There’s a lot of things that have had me scratching my head this week. For starters, in the wake of everything that is going on, the Department of Information has decided that it is appropriate to turn its Facebook page into an animal appreciation space. I’m not going to lie; I thought they had been hacked like the Tarxien local council page when I saw a small, sleeping dog in a jacket had been uploaded as the cover photo.

I scrolled up and down the page a few times and realised that this was a running theme. The small canine was no isolated incident; our government Department of Information page has become a shrine to fluffy animals, and no one seems to have a problem with this.

I instinctively envision a little old lady uploading these photos while giggling over her Lion Tea and Lidl biscotti, but to be honest, it’s probably some bloke in his late 30s called Jason who decided that one of the most important pages in the country should be turned into a petting zoo. It’s only a matter of time before I develop a nervous tick from keeping most of my incredulity at the way this country is still running in check. We’ve literally gone to the dogs.

Speaking of colourful happenings, a Labour parliamentary secretary has decreed that Ċikku Fenech’s abandoned Land Rover which was left to rot in the field he tended should be restored and added as a feature to the new public garden that is being planned. Yes, that Fenech, the one that murdered a man, went on the run, was eventually imprisoned for his crime, and who was let out of prison early only to grievously wound another man.

There are a million things that we could throw money at, but for some reason unbeknownst to me, we are going to fix and polish the car of a convicted killer and reintegrate it into what will probably be our latest ‘Ode to Concrete’.

Maybe next year we’ll have a statue of Ġiġa made to replace Queen Victoria’s statue in Valletta with it; the pigeons seem tired of Old Vicki anyway. We can even have a photo of a cute dog next to it so the DOI can have something new to upload.

Of course, none of this week’s clownery would be complete without some racist quotable quotes. In the face of the tragedy unfolding in Afghanistan, many of our fellow countrymen thought it would be yet another splendid opportunity to demonstrate to the entire world just how kind and giving they are and start to do the usual “Go back to your country” dance.

My absolute favourites are people who emigrated to Australia and Canada 50 years ago telling other people to go back to their lands. The irony is apparently only not lost on me; it must be great fun to have opinions on how your homeland should handle things when you’re not even in the same time zone. Just looking at our reactions to things, it’s little wonder that the Taliban managed to wreak so much havoc in such a few days. Twenty years don’t change a country: in our case, 60 haven’t.

I’ve often wondered how people manage to digest local news and still wake up with a smile on their faces, but then I remember that I’m one of the very negative few who doesn’t seem able to let the ridiculousness of this country slide. Maybe it’s time for me to visit the puppies on the DOI page; that should cheer me right up.