I can vouch for Charles Cassar living in London as he is a close family friend and my father knows both him and Ernest, who work in the same building.

“The back of beyond. Zurrieq in the 1980s”

Thank God Zurrieq was not Sliema in the 1980s. Il-Guy Karmenu Vella resurfaced all the roads in Zurrieq, his hometown, and redid the pavements too when he became minister.

And in Zurrieq water reached our rooftop tanks during the night and we had 190 volts while in Sliema you had 180 volts and no water.

In those days Valletta Road was unlit, bumpy and used to flood when it rained, while in Sliema half of your street lights were disconnected and you had a big kiosk instead of an open space.

When compared with Sliema, Zurrieq was more comfortable and less expensive to live in than Sliema. It still is. We have shops mushrooming everywhere and we’ve got choice at a very good price.

Now Zurrieq’s villas are being converted into forty-unit villages like you experienced on the Sliema sea front. Thankfully we at Zurrieq still enjoy sea views, but like Sliema we have a dust problem.

Nowadays strolling on the Sliema front isn’t as pleasant as a walk along the promenade from Wied Babu to Hagar Qim.

Zurrieq is connected with the rest of Malta and on equal footing with Sliema, dust and all.

To Lilla:

Problem is almost everyone is the same basket.

North, South, Gozo…. on a 14-mile island. How ridiculous can we get?

What Daffers is saying, and I agree with great bells on, is that Malta is knee-deep in hamalli.

Before 1987 and the onset of affluence, there were islands of civilisation where one could take refuge. Not any longer. Now the floodgates have been blasted open and the cesspit has disgorged its filthy contents everywhere.

Malta’s version of social mobility: racing and revving around the place taking your vulgar social mores along with you, unchanged.

“Fatta!”, Tas-Sliema sar daqshekk ikrah u impossibbli biex tipparkja fih ghaliex gie invazat b’nies bhalek u bhal “Nobody in particular”, li kitbet hawn fuq.

Qabel, Tas-Sliema kien post kwiet, sabih, fejn kulhadd kien jaf lil kulhadd.

Was he there with that group of chavs, one of whom kept their baseball cap on throughout the meal?

Oh come on!

I’m from the south and I come over to ‘your beloved Sliema’ twice a year, if that.

Don’t put everyone in the same basket.

Not all people from the ‘sawt’ have socialist mentalities.

I get this kind of crap whenever I meet someone new and they ask where I’m from – Zejtun (gasp! horror!)

If they’re Nationalist, they shut up and sometimes I can just tell what’s going through their minds.

If they’re Labour, they feel pretty confident that I’ll agree with what a mess GonziPN has made out of everything (maybe not the first day they’ve met me, but definitely somewhere down the line the subject will come up). Until I set the record straight, as it were, and burst their bubble.

The point of all this is generalisations and sweeping statements are so lame.

And one last thing . . .

Given you sent me off to Maltastar and what have you

“ATTAKK VILI U BLA SKRUPLI FUQ KELLIEM EWLIENI TAL-PARTIT . . . ”

Now THAT is just like something out of Maltastar! :) :) :)

[Daphne – Ah, I see you missed the irony. What a surprise.]

Well I have to hand one thing to you

You are one heck of an entertainer! :) You mentioned zoo in a reply to my posts earlier . . . I understand your distaste . . . after all you both are competing in the same industry! :)

Well I had my fill for today . . . thanks! :)

[Daphne – Bye, now. Enjoy the bbq. And make sure you don’t fall off that roof after one too many Jack Cokes.]

You are completely right (thank God) in saying that I come from a totally different culture. On that we fully agree!

[Daphne – One agrees on opinions, not facts. Learn the difference. That you come from a different culture is a fact. There is no scope for agreement or disagreement. It is anot a matter of opinion.]