Did you read that scurrilous statement in a recent edition of Times of Malta, the one claiming that Malta is one of the loudest countries in the EU?

I SAID... DID YOU RE - ? What utter rubbish! In fact, I felt personally affronted when reading it.

ME LOUD! Well, maybe when I’m angry, or balling someone out, or revving up my old car, or asking my wife to make me a cup of tea, or... well OK, maybe a little loud, but not unless provoked... or when I need a tea.

Frankly I’m sick and tired of we Maltese being reviled, yes reviled by the rest of Europe

I’m telling you we are a naturally quiet, sedate... not to say silent race – and that, my friends, is why we get slagged-off and accused of nonsense like being loud and raucous.

It’s sizeism... that’s what it is. The big pots calling the little one black – and I’m having no more of it.

I’ll bet you our traffic noise is no louder or more intrusive than what you’d hear in the middle of Rome, Paris, London or Berlin.

In fact, our roads are so fouled-up with traffic we only rarely get the chance to change up a gear or two and rev the engine, to up the decibels a notch.

To tell you the truth I rather like the sound of an airliner screaming down the runway with its throttle wide open

I’ll admit the fact that the exhaust pipe of my 1970s Renault may have more holes in it than George Farrugia’s testimonies, but as I said previously, I only rarely get the opportunity to take full advantage of it and give the neighbourhood the full benefit of my enhanced exhaust.

Now, be honest, how does my rather rowdy car compare to a jumbo jet taking off or coming in to land at Fiumicino?

It’s laughable and the comparison is odious.

To tell you the truth I rather like the sound of an airliner screaming down the runway with its throttle wide open.

It has a sort of comforting, mind-numbing effect on me. And it helps to clean the wax out of my ears, so overall it has a beneficial effect, right?

And now some spoilsports are pointing the finger at our festas’ wondrous petards: ridiculous.

True, when they explode the decibels invoked may well shatter a few windows, cause general canine chaos and be responsible for more perforated eardrums than the Luftwaffe, but they are traditional and there are fewer more pleasant diversions than to sit outside our house on a summer’s evening, listening to the blast of numerous petards, while the ground beneath us shakes uncontrollably. Ah happy days!

Also, wouldn’t you know it... our poor, oft-lambasted hunters are also being dragged into the argument.

I’ll agree that in (and out of) season it can be difficult to sleep after 2.30am in our village, but give the poor guys a break... after all it is their hobby.

I also deeply resent the totally unjustified criticism of my wife. She may well possess a voice loud enough to shatter reinforced concrete, but the claim that when informing our neighbour, Mrs Fenech, where to buy cheapest lampuki, she was clearly audible in downtown Palermo, is both scurrilous and untrue... Syracusa maybe, but definitely not Palermo.

Another cheap shot was the complaint that the noise generated by mobile discos is, to say the least, utterly deafening. What a load of balderdash!

There are fewer more cheery sounds than those made by a heavy metal band blasting out of a beat-up Ford Escort, piloted by a tattooed and pierced adolescent, as it meanders slowly through the village core.

And finally a word to those heartless swine who nature has endowed with a sort of pathogenic hatred of dogs.

Oh sure our pooch has a loud bark, and I agree that this may indeed be amplified by coming from his kennel on our roof, and again, yes I’m sure when he howls, which he only does three or four times a night, it may, just maybe classified – by some over sensitive souls – as ear-splitting, but do they think that complaining to the police is justified?

Malta loud? Don’t make me guffaw!

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