Glory be! Alleluia! Results at last! A potent combination of people-power and smouldering mega-buses have moved the authorities to act... at last, and rid us of those ghastly, cumbersome – and extremely dangerous bendy buses, which have been banished from our roads.

To be frank, why anyone ever thought it a good idea to deploy those unwieldy, white – or rather turquoise, elephants on our convoluted road system is beyond my comprehension.

It’s not that they keep breaking down and/or bursting into flames – well, yes, it is... both of those – but if you have ever been on board a bendy jobbie trying to negotiate its way around narrow village streets, you’ll applaud the decision to bring back those old... but largely reliable... bone-shakers.

And that brings me neatly to the subject of this week’s sermon... I mean article: alternative uses for Malta’s redundant bendy buses.

I understand there are 68 of these unfortunate hulks on our islands – and that’s a lot of scrap metal. And – if no country on the planet wants to use them for public transport, it might be worth checking out their value as scrap. I’ll bet it’s a heck of a lot more than it is as public transport.

My next idea is to make use of their combustible properties. Just think what a splendid display of pyrotechnics you’d get if you were to wheel a bendy-bus onto a piece of waste land... where nobody can get hurt... and no Go mobile transport will be in danger of immolation... then charge spectators to turn up to watch the accursed bendy catch fire, and put on a show of spectacular conflagration. Why not, it’s no different from crowds of people lining vantage points during village festas... to ‘watch’ petards explode... while it is still daylight.

There would be absolutely no danger of them catching fire on the bottom of the sea bed

And taking their combustible properties to the logical level: Why not place every bendy in the fleet onto the same piece of waste land, fill them to bursting point with rubbish and then just wait for each one to spontaneously burst into flames.

That could go a long way to helping out our waste disposal conundrum and ease the burden on Sant’ Antnin... even if it did cause a few air pollution problems.

But if all that smoke and heat is not to your liking, there are still quite a few disposal options for these unwanted carcasses.

What about ripping out everything that could burn, inside and out, from several bendys, and kitting out the interiors with bunks, a kitchenette and WC. Then situate a number of these on the shoreline at Baħar iċ-Ċagħaq, White Rocks and Mistra. Bingo, the perfect solution to a lot of people’s summer residence problems... and if you don’t like your location, simply tow your mobile summer residence up to Little Armier or wherever.

Gutting the interiors of these infernal machines opens up a number of possibilities: stick in a few tables, add a kitchen area, and your disenfranchised bendy could act as a restaurant á la Black Pearl.

Although on second thoughts there might not be enough space left inside to accommodate all the fire extinguishers the health and safety agents would request.

Now here’s another novel use for out-of-service bendy buses:

If you ferried each one just offshore in Malta and Gozo, then sunk the lot of them, they would make excellent diving locations for our burgeoning diving schools to use, just like those old Gozo ferries they scuttled some time ago. And there would be absolutely no danger of them catching fire on the bottom of the sea bed.

But if you think that’s a bit too destructive, why not convert some of them into submarines. There used to be a vessel of that ilk that used to ferry tourists on underwater safaris a few years back. OK, so you’d have to make each bendy into a waterproof vessel, but it’s an idea, isn’t it?

Actually, the notion I personally prefer is to set up a single bendy bus on a concrete plinth at the Ta’ Qali national park. Strip it of all the burny bits, then allow kids to play in it.

I would simply name it: Austin’s Folly.