How to banish boredom: buy a mountain bike, take up scuba diving, have a go at go-carting or try skiing. The choice is yours – you can also have a lobotomy to end up with the short term memory of a goldfish and you will live happily ever after in a glass cubicle.

My advice is be a Nemo and go for it, because time waits for nobody.

Excellent idea, Baxxter, and I totally concur with respect to monies. However, as your token Swiss, and in such a pursuit, I hesitate to allow us to lower ourselves to the level of the aforementioned ‘gentlemen’.

As for fecund fillies, they are abundant and would not distract us from our major goal.

Abulafia (the great David Abulafia? We are honoured, Sir) is right on the 25-30 demographic. We put justice, honesty, intelligence and an irreprroachable government far above the price of utilities, and snazzy building projects leave us indifferent. We’d rather have a windfarm than stipends.

PN has let us all down since 2004 by pandering to the lower classes, including its core voters, but including the rock-solid Labour core vote too. Even from a pure political marketing point of view, a gigantic chunk of government expenditure under PN was wasted, because those who benefited most will still vote Labour.

That’s it. All this talk about “we need a change. Nationalists are corrupt” et al is really bothering me. Big time.

What these same people don’t want to admit is that in the Labour ranks there are tons of Mintoff followers, who were there in the blackest years of this country and are waiting to be elected to be elected to start off where they left. There will still be corruption, favourism, unemployment etc but Labour will take it to another level.

Yesterday, while watching a Youtube clip, I got to know that Alfred Sant ran up debts of approx €1,000,000 PER DAY in the 22 months that Labour were given a chance TO CHANGE in 1996 when the country was moving ahead with reforms, economic growth, infrastructure etc.

Gawd. Look at the faces on those business persons.

And now they want us to believe that business is ‘safe’ with Labour!

@Jonathan C.

It is well written. But unfortunately, this is Malta. People will only open their eyes when we have lost it all, and then it will be too late.

But I would be very worried if we get a Labour government come next election because my son is still two and needs the best education possible, one policy that Labour had.

I have already suffered bad schooling myself during Mintoff’s years and hope my son won’t get a similar experience. I Hope for the best, but Daphne’s write-up describes the current situation superbly, and I have the feeling that the inevitable will happen.

I read Ms. Margaret Chan’s interview yesterday in The Sunday Times. The world over seems to agree that we’re not doing all that bad, after all, and that whatever we’re doing, we’re doing well. The WHO, no less, is heaping praise in what does not seem to be a too-cautious appraisal of our national health service. Yet, we see the polls and we see that JM is leading. Ms. Chang also referred to the sustainability of the whole system and that we seem to have discovered some sort of magic formula, which is elusive in so many countries, even perceived to be much more industrialised and advanced than ours.

Yet, people still seem to hover towards JM’s non-policy. It is not that they are somehow convinced of him and his non-policies. But rather, they just want to “give it a try”, as though politics were some kind of shampoo, which you can just throw out after a fortnight if it does not improve your hair manageability.

However, this is the level of immaturity with which we are faced day after day. Jobs, people travelling, record figures in tourism, supermarkets jam-packed with people buying huge trolley-loads of stuff (there’s no denying that basic staples would not fill one’s trolley to the brim and more), good clothes and luxury cars (even if bought second-hand) mean nothing. They are taken for granted. Waking up and going to work is taken for granted. People do not seem to understand that our jobs, our homes, indeed, our whole lifestyles are the result of sound financial and economic policies, of good government, of heads that think.

Fact is, we’re having it so good and a content life may lead, eventually, to boredom. You’re so right about this. Which is so tragic, if you think about it. People are ready to throw away their marriages, their jobs and, yes, their countries, just for the sake of an occasional thrill. And voting Labour will surely be, for many, that one occasional thrill. Pity is we’ll have to regret for, at least, five more years (not to mention the tragic consequences thereafter).

As you said in the second part of the column, I hope that Karmenu Vella will be thrilling. After all, that is what the bored brigade will be voting for (not to mention the other dinosaurs of course).

Let’s make some money before we go looking for fecund fillies, Harry. That’s your job as the token Swiss here. M.O.N.E.Y., Harry. I want to live comfortably like Karmenu Vella or John Dalli or even the average government CEO.

I would advise these bored people to start parachuting and to increase the thrill, they should use only a parachute which opens on impact.