Arts

Feel Good Inc.

06.09.2011

Part 1 – food A holiday planned around a wedding in Cambridge was a great opportunity to really relax and switch off. While I could not really resist the temptation to hook onto WiFi and catch up on the news outside, I found the pull of the great town (its history, its food and its [...]


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Coffee

23.08.2011

End of the two weeks in Malta. The notes from a small island include a register of the pent up frustration that surfaces when discussing and that contrasts incredibly with the image of laid back Med country that is part of the daily tableau. We don’t travel to judge. Us expats I mean but we [...]


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Dak li l-Lejl

23.06.2011

Last night, Merlin’s flagship author Pierre Mejlak launched his latest collection of short stories entitled “dak li l-lejl iħallik tgħid” (“what the night lets you say”). The event was held in the sumptuous settings of Mdina’s Palazzo Falson – a jewel in Malta’s heritage crown and will surely be registered as an all-round success by [...]


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imagine 18 revisited

22.06.2011

And this is where I continue from yesterday’s post. As I was saying (at some point) my biggest worry in this kind of events is that the “culture” crowd gets a little toy and keeps it to itself for a few events that would be deemed “arty-farty”. I am sure that this is not my [...]


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imagine 18 impressions

21.06.2011

Yesterday I was in Valletta for the opening of the imagine18 Conference & Workshops organised by the Malta Council for Culture and Arts in order to prepare for Valletta’s bid to be the European Capital of Culture in seven years’ time. The event was held in the sumptuous surroundings of the Manoel Theatre and was [...]


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The Political Class

03.05.2011

One of my current “thinking post” books (i.e. books read while spending time in the restroom) is “The Triumph of the Political Class” by Peter Oborne. The book is a damning exposure of the mechanics of the political system in 21st century Britain. As I read through Oborne’s thesis I cannot help replacing the term [...]


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Cheap Spin by the Times

02.05.2011

The Times of Malta has its moments of cheap spin tapping on the volatility of your average voter in order to feed on the quickfire commentators response. Shortly after couching the appointment of the new head of the EU Representation in Malta in purely economic terms (here we go again… does Martin Bugelli earn more [...]


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The Enthusiasm of Youth

19.04.2011

Three days into my stay on the island and I am getting a bit of a tan notwithstanding the sporadic games of hide and seek played out by the big orb in the sky. I must continue to apologise for the relative laxity of updates on this blog but the mind and body have been [...]


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Orwell's Newspeak

25.03.2011

Here’s an extract from an essay by George Orwell that appeared in Horizon in the April 1946 edition. The essay entitled “Politics and English Language” may be found in its entirety on this page. Now to the extract: In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible. Things like the [...]


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Do Ut Des (Gli Onorevoli)

15.12.2010

Tenders (appalti), parliamentarians (deputati) and simpletons (gonzi) feature in this classic with the great Prince of Italian comedy and social commentary. Toto. Nothing much has changed has it?


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