Royal Navy, not British army, if we wish to split hairs. It was the home of 41 Commando Royal Marines. Hence the Commando Restaurant in Mellieha.

Times gone by, when we had someone to set standards. Now it’s all gone to ratshit.

I don’t know, but there is a pull-cord to activate the thing.

[Daphne – No, it’s not. It’s Ghajn Tuffieha. That’s the real name of the bay and the only one I knew everyone to use when we were children and used to go there. Golden Sands, it should occur to you (it is English, after all), is a very recent ‘nickname’ and comes from the name of the original Golden Sands Hotel which was built there in the 1960s. The smaller bay down the steps, which people now know as ‘Ghajn Tuffieha’, wasn’t known as anything in particular by Maltese people, because it was British military territory and used by the British army (there were barracks nearby; the buildings are still there). When the British relinquished it, and Maltese people started going there to swim, they tended to be people known by The Other Malta as tal-pepe, who called that beach ‘Riviera’ – again after the old abandoned hotel that stands collapsing on the edge. As Ghajn Tuffieha proper (the large bay) came increasingly to be known as Golden Sands, the name ‘Ghajn Tuffieha’ shifted to the smaller bay.]

I might rent one and have my photo taken with him. I easily pass for a tourist.

Mhux hekk kien kwazi fil-parlament?

Is he dressed left or right, Baxxter? Can’t bear (bare) to look. Can’t see his pony. though. Will resist my next comment, since Daphne will wipe me out. Probably will anyway.

The absolute classic work in the history of sartorialism is a book called “Dressing the Man”. We have before us a quasi-naked Franco. But where does one start? I mean how do you hide that?