It's been a few days, but actually not that many, since I spread my deep wisdom amongst you - the impression I had was that it was almost a couple of weeks, but on checking I found that it was only last Monday.

Time flies when you're having fun they say: in summer, what with the heat and all that, it seems to do the opposite.

So, we're going to be regaled with an edifice representing Dom Mintoff in, if the quotes are accurate, "Oxfordian garb". That, again I emphasise if the quotes are accurate, is how the Prime Minister, renowned in Prime Ministerial and European Commission circles for his English wit and humour, described the monument that the Government, no doubt relying on its thirty-six thousand plus mandate, is going to foist on us.

It's "Oxonian", Dr Muscat, not "Oxfordian" and if you think I'm being pedantic, please note that English wit and humour rely on a precise use of the language and not on the approximation ("sounds like English but not as we know it, Jim") that passes for it that tends to issure forth from the lips and pens of many of its users in this country.

Joseph Muscat has many fine qualities, I'm told, and his CV and list of attributed publications are impressive, but before he came out with his wise-crack about Sweden being better advised to take our immigrants rather than allowing one of its (illustrious) citizens to make caustic comments in our general direction, I wasn't under the impression that a sense of humour, much less a British (we use British rather than English, incidentally) one, was one of his sterling qualities.

To be fair, a sense of humour is generally not to be found amongst our beloved politicians' features, who have a sense of their own importance and an accompanying (faux) gravitas that fairly makes me itch to get at them.

This failure to hone the language is not only one that shines through in our political class: headline writers, in particular though not exclusively, and especially when online (the pressure of writing quickly, in defence) are prone to sinning gravely.

What else could the headline "John Bundy knows nothing on morning TV broadcasting" (or something like that) mean but that he knew nothing about the relevant slot being allocated to him? Surely it didn't mean that he knows nothing about morning broadcasting as a skill, surely not? I mean, this is John Bundy we're talking about, a philosopher of Descartian proportions, who is held to know everything about everything.

Oh, and while on the subject of rigorous accuracy, would it not have been more appropriate to depict Mintoff as a screaming zealot, enormous belt-buckle holding up sagging jeans and all? It's probably a closer representation of his perceived persona, as far as we the Great Unwashed are concerned, certainly closer to the mark than Oxford bags and a thinking man's pose.

I suppose perpetuating the legend that he was a kindly, avuncular type whose brain was enormous and dedicated solely to the advancement of the poor peasants who looked up to him in awe was more important that showing the starker truth.