Lesson in economics

I react to the article in the Times of Malta citing an organisation saying not to compare the cost of home cooking with restaurant meals. I recount an event which I personally experienced.

As an emergency teacher in the 1960s, after school I regularly met in Valletta colleagues who were also in transit to their towns and villages. We met for tea and pastizzi in one of the many city coffee shops to exchange gossip and experiences.

Our favourite shop was the one with very elaborate ceiling carvings and good value for money. There, one could learn what was going on in the island and beyond. There I became acquainted with aspects of life from which boarding school and my family environment had shielded me. I learned a practical economics lesson which our finance teacher had never taught us.

During one tea and pastizzi session, a customer, who came from the opposite political party to the owner’s, berated the latter about the fact that the government had doubled the licence fee for bars and coffee shops. The shop owner made conciliatory noises but said nothing until the customer left. Then, he said: “What a naive fool, doesn’t he realise that the government has made me a great favour?” The rest of us, who had kept out of the argument, looked at him in askance.

 He explained that the licence fee had double from £10 to £20 per annum. However, due to the hike, he would now increase the cost of a cup of tea or coffee as well as every pastizz by a penny (1d). Since he sold an average of 250 teas/coffees and 40 dozen pastizzi daily, from the following Saturday his income would increase by an extra 720 pence or £3 per day. He was telling us that he would be earning an extra £90 a month, which was four times our monthly emergency teachers’ salary.

His teas and pastizzi did not taste so delicious that evening.

Charles Farrugia – Rabat

World of fantasy

Construction continues unabated in Gozo. Photo: Shutterstock.com

Gozo was featured at length in the travel section of The Times, on August 4.

It began “Rural, peaceful, and comparatively untouched...”

And one is forced to wonder how long it must be, in decades, since the writer visited this place.

Revel Barker – Għajnsielem

Religious festas

Joe Inguanez (August 3) calls for a serious dialogue on “religious festas”. I take it he’s conscious that north Europeans regard these southern European feasts, with parading of religious statues, as nothing short of idolatry. This practice would have been acceptable when most of the population was illiterate.

In a 21st-century “liberal democracy” they are probably most accurately described as nothing more than of “cultural with tourism value”.

I doubt whether they’ll be scrapped (and the money thrown at them directed instead to charities) any time soon. 

Albert Cilia-Vincenti – Attard