Jammed Sliding Doors

 

http://prayables.com/prayer-blogs/prayables-team-blog/825-jammed-sliding-doors

 

When I followed Quantum Leap assiduously, my favorite expression was, “Oh, Boy!” Samuel Beckett’s catchphrase just before he felt that he was leaping into the body of his next “host.”

Throughout the series, we were given piecemeal information about how this partial amnesia happened; the concept behind the show was Sam’s swiss cheese brain. In each episode, he is someone else – the person he sees in the mirror – of either gender and of any age, nationality, religion, or physiogamy.

He is not alone in his predicament; however his mentor Rear Admiral Albert Calavicci is a hologram.

A cloche skirt is based on two concentric circles drawn on a piece of fabric.  The diameter of the inner circle is one fourth of your waist measurement and the outer one is that plus length of the skirt. To make the circles, you simply tie a piece of chalk to the end of the string, pin the other end to the centre of the fabric, and stretch the string while drawing around the pin. You remove the inner circle, make two hems, and thread elastic through the narrower one. Very simple!

The theory of life-travel was also explained by the parallelism of a piece of string, but in a totally different analogy. One end of the string was Sam’s date of birth; the other end was his date of death. Sam’s two ends are connected, and the resulting loop scrunched such that bits and bobs intersect at different points. Sam can travel from one “junction” in his life to another, in the bat of an eye.

In the Gwyneth Paltrow film Sliding Doors, she plays a public relations specialist who has just lost her job. She just misses the subway train when the sliding doors close in front of her – or do they?  For from then on, we see two of her lives in parallel – the Helen who just made it and caught her boyfriend in flagrante delicto, and the Helen who missed the trip and got mugged (and met a new man.)

Life is a series of choices. We may choose to go with the flow or be the best “we” possible. We may choose to use our lives for the service of others or we may just live in an ego-centric universe. But wouldn’t it be nice to tie up all the loose ends of all the strings every so often?

 

Spinning Yarn

One ball of string has countless
feasibilities and possibilities:
lace, crochet, tatting, macramé, knitting, weaves.
Or simple, just-for-fun-things:
braiding, pom-pom chicks,
string art snowflakes, rag-doll wigs,
from to coils of rope to finger-lace hair-braids,
misanga mementos, yarn doll souvenirs,
dream catcher keepsakes, friendship bracelet tokens.
Useful, functional, convenient.
One life has countless opportunities.
Help me find enough time to empathize;
time enough to help.

–Tanja Cilia

Too Much Information?

TV 40 news personality Christine Chubbuck shot herself in a live broadcast this morning on a Channel 40 talk program. She was rushed to Sarasota Memorial Hospital, where she remains in critical condition.

The most surreal thing about this July 15, 1974 newscast clip was that it had been written by Chubbuck herself.

The warning signs had all been there; three weeks prior to her demise, she had begun work on a feature programme about suicide. In the course of her research she had discovered the ideal type of bullet, and where to shoot it, courtesy of an officer in the sheriff’s department, which goes contrary to how things are portrayed in CSI-type series.

A definite red flag was flown when she told the night news editor that she had bought the weapon and joshed about using it live. He chided her, but that’s as far as it went. And we all know that when people joke about committing suicide, the chances are that they have been thinking about it.

Meanwhile, the station owner had ostensibly ordained that ‘blood and guts’ were to be the deigning factors of newsworthiness; and one of Chubbuck’s stories was indeed cut to be replaced by coverage of a shoot-out.

On the fateful morning, a videoclip of a shooting at  the Beef and Bottle Restaurant at the Sarasota-Bradenton Airport on U.S. 41 jammed, and Chubbuck attempted to be ad-libbing, as newscasters are wont to do when this sort of incident happens,

In keeping with Channel 40’s policy of bringing you the latest in blood and guts, and in living colour, you are going to see another first; attempted suicide. The technical director faded to black; the camera operator Jean Reed assumed it was an elaborate wind-up.

On the morning of January 22, 1987, Robert Budd Dwyer, a politician from Pennsylvania who insisted until the end that he had been framed on charges of corruption and bribery, also committed suicide on air. It happened during a televised press conference at his office in Harrisburg, the state capital.

On that day, many schools had been closed because of a heavy snowfall; had this not been so, students who had regular access to news broadcasts during school hours would have seen it happen, just as they saw the Space Shuttle Challenger tragedy and the Branch Davidian Siege in Waco, Texas.

All these incidents, and more, have been sued as “teaching materials” in media ethics classes. Indeed, Dwyer’s suicide is cited in a paper about the “ethno-methodological approach to the study of suicide”. In such instances, apparently, not even the most diligent of fingers on the Delay Button would have been able to abort the transmission.

“Severe human error”, however, was cited as the reason why yet another suicide was aired live on Fox News on Friday, September 28.

This happened during coverage of one of those popular (think O. J. Simpson) car chases that are aired live in an effort to skew viewership statistics, and not because they provide useful information.

At one point the suspect opened his vehicle door and leapt out of it, running down a dirt track, and seconds later pulled out a gun. The camera continued rolling, the death was caught live, and Smith,  the Fox News Channel anchor, Shepherd Smith  admitted they had “messed up”.

We all remember the atrocious hounding of Madeline McCann’s parents; how the press couldn’t get enough of “sexy-foxy-Knoxy”; how the press covered Joanna Yeates’ murder; and how some film directors sought to make a quick buck from elements from each story, or portraying separate ones in their celluloid entirety.

And let us not forget that the film Network ends with the narrator stating “This was the story of Howard Beale, the first known instance of a man who was killed because he had lousy ratings.”

The local media, which sometimes seems oblivious to events being played out on the world stage – at least, unless they can be perverted to serve ulterior motives – are also  sometimes all too ready to ride roughshod over good taste and people’s sensibilities. This tends to happen because they want to scoop other media… and they do not realise that the person involved in the incident there are covering could have been themselves, or someone they love.

Live television shows us how some card-carrying journalists are at their best when it comes to scooping their peers.  They forget the rules about vulnerable persons; invasions of privacy; and no close-ups. They diligently research the person’s sexual orientation (Pan-sexual Company Director Guilty of Tax Evasion);  his political affiliations (Conservative MP arrested for sexual cimes);  and his family tree (singer Trisha Dawne’s son commits suicide), in no particular order.

They ask awkward questions, not in the hope of winkling out information hitherto undiscovered by those whose job it is to do so, but to entrench themselves as the oriflammes of incisive, investigative reporting. Some even create re-enactments of crime scenes that are pathetic excuses for spoon-feeding the viewing public what they want us to assume is the truth.

Sometimes, not even a five-minute delay would be sufficient to remove footage I find objectionable… we have seen clips that would be more suited to the crime being committed at the start of almost each Columbo episode, or Cold Case flashbacks.

The latest example of this pathetic ‘live coverage’ we have seen is the hunt for April Jones, who went missing after having been seen getting into the van of a man who has since been named.

Would the cameras have stopped rolling had April been found where the searchers were looking for her? I doubt it.

Meanwhile, journalist Kay Burley, fresh from the “cadaver search dog” gaffe, actually transmitted bad news about April to two of the searchers on rolling live news reportage.

Whether this was her usual ham-fisted coverage, or a calculated stratagem for viewers to catch the reaction of the volunteers, is anybody’s guess.

Is this what makes television “good” and “actual”? Most of the people responsible for giving us this tripe would reply… Whatever!  But it’s what the people want.  

Sock it to me!

September 5, 2019Edit

Wednesday, 16th July 2008

When my eyesight was still sharp enough to thread needles galore, I spent precious minutes sewing blue, green and yellow threads inside the back elastic of hundreds of knee socks, to colour-code those of each child. Then, of course, I had to separate them into pairs, fold them, and put them away.

Since my kids go through socks like a hot knife through butter, all but the first part of this operation had to be repeated very, very frequently.

Then it struck me. Ouch. I could buy each child ten pairs of the same kind of sock, that is, in different colours of the same design, and sorting them would be a piece of cake. Socks for school would be even easier to master – ten more pairs of the same type, same colour sock per child – and so whichever two they picked would be guaranteed to be a pair.

If one sock got a hole in it (not all socks may be darned these days), I did not have to throw its partner away too. And if a sock got lost – well, the same reasoning applied.

Then, I did not yet know about the site that offers sets of three socks, in matching colours but different designs, that are to be worn at random, leaving one acting as gooseberry-in-a-drawer each time. This gimmick also applies to other items of clothing – pyjamas, shirt and skirt combinations, and so on.

And suddenly I was reminded of one of my favourite dresses from when I was a child –pink polka dots on a purple background for the bodice, a stripe of pink and another of purple at the waist, and purple polka dots on a pink background for the skirt.

And when my daughter was tiny, she quite enjoyed running about the house in mismatching striped socks (three pairs for Lm1) that could be bought from the Valletta street market. Then, I drew the line at her going out with them, though – I would not do so now.

And that brings me to the solemn declaration by my friend Karina that July 14-21 will henceforth be Orphan Sock Blog Week. That the start coincides with the Fall of the Bastille is neither here, not there. Neither has the expression “put a sock on it”, apparently.

Most families, at one time or another, know what it is to have a bunch of orphan socks waiting listlessly for their partner, after a wash. Some people throw the orphan socks away immediately. Others place them again in the laundry basket, hoping that some cosmic magnetism will produce a matching sock out of thin air. Because, really, that’s where the missing socks would have ended up. The Sock Gremlins do not exist, although the Tooth Fairy does (at least in Terry Pratchett’s Discworld books).

Others scour the washroom, the dog’s kennel, the cat’s basket, and even have a peek on the neighbours’ roofs, just in case the errant sock is there. And then there are smug people who never, ever lose socks, because they peg them out in pairs…

Others have never lost a sock simply because their socks are still in their original state, complete with a folded cardboard strip to indicate make and size, and plastic tags to keep them united.

Having worked for some time as a Kindergarten Assistant and Facilitator, I know full well that there are several uses for odd socks (and odd gloves).

Chew toys for pets; draught excluders; puppets; hair ties; instant ice-packs for bruises; Venetian blind cleaners or chalkboard erasers; cushion stuffing; furniture, silver and brass polishers; instant gift packaging for soft toys; slipping it over chilblained fingers, or those of children who bite their nails, or those who have hives, to stop them scratching themselves raw; as protection for necklaces… the list is practically endless.
You can also pot the ends of soap bars in them and then seal the top with a rubber band. You have the ideal “thingy” with which to soap the heels and toes of other socks before chucking them in the wash.

But this list comes with a dire pre-emptive warning. The minute you make irreversible alterations to your odd sock, the partner promptly turns up. In the sock drawer. Neatly folded. With another orphan sock.

The Princess Diary

Sunday, April 15, 2012, 14:21 

Coffee mornings always leave me feeling so drained and wretched. But I have to show up.  I organise them for the Partit (well, actually, it’s because my friend, who is the secret mistress of the tenth-in-command swears by my organisational abilities and inter alia owes me a couple of favours and thinks she compensates by throwing a few hundred Euro my way every so often…).

I know full well that if I am not there they will gossip about me, just like they chinwag about absentees. In any case, attending means I get to know what is happening behind the scenes and (almost certainly) everywhere else.

“In the end, it was the digital trail that gave me away.”  Silly man, “I always-intended-to-keep-my-mouth-shut” Joe Muto, recently outed as The (erstwhile) Fox Mole.

“They knew that someone, using my computer login, had accessed the sources for two videos that ended up on Gawker over the past few weeks. They couldn’t prove it entirely, but I was pretty much the only suspect.”

You’d think a grown man, a journalist to boot, would have had more sense than that. Let us forget (or not?) for the moment, that in Malta some people do have a predilection for checking whether colleagues have left their social sites and e-mail accounts accessible when they go to the canteen.

Nobody can trace a rumour back to me, because I never put anything in writing – I just rely on my super-duper, photographic, magnetic memory that preserves images and conserves sound-bites perfectly.

I am adept at giving non-committal replies and asking leading questions.  I could make a fortune if the Partit knew that I am not really the numbskull they take me for.

I am a weasel, a traitor, a sell-out and every bad word you can throw at me… but as of today, I am free, and I am ready to tell my story, which I wasn’t able to fully do for the previous 36 hours. Mr Muto could have learned a thing or two from me.

At last Thursday’s Gathering (I refuse to call them Morning Coffee or Coffee Morning because they are such naff terms), I learned a couple of things that will stand me in good stead, whichever way the next General Election goes. Some of the rest of the blether, as usual, was just run-of-the-mill conjecture of the “his book is ghost-written” and “she buys bourbon by the case” type.

Nobody knows why a person sometimes resorts to subterfuge intended to make people think he is a writer, just as nobody understands what drives a person to seek comfort in alcohol when to all intents and purposes her life appears perfect.

Being the sole heiress of millionaire parents, I can afford not to work. This does have its benefits. Indeed, in my nominal job as CEO of a business conglomerate, I make a meal out of donating time and money to causes that I support – and little do these people know that I am writing a book about it all –which, I am sure, will be a best-seller, especially since I am going to name names.

Before you ask – not, I am not going to turn it into a script and try to sell it to a local television station. Not that I don’t have the right connections to get my work accepted… but I think the local section of the ether is already over-saturated with sex, truths and videotape.

I have had enough of the ranting and raving in high-pitched voices, prima donnas who sulk when they are not given meaty parts (and that’s just the men) and people who want to film the general area of Wignacourt Aqueducts in Notabile Road.  I have stopped counting how many times they appear in different local productions; probably more than the bridges of East Street, Valletta, appear in foreign films.

I always intended to keep my mouth shut. The plan was simple: get hired, keep my head down and my views to myself, work for a few months, build my resume, and then eventually hop to a new job that didn’t make me cringe every morning when I looked in the mirror.

Well, Mr Muto, I have news (sorry!) for you. Keeping your mouth shut and your head down etc. does not involve writing a blog about your workplace on a pc that screams your name. It means raising an eyebrow when someone mentions a “very big wedding” just one year after the bride ditched her ex-fiancée, and asking after the absentee father of an Asian-looking child, ever so innocently.

That was years ago. My cringe muscles have turned into crow’s feet. The ten resumes a month I was sending out dwindled into five, then two, then one, then zero. No one wants me. I’m blacklisted.

Now we know that twisting yourself into a pretzel does not always work. You have to maintain a deadpan expression when making atrocious puns because laughing at your own humour is self-destructive as well as vain. You have to plant rumours where they will flourish; yet you also have to preach to the choir, to maintain their faith. At the same time, you have to maintain your image as a goody-two-shoes so that no one will accuse you of having hidden agendas.

Never once believe

Rumour, gossip and tattle –

The devil’s radios.

“Joe Muto is fired effective April 12. Once the network determined that Mr Muto was the main culprit in less than 24 hours, he was suspended late today while we pursued concurrent avenues.” No mention of the need for a copy editor, one notes.

In my case, I have the perfect cover.

The Query Letter

 

November 20, 2011 at 2:53 AM

To who it matter
Dear all
As the man said, you aint’s seen nothing yet until you read the herewith enclosed, or rather attaché, typescript for a book about the Sceince and Art of Writing, at which I am the expert past master (mistress sounds so crass doncha thing?)
As I was saying, you don’t know what’s going to ht you right between them eyes, my man, but when you read my book about the Sceince and Art of Writing, you will have to admit that I am the be-all and end-all of experts in the field of the Sceince and Art of Writing.
As you might be saying, this person is a genius, and I want to sign her on the books at once. But before I even consider working with you, you have to tell me in Writing that you are willing to learn the ropes from me because I have been through your web-sight and I have found several typos that could not be misprints they are so silly. So for an additionally fees, I might as well correct your spelling and grammer.
As the orturs which I quote in my book say, you never no what you can do till you try and when I beganed Writing the book about the Sceince and Art of Writing, little did I know that I would come up with such a compendiuming of knowledge about the Sceince and Art of Writing.
As Dr Spock, of the child expert’s famousness said, not the one with the ears on Star Track, you know, he said you know more than you think you do. In my case this has been proven to be excellently truth because as you can see, I explain the Sceince and Art of Writing so well that nobody can approach me about it.
As my relatives and my friends to which I gave the manuscript to read kept repeating, it is a heck of a job to write so much about the Sceince and Art of Writing. Ha ha, I am not an scientist or a Artist but I managed to write 2,340 pages about the Sceince and Art of Writing, can you beat that of course you can’t.
As my mentor and consultant and best friend said, and I quoit him to make sure that you understand the worthy of my opera, “If you can get them to accept it for you, you will indeed be one happy bunny.”
As my aunty who lives in Malta says, their bunnies are not happy, because they eat them, poor things, they do the spagetti or the chips with them and they are so cute, the rabbits. But that has nothing to do with the Sceince and Art of Writing of course, but I wanted to tell you that I know the culinationary skills of the Malteses because my aunty, when she comed over for a holiday, she thought me how to cook the things of Malta kitches.
Yours truthfully
Tanja Cilia

Great Expectations – The Four Candles of Advent

Tuesday, December 2, 2008, 09:09

Advent candles come in many colours – and this often owes as much to availability as to symbolism. Moreover, they are sometimes attached to Christmas wreaths, and sometimes placed on customised candlesticks, albeit at different heights – and sometimes at the same height. With all these variations on a theme, it would be interesting to find out why Christians light four Advent Candles, and not five, three, or any other number of them.

Christmas is not a moveable feast as is Easter. In Western Christianity, the first Sunday of Advent is the fourth one prior to Christmas Day, or the one that comes closest to November 30. When Christmas Eve falls on a Sunday, it is the last or fourth Sunday of Advent. In the Julian calendar used by the Eastern Orthodox Church, Advent begins on November 15, and lasts 40 days, rather than 4 weeks.

This year, the Sundays of Advent are as follows:

• November 30 – First Sunday of Advent

• December 7 – Second Sunday of Advent

• December 14 – Third Sunday of Advent

• December 21 – Fourth Sunday of Advent

Some sources say that the Advent wreath was an adaptation of a Germanic pre-Catholic rite, dating from a time when the people wanted to find something that would symbolise the banishing of the darkness from the “four corners of the world”. During wintertime, Scandinavians lit candles around a wheel, with prayers being offered to the god of light, begging him to turn “the wheel of the earth” back toward the sun to lengthen the days and restore warmth.

As happened with other pagan rituals, the four candles were metamorphosed to something that helped the faithful contemplate the “Four Treasures of Happiness” Expectation and Hope, Faith, Joy (the pink candle) and Peace; others put them as Love, Peace, Hope, and Joy. A couple of other variations are Hope, Peace, Joy, Love (in that order), and Hope, Preparation, Joy, Love. In some traditions, the first candle stands for prophecy.

There is also a tradition that purports to explain how each week represents a thousand years, and that the fourth candle therefore represents the passing of 4,000 years from the story of the Garden of Eden, to the Birth of the Saviour. Others say that they are a representation of the four centuries of waiting between the prophet Malachi and the birth of the Lord.

The three purple, violet, or dark blue candles signify the imminent arrival of royalty. The pink, rose, or white candle is lit on the third Sunday, when the priest also wears rose vestments at Mass. This is Gaudete Sunday, so called because of the first word in the biding prayers – Gaudate, which means ‘rejoice’. All four candles, together, remind us of the “four ps” of Advent – the preparation, purification, penance and prayer that each one of us must undergo during this important period of the Liturgical year.

Increasingly often, a white candle, “The Christ Candle” is lit and placed in the centre of the wreath, or at the top of the elongated candlestick, to represent the birth of Jesus Christ. Sometimes, the Candles of Advent are associated with Biblical personalities, or Biblical happenings, all thematically arranged to draw attention to the main event – Christmas. So, one might celebrate John the Baptist, Mary, the Magi; or Bethlehem, Shepherds, and Angels; or the Annunciation, Proclamation, Fulfilment.

Originally, Advent was a fast of forty days in preparation for Christmas, beginning on the day after the feast of St. Martin (November 12), and known in some quarter as “St. Martin’s Lent”. The candles are lit, one a week, to recall the Lord’s birth, and to connect it with His Second Coming. Adventus, the Latin word meaning “arrival” or “coming”, gives us the word “Advent”.

The light of the candles, apart from the candles themselves, is also an important symbol of Advent. It reminds us that the Son of God is the Light of the World.

Interesting to note is that the circular shape of the Advent wreath symbolises eternity. Moreover, the use of evergreen leaves symbolises the immortality of our soul and the new everlasting life brought about by the birth of Christ.

Flying Dove

http://www.shelovesgod.com/library/article.cfm?articleid=8527

 

IN THE TIME of Kang Hsi, one of the early Ching Emperors, in the quiet village of Wanhsien, lived a charming little girl whose name translates as Flying Dove.

She was a lonely little girl; since she walked with a limp, none of her peers wanted to play with her because she could not run fast enough to keep up with them.

So one lovely spring day, Flying Dove decided to start making herself useful by going to the river to fetch water for all those people in the village who had no one else to do it for them. She was going to start doing this by means of two large clay urns hung at either end of a yoke she would carry on her shoulders.

Flying Doves family was very poor, and so her parents appreciated the fact that sometimes, the people whom she helped used to give her a piece of fruit, or a handful of rice, or an egg, in order to thank her for her aid.

One of Flying Doves jars had a tiny, hairline crack down the side; but there was nothing she could do about it, because her family could not afford to get it mended. So she always lost some of the water on her way back, because since she limped, and the water was heavy, it sloshed about, and it took her a long time to return to her village. But nobody minded, just as long as they had enough water in which to cook.

With her conical hat pulled well down in order to protect her from the sun, Flying Dove made the journey to the river and back about five times a day. Everybody was amazed that such a frail-looking girl had such stamina.

When the next spring came around, Flying Dove realised that something beautiful had happened.

On the left side of the path leading towards her village from the river, there was a profusion of flowers in all the colours of the rainbow. Breathless, she hurried home to tell her mother about the beautiful sight.

Her mother, usually such a sad person, clapped her hands with joy for the first time in years, and all the people in the village came out of their homes to see what the matter was.

They all went to see the miracle that had happened on the track; and then the wise man of the village explained to them that the dribbles from the cracked clay pot had watered the ground and caused the seeds to sprout.

What’s more, he said, he had realised that Flying Dove, because of all that exercise, no longer walked with a limp; her own kindness had caused her to cure herself.

However, although she could now run even faster than the other children, she did not waste time playing; instead, she encouraged them to be like her, ever helpful to others. Soon afterwards, the villagers had only to scratch the ideographs for their names on their water jars, and leave them outside the house; laughing, happy, united band of children used to leave for the river in along procession to fill them up, without even once complaining, And all with a spring in their step.

In-Nanna Kitty Tirrakonta

Dorothy l-Artista                                               

Minn mindu kienet tarbija, Dorothy kienet trid li dejjem tgħaddi tagħha. Kienet tirrabja meta xi ħadd ma jagħtihiex li trid, jew ma jagħmilx kif tgħidlu hi. Dorothy kienet tħobb tpinġi, u għall-eta tagħha, kienet brava mhux ħażin. Imliet rasha li meta tikber ser tibda’ tbeigħ il-pitturi u ma jkollhiex għalfejn tistudja biex issib xogħol.

Għalxejn li l-ġenituri u n-nanniet tagħha ippruvaw ifehmuha li aħjar ikollha xi żewġ ċertifikati wkoll. L-iskola kienet toqgħod attenta, mhux għax kienet tinteresaha, imma biex il-ħomework tkun tista’ teħilsu majalr kemm jista’ jkun, biex taqbad tpinġi.

In-Nanna Feliċa marret Spanja u ġabitilha sett kuluri pastell, u ieħor fluworexxenti. Bil-flus li kienet qalgħet għal għeluq sninha, xtrat kavalletta biex tkun tista’ tpinġi barra, wkoll.

Darba minnhom, rat għasfur mhux tas-soltu fuq fergħa tal-ħarruba tal-għalqa tan-nannu. “Xi ġmiel!” qalet. “Mank jibqa’ hemm sakemm almenu nagħmel skeċċ, imbagħad inkompli npittru wara…”

Skantat meta l-għasfur qalilha, “Iva, Dorothy, jien nibqa’ hawn, imma trid twiegħdni li ma tirrispondix, u ma tirrabjax, għax mhux sew li tagħmel hekk.”

Dorothy harset ‘l hawn u ‘l hinn. Ħasbet li xi ħadd kien qed jagħmillha ċajta. Ma rat lil ħadd, u l-għasfur qalilha, “Le, le, tħares imkien, għax jien kellimtek!”

Dorothy irrabjat. “Ma jistax ikun. L-għasafar ma jitkellmux. U bilħaqq, int kif taf x’jisimni?”

L-għasfur wieġeb, “Jien għasfur maġiku. Tant hu hekk, li, issa tara, kull meta tirrabja, jew tirrispondi, jew ma tobdix, tinkisirlek ponta ta’ kulur, u jekk toqgħod tittemprahom, malajr jispiċċawlek fix-xejn!”

Dorothy sabtet sieqha mal-art; u l-lapes ikħal li kellha f’idha safa’ bla ponta. “X’kull waħda wkoll!” ħasbet Dorothy. Kompliet tpinġi bil-kwiet, u x’ħin rat li saru l-ħdax u nofs, refgħet kollox biex tidħol għand in-nanna ħa tiekol.  

“Isa, ħi,” qaltilha n-nanna. “Mur aħsel idek, ħa naqliblek kif għadu sħun…”

“Ma rridx!” qalet Dorothy. Semgħet ħoss ċkejken ġej mill-kaxxa tal-kuluri, fetħitha, u rat il-lapes l-oranġjo, il-favurit tagħha, bla ponta. “Uffa!” għajtet – u nkisret il-ponta tal-lapes l-aħdar.

Dorothy bdiet tibki. “X’ġara?” staqsietha n-nanna. U t-tifla rrakuntat dak kollu li kien ġara filgħodu. In-nanna ma kienetx taf temminx jew le, imma ma qalet xejn. Ġwejda ġwejda, Dorothy marret taħsel idejha, u meta ġie n-nannu mill-Quddiesa ta’ nofsinhar, sabha kwieta mal-mejda, taqra. In-nannu skanta, għax soltu kienet tkun tiġri ‘l hawn u ‘hin bla kwiet.

“Hawn x’għandna!” qal il-Nannu.

“Ħa ngħidlek x’ġarali,” qaltlu Dorothy. U bidet tirrakuntalu kollox. Imma meta fetħet il-kaxxa tal-kuluri biex turih li kellha tlieta bla ponta… sabithom kollha puliti u sbieħ.

Naked Ambition

Oh, the irony of it all.

The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge were presented with beautiful traditional Solomon Island necklaces – by a bevy of bare-breasted women.

Kourtney Kardashian gave birth in front of cameras and actually pulled out Penelope with her own hands, in front of her family… and anyone who is besotted enough with the exhibitionist family to watch their show… just as people like Paris Hilton managed to garner an audience of millions by cavorting in front of the cameras.

Fred Willard got arrested for lewd conduct while watching  a three-film loop in an adult cinema, and Kate Middleton’s second cousin once removed, burlesque artiste Katrina Darling makes the best of her royal connections and flaunts her body (and tasteless tattoos) all over the place.

Nicole Richie wore a dress with a top made up of hundreds of little leatherette leaves – but there were not enough of them to cover her cleavage, and  Scarlett Johansson boasted that she knows her “best angles” when someone posted pictures intended for then-husband Ryan Reynolds.

The soap opera Hollyoaks introduced a post-watershed spin-off called Hollyoaks Later where the action gets hot…and of course, Lady Gaga wore a burka decorated with raccoon tails to generate a different kind of interest, or, perhaps, to hide her poker face.

What is it with this obsession about the bodies and bodily functions of other people?  Why is it that the bodies of the British Royals that have the chattering classes… well, chattering.

There was the incident where Prince Harry’s nether regions were revealed to all and sundry – or at least to those who wanted to see why what happened in Las Vegas did not stay there.

There was the infamous God Save The Queen incident where 91-year-old Prince Philip, wearing a kilt for the Gathering for the Highland Games in Scotland, appeared to be following tradition.

Now there is the spate of magazines embroiled in the “publish and be damned” attitude that comes with the knowledge that any subsequent court fees will be peanuts when compared to the income from the number of copies sold, and outdone by the amount of publicity the  rags garner,. And there is always the possibility that the Palace will accept an out-of-court settlement, as tends to happen.

I would be the last one to say that paparazzi have the divine right to hound and haunt people. To me, privacy is a holy issue; I take my own and that of others very, very seriously.

However – and this is a big however – I cannot see from where people who have their privacy invaded in a way that could have been avoided, get the idea that they have been wronged.

A private holiday is supposed to be just that.  That is why we use the terms “inaccessible island” “secluded chateau” and “isolated love-nest”. But when zoom lenses enter the fray, a home is not a castle.

However, in the short time I spent on the broadcast media, I was taught that we should treat every mike as live, and every camera as taking us.  Old wives reminds us that “if you want to keep a secret, keep it to yourself”.

On the same principles, if you don’t want hacks to photograph you in compromising positions, please get naked behind the  curtains, and do not let anyone suck your toes when  there are other people around… especially if you are a Royal – or married to someone other than the person with who you are mucking about.

If you do, and someone finds a market for the inevitable photographs, you can say that you are saddened, and issue all the scathing press releases you want; the damage would have been wrought. Whether it is in the local blogosphere or mainstream media, on in an international magazine or newspaper, you may be sure that the escapade will find an audience if it is published or broadcast.

Peeping Toms are not just dirty old men in even dirtier raincoats armed with binoculars. They exist in offices and shop floors; on committees and in the street.

I do not consider myself a “public person” – yet if I go to a restaurant with a friend, I lose count of the people who stare at me in quasi-recognition. If my friend happens to be someone whose face is more familiar, people’s heads tend to go like Ping-Pong balls. It is as annoying as it is unjustifiable; no wonder some people wear wigs and sunglasses when they go to Sliema or Valletta (but their voices and mannerisms give them away).

That having been said, there are several people – politicians, models, media personalities, actors – who thrive on the attention of others.  It is so obvious that some of them actually stage their “wardrobe malfunctions” and “trysts”.  There are people like Carly Rae Jepsen, who describe themselves as “victims of hackers”.

The question begs itself – why do you have hours of sex-tape type footage, and stashes of X-rated pictures of yourselves and others on your telephone or computer, if you know there is the possibility however remote, that someone will hack you, filch them, and place them online – even if it’s not for money?  It is, by the way, even more possible and plausible that an ex-lover or ex-friend will post this pornography out of revenge.

Damage Control will often have a Streisand Effect.

The invasion of privacy of the Royals has been called grotesque, as well as “a service to readers”. It inevitably harkened back to the hounding of Princess Diana.  Royals are considered ‘interesting’ in the ordinary course of things, and even more so  if they wear sticking plasters with cartoon characters, or if they  go to a gym or purchase sweets from a shop ‘like commoners’. So it stands to reason that scenes that are considered racy would garner a far wider audience.

As long as there is a market for thus material, it will continue to be produced, and flogged…not necessarily to the highest bidder.

Insults, Injuries, Ignorance

It sometimes happens that a news item catches people’s imagination and spawns countless comments that border on the pornographic and / or the blasphemous.

A case in point is the so-called restoration of the painting that has been re-christened Cecilia Giménez’s Ecce Homo and inevitably, several other paintings, including The Scream and La Gioconda, were adorned with the botched version of the painting, originally by Elias Garcia Martinez.

The furore obtaining after the event came from two blocs: those who called the painting sacrilegious and wanted it re-restored forthwith, and the plebs who wanted it preserved for posterity because of its oddball charm.  Chartered trips were organised to allow the (non-?)Faithful to ogle at it, and countless Facebook Groups about it were set up.

Then came the bombshell. The Sanctuary of Mercy Church in Borja, near Zaragoza, began charging gawkers an entrance fee; the sum of €2,000 was collected in the first four days.  Thus was the red rag anti-clericals needed to expound upon the avariciousness of the Church.

Because of the repercussions, Giménez “had become a virtual recluse”; it was therefore a surprise to note that the ‘frail old lady’ wanted a slice of the action.

Inevitably, the reverberations of this demand were great – possibly greater than when she did the deed that started the ball rolling.

However – and this is a big let-down by the media, even the local one – it was not reported why the self-styled restorer wanted a share of the profits.  Perhaps it would not make good press to inform the readership and the viewership that Giménez did not desire the money for herself, but stipulated that it was to go to charities working on behalf of those who, like her son, have Muscular Atrophy.

This is yet another instance of how the media manipulates facts in order to sway public opinion, and how ignorance and arrogance sometimes masquerade as journalism.

It also shows how those who are in a position of power do not always wield it correctly – and how, often enough, they do not do their homework, hoping that the rest of us will take their plagiarised or regurgitated waffle as gospel truth because “we read it in the papers” or “we saw it on television”.  We do not realise that some information has been withheld, or that a person is being quoted out of context, or that the facts have been edited to coincide with the political or religious views of that particular medium.

In a totally different context, we have been told that “a little knowledge is a dangerous thing” – combine this with a modicum of power vested in someone, and you have an infuriating, potentially treacherous situation.

This happens, for instance, when a junior doctor at the hospital is too conceited to call the head of the firm, and misdiagnoses a terminal condition, indicating it is something totally different… diagnosing haemorrhoids that are actually metastatic colorectal cancer, or a ‘swollen gland’ that is non-Hodgkins lymphoma, or ‘indigestion’ that is a heart attack…

Just this morning, I was talking to two of my friends who have family members with learning difficulties, who avail themselves of respite care at different places. The first one said that her brother was always reluctant to leave home, but once he went inside the other buildings, he visibly relaxed and enjoyed himself. The second one said that her brother willingly goes to two of these places, but balks when the third is mentioned, and always mentions one particular member of the staff.

It is obvious that a “failure to communicate verbally” is sometimes taken to mean that a person is not aware of what is happening, and that is why some people behave abysmally.

I saw this happen a couple of Sundays ago at Mass. The altar-boys approached a couple and asked them to represent the congregation at the Offertory. Instinctively, the mother said that her daughter, who has a visible disability, would replace her. “But is she capable of doing it?” asked the older one, loudly enough to attract the attention of those of us in the immediate vicinity.

The LSA of my friend’s daughter was not pulling her weight, and this did not sit right with my friend. When she complained at the appropriate levels, she was told that “at least” the child had “someone”, for there were many other children who were still being assessed. But that was not her point at all.

The incident best filed under “I am not homophobic but…” has Paris Hilton’s tirade ending with “You’ll like, die of AIDS.”  The rant happened in a taxi, and no one would have known, save for the fact that the driver recorded it. So Hilton made a U-turn and specified that she was “merely” talking about homosexuals who use Grindr to find casual partners for sex.

The apology was carried on GLAAD’s website, and read, in part, “I am so sorry and so upset that I caused pain to my gay friends, fans and their families. Gay people are the strongest and most inspiring people I know.”

This, in itself, opens another can of worms. Given that this was “a private conversation” with a homosexual friend, why did she not sue the driver for breach of privacy?  Did she think it was more expedient to apologise profusely and have a spokesperson simper that “Paris’s comments were to express that it is dangerous for anyone to have unprotected sex that could lead to a life-threatening disease. It was not her intent to make any derogatory comments about all gays.”, because it keeps the limelight on her rather than shining it on the unknown third part?

Why do we have to have every single word that Paris Hilton says, every single dress that Suri Cruise wears, what Richard Burton said about female leads who were not Elizabeth Taylor, and who has been seen with whom, and more non-mews of this ilk, thrown into our faces?

Who, locally, has spoken of Michael Jackson’s posthumously-released “Pro-Life” song called Abortion Papers?