It was a wonderful week. Arsenal beat Man U to take the FA Cup. Chiara came second in the Eurovision Song Contest. And Liverpool beat Milan for a historic fifth success in the European Cup. (Are any of you Milan or Man U supporters still reading?) I was amazed therefore to hear Malta Song Board chairman Grace Bog moaning about countries voting for neighbours when we did so incredibly well in spite of this.

It was worse of course. She made remarks about countries which were interpreted as being spiteful, and certainly put paid to our chances of getting any votes in the future from Romania, Albania et al. The letter pages of The Malta Independent have certainly shown us up as a country of bad losers, which is a shame.

After all, I don’t think anybody in Malta felt like a loser after this Eurovision. It was practically as good as winning. Chiara did very well without the support of many neighbours, and we don’t have to pay more taxes to fund a Eurovision in Malta. Wonderful though this would be, I would rather see the money invested in our health services, to fund a national screening service for breast cancer, to put more resources into IVF or even to give the Gozitans access to certain equipment, so they don’t have to travel to Malta for medical care in non air-conditioned ambulances, we are told...

Why can we not be honest for once and admit that we also vote tactically and nationalistically. It’s obvious, isn’t it? I’m always interested in the English entry, even though these world leaders on the musical scene seem to take perverse delight in sending rubbish to Eurovision. I’m sure that if the Italians took part, many of us would vote in their favour too. Why do we give good points to Cyprus? Isn’t that tactical? And were we not told, on Xarabank, I believe, to vote with our heads not with our hearts. How on earth then can we be surprised if others do the same?

I mean, this is a country which really only unites at Eurovision, which is a pity. In terms of football, most of us anyway are keen lovers of Italian or British football? Does it make sense? No. Does it make sense for supporters of Inter to be siding with Liverpool on the day of the Champions League final because they want to see Milan lose? No, but that’s how support is, emotional and irrational, in football as in many spheres of life.

After all, if we were not made as we are, or indoctrinated to be like this, all of us would always just intelligently support the best athlete, the best tennis player, the best song at Eurovision. But life is a bit more interesting and less perfect than that, and I’m sorry Grace Borg passed those remarks after Chiara did us so proud.

I can understand, however. She probably wanted Chiara to win so badly, and really believed her song and interpretation was the best, so she let herself get carried away. But she must know that these days everything is reported, and this really will not have gone down well among the countries who felt insulted by her words, as emails to The Malta Independent have shown.

Look at the poor Brits, Germans and French. They could not have done worse and yet their songs were not objectively the worst. I was lucky enough to watch Eurovision with a group of friends whose partners hail from three other countries which didn’t do well at all. I didn’t detect a hint of sour grapes or bad feeling from them. So the woman who actually represents our contingent abroad has to be much more careful and prudent, but perhaps that’s too difficult for us temperamental Maltese, who delight in exaggerating everything, whatever the disappointment.

This year I’ve had a good year. English footie and Arsenal in particular have done me proud. Chiara stole my heart as much with her beaming generous personality as with her voice. Perhaps we could learn from Chiara. We can’t learn to sing like her but we could learn to behave in a more generous and loving way. We do have a long way to go before our exaggerated nationalism gets tempered with a good dose of humour and of calm and we enjoy what we do well in, whatever the grade or the placing.