If you ever needed confirmation that the phrase "Maltese gemgem" was one of the most apposite gems ever coined, by I know not who, then a quick perusal of the comments made in response to the announcement that, finally, someone has got off the can and decided to start the Valletta entrance project rolling would be more than ample for the purpose.

No matter that Renzo Piano is one of the foremost architectural genii of this, and many other, ages. No matter that you can't dismiss his work with a stroke of a pen. No matter that, love his stuff or loath it, it is work that demands mature and considered evaluation.

Nope, no sooner had the merest of mere outlines of his idea hit the news than everybody and his brother and sister hoisted themselves up onto their favourite pulpit and pronounced themselves, generally, as not in favour.

Well, not quite everybody: Judge Giovanni Bonello, for instance, interviewed in a rather fine programme on Valletta on Tuesday, and to whose massive intellect I bow in most matters, but especially on those cultural and aesthetic, made the particularly cogent point that when built, the opera house was not at all consistent with Valletta's design.

This small fact, of course, does not prevent the whiners and whingers, self-appointed spokesmen for the masses that they are, from continuing to trumpet, for all the world like heffalumps on speed, that it was time that the Opera House was restored to its former glory and the massive majority of the populace had thus pronounced itself.

Like they know.

Other small facts don't intrude on the clamour, from many quarters, for the theatre to be resurrected. For instance, the fact, sad as it is, that opera can't really pay its way enough to justify a dedicated building, doesn't stop people from coming over all insulted by the idea that this small space be left as an open-air performance space, a memorial in its own right (which I have been suggesting for many years, echoing, I must admit, my wife).

In a country of, what, 400,000 or so, is it not incredible that there are 400,000 (less one, me) or so experts, all of whom know more than anyone else how things should be done? Many of the comments, you can read for yourselves, some of which will probably clone themselves below this on The Times electronic, fulminate about how we have perfectly good architects of our own and how Mr Piano's work is not impressive, paradoxically citing the Centre Pompidou as proof.

Yes, of course we have perfectly good architects but the really good ones know that Mr Piano stands head and shoulders not only over Maltese architects but over most architects whatever passport they carry.

It's not only about the City Gate project that people whinge and whine continually, of course. I'm sitting on the Gozo Ferry bashing this out and when I look around me I see pretty much a state of the art transportation system, manufactured by a Maltese shipyard and operated by a Maltese company. People moan about it too, however.

The drive up here was over roads that - while not being Roman in quality - have improved. They need plenty more improvement, of course, but the amount of b******* you hear makes you think we're navigating the Paris-Dakar in a particularly bad year everywhere we go.

We had one power cut (well, two, and a pair of doozies they were, too) and from the sound of things, the world stopped. Yes, of course, it would have been a sight better if we hadn't had the cuts but even in America they have these things and I don't imagine that (proportionately) so many people did so much grumbling.

Make no mistake, we don't live in a paradise on earth but sometimes it takes a foreigner's eye to remind us that things could be a hell of a lot worse.

Our American friends, the ones I mentioned last weekend (and got myself a grumble for daring to mention a restaurant I hadn't been to, as if it wasn't clear what I meant), found so much to enthuse about while they were here for a few days that I almost asked them to take a reality check.

Then I remembered that the reality is that things here are not quite as bad as our own innate and inbuilt inferiority complexes make us think they are.

No eateries to mention this week, I'm trying to do that zero-carb thing.

Woe is me.

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