Africans are welcome anytime, obviously the ones who frequent the area right now aren’t. Please don’t turn the conversation into one about racism. You know what I’m talking about and deep down I know we agree.

[Daphne – Actually, we don’t. I have greater objections to the sort of Maltese who troop up and down Republic Street every morning than I do to Africans of whatever sort. Most Africans I see here appear to be naturally elegant, whatever they’re wearing.]

[Daphne – Freedom Square is a place to breathe? You have got to be joking.]

This is my opinion. I’m no architect, but I think I have the right to express myself as I’m Maltese. I visit Valletta regularly, I talk to people and so I might know better than Piano what Valletta needs to start to wake up from its death. Piano will come, get the money and go back to Italy, we and generations to come will have to live with his works for centuries to come.

[Daphne – “I might know better than Piano”….Ronnie, I give up.]

This Valletta project will end up like the present City Gate mark my words, when it was being built nobody uttered a word against it but after 10 years everybody started to consider it as a huge mistake.

I meet people every day who really didn’t like most of Piano’s ideas, as also shown on online polls, are they criminals or retarded just because they don’t share your opinion?

[Daphne – I don’t know why you are your mates believe that these things are a matter of opinion. They’re not.]

Many were so desperate for something to be done there that are ready to accept almost everything. Many wanted to see our beloved teatru again [Daphne – ‘Our beloved teatru’? It went down in 1943. The only people who remember it standing are pushing 80 or older, and I’d say there are only a couple of hundred people still alive who actually went to a performance there, if that.] now are ready to accept a dozen columns and some seats instead. Many wanted a wonderful square with fountains and monuments upon entering Valletta with the newly built theatre in the background but all Piano is giving them is an extension of Republic Street with all its crowds and panic as Freedom Square will cease to exist, am I crazy in stating so?

[Daphne – Ronnie, don’t tempt me.]

“You’re biased amico and cannot be taken seriously”

The corollary being, I imagine, that Ronnie Gauci can be taken seriously despite his childish writing.

Headline news on CNN is not based on how much money is spent and the world is not waiting to see what Malta is going to do about Valletta. There’s a whole lot more happening out there. That why it is called the world, though you seem to think (think? do you, really?) that this is it.

I’m curious though about who gave you my whereabouts, I never write anything work-related.

I still stand with what I wrote, the majesty of St. James Cavalier standing high above Valletta’s entrance will be covered by this huge modern building transforming city gate into another shady Strada Stretta, Burger King on one side and an exclusive building reserved for MP’s on the other. The dream of re-having our theatre has immediately vanished as that of seeing the city gate in all it’s glory. We paid millions and all we’ll gain are another Parliament and some theatres, things which Valletta has enough not to mention all the empty buildings and auberges. We also gained an elevator (hopefully it will not be transformed into a latrine like the present one), a Greek theatre like structure (which most of it is already in place, the ruins) and some trees and flowers. For all those millions spent I pretended something huge, something all the world would be expecting fantically it’s opening and which would make headline news on CNN.

@ Mario Carta, you seem like you’re Italian, like those morti di fame who come here buy just buy a bottle of water and a pizza each in a week and live on it, so how come can you call somebody idiot when you don’t understand s**t about Valletta? Would you like it if a Maltese arcitect would build something unrelated 20 metres from the Coliseum or in the middle of Piazza Navona? You’re the idiot here not me, you can not agree with my opinion but how dare you call somebody an idiot for voicing an opinion just because you worked with Piano?? You’re biased amico and so cannot be taken seriously.

[Daphne – Somebody told me that you work/ed in customs. There’s a discussion going on elsewhere on this website about the way customs officials stole money from people by holding their suitcases/them hostage when they came into Malta by sea or air. Would you care to join it and give us your views?]

Pia Micallef blog on Maltastilla

[Daphne – No. But she is 19. I shudder when I remember what I thought and said at that age. The ones I can’t get over are 39, 49, 59, and 69. At 79, you can be forgiven a mixture of nostalgia and antiquated views. Not everyone in their 70s is able, like Piano, to avoid fossilisation.]

[Daphne – Careful, Mario, or you’ll put them in a fix. They’ll feel the urge to respond by insulting you about your prime minister Berlusconi, but that would force them to make comparisons favourable to Lawrence Gonzi, and they would rather impale themselves on Piano’s steel prongs than do that.]