I haven't read it. I haven't even seen it. I don't want to read it. I don't even want to see it.

I'm talking about that publication the MLP, that sees itself as the government of the future, drew up on the back of an envelope, to say nothing of a wish and a prayer, snappily titled Towards Social and Economic Regeneration, or something like that.

The reason I don't want to read the thing is not what my ever-increasing detractors will immediately assume it is, that I am blind to anything coming out of the Labour Party. No, the reason is that in every piece of publicity that comes out of the red corner, in every piece of brilliance that trips off the lips of their spokespersons, reference will be made to some nugget of genius encapsulated in the document.

Don't anyone tell me I'm wrong. A quick glance through KullHadd and It-Torca will confirm that all Labour's hacks are treating the thing as if it had been brought down by Moses as a supplement to the Ten Commandments. I know it is standard Spinnery to flog these things to death and back to make sure that the voters know all about them but that still means it will be quoted all over the place.

So why read it? Why indeed.

On raving and ranting

Just who is this Franco Farrugia person? He feels sick when he reads diatribes in the columns of various supposedly-intelligent or at least semi-intelligent newspapers. So he wrote in Malta Today last Sunday, presumably classing that publication among the genuinely-intelligent or at least fully-intelligent newspapers. According to this luminary of creative writing I, among others, am entrapped in worlds/bubbles of my own making, living in cocoons usually wall-papered with high-value currency notes.

I wish.

In an opinion piece entitled The Lapdogs, Mr Farrugia used up a number of column inches ranting about the government employees' half-days, in connection with an attempt to get at Ms Caruana Galizia, defined by him as the Queen of Columnists. I don't think he meant this rave as a compliment, or as an insult to the vast number of other female columnists as whose Queen she has been defined.

The dear fellow then tried to get at me, saying that I rant and rave and that I expect that nobody should be courageous enough to stand up and criticise my manners and my way of writing.

The question of whether I rant and/or rave I will leave to you to decide: You can use Mr Farrugia's own piece to compare and contrast, if you like and if you can be bothered to dig up the piece. Malta Today usually goes onto the Net, so with a bit of patience you'll be able to dig it up.

As to the question whether you need to have any courage to stand up and criticise me, I'll also leave it for you to decide. Precisely why Mr Farrugia thinks he has any courage at all is quite beyond me, because all that can happen to him is that I'll do what I'm doing now and answer him. He won't be threatened with losing his job or get beaten up. Promise.

Now, according to Mr Farrugia, I have no respect for my readers and I insult the Maltese people without any qualm.

This, I am afraid, is utter rubbish. It is true, I do have no respect for people like Mr Farrugia, who make an assumption based on their own prejudices and then proceed to lay down the law, but this does not mean that I lack respect for others. I have never insulted "the Maltese people" because, unlike many others, I have no time for the "these things only happen in Malta" attitude: If something is worth criticising, it is worth criticising, whether it is Maltese, Irish, English or Chinese.

Our hero also wrote that I am bereft (well, he would have if he knew the word) of a sense of modesty or altruism, social or otherwise. As to the modesty bit, well, he might have a point, I see no point in hiding my lamp under a bushel (or my fat seat, which also seem to irritate this Farrugia creature) but as to whether I have any sense of altruism or not, I shall refrain from commenting, other than to state that he is wrong and professional propriety prevents me from elaborating.

If Mr Farrugia does not enjoy my column, he is free to say so. He is also free to stop reading it. But he is not free to assume that in saying that he does not enjoy my column, he is being ever so courageous and somehow standing up for something worth standing up for. This is nothing more than delusional behaviour that invites snide remarks, which invitation I have taken up with ill-disguised glee, I will have to admit.

And, finally, nor is he free to broadcast examples of gibberish such as the one in his last paragraph last Sunday, which described us columnists as a threat to democracy.

Because that leads to the question: Who is ranting and raving now?

A couple of small ones

Finally, Doctor Alfred Sant has been stung into acknowledging my existence, albeit in a somewhat backhanded way.

In his It-Torca piece last Sunday, the one he writes to impress the MLP's supporters with his erudition and brilliance, he mentioned "another lawyer, one who specialises in vulgarity (hamallagnijiet) in English" as one of the few people who came out to defend the purchase of that flipping property in Brussels. He went on to make some sort of crack about the fact that as long as the vulgarity is in English, it doesn't matter to some people, though what he meant by that one passed me by completely.

I think it is time for me to issue a polite challenge to Doctor Alfred Sant, may his name be exalted for ever. Could you please, in words of one syllable (remember, you're not trying to impress your supporters here) cite an example of hamallagni from my column?

And could you please, again in words of one syllable, say what it is that has irritated you so much about me "defending" the purchase of that blasted building?

If you fail, as you will, to rise to my challenge, you will be a failure.

And as a second small one, I noticed that the gentleman from the bottom of the Earth took me to task again. More precisely, I think he thinks he took me to task but his latest attempt to make me look silly backfired ever so slightly, since it was incomprehensible to the nth degree.

I think he thinks I want everyone to use headphones while driving, which is hardly the case, being as all I was suggesting was that the use of hands-free gizmos while driving was not the end of civilisation as we know it.

But so wide-ranging was his last effort that I'm not even sure what he was so annoyed about.

Road nonsense

Our roads, as anyone who drives on them after having driven on European roads will confirm, are lousy. The surface is lousy, the markings are lousy, many junctions are badly planned and, you guessed it, lousy and, generally speaking, the driving experience here is, erm, lousy.

Even the new road from Naxxar to Salina, which has a perfect surface and decent marking, is too narrow to make it a decent drive.

But do Maltese drivers, in general, deserve any better?

Do drivers who do not ever show any consideration for anyone else deserve a decent driving experience? Do drivers who allow their cars to be used as mobile litter dispensers deserve it? Do drivers who have no idea what to do when they have a minor (front to rear) collision other than leave the cars where they are and obstruct everyone for hours deserve anything but a lousy driving experience?

Do drivers who think that the outer lane is there to cruise at 10 kph and that the stop sign on a minor/major road junction is just decoration deserve less than major aggravation when they take their lumps of rubbish onto the roads?

No, they don't, so it might be better if we stopped whining about the roads and started doing something about the Neanderthals who infest them.

And if this sounds like me contradicting myself about how I never slag off the Maltese (see above) then I'm ever so sorry but it is a sad fact of life that the Maltese are Europe's worst road users, bar none and I challenge anyone (Mr Franco Farrugia included) to gainsay me.

bocca@waldonet.net.mt