That rather depends on whether the bottles were full or not.

Look, I agree the trees are lovely and that the minister is a nice guy and an innocent, but he needs to be more careful. Developers on the other hand are not innocent types and will try to get whatever influence they can to get the plot they want, the planning permission they need, and the loan they need. They decorated his flat in case it might be useful to them even if he promised no favour in return.

If a magistrate got a major developer who does not normally has nothing to do with redecorating single flats to arrange for hers to be upgraded, would that look strange or is that OK?

Could she invite the developers to her parties and put it on Facebook? I’m just looking for a universal set of weights and measures here for public figures.

[Daphne – The magistrate actually develops her own. That’s how she met Robert Musumeci. And magistrates and ministers are different sorts of animal. As the former chief justice pointed out, because members of the judiciary cannot be removed, they have to be even more careful in their behaviour, not less so. Ministers can be removed by their bosses and the electorate.]

I agree with most of what you said. What I really meant about importing non natives is that I disagree with importing NEW species of which we have no experience.

The ones which we already have, love them or hate them, causing damage or not, are difficult to get rid of. Try getting rid of the cape sorrel primrose (I know you will say that it makes the countryside look pretty and I agree but we don’t know what it replaced) or the castor oil plant that is choking so many valleys.

[Daphne – The Eastern redbud is type of Judas tree, which we have here in Malta already. And it won’t grow outside gardens because it needs lots of water.]

Yes sure like the eucalyptus that we were made to grow as children because it was Mintoff’s tin pot idea. They did and are still doing a lot of damage. The drive now is to try and use native plants. Look at the Museum of Natural History in Mdina. The oleanders were removed (in the face of protests) and in their place there are now olive trees which add much more dignity to the palace.

[Daphne – 1. Eucalyptus trees are deleterious because they have roots close to the surface which take water before anything else does. That’s why they shouldn’t be planted in agricultual areas or public spaces. In their own gardens, people are free to plant them because they are free to create water problems for themselves. 2. The replacement of oleanders with olives is purely a matter of taste. There is no biological or environmental imperative for doing it. 3. If we were to use only native plants, Malta would look barren and hideous – and deeply boring. 4. Imported varieties are only unwise when they pose a risk to the ecosystem. When they don’t pose a risk, they’re fine. The more, the merrier. 5. Using your argument, there should be no botanical gardens anywhere, because by definition they are storehouses of non-native varieties. And there should be nothing in the gardens of San Anton Palace but olives, Mediterranean pines and sandarac gum trees.]

Daphne, please be careful about importing non native trees just because they look ‘pretty’.

[Daphne – The islands are full of non-native trees. There are hardly any native ones.]

In one company I used to work with we were told that a bottle of whisky is a gift, but a box of whisky bottles is corruption.

An almond tree does not have that amount of blossoms. I guess that these trees produce a lot of pollen.

[Daphne – No. FIMBank is definitely not involved. A statement has been made already to that effect. The confusion arises because the chairman of Al Massaleh, partners of JP Montebello on the Mistra project, is also chairman of FIMBank.]

To tell you the truth, I don’t give a hoot what Tonio gets as long as he does his duty as a minister.

In Christmas time bank managers get really expensive ‘hampers’ delivered to their homes, so I wouldn’t be surprised if someone sends his hamper in the form of some service.

A police commissioner of the Labour years had his villa built for free, one hears.

[Daphne – That’s no excuse. Gifts to ministers and senior civil servants are completely out of order.]

Ministers and magistrates have to be careful about all of their associations and business dealings, and it would have been perfectly simple for the minister to find a small decorating contractor directly who had no dealings with MEPA, banks or the government.

The answer for a dynamic journalist would be to find out how many other single flats JPM redecorated over the last few years for other people. If this is their normal business for a firm with turnover of tens of million then there must be dozens of them. However, if this is the only redecoration they ever arranged it certainly looks strange.

[Daphne – To you, perhaps. It doesn’t look in the least bit strange to me. If this is Tonio Fenech’s worst crime, then allellujiah. Malta Today’s Saviour Balzan pursues him for one reason only, the same reason he can’t stand the prime minister: he took John Dalli’s place. He is IN John Dalli’s place. Malta Today would be better off sniffing around Dalli’s business interests and giving us a couple of reports on those, even if it means catching the occasional flight to Libya.]