Transpired that it is custom built? Did he think that Renzo Piano pulled a building design out of some catalogue?

Confuse me even further eh?

All I know is that you seem unable to work out any style not to your comfort zone.

The ‘door’ as you call it, carries a function and, let’s say, metafunction.

Piano like every architect, has a brief, a budget and a deadline. Embarking on a slab hunt defeats the project and all its parameters.

What he did, was the algebraic substitution of that which we all hated with restored ‘mass’ and geometry. Giving the bastions thier ‘original’ lines. Which, in my view, matters even more than the mannerist scroll work or whatever was ‘fashionable’.

That would be the detail which devil usually imposes on the Maltese to avoid work.

Liberal and multilingual please.

It’s what he refers to as ‘intelligenza leggera’, where technology, the mental process ie, serves truth and not the other way round.

Has anyone deciphered the formulae inscribed on the facades yet? Is there meaning on the west facade?

Have you seen the theatre? It happens to be an object of imagination, he provided the boundaries, you fill in the rest.

He knew we still carry the scars, so perhaps a mental reconstruction heals the soul. What better way to proceed than use nominal function, (put up performances) to achieve the second one?

If that’s not philologically humble and beautiful, I don’t know what is.

The problem with Astrid you see was very simple, she was concerned with memory, but not its method.

If I’m fed memory down my throat, it becomes offensive, something to refuse. Memory is elsewhere, always.

Then again, no answer to the ‘original’ slabs.

Thesis? Tsk, just a comment from yours truly.

He knows that somewhere along the road he will discover (probably he already know this) that he cannot keep all his promises. He will discover that he cannot reduce the utility bills; that the power station will take longer than expected to start running on gas; that he cannot find new jobs for the thousands leaving university next year; that he cannot solve the problem at Mater Dei etc, etc…So set the people’s mind now.

Keep telling the “people” that it is the previous administration’s fault, that they created a mess and not “us laburisti”, but the Nationalists with their “politika negativa” ( an new buzz word).

And you know, you say something today, repeat it ad nauseam and the “poplu cuc” will start to believe you. So when eventually he will be faced with questions for which he will have no tangible, concrete and truthful answer, he will blame it on the PN. A truly “Ha**ej Malti” insomma.

X’tistenna min pastizz rahli.

I disagree. An emperor does as he pleases. You have no right to object.

No doubt he thought: ‘è arrivato il vagone’.

But it is not his prerogative to change plans of the new building in such a way that will prevent other governments from using the building as a House of Parliament.

I implied nothing, Jozef, no need to write a thesis.

As for my “ilk”, you are so confused I feel the urge to confuse you even further. You see, unlike your ilk, I am not a follower, I have never asked for anything and I do not expect anything from anyone.

Now back to the gate that’s now a xaqq. It does seem that Joseph’s Paris meeting also dealt with the possibility of bringing back the old gate – it seems they still have the original slabs; most of the stonework, anyway.

My view? Ambivalent to intrigued. You can rebuild a whole city, but there is nothing like an old gate to feel the passage of time.

A real blasphemy – if there is one.

The same cynicism with which Joseph Muscat appointed Franco Debono to head Constitutional reform, giving him the same chauffeur-driven ministerial car used by Carmelo Mifsud Bonnici, could very well (badly) be applied to the Renzo Piano project.