Anyone who saw Bondiplus last week will have realised by now that although Lou Bondì declared it would be the last time the subject of the open-air-theatre-cum-piazza would be discussed, discussion included none of the potential users or those who are paying for it - read the Malta Government - but merely Renzo Piano's representatives: Konrad Buhagiar and Bernard Plattner who had the thankless task of defending the indefensible.

Mr Buhagiar found himself between a rock and a hard place while it was clear from the questions I asked Mr Plattner that there was no brief to speak of and not one jot of what has been written in the media about the project had been passed on to either him or Mr Piano. Had Mr Plattner or anyone at the Piano HQ read what has been written in the last nine months, he would not have been as nonplussed as he was when I mentioned Mr Piano's own Sala della Musica Niccolo Paganini in Parma as a blueprint for what could happen on the Teatru Rjal site.

Ergo, when many of us who, for no other reason but to preserve and enhance culture in Malta, have been turning somersaults trying to clarify a horrendously complex issue to no avail, the man who, at the end of the day, has been commissioned by a sovereign nation to build 1) an entrance to what is ostensibly a Renaissance city, 2) a Parliament to house our 65 demigods and demigoddesses and 3) something to fill a spot that is dear to the nation's cultural memory, has been left in the dark. The result is that the government will, come hell or high water, insist on forging ahead with a project that Malta needs like a hole in the head: an open air theatre, which, in a country like ours, is taking coals to Newcastle and does not, repeat, does not solve any of the glaring lacuna in our cultural mix.

I will once again ask the following questions to whoever will take the time and trouble to ponder upon them seriously. To justify the expenditure of even one of those €80 million of taxpayers' money I would ask all these questions and more; wouldn't you? Here goes.

1) How much of the €80 million for the entire project is being dedicated to the theatre?

2) How much are the estimated maintenance costs of the open-air theatre as proposed for the first 10 years of its existence?

3) Conversely, how much would a closed and sound-proofed auditorium like Parma's, which can be used all the year round, cost and what would its relative maintenance fees be in the first 10 years?

4) What would be the cost for a retractable roof as proposed by Fr Peter Serracino Inglott over the present structure plan?

5) Have Mr Piano and associates any idea of what Malta's cultural needs are?

6) Have they been informed that our Malta Philharmonic Orchestra is homeless and has been so since 1997?

7) Do they know that because there is no Museum of Modern Art in Malta, 200 years of art are unaccounted for and lie in storage in what is quaintly referred to as a reserve collection?

8) Are they aware that Malta's National Library, as opposed to the Bibliotheca, is out in the Styx hidden in some ditch in Beltissebħ?

9) Are they aware of the drawbacks and limitations of the other two theatres in Valletta?

10) Do they know about the ruinous Riħ Isfel u l-Grigal? And the Gibbli too?

11) Do they know that the Majjistral howls through July like a destructive banshee?

12) And are they aware of the 17 parishes in and around Valletta that launch a million petards from June to September?

The mind boggles at just how inadequate the present project is and how unwise it would be for Mr Piano to put his name to it in its present form.

Up to a couple of weeks ago there was a veritable Gordian Knot wherein every practitioner of any cultural discipline imaginable was looking towards the Teatru Rjal site as a possible solution to the present glaring cultural inadequacies. Then, like deus ex macchina, Sir Cameron Macintosh was brought into the equation. Oddly enough, Sir Cameron said he could convert the Mediterranean Conference Centre, in Valletta into a highly-functional opera house when Malta simply cannot afford opera on an ongoing year-round basis.

A week later on Bondiplus, MCC chairman Peter Fenech declared he had other viable plans to create a multi-functional theatre able to take opera, ballet, dance and drama, among other things. Is this wishful thinking, just like the little angel who told St Augustine that he was trying to fit the ocean in a hole in the sand?

The Fenech/Macintosh possibilities of an alternative multi-purpose venue has now changed things dramatically and the government must, before it loses all cultural credibility, take a practical decision to opt for one of them plus an all-year-round, acoustically-perfect, weatherproof cultural venue on the Teatru Rjal site that will solve the orchestra's problem for good and prepare Malta for the designation that hangs over our collective heads like Damocles' Sword, namely being the European Cultural capital in 2018. At the rate we are going the prospect is terrifying me.