Actually, Jason, I think she’s having the time of her life. She was on national television, because the Chief Justice read the papers, which reported on the defamation charge, without which the whole thing would have remained a running commentary.

[Daphne – Kevin, I’ve been in the news and a household name since I was 25. And I didn’t need to set up the CNI with Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici to do it.]

As to growing up, what she has not realised is that the process of growing old has slowed down. Teenagers stay longer with parents, marriage is delayed, early adulthood is prolonged into what used to be middle-aged, and ripe old age is not before 80.

[Daphne – Wrong again, Kevin. Just because you get more years at the far end of your life nowadays, it doesn’t follow that biology has evolved to prolong puberty and adolescence. It clearly has not. The normal adult mind is fully adult by the mid-20s, and if behaviour does not follow suit, then something is clearly wrong. In my extensive experience of relatives, family, acquaintances, colleagues and the rest, those who were still acting like teenagers at 25 are still acting like teenagers at 50. True, some of them fried with LSD the bit of brain they were born with, but that’s not an excuse. I’m very keen to see what they are going to be doing at 60 and 70.]

But of course there are various types. Some people are entrenched in their childhood days, so their mind projects a child’s image of how a grown-up should act and by 45 they are acting out that image. This makes them feel old and so they become.

[Daphne – Sorry to disabuse you of the notion, Kevin, but there is a universally accepted standard of adult behaviour which crosses almost all cultures. In fact, very many cultures have specific ceremonies to mark the point at which you are supposed to cross that threshold and never look back. The situation you describe is one that is confined entirely to a very specific socio-economic profile in the west (you know, those parts of the world you love so much), where respect for adulthood has been replaced by the worship of youth and the pursuit of eternal life.]

[Daphne – Actually, Jason, I lead a very full and busy life, but then I’ve always been a bit of a girl in a hurry. Let’s put it this way: by the time I was 26 I had already packed in marriage, three children, a big house in the country, a widely read newspaper column and was a household name. That should give you some indication of my attitude. You just don’t get the point, so let’s leave it at that. The point is that if I were still doing for fun the same things I did at 20, others would be justified in worrying about my mental stability. There are a great many things which are fun at 45, but they are not the same things which were fun at 20. It’s the other way round, too: what’s fun at 45 isn’t fun at 20. The mistake you make is to equate fun with silliness. Fun is anything you enjoy. And that, for me, is certainly not trying to relive my youth at some 1980s Gianpula revival in a sea of bingo-wings, sagging stomachs and balding heads.]

Everyone, stop living your lives, now, before Lucifer gets to you, you can’t have fun anymore, your days of being happy are over, don’t fool around and have fun, if you are over 40, but retire to gloom and doom, if you don’t, Lucifer will get to you, expose you and make a laughing stock of you, so, beware my human friends as the Apocalypse has began. And the Final Judgement will come too.

[Daphne – Only the emotionally arrested (or mentally retarded) find the same things to be fun in their 40s and 50s – people in their 60s don’t seem to be cocking up in large numbers – that they did in their teens and 20s.]

He was quite a rare bird in court. I guess the hyenas were too threatening and the jokers could have one in stitches.

[Daphne – Yes, well, most of his work isn’t in court.]

That’s not the point. If I had uploaded that sort of photo, it wouldn’t have mattered one jot. When you’re an EP candidate and a politician and a spokeswoman for a political movement, it does.

Malta is knee-deep in public figures who want to have their cake and eat it too: an MEP’s perks, AND the freedom to behave like a teenager; a high perch from which to preach to the masses, AND leading the conga at a wild party.

I love it so much I don’t want to spoil the show, Baxxter. We are frantically looking for more compromising pics so Daphne won’t feel bored and hubby would be able to spare a smile for once.

[Daphne – I’ll ask him to smile at you the next time he sees you, Kevin, so that you don’t get upset. The thing is, since you’re no longer a police officer, he doesn’t get to see you much in court.]