Mr A. A. Camilleri writes again (TMIS, 2 January) in answer to my response (TMIS, 26 December) to his letter (TMIS, 19 December) criticising an article on home heating and the price of kerosene penned by Ms Caruana Galizia (TMIS, 12 December).
Mr Camilleri decided that the point at issue in his first letter was that Malta’s winters are not that cold. However, this point is mentioned only in the heading of his letter (TMIS, 19 December) and in only one of the 10 paragraphs he chose to enumerate. My letter countered the 10 arguments according to paragraph content.
Mr Camilleri says I am intolerant of the
opinion of others (in this case Mr Camilleri himself), yet his response to the opinion expressed by Ms Caruana Galizia can hardly be called tolerant. He also proposes that those who have invested in kerosene fuelled heaters stop heating their homes because he feels fine at 12 Celsius. He cannot accept that different people have different temperature tolerances and perception of comfort.
His attempt to guess my political inclination is a shot in the dark and way off the mark! Fortunately, the era in Maltese history when only true blue or true red can exist is fading away. To “tolerant” Mr Camilleri, any hint of (political) red or green mixed in to true blue gives only true red or true green.
Simple technical comments in my letter impressed Mr Camilleri so much that he showered me with superlatives such as expert, specialist and authority. I am so sorry if I could not make these comments easier to understand. I wasn’t writing about rocket science or particle physics! In his relatively short letter, there was no attempt to counter any of my comments; Mr Camilleri seemed to be sulking the whole time.
The point at issue in all these exchanges is that all those who feel uncomfortable in winter and who opted to fork out a substantial amount of cash to install an always-on kerosene fuelled system, had based their running costs on 14 to 17 cents per litre of kerosene. The price has changed drastically and running costs have become prohibitive.
I dare anyone who has invested in a fixed, externally-vented, kerosene fuelled heater, of whatever political belief, to smile and laugh off the extra Lm300 to Lm400 per year that it will cost to heat those homes.
Unless, of course, money is no problem.
Albert M. Bezzina
MOSTA