Brag II

Yesterday one of my paintings (picture) has won 2nd price at the Malta Society of Arts 6th Annual Competition. This year, 126 artists and 197 works of art took part in the competition. The event is being held at the Marchese Scicluna Hall, Trade Fair Grounds Naxxar. It will be open until the 8th of July 2007.

Ramla

Meds

According to today's Times of Malta, the price of a number of medicines sold on the local market should go down by the end of summer. Apparently the Working Committee on the Pricing of Medicinal Products has found that, during an exercise to compare local prices with the average in the EU, while a number of products were selling at prices below the average, others were more expensive. So now the Working committee is going to ask the medicinal products importers to reduce prices to the EU's average.

So far so good. The only problem is that the average Maltese paycheck comes nothing close to the average paycheck in the EU. and what about Maltese pensions, are they close to the average in the EU?

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er Duce

Yesterday I had the privilege of listening to Josie Muscat on Smash TV. He seemed to be quite offended that they labelled his new political party, Azzjoni Nazzjonali (AN), as extreme right. He said that when one mentions the extreme right one thinks of the fascist regimes before the 2nd world war and what they did, and AN is not like that. Their website goes further still; they claim that the political organization is not derived from any particular ideological doctrine.

Lets assume that the name AN is only by coincidence so close to ANR (alleanza nazzjonali repubblikana, the Maltese extreme right movement) and Fini’s Italian AN, the inheritors of Mussolini’s fascist party. Let’s assume that Mr. Philip Beattie ex ANR is not an extreme right political activist and that Mr. Josie Muscat never parted from the PN due to his extreme views, then we can assume that the newly founded AN is not an extreme-right political movement and that Josie Muscat is not just a Duce wannabe.

But for sure their political agenda is conservative and to the right of the political spectrum, especially to Maltese standards. Let’s just hope that we see no extreme elements.

Let’s just wait and see.

some more photos from Rome

Caput Mundi

What an eventful week! I have just arrived from a week at the citta eterna, Rome. Though this is my third time to the city, it was my first occasion that I really had the time to have a good look around and I did. My feet are still hurting from all the walking that we did. I cannot count the number of churches I went into, the remains I saw, the palaces, piazzas and monuments. Each corner you turn, a new surprise. Rome is just wonderful.

Apparently, even here a lot of things happened. More people lost at sea, the formation of a new (extreme) right political party, the arrest of a policeman for hitting an old lady, etc. etc. Unfortunately, I became aware of these things not because I was following the local news but because Italians have told me about them. We are beginning to be famous for the wrong reasons.

Here are some photos I had while I was there

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