The best place to observe the Maltese people is either to watch them on the recently-improved buses or on the streets. There is one conclusion to which an impartial observer will be led to: The Maltese people, who otherwise are said to be gregarious and outgoing, have become a sullen people.

This will come as a surprise to outside observers who have always been told that the Mediterranean climate makes for a happy country.

It may be because modern times have caught up with us and we are now living in crises we never used to have, such as families being split. It may also be that the country and its people are now facing economic hardship as much, perhaps more, perhaps less, than other peoples. It could be telling on a people nurtured with promises and claims that we are not in recession.

Whatever. It is time we have a national campaign aimed at helping us lighten up, even if by a bit.

The recent campaign which spread billboards around Malta urging us to appreciate our heritage and to care more for it, is a very welcome development. At least, someone had the initiative to point out the positive and to do that without trying to sell anything.

The companies that financed this campaign did not do it as a means to gain a market share, but because they see that it is important that we Maltese shake off this negative deadweight and regain pride in what nature and our history have bequeathed to us.

Some time ago we had a national campaign which urged us all to be real ambassadors for our country. Visitors who come here are many times conditioned in the way they come to perceive and appreciate Malta by the inter-personal feedback they get from us. This campaign has gone and was not reprised, perhaps due to some funding problem, but we surely need to be reminded of it day after day.

There are key service providers which are more important than others – for example the first people that visitors see and speak to before they land on our shores. In other words, cabin crew or airlines with Malta as their destination.

Ask yourselves: When was the last time people coming on board were welcomed with a smile (as against with a grimace)? Other countries, other airlines, have strict rules: If a person boards a plane on his way to a well-deserved holiday, he must be treated to a welcome that shows that the holiday has begun the minute he steps on the plane. Other airlines insist and check to ensure their crew is welcoming and smiling till their faces ache.

This, of course, is not restricted to cabin crew. You go into any shop you like and the staff treat you as though you are an interruption into a private phone conversation or as though they should be thanked for deigning to notice you want something. There is then that national most-used word: Yes? It’s as though you should be thankful for being noticed, let alone served.

Even our media, television especially, is all full of serious talk shows and discussions, which mostly centre around politics, which to most of us is a very divisive issue.

You don’t find on our media the lightness of the television shows one sees on UK or even Italian media (with all the problems they have).

Some may call such programmes the distraction of the masses, the opium of the people. Others with more reason perhaps claim that just as all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, so too all serious talk and nothing to lighten up makes a whole people a dull and sullen one.