Ok gang! Place your EuroVision 2012 bets. Before you go racing to the bookies read on. According to ABC News, reports about alleged rights violations in Azerbaijan are capturing international attention as the country prepares to host this year’s Eurovision song contest. Eurovision is the most prestigious cultural event in […]
m’Blog
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Time to grasp your jewellery with all your life. Gulp down that Gin and tonic. Batten down the hatches. Pull up the drawbridges and let battle commence. This is going to be a tantrum like no other as Queen Sofia of Spain and Queen Elizabeth of Great Britain go head-to-head […]
For the second time in living memory politicians across Europe are fidgeting dangerously in their respective quarters. In the past couple of weeks the political rhetoric between the big beasts of the EU like France, Germany, Spain and even the United Kingdom have become noticeably and diplomatically noisy, even deafening. […]
This is the story of the day when Italy becomes a little less Italian. From the beginning of the 2014 academic year The Politecnico di Milano, one of Italy’s leading technical universities, all MSc and PhD courses will be taught exclusively in English. While the university already offers several courses […]
Today is the 200th anniversary of the birth of Edward Lear. Although a talented illustrator and painter, Lear is best known for his nonsense verse. His poetry demonstrates a defining love of eccentricity, verbal invention and poetic delight in the sound of words. His best known poem is The Owl […]
Weetabix. It’s as traditional as you can get at the breakfast table. For generations the semi-healthy option to Kelloggs Corn Flakes and Quaker Oates. The option to a good old fry up. But now that doyen of the early healthy start has been gobbled up by no other than the […]
Ok, so, well, what can I say? Since the General Election I have on occasions been hammered by some for ‘banging on’ about The Labour Party. For ‘not giving the coalition a chance’. For ‘agreeing to disagree’ (something I would never do). Yet today I open the media to discover […]
It appears I need to take elocution lessons. British Telecom has lost the ability to understand what I say, despite my efforts to use English with as few syllables and complicated words as possible. Three times in as many minutes I asked this telecom giant NOT to publish the telephone […]
Norwegian expressionist Edvard Munch’s The Scream has become the most expensive artwork sold at auction. It fetched an alarming $119.9m (£74m). It’s a tad scary because thats more than I earn in a week. Bidding lasted 12 minutes which is better than a bid on eBay which can last a […]
When they write the story of Queen Victoria the picture portrayed is generally that of a slightly stubborn, rather unhappy widowed monarch. In a way she had much to be miserable about. After giving birth to 9 children, the love of her life dying in 1861 and then seemingly spending […]
Over the years various individuals have falsely maintained to be related to me. One of them claims to be a nephew – a son of my sister. And the reason for all this weirdness – he said he wanted to know more about his ‘lost uncle’. This guy originally made […]
I seriously welcome contact from anyone. Friends, colleagues, real members of my family are genuinely welcome . You can send a message here .
I really have to get something off my chest. It’s a presentation matter – on the BBC actually. It’s something that’s seriously driving me up the bleedin’ wall. Some years ago my now 60 year old ears finally retired from UK commercial radio. I could no longer stand the countless […]
The Times of Malta, that bastion of media balance, is in a very boastful mood. An eventful start to 2012 saw over 1.6 million visitors browse timesofmalta.com in the first 10 days of the year – unprecedented figures for a Maltese website. That figure jumps five-fold, to just over 8.5 […]
I love the Internet. Indeed without the World Wide Web that was invented or should I say evolved by some horrible coincidence in my life I think from a personal point of view my existence would be totally different. Just as I was beginning to lose the use of my […]
Apart from uplifting events personally, this has been a rubbish year. Riots, burning, thieving, national political gloom, lies and garbage from those who should know better. Credibility sold for a cent. National pride and a country’s good name kicked in the teeth by those who run it. Good, then not […]
In 2007 I was asked to write a piece on Maltese radio. 20 years after deregulation here is an update. In a medium where “content is king” and where in Malta the Maltese have such choice, in fact all that seems to be on offer is much of the same. […]
The eighth of August 2011 will go down as one of South London’s darker dates. It will stay in our memories probably for ever. As London was burning, the sirens were screaming, as news channels broadcast our hell live to the world, I can remember watching the thick black smoke […]
When I was a boy I remember a scandal in the early 1960s that brought the Macmillan government to its knees. I am of course referring to the Profumo affair, an event so appalling that elderly members of my family refused to discuss it in front of us children. But […]
These last few weeks have been quite extraordinary in a positive and happy way. First there was the build-up and anticipation, then the “big day”, followed by the “getting back to normal” syndrome. I am in fact referring to our civil registration which took place on Saturday as an extremely […]