Your reporter (April 30, ‘Kiosks at Triton Square’) has mistakenly placed the Tritons Fountain in Valletta. Thus he stepped into the void where angels fear to tread or perhaps where ignorance is bliss.

Certainly he meant it not as a challenge to Floriana’s pride. Let me assume he made a geographical mistake and misplaced the place on a map. So many writers have recently made such like mistakes!

Come to think of it, is claustrophobia choking the Valletta citizens so tight they need an expansion of territory into Floriana? Perhaps Valletta sportsmen want to share their newly won honours in football with Floriana’s glorious past.

I move to another wavelength. Why Valletta Waterfront when Floriana is right above nursing a beautiful garden? Is the name Valletta more euphonious than the mellifluous Floriana?

Does not the phrase ‘Grand Harbour’ connote grandeur? Is there a more deserving appellation than Valletta Harbour? Perhaps one of the surrounding cities in Grand Harbour deserves the honour, like the historical Vittoriosa.

Geographically a huge chasm separates both cities: Valletta from Floriana. St James ditch, deep and wide, divides the fortifications of two different architects. Floriani’s circular range encompasses Floriana independently of Valletta.

Thus Floriana is completely isolated from Valletta. The separation is also underlined by the spacious piazza between the Valletta bastion and the first buildings in Floriana.

That incomparable spaciousness includes the Tritons Square, the Biskuttin, Il-Ġnien tal-Papri (the Ducks’ Garden), the Granaries, the Mall, the parade ground as well as the Argotti botanical gardens. Need I say more?

I hope my voice would not be shouting in the darkness: I need the help of two Floriana stalwarts. Lolly Tonna and Tom Hedley thou should be living at this hour. Floriana has need of thee.

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