Just a brief comment on Charles Flores’s piece on the Cafè d’Europe celebrations in Valletta (TMIS, 21 May).

I liked the dry wit that imbued his piece. His eye is critical and his words scalpel sharp. It’s always fun to read articles like this one.

But I did get the impression that he might have been too busy himself indulging in what he suggested the dignitaries there were doing to listen to my reading, going by his misrepresentation of what was being read.

There was no Peppi from Bubaqra there at all. The “predictable” storyline was intended to be predictable, emulating the Malta made “traditional” in sixties psychological writings, with the emphasis here being on form rather than fictitious content. The work was little more than an unpretentious stream-of-consciousness travelogue.

But perhaps he is not to blame for his apparent misconceptions, because I could only read a 10-minute summary of what was a 6,000-word piece. Might the misrepresentation of the work have been because of that? I am just not sure Mr Flores should have commented as if he knew what the work was about, in that case. And the announcer did say that this was a summary, so he would have known.

Oh and your correspondent would have found it difficult to smile too had he been sitting for an hour in the midday sun on a 25° day. In a suit with no canopy to shield a bald head. That might account for what he describes as my “lacklustre” reading too. The conditions were not ideal, to say the least. Or I might just be a hopeless reader. Fair enough.

Regarding the food on offer... I doubt the dignitaries managed to get their hands on it. In a show of local tradition at its best, people off the street swarmed the place and picked it clean. They were invited, so they had the right. I just wish they did not do it with the efficient precision of a swarm of soldier ants.

I would not have minded tasting at least one of those European delicacies myself.

Gorg Mallia

ATTARD