Man in the box

The 114 boxes and packages that left my apartment in New York almost three months ago arrived at my flat in Scarborough this morning.

The movers were quite efficient. There's no lift (that's elevator in American-English) in my building and they didn't complain at all even though they had to haul all the stuff up a couple flights of stairs to the first floor (that's the second floor in American-English).

There's hardly any space to move around now. I'm surrounded by cardboard boxes and packages. I'll spend most of this weekend unpacking. I'm sure I'll be pleasantly surprised to see some of the things I've lived without for so many weeks. Apart from my books CDs, DVDs, guitar and electric piano, the thing I'm most glad to have back is my bed. I feel like I haven't slept in a real bed in ages!

To complicate things nicely I'm also trying to get a broadband connection to work in my new place so I can really start turning it into a home for the foreseeable future.
I am really looking forward to getting my living quarters into a comfortable pad, even though thoughts of impermanence (and not just in the Buddhist sense) are quite predominant in my mind these days.

Rhapsody in Blue

The grim reaper must be working overtime! Another former colleague of mine passed away yesterday. Anyone who has ever listened to anything other than pop music programmes on Radio Malta probably knows his name: Publius Micallef. He worked as a recording engineer at Broadcasting House in Gwardamangia for many years. How ironic that he should die within just a few days after Joe Zammit Cordina, someone he recorded so many times.

Pullu, as everyone who knew him personally called him, was always a very special individual to me because he was the person who recorded the first every radio programme I made for Radio Malta: a special documentary marking the 50th anniversary since the death of George Gershwin. We spent countless hours working together on my radio plays, documentaries and magazine programmes after that, until 1991. I was brimming with youthful enthusiasm while he was always gentle mannered, soft spoken and extremely patient (read: unphased).

Pullu was only 61. I sometimes joked with him that he was too old to rock 'n roll, but he was certainly too young to die. I'm sure his family and friends will miss him very much. Rest in peace my old friend.

I have a picture of the two of us working together in one of the Radio Malta studios in 1988, but it's in a warehouse somewhere in the south of England right now, along with the rest of most of my worldly possessions. If I manage to get my stuff within the next few days I'll put it up here on the blog.