When I wake up during the night, I switch on my mobile and watch the scene at Cirkewwa.

With regularity the Gozo Channel ship comes round the headland and proceeds to unload cars and passengers it has carried over from Gozo.

In the dead hours of the night the numbers it brings in are on single digits. About the same amount of cars would be waiting to cross over to Gozo.

I am always left wondering what is it that pushes these people to give up the better part of the night and drive all the way to their destination. It is a reassuring sight that all is well and that some are already working.

I remember, as many still do, when the last trip from Gozo to Malta used to leave Mgarr at around 4pm. After that, there would be no crossing over, not even for love.

Nowadays we have the luxury of three redoubtable ships, the gift of a Nationalist administration, the first and only time their ship building creators created ships.

It wasn't easy, nor was it too difficult once you get the hang of it.

You see, we always tend to run down our ability.

Of course, improvements can be made, starting with a replacement of that Greek 'temporary' ship. And even the original three are coming up for replacing.

Today's ships are cheaper to run, waste less fuel and offer safe, comfortable, crossing.

Like in many other issues, things can be made better. You need to have the will to make things better.

As I look on the cars mustering to cross over to Gozo in the dead hours of the night, I ask myself what makes them forego sleep to steal a march on those who cross over at a later hour. Once again I am struck by the industriousness of our people.

America betrays the Ukraine

In just one week, the US has reversed its previous support and has undermined the brave and courageous Ukrainian people.

Russia and the US shut the door on Europe and the Ukraine while they sharpened their carving knives to use on the Ukraine spread out and defenceless on the shiny table at Riyadh.

Trump showed he has taken in and believes the Russian lie that has been proved over and over again to be untrue.

Shortchanged by the authorities

I ask you, have you ever found you have been shortchanged by some government office that makes a mistake in its bill to you?

And why does it seem that the mistake is always against you? You have to be alert the whole time or you will get short-changed.

Think of the elderly and those who do not have internet, smart phones etc. Or relatives and friends to help out

There should be a sort of ombudsman for this kind of mistake because I feel many elderly are being robbed. And where does that stolen money end up, anyway?

Joseph Muscat

I quite liked the way that Bernard Grech punctured all the heated rhetoric Prime Minister Robert Abela was declaiming when he made a big list of people who, he said, had been treated unjustly by the courts.

Grech reminded him he had not included Joseph Muscat among those who had been ill-treated by the Court. So does this mean Muscat is not innocent, he asked.

Unfortunately the cameras in Parliament stay fixed on the speaker so we were left to imagine Abela's face.

It's the public, after all

We have been inundated with all kinds of surveys whose only aim, it seems, is only to confuse us.

It all began, we remember, when MaltaToday, instead of its first Sunday of the month opinion survey gave us a survey of just Gozo which showed that PN is now in a majority in the sister island.

PN went to town on this result but then a survey by Marmara and the usual MaltaToday general poll showed that Labour is still very much ahead of PN.

Meanwhile Cassola's new party, Momentum, is doing very well in the polls which may be why Bernard Grech warned against splitting the vote in his Sunday speech.

But then a survey by the Times said most Maltese are very upset .... by the traffic delays on the roads.

Not by the corruption in the country as Repubblika keeps saying. Nor by the Cost of Living, as PN has been saying all through last week.

But traffic. Go figure!

Authoritarian defects

One of the last authoritarian voices in today's world is that of the Pope.

He is not just the authoritarian ruler of the Catholic Church but also of the minuscule Vatican city including his minders.

So he was just pulling rank when he disregarded their advice and continued holding ceremonies in the cold St Peter's Square because of the Jubilee celebrations.

With the predictable result of a double attack on his lungs.

And this in the very same days that the movie 'Conclave' was breaking box office records and winning awards.

Will the book and the movie turn out to be prophetic?

Without giving out the story's unpredictable end, will it be just the aging Pope's final sickness to have been predicted?

[email protected]