There was this tiny piece of news in the paper last week, tucked away in a blind corner, where no one would see it. Except I did and I was appalled.

Viset Malta have applied for – and praise the Lord, they were denied – a permit to build a massive shopping mall at the Valletta Waterfront.

At this point, I have to think our entrepreneurs have lost their marbles. Is our country really in dire need of yet another ghost shopping mall? It’s insane. Is it just so that we could all turn out in masses on the opening week, drool and gawp: “Bħal ta’ barra!” As if that qualifies as something good.

I don’t particularly want Malta to look like all the other high streets of the main capital cities in the western world. Which is what is happening already.

We are – although in constant denial about this – a mere 400,000 people crammed on a 27 km by 15 km island. Is that taken into consideration when the outlets’ feasibility plans are undertaken?

There seems to be this idea that shopping is the only thing that makes Maltese people part happily with their money and that, ergo, retailing is the only way forward for a quick buck. And so we build enormous shopping complexes manned by those poor sales assistants who are stuck in there with no idea whether it’s night or day.

The problem is that we no longer bother to be creative. In Paola, for example, if someone opens an outlet selling pink toothpicks, you can rest assured that within the next three months, 10 more outlets selling precisely the same thing (colour and all) will sprout up next door.

We are living in a world where everything from the school system to the way we eat has been institutionalised to the point where we lack the energy or imagination to do anything except collapsing in front of the television after coming home exhausted from work.

So, dear businessmen, if you can’t come up with something revolutionary, please, stay put and don’t do anything. Just plant trees and build parks with proper lawns; you know, the kind not made of concrete (see Ta’ Qali) but of green grass you can actually walk on.

If someone wants to make a bit of business out of it, how about a park with cultural activities on the go? I’d be willing to pay a flat rate ticket to get in, if I could be entertained by live bands and music and street performers and children will be able to run around and roll in the grass, while the rest of us can lie, without a care in the world, on picnic mats. As long as there’s none of those wretched plastic bouncy castles which make children shriek like there’s no tomorrow, it would be perfect.

There is another world out there a world of more fun, more freedom, more time for reflection. Sod the shopping. I’d rather sit at my kitchen with mismatched colourful chairs than trawl the uniform, monochrome shops, busting my credit cards in the process.

So, since tomorrow is budget day, here are a few, last-minute tips for the Finance Minister:

1. Tell everyone to shop less. If people shop less, they drive less, so it’s kind to the environment and that will score you points with George Pullicino. Instead of shopping, tell the citizens to sit around at home, garden their own vegetable patch, read, chat and drink.

2. Encourage everyone to work less. This fantasy of having a country full of jolly middle-class workers, whistling as they work, is a myth. The reality is stress, worry and debt. Work kills: the UN says 2.2 million people worldwide are killed by work. That’s three times more than war. Mr Fenech, be brave: declare a war on work. Tell everyone that, as of tomorrow, we’ll just be working four hours a day. That will give us all the time to look after children when they’re back from school, whistle songs, go for walks and help out in the community.

3. Up our public holidays by a few more days. Follow the lead of Ancient Greece and give us 60 public holidays this year. The Athenians used to spend them all studying at the feet of their philosophers. Won’t we all be much better for that?

And finally, dear minister, conclude your budget speech with a plea to stand up for truth, beauty, pleasure, art and life. Pah, silly me, I forgot that words such as these can never come out of a politician’s mouth.