I won’t be going on about the Dalli saga this week. Frankly, I’m tired of being snarled at by his pesky fan, who seems to treat Malta Today as his own personal mouthpiece and who always manages to include me whenever he’s regurgitating his tired old fable about his naive hero being targeted by the evil clique.

Well, that is a lie insofar as it concerns me, anyway, I don’t speak for anyone else, though I’m pretty sure it’s generally a porky of cosmic proportions.

If it’s not the hoary old chestnut about evil cliques, then there are stories about my fantabulous income from, yes, you guessed it, the evil clique, and it’s all getting a tad boring, though not to the extent that I’m going to be intimidated, either by Saviour Balzan or by L-Orizzont, that other fine upholder of the Marija l-Maws standards of journalism.

Anyway, the Dalli story is developing at a speed in excess of that reached by his jet when he shot across the Atlantic to deliver himself of wise counsel and sage advice to some fellow philanthropists, shooting back in the opposite direction so quickly he almost met himself in mid-air, so anything I write will probably have been overtaken by events.

The fact that I squatted on public land illegally gives me the right to demand special treatment

Who’d have thought, for instance, that it would emerge that Dalli had decided on his jolly to the Bahamas way before he had been tipped off about the OLAF investigation? Really, he did, Malta Today said so.

Had I been writing before that aspect of the story came out, I’d have made much about how Dalli’s concern for “people in Africa” seems to have required tearing himself away from a State occasion in Cyprus, an event which, no doubt, was imposed on him with mere minutes’ notice, with no concern for the fact that allegedly long-planned cross-Atlantic missions would have be messed around with.

No, best to let others have their fun with this story, all in all.

I am giving the Government fair notice: it has crossed my mind that it would be a nifty wheeze to park a caravan in Great Siege Road, not causing any obstruction to the great and good tootling in and out of Valletta, of course. When, while taking a break from their burger-flipping and pizza-making, the boys in blue ask me to move along, I’ll start a court action, which Owen Bonnici’s reforms will not let drag on for too long (he earnestly hopes) following which I’ll take the Prime Minister’s hint and enter an appeal.

When eventually I’m told by a splendid big court that I should, not to put too fine a point on it, take a hike and take my caravan with me, I’ll knock politely on the Government’s door and ask for an alternative site.

Because, you know, the fact that I squatted on public land illegally and without even a microbe-sized moral strand to support my position gives me the right to demand special treatment.

Before the Nationalist Party gets all righteous and preachy about this, incidentally, might I politely ask them to cast their eyes down contritely, because they let the squatters get away with it on their watch, too?

While on the subject of letting arrogance and bullying win the day, what’s happened to the petition to have spring hunting, all hunting for that matter, banned? Now that spring is sprung, I suppose the immediacy is gone and, in the manner of enthusiastic youths everywhere, the people promoting the idea have found something else with which to amuse themselves.

We have a pretty wonderful country, the whingers and whiners notwithstanding, as was shown in glorious colour on the Lineablu doco on RAI recently (with a bit of judicious Googling, you can easily find it) and we shouldn’t let it be scarred by assorted yobs blasting away at anything that flies.

My faith in the extent to which some hunters abide by the law is - how can I put it? - somewhere on the same level as your credence in the “people in Africa” story, so it’s about time a stop was put to this barbarism.

When we get this done, we can start on bullfighting, but baby steps, baby steps.

You have time, just, to get yourself to the Palace to take a look at the Mattia Preti exhibition.

Rewarding is just one of the words you will find yourself using, as you will when you take a few more steps down Republic Street and drop by the Borża, there to cast your eyes over the excellent collection of art owned by Farsons and kindly made available for viewing by those producers of nectar (lager, better known as) and other fine beverages.

I’ve probably mentioned it before, but if you’re after a tasty snack - or gargantuan pizza - you should head towards the Turkish kebab place half-way down from Naxxar towards Mosta. It is seriously good stuff.

imbocca@gmail.com

www.timesofmalta.com/articles/author/20