Regular readers will doubtless recall repeated suggestions in these columns that waste collections might best be made at night. Cynical commentators on the online forum usually quickly dismissed the idea as being “far too obvious an idea to be implemented”.

Among the reasons for this strikingly sensible idea is that workers would not then need to toil in the heat of the day. Another was that collections would cause less disruption to traffic. Yet another was that it solved the problem of timing the placing of bags outside in order for them not to be left too long in the heat.

This extraordinarily logical solution has been repeated here several times. There was supposedly to be some form of ‘public consultation’ on the subject. It was announced a couple of years ago but I have seen no evidence of its results.

Anyway, I was reminded of all this at noon on Monday when I found myself stuck in a line of cars, lorries and coaches behind a garbage truck collecting bags along the single-lane section of the road from Victoria to the harbour.

My sole consolation was amusement at the thought that some presumably overpaid official had created a schedule for waste collections to operate on Gozo’s busiest and only main road at mid-day.

That definitely takes some nifty planning.