Proof, if any were needed, that your newspaper is being read is evident in the fact that – presumably consequent to a letter from a reader in Moscow, The new MTA website (TMID, 24 January), according to the new MTA website the Maltese countryside is no longer “littered” by the “oldest human structures (plural) in the world” but is now only “dotted” with them.

That is an improvement, for many of us think that the countryside is “littered” with abandoned cars, old refrigerators, broken wooden pallets, shooters’ makeshift hides, stones that have tumbled from walls, and worn-out mattresses.

The site nevertheless still insists that “The narrow meandering streets of their (sic) towns and villages are crowded with Renaissance cathedrals and Baroque palaces.”

No doubt the MTA could provide prospective tourists with a list of some of those “villages” or, indeed, of any that are crowded by Renaissance cathedrals. Or, even, crowded by Baroque palaces. Oh, and to make a purely pedantic point before anybody from the Akkademja notices it, apparently English is not a “national” language here, but merely an “official” one.

Revel Barker

Ghajnsielem, Gozo