Along with the sector of construction, the supermarkets business has expanded rapidly in past years. It would be useful to have research done about how this development has taken place. One could suspect that in part, the mechanism which is frequently triggered in our economy did come into play - as soon as someone makes a hit with a new business idea, others rush to copy it.

However, in the spread of supermarkets, other features were also involved. Although Maltese supermarkets had already been established, the strongest impetus was given by the establishment here of European chains, chief of which Lidl, but not only. The same phenomenon occurred in other European countries ... from Spain to Greece to Hungary... after they became members of the EU. In fact, the arrival of the big foreign  retail chains was the first and perhaps the most powerful signal regarding how EU membership would affect a country's economy.

It is difficult to say whether the economic impact of the resulting changes in the country's retail structure were beneficial or not. For at the same time that they occurred, radical changes were also happening in how people lived, worked and enjoyed themselves. Who benefitted most from these developments? The big European business concerns like Lidl? Families? The owners of Maltese supermarkets? The self-employed in their small retail shops? 

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SOIL

The European Environmental Agency publishes every year including for  2024, an annual report - that I admit, I never consulted before - dealing with the state of Europe's soils. Written by a wide selection of scientists, the report covers the European space, both inside and outside the EU.

The manner by which human society has developed economically and technologically, how human life is lived and human wars are being conducted, how food and goods are produced: all these factors have had a massive negative impact on soils, making them less "healthy". The report concludes that 60 per cent of European soils have been subjected to substantial degradation.

In Malta, two sources of soil degradation appear to be at the top of the EU scale: soil which has been sealed over, like with tar, tarmac or buildings; and the parcelling of wide agricultural landscapes into smaller  plots as a result of encroaching buildings.

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READING

Some American University students doing literature studies are finding it difficult to follow courses. This is because as part of their study schedule, they need to read a selection of classic novels from week to week.

Now for such students, that kind of assignment would appear to be a natural component of their task. However, it was discovered that students did not have the reading stamina required to begin and finish texts set for them to cover. They find them too long and burdened with a range of vocabulary they are not familiar with.

Their teachers agree that these are intelligent young people who want to do their work. However, in their pre-University days, given the means of communication they were accustomed to... social media and the rest... the varieties of expression they learnt to use got limited to short statements, which were simple and repetitive in nature.

This is happening in the US...