Dear Daphne, could it be the other way around?

Maybe it is the older men who are leaving the older women.

[Daphne – Not really, no. Only in some cases. Wherever there is divorce in the developed world, the majority of cases are instituted by women. It’s not really any different in Malta. Of course, I am not speaking of Maltese women of your generation, who were raised to be utterly helpless. So your perception may be skewed. With women of my generation, it’s different, and we’re certainly not young.]

When law suits are still pending for a number of reasons, the government has no ruling to go by. Placing an offer on the table will never resolve the problem but risks some stakeholders taking the government to court because of an inadequate settlement offer. Then, instead of one case pending we may end up with two. Besides it may be interpreted, no less by the Opposition (the originators of the problem), as government interference.

But one cannot argue the point that the court case should have been handled much faster.

In the meantime, the engineer of the whole scandal still has the millions he stashed away in Maltese banks and elsewhere.

Which newspaper? When was it?

You should know better being the daughter of a businessman.

There is and has never been either pride or dignity where money is concerned.

[Daphne – How wrong you are, Silvio. Some people are like that; others are not. Some people understand that money is there to serve a purpose, but is not a purpose in itself. Others forget that.]

Of course some mght try to give the impresson that there is, but believe me this was never the case. I know it’s hard to admit.

[Daphne – Actually, Silvio, what some people find hard to admit is that they know they are immoral and unprincipled, but find justification in seeking to make out that all others are like them and that it is the natural and instinctive thing. The natural and instinctive thing is, in fact, to protect one’s sense of self-worth, rather than one’s worth.]

I assure you that you’ll never get any interest from any bank by trying to deposit either dignity or pride. These are two things that you have to learn how to swallow . The most important thing is getting back what you believe is yours.

[Daphne – Not at all. See above. This is something all women are practically born knowing, because most women – perhaps not the younger generation but certainly all generations of women throughout history up until my own, have at some point had to decide whether to compromise or sacrifice their pride, dignity and self-respect for material gain. And yes, that includes many marriages. Why exactly do you think so many older women are leaving their marriages now? Because they would rather live in two rooms on a pittance but with their self-respect intact, than in a whacking great villa with a swimming-pool, servants and spending-money, and a husband who treats them like dirt.]

As a matter of fact we also have a saying in Maltese’

” Minn He…a mexa”

[Daphne – Not really, Silvio. What goes round comes around in many of these cases, though not all certainly – and close observance over the passage of time has revealed that minn hexa spicca stuffat hu.]

“He was convinced that the Korean people would greet the centenary of the birth of President Kim Il Sung with shining achievements in economic construction under the wise leadership of the dear respected Kim Jong Un, he said. He hoped that everything would continue going well in the DPRK.
Satellite launch is a legitimate right of sovereign states, he said, expressing his will to work hard to expand the friendly relations between the Malta Labor Party and the Workers’ Party of Korea and between Malta and the DPRK in the political, economic, cultural and other fields.”