Last election, there were politicians from both parties who e-mailed me their promotional garbage despite being a non-resident and ineligible to vote.

I would not be able to survive a single day in such a totalitarian society. What I still find hard to accept, after half a century away from Malta, is that people find this madness ‘normal’.

In the dark ages when my children were born (the 1980s), we used to get information leaflets from the baby milk companies and importers of other baby products. Now it seems they get flowers from cabinet ministers and parliamentary secretaries instead. And the source is no doubt the same: staff in the maternity ward.