[Daphne – If it is, then that isn’t censorship. Employers are within their rights to do whatever they can to prevent employees doing X when they’re paid to do Y.]

The most amusing wastefulness I have witnessed in this glorious culture is the bored housewife with double kitchens – one for show and one for use. When someone told me that a large number of people fit an amazing looking kitchen only for show, just to have a piece to show off for people, I didn’t believe them, until I witnessed it myself on so many occasions.

Then of course they are scared of their living standard going down due to social services towards a few thousand immigrants.

Tough choice: fitted kitchen to show off to your friends and saving the lives of desolate people…

@ Daphne … and probably proceeding to merge the Government to the Curia. The last thing the Labour party or Malta needed was George Abela.

I am sure you enjoyed the shitty public transport whilst in London and was amused by the pot-holed roads in Toronto. Re your story of thousands applying for a functionary’s job, try checking how many people apply and go speak to a minister each time there is an opening for a clerk with the government sector.

[Daphne – No comparison, Ronnie. It’s not because they’re desperate and need a job because their home is about to be repossessed or has been already. It’s because they want a job mal-gvern.]

Re your comment about the heating, many families in Malta do not own a heater or an air-conditioner let alone bother not to switch it on.

[Daphne – That’s because their priorities are different. They prefer to shiver in a home with a fabulous kitchen and bathroom than spend less on the fixtures and fittings and stay warm. I, on the other hand, prefer to spend money on heating and am not particularly interested in fitted kitchens. In fact, I have had my own home since I was 20 and have never had one. Nor do we have airconditioning, because I really hate it and will use it only when I have no choice, like in an office.]

Strange how you accept mediocrity as long as it is dished out by the PN.

[Daphne – I don’t accept mediocrity. I am merely realistic. I also happen to think that the changes in this small country fall only just short of a miracle, when you consider where we were not so long ago – and I don’t mean 1987, but much, much later than that.]

You never know what you’ve got until you’ve lost it. I agree with you, this country used to have a plan or a direction of sorts and now it has lost it.

[Daphne – It wasn’t lost, Ronnie. It was achieved: the European Union. No thanks to that ‘No to EU’ prat you want to see as prime minister. Put him in the stocks and pelt him, I say.]

Buckle, the more crass person is you even if the moderator decides to censor this thread. I’ve said it before and I say it again. I want to see these two in prison for their vulgarity.

[Daphne – Oh great. So now we’re going to make vulgarity a criminal offence and grounds for imprisonment. Better station half the force on Republic Street any given morning, then.]

So at least you do agree that there is a problem! Good, that’s a reality check!

[Daphne – I never think that sulking and whinging are heroic.]

I see, so when the bankers get their jobs back and the Toronto stores start chiming again, what will happen to your perspective then?

[Daphne – When the bankers get their jobs back and the Toronto stores start chiming again, Malta will be back on its feet economically. Malta’s problems now are in large part due to the problems elsewhere. Funny how so many people seem to think it’s all about water and electricity bills. It isn’t. Tourism is doing really badly, conference and incentive travel business has collapsed and the problems are fed into the rest of our economy. You can’t solve those problems by waving a magic wand or changing the government. Put simply, our customers no longer have money to spend. When they have money to spend again, we’ll get going again. Until then, it’s a matter of keeping our heads above water.]

Will you find a new perspective to believe in – you can always compare Malta to those poor souls living in Africa I suppose or do your usual “Daphnejob” and harp on about life three decades ago.

[Daphne – No, because – apparently unlike you – I know that Malta isn’t economically autonomous, and that it is tied in economically with the first world and not with the third.]

http://daphnecaruanagalizia.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/orange-moonies3.jpg