Awful.

Nor are they Stephen Sackur, or Douglas Murray, or Mark Davis. Nor even Yalda Hakim, for whom I confess the occasional weakness. It’s the preening smoothness that most irritates me. In word, in thought and in body.

We will never be European. We had our chance and we blew it.

In postmodern Malta, “ragel sabih” means:
– plucked eyebrows
– skinny hipster trousers
– accessories
– hair gel and a quiff
– a saccharine manner
– congenial inanity
– no opinion except to like everything
– an aversion to any form of argument
– a gormless expression
– flaunting of one’s taking of pleasure
– a clipboard (often with a biro held like a cad’s cigarette)
– being liked as the summation of one’s entire object in life

Well, let’s put it this way – Jeremy Clarkson they ain’t.

I’m just trying to understand a country in which I find myself an alien, though it is my own.