Edward de Bono's latest book, The Love of Two Cockroaches, has been published. Part of it is written in collaboration with a former philosophy student of yours, Daniela Bartoli. A reviewer has described it as not a philosophical book. Nevertheless, that is surely not a good reason for you not to read it. You must hold de Bono in high esteem, since when you were Rector of the University, a centre devoted to the study of Thinking was set up and named after him. Entomology is not one of your several specialities but what do you think of this book dedicated to "mature children"?

Let me begin by admitting that I love the genre. That will not surprise those who know my love of circus clowns or that my own recent book on Caravaggio was earmarked "for children of all ages". Of course, fairytales are not the only genre of literature that appeals to children.

Another of our expatriate compatriots, John Peter Portelli, besides being a very readable writer of Haikus, built his first reputation as an authority on philosophy books for children.

A characteristic of this genre of writing is the personification of all sorts of animals. My own favourites are donkeys, for mainly Biblical reasons. In the preface, de Bono implies that the aim of the book is to convert people from hating cockroaches to (some form of the many kinds of) loving them. Often de Bono writes tongue-in-cheek.

After all, even the many among us who are scared not only of rats but also of mice, still quite often love Mickey (and Mini) Mouse. And the Lateral Thinker par creation (writing from the Chateau du Planty) has astutely enlisted Kenneth Zammit Tabona to produce two portraits of the cockroach spouses even more whimsical than Walt Disney's creatures.

There does appear to be a philosophic reason for the choice of cockroaches as the weight-bearers of this love-story. It is stated in chapter eight entitled 'The Place of Sex' (actually, the titles of the 17 chapters, often sound as if they were sub-headings of a scientific treatise, e.g. "forms and components of Love"; "concepts and extractions". This is probably the reason that aroused philosophical expectations in at least one reader and provoked him into frustrated protest).

"Sex does not really mean much to you", does it? said Matok to Mitsa one day.

"What do you mean?" asked Mitsa in return, wondering whether this was some opening remark to a sexual advance. Should she say it did mean a lot or did not mean anything at all?

Matok explained, "As a lady cockroach you can be impregnated just once and give birth to thousands of children for the rest of your life (elsewhere in the book we learn that this 'rest' amounts to just about one year) so sex is not a necessity. There is no drive to have sex in order to make children."

Are you saying then that the 125-page beautifully bound and somewhat expensive book is indeed in its way the vehicle of a philosophy of love-without sex?

The dialogues between the two cockroaches do have a somewhat similar literary ring to medieval dialogues published with the pedagogical intent of moral suasion presenting itself as if emerging out of experience, such as the Letters of Two Lovers attributed to Heloise and Abelard. These dialogues, like Matok, distinguish between different kinds of love.

Amor is usually used to designate the physical form of love. Dilectio is used when the beloved is chosen and especially esteemed. Caritas is used for the love that Christians believe should be universal. This tradition, of course, forms the background of Pope Benedict's first Encyclical of which, however, the dominant theme is insistence that the three forms of love are inter-related.

In fact, the love that the castrated Abelard expresses in his letters to Heloise, by that time an Abbess is precisely detached from physical passion rather in the way in which that of Matok is towards Mitsa. Perhaps the most interesting reflections provided by Mr and Mrs Cockroach are those that seem to propend more favourably towards the household construction type of approach to man-and-woman love over those of the romantic bolt-from the-blue type, as well as recognition of the positive aspects of accepting a partner as "nurse" or "doll".

Doesn't the global trend rather seem to be towards the ideal of 'falling in love' becoming universal?

I am always surprised how little known the origins are of the romantic pattern of a young man falling in love with a girl at first sight and singing to her with a guitar under her window implying some degree of parental hostility because of economic or status reasons. Few seem to realise that this form of 'loving' was an Arab invention only brought to Europe by the Troubadours (one of the most famous of who languished for some time imprisoned in our own St Angelo).

I told you that I specially love philosophic donkey stories. The Arabs tell the following story about the birth of love at first sight. A man whose donkey had died lamented: "Why did you do this to me? Did I not always give you fresh hay and refrain from hitting you even when you obstinately refused to budge?"

The donkey appeared to him in his sleep: "Do you not remember tying me to a pole when you went into the barber's shop? The most beautiful she-ass passed along, with very long, sharp-pointed ears, yellow teeth, wagging tale... she disappeared and after that I could only pine away until my heart broke down completely..."

Fr Peter Serracino Inglott was talking to Margaret Zammit.