Besides building high-rise monsters and the sprouting of boutique hotels, another trend (in-nagħaġ ta’ Bendu to you and me) is cafés. Every nook and cranny in Valletta, Sliema and other localities is being turned into a ‘brew for cash’ machine.

Very soon there would not be a place left in Valletta where you can buy a simple light bulb. Naxxar is not immune to this trend. In a few weeks’ time, two new cafés will be opening in the space of barely 50 metres and I hear another two are on the way.

Besides the obvious inconvenience to neighbours and the increase in pedestrian and vehicular traffic, the two new businesses will be gobbling up three parking spaces between them, as if the parking problem were not already bad. Aha, but the Planning Authority notice says that they will be paying the princely sum of €3,494.07 between them to the urban improvements fund for the locality. Quote: “The funds raised shall be used to fund traffic management, green transport, urban improvements or similar projects.” How very noble of them.

Unless the PA has come up with some brilliant idea to stack vehicles on top of each other mid-air, the neighbourhood has effectively forfeited another three precious parking spaces.

Now imagine a notice saying: “Please make use of three new parking spaces 10 blocks down the road, especially created for your convenience.”

Dear ‘Planning Authority’, please stop taking us for a ride. Planning my foot.

Bottom line: never have so many givenup so much to so few. With apologies to Winston Churchill.