So, once again, our poor Daphne is lost for words (“If it can happen in Norway it can happen anywhere”, TMIS, 24 July). Incapable of finding any valid arguments against critics of the preposterous roofless theatre in Valletta, Daphne resorted to her sleazy approach of in-your-face insults and insinuations. 

Rather than a well-mannered rebuttal, Daphne chose yet again to flout journalistic etiquette and puffed out her column with pathetic insults aimed at ‘joyless people’ who ‘seem to go out of their way to take the fun out of life’ − whatever that means in this context. It also boggles the mind trying to see any logical connection between wasting €15 million on a useless roofless theatre which is to grace our capital city and calling people absurd names like ‘fire-engined-haired heroines’, ‘professional wet blankets’ and – the cherry on last Sunday’s poisonous cake − the ‘queen of non-sequiturs’. Non-sequiturs indeed!

Particularly disgusting was Daphne’s exploitation of the massacre of 70 Norwegians, mostly youngsters, to slip in a macabre joke which went like this: “Next instalment: why Renzo Piano’s roofless theatre is a bad idea because anyone can pepper the audience with machine-gun fire”. This grotesque attempt at humour is made all the more repugnant through having been written within hours of the tragedy, while the corpses were still warm and unburied. Such sick journalism is the epitome of bad taste.

Arrogantly calling people names from the safety of a newspaper column is plain bad manners. If Daphne is no longer capable of writing coherently or debating in a civilised manner, then she should be shown the door and put out to pasture.  

G.G. Debono

SLIEMA