@ Min Weber. Thanks for helping with the deal – if I may say, you smelled the (secretary’s) coffee (should have exclamation marks here). I actually had an exclamation mark after “…I must admit that the perks you have thrown in, including the coffee…” in my earlier post, but, fairly enough, Daphne removed it – which is why I had it in parenthesis in the first place (should be another one here). Now, for the avoidance of doubt, that secretary must be LESS than middle-aged, not older. No offence to anyone, eh.

One of those four MPs is Opus Dei… no?

Baxxter – ibdel l-eta’ tas-segretarja, u ciccio2010 jidhlilha.

Mhux lis-segretarja, pastaz! Lill-offerta…

Irrid nghidlek kollox jien, jewwilla?

HP, why, do you find my comments boring?

Inheggek taccetta, Ciccio, ghax next in line hemm wiehed li l-Graf Zeppelin jghir ghalih tant huwa gasbag.

Karl, I don’t agree with this statement. We live in a country with one MP per 5800 people, even less if you count just those eligible to vote. If you think that a particular candidate puts his religious beliefs before his civic duties, then just don’t vote him in. We know our politicians inside-out, yet we still vote for nutjobs, ghax tghidx kemm hu ragel sew u tar-ruh. Then we expect them to act appropriately.

HP, thanks so much. I prefer to keep my current humble job of consultant on “mizuri biex insahhu il-familja.” After all, there is a good chance I will get a call from the Prime Minister to advise him on this, and in Castille, I still get a view of the harbour. And if I prove to be a good car, I may get a salary of up to 90K+.

Imma jien noffri vue imprenable sur le grand port de Malte. U upgrade minn consultant ghal CEO, bil-licenzja li tibbulxittja lill-folol ghall-bqija ta’ hajtek.

But imagine… if we had to enact a divorce law and the Pope had to come to visit again, how could we give him the impression that Malta will be for ever a paladin of Catholicism, a true and worthy child of our Father the Apostle Paul who even removed the venom from the Maltese viper to prevent us from ever being poisoned? It’s a metaphor: the poison from overseas will not prevail against us. Uninterrupted Christianity since apostolic times.

How could we convince the Pope that we are unlike all the rest of the rotten world that has forsaken its values? Some fanatics will tell you that, if you want divorce, just leave the country and settle elsewhere. This is the special preserve of Catholics only.

These little islets always speak in the superlative: we are the most hospitable, not just hospitable; we are the most Catholic, not just Catholic; we have the most beautiful country, we have the most interesting history, we have the best work force, we have the best values, we have the strongest families, we have the best festi, the loudest bangs with each village outdoing the next. Yes, tezori.

We have even invented words like “mill-iprem”, more than “prim” which already means “prime” (of the best quality) but the primest (like saying the firstest). It is the psychology of Lilliput. Jonathan Swift would have written about Malta instead of Lilliput had he known of its existence.

We are in the middle of the sea which is in the middle of the world. The cosmos is Maltacentric. We are a hub of this and a hub of that. We have a vision 2015 too. What sort of vision is it? Would we still be without divorce in 2015 when we are destined to be a centre of excellence? Maybe the absence of divorce is conceived as part of that excellence?

In a world where satellites and the internet have turned the planet into a global hamlet, we still think of ourselves as different from the rest. I only completed very short courses in psychology and cannot make a proper analysis.

Perhaps someone else can.