemed to be in the public interest.

At home I have a shrine dedicated to St Piano. I suggest you do the same for St Astrid, Twanny or, if you can’t manage a shrine, at least put up a baroque totem pole in the garden. She’d like that.

Oh well, I suppose that it’s OK for developers to engage spin doctors for their projects but it’s not OK for members of the public to object.

[Daphne – If you were democratic, you would use your name as I do instead of calling yourself Disgusted while hurling insults minn wara l-persjana. What are you afraid of, exactly? That I’ll let down your car-tyres, set fire to your front door or throw a glass of wine at you next time I see you at a party? If reading this blog is so upsetting for you, you have a choice: don’t log on. It was a free country the last time I looked. It’s all right for developers to engage PR consultants (not spin doctors – that’s a term used exclusively for politics) and it’s OK for members of the public to object to the development. It’s also OK for everyone to criticise and make fun of everyone else. Welcome to democracy, whoever you are. I suspect you have a very limited understanding of what it entails over and above a vote every five years.]

Yeah, the same with me. Why is it that timesofmalta.com tends not to publish comments against Astrid Vella? I’ve posted several, all deleted.

Hey B, didn’t you get it? For fear of D being sued for libel, (incidentally Daphne, can you be sued for libel if a commenter posts a statement on your site?) let me just say that IN MY OPINION Polidano’s contribution to Ms Ellul Bonici was probably part of a deal with the PL to stop them giving him so much flak about his cowboy tactics, e.g the St.Paul’s Bay By-pass saga is one of them. He should never have been allowed to get away with it.