Profoundly predictably, Ms Marisa Micallef's "defection" (and please note the inverted commas) to Labour set many a heart a-flutter amongst those for whom it has become oh-so-fashionable to be anti-PN. You know the ones I mean, the columnists and commentators for whom the government can do no right, usually because whatever the government does, however the government does it, is a symptom of said government's arrogance and detachment from the people.

Amongst these newly-distilled champagne socialists, who wouldn't know real socialism if it stood up and punched them on the nose, we find a raft of people whose own personal agendas always take on an importance that is national in scale. When something is important to them, whether it is the roof on a theatre, the size of taxpayers' handouts to the arts or which development is acceptable and which is not (and which backyard it's in) it becomes, by a process of self-absorbed navel-gazing, something of the utmost national significance, a platform from which to attack the very government that has provided them with the freedom to worry about such things.

Ms Micallef has become quite the heroine for these people, who will no doubt take great exception to my daring to poke a bit of fun at her and at her new employers. But a bit of fun I will poke, have no fear.

The first thing that happened, just after Ms Micallef's new job hit the news, was that Mr Jason Micallef, for many one of the main reasons why Labour lost the last elections, got given the Royal Order of the Boot. Whether one event predicated the other or whether one was conditional on the other is not immediately clear, though by the time you read this, it might have become so, but the fact remains that as soon as Ms Micallef joined the merry band of brothers, Mr Micallef walked the plank.

A case of advice being taken from Day One or a simple coincidence? I have no idea - the amusing thing is, if this were a case of advice given and taken, there are those who are expecting Joseph Muscat to announce his own resignation imminently because Ms Micallef had long ago pronounced Labour unelectable as long as he was involved with it.

The second that happened was that The Times on Tuesday carried a letter from a Marisa Micallef, writing from London. It must be assumed that this Marisa Micallef and the new-found darling of the Labour smart set are one and the same and, frankly, if this letter is a sample of the sort of ideas she's going to be giving them, they might want to consult those sections of employment law that deal with probation.

Not to put too fine a point on it, which I don't, often, Ms Micallef's letter was puerile and an insult to the intelligence of even the most uninformed Lil'Elf. It took the form of a story about red tribes and blue tribes and such like inanities. I lost the will to live about two or three paragraphs in and tried to cut to the chase but it didn't improve.

If Ms Micallef thought she was being clever, then I'm afraid she fell far, far short of the mark. If, on the other hand, this is the stuff that she thinks will impress her new clients, then if I were them, I'd feel insulted: this woman must think that your average Labour bod either has the IQ of a particularly stupid stone or hasn't the wit to notice when something is entirely inappropriate.

Ms Micallef, sadly for her, does not appear to have the willingness to pen a frank and open explanation for what many see as behaviour that is significantly lacking in loyalty. She was a PN candidate and a government appointee to a relatively high position: if she thinks that scribbling a childish parable is an appropriate way to explain her actions since leaving these positions, she's either a silly girl or insensitive in the extreme.

Whichever it is, I don't see that Labour have got themselves much of a catch in her.

I hope they won't feel aggrieved by their inclusion in this week's column, which is redolent of actions that leave a slightly nasty taste in the mouth but the people who run It-Tmun in Mġarr should feel proud of themselves.

We went there for dinner on Saturday and it was excellent. The food, from starter through main to desert, was fine. The selection of wines was up to the mark and the service, unsurprisingly since this is Gozo and, moreover, It-Tmun, was exactly as it should be.

While on the subject of service, permit me a small salute to the gentleman (and I use the word advisedly) who served us at Jubilee at It-Tokk last Saturday lunchtime. A rude, cantankerous oaf of English extraction, whose advanced years should have instructed him otherwise, did his best to upset him but was unsuccessful. I was tempted to be rude to the Brit myself but the composure shown by our waiter was sufficient unto the day.

imbocca@gmail.com, www.timesofmalta.com/blogs