X’inhu dak li jagħmel ktieb tajjeb? Hawn min jgħidlek li ktieb tajjeb iżommok taqra’, ma tkun trid tniżżlu b’xejn. Hawn min jgħidlek li l-istorja kollox, li dak li jkun qed jgħid l-awtur jolqot xi ħaġa ġo fik. Hemm imbagħad il-ktieb tajjeb għax tixtieq li...

Michael McFeat is a Scot gold miner in Kyrgyzstan. A couple of days ago, during the holiday celebrations, he posted a photo on Facebook showing his mates at the mine queuing up to eat a Kyrgyz delicacy called chuchuk that is apparently a sausage made up of parts of horse. In his caption to...

Walking around Valletta during my last visit to Malta I opted to pass through “is-Suq”, the closed food market that is still crying out to be converted for proper use. I would not use the word dilapidated but the state of what should be a vibrant part of the City of Gentlemen...

I have this thing I do every time I get to New York. As soon as I have plonked my bags into my hotel room I rush out again and head for that one iconic landmark – Times Square. Maybe it is because it allows me to absorb the reality of having got to the Big Apple having crossed the...

The MADC has just ended a run of Elaine May’s Adult Entertainment – a play that centres around a group of porn actors and their efforts to write their own scripts. Porn was never an easy subject to broach, particularly in a community where the words “tightly-knit”, “gossip”...

  Iddeskrivi lilek innifsek f’mitejn kelma. Mitejn. Kemm tiflaħ tgħid f’mitejn kelma? X’tip ta’ arbitrarjeta’ hi din? Mitejn kelma miżgħuda tifsir jewilla mitejn mot imlissen b’mod frivolu u qarrieqi li jsawwru maskra – satret il-verita. Tabilħaqq. Għax mill-kelma...

In this part of an essay entitled “Politics, Morality and Civility”, Havel concentrates on an important aspect in the development of citizenship. It is evident that Havel’s ideal state involves a cultured citizenship – what he calls “civility” in the wider...

Jean-François Copé, president of France’s UMP party, is currently in the news for his attack on a book that he claims is being suggested for the official primary school reading list. Entitled “Tous à poil” (Everybody naked), this book reminds me of another great bestseller among...

Qbadna il-kju mill-Ghadira. Il-Hadd imqaddes. Kju karozzi Maltin ta’ Malta li ghogobhom jghaddu l-ahhar Hadd tas-sena f’Ghawdex. Allajbierek. “Ghawdxi tajjeb aharqu” jghidu. Ma’ l-ewwel cans li jkollhom imaqdru ‘l Ghawdex u lill-Ghawdxin. Imma min imaqdar...

There is a symbolical effervescence that pervades anyone with the right frame of mind as he walks around great cities such as Rome or Washington D.C. The former is richly endowed with a magnificent scattering of monuments built to last centuries and that eagerly proclaim the magnificence of a...

I have often been involved in heated discussions about the nature and existence of censorship in our country. Recent PLPN attempts at appeasing the crowd of baying artists who claim to be oppressed when it comes to our censorship laws were often the trigger for such conversations. I tend to...

“Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions,...