It’s interesting to see that Facebook has gone such a way towards replacing the village pump or the proverbial water-cooler that middle-aged Maltese ladies are now using it as the means for communicating threats to their rivals or neighbourhood enemies.

One such woman, who lives in Gozo, has been hauled to court and accused of threatening another woman with a knife and of using “social media to make such threats”. She pleaded not guilty, but the episode has its fascination. A woman from a village in Gozo, in her late 50s, discovers the Internet, computers and Facebook and immediately uses all three to conduct herself the way she would have anyway, across the rooftops.

 

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Is it lack of money or something else that has prompted the government’s decision to amputate that part of the Valletta project which takes in the ditch? The minister responsible, Joe Mizzi (now there’s meritocracy for you) has said that this is because funds have fallen short, and the monies which would have been used for the ditch will now have to be used for “the main project”, which means the parliament house, bridge and gate.

This is a great shame. The ditch is utterly hideous, a shamble of rubbish and haphazardly parked cars. If it is to be left that way, it will present the most dreadful contrast with the magnificent results of Renzo Piano’s work just above. For want of concern – I suspect, rather than money – we are going to undermine all the work that has taken place. The ditch was to be cleaned, spruced up and adapted for rainwater collection, with a garden planted there. Felicitously, the original idea does not resemble the unfortunate results in the Mdina ditch, with that senseless lawn, those computer-aided-design harsh lines and that relentless hard surfacing – the contemporary Maltese idea of what constitutes a garden.

I have the most unpleasant feeling that the money for the ditch will never be found in the next five years because it is simply not a priority, and because people want to carry on using it as a parking space.

 

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In the torrent of abuse levelled at African immigrants and at black people in general, we have forgotten how many are listening, and not just outside these shores. I wonder what the US ambassador thinks, for instance. Being a diplomat, she is most unlikely to let us know, but she can’t possibly be comfortable with it.

If a Maltese bus-driver who is black was attacked with a volley of abuse and told to go back to her country, then what if the US ambassador thinks to take a stroll unaccompanied only to encounter somebody who, quite literally, doesn’t like her face? The other day I was in a shop looking at things on the shelves when a (black) man walked in and stood patiently by as the shopkeeper carried on his conversation with the customer he had just served, and studiously ignored him, as though he wasn’t there. The man wasn’t the meek and mild sort. He was most definitely not a boat-person or fresh into Maltese society and too scared to open his mouth. “Who the hell do you think you are?” he told the shopkeeper. “If you don’t want my money, I’ll just take it elsewhere.” And he walked out. The shopkeeper then looked at his customer and at me and made a facial expression as though to say, “What can you do with these crazy people.” But he was in the wrong.

 

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One of the silliest parts of the Prime Minister’s speech in supposed praise of his predecessor, in Parliament a few days ago, was his focus on Mrs Gonzi’s role in her husband’s public life. He described her as though she was some marketing tool or employed aide, a woman who would go to a party or gathering, case the joint, size up those who had to be spoken to, and then “work the room”.

Muscat must have had very little exposure to civilised social life if he does not understand that Mrs Gonzi’s way of conducting herself in large groups is exactly what is required of somebody in her position or similar: politeness to all, a word of interest to as many as possible, a kind word to those who clearly need it. I have seen Mrs Gonzi at many social engagements and her behaviour has always been entirely natural, just good, old-fashioned manners.

But Muscat’s description of her as her husband’s special marketing weapon gives insight into the reason why his own wife behaves the way she does, even though it does not come naturally to her at all and she comes across as forced and false, her smile increasingly a rictus. If Lawrence Gonzi ‘used his wife as a weapon’, he must reason, then Michelle will have to do the same.

 

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