The closure of the spring hunting season has seen the return of some splendid migrating birds to our islands. Unfortunately, it has also produced a number of disgruntled hunters.

My suggestion is to make use of the sharp-shooting skills of these hunters by allowing them to gather in the streets of Swieqi, each with his own turf and rubber-bullet rifles, and declare a new open season on a new breed of nocturnal loud chanting and chattering apes that migrate there from all over Europe.

For clearly, our police force and local councils are helpless to tackle this situation. Their job description only allows them to silence a Maltese construction worker who starts at 6.55 a.m. but not a foreign ‘howligan’ at 1.55 a.m.

The idea of sending an SMS for each drunken chant heard at night has been tried during previous seasons but they have never reached the quota set by that other representative of the people, the Minister of Tourism, perhaps due to the powerful Paceville lobby.