I'M afraid to say I slept through the tremors that supposedly "rocked" London in the early hours of Wednesday morning. In fact it wasn't until the end of the working day, when my boss mentioned something about computers being down all over the country that I heard about it. I must have been fast asleep when it happened. In fact, since coming back from holiday, fast asleep before midnight has been the norm with me, even though I had a good night at the opera (a dark and foreboding Lucia di Lamermoor at the ENO) and another one at the cinema (Juno, good, but kind of over-scripted).
The holiday was good, although it wasn't really a holiday in the traditional sense of the word. Too many appointments to be able to relax, and with two weeks left to the general election there, way too much politics.
I had actually forgotten how nasty things get down there at election time. How everything seems to be suspended - including most people's sense of decency. At dinner one night, a member of the party - a Nationalist, I hasten to add - spent the whole night ranting and raving about how it is our duty to vote PN because if Labour is elected to government, the economy will nosedive, since whenever the Labour Party is in government, Nationalists stop spending money. Great argument, I thought. Forget principles. All this at the home of a Labour supporter. Typical.
If there was one good thing that I learnt from being here is that politics have nothing to do with how your family votes, or with what favours you will be granted should your candidate actually get elected. Maybe I am being idealistic, as I often tend to be in such matters, but I like to think that when it comes to voting, it is my head that does the working, not my heart, or - even worse - my pocket.
As it stands, I am still unsure as to who I am going to vote for. I know that 20 years is way too long for a party to stay in government, which rules out one, but I am still not convinced about the opposition. Even though the AN has come out supporting the idea of gay civil unions, they will not get my vote because of their xenophobic and misogynist stance. I suppose if I had to tick my boxes now as I write this, they would be for AD, which is the only party who seems to care about the things that I care about.
You see, in spite of all the stomach-churning billboards and videos showing happy families smiling in pretty surroundings that would make one think that Malta is heaven on earth, what I see whenever I am there is a completely different story. I hear people moan and complain about how corrupt and disorganised everything is, I see dirt in the streets everywhere I go, and sense a general feeling of apathy because everyone feels so helpless and uninvolved in the daily running of the country!
The holiday was good, although it wasn't really a holiday in the traditional sense of the word. Too many appointments to be able to relax, and with two weeks left to the general election there, way too much politics.
I had actually forgotten how nasty things get down there at election time. How everything seems to be suspended - including most people's sense of decency. At dinner one night, a member of the party - a Nationalist, I hasten to add - spent the whole night ranting and raving about how it is our duty to vote PN because if Labour is elected to government, the economy will nosedive, since whenever the Labour Party is in government, Nationalists stop spending money. Great argument, I thought. Forget principles. All this at the home of a Labour supporter. Typical.
If there was one good thing that I learnt from being here is that politics have nothing to do with how your family votes, or with what favours you will be granted should your candidate actually get elected. Maybe I am being idealistic, as I often tend to be in such matters, but I like to think that when it comes to voting, it is my head that does the working, not my heart, or - even worse - my pocket.
As it stands, I am still unsure as to who I am going to vote for. I know that 20 years is way too long for a party to stay in government, which rules out one, but I am still not convinced about the opposition. Even though the AN has come out supporting the idea of gay civil unions, they will not get my vote because of their xenophobic and misogynist stance. I suppose if I had to tick my boxes now as I write this, they would be for AD, which is the only party who seems to care about the things that I care about.
You see, in spite of all the stomach-churning billboards and videos showing happy families smiling in pretty surroundings that would make one think that Malta is heaven on earth, what I see whenever I am there is a completely different story. I hear people moan and complain about how corrupt and disorganised everything is, I see dirt in the streets everywhere I go, and sense a general feeling of apathy because everyone feels so helpless and uninvolved in the daily running of the country!