I checked with this tool. Astrid’s domain is apparently penalised by Google.

http://pixelgroove.com/serp/sandbox_checker/#

Also, I write about very many people and subjects, but for some mysterious reason she is the only one who has defenders rushing in persistently to, literally, stick up for her.

Years ago now, I called them ‘Astrid’s Toy Soldiers’, and still they’re persisting.

I get the feeling she must either be doing this herself or ringing people up to harry them into defending ‘poor little me’.

Either way, I really have no time for this. She’s a grown woman, you know, and a public figure.

I did not get to know Astrid Vella through the FAA or when she set it up.

I have no wish to go into this, but if Mrs Vella wishes to defend herself, she is more than capable of doing so herself, I can assure you.

Never make the mistake of believing that because a woman is small and squeaky and pretends to be defenceless, then she needs protection. Those sorts of women are in fact the worst kinds.

But never mind that. Carry on if you must – just go and do it somewhere else, please.

You need lessons in English. The fact that a project is run by one person does not make it a personal project.

Please explain to me why the taxpayer should provide Astrid Vella with a salary to run her website. She has all the time in the world and can do it on a voluntary basis until she has devised a way to bring in money commercially.

If Maurice Degiorgio wished to leave us with an account of his experiences, he would have done so and did not need Astrid Vella to do it for him. He had the whole of Patrimonju Malti and its means of communication at his disposal, and he wrote beautifully.

Astrid Vella’s project is ill-conceived, but then I never had any doubt that would be the case.

That’s her problem, however, and I have no interest in giving her free advice.

That is neither here nor there. As I have already indicated, the 20,000 euros was not to build the website but to provide a salary to keep it running and add other projects to it, like documentation of first-hand accounts from people who have since died, like Maurice Degiorgio.

That has never been done and it was a lost opportunity. You cannot compare to your website which is a purely personal project.

Astrid Vella could have funded the design of that website herself, as I did mine, and she could have run it herself on her own time, unpaid, as I did mine for years.

She has the added advantage of having plenty of time on her hands because, unlike me, she doesn’t work.

You’re talking to somebody who knows the field, who understands what is involved and what things cost (not much, at the level she was planning).

If the funding did not come through, I’m glad. We have a speck less corruption and abuse to contend with.

A ‘good cause’ eligible for funding through the Good Causes Fund is most definitely not a website. And a website MOST DEFINITELY does not cost 20,000 euros to build. You can get yourself a nice, complicated portal for a media house for that.

That project couldn’t run because the funding never came. I guess they were not blue-eyed enough. This time round they didn’t go for government funding because their NGO is the nemesis of every government.

In spite of all your talk of iced buns, and in spite of her defects, Astrid Vella organised a protest against government one week after being nominated for Gieh ir-Repubblika. How many NGO people can you say that of? Now let’s see if you publish this.

The reference to the 1963 earthquake flattening the medieval buildings locally is one hell of an overstatement.

Yes half of Mdina was completely destroyed but a substantial number of medieval buildings survived, most of which are being systematically eradicated by the current crop of decision making bodies at MEPA.