With Angelika due to pod around the end of November, I am gearing up to become a father for the first time. It's a very stressful time for me... not that my nearest and dearest notice.

My kunjata - who has taken root in our house - only has eyes for her precious pregnant daughter's welfare - and even my mother is pretty hyper about the event.

Although I am - so far - the only one who knows that the child will be a girl, ma keeps insisting that it will be a boy. So much so that she is out-knitting Madame Defarge when it comes to knocking-up blue outfits for the child. I am saying nothing, but I hope she won't be too disappointed. Maybe she can dye them all pink or something.

Monday

With parliament back in session after the summer break, I am called upon to make a statement to the house on a matter of extreme national importance. Afterwards, I sit down to less than generous acclaim. Strange that - I would certainly have thought that the current acute shortage of toilet paper in the members' WC was indeed a matter of extreme national importance.

Tuesday

Rumours of a cabinet reshuffle are gaining momentum, fuelled by a casual remark by the PM to me. He asks me what I know about Morals (Malta Organisation for Restaurants And Licensed Snack-bars)... and isn't my uncle the president of it... or something? I enthuse that, yes, he is. To which PM replies: "Then please tell him to get off my back! If VAT in restaurants is to be reduced at all, it will be done when I am ready - and not before".

Wednesday

Emboldened by a long, and rather liquid, lunch, I storm into the perm sec's office and request - no, demand - that he find me a more spacious office than the broom cupboard I have occupied since my appointment as Parliamentary Secretary for Fooling Some of the People Some of the Time at the Ministry for Obfuscation.

The PS sighs and says: "Onorevoli, nothing would please me more. But as you know space is limited in this building. What would you have me do, swap offices with you?" Yes, actually. See how you like living in a condemned rabbit hutch. Mind, nothing will happen, but at least I feel better. Must have been a rather good bottle of wine.

Thursday

Everywhere I turn in my house I seem to bump into my kunjata. She is omnipresent, at least until after the baby is born. Tonight she tells me: "Isn't it time you put the boy down for Ampleforth?" Boy? Ampleforth!? At eight-and-a-half thousand sterling a term: I - don't - think - so! Unless she's offering to pay. And anyway - although she doesn't know it - it will be a girl.

It's taken a while, but after that interlude, I'm coming round to the idea of rather liking the fact that I'm fathering a daughter and not a son.

Friday

Now here's a tricky one:

My village premier league football team asks me to be their new president. A very prestigious post for an ambitious politician like myself.

But... they have recently been embroiled in a corruption scandal over possible match fixing. Obviously, I can't allow myself to get tainted with scandal; so I decline... for the present. Now I wonder - does this mean I must hand back my winnings from last season's flutter on them to lose?

Saturday

The secretary of my local każin is retiring after 30 years of electoral triumphs and sweeping up the broken glass during the Mintoff years. He is now very old, but has kept his post because nobody else wanted it, until now.

So I usher him into retirement with a speech praising his work, then present him with the gift of a photo of myself. In reply, the poor old boy looks at the picture - then at me - before enquiring: "And who the hell are you?" Like I say, he is way past his sell-by date.