Indeed, it wasn't. A couple, both stark naked, having sex on the balcony of a new apartment high on one of the new high-rises.

It must have been damned uncomfortable doing all those gyrations in the sun and on a chair when they must have had a comfortable bed and an A/C just behind them.

But maybe they wanted to look at the whole island while they were at it or vice versa they wanted the whole island to watch them. In which case they succeeded. But it wasn't on the news.

Next, and this time it was on the news, if only smoky images in the dark. Location: corner of St John Street with St Ursula Street, Valletta. A nearly naked girl gyrates using the bannister in the middle as a sort of horizontal pole.

The video, sent in by the community around Ta' Giezu church, is scandalised because the exhibition is taking place in front of the closed church and the railing is used by old women going to church.

Minister Bedingfield said that happened two years ago and got the name of the church wrong and the case had been addressed but some people said it happened again recently.

A person who said she was the artist in the reel said she sees no reason to apologise. The archbishop said Valletta's character must be preserved.

This was what all Malta was talking about over the weekend.

Unless it was about the fracas just a few metres up from The Malta Independent office which ended with the arrest of two brothers and one police officer at death's door.

Well, that was all the news on Sunday, except the usual partisan bumf.

And here is the rub. I say that was serious dereliction of duties by the news providers. If they think they were fulfilling their duties they're wrong, very wrong.

For we were in the midst of a heatwave and power cuts were the order of the day.

There were other tragedies in Europe at that time, from fires around Bordeaux to heatwaves everywhere. But nowhere was a sense of despair allowed to filter through to the country at large as it did in Malta. As a result people just didn't know what they should do. They blamed the government, as they always do but that didn't solve anything. They worried about food going bad in fridges and freezers. They had no idea when the next power cut was coming. Like the burghers of Bordeaux they were at the mercy of something bigger than them. Hence the despair which the news stoked rather than deviated.

That's a very serious dereliction of the news providers' primary duty. There should be a parliamentary committee that monitors the media besides of course there is the Broadcasting Authority.

News must always be as exact as possible. The ministry website is patently incomplete and when a young student courageously tried to set up a better alternative it was quickly shown up as incomplete.

There was a lack of information about what could minimize the damage, such as features on people taking in their elderly parents or neighbours.

The media is not there to try and tell people what to do but rather should promote self-help and encourage such initiatives. People have come to expect remedies and initiatives top-down from the government. They should be encouraged to take the initiative.

For instance, people are buying the apparatus which limits eventual damage to the electricity provision in a house if the electricity supply comes with a surge which can damage appliances.

And what about meals you can prepare in case of an extended power cut?

Also, it would not have been sacrilegious if a note of humour was brought in, such as happened near our house where neighbours came together when they faced a night without power and they unconsciously recreated a scene from the teleseries Caqqufa.

And we might think we don't have events which can turn people's focus away from the power cuts. The French (and the Germans) had the final stage of the Tour de France along the Champs Elysee in  Paris and up towards Montmartre with the Moulin Rouge girls high-kicking away.

But we do have our attractions - the previous day we had our Heritage of the Seas in the Grand Harbour. I might have fallen asleep in the latter part of the dreary news bulletin but did you see anything about it on the news?