Let’s all talk about Hugo Chavez’s cancer and ignore the elephant in our own room. What a country.

Oh, look, The Times has seen fit to give us a lengthy blow-by-blow status report of Hugo Chavez’s cancer treatment and other details.

He’s the president of a country on the other side of the world, so that’s OK.

But they’re not going to do the same with the man who will be our deputy prime minister in a couple of weeks, and on whom the Fearless Leader has said he will dump most of his duties.

Le, ma tarax. Ghax dak ikun attakk fahxi u moqziez.

Somebody who is not Maltese asked me at lunch the other day how so many Maltese people could have remained so irrational despite doing things like making big trips to Thailand and so forth.

He was genuinely mystified. I liked the Thailand bit. I find it funny that Malta is full of people who have been to Bangkok but not to Paris or Rome.

I said that getting to the other side of the world is the easy bit: you buy a ticket. Working things out logically is a lot tougher, and copping out to the received wisdom of your Facebook friends makes life easier.