Confessions of a minister - Volume three, Revelations 35

To Gozo, on the advice of a Gozitan friend, who tells me there's another set of Siamese twins, this time in Qala. I ensure maximum compassion exposure by getting in early.

Arrive with attendant NET TV camera crew and politically sympathetic journalists and proceed to a foul smelling farm on the edge of the village where... We do indeed discover another, as yet unleaked to the media, set of Siamese twins. But... why didn't some b***d inform me they were conjoined b***y goats? When's the next ferry back?

Monday:

At Cabinet this morning, the agenda is dominated by economic issues, especially proposed EU-funded projects south of Valletta... where votes for us are scarcer than brunettes in Bormla. Trouble is... despite Austen's promised Ricasoli bonanza, we've no idea when we are going to get our hands on all that lovely promised EU loot.

I'm beginning to think the EU are even worse payers than the government... and that's really saying something.

Tuesday:

An octogenarian friend of my mother calls... personally at my ministry... and demands to know what I intend to do about the illegal immigrants.

What would she like me to do? Deport each one personally or invite them all round to my villa for tea? She replies: "You know what you should do, so do it! Or I'll tell your mother." Now that is a threat I could have done without.

I promise action and mean it... well sort of.

Later to V's, who's in a foul mood and says we have a relationship based purely on sex. I disagree... there's nothing pure about the way we have sex.

Wednesday:

Obliged to play host to the German commissioner for doing business with basket-case EU members.

After a tour of the CHOGM roads, I entertain him to lunch at a Valletta restaurant where my ministry's credit is still good. He tells me he represents a business consortium that wants to do business in our capital city. Yes fine! You can start by rebuilding the opera house, which your lot knocked down in the first place. Like I always say: No sense of humour... the Germans.

Thursday:

In Cordina's I'm approached by a prominent businessman. He says if I help him get $10 million out of Russia and launder it into his Swiss bank account, there's five per cent in it for me. Never! The very idea appalls me. Is this what the country has sunk to?

Naturally, I refuse his offer emphatically, treating it with the contempt it deserves. Who does he think he's trying to bribe? How dare he question my unimpeachable integrity!

Five per cent? No way! But if he ups it to 10...

Friday:

Endure yet another monthly district 'surgery' to listen to the usual mish-mash of moans and groans from my constituents.

One irate scrubber asks why I've done nothing about the stench emanating from the pig farm in Parish Street. I answer that this is now the problem of the local council; I am no longer responsible for deodorising farms.

Next up is a doting father asking me to find employment for his unemployable son. No way! The only job that dimwit is capable of doing is that of a mannequin in a duvet showroom. Ask me again... nearer the election. The things we politicians have to do to keep the country ticking over.

Very late to V's... who takes it out on me. So I then take it out on her. And a jolly good time is had by all.

Saturday:

Tonight am obliged to attend a concert given by Italian superstar singer Gianni Fuselli at the MCC... and which is the last thing I want to do tonight.

Arrive, with wifey in tow, fashionably 35 minutes late. Then, after enduring three over-emotive 'ballads' through a defective sound system that turns Fuselli's voice into an accurate impersonation of a plummeting airliner... we leave... loudly. That's quite enough of that. I am a government minister, ergo I'm expected to behave abominably by arriving late and leaving early... so there!