The master has made known his plans. I shall revel in his opus once it is finished and done. This time round, however, I have the feeling that the master permitted himself to impair his usually exuberant genial creative verve by succumbing to solicited (if not coerced) compromise. But we shall never really know.

Every self-respecting town, city and village owns and is built around architectural ruins. These range from acropoli to fora, arenas and even to walls a few metres long. These proudly exhibited ruins are relics, witnesses and evidence of past societies and communities, i.e. homogenic groups of individuals that owned their culture, customs and ways of life. Many of these ruins are of architectural importance too. They also serve to delineate continuity, the continuum and the longevity of the locality. But everywhere the ruins are older and predate the locale. Here in Malta we have a locale which predates the ruins.

The Theatre Royale might well have been an architectural jewel in itself. Graphical representations attest that it was a magnificent neo-classical exuberance, per se. But then, is everybody who really knows so sure that, when taken within the context of the austere, conventual bordering on the cloisteral and military style of the rest of the city, it might not have stuck out like a sore thumb? Seemingly no effort had been made to make it fit its surroundings. Considering for example the magnificence of the Auberges, these are indeed magnificent but fit well with the rest of the city because they fit within the hierarchical structure of its general architectural style.

At least, the master, more paternally than patriarcally perhaps, has endowed us with an OIM, where a city is older than its ruins. I wonder whether the master is smiling sarcastically. But if that is what it takes to appease the divinely inspired intelligentia, well, smile on master and thanks for the extra restraining effort it took you. I am sure that what is indeed your brainchild will be the next point of reference along the continuum of timeline of our capital as it even occludes the enforced impairment.