In reply to Mr Zammit and Mr Vella, who were offended by my letter with the rather inappropriate heading regarding the poisoning of Mr Calleja (TMIS 2 August), I would like to explain as follows:

Firstly, the heading was not my literary genius, but that of the editor, and was totally misleading had one bothered to read the text of the letter. During my adult life, I have never intentionally physically harmed or hurt another person, although when my family or friends are attacked I get really defensive and bitchy and I do wish nasty things on some folk! I do however admit to poisoning mosquitoes, flies, snails, slugs and some other creepy crawlies.

Secondly, in view of the fact that I would never invite Mr Calleja to dinner, please rest assured that he has absolutely nothing to fear from my culinary experiments! I am sure too, that he can fend for himself without being molly-coddled by you two.

Thirdly, when writing to the English language newspapers I made the mistake of assuming that the people reading them would have a good knowledge of the English language. This is obviously not the case, as otherwise my letter would not have been misinterpreted.

Finally, I find it scary that a PN councillor should resort to such racist comments regarding an old cow that he doesn’t even know – and hopefully never will. For the record, my ancestors come from Ireland and Scotland and I have been married to a wonderful Austrian guy for the past 35 years.

Somehow I would rather be a happy, caring old cow than a racialist, bitter, old equine posterior!

Lesley Kreupl

GHarb