He’s 58.

[Daphne- So the perfect age to have been a hippie 40 years ago.]

He says he’s only entertaining us with 10% of what he has to say. Just imagine….

La redoute, if I understood Dr Comodini correctly, when the government loses its majority the president will first see if there is any person who has the confidence and the backing of the majority of the MPs and if not we then go to the polls.

For example President approaches Tonio Borg and because Debono has said that he would work under anyone but gonzi, then Tonio Borg becomes Prime minister with the backing of Debono and the rest of the PN MP’s. Obviously this is all hypothetical.

I noticed that Franco is hoping for the PM to give him some kind of assurance or guarantee or confirmation of his good work: ‘il-Prim Ministru ghad ma qal xejn’ he said.

If the PM takes note of this and obliges, I believe that FD will be happy and the no confidence motion will not pass.

[Daphne – No, what he meant by that is that the prime minister hasn’t yet told him of his intention to resign, even though Franco gave him a deadline. Arroganza tboss.]

Oh well, now that his Italian parliamentary pension risks being revoked….

Franco cannot change. He cannot be a team player. But that’s the least of it.

The real problem with Franco Debono is that he’s not particularly competent but no one dares say so to his face for fear of upsetting him.

The result is that he’s been allowed to run away with the idea that his ‘achievements’ are outstanding and that he, therefore, deserves to get ahead.

If, as he said,the door is still open, why was he one of the members who voted for Franco’s resignation?

It was the party that closed the door for reconciliation.

[Daphne – Come off it, Silvio. If he didn’t hold the one-seat majority, he’d have been booted out three years ago. There are some Nationalist Party politicians who only began to understand the necessity of divorce legislation when it was pointed out to them that some women are married to men like Franco. Having been at the receiving end of his ‘assedju’ for three years by that stage, they could think ‘Oh my god, imagine that.’]

First of all, it’s hippie (not hippy). At the time of the hippies, Arnold was still about 11 or 12 years old….too young to be a hippie.

[Daphne – Rubbish. The hippie era lasted until the early 1970s. I would know because I was around at the time, even if only as a child. Arnold was definitely not born in the early 1960s, because that would make him my age and he’s a hell of a lot older. He’s 60 if he’s a day, or getting there. But he wouldn’t have been a hippie at the time; he would have been a square.]