Walking merrily on the Sliema promenade a few days ago was perfect bliss. Summer stifling heat is over, the hordes of walkers are less taxing and the brain actually works. But the pong from the horses’ doings, even if less horrid than in the heat, is still horrible and reminiscent of third-worldism. So as in all realities fairy-tales—even of walks down idyllic promenades—all have their downsides.

Nothing in life is perfect otherwise, as one priest once told me, it would be too close to heaven.

But if the torturous smell emanating from the karrozzini horses’ nether regions was there every day, day in day out, we walkers on the promenade would find it easier to accept. In fact, we would probably hardly notice it. Unfortunately this is what is happening to this country and its new masters at Castille.

That the previous administration caused a few pong-fests is a fact beyond contradiction. So bad had the pongs become that the electorate went ballistic and booted out the Gonzi-guys to highest heaven. Squeaky-clean Joseph and his band won more handsomely than ever thought possible. And they won because they promised to clear us of all pongs known, unknown and unseen.

Sometimes I think the Labour Party did this on purpose. In their first few months in power they have done stranger things, emitted stronger pongs, than the PN did in decades. Nepotism, strange army promotions, censure of police officers who did their job, citizenship for dubious sale, ministers having no clue and admitting it, appointments to prestigious positions for interdicted people, a minister turning the Gozo ferry into his water taxi, too much hob-nobbing with pariah states. This and more in just over six months.

To me this sounds as if it was all planned. They want us to get used to life as it will be for the next years or decades. Faced with all this, instead of criticising the big picture we get lost trying to make out what really is happening. By heaping this amount of garbage (not to say s*** as it would go against many rules) so quickly, they are now assured of our ennui.

I have already heard it said that we grumble too much, that life is now back to the 80s where not only was life tough but we were bored stiff of talking politics. So the best way out is to accept it all and not let it affect, or bore, us. The smell, the whiff of horrid horse manure is there. But we must not grumble about it because after all there is nothing we can do, so we’d better carry on with our walk, talk, cake and ice-cream.

Once the roads are paved and caked with horse droppings what’s the use of smelling the coffee?