Ok, so here’s what you need to know about Malta. So this won’t be a long message. Because Malta is very small. Tiny. Yet its a proper country and a republic too. AND, its actually part of the EU. In fact it is officially the chair-nation, or whatever they call that dubious honour, of the EU this year.

Malta is an island in the med. The southern Med. Just below Italy, half an inch from Tunisia on most maps, not far from Libya. Nice. Hot. In terms of its importance in the world and its history, I was quite prepared to make up a total fiction. As I’ve been known to do. Along the lines of: “invaded by the Greeks in 572 BC, raped by the Romans in 32AD, pillaged by the Vikings in 743, taken over by rampaging Moors in 1219 when it became a Muslim state, governed by Napoleon, that sodding French dwarf, in 1774, who stopped here for a beer on his way to Mexico, ruled under a British mandate from 1823, then… then became a republic, survived a UFO landing in 2276 when aliens ate their babies and that’s that”.

But I checked on Wiki and found that my fiction is totally on the money. Which is no feat of historic genius on my part, but its the same history of virtually any country in these parts, especially the little ones. In fact my history and what we shall loosely call ‘the official one’ only vary because they missed the bit when the Vikings arrived and I didn’t. Big bastards they were, fucking great horns on their helmets. Blondes. Don’t know how they could have missed ’em. The UFO thing we’ll have to wait and see.

But now we’re in Gozo. And this is what it looks like. Its that bit of brown lying on the Sea just behind Mel. Impressive. That was on the boat on the way over. You don’t need to invade to come to Gozo, they have ferries every hour to take you. But heh, nothing stopping you if you really want to, everyone else seems to have done it. Gozo’s even smaller than Malta. Though is obviously part of it.

The interesting thing about Malta is that its language, errrr, Maltese, is basically an Arab language, from the Moorish days. But, and this is unique, its ‘written in English, innit’. So although it sounds distinctly Arabic, it uses Roman letters. Or English letters really, cos the Romans couldn’t speak English. Yet the Maltese can and do. English is their official language. Praise be. Which does make life easy. Which is what we’re here for.

You’ll notice that Lila is not in Gozo. Not allowed. Tried to steal her but her mum found out and scuppered the plot.

Hot here though. Nice.

Happy Saturday

A xxxx