• University students from Gozo undergo great hardship to cross over on the ferry for lectures, especially when the weather is hot or the sea is rough. Malta is always boasting of its e-advantage. So is there is no conference hall large enough in Gozo wherein lectures that do not involve practical work can be held via teleconferencing?

Tenets

• HSBC has decided that, since Fleur-de-Lys is a hamlet and not a town, village or city, it will no longer have a bank branch. However, the ATM will remain. This means that the elderly needing to talk to a bank official will have to catch a bus because the branches at Birkirkara, Ħamrun and Qormi are not within walking distance.

Toiletries

• There is a public convenience midway between the stairways leading from Portes des Bombes to the junction where people catch buses to the St Julians area. However, one of the side panels of the lavatory cabin is broken. Therefore, anyone daring to use this facility will have to do so in full view of anyone who is going down the steps and happens to glance that way. This is ridiculous.

Tree

• Bank of Valletta erected an enormous Christmas tree in front of the central roundabout in Sta Venera. Workers not wearing protective gear were seen lopping off branches willy-nilly, such that passers-by thought the tree needed pruning so as not to topple over. However, it turned out that the exercise was in preparation for removing the trunk of a healthy, living tree that has now been destroyed forever.

Toddlers

• It is high time that at least one parking space be reserved in front of each playschool. Parents ferrying their children on the morning school run tend to be in a hurry. It is not the first time they take risks and cross, with their cars, the oncoming line of traffic the minute they spy a gap in it in order to park right at the school-door. A reserved space would ensure that they do not have to double park.

Timing

• It would be a great help if all Catholics, and not only Maltese people who evidently wish to go into St John’s Co-Cathedral in Valletta to worship and not to tour, would not be approached by tourist guides who tell them they have to pay for the pleasure of doing so. It is annoying for people to have to explain their intentions each and every time they happen to be in Valletta and decide to pay their respects.

Tender

• Too many criminals are being allowed to get off lightly by paying fines and getting suspended sentences. Perhaps it is time to begin transmuting these fines into community service, such that the sums of money involved would have been actually earned by the perpetrators, not merely taken out of their coffers, perhaps from ill-gotten gains.

Turnaround

• Just out of the Ta’ Liesse archway, from the Valletta side going towards Floriana, one comes across a lurid yellow sign with the word Furjana included in the notice. Was there not a movement intended to correct this spelling?

Treatment

• A long time ago, much ado was made about how it was a shame that the Chapel of Bones, at the lower end of Merchants Street, Valletta, was being used as a store for carnival floats. The news that it was to be restored to its former glory was bandied about on several occasions and, yet,nothing seems to have come of this project.

Telephony

• In the same way, there had been talk of removing all overheard wires and sprucing up the signposts of the capital city. This, too, has not been carried out. Once works on streets and pavements are finished, they will not have to be broken up again for the said cables to be hidden from view.

Tiddlywinks

• People who seek to be elected to public office in whatever capacity ought to ascertain what they are really after before making their final decision. It is pathetic to note the way some of them preen and pose, rather as if they consider themselves infinitely better than the people whom they represent; the same people who, after all, would have elected them.

Tenements

• Plans are in hand for the government to rent abodes at commercial rents from owners in order that these places be subsequently let at subsidised rents to people who would otherwise not have the means to find decent places to live. Hopefully, this will bring to an end the shameful practice of subletting substandard units to those who are already disadvantaged and are preyed upon by unscrupulous people.

Truth

• The good news is that Pope Benedict XVI is ordaining Prof. Fr Prospero Grech as a cardinal. The bad news is that he is only the second Maltese clergyman ever to be thus elevated, following Cardinal Fabrizio Xiberras. One hopes that such joyful news will be reported more often; each time new cardinals are selected.

Training

• Despite complaints, horses, ponies and even the occasional donkey are being exerc-ised in residential areas. Some of them are attached to gigs or carts, some of them are ridden or walked and a number of them are held by the reins by some-one in a passenger seat as the driver manoeuvres his car slowly through the neighbo-urhood. Is it possible that this kind of behaviour is legal?

Totality

• How long will it be before the stones in the downhill retaining wall of the Phoenicia Hotel in Floriana give up their effort to remain attached to one another? The weeds growing in between them and the fact that little bits keep falling off make restoration necessary sooner rather than later.