But that’s water under the bridge now, I hope. (Simon) Busuttil and his people seem to understand that it was a major problem, and that it was the so-called ‘tal-pepe’ vote that put the PN in government and kept it there. In the last general election, the tal-pepe vote went wholesale to Labour (damned stupid, I know, but there you go – it’s not the demographic noted for brains and analytical skills).

In any case, it was completely wrong to give (Anthony) Busuttil any kind of exposure at all. His values – carousing, infidelity, wife-beating, flashiness, tacky materialism, no depth, far right politics, racism, misogyny and irresponsible parenting – are totally alien to those of the Nationalist Party, and the whole point of NET TV is that it brands the Nationalist Party and communicates its message. Otherwise why bother?

It’s a leftover from the days when formal marriage in Malta was a social nicety for privileged people with possessions and estates (and therefore a reason to regulate the union). Everybody else just had a ragel or a mara and not a zewg. It’s also the reason Maltese doesn’t have a word for ‘father’. The word we use is a late corruption of the French ‘monsieur’, while our word for mother is the ancient, Arabic ‘omm’.

I have never liked ir-ragel/il-mara tieghi. In these terms I can sense possession and arrogance. I cannot understand where ir-ragel/mara tieghi came from.

He’s seven, Observer. At seven, children adjust to anything and everything. Twelve would be a different matter.

For a young woman like her to fall for a man in his 50s with a broken marriage and adult children, and with little else in the world but money and possessions to show off, the venture turned grossly, but pitifully, awry.

I agree perfectly with your feelings as expressed in your last paragraph – adding that the ‘bright future’ will certainly elude the boy while he is in Malta. On the other hand, the milieu his mother is used to – and is now seeking to return to – would prove totally alien to him should be somehow ‘find’ his way back with her.

A very pathetic human tragedy indeed.