I was going to call this "Facing Off", both as an oblique reference to what I remember as a pretty good movie (for no reason other than the fact that good movies should be remembered) and as a not-so oblique reference to the recent bout of paranoia that has surrounded FaceBook, but then the lights went and the comments started.

Hence "mouthing off", which is what everyone seems to do all the time.

About this FaceBook thing, suddenly what used to be a moan and groan around dinner tables has become a reason for people to take positions in public and declare their allegiance one way or the other.

For the uninitiated, of which I doubt there are many since you're reading this online and thus have the rudiments of 'Net life, FB is what is known as a social networking site, m'lud (in answer to the traditional "What are these Beatles?" question) You get yourself signed-in and you start messing about on the site, and people ask (or you ask them) to become, duh, friends, thus allowing them to interact with you.

You can, as in real life, take it to extremes and live your whole life vicariously, playing all manner of stupid games and wasting time, or you can just pass some time on it, playing Scrabble and making wisecracks about Chelsea being the best team (yeah, right) and ManU (cognoscenti add a couple of letters) being rubbish while the footy is on, for all the world like you do down the pub with your mates.

You can put up photos, for instance, and - obviously - have photos put up about you, and there's precious little you can do about the latter, just as in the real world, there's precious little you can do about what people think about you and say about you.

The bottom line is that FaceBook is merely a reflection of what you choose to do and how you choose to do it, and getting all hot and bothered about it, to the extent that sometimes I wonder whether I shouldn't be wearing a yellow star or go around with a bell, chanting "unclean, unclean" because I mess about a bit on FB, is tantamount to getting angry at the moon.

Which is not to say that it should be mandatory for everyone to have an FB account and play Farmville (or whatever it is) and send me boxes of (sadly only virtual) cookies - childish behaviour is childish behaviour, whether it's virtual or real - or to say that having your private life worn on your sleeve is a good idea for everyone, but at the end of it all, it's what you do that messes you up or wastes your time, and it's your own lookout if you've made it easier for people to giggle at you.

But then, I suppose that people used to rail at Alexander Graham Bell and at Gutenberg for much the same reason that they huff and puff about FaceBook being an invasion of privacy.

So we had a power-cut all over the country last Monday, which was a bloody great inconvenience, and no bones about it. No sooner had the lights gone out than the comments started, mostly on Twitter (another target for the Luddites, but they haven't got their fangs into it yet, because they haven't noticed it yet, presumably) through people who had mobile phones that weren't just fulfilling their "I only want to make calls, for heaven's sake, who needs email on the phone?" Amish-ism.

The moans and groans then continued when the power came back and 'puters started whirring back into life, allowing the commentariat to come back to life themselves. From the way the wisecracks poured into the virtual ether, with all the usual suspects churning out all the usual whinges, blaming GonziPN for everything including the fact that they were worried about their freezer's contents defrosting.

Pretty lousy freezer, that, if it goes into complete meltdown in a couple of hours - must have bought it when Mintoff was young, or something.

Let's not be naïve, of course: a power-cut, especially one of Monday's magnitude (though frankly, it's no consolation to me if the lights go out in town and I'm told they have power in Bubaqra) is a royal pain in the bottom and I'd much prefer not to have one, thanks, but it is really a bit boring the way it becomes such an instant topic of whining comment - and most of it so utterly predictable and misinformed, too.

What would be really amusing, now, is if the Lil'Elves, who were behind many of the comments, of course (and who can blame them, with such an opportunity to grumble at the Government presenting itself?) were to post comments under here, to say that I have no right to pick on their comments because by so doing I am denying them their right to express themselves.

Guys, express yourselves all you like, but just remember that you're not just having a moan down at the Kazin tal-Labour, where everyone will be agreeing with you all the time - here on the 'Net you're liable to be contradicted, just learn to live with it.

Live with it, that is, in exactly the same way as people who use Facebook have to live with their foibles and what they mistakenly imagine are their exchanges with friends, getting a rather wider audience than they thought they would be.

Which is why Astrid Vella's comments, accurate or not, to her mate KZT about Lou Bondi became subject to a modicum of public debate. It was her own silly fault for failing to keep up with the mores of Netiquette and failing to be au courant with the way cookies crumble, and no amount of huffing and puffing about privacy and whatever will camouflage that.