Last Day

You know when you've been at a computer too long when...you're doing your make up in the mirror and you look in the bottom right hand corner for the time...

Coming home

Sad but true, but my little sojourn out in Malta is coming to an end. I am consuming all the leftovers and wondering if the little bit of shampoo I have left will last me till Thursday. I am a little concerned to say the least about the alarming number of 'planes that are falling out of the sky at present. I know I have to be rational about these things, but I wish they'd print more statistics, such as 'The 6895^th aeroplane to take off in the world this hour has met with a slight mishap'...or words to that affect. It would certainly sooth my troubled mind.

Food

This is my supper for tomorrow night. No, silly people, not all of it! This is tuna – caught today and it's resting in the fridge overnight. It'll be much better then. This is only a baby one. I knew they were quite big, but, wow! Sadly I don't have Nelson's Column or a London Double Decker to hand to show you the comparison, but it's about a metre and a bit long. In old money 4 feet or thereabouts...The fishermen caught too many apparently and consequently 5 are residing in my supplier's freezer. I saw a picture of one that was 300kg. Again, in old money, and in my estimation, about Very Big.

Phoenicia

I returned to Valletta today. I checked out the fine arts museum. It was certainly very impressive – not necessarily in terms of quantity but the quality shouldn't be ignored. Although less could be said for the lighting. Strip lighting of the 1960s served only to befuddle the viewer. Adopting a meer-cat like stance, with head bobbing to the left and right, was the only way in which one able to achieve a sense of the subject matter in some of the rather impressive paintings. A shame. The building was lovely. One Horatio Nelson had connections with it, something to do with his naval days and serving a three year stint in Malta.

And then I went for a little walk to see parts of Valletta that I haven't seen before. I walked up to Hastings Gardens and saw the views over to Mdina and all the towns inbetween, a bit of a sprawling metropolis where they all merge into one, but still quite interesting nonetheless. I managed to find a view overlooking the bus terminus. Chaotic and dangerous in equal measure. As the buses made their way round the vast Triton Fountain, horns blowing, polluting the planet and eroding the limestone, I could see St Publius church, which is quite a vast structure and also the Hotel Phoenicia. Now, the Hotel Phoenicia is a (?the) 5 star hotel in Malta and it boasts many things and to give them credit, where credit's due, they do 'big up the bus'. Now this is where you take a deep breath, pause and say 'However'. To not put too fine a point on it, it would have to be pretty fucking spectacular on the inside to make me want to stay there. Views to the front will contain the one and only bus route into the terminus, views to the side contain the terminus itself, views from another part contain all the ne'er do wells that hang around by the bus terminus, views from the other side contain some shoddy tennis courts and chuck in a car park or two around the way. And there you have it. Welcome to the Hotel Phoenicia. Maybe when it was built it had quite a different aspect...and I'm sure it did – quite a commanding position all things considered, but oh, how things change!

Solitude

I went off into the hinterland of Malta today. You'll understand the little joke I'm having there as Malta is pocket sized and teeny tiny. However, I was driven by a need to find total solitude. I want to know if it exists. All day every day tyres squealing, children crying, dogs barking, music playing. It really is quite a cacophony of sound. So I looked at my pocket sized map (see second line) and went a-walking. I walked past the beach I usually go to. Hellish – see above. I walked past the other beach, which was a bit like a shanty town. Then walked up a stony path that got rockier and rockier. I saw less people and then I didn't see anyone...but I could hear some music. So I walked a bit further. And then it happened. I didn't hear anything. For about 4 seconds and then a speed boat made its way past. So people, it IS possible to find silence in Malta albeit for a few seconds.

Ask me if it's possible to go anywhere on Malta without seeing a plastic water bottle and that would have to be an emphatic no.

Crime Museum – Police HQ

9 a.m. to 4 p.m. the Crime Museum at the Police Headquarters, Floriana, displaying murder scenes and accessories of crime. The Police Museum features equipment used since the forces' inception

...so runs the daily classified ad in The Times. And so I went along. This is not something that is marketed as part of the 'tourist trail' as all of the legends were in Maltese. This is a shame as I could only guess at the gruesome circumstances in which people met their untimely end in bath tubs and washing machines. A family were been given the guided tour when I arrived, all in Maltese of course. The first room was the usual uniform-through-the-ages, austere-photos-of-distinguished-policemen, modes-of-transport type thing. Tantalisingly a room lay shrouded in darkness which promised rich pickings as far as all things gruesome were concerned. I idly made my way up and down the room waiting for the tour to get as far as this room. If I wasn't in a police station I'm sure I'd look very suspicious. Thankfully, after she'd explained in HUGE amounts of detail about a cell in 1845, the policewoman made her way to the arch and switched the lights on. She did the preliminary checks with the parents of the family to make sure they were happy for their children to be witness to 'murder scenes and accessories of crime' and we were in. Behind glass panels were staged re-enactments of, presumably, notorious murders of the past...well...50 years. Bearing in mind that Malta lays claim to being one of the oldest police forces in Europe it (?happily) lacks the pedigree of infamy that we, in the UK, are familiar with. Although, interestingly, they do make reference to the botched Egyptian Air hijack in 1985. The other thing that surprised me, in the half dozen or so displays of murder, was the relative 'newness' of it all. What did the families make of it all to see their loved ones depicted in their final moments by dummies?

Holidaying on your own

Clearly there are advantages and disadvantages.

Disadvantages:

1. If you want chips you have to order them yourself
   
2. Photographs are boring if there's nobody else in them, apart from random Japanese tourists
   
3. Who rubs suntan on your back?
   
4. You have way more postcards to write
   
5. There's no one else to blame if you get lost
   

Advantages:

1. Great weight loss plan
   
2. You never get lost
   
3. You don't have to rush back for anyone or anything
   
4. No arguments about what you want to go and see and when
   
5. People think you're local