I could never look down, Baxxter, except at cage makers and cage keepers. There is another little exception: homes opting not to have books in them give me the shivers.

Oh I’m not into collecting anything, besides book reads.

Since this was becoming more of a personal discussion, we’ve had it, meanwhile.

When you are cosmopolitan and sophisticated and were raised so, you look at the peasants, their backwardness and their little world with a certain fondness. Think of Caruana Dingli’s watercolours of idyllic Malta.

I do not look upon Malteseness with fondness, for it is my own Malteseness. I’m from the sticks, I spent my whole life trying to escape this cage. So when I look at the colours and the exotic mix, I see my own people, and I wince.

You are up there looking down, and the whole world is your home. I am down here among the exotic, colourful ants. I do not delight in imqarrun il-forn and ganutell, and I do not collect antique Maltese silver.

Why have sides in the first place?

I’m for celebrating difference, not ignorance.

I think Astrid’s point of view is different to mine, since her reaction is immediately defensive.

Why should that be patronising?

Why you batch us up because of perceived similarities would mean that there’s a whole lot neglected that could have been appreciated in the differences, whether applicable or not to the topic. On the surface there is the difference, but you have gone one step further and made a judgement that already colours your take.That judgement has given you the sides. In establishing the sides on the basis of similarities, the differences – irrelevant to that establishment – are discarded.

I suppose it depends on the markers and filters, and the fact that they rarely, in fact, get a regular update, except by conscious effort.

What’s kindness got to do with it? Is this an emotional take or a factual one motivated by curiosity?

The fact is, whether we like to hear it or not, we are a complete mix: Tunisian flatfoot with Persian eyes the slit to which can trail to the Steppes; Armenian flat back-of-the-heads with Roman aquiline nose, etc.

It’s fascinating: history as a live portrait.
Where the beauty is in the difference.

In Vienna there is a saying that the Viennese will die, in a coffee shop, doing what they love doing: observing people, analysing what they see. For this purpose, I’d gladly take on this Viennese trait for information/ detail gathering, not judgement.

Simply: that a scene could look Oriental should come as no surprise.

Another filter rarely applied generally is the veracity filter. How true is information given us/ supplied? Can we scale the intake?

Thank you for the recommendation, and the discussion – which I am aware could come across as pointless.

You mean to tell me that the “Persian” is still closed?

Hang on a minute though. Astrid is just projecting her own cultural and sicio-economic baggage onto the rest of us, declaring us non-Oriental.

For the rest of us, it is a class struggle. But for Astrid and someone like yourself, you’re just being kind. You celebrate Orientalism because you’re not Orientals. To us on the other side, it sounds terribly patronising.

Read Edward Said. He had the misfortune to see how the other side lives. And he was disgusted by his side thereafter.

Not the shops I mention, Baxxter. I keep on hoping.

That one description of the encounter with colour – of the Turk’s dress mainly – is what made the book come alive for me.

Until then, I’d found the siege, was mainly described in black and white.

Just think – apart from the art linked to this – what the colours must have been like, especially in oriental style.

Now that would be a mix.

Infusion of colour, of type, of race: that is where our make-up lies.

I can’t understand this instinctive barrier people put up, where fascination would be more productive.

And from that to the unquestioning acceptance of “orientals” that are doing their utmost to say that they’re just like us, when they’re not.

I would celebrate open difference, not concealed deceit.

Molto pittoresco. Where’ve you been for the last decade? They’re open and thriving. Things are lively and Valletta is full of energy. But don’t assume that energy means beauty.