Daphne, I understand your opinion. We must just live a very different life. I live in a major North American city, and while I completely get your argument about giving other people a job, I know of very few people in my social circle who do that.

Personally, I see better ways to spend my money, on putting my children in sport programs for example, and saving money on things I can do myself.

[Daphne – Better ways to spend your money than giving an income to people who need one, and freeing up time for yourself and your family? Tsk tsk. Besides which, if the two of you are working, you can afford those sports programmes and a cleaner once a week too.]

As an almost outsider to Malta now, I (and my spouse) see the thing about having a maid (never did I say this has to be a woman) as a very Maltese thing.

[Daphne – That’s odd. From the outside, major US cities (or are you in Canada?) appear to be teeming with Latino maids, to the point where the authorities are reluctant to crack down on the illegal immigrant quotient because the entire system would collapse into maid-free chaos. Or are the news reports wrong? Having somebody in to clean the house is most certainly not ‘a Maltese thing’. It happens the world over and is so popular and necessary in Europe that most major cities and towns here on this continent have a sizable population of people from The Philippines who do exactly that, and who meet up every Sunday morning at one of the Catholic churches and have a picnic afterwards.]

My experience of the Maltese people in my extended family and friends and people I may have worked with is contrary to the “quirk of Maltese culture” that you see. We see it as Maltese thing that you can’t actually be seen to be doing your own cleaning and laundry. You have to hire “the help”.

[Daphne – Did you grow up in a family with social anxiety, the sort where you are programmed to be ‘nice’ all the time in case people think you’re a ‘baxxa’? Well, I didn’t. I have absolutely no problems doing my own housework and being seen doing my own housework, but as somebody who is extremely conscious of time management, I am aware of the wisdom of paying somebody to do things which others can do so that I can concentrate on doing the things that only I can do, or want to do. You appear to believe that social anxiety about not having a maid is somehow different to social anxiety about having one. It isn’t. The two anxieties are flipsides of the same coin and the result of the same mindset. You will find them in exactly the same kinds of people. I am afraid you are a case in point: raised with social anxiety about not having a maid, and transferring that anxiety with your new location to having a maid. In my world, it’s somebody who is paid to do a job, just like a secretary, or a gardener, or a personal assistant. No difference.]

There are a number of things that I don’t miss about living in Malta, and why an attempt at returning was short-lived, and this privileged attitude of many Maltese people is one of them.

[Daphne – You clearly haven’t mingled with many WASPs or any real money in North America if you believe ordinary Maltese people have a ‘privileged’ attitude. I think what you may mean, and in this I would agree with you completely, is that Maltese people are spoiled and childish. But having a maid has nothing to do with that. The problems are far deeper.]

Certainly the trend seems to be to buy non iron shirts, and avoid the need of having to iron anything at all.. not that I agree.

[Daphne – Non-iron shirts are seriously criminal, and when coupled with Maltese men’s reluctance to use anti-perspirant, God help us all.]

I see there are still people around who have not realised that a degree or masters is no measure of one’s intelligence. Most people graduating these days are less educated than your average 14 year-old Church-school school-leaver in the 1950s.

Do the Maltese actually know how electricity (“id-dawl”. Says it all) is generated and distributed? Because I’m starting to wonder.

It is the exact same principle as when supermarkets here give special offers or discounts on Tuesdays.

Evening out the load on cashiers reduces the cost for the business. This is not rocket science. However for the multitude who listen to the bible according to Joseph and do not read, compare or think, a good thing which becomes a bad thing then again a good thing is understandably confusing.

It is no surprise that science and most Maltese do not mix. One needs a certain mindset for science and as little gullibility as possible.

Degrees never guaranteed sanity did they?

As every English schoolchild knows, because it’s part of the geography syllabus, night-time tariffs encourage households to use appliances that draw a heavy load from the grid at a time when offices and industry are not functioning.

It has nothing to do with women not being able to turn their washing machine on during the day because they’re at work. Industry and services have to use electricity during the day as it’s when their customers and workforce are there, but washing machines, dishwashers and hot water heaters don’t need to be on during the day.

It’s the same reason the hydro electric dam exists in Wales – to meet the needs of the sudden surge in demand during the commercial break in Coronation Street or a big football game when people rush to turn the kettle on.

So saying we’re going to set our alarms to iron or watch TV in the middle of the night completely misses the point. It’s not for our benefit, it’s for the power station.

You don’t consume voltage, you consume energy

Without Austin Gatt’s smart meters, night tariffs would have been impossible.

The prepaid system which Labour proposed would not be successful.

Konrad will introduce a variety of tariffs (pre-paid, flat rate and peak/off-peak tariff) to choose from, coercing families to “choose” night tariffs.

“Tonio ma takx għażla, Konrad itik l-għażla.”

Mark my words.

“This is another quirk of Maltese culture: the belief that we must do our own ironing,”

Daphne, what? Am I really understanding you correctly? You are promoting the hiring of a person to do our ironing?

Growing up we had a maid who also did our ironing. To me it seemed so “Maltese”….having the maid.

And since not both my parents were Maltese it seemed like something my non-Maltese parent went along with reluctantly because that’s what the Maltese did.

Now I don’t live in Malta, and in a place were you would be made fun of for being extremely privileged and stuck up for not doing something like your own ironing….kind of like the new middle class you make fun of in Malta.

[Daphne – You couldn’t be more wrong, I’m afraid. In big cities throughout Europe (I wouldn’t know about the United States, though I would say it’s probably the same in New York City) even young people hire others to clean out their flats and do their ironing at least once a week, the reason being that they’re out of the house between 8am and 9pm every day, have grocery shopping and various errands to do on Saturday, and don’t want to spend their Sunday doing the housework.

My advice to anybody setting up home is always to make this a priority in your budget however little money you have, and even if it means that you then can’t afford things like the occasional restaurant meal. The amount of time it frees up, the way it cuts down on stress and bad temper and fights over who does what, are invaluable. And as a highly desirable by-product, a source of income is created for somebody who needs it. That is not to be underestimated.]