During 2010 Adrian Vassallo said he preferred to live in Iraq than have porn in hotel rooms, Austin Gatt was scathing about low budget tourists who cannot afford the new bus rates, while Tonio Fenech paid flowery homage to his stay-at-home wife, and managed to insult all working mothers in the process.

It has certainly been a year for quotable quotes, but I don’t think it’s because politicians spouted off at the mouth more than in other years.

It’s because as soon as someone is reported to have said something, it is picked up all over the Internet where it swiftly and immediately goes viral. Links are posted on Facebook and other sites, and people immediately tick ‘share’ and ‘like’, and once that happens, curiosity is aroused and even more people click on the link to see what it’s all about.

Think back about the above quotes as well as the biggest stories over the last 12 months and ask yourself how you learned about them. The traditional media of newspapers, TV and radio may have been the initial source, but chances are that you were also directed to a link to the online newspaper, a podcast or a Youtube video.

The thing with stories that go viral is that there is no guessing which one will capture the nation’s imagination; more often than not, it won’t be a story which those running the country would like us to focus on.

For example, the video clip of two women having a no holds barred slanging match on a bus was shared so often it became one of the most watched videos on Youtube. I’ve often wondered if these two (erm) ladies ever became aware of their sudden cult status and how much unintended hilarity they provided.

On a more glamorous note, the fact that Tiffany Pisani was winning round after round each week on Britain’s Next Top Model over the summer months, was more interesting to many people than any political issue. The average 20-something might not know (or care) what the names of their MPs are, but they do know that Tiffany wept over the loss of her flowing locks when the producers decided she should get her hair chopped off. It has also been rumoured that the LivingTV Group in the UK became aware that the channel was being transmitted illegally in Malta, precisely because it came to their attention that so many Maltese people were watching BNTM.

While there are those who feel that the Internet has led to social isolation with everyone absorbed in their own little world via their monitor and their iPhone, it is this very same Internet, paradoxically, which is connecting us more than ever before. Proof of this is the fact that, inevitably, it is the human interest stories which tend to overshadow large-scale national events.

Take the Pope’s visit: the PR machinery of the Church pulled out all the stops preparing for the pomp and ceremony, but on a grassroots level there seemed to be more attention being paid to the controversy of whether unwed couples should receive Holy Communion. Meanwhile, a foolish comment against the Pope on Facebook landed a young man with a fine and a suspended jail sentence, and he became the talk of the town as everyone discussed his actions. And despite all efforts made by ecclesiastical authorities, what really overshadowed the Pope’s visit were the allegations of abuse by Catholic priests which the public felt had not been adequately addressed. In fact, it was only when Pope Ratzinger met with the Maltese victims of child abuse that he redeemed himself in the eyes of many. In this instance, the carefully orchestrated visit had to bow down to public pressure; pressure which can definitely be traced to the widespread availability of information at our fingertips at the touch of a keyboard.

New year, fresh start?

According to the Family Mediation Helpline in the UK, 1.8 million couples contemplate divorce during the Christmas period. Relate, the UK’s largest provider of relationship support, also confirms that there is a surge of divorce proceedings initiated at the beginning of each year.

I don’t have any statistics for the local scenario but I would think it follows a similar pattern. Depressing as these numbers are, if you think about the reasons why people throw in the towel just as a new year comes along, it begins to make sense.

First there is the enforced gaiety of the festive season – everywhere you go there is the constant reminder that this is the time to be jolly, to rejoice and be thankful for your blessings. If your home life has denigrated to the point where you cannot find anything to smile about, the sight of happy families is just a cruel slap in the face, which simply reinforces your own predicament.

Then there is the vacation leave itself, forcing spouses to see more of each other than they normally would. With no office or workplace to escape to which offers much-needed respite from domestic problems, a couple suddenly has to come to terms with the fact that they have no relationship to speak of.

To make matters worse, there are the obligatory family lunches and get togethers – if you are not getting along with your spouse, the last thing you want to do is spend time with his/her relatives.

So there you have it, a recipe for disaster if there ever was one, bringing into sharp relief just why so many marriages break down irrevocably over the Christmas and New Year period. Finally, let’s not forget the very nature of this time of year, when people are wont to look back on the previous 12 months and contemplate what’s in store for them as they flip the calendar to January. As they take stock of their lives, the questions are inevitable: Will it be more of the same? Will things get worse? Can I stand to live with this person one more day or is it time to make a clean break, and embark on a fresh start?

Perhaps in the past our parents and grandparents never had to ask themselves these questions, because they did not have such unrealistic expectations of what marriage was all about. They seemed to instinctively understand that the glue, which holds a relationship together, is added layer after layer over time, aided by hefty doses of patience and compromise. They accepted the fact that their feelings towards each other would ebb and flow, as they went through different phases in their lives, and that it would not always be about giddy passion, thrills and excitement, but would also include periods of time when they would annoy and irritate the hell out of each other, for no particular reason at all. I suppose it’s all about the way you handle the rocky patches: just as love and respect can be built over time, so can they be shredded irreparably into tiny pieces over months and years of insults, scathing comments and hostility.

I once read something which has stayed with me: asked what the secret is to a long, successful marriage an elderly gentleman replied that the trick is to keep falling in love…but always with the same person.

It is a simple enough formula but if it were only that easy to do there would hardly be any marital breakdowns: unfortunately, what happens instead is that people seek to recapture that magical feeling of falling in love…with someone new.

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