“Can I have your attention please, cruise liner passengers? Thank you. Now then, my name is Mary Grace and I will be your guide for this tour of the culturally important sites here in Malta’s second city… Sliema… oh and St Julian’s, including Paceville and all points north. Please, when I raise the umbrella… follow on behind it. Ensuiver le parapluie s’il vous plaît.

“Right… Now then, you are currently standing in a road named Tower Road – or as we locals call it: “The street where the sun never shines.” And we are overlooking the deepest and most impressive developers’ excavation in the whole of the Maltese islands… if not the entire Mediterranean.

“If you peer over the edge – but not too far over, you will see that the crater is several hundred metres deep and wide enough to accommodate seven ocean liners standing next to one another… not the ocean liner you are currently cruising on, I hasten to add.

“The excavation is so deep that at its nadir the rock on all sides is believed to date from the Iron Age. But I should explain that the various rusty fridges and defunct water heaters seen down there are thought to belong to a later period known as AD… After Dom.

“You are indeed fortunate to be able to see such a historic crater. Had you come a few months later, this gaping hole would have been supplanted by a seven-storey tower block, housing flats, a fitness centre, a gentleman’s club, a supermarket on the ground floor with basement parking for 240 vehicles. Before excavation the site merely housed an historic old residence.

If we proceed to the left you will see the Starstruck Disco and tattoo parlour

“You will also note please the two cranes hovering over this crater… these are believed to be two of the largest and most obstructive cranes in the Maltese islands. In fact, the one to your left… which stretches two thirds of the way across the main road, is believed to have been solely responsible for a 107-vehicle tailback that took five – yes, five hours to clear.

“OK, take your photos and then it’s back into the coach for our next stop, which will be in the historic heritage town of Paceville.

“And here we all are in Ball Street, Paceville. The street is named after a former British colonial leader with that unfortunate surname. It is not – repeat not named after, or in any way associated with the former vasectomy clinic 12 doors down.

“If we proceed to the left you will see the Starstruck Disco and tattoo parlour. Not, I grant you, a particularly noteworthy building in itself, but this neo-21st century edifice stands on the actual site of the much more important boozer known as Paul’s Punchbowl.

“This mid-20th century establishment was the location of one of the most important battles of the post-colonial era, when a handful of British squaddies, just back from a tour of duty in Northern Ireland, beat the living daylights out of a number of Colonel Gaddafi’s finest in this premises – and – in the course of so doing, managed to cause in excess of Lm35,000 (€80,500) worth of damage. Maybe this was why Paul decided to sell up… who knows.

“Following me and the umbrella, if we proceed a few metres further on, we can see what was once the spot where the upmarket soft furnishers known as Malta Industries was. As you can see, the place has now gone severely downmarket, since it currently hosts a rather large and ungainly hotel complex. Progress or what?

“Continuing down the hill we eventually come to the site of, what many regard as, Malta’s very first gay bar, the Roundabout… Although, of course, in those far-off days… it was never outed as such.

“Right then everybody, if you all have sufficient photos, it’s back in the coach… and then onwards and upwards to our final destination up the coast. This will be the majestic neo-classical ruins of – what was once known as the Selmun Palace Hotel.”