Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/797847
Opinion 25 maltatoday, SUNDAY, 12 MARCH 2017 something like a 'walnut'... and then make it impossible to actually open without the use of power-tools. It was only when I noticed that some were of different sizes that I realised they were not actually mass-produced in a factory somewhere... Sorry, folks, but you don't just 'rebuild' natural rock formations caused by millions of years of erosion. And if it were even possible – which it isn't – what on earth would you want to do it for, anyway? Part of what made the 'Azure Window' such a magnificent (and irreplaceable) spectacle was precisely the knowledge that it was carved out of the rock by the forces of nature... and not by man, in which case it would have been considered an eyesore. Had it really been 'built by man', you can rest assured that it would not have been sought after as a backdrop for so many movies, music videos and soft- porn bikini fashion shoots. In fact, short of possibly Las Vegas, I can't think of anything that can compete with an artificial Azure Window for pure kitsch (which, of course, also means that such an aberration could very easily become a huge hit with tourists). That last thought brings me to the outright winner of this week's 'whacky responses' competition: and yes, for a change it's the prime minister who can't claim to be the underdog. Let the lesser mortals clamour for the artificial reconstruction of an un- rebuildable natural wonder. Joseph Muscat has a better idea... we'll retrieve the pieces from the sea and hold them up for the public to marvel at and adore. I shall have to concede that, as a tourism marketing ploy, the idea is sheer genius. Yes, let us turn Dwejra into a global centre for pilgrimage. Who wouldn't travel the world to see (possibly even touch, if you can afford it) the famed fragments of the Fallen Window? Why, the same strategy worked wonders with 'pieces of the True Cross' back in the Middle Ages. And the best part of it is that all you need are a bunch of stones – any stones – from the seabed. Who the heck will ever notice if it's the wrong stone, anyway? It's not as though the window was made of some kind of special rock found nowhere else on the islands. The 'roof ' was limestone, and the pillar was... my, what a coincidence! More limestone.... only the 'lower coralline' variety this time. In other words, the same stuff that the rest of Malta and Gozo is 'built' of anyway. You can literally chip away at the walls of your own house, soak the rubble in seawater, and then claim it's an authentic piece of the True Arch. Which for all we know could even be true of most of the stones submerged under those cliffs anyway... regardless whether they fell there last Wednesday, at the time of the Great Siege, or somewhere in the Late Pleistocene era. That was all part of the erosion that formed the Azure Window, too. So make no mistake: Joseph is into something here. It's cheap, it's easy, it's doable... and there are even contracts to be given out to labour donors. In time, I can see the annual Azure Window pilgrimage – complete with laser shows, fireworks displays, and concerts featuring forgotten cover-acts from the 1970s – rivalling even the Hajj in Mecca. All thanks to a window that was never even a window to begin with...