Yes, I know there's an election coming. As I remarked last week, you have to have been living in a cave with Bin Laden not to know this but is it really such an event that the two major parties have to dedicate acres of bill-boarding to it?

Both of them are going about it as if there's the governance of the country depending on the outcome, which it isn't, not even by the slightest stretch of the imagination. There's no doubt, at least as things stand, that Labour are going to come out of the affair smelling of roses and you can bet your bottom euro that, on Sunday, they're going to be out carcading like there's no tomorrow while the Nationalists will be putting a brave face on it.

But, really, people, come on, there are more important things to be worrying about than the MEP election.

For instance, isn't it about time that a full and frank discussion was had about the way Chiara bombed in the Eurovision Warbling Contest? Ms Grace Borg has already given us the benefit of her incalculable wisdom on the matter but she hasn't, as far as I know, yet been offered the Ministry of Silly Songs, by joint resolution of the House. It was obvious that, having come third and second in previous years (or whatever), only a miracle could prevent Chiara from winning the thing and she didn't.

In fact, she got whupped.

So it's about time heads rolled, don't you think? Who cares about the MEP thing when there are such vital issues to discuss?

Just for the benefit of those for whom impertinence and flippancy are not modes of expression with which they are familiar, I was being sarcastic.

On and up to more important issues: Buried in the flow of rhetoric about the policies being put forward by the MEP-hopefuls, most of which, if you believe the bill-boards, have more to do with the running of the country than with what they're going to do when they get there, there was a crack, I believe by Ms Claudette Abela Baldacchino, about how she thinks there should be a referendum about whether divorce should be introduced here.

With due respect, what twaddle. The great unwashed, who take their spiritual and moral guidance from semi-lucid bible-bashers at the best of times (and from utterly non-lucid coves such as Anġ(with a hard "G")elik what's 'is name, are not qualified to tell me, you or anyone else how to run our lives.

Which means that a referendum on whether divorce should be introduced will be reduced, as always, to megaphone persuasion with the Church organised on one side and the liberal rest of us on the other: no prizes as to who will win that one.

Lost in the ebb and flow of political waffle last week was the fact that Joseph Muscat has started a case against the government to get his VAT back, he having bought a couple of motors. Dr Muscat and quite a few thousand others, that is, and the whole shooting-match is for nothing because Dr Muscat has promised that, as soon as he is made Prime Minister, he will pay himself (and all those thousands of others) back the VAT, whatever the courts might say.

So, pray, why did they bother starting the case, anyway? Are Labour convinced that they're not going to get elected in four years' time - no court case has ever been concluded in less than four years, realistically speaking, so if Labour know they're going to be elected, then the court cases will have been started for nothing, because Labour are going make sure the refund is given.

Get my logic?

Forget, as Saviour Balzan would have you do, about MEP elections (don't, actually, because it's important who we get representing us, whatever Mr Balzan says) and think about the important things in life, like food. On Sunday, I thought it would be a nice idea to test the sister-paper's restaurant critic and see if his approval of Chukka's, the restaurant at the Polo Club in Marsa, was justified.

It was, people, it was: this is a place where you get a mean, mean steak and some pretty good other bits and pieces, served in a unique atmosphere.

In closing, might I make a suggestion for nourishment of the less fattening variety? Get your hands on the new CD by Tribali: I am not qualified to judge anyone's music-making prowess, being as I sit in awe of anyone who can actually play an instrument, but these guys are a cut above many and they deserve your support.

So don't boot-leg it or rip it or do anything but pay for it, OK?

imbocca@gmail.com, www.timesofmalta.com/blogs