Reading is one of the pleasures of life. It educates. It opens new horizons. It stimulates the mind. It helps us to think outside the box. It provides information. It enables the formation of opinions. It expands our vocabulary.

We are the first to encourage people to read. Whether it’s a book, a magazine or a newspaper, reading can both be a hobby as well as a means to inform oneself.

We have written it here many times: there should be a stronger effort from the education authorities to urge people, in particular youngsters, to read more. Over the last years, technological advances have taken time away from reading (apart from the drivel that exists on social media).

But its one thing having promotional campaigns to recommend more reading; and it’s another thing to do what Minister Julia Farrugia Portelli did.

In one short sentence, she mocked people who were suffering the consequences of her government’s bad planning which led to a string of long power cuts, and she also listed reading as the last thing one should do in free time.

“Go read a book,” she said in reply to complaints about the widespread power failures that we had over the past days.

Her comment was insulting on two counts – she was showing insensitivity towards people who were spending hours on end without electricity at a time when they needed air-conditioning and fans as temperatures rose to beyond 40 degrees Celsius. Not to mention how much food had to be thrown away because freezers and fridges, without electricity, cannot work. For people who live from hand to mouth, and for restaurants which had to remain closed, it meant hard-earned money thrown down the drain and investment lost.

The second insult was to reading itself. What Farrugia Portelli said relegated reading to the bottom of the list of what one should do. What she said meant that one should read only if there is nothing else to do. Rather than telling people that they should make time to read, her message was to do everything else first, and to read only if they’re desperately without electricity. (That most power cuts came during the night, with the darkness making it impossible to read, is also factor that irked people).

It was not a surprise that Farrugia Portelli’s comment upset many people. Respondents used irony to reply to her, compiling a list of books that could be read, including some which had something to do with “light” and “mechanisms” in their title, the latter a stark reminder of her interview with the BBC at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. Others were furious that she was belittling their plight as they sweltered in the extraordinary heat.

By now, Farrugia Portelli knows that she should not have written those words.

We will try to convert the harm they caused into something positive – and this is to encourage one and all to read. More importantly, one should make time to read. For the right reasons. And not only when there is a power cut.