That’s how Labour won the election. It ran a masculine campaign – which was an amazing marketing feat given that its leader is anything but. PN’s campaign was feminine – matronly to be precise.

And now the No campaign is boring-and-asexual-tending-to-gay.

(The “Gucci” up there is, of course, not the fashion brand, but what is known across the pond as “tacticool”.)

I offer an image consultancy service (not that anyone’s buying) so my suggestion would be to drop the Xarabank/tart/boring chatshow host/hippie faces of the campaign and go for masculine meme (i.e. BEAT THE HUNTERS AT THEIR OWN GAME).

Get the cyclists to RIDE FOR NO. Get the rugby players. Get the farmers (we haven’t any lumberjacks or I’d have suggested those) and racing enthusiasts. Get the entire crew of Bertu’s Gym.

For the pepe’ crowd, get the yachtsmen and offshore racers.

Get some craggy outdoorsman, all cammed up and wearing Gucci kit, and show him shooting birds with a telephoto lens.

Get all the paragliding nuts, give them a GoPro, and give us the bird’s eye view.

Get all the daredevil parachutists to carry a NO banner in a mass drop.

I’ll run the image campaign if you wish.

[Daphne – I couldn’t agree with you more. Branding the No campaign with luvvies, ‘style icons’, 21st-century hippies and kooky people is the surest way to kill the No vote. But these things are either understood instinctively or they’re not understood at all, with disaster ensuing.]

The Yes vote will never win by voting. They will win by staying away and depleting the voting numbers, thus reducing it to below 50 % of electorate.

Oh really? Than you ever have? Of course, I’m not in my 50s. I’m in my late 20s. There’s many years of working on these issues ahead for me.

So please do push for the No vote. Moira and Saviour are there to stay whether we like or not (and yes, I agree he’s not a very good communicator). There’s more to life than image, you know.

Otherwise the hunters will have their day. Which, I trust, is something you don’t want.

[Daphne – ‘There’s more to life than image, you know.’ No, not in a campaign like this, where image is as important as information. Also, the image has to be contextually appropriate. In other words, the image of somebody who fronts for fashion or ‘fun’ TV shows is contextually inappropriate for a referendum campaign about bird conservation. The appropriate image for that would be contextual credibility. It’s precisely because I’m in my 50s that I have 25 years of experience in this kind of thing, so don’t diss it. In my early 20s I had none – just like you.]

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has”. Margaret Mead.

Perhaps an injection of optimism in our outlook on life can bring about positive change. Call me Pollyanna – I couldn’t give a rat’s ass. Just walk the talk and be the change-bringing citizen by campaigning.

[Daphne – I have done enough of that as it is over the last quarter-century, thank you, and certainly a damn sight more than you ever have or will.]

Or are we just happy to be armchair critics and discard a campaign, and then have gossip fodder about hunters for years to come and complain how they “held the country to ransom?”

So I suggest all of you ignore the people being the face of the campaign if you don’t like it and simply go and spread the word and convince people to vote No. Grumbling about TV personalities isn’t going to do anything except satisfy your ivory-tower perceptions.

Just vote No, and convince others to vote No. There is hope yet. It’s mid-January – we have 3 months. Get working.

Ma fhimtx. L-ebda wiehed minn dawn m’huwa intelletwali. Le, lanqas Andrew Azzopardi.

The people who comment on his site are equally pathetic.

Mhux l-aqwa li jghaddu ta’ l-intellettwali. Hawn Malta intellettwali huwa biss self-declared u mhux self-declared bil-provi.

He has no respect for consistency. Just like his newspaper and the people who are allowed to put those warped comments on his site.

Their comments make Eddy Privitera’s look mild.

Laughing out f88king Loud.