You should see the negative character traits they knowingly focused on to exploit in the Labour campaign.

Joe Friggieri’s book on “Intentions” might throw some light on the matter. A penetrating read, especially in our times.

I thought that to think you just needed a functioning brain, not a building

Backwoods bunny Muscat will, no doubt, be impressed by de Bono’s pomposity.

Incidentally, he does have some of Kenneth Zammit Tabona’s mannerisms. I had no idea they were related.

de Bono’s hawked that particular joke around for years. The results speak for themselves.

The continuum between academia, punditry, power, politics and money is a taboo subject in Malta.

Just look at the number of “Profses” who’ve been MPs or government members. Edward Scicluna came out of nowhere, but he’d turned himself into a household name as “genju”, and the rest is history.

Maltese academia tends to be Labour. The Big Names at the University of Malta, and the Big Names who left Malta in the 60s and 70s, tended to be either Stricklandjani (the left-wing sort) or Mintoffjani. So same thing. They’re both ideologically Labour.

I’m going out on a limb here, but the academics at University of Malta are mostly Laburisti. We haven’t any proof to the contrary. Edwarde de Bono has his finger in the UOM pie, among the philosophy fraternity mostly, but not exclusively.

So Joe Friggieri has lived all his working life surrounded by Laburisti, rabid or covert. Wife’s sister is a Labour poster girl.

That’s why it’s amazing that he ever nailed his colours to the PN mast.

That is the de Bono standard retort type to being caught in a lie.

It goes together with a slight sharp in take of the breath and a pursing of the lips that precedes the statement.

However, I cannot but recall Josephine Burns Debono’s infatuation with Dom Mintoff and the way he ran Malta. She was his arch defender in the letters columns of The Times and its Sunday sister, and far more literate than Eddy Privitera, who was at it already back then.

When confronted with evidence of the various wrongs perpetrated by Mintoff’s government – as they were going on – she would retort, “I’m certain Dom doesn’t know about this.”

In thinking laterally, her son Edward has yet not succeeded in moving beyond the nursery, politically.