It's easier to love the callow kids among the cast of Love Island than it is to love Malta, at this point

What are we skinning? The island descending into a fresh bout of Muscatian political scandal concurrently with the nation being doped into submission by Love Island Malta.

Why are we skinning it? Both phenomena are worthy of analysis and consideration when taken on their own; mashed together, they become an absurdist banquet for us to feast on.

Do you think that the scions of the Muscat administration regret not being in government for Love Island Malta's unveiling? I would say so, yes. Superficially, at least, their rallying cry was one of unity, and few things in recent memory have united the nation's collective attention better than this franchised reality show which aims to engineer love among its cherry-picked contestants.

Doesn't the fateful hospitals deal also hinge on a franchise whose entry into the island is based on engineered and cherry-picked relationships? You could say so, yes. Allegedly, of course.

Given that the legal process for all of this will be messy and painful for all involved, wouldn't it perhaps be a better idea to stick all of the usual suspects in a remote villa and have them duke it out then? Remote-ish... I mean it's Malta (and/or Gozo) we're talking about here.

Comino too. Don't give them any ideas. They've already put forward too many.

You know what I mean. My point still stands. Well, given how reality TV revels in at least the impression of transparency, it would be a welcome change from the long-gestating drips and drabs of information that we've otherwise been receiving from this story.

Love Island is airing on TVM, the national broadcaster. Which technically makes us a stakeholder in the show. And so far, the show seems to have held its own end of the bargain, by ostensibly proving itself to be of enough entertainment value for a large chunk of the population.

Not so for the hospitals deal. Not really. So far we've just been privy to witnessing our hard-earned tax monies flushed down the drain in a deal that's looking skeezier and skeezier by the second.

What would be the ideal payoff, then? Well, a magic wand solution that actually gives us upgraded and workable new hospitals would be good. And fair.

But that's unlikely to happen. Yeah, so I suppose we'd have to settle for the schadenfreude of seeing some high-profile arrests.

That'll destabilise the country something fierce. What this case has shown us is that we weren't in fact doing so great even while we were allegedly 'stable', so I say crack open that Pandora's box and let the chips fall where they may.

It's a disorienting proposition. Relax, bello.

Do say: "If there's any whiff of the American-style 'infotainment' phenomenon to the recent developments in the hospitals case and its subsequent fallout, it's only because the protagonists in question have led us to that point of absurdist corrupt dealings. Allegedly."

Don't say: "It's easier to love the callow kids among the cast of Love Island than it is to love Malta, at this point. At least the kids feel as though they could be fixable at some point in their personal histories."