Fossil of the Mediterranean

I frankly cannot understand all this hue and cry! Mario Schembri Wismayer is 100 per cent right! Let us do away with the Maltese language. It's such a big hassle keeping this complicated, useless language alive.

And while we're at it, let's do away with our rundown Maltese countryside: Agriculturally, it's useless, aesthetically it's so spoilt... it's such a big hassle taking care of it! Let's turn this impractical archipelago into one big runway, 2,000 golf courses, 200 cruise liner terminals, and endless rows of blocks of flats on hills swathed by endless columns of villas in the valleys.

And then, let's demolish our traditional, Catholic values! Let's open two abortion clinics in each village (one for the reds and one for the blues)!

Let's start issuing same-sex marriage licences and hasten up the family-disintegration process. It's such a big hassle to uphold outdated traditional values in the international arena!

And then, let's pull down all these churches constructed by these provincial Maltese architects over the centuries: They occupy so much precious land that could be put to better use, for the abovementioned flats, for instance! A block of luxury flats called Parish Church Court or Zuntier Mansions in a village square would sell like hot cakes!

And then, let's really revitalise our law courts: Let's stop using this Italo-Maltese mumbo-jumbo with its worthless cultural baggage, and let's start using English legalese and surely the laymen will rush to the streets to celebrate, for they will finally start understanding legal subtleties and the rest!

And then, once we're in this mood for modernity, let us all forget Maltese cuisine: banish imqarrun il-forn, hobz biz-zejt, stuffat tal-fenek and all that stuff which our forefathers ate, and welcome God-knows-what burgers and stew and porridge and all that!

Let's look at reality straight in the eye: Mr Schembri Wismayer is right. We've got nothing that makes us the jewel of the Mediterranean we think we are. In reality, everything we have makes us the fossil of the Mediterranean. Let's follow Mr Schembri Wismayer's advice: Let's drop the ballast of our national identity and rise from the ground of a bright colonial past to the skies of an even brighter non-descript future!

The sooner, the better.