An e-mail currently doing the rounds refers to the popular board-game Monopoly. Apparently, the manufacturers are planning to issue an international edition and are asking people to nominate the cities they wish them to feature. Naturally, I promptly voted for Valletta.

Then, as is my wont, I fell into a reverie and started to try and imagine what a Maltese version of Monopoly would be like.

For example, what if you landed on a "utility" and decided to purchase it? Would you have to go through the privatisation unit? Would there be a call for tenders or would the purchaser be picked by the government according to "confidential" criteria? Would the service deteriorate sharply, as happened with Maltapost? Most important, would you have to pay the real price or would you get an HSBC-style discount?

One of the main features of the game is the construction of houses and hotels - and here the publishers have a veritable embarrassment of riches. I can just imagine some of the cards in the "Chance" pile - "EIA waived. Advance three spaces" or "Permit for additional storeys approved. Collect obscene profits" or even "Use permit for hotel extension to build new one. Nice going". On the other hand, you might draw "Permit refused. Change architect". If you get the latter, you would have the option of going ahead anyway, and getting your building "sanctioned" at a later stage.

If my memory serves me right, the "Community Chest" pile of cards includes several about payment of taxes. Now here, the publishers might find some difficulty with the Maltese version. They would probably have to include two versions, one to be used during normal times and one for election time, when taxes have a habit of evaporating into thin air.

Back to the "Chance" pile of cards, the most well known of which are the "Go to jail" card and its opposite, the "Get out of jail free" card. The Maltese versions will have to be amended slightly to read "Go to jail (unless your name happens to be Żeppi or Queiroz)" while the "Get out of jail free" card will probably have to be renamed "Presidential Pardon".

I can hardly wait to start playing the game. Can you?