I don't watch the Great Debate. To start with, Xarabank is not amongst my favourite shows, the baying masses not exercising any form of attraction on me, and to be going on with, I was in Sicily and in this fair land, and on the mainland too, for that matter, wifi is a concept rather than a working option.

In fact, I'm writing this in the hope that when I connect to the 'Net, the link will last long enough for the email to be sent.

There are other areas where our Northern cousins are not up to scratch. Keeping the place litter-free, for instance, is completely beyond them, quite obviously, and skips overflow everywhere.

Cross-channel ferries, at least the one we caught, are rust-buckets of the Mintoffian era back home, and the trip costs way more than it does in Malta, too, although there seems to be competition.

The food and wine remain divine and the roads are great, so swings and roundabouts, I suppose.

Back to the Great Debate: from what I read in the papers, Gonzi walked it. I say this not because of the comments made that favoured him, but from the ones that didn't. None of Gonzi's usual detractors, not the Claire Bonellos, not the Lino Spiteris, not any of the usual gang, managed to say that Gonzi was bad, but none of them managed to say Muscat was any good.

The best they could muster in defence of the Boy Wonder was to tell us that both were unimpressive. So, to my mind, if you put all this into the mix, you can only come to the conclusion that Gonzi severely whipped Boy Wonder's bottom, which is hardly a surprise, given that it is well known that Muscat can't hold a candle to him in a real debate.

All on his tod, with just his smug smile to keep him company, Muscat is fine, but give him someone with whom to spar and that's the end of that.

What I'd really like to see is a debate between one of Labour's heroes, say Franco Debono or Pullicino Orlando and someone like Beppe Fenech Adami, who is guaranteed to take either of them to the cleaners, provided that they don't storm off in a sulk, as spoilt brats are prone to do.