Diverse Ramblings

One Woman, One Vote

It's amazing what an education you can pick up along the way if you read a lot of books, although it might take a few years to sink in.

Around the age of eleven, I had read all the Enid Blyton books available to me, and felt ready for something else. So my father got me started on his vast collection of science fiction books, mostly Isaac Asimov and Robert Heinlein, and some Arthur C. Clarke. I loved those stories!

Many of the books operated on, say, three levels - the first level was entertainment (characters and plot), the second level was exploring the possibilities of science (mostly in the future, in space or on another planet), and the third level was socio-political commentary. At the time, I was clueless as to the third level, but now as I remember the books I realise that there was a lot in there that was over my head.

In Starship Troopers, citizenship, or the right to vote, has to be earned through military service. If you don't volunteer for this military service, then you still live in society but you don't have the right to vote.

This is similar to Athenian Democracy in that, besides fulfilling the other qualifications necessary (such as not being a slave or a woman, for example), an adult male also had to have completed his military training.

On the other hand, I grew up knowing that the only requirement for me to vote was to be at least eighteen years old - I didn't have to earn it. So maybe I didn't think of it as a privilege, which I'm sure I would have had I grown up in ancient Athens, or in not-so-ancient Europe before women were emancipated.

My religion teacher in Form 3 told us that it was our duty to vote.

I don't know if I would say it was a duty - but if you can vote and you don't, then you have thrown away your right to have a say in the running of your country. And that means that for the rest of that electoral term, you don't have a right to complain about all the things that the Government is doing wrong (the state of the roads, the level of income tax, waste of taxpayers' money, etc etc).

Because if you vote a political party into power, you can grumble (imbasta they promised us everything), and if the party you didn't vote for won the election, then you can grumble with even more righteous indignation.

But if you didn't vote, then you didn't every try.

I'm fed up of hearing people giving their predictions as to when the general elections will be called - so much speculation as to whether it will be the 8th of March (but then maybe local council elections will have to be postponed) or maybe it will be March 15th (but that's right after Duluri) and so on and so forth...

Mind you, once the date is announced then people will just talk about it even more.

The Nationalist Party seemed to have kicked off an unofficial campaign a couple of weeks ago, first with billboards pointing out some of the consequences of Sant's suggestion to devalue the Lira just before Euro conversion, and then more recently with pictures of an awkward-looking Gonzi explaining to disinterested citizens that everything will be fine. Now all pretence has been abandoned, and new billboard advertisments include words like agħżel (Labour Party) and the blatant ivvota (Azzjoni Nazzjonali).

I hope that (a) the date is announced soon and (b) that the electoral campaign is SHORT, because I don't know how much of the campaigning I can take...

I will, incidentally, be rude to anyone who, under orders from Party headquarters, phones me up to either remind me to vote or ask me who I voted for. The answers are, I'll do it in my own good time, and none of your business.

In the meantime, The Malta Chronicle is an interesting place to read about the Malta Elections 2008, hooray for the internet and free speech.

The Employment Gender Gap - not necessarily a bad thing

There was an article in The Times today (as there periodically is) about how Malta is "improving" with regards to the level of female employment.

I don't see why we keep hearing this touted as an improvement.

I know plenty of women who work, (I am one myself, hahaha) but I think the shift in the "Employment Gender Gap" is caused mostly by mothers of young children going back to work much earlier than our own mothers used to (if they did at all).

It used to be that most mothers would, if they wanted to, work part-time in the mornings once their youngest kid was old enough to go to school, and possibly go back to full-time employment once the kids could take care of themselves after school. But now women are back working full time shortly after having a baby, leaving their newborn with Grandma, because it's almost impossible for a family to live on one paycheque these days.

Have you seen the property prices in the last few years? I'm not talking about the villas in Madliena that we all sigh over in the Owner's Best, I'm talking about nondescript flats in nondescript villages that still cost more than a bank will lend a single person with a decent job. High property prices mean high mortgage payments which mean that there's less money left at the end of the month to pay the other bills with.

New mothers aren't going to work to get a sense of self-fulfillment - all the ones I talk to say that they are watching the clock and waiting for the hour when they can leave to get back to their kids - they're working because it's not enough to have one wage-earner in the family any more.

So really all that these articles celebrate is that mothers can't afford to stay home and raise their children any more.

Wonderful.

Amid Severest Woe

Tonight we went off to St. James Cavalier and watched the MADC's production of Laughing Wild by Christopher Durang.

The play is a two-hander directed by Polly March, and the characters are Woman played by Denise Mulholland, and Man played by Alan Montanaro. The play starts with an extended monologue by Woman, followed by one by Man, followed by a scene together that starts off as monologues but then they merge.

The title, "Laughing Wild", is a quote from a play that in turn is quoting a poem. In the poem, the poet is waxing melancholy as he looks at school, reflecting on how horrible the little boys' lives are going to be when they grow up - he goes on about how they will meet with Anger, Fear, Shame and so on, and finally "moody Madness laughing wild amid severest woe".

Denise Mulholland was absolutely fantastic as Woman, a character who is mentally disturbed yet makes a lot of sense in her own way. This was my favourite part of the play, completely engrossing. Alan Montanaro tried very hard as Man, and had some great bits, but overall his monologue dragged a bit - but really, he had a very tough act to follow and his monologue didn't have all the emotion of the previous one. The part when both actors were together was great, and I thought they worked very well together.

I did get a crick in my neck half-way through the second part, because both actors are remarkably tall, but then I forgot about it because things got so interesting.

About five minutes into Denise's monologue, I decided to start keeping track of how many times she made me cry. It was a very raw, emotional piece (with some very witty bits in) and since it's a theatre-in-the-round, you can see when someone cries, and when I see someone cry, it makes me cry, and Denise actually cried (wow). And then that made me more susceptible to crying in the emotional bits. By the end of her monologue, I had cried four times (two with tears actually trickling down my face), and by the end of the whole play it was six and three, including most of the last bit.

So embarrassing.

But really it just goes to show you how great she was ;-)

The show is rated 18 for religious content, mostly for two bits in which it questions (the Christian) God as being judgemental and impractical, but I wasn't offended *grin* Let's face it, these days if you're a Christian you have to have a thick skin.

I still recommend the show as being both entertaining and thought-provoking, featuring great acting and a sensitive portrayal of mental illness.

Just, if you're at all like me, take a tissue!

The show has one more weekend run to go, Friday 2nd February to Sunday 4th, tickets available from St. James Cavalier, bookings tel. 2122 3200. Be warned that it's a two-hour show with no intermission, the loo is opposite the theatre :-)

Malta Song For Europe 2008

So Malta's entry for the Eurovision 2008 has been chosen - it's Vodka, sung by Morena.

I am annoyed because it's the one song I didn't like for its message. As usual, most of the songs had sloppy lyrics, little musical merit, and were further disadvantaged by the singers' over-acted, American-accented-but-still-no-"th"s interpretations.

But besides all that, I didn't like that this song was called Vodka, so I looked up the lyrics (because it's not like you can understand half of the words given the lack of consonant pronunciation), and apparently they go like this:

The hunt is still on
Here in Gorki Park
I'm in a Danger Zone
Everywhere is pitch dark

I'm running away
To a blanket of snow
"Spy 1 to Spy 4
I've deciphered the code"

(CHORUS)
"VODKA"
That's the secret word
"VODKA"
And they want it so bad
"VODKA"
I've deciphered the code
Got a rush in the head
"VODKA"
A transparent word

Cold blood drums within
They breathe down my neck
"Spy 1 to Spy 4
We just have to connect"

Their footsteps are near
Closing in for the kill
My pulse has gone dead
With a heart-racing chill

(CHORUS)

So the song isn't really about vodka the drink (you know, the one that looks and tastes like surgical spirit), but really, if I had to Google to find this out, most people aren't going to know, are they?

I have nothing against vodka as such - I even drink it occasionally (mixed with orange juice please). The reason I'm annoyed is that the Maltese entry for the Eurovision is always memorised by Maltese seven-year-old girls.

Don't ask me why, but every year, without fail, I hear lots of these little girls singing away in playgrounds and balconies, belting out their (invariably misunderstood) variation of the lyrics at the tops of their lungs. They just like singing, I suppose, and have little discrimination.

But all these little girls, when they ask their mummies what vodka is, and she shows them the bottle in the drinks cupboard, are going to walk away with the notion that vodka is cool, and to be honest, I wouldn't want my pre-teen kid thinking that - it's bad enough that there are so many teenagers going out and regularly getting plastered with it in Paceville.

Morena could have chosen any word at all to be her "code word", any word, and there are around a million of them in the English language. So really, why did she choose "vodka"? Because drinking it is cool?

Anyway, enough of that. I'm sure we're all going to get heartily sick of hearing the song by the time May rolls around.

This year, videos of all the songs were available on YouTube. Clever.

But I was really tickled by a user's response - on realising that one of the songs (Go, sung by Klinsmann) sounded very similar to "Air Hostess" by Busted, someone constructed a video mash-up of the two songs, and posted it also on YouTube, which I think is hilarious.

To be fair, when you're writing a song and building progressions from the three major and two minor chords, it's very easy to accidentally sound like a pre-existing song, or to be influenced by one that's already in your head without realising it. The person who posted the mash-up went out of his way to say he wasn't accusing anyone of copying. But really, the two songs do sound very similar.

I don't like Klinsmann as a performer because, as Michael (who plays lead guitar) pointed out, it looks Klinsmann has the magical ability to keep playing the lead line even with both hands in the air... lol...

OK, I'm off, and I will do my best to avoid hearing "Vodka" today, although since I'm going to be riding a couple of buses, it might be difficult.

The North(East) Wind Doth Blow

The Majjistral blows strong, with a polite yet firm solidity. The Tramuntana sneaks in through your jacket zip and trickles through to your skin, no matter how many layers you're wearing. The Grigal kicks in your front door, helps itself to whiskey from the sideboard and biscuits from the pantry, makes snide comments about the decor, and then blasts its way out through the balcony door, leaving behind a dozen icy zephyrs that tease the cat and hide your socks.

Mater Dei Hospital - hope it's more user-friendly than its website

A friend of mine complained that my blog has been quiet for three weeks and she was fed up of checking for updates, and she has a point.

So here's a quick rant to get me going again...

How annoying that the Mater Dei hospital website is only in Maltese - come on, it's an official institution and there are plenty of Maltese people who can't read Maltese, plus plenty of foreigners have residence here. And when the Government used taxes to pay for the hospital, they didn't only take Maltese-speaking taxes. U ejja.

And there's a part II to this rant: I looked up the website because I needed the phone number of a particular ward. The phone numbers are available, but in an automatically-scrolling window, so you are supposed to sit there and wait (and hope) for the number you want. I had a quick look around the rest of the site, but while I can read all the propaganda I want and even view the images used for The Billboard Campaign which had Malta temporarily transformed into one big advert for a free hospital, the phone numbers, possibly the only useful piece of information on the whole site, do not appear on any other page.

After returning to the front page and spending five seconds staring at the list of phone numbers slowly cycling through the departments and wards in alphabetical order, I clicked in the window and did a ctrl+A then ctrl+V into Notepad, but not everyone is as computer-savvy as me. Once again, u ejja.

OK, that's me done ranting for now, at least I made my phone call. One of these days I shall have to go over to MDH and have a look around. I hear there's an Agenda there, which will probably be the highlight of my visit.