I have rather neglected my neighbour, George of late.

Not actually, you understand, just in this column. We still meet most evenings atop our respective roofs, glasses of beer in hands, to put the world to rights. Most evenings we talk football. George is a Manchester United freak... I am not. So he took it rather personally when I pulled his leg after his team got stuffed recently by Manchester City, aka the noisy neighbours. Which was fair enough, since he does the same to me when my team, Juventus, gets a drubbing in Serie A. Or maybe we'll discuss George's favourite topic... health issues. He is still preoccupied ad nauseum with the recent Covid pandemic. So I usually try to change the subject when viral issues threaten to destabilise the equilibrium of our chat.

Then two evenings ago George surprised me by suddenly asking: "Lou, what do you think about all this Daphne business?" Now I did happen to have known the lady in question, Mrs Caruana Galizia, not well but yes... we were on nodding acquaintance and I admired her for her guts and her staying power. By all accounts she wasn't the easiest of people and could be quite spiky. But overall the work she was doing was both courageous and essential.

Obviously her silencing was an appalling crime of monumental evil. The likes of which we in Malta have never before witnessed on our own doorstep. So, you may ask, what is stopping the authorities from putting the alleged plotters on trial? Answer: I don't know, but whatever is preventing these men from facing justice, it reflects hugely on our criminal justice system - and even more on the government. Further, I cannot see the EU being silent on the subject for much longer. I understand that Malta's PL members of the European Parliament unbelievably voted against the universal condemnation of the delay, which the rest of the Euro-forum had wholeheartedly backed.

George's opinion on the matter is much more to the point. This mild-mannered, hypochondriac and computer geek informed me that, in his opinion, they should execute all three of them: "None of those bastards deserves any mercy. Do we still have the death penalty for heinous crimes?" I admitted that I had no idea. But is it so extreme for, what was the crime of the century... any century, bar none.

And so on to pleasanter matters, for some of us anyway. I'll admit I love Christmas. My wife claims this is because I do very little, if anything, towards all the hard work that goes into making it the pleasure it is. The other day I mused that maybe it was time to order the turkey from the butcher. She replied that maybe this year it would be more economical to just get portions of the bird instead. She has a point, but maybe in so doing we would be paying nearly as much as we would if we got the whole carcase.

It's one of those dilemmas that are peculiar to this time of year. Others are stuff like: "Where shall we find greenery to decorate the house?" Now this is where my wife very much comes into her own. She is absolutely brilliant at decorating. I see a motley pile of leaves and twigs. She sees some decorations in the hall and a festive table centre... amazing.

So yes... roll on Krismiss Farthair and all that, I can't wait.