Well, Birkirkara for sure.

I suspect l-Ghawdxi knows more about Gozo than you. In any case I do not recall that 30 years in Gozo there was such a separation between and women in the churches I visited. However I know this was the case both in Malta and Gozo in the more distant past.

[Daphne – The fact that somebody calls himself L-Ghawdxi doesn’t mean he is one, David. Nor does it mean that he is old enough to remember. I, on the other hand, remember clearly that men and women sat on different sides of the church in Gozo in the early 1980s, because I was in those churches and saw them. We even used to have discussions about whether we should ‘when in Rome etc’ and do as they did and split up, sitting on different sides of the aisle, or whether we should just sit together. I don’t know what they have done since then, and I don’t much care either.]

There was a church that had a very early mass: something like 4.30am.

Close by there was a bakery that had bread for sale around the same time as our end of partying gave us a huge appetite for an early breakfast.

It was a curious scene to watch, beautiful in its austerity since every single person approaching the church to join the congregation was dressed in black from head to toe, every time, and there were still many veils in evidence.

Even the approach to the church was separate and individual. The people in question were all old. One day in the late 90s my friends and I decided to check this point out, whether gender segregation was still practised, such as it was done more commonly during the 80s, even during masses taking place during the day.

To confirm, it was. There was, I recall clearly, a side for the men and a side for the women. I believe it was women on the right and men on the left.

Is there a link, please?

They are still thinking like in opposition.

Worse still, it seems that they think that they are still in the electoral campaign – see the President’s speech in Parliament yesterday.

It seems that while some weeks ago they invited the President’s son to their mass meeting, they now went one better and thought of inviting the President himself. What an insulting move to the political minority represented by the PN.

It happened in Malta in the 60s with the front benches marked “Nisa Biss” and the back benches for the men; first hand info, being a nipper at the time.

[Daphne – Malta in the 1960s? Well, definitely not in Sliema, I can tell you that for a fact.]

What did they do in churches where they had chairs instead of benches? Probably the same segregation took place; shades of Rosa Parks.

It was just cut and paste from the MLP manifest(o) with all the naughty bits included.

Can the President send the draft speech back to the PM and tell him to tone it down , once the PM wanted to gain brownie points off the opposition from day one of parliament?

Thank you, Daphne.

That is probably why I found it so strange. As from the first words it sounded more like a partisan speech for one of the PL’s electoral campaign events rather than a speech prepared for the Parliament’s opening session.

I really cannot stand Joseph Muscat with his preaching of unity and then blatantly doing the opposite. The speech itself couldn’t be a better example.

Do I want unity with this lot? So not.

Shades of Spiru Sant?