Rubbishing what?

I was going to leave it alone, being as I rather like a good opera and am pretty partial to decent theatre, but Joan of Arc herself saw fit to poke her flipping lance at me and so, like a good little dragon, I thought it was incumbent on me to react.

According to Astrid Vella, along with Lou Bondì and Roamer, I have been devoting myself to rubbishing calls for the rebuilding of an opera house, while being too dim-witted to realise that what people have been calling for is a national theatre. I'm eternally grateful to Ms Vella for underlining how utterly stupid I am for not knowing the difference between an opera house and a national theatre.

I am grovelling, if only virtually, in abject shame, a shame exacerbated by the knowledge that I am in the presence of saintliness.

Now, if I wanted to be picky, I'd point out that I couldn't be accused, actually, of rubbishing calls for the rebuilding of AN (capitals for emphasis) opera house but for the rebuilding of THE (again, capitals for emphasis) opera house because it is a specific opera house that is being discussed in the context of rebuilding. It's not as if we have a plethora of opera houses, after all.

Do you get my point? I'm sure those who will choose to rally behind the Special One will choose not to, but the rest of you will.

And for the record, while not admitting to "rubbishing" calls for the old Opera House to be rebuilt, I do think that it's not a good idea. The ruin should be left, as I had had occasion to say long ago (and in this I am merely echoing a point made by my missus) as a memorial to the war dead, cleaned up and turned into a suitable performance space, which it sometimes already is.

If this is "rubbishing", then so be it, but I prefer to think that it was a constructive suggestion, for all that I know that when the motley crew of tree-huggers hear or read something that does not kow-tow to their idea of what should be done, they turn all defensive and start accusing people of picking on them, poor lambs.

These self-appointed spokesmen for the world at large also have this fascinating tendency to spot conspiracies where none exist. According to Ms Vella, my point that other things could be done with the ruin is nothing more than a pernicious campaign to stop the place being rebuilt.

Darn, she's twigged that I am a shareholder in Renzo Piano and Associates plc and that I'm feathering my nest.

Equally, Ms Vella (she'll excuse my repeating her name, but it was her that chose to use names first) sees grounds for insinuating that someone (no prizes for guessing who she means) somewhere is sneakily trying to give a helping hand to the people who own that big tent and who want to carry on staging shows in it.

And there was I, thinking that my commercial investment in the tent was a safe bet: foiled again by the intrepid crusader.

The only snag with Ms Vella's argument here is that I find the tent to be a highly dubious venue and I don't go to concerts (or anything else) there. So much for that conspiracy theory, too, then.

The whole thing is, of course, that people like this think they know it all and, even worse, they think that their own definition of what is worth supporting with the public purse is the only one that has any validity whatsoever.

This is intellectual snobbery, bordering on arrogance,that is almost breathtaking. I enjoy a good opera almost as much as I enjoy a good rock concert, but by the lights of the Cultured Crowd, the former should be supported by my taxes and theirs and everyone else's, while the latter should not.

This was Mr Bondì's point and it is a valid one: What makes an opera buff worthy of having his favourite genre made accessible to him in the comfort of his own country, while a rock fan has to make his own, expensive, arrangements most of the time?

No one pig is any better than any other pig, according to Mr Orwell, but to read the reactions to Mr Bondì's opinion, this is not the case: opera-loving pigs are much cuddlier, and certainly better brought up, than those yobs who want to bang their heads in time with that vulgar rock stuff.

Get it into your heads, people: This is a country that is not much larger than a small provincial town in Wales. Some of those provincial towns have facilities that others don't but none of their inhabitants go around demanding that their hobbies are subsidised by their neighbours. They're lucky, they can shoot off down the M4 and go to Charing Cross Road, while we're not so lucky.

Such is life: tough, but that's the way the diva croaks.

imbocca@gmail.com, www.timesofmalta.com/blogs