Before the brown stuff hit the blades, I had put these thoughts together. They haven't been made irrelevant by the fact that the John Dalli story has been blasted off the front page by Joseph Muscat's dangerous brush with jingoistic chest-thumping, which he is now telling us was his way of offering a quick espresso to Europe.

So, as I was saying, you know the one about birds and feathers, I trust? The way that they tend to bunch up and form a homogenous clump?

I wonder if our Prime Minister's advisers know it. If they do and have not yet advised him to drop Dalli like a searing hot spud, then they should be shot, metaphorically. Or pushed back.

If they don't, then how in the name of all that's beautiful did they mange to win the elections, given that knowing from whom to distance yourself, in order to project a cool, smart image, is a key element in any campaign where perception is key?

Let's look at the evidence, shall we? From what I read, it seems that Dalli has, at best,  played fast and loose with the Commission's Code of Ethics. He has, knowingly or unknowingly, consorted with a fraud artist of prime quality, wanted in a number of jurisdictions.

Dalli has flown half-way across the world to dispense advice, wisdom and sagacity, something that can be achieved by email, phone, Skype and a million and one other means, the flight therefore making many eyebrows twitch. In short, there's an almighty stink permeating the air around the lad, and I say this not as someone who has been primed by GonziPN to destroy him.

In fact, if Dalli or his cheer-leader would care to assert that I am, I will take great pleasure in calling them liars.

Do you get it, Johnny m'boy? Comprende, compadre Balzan? You are a liar if you say I've been asked, directed, cajoled or otherwise persuaded to try to besmirch your, or your hero's, good name.

Quite frankly, Dalli's done that quite well enough all on his own, and his whining about his poor kids not being able to work anywhere just isn't cutting the mustard any more.

But back to those birds and their pretty little feathers, which in the context coming up might yet turn out to be hulking great albatrosses.

It was reported elsewhere on the blogosphere that no less than Norman Lowell has given his seal of approval to Joseph Muscat's stamping of feet and threats of veto and "allusions" to push-back.

Any half-decent person would take an endorsement by a specimen like Lowell as being a pretty large nail in his credibility's coffin. I still cling to the belief that Joseph Muscat, for all that I don't espouse his way of doing politics and brewing coffee, is - at least - half decent, which, if you'll forgive a moment of levity in what is a serious thought, isn't bad going for a politician.

It is now time for Muscat to push back very hard and without reservations against the rising perception of him heading a Government that is lurching badly, even if only opportunistically, to the side of insular, racist bigotry.