So now we are going to start making a fuss about the 35th and 40th anniversaries of every big event

Forty is a landmark birthday for people, who have a fixed lifespan and for whom that birthday marks a turning-point. But 40 is not a landmark anniversary for anything else.

Commemorative anniversaries of big national events are marked out in multiples of 25, not 10. The 25th anniversary of Independence Day, back in 1989, was a big thing. The 35th, in 1999, and the 40th, in 2004, were not. The main thing in 2004 was that we had joined the European Union in the 40th year after becoming independent from Britain.

By that same measure – that is, normality – there is only one big national commemoration this year: the 50th anniversary of Independence Day.

Drawing the others – Republic Day (40th anniversary) and Jum il-Bidu tal-Hakma ta’ Gaddafi (35th anniversary) – into the mix is the inevitable Labour self-seeking tosh. It’s the same with the 10th anniversary of Malta joining the European Union: a 10th anniversary is no great shakes. It’s being added to the bag to polish up Muscat’s image and that of his anti-European party as being somehow pro-European. In other words, the man heading the celebrations of the 10th anniversary of Malta joining the EU is the very one who fought tooth, claw and shrieking voice to keep us OUT of the European Union.

I write this after watching one man being ripped to shreds in the Labour den of lions that is the timesofmalta comments board, for saying roughly the same thing. Yet he is right.