On occasions, they resort to arguments which are silly, unreasonable and sometimes deceitful. The claim that Ghar il-Lenbi house was baroque is a classic example of FAA’s deceit.

They attack anyone who disagrees with them or who gets in their way, as they are doing now with FWA. It is shameful that this group of individuals, who purport to be an environmental organisation, attack FWA which has done so much for the conservation of our heritage.

They are given undue attention by the media in spite of their dubious competence, and even more dubious credibility.

They abused and manipulated the Office of the Auditor. Their objection to the replacement of the Audit officer is not about the integrity of Joe Falzon or what is in the best interest of the environment. It is about the loss of a convenient ally.

Daphne, you call others presumptuous, and yet for all your claims, you haven’t been able to rebut a single one of my replies, and your only comment is so wrong, it’s laughable. First of all, even schoolchildren would know that to reach Tigne Fort, the Tower or any of their seashore defences, the Knights used sea, and not land transport (read your Stephen Spiteri my dear).

[Daphne – They used boats, but they would also have used land-based transport. Why else bother with a road? Nobody else lived there. “Even schoolchildren know…”: hardly.]

Which means that Fra Butius really did widen that gate for improved access by Sliema residences, as indicated in Albert Ganado’s maps.

[Daphne – False logic, and a deducation based on too many assumptions. There are some benefits in having an honours degree in archaeology. This is one of them.]

As for your assertion, “there isn’t a single building in Sliema which predates the mid-19th century, including its churches.” You’re wrong (yet) again, as the most basic research would have revealed MEPA’s scheduling information: “After the [French] occupation, and not wanting their new church to experience the same fate as their first church, the Sliema residents wanted to opt for an alternative site. The land on which the Chapel stands today was property donated by Giovanna Salvaloco. The church was finished and consecrated around May 1804 and fell under the Birkirkara Parish. Until 1855 when Stella Maris Church was built this was the only Church that could be found in the Sliema area.”

[Daphne – Ah, the fishermen’s chapel. The very building which proves that you’re wrong. The chapel that stood alone on the hill, completely visible from the sea, as a sort of ‘prayer station’ for random fishermen and sailors, hence the name ‘Stella Maris’, in much the same way that the Greek islands are littered with isolated chapels. Hallina, trid.]

So, contrary to what you claim, there were both residents and a church, well before the mid 19th Century. In fact the Bishop’s summer house dating from that early period still stands to this day, but I won’t go into that as I don’t want to expose your ignorance as you wouldn’t know about it, even though it’s only stone’s throw from where you grew up.

[Daphne – Madonna, how exhausting you are. The names of the streets of Stella Maris parish ALONE should tell you just how old those streets and houses are. The ‘oldest’ name is Luzju (luzio) Street, exactly where I grew up, which was named after one of the original fishermen who had a hut there. The rest tell you everything you need to know: Graham Street, Milner Street, Howard Street, Amery Street, Windsor Terrace, Victoria Avenue…]

Oh and by the way, no news about that mythical 10,000 Euro donation yet? Someone must have been sniffing something when they said that?

Your first point (” http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20120616/local/conservation ” and astrid vella’s comment “the gate marked the beginning of the road to Sliema “) :-

1. Go to http://maps.google.com.mt/maps and learn how to draw lines.

2. Find the gate on Satellite mode and look upwards towards Sliema.

3. Look at the field behind Muscat’s. Can you see a road from the gate? – No.

4. Trace a straight line all the way up to Sphinx pastizzerija. Can you see any signs of a road? – No.

5. There never was a road running through the gate.

Your second point (“the arch was built in 1796 when the road from Msida to Sliema was widened on the initiative of Fra Nicolaus Butius, as can be read from the now severely eroded inscription. Now if nothing existed in Sliema before Daphne’s family came to live there in the mid-19th Century, why would Fra Butius have widened this gate in 1796?”) :-

1. For your elucidation the surname is Buzi. “Butius” is a latinized form as was common in those times.

2. The tablet doesn’t say Buzi widened the GATE. It says he widened the ROAD. Just stop pseudo-intellectualizing and read properly.

3. Walk onto Rue D’Argens and see that the Testaferratas still have property on either side of Rue D’Argens.

4. Read the inscription closely. It says Fra Niccolo’ Buzi widened the road in the land holdings of Baron Testaferrata (‘Viam ex praedis Baronis Testaferrata, Amplificatem Fr. Nicolaus Butius’).

5. It’s pretty obvious the inscription is talking about Rue D’Argens and the first road to lead up to Savoy Hill was none other than Rue D’Argens.

Your third point (“You are all such a bunch of pathetic nerds to be so threatened by one small NGO that you are making fools of yourselves in your attempt to discredit FAA”):-

1. We really don’t have to try too hard to discredit FAA “the ngo”.

2. Just see above.

Your fourth point (“I will just take a few of your points, not because they can’t all be rebutted, but simply because, unlike you lot, I have a life and have better things to do. Anyway after a bit of digging through the papers and various sites I feel ready to reply.”):-

1. My initial point exactly: – By your own admission, you were talking out of your bottom from the very outset.

Q.E.D.

@mc – don’t you guys even read the papers before you open your mouths? “The issue was about the quality of life of a small group of residents who, incidentally, had trespassed on the property rights of others by opening windows.” The papers had reported that both of the whole site of the two blocks was owned by none other than Bertu Mizzi, so the windows were opened by one and the same developer, on his own site. The plans have been produced and are all legal.

@ el bandido guapo – didn’t you read the Times blogs which revealed that most of the restoration of FWA’s old premises is carried out by the Government’s Restoration Unit and paid for by RU, MTA, Transport Authority, Good Causes Fund, Ministry of Infrastructure. You name it, they’re all there. Nothing wrong in that but don’t come with that myth that FWA invests its 3,500 Euros a week on restoring “Malta’s heritage, the results of such recycling being amply evident.” So now can you tell me what that so-called NGO does with its funds? Oh and by the way, their Chairman’s princely salary is coming out of Govt funds too, ie you are all paying for it!

@ David – you are obviously not keeping up with your reading about Fawwara Gate: See Times: http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20120616/local/conservation.424458 “Known to some as Sliema Gate, the arch was built in 1796 when the road from Msida to Sliema was widened on the initiative of Fra Nicolaus Butius, as can be read from the now severely eroded inscription.” Now if nothing existed in Sliema before Daphne’s family came to live there in the mid-19th Century, why would Fra Butius have widened this gate in 1796?

[Daphne – I think David knows a little more about the subject than you do, Mr Attard. Now try very hard to explain why there isn’t a single building in Sliema which predates the mid-19th century, including its churches. The only reason why anyone would have needed to use a road to get to the area in the 18th century would have been to reach, by land, the fort on Tigne Point or the tower which gave the road its name. Apart from a few random fishermen, the first people to build in Sliema were those who wanted to get away from Valletta in the summer, and before the mid-19th century and the definitive end of piracy it wasn’t safe to do that.]

Xdcc and Jozef: So you’re going to tell me that the British built with soil and ‘mazzkann’ between their three-foot walls like that house was built? Let alone the corbel balcony on the side that was typical of old St Ursula Street houses, not British houses in Sliema built, as Jozef mentions, with steel beams and iron railings. Jozef, you’re digging yourself deeper into the ground with every comment. This house had stone staircases throughout, and you’re even stupider than I thought if you didn’t realise that those columns were later accretions.

@ Josef – You claim “Other NGO’s don’t accept cheques amounting to over 10,000 euros from people living in a concrete block of flats objecting to an application for another block next door.” I have never heard of this happening to any NGO. Are you going to prove that by naming names or at least the case, or are you going to sit there, inventing lies without substantiating them?

You are all such a sad bunch, and the fact that you are so ready to invest so much time and energy in discrediting Astrid Vella and FAA simply proves how effective they have been and how they are impacting your own private or political agendas. Long may they continue.

[Daphne – It proves nothing of the sort, Mr Attard. It is evidence that there are some people around who are not prepared to put up with ill-informed attention-seekers merely on the basis that they are loud, as persistent as Asian tiger mosquitoes and friendly with Super One.]

Jozef, what is wrong with an NGO accepting a donation of 10,000 euros?

They need to cover their expenses. You know, making an objection costs money; the postage stamps, the petrol to go to the MEPA Board meeting to make a nuisance of oneself. And what about the electricity for the computer, the air-conditioning and the lights for the long hours working into the night?

Even if the NGO members are doing this on a voluntary basis, they also need to cover personal expenses like deodorants and make-up.

What is wrong with an NGO receiving a donation for its services?

“Don’t you remember how the very architect who had claimed that house to be British period, had suddenly clammed up and was never heard of again the moment Astrid Vella published those maps …..”

This is typical of FAA’s lobsided way of thinking. Let me try to make it simple for you Joseph Attard.

Consider this scenario. I declare that Astrid Vella is an idiot. Astrid Vella ignores me and does not reply. Is the absence of a denial proof that she is an idiot?

By the same token, what the architect did or did not do is no proof of anything.

It was the two squat columns aged by the salt ridden air currents funnelled up the alley that got to them, looked so old and romantic.

I wasn’t aware the Knights had access to steel T beam sections to roof their hunting lodges and wrought iron railings for their grand staircases.

And wouldn’t that require acres of estate all around? Oh dear.

Picking on the FAA is easier. Gaffes, contradictory statements and the toffee nosed attitude of a dead poets society make it the perfect object of ridicule.

Other NGO’s don’t accept cheques amounting to over 10,000 euros from people living in a concrete block of flats objecting to an application for another block next door. Or abandon the arguments for citizen’s rights as soon as these opt for a settlement with the developer. Especially when the arguments chosen are based on principle.

There’s a blatant discrepancy in the position you’ve taken, maybe because rumours are rampant. Why didn’t the FAA object to the idiocy next to Lija Belvedere?

How, and this was THE clue, does a heritage warrior manage to mistake which building in Qormi is an arsenal?

Other NGO’s tend to stick to their core business. With the FAA it’s utter confusion. You will tell me what Astrid proposed for the theatre under the guise of being an expert in semiotics.

What I got was Barry’s neoclassical essay, followed by Trevisan’s computer render of its apology, to drive home, if you please, Valletta’s ‘baroque character’.

She actually thinks Neoclassicism, a fad if there ever was one, should surmount the contemporary idiom simply because she can’t see the morphema, make that function, for the trees, erm columns.

And to hell with geometry as the right to architecture.

I don’t see Fondazzjoni Wirt Artna or Din L-art Helwa doing the same, too busy doing their bit presumably. Yet THIS ‘so called’ NGO has the gall and the brazen faced cheek to disrupt the good work and sour the atmosphere.

I just yearn to see her expression when Piano’s monomateric iteration of Ferrara’s palazzo dei diamanti, sitting astride the staircase evoking the old gate, greets her through the restored walls. Preferably in a late afternoon light compassed by the algebraic sum.

Maybe, just maybe, she will understand there’s a future we deserve.

It beggars belief that anyone would rely on an old obscure map, without any notable detail, to prove that a small house in a narrow alley was actually in existence in 1728.

Joseph Attard, you are beyond redemption.

The manner a building is constructed provides a good indication as to the time it was built. The manner of construction of the supposed Baroque house was certainly much later than 1728.

FAA took many photos of the house before it was demolished. Joseph Attard, can you please provide one photo of a feature of the house which could be remotely described as Baroque?