I recently got a taste of that famous ‘Maltese hospitality’ that all the holiday brochures go on about when they are plugging this country as a tourist destination and when they end up having nothing else to say.

After I was rammed off the road by a woman driver who ignored a stop sign, and as we sat waiting for my friendly neighbourhood warden to come take our details and draw a report, a wannabe good samaritan popped his head through my car window and told me to let him know if I needed anything, anything at all, because he lived nearby and was itching to help.

I seized the opportunity to let him know that I needed to use his bathroom as I had been sitting in my car for over an hour and nature was calling; at which point he mumbled something unintelligible and offered me coffee instead.

This singular altruist was offering to help fill my bladder when I had expressed a desire to empty it, and this reaction immediately brought to my mind the saying: “When a dog is drowning, everyone will offer him drink.”

Why not include that in those silly little brochures of smiling, sun-soaked Malta?

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