Quick, run! The Golden Years woman is speeding up the road.

Maurice Mizzi with Marie Louise Coleiro Preca

On Friday last week, the President went to a party at Maurice Mizzi’s house.

I always know when he’s entertaining a party in the summer because at some point late at night when everyone has had too much to drink, he gets hold of the microphone and begins crooning, and the sound carries across the valley into my living-room, kitchen and bedroom until at least two o’clock.

I can assure you that if there’s one thing guaranteed not to soothe you to sleep, it’s the sound of Maurice Mizzi singing 1960s Neapolitan ballads in the early hours. Cut it out, Maurice; it’s getting old.

The President’s limousine raced up the hill escorted by two police outriders and tailed closely by a police security vehicle, all of them flashing blue lights, then whipped full tilt round the chapel at the top of the road and into the lane leading to Mizzi’s house, scattering children who raced to get out of the way. The children of the hamlet gather every summer evening to play right there and they are not accustomed to hamalli women coming speeding up the road with their police escorts and spinning round the chapel. We all know to drive very, very slowly there.

P.S. I wonder whether she left after the first course.