As I rely on having broadband Internet to do my job, I had two suppliers: cable as the main supplier and ADSL as a back-up in case cable went down. But the ADSL one didn't work especially well and in the first 3 months of being here cable worked faultlessly. So I decided not to renew the ADSL subscription. In the unlikely event of cable going down, I reasoned, I could always go to a nearby hotel and use the wifi there. But I didn't go to the trouble of actually checking whether a local hotel had such a service.
The very next day after my ADSL subscription expired, cable went down. And at a particularly critical point when I was supposed to prepare a journal for time-critical input into the production system. I couldn't believe it.
I phoned Directory Enquiries and asked for the number of the Seabank Hotel (a great hotel, by the way), and the employee just recited the number straight to me, without so much as looking at a computer screen. I said to her, 'You know that number by heart?' and she said, 'Yes, and a lot of other numbers too!'. I was very impressed. This sort of thing is only possible in a country the size of Malta.
Fortunately the hotel has an excellent broadband wifi service that's available to non-residents, so all was well. I sat in the lobby with my laptop and accessed the Internet without difficulty, but I had to put up with listening to Christmas Muzak and chirping budgerigars. So I went to the hotel shop and bought some chocolate M&Ms. Before long I was on such a sugar and additives high that even listening to a dodgy rendition of 'Oh Come All Ye Faithful' accompanied by a disorganized chorus of budgies seemed quite enjoyable.
I plan to arrange another backup Internet supplier.
Malta is a very prudish country; much more so than Britain and America. It has laws that American social conservatives can only dream of: no topless sunbathing, no pornography, no lap dancers, no prostitution, no abortion, no divorce, no gay marriage. Foul language is equally unacceptable. On an episode of Blackadder on television a few days ago they bleeped out the phrase 'sod off'! They had also gone to the trouble of covering over Baldrick's mouth movements with a little brown oval as he uttered these apparently profane words lest a Maltese person who spoke English and could lip read might be put into an incurable coma of shock.
So I was quite surprised by something I saw yesterday. There were a group of youths with a banner and matching t-shirts, shouting while walking down the main street in Valletta, the capital. I asked one of them what they were protesting over and she said that they weren't protesting, but celebrating: they had graduated as pharmacists the previous day. I don't know whether the monotone text on their t-shirts can be properly described as graphic and colourful, but anyway, I'll show you the pictures. On the front they said 'Pharmacists can do it...', and on the back...
