Recently, sitting in the customary traffic jam alongside the bus lane in Sliema, I had little to do but observe the vehicles zooming past in the bus lane, including the occasional bus.

Presumably, they all enjoy exemption from bus lane regulations and all other rules for, nearby, was a motorcycle policeman, issuing a parking ticket.

His partner-in-preventing-crime stood idly by, presumably to stop their bikes being stolen. Just a typical day in Sliema, you might say.

Suddenly, for no apparent reason, I got a smell of burning hair.

My eye must have fed my imagination, for I had just seena fluffy-haired girl, driving happily down the bus lane, her one hand on the steering and the other clamping a mobile phone to her ear – together with a lighted cigarette.