I always feel like stamping my feet and singing out Dave Clark’s sixties wonder hit Glad All Over – alone, in some isolated room of course, as I can neither dance nor sing – every time a nail-biting major national event has just been concluded by this oh-so-predictable nation of ours.

Whether it’s an election, a referendum, a successful performance at the Eurovision Song Contest, the ladies’ football team incredibly almost making it through to the European finals or some international dignitary visiting us, it is such a relief to go back to our routine and quickly realise that we are not, after all, the centre of the universe.

Yesterday’s referendum on spring hunting and the campaign that preceded it have been no less amusing than the rest of the hot-potato issues with which we have had to grapple over the decades. So much heat and so much tension very often builds up to make the adrenalin swoosh furiously down many people’s veins that we can hardly wait to see it’s over and done with, come what may.

The worst thing that can happen overnight, alas, is for the issue to be put in the national freezer to be brought out when someone somewhere thinks the climate is favourable enough to attempt a re-run in the hope of achieving a reversal of yesterday’s decision. I stand to be corrected, but if 10 per cent of the electorate again manage to force a referendum, do we have to go through all this once again?

Whichever way it goes – perhaps we may even know which way it has gone by the time this piece appears – there is, unfortunately, still the possibility that the losing side will merely step back, pull its socks back up, take a deep breath and move on to a new crusade, probably sulkier and angrier.

Referenda have never been my preferred way of how a nation should decide matters of social importance. Though the referendum is undoubtedly a democratic instrument, and I can see its temporary relevance, I would prefer to see an educational process through which people accept, by conviction, to abide by the rules when it comes to rights and regulations. I feel it should be only natural that we do not feel the need to kill other living creatures and so why do we have to vote on the issue? I voted ‘no’ yesterday and will never regret it, but I have never thought I would one day need to use a ballot paper to declare it because, for me and many other citizens of this country, it is rational not to kill birds at a time when they are breeding and procreating. In fact, it is irrational to kill birds anytime, anyway.

I went through more or less the same thinking, for example, when we had to vote in the 2011 referendum on the introduction of divorce. Why waste so much energy and money when it is exceedingly natural and easy to establish a simple right for people to use only if and when they felt they needed to? If you are for it, you have it, if you’re sanctimoniously against, don’t use it. But no, we had to grind through a long and bitter referendum campaign which gave us the same result: if you are for it, you have it, if you’re sanctimoniously against, don’t use it. I don’t see much logic there.

The story could go on and on, really. For example, could the same illogical reasoning one day lead to a referendum on the illegal shanty town at Armier? I ardently hope not, for the question there is whether the whole area should just be bulldozed and the land given back to the tax-paying public from whom it was stolen, or some sort of arrangement should be reached – a tough compromise – like the illegal tenants/owners having to pay through their noses for every single centimetre of public territory they have usurped.

I have to admit there have been some redeeming factors to yesterday’s referendum. It is not often that the two major political parties agree on how to handle the whole issue and how to present it to their faithful. Was it a matter of convenience? Possibly, but they at least spared everyone the misery of having a stark red-or-blue choice when the issue at stake was, blaringly obvious, of cross-party interest.

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A changing Cottonera

It was a delight, a fortnight ago, to see such a large crowd attending the third talk/teaser tour of a Cottonera locality, Birgu, a series started this year on the initiative of the Rehabilitation Projects Office and the Cottonera Rehabilitation Committee supported by the Ministry for Infrastructure.

We had already been to Isla (Senglea) and Kalkara, where a large number of people assembled to listen to some most interesting talks on the history of those places, immediately followed by what have come to be known as “teaser” tours. Why teasers? Well, these are not meant to be some kind of touristic excursion, but an informal walkabout during which places of interest are indicated by local historians in the hope that those very people attending will one day pay their own individual or family visit to see inside those same attractions.

The Cottonera is full of them. There is, however, a changing Cottonera welcoming us today. Wherever you go – Birgu, Bormla, Isla or Kalkara – there are more tourists, more coaches, more open-decked buses and more tour operators descending on the area and quietly and slowly establishing it as a major tourist destination that can hold its own against the North, Gozo, Valletta and Mdina.

The following Sunday, Birgu was again host – this time to thousands of people for the traditional Easter festivities – only for them to be disappointed by the rather hasty decision to cancel them because of the gloomy forecast. The weather actually held and luckily those people, tourists and visitors from all over these islands, were still able to enjoy the same festivities at Isla and Bormla.

Next on the agenda this month is a visit to Bormla, a city that is crying out for more attention. It has its unique historical places and its unique historical anecdotes. Why not come and join us?

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It’s ok to say no

A lot of people seem to think that saying no within the European Union is, he he, a no-no – especially so if it is in reaction to pressure from outside the union, more often than not of obvious American inspiration/instigation.

The President of the Czech Republic, Miloš Zeman, has recently declared that he will not let any ambassador of another nation intrude with advice over his foreign visits. This came as the US Ambassador in Prague criticised Zeman’s plans to go to Moscow’s celebration of the WWII parade.

The ambassador, Andrew Schapiro, had criticized Zeman’s decision to go to Russia for the Victory Day celebrations in May and called the plans “short-sighted”, as it would “be awkward” if the Czech president was the only statesman from an EU country on Red Square. How true that is, one still has to see. For example, will Malta, another WWII victim, be there and will Russia’s former WWII allies? Does the EU really want to succumb to the infantile idea of mixing present-day issues with the historic past and a most deserving commemoration?

Back to President Zeman, he rightly said: “I cannot imagine a Czech ambassador in Washington giving advice to the US president on where he should travel. I will not let any ambassador interfere with the programme of my foreign trips.”

Voicing his concern over current Western attempts to isolate Russia, he added: “It is essential to maintain and develop relations with Russia not only on a commercial basis but also, for instance, based on the strategic partnership in the fight against international terrorism.”

In his resounding ‘no’ to the EU herd, Zeman said that his visit to Russia would be a “sign of gratitude for not having to speak German in this country”.