Is it not symptomatic of this nation, caught as it is in its present lethargic and laissez faire frame of mind, that while others find no difficulty in inventing unique ways and means to keep the big, deadly shark away from their popular beaches and bays, we have let the innocent-looking, squidgy, little jellyfish terrify our swimmers and holiday-makers for most of this summer?

It really has been a summer when the innocent pleasure of swimming has been reduced to a catch-me-if-you-can game with the invading jellyfish. “We have such beautiful water,” one irate acquaintance bellowed the other day, “and yet most of us seem afraid to go into it. It has never been like this.”

A couple of Australian friends – yes, they came exactly from the place where a whole variety of original contraptions and devices have been used over the decades to protect swimmers from the marauding Great White and its dangerous cousins – who dedicated one full day of their limited Malta holiday programme to the much-publicised, much sought after Blue Lagoon in Comino, found to their utter dismay they could not even dare dangle a lone big toe into the inviting water. The place was simply one whole mass of dancing jellyfish defiantly looking up at scores of unamused half-naked men and women on the shore.

The same jellyfish problem has occurred in most of the popular beaches in Malta and Gozo this summer; it is a phenomenon that has badly hit the Mediterranean, a long-suffering, moribund sea for too long subjected to national and international abuse. On one particularly bad day, it was maintained that the endless rows of jellyfish came in at eighteen feet deep. The spectacle of children netting them up in their multitudes and watching them dry out and shrivel to death on the beach was a familiar piece of entertainment for frustrated swimmers who quite understandably refused to go into the sea.

It is no wonder hotel, public and private pools have done a roaring business this summer. But swimming in a placid, foul-smelling pool when you have the inviting blue waters of the Mediterranean all around you is like skiing on a slope of shaving foam. The Maltese rightly prefer the joy of their wonderful seas and the tourists actually pay for the privilege.

And yet, the authorities do not seem to have even the energy to think – let alone do something – about it. Are we so unimaginative and uncreative as to be beaten by this crystalline army of jellyfish, and in so doing, simply and submissively accept the argument that since Mediterranean sea turtles, which thrive on jellyfish, have been more or less diminished, jellyfish are bound to pester us forever? Is there really nothing one can do?

Malta’s little bays can be easily monitored and filtered in a way that jellyfish could be kept, literally, at bay. There are swimming pools double the size of the Blue Lagoon that are kept spotlessly clean and safe. All that is needed is a keen sense of initiative, an innovative approach to problems that threaten to further jeopardise the future of our tourism industry.

But the same official disinterest is shown in anything to do with both the beach and the sea. There are long stretches of inaccessible rocky coast, for example, which could be turned into beautiful, much-needed swimming places with a few strips of well-placed concrete. No one in officialdom seems to lose any sleep over the fact that the traditional swimming areas north and south have become a nightmare of people packed in like nervy sardines fighting for a piece of territory, enough of it anyway, on which to tan their toes. Sometimes those on the right foot, sometimes those on the left.

If the jellyfish don’t get you, the bees will. It is useless putting colourful rubbish tanks all over the place if a) the tanks are not emptied and cleaned every day, and b) the tanks are not given a top cover to keep the bees away. Is it asking too much? Does one have to be an Einstein to think of such trivial measures that would go a long way towards maintaining our beaches in summer when swimming is the only way one can put up with the seasonal heat and humidity?

Our tourism authorities seem more interested in counting – sometimes in reverse – the figures of incoming visitors to these islands than making sure that the very places, including the waters, to which they invariably want to go, are kept in the best possible state. That is the only explanation that can be advanced to somehow make clear the complete indifference that has been shown to the jellyfish problem this summer.

Have you been stung? I know my dentist has been. He was still sporting a red patch a mere inch below his eye when I last called in for a check-up. My old phobia about dentists, which he has gradually helped to heal with some subtle Beatles music in the background, almost came back instantly. A few days earlier a playful jellyfish seemed to have mistaken my ample foot for something amorous and quickly left a love bite on it. All this made for an ominous scenario…

Dental clinic phone rings. He beats the dutiful nurse to it.

“Hi Dr Daniel, I can’t come in for my check-up this evening.”

“Why is that? Don’t tell me you are back to being scared of me and my gleaming tools?”

“No, no, nothing like that, Dr Daniel. I have just been bitten by a jellyfish.”

“So have I. Where has it bitten you?”

“The foot.”

“That’s lucky. Mine got me in the face. Just below the left eye.”

“You mean, I would have still been at risk coming over for my routine check-up?

“What do you mean?”

“Oh, you know, the prospect of going to a one-eyed dentist would not exactly fill me with anticipation...”

“Phone me when your foot is OK. It seems to have affected your head too.”

As he hangs up, he turns to the next terrified patient.

“Now, now, have you been stung by a jellyfish this summer?”