Their servants and other observers then had them down sarcastically as ‘dawk tal-pepe’ (problems with English vowel sounds, as standard).

BUT – and here’s the big but – lots of tal-pepe people didn’t call their fathers ‘papa’ at all, but ‘daddy’, as did the working-class. The difference, however, was and still is in the vowel sound.

Pepe? Censu Tabone?

He was everything but.

Please do not talk about dead people unless you know exactly what you are talking about. It is most unfair.

Maybe the high temperatures are affecting people’s brains.

Vincent Tabone was uninteresting but correct in every way – behold the authentic pepé. Ugo Mifsud Bonnici, typically, took on the dominant position. Alpha male all the way, from a long line of alpha males.

Guido Demarco was a store of anecdotes about his time at the UN and a consummate name-dropper.

Eddie Fenech Adami was reserved, correct in every way, and, unusually for a Maltese man, kept the right interpersonal distance (Simon Busuttil has that gift too).

George Abela was congenial and nice to the point where it got annoying.

And Coleiro Preca is just in love with everyone. She made her inaugural appearance on the presidential balcony blowing kisses to the crowd. And that’s a perfect summary of her presidency.

Baxxter: ‘…u nirringrazzjawk tal-patronage, Eccellenza.’

The President: ‘Eh jien patron taghkom? U jien tant jaghmluni patron ta’ affarijiet li ma nistax niftakarhom kollha.’