Better than Cat Stevens

A news item in The Guardian today reminded me how much I miss Dina, my cat. The story concerns Malta too because it deals with pet passports enabling EU citizens to take their pets with them when they travel to other EU countries. I find the passport idea a little excessive, especially after a regular passport didn't even get Cat Stevens into the USA last week. What a farce that was!

I like the idea that there's a way to travel with pets without having to abandon them in quarantine for six months. The microchip system works and makes sense. I just hope no one gets the idea that microchipping is also a good idea for humans as part of some weird security measure at airports. I wonder what Dina thinks of her microchip...if anything at all.

Also in today's Guardian is a report about Prime Minister Tony Blair's heart condition. What a coincidence that he and I have the same heart condition. It's also interesting that they don't call it WPW syndrome here. Perhaps that's because his Supraventricular Tachycardia is a slightly version different of the condition from my Atrioventricular Reentrant Tachycardia. The symptoms are very similar and the treatment appears to be the same.

I'm glad my life is not as stressful as his. Do you think his pets need a passport? Does he even have a pet? If not, now would be a good time to get one. I always find time spent with Dina as some of the best therapy available anywhere.

Sampling Malta in Britain

One of the many things that attracted me to leave NY for the UK is the fact that my good friend Aldo Gatt has made this country his home. He is also the creative brain behind the cartoon series The Brave Cissies, which appears on MaltaMedia. Aldo and I have known each other since 1978 when we both started attending St. Paul's Missionary College. I called him on his mobile earlier this week, and he managed to calmed me down as I dealt with the natural culture shock that comes with any major move, such as mine.

During that phone call he also told me about a very interesting phenomenon: just a few days ago he saw a huge PN flag flapping in the wind on the roof of a well-known gay bar in London. When I told him that this was incredible he even sent me the photos to prove it. Here's what he had to say in his email:

Trezza Azzopardi's brilliant first novel sets her dysfunctional family within the Maltese community of Tiger Bay in Cardiff while gossip has it that SOHO's most disreputable bars were breeding grounds for a Maltese "mafia" in the sixties. Soho has been transformed into a much more savvy place since then but it seems the Maltese still own the place. It is not the first time I heard the Maltese language spoken loudly (not an articulate specimen unfortunately) in a Maltese owned pizzeria in SOHO but I was surprised to notice the Maltese conservative party's flag fluttering on one of Old Compton's Street's major gay pubs. Wonder what the story behind it is!

I'd love to hear from anyone who can shed some light on this.

Other blogs in Scarborough

Tempus brevum est! This latin phrase was engraved on a grandfather clock at St. Agatha's Convent in Rabat, which is adjacent to St. Paul's Missionary College where I spent about 5 years in secondary school about 25 years ago. For some strange reason I keep getting flashbacks of that grandfather clock and that latin phrase as I walk down Filey Road after almost everyday I'm spending at the University of Hull's Scarborough Campus these days.

About this time last week I was writing about other Maltese blogs, so perhaps its appropriate that I augment that with some comments about a handful of blogs I discovered by other people who live in Scarborough. This came to my attention after Jamie, someone I've never actually met, wrote a kind little comment on one of my Scarborough related entries.

Besides Jamie's blog, I managed to find 4 other blogs from people who live in Scarborough. I should say that I don't know any of these bloggers in person, so my comments about their blogs are purely based on my impressions of what I see online.

The most prolific of the Scarborough bloggers is a teenager called Kayleigh Beat. She has two blogs! One is called Notes of a Dreamer and the other is [Insert Name Here].

The most interesting Scarborough blogger I've found so far is Jane x, a former Project Engineer who is now a full-time adventure traveler. I think she's actually in Brazil right now and she's blogging from there quite regularly. Pretty nice. Her blog is called The Great Escape!

In some way I feel like I'm on a great escape too...but this is mostly because I really don't feel like I've even begun to settle into this new life I've chosen to have in Scarborough. This blog is helping me to calibrate my past, present, and future into a twisted narrative that some may chose to call my biography.

Having a blog is a truly wonderful, life-altering experience. I highly recommend it!