Maltese crossing during the silly season

The number of Maltese visiting Gozo picked up in the middle of August, it was reported this week. "While domestic tourism appeared to be suffering somewhat early in the summer with fewer Maltese crossing to Gozo, the situation changed from mid-August," the Gozo Ministry said, possibly to everybody's surprise.

That is surely good news, and nobody is arguing with it; nor could they. But might a reasonable person enquire how they know this? The figures presumably do not include the thousands of Maltese residents with fake Gozitan ID cards that distort all other statistics. So at what stage do passengers on the ferry signify whether they are local or foreign?

Elsewhere, Gozo MP Chris Said wrote that temperatures during summer "continued to rise" - apparently proving that "climate change is here and now".

That must be why it's called the silly season.

Incidentally, the ministry claimed that "infrastructural improvements, including the new harbour terminal building and road works, had helped Gozo cope with the influx." It didn't mention which "road works" these might be, nor how they might have helped anybody. Locals who found Victoria choked to a standstill over several days, and traffic queuing from the harbour back as far as the heliport roundabout (after the Santa Marija holiday and again after Independence Day) might argue about how well this tiny island actually "coped" with the influx.

It is surely time that somebody did something about planning a ring-road for the "capital city" of Gozo. And time that all coaches delivering people to Victoria were required to use the coach terminal.