Joe Morana suggests (July 20) forming a Noise Abatement Society in Malta and I'd be among the first to support it, provided they make a start with dogs that bark and howl all night.

It's difficult to equate these bird-trapping, shoot-anything, dog-ignoring, street-fouling, feral-cat-encouraging, pet-torturing people with the animal lovers they always claim to be (yes, I'm aware other nations exhibit cruelty to animals but we are talking about Malta here).

It's the dog owners I find most difficult to comprehend.

The dogs I refer to are not domestic pets, because they aren't allowed inside the home; most breeds would be unsuitable even for legal hunting; they are clearly not guard dogs because they bark all night, regardless of what's going on around them.

So what are they for?

Why are they left out, often on rooftops, occasionally in yards, all day and all night, no doubt varying from boiling to bored rigid?

The poor creatures have nothing to do except howl their lonely discontent on a 24/7 basis.

Is this why so many of them finish up drowned or ditched?

Unlike church bells (but in common with stone-cutting machinists) they obviously have no concept of siesta hours and, at least, the bells (and the stone cutters) eventually stop at night.

Then perhaps the society could attend to those van drivers who announce their presence in the street with multiple air horn blasts - in most countries it is illegal to sound the horn of a stationary vehicle - any time from about 7 a.m. We have seven every morning in my street and some of them operate even on Good Friday.

And finally (for now) what about the contradiction of "in-car stereo", which can be heard from 100 metres away? I can't imagine what effect such noise has on the eardrums of the passengers but if it can be heard outside the vehicle it's simply too loud. Have a go, Joe!

Officialdom may well "turn a deaf ear", as you say. The rest of us don't have that option.