Hare-brained platitudes blowing up in a politician’s face will never not be funny

What are we skinning? The bruised pride of Valletta residents after PL candidate and PM’s sister-in-law Alison Zerafa Civelli suggested that ‘beltin’ only exhibited pride about the capital up until quite recently.

Why are we skinning it? Because hare-brained platitudes blowing up in a politician’s face will never not be funny.

But let’s face it, Valletta WAS allowed to let itself go over the decades... Yes, Malta’s capital city could have done with an earlier spit-polish.

So was Zerafa Civelli entirely off base? Oh, I think she was on-base. She was the Ace of Base, in fact, if we’re gonna run with a metaphor of brain-invading ‘summer fun’... she saw ‘The Sign’, and she was responding to it.

Why are you bringing the Swedish 90s ear-worm architects into this? Which ‘sign’ was she responding to? Just like Ace of Base’s perennial dance hits brightened many a beach-side sojourn for Gen X-ers and elder millennials back in the day, so will bars and restaurants now be allowed to play their thumping tracks and roll out the red carpet to karaoke-level live performers until 1am.

Certainly a controversial decision that has riled up many a ‘belti’... So maybe now would not be the best time to tell them they should shut up with their complaints because things were SO much worse beforehand.

Maybe their angry response was a tad disproportionate? Or maybe they’re already fed up about the government subjecting their hometown to a hare-brained and uncouth idea of what a ‘capital city’ should be, with their patience now running thin.

Fair enough. It’s not like Valletta has been lacking in proper developments of late, either. I mean, Renzo Piano built us a parliament.

And they now insist on putting ugly metal barriers in front of it. With pointless planters just across. Yes. The barbarians aren’t just at the gate. They’re erecting new ones as we speak.

Do say: “While it is good to acknowledge that the capital may have been economically and infrastructurally neglected in the past, stating that Valletta residents were previously ashamed of their hometown as a categorical, across-the-board fact is simply a bad idea to begin with... all the more so when you insist on salting the wound by then adding that the same residents should now feel ‘privileged’ to be able to experience the city on a regular basis, now that it’s about to become noisier and all the more disruptive for residents to actually live in.”

Don’t say: “Valletta residents ashamed of being from there?! That’s not my experience. The problem is an opposite one: they just won’t shut up about it...”