Hello there!

My name is Jason, I am 28 years old and married to the lovely Maria Pia (well actually she's not so lovely, but she comes from a good middle-class Nationalist family and she has excellent pedigree and child-bearing hips).

Maria Pia and I (you'll notice I very gallantly put her name before mine... that's cos I am the very epitome of new man) Where was I? Oh yes, we live in a beautifully converted 17th century farmhouse in the older part of Mosta, with a millroom and plenty of space to put in a swimming pool (not in the millroom, but outside in the huge courtyard).

Today I want to tell you all about myself and my job as a trainee manager at BoB (Bank of Bingemma). To start my day I first of all wake up. Then I shower, slap on half a litre of Virile cologne for real men, eat a hearty breakfast of two slices of wholemeal toast, drink a Taormina souvenir mug-full of Nescafé Wild Kenya decaff (lovingly prepared for me by my loving wife Maria Pia). Then I open the garage doors (It's actually the remissa of the original 17th century farmhouse, which Maria Pia's daddy had converted for us into a garage). Then I get out the Alfa, wave bye bye to Maria Pia and drive off to work at BoB in Birkirkara.

Now I can't think why, but a lot of people seem to think that the job of a banker is tedious, downright dull even. Well, I can assure you that this is certainly not the case. Not the case at all. In fact, it can be really exciting at times. Take last Thursday, for example. That was so exciting it nearly brought on one of my asthma attacks. See, in our Birkirkara branch we have a sort of kitty. No not a cat of the feline variety, ha, ha, no I mean a sort of pool of money with which we buy things for refreshments like tea and coffee.

Well last Thursday was the day when everyone in the branch, except Mr Said, the manager, who has his own supply, has to put exactly €1.14 into the kitty. Now comes the exciting bit. You see, it is my job to count the money and make it tally with the number of staff - 27 - in our branch. Now every one knows that 27 times €1. 14 equals €30.78. But all I found in the kitty was, wait for it, €30.76. So, much to my amazement, the kitty was no less than two euro cents short. This could mean only one thing: somebody, one of our branch's trusted employees had put only one euro and 12 cents into the kitty. Or worse, two of our trusted employees had put one cent each short into the kitty.

What should I do? The dilemma was causing me to perspire copiously under the arms, and somewhere else that I won't mention. How must I expose this cheat, or worse, two cheats? There was only one thing for it, I had to interview each and every member of staff (except Mr Said, of course), to ascertain who had had the gall and the dishonesty to short-change the coffee and tea kitty.

I can tell you, there hasn't been so much excitement in that part of Birkirkara since Mr Said (at the time only a junior clerk) had his bicycle swept away in the great flood of 1979.

I began with the obvious candidate, Abdul, the Somali illegal immigrant cleaner. But, strange to say, he was found not guilty. This was due to the fact that he drinks neither tea nor coffee and thus - I was belatedly informed - he is exempt from contributing.

I moved on to the junior clerks and, without disclosing who the eventual thief turned out to be, you'll be pleased to hear that I did eventually apprehend the villain. I'm not saying who it was, suffice to comment in passing that we'll all be keeping a close eye on Annabelle Grixti Palmier in future.