Bad weather and worse
Whether the weather is the villain, or whether we are for our role in bringing about so much catastrophic weather change is something that history books may tell us. Either way, New Orleans is devastated, idyllic holidays in beaches around Thailand are a non, a nein and a no for many, as thousands freeze in camps in Pakistan, awaiting the end of a freezing winter. It has certainly not been a good year weather-wise, and the way Malta just becomes a big puddle very time we have heavy rain is not something we can ignore for much longer either, is it?
The EU Constitution
Thankfully, the independent-minded French and Dutch gave a resounding no to this. And yet in Malta, the country where red and blue rarely agree, there was agreement on it; the people were never asked and membership was assumed to mean yes to the EU Constitution too.
London
The favourite city of many, many Maltese gloried in the joy of having won the bid to host the Olympic games in 2012, and was then wrecked by the bombs, both underground and above-ground, of 7/7. The individual stories of grim heroism and pure British grit abound, but one that touched me was about a woman who had survived both a brutal rape a year earlier and being a passenger on the tube when the bombs struck.
Some people are not only meant to live. They use their experiences to help others in the most self-sacrificing of ways.
Heroes in Iraq
These are the poor people who are brave enough to testify against Saddam Hussein and all the cruelty, torture and destruction he inflicted in the most bestial of ways. Yes, more than 200 foreigners have been abducted in Iraq, but so have more than 5,000 Iraqis.
Science
Despite all the hysteria locally about the word embryo, always understood as a small baby and not a cluster of cells, stem cell research may open the door to alleviate a whole lot of terrible suffering and conditions which are so heartbreaking and so soul and life-destroying, that all our holier than thous really need to get a reality check before they open their mouths.
And of course we Europeans landed on Titan, one of Saturn’s moons, where conditions are thought to resemble those of earth five billion years ago. There may lie the key to the secrets of how life began…
The British Press
I do admire the way people in public life have their lives examined but there has to be a limit. Why should our politicians pontificate about morality and then have very different private codes of conduct? Yes, but did David Blunkett have to be hounded for having an affair with either a married woman or a young blond? What one earth did this blind man do to bug the British press so much? Perhaps the Prince of Wales who was overheard at Klosters saying about the press: “These bloody people. I hate doing this” wasn’t all that wrong...
Two Germans: Angela Merkel…
I mean, why do women always get the most difficult of jobs, other than perhaps because they can actually hack it? Angela Merkel is now fairly successfully heading a government coalition of the two main parties. Can you imagine this in Malta for example? Might be a good thing all round...
…and the Pope
The Pope loved by everyone – religious or not, Catholic or not – died and the whole world waited for his slow death. He became the symbol for so much, particularly the fall of communism in Eastern Europe, that his legacy is enormous. Once again, a German hits centre stage, and this Pope appears to be trying to tone down his reactionary image. It is much needed!
David Cameron
He wins the leadership race because he is young and has a lot of nice hair (besides cycling to work and having a disabled child). At least the Conservatives now have a real leader leading them. Will England abandon Brown, Blair’s likely successor and give smiling American style Cameron a chance? It may be so...
Sporting heroes
Not my team but you have to hand it to Liverpool FC for their success in Istanbul, and to England’s cricket team for regaining the Ashes.
Meanwhile, my team Arsenal continue to slide, though they did well in Europe. Still, we have to have the lows to enjoy the highs, in footie as in much else.
Cheap labour
All over the well-paid world, jobs are being lost, as they have been for years, because labour is so very cheap all over Asia and in parts of Eastern Europe too. No wonder the Russians are flocking here in their thousands. This is, for all our problems, a relative paradise compared to the grind of their lives. Anyone who does not understand why a Russian girl would want a pot-bellied balding Maltese male as her prize needs to go and see just how stark, grim and full of bleak nothingness so much of Eastern Europe and Russia still is.