Having visited the site of Victor Scerri's farmhouse-turned- villa in its present state - a wide, deep scar and two piles of used stone blocks within a few metres of the main watercourse at Baħrija - one can see why the business has created such shock waves. It does look like the final, apocalyptic misdeed by Mepa.

Of course, the Scerri villa is but the latest, in a long disreputable tradition which started by a well-known part-time farmer setting up at Fawwara.

In Dr Scerri's case there are no hints of part-time farming, only a bland claim that while he subscribes to the supposed sentiment in the PN against ODZ development, this "sentiment" is not yet law and he does not see why he should be bound by it.

After all he has a signed, sealed and delivered Mepa permit, to which no objection was raised at the proper time. Simple appartchik stuff that, with not a thought for the correctness of the Mepa process.

The photo-sensitive Robert Musumeci does indeed have a dazzling record of landing ODZ applications due, as he himself modestly says, to his native wit. But we might have done better to remember his one signal defeat. Mr Musumeci had pulled off a brilliant coup: a permit to raise dwelling height levels in "Transmogrification", Avenue in Lija. Action was blocked until after the great event, when Mepa withdrew the permit despite the babbling of Mr Musumeci to claims for compensation. The house on "Transmogrification" Avenue had to be wrapped in plastic, to await restoration to its original state.

So the ethic of the system can be summed up by Wisdom 2, v.11, where the wicked state their outlook on life: Let our strength be the measure of virtue, for weakness argues its own futility.