Oh for a winter's day, hot soups and rooms which you have to warm up instead of cool down. I can't wait. So back to cool climes. Just the thought of all those lovely trees and flowers makes me feel a little cooler.
One thing is very noticeable in England. People go in and out of bookshops all the time. Books are big and important in the life of the average man, woman and child. I love Waterstone's in Cheltenham. It has comfortable armchairs on every floor and a café. One can spend hours in there. It is a luxury I enjoy and make the best of it whenever I am on holiday.
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From what I read it seems that sitting for hours on end is the new smoking. Goodness knows what lounging in front of the computer at work and my laptop at home is having on my metabolism. The mirror has nothing complimentary to say I am afraid. Thank goodness I am shortsighted. But even without my specs I can see that it reminds me of my wobbly tummy, not to mention other Michelin-tyre lookalike parts of my body which do not need a biscuit let alone a packet of them. I bumped into too many cream teas on my holiday, but who can resist those scones and all that goes with them? I haven't been beach-body ready for years but that is not going to deter me in any way. I look around and there are plenty who are fatter than me on every seashore in Malta.
We are constantly being reminded that sedentariness poses as big a threat to public health as smoking and causes more deaths than obesity. But then isn't obesity also a result of lack of exercise (apart from partaking of far too many calories)? So perhaps it is those trips to the Café at Waterstone's and shuffling off to the kitchen to fetch coffee and something sweet when I am at home which are keeping me alive.
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In the course of my browsings, one afternoon I discovered that Karl Marx is often misquoted. He did not simply say that 'Religion is the opium of the people' but 'Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.' Now that is much more satisfying!
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And surely many of you must remember the famous slogan 'The family that prays together, stays together.' I recall my parents repeating it. In those days families recited the rosary almost every day sometimes in front of a statue of Our Lady brought over by a member of the Legion of Mary (Does it still exist?). At home, for many years, this was part of the daily routine of my family. And it wasn't just the rosary we recited. Endless prayers to so many saints in heaven were added on from a book compiled by my father. And if you as much as sneezed or got a giggling fit following all those names of saints in Latin, then the decade had to be started all over again.
Certainly I have to say that in our case we remained a close family. But who invented that famous slogan? Well a chap called Al Scalpone. Behind it all was an Irish priest, Father Peyton, who recruited the Sullivan family (who had lost five sons during WWII), to say the rosary on radio as part of his campaign. They were backed by stars like Bing Crosby, Loretta Young, Grace Kelly, Bob Hope, Gregory Peck and others. But it was Al Scalpone, a young ad executive and copywriter who wrote the famous slogan 'The Family that Prays Together Stays Together' as well as 'A World of Prayer is a World of Peace'. He was a volunteer with Father Peyton for some 40 years.
I wonder if there are still families in Malta who meet in their homes and say the Rosary together. It beats watching Kim Kardashin and her silicone implants , husbands and hangerson - selling a coarse form of sex for money. How anyone can actually sit and watch such rubbish beats me.
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And imagine that the Scottish reformer John Knox wrote a book called The First blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women, published in Geneva in 1558.It attacks female monarchs, arguing that the rule by females is contrary to the Bible. I wonder what he would say had he been living today.
As to conversions and reconversions, as we know they are not always sincere. Henry IV, King of France (1553-1610) re-converted to Catholicism in order to gain the French crown. Hence the famous 'Paris vaut une messe.' (Paris is well worth a mass). Expendiency indeed.
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A friend gave me the first chapters of his autobiography which he is writing. A hardcore bibliophile and a culture vulture I learnt from one of the chapters that in 1866 when, in order to finance the planned building of the Royal Albert Hall (surely one of the most famous concert halls in the world) on the site of the Great Exhibition of 1851 it was decided to sell about 20% of the 5,500 seats proposed in the new hall. The seats were sold at £100 each leasehold for 999 years from 1866 subject to an annual levy rather akin to a service charge at a block of flats. The secretary keeps a list of would-be buyers although there may be a wait of some years. By 1975 a pair cost £4,000. By 2011 the price of two stall seats had risen to about £140,000.
Those who bought them earlier on have made an excellent investment not only money wise but more importantly to have permanent seats at the RAH is indeed a luxury without price.
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Charity shops are another very good source for purchasing of books, often in mint condition. I have to be very careful not to let my enthusiasm run off with me where books are concerned. I only bought four books this time and not very heavy ones either. However I was very unhappy when Air Malta charged me £50 as I was four kilos overweight. I found it very unfair as whether you are 1 or 10 kilos overweight it still costs you £50. Surely our struggling national airline should introduce some kind of scale to make this charge more fair. Time was, when Air Malta were much more generous with their passengers and closed an eye to a couple or so of extra kilos. This was good enough reason to always fly with our national airline. What with a piece of bread and a bottle of water as a meal and now this ridiculous charge it is time to rethink. A pity that the policy of being a little generous with extra kilos seems to be as distant and irrecoverable as the days when I was slim.