Until a short while ago, the channel crossing on the Gozo ferry used to be a pleasant experience, offering passengers the opportunity to enjoy a few moments of peace and quiet, especially if they sat outside rather than in the cafeteria.

That peace has now been shattered by a 20-minute advertorial promoting Gozo’s “dreamlike qualities” over the boat’s loudspeakers.

“If Ulysses were to come to Gozo today,” the recording informs you at one point, “he would find it even more difficult to believe”. He would indeed. As the ferry is about to berth, the disembarking passengers are left with the thought that ‘the best way to experience Gozo is in the silence of events and in the quality of nature itself’.

It should take them quite a while to recover from the irony of that Homeric punch-line.