malteaser

i was in malta in july. land of romans, arabs, normans, knights and pastizzi. hm, don't know how a ricotta pastry got in there...
the language is semitic, with a romanesque alphabet. the c's and g's have dots over them to soften them up, while the h can have a line through it, making it sound like the coughing test adolescent boys get at the doctor's. a gh = silence.
the word 'xoghol' roughly sounds like a drawled 'shawl'.

mario and davinia, our tireless concert producers, took us around to local bars, the jubilee being the most poignant. art nouveau/deco posters and magazine ads filled the walls - and i mean originals - in the victorian labyrinth idiom. my one eye would be talking to someone while the other swivelled to note some highly uncomfortable swimwear from the belle epoque. well, now my party trick is ruined - I can indeed make my eyes go in different directions without the aid of intoxication.

spielberg was filming down the pier from the concert venue. luckily, hurricane davario/mavinia descended upon his local security team each eve and they waved us through the barriers. an extraordinary amount of americans were around town that week, sitting on power-supply boxes, talking into invisible communication systems (?) and looking generally shady in the white sun spotlight. i wonder if they were ALL film crew...

Mdina, the medieval capital (mdina=capital in arabic) housed some pregnant windows for the womenfolk who were cloistered indoors but who clearly needed to peer outside into the street. from Mdina, onto Rabat, onto the cliffs of Dingli, and many jokes later, to the wine cellars of Marsovin for a scintillating bubbly called Cassar de Malte. The Big Siege was really here, i'm embarrassed to say.

Tucked along the ubiquitous coastline were WWII barracks, watchtowers and ramparts left by the english. all very officers and gentlemen, in my mind. the knights of malta (and their Grand Master, igor-style?) were/are a curious bunch: see link. annual rent cheque to the king of sicily = one maltese falcon.

"Malta: City of yells, bells and smells" - Byron.