blah, blah, blah.....

I was complaining bitterly about my chronic sleeplessness on my 60^th birthday this year. I talked of my worries to my older brothers over the Christmas table groaning with goodies. They both confessed to having poor sleep themselves and blamed it on being over 60. “It’s just one of those things”, one said, “that comes with age like a dodgy ankle, bigger stomach, poor eyesight, a stiff back or arthritic thumbs”.  I was shocked. A lifetime of being a sound sleeper was no preparation for these long dark nights of ceiling inspection. It was my brothers’ knowing resignation that frightened me most. I thought insomnia was either in your genes or not.

My father had suffered his entire life from insomnia so I had naïvely thought that either you were born a poor sleeper or are one of the lucky ones like me. To find after six decades you could turn vampire like into a non-sleeper was a total betrayal of who I thought I was.

So, I have complained long and hard through this new way of living to all who have the patience to listen. Some proffer herbal drinks or bedtime routines as possible cures. Late night walks, banishing the laptop or avoiding taxing conversations all have been suggested and eagerly embraced by this pathetic night fugitive.

It was the next day weariness that wore me down. I felt as if I was operating on a half a tank and found simple tasks required stupendous effort. Typical sleep deprived mistakes included writing an entire set of appointments and meetings on the wrong week of my diary. That was followed by a confusing number of missed calls from furious people and knocking on my door by students while I was out doing anything other than what I was supposed to be doing.  “Sorry, sorry” became my new mantra that week.

That was also the week I started talking to myself on public transport. People began to give me odd looks as I gave myself a good stern dressing down for missing another important meeting. It’s fortunate that nowadays, I can pretend I have a particularly modern, almost invisible, headset to my phone. I have become cunning and when I would notice the glances of perplexed onlookers, as I blabber, I place an index finger in my ear and pause as if hearing a response from someone, then nod knowledgeably.

Some dark days when I see others talking heatedly into their hands-free phones I wonder have they lost it too but are even better experts than me at hiding their mental state?

They use sleep deprivation as torture and I know why. After three weeks of continuous poor sleeping, I transmuted into a different entity. When people spoke to me all I heard was blah, blah, blah. But for some reason, I was able to read their minds with particular intensity. Their mouth would be going blah, blah but the tiny muscles around their mouth indicated their anger or sadness. Not hearing their actual words, their body language seemed to shout more clearly. A particular nose touch indicating a lie, a quick pursing of the lips, dislike. I remember standing in front of one chap at a party hearing his braying blah, blah but seeing his eyes furtively dart to a young woman seated on the sofa nearby. His evident longing for her was louder than his braying.

After the fourth week of continuous disturbed sleep, a new dangerous state emerged. Now, I no longer heard or saw people. Acquaintances would accost me in the supermarket and I would examine them as if they were trying to sell me something on the phone. My response invariably would be “no thanks, no thanks” before I shuffled off politely.

Sleep deprivation finally ends in madness I can tell! Another week and I would begin rampaging through the shop shopping centre overturning goods while trying to undress myself in public. One more month of this and I would be a drooling, twitching, incontinent.

Thankfully and I do mean thankfully last night I had a wondrous night’s sleep. As a result, I have leapfrogged back to almost normality. I can keep appointments, hear what others say and have conversations again. I’m still scolding myself in public but the tone has become much more sympathetic like a firm mentor giving constructive criticism and I can actually almost pass for normal once more.  Miracles do happen!

Malta's Inquisition - the good the bad and the ugly

Visited the palace of the Inquisitor in Birgu this week.  Getting there by bus is a bit of a hassle.  First I waited for half an hour to get a bus to Valetta from Sliema.  Four full buses passed the stop unable to let any more on board.  From Valetta I caught a bus to Birgu and it takes a remarkably long time to get a few kilometres from where I started.  I feel sure the bus system is designed to make Malta seem much bigger.  After an hour on a bus somewhere you find yourself scratching your head in disbelief, after all the whole island is only 27 kilometres long and 15 kilometres across.  It may be small but it is jam packed with delights and the Palace of the Inquisitor was my goal.  Birgu has a mighty fine entrance.

As I approach the main entrance of Birgu I keep reminding myself how impressive it is now but how much more so it must have seemed in the 16th century.

On the left as you enter there is a fascinating museum which leads down to the underground shelters built deep beneath ground during World War II.  Down narrow corridors and steps there are dormitories and even a birthing room.  Each stone has a tale to tell in this place.

Certainly these walls were designed to keep out invaders and there is a majesty about them.  Walled defences that have layers of protection.

The side streets are pretty and distinctively Maltese. The Inquisitor's palace is not far from the main gate and is one of very few that have survived in the world still open to the public.

Inside the ground floor is a pleasant garden, obviously a pleasant place to retreat to after a tiring day investigating and torturing victims.  The kitchen is large and spacious with an oven down one side.

The staircase is spectacular and grand, this was the way to impress guests and to state ones importance.

Looking back down the stairs gives another perspective.  Note the chair which would be used to carry the really important around the city from venue to venue.

Two of the Inquisitors here in Malta went on to become popes.  Fabia Chigi became Pope Alexander VII in 1655.   There is a photo of him on the wall.  

When inquisitor he would have worn this costume below, a rather terrifying outfit to be confronted with.  I think the outfit was designed with confession in mind.

Pope Alexander VII did not get good press by some.  Here is an account, by a contemporary that knew him, that starts out well but ends badly.

"In the first months of his elevation to the Popedom, he had so taken upon him the profession of an evangelical life that he was wont to season his meat with ashes, to sleep upon a hard couch, to hate riches, glory, and pomp, taking a great pleasure to give audience to ambassadors in a chamber full of dead men's sculls, and in the sight of his coffin, which stood there to put him in mind of his death. [His] extraordinary devotion and sanctity of life I found was so much esteemed that the noise of it spread far and near. But so soon as he had called his relations about him he changed his nature. Instead of humility succeeded vanity; his mortification vanished, his hard couch was turned into a soft featherbed, his dead men's sculls into jewels, and his thoughts of death into ambition — filling his empty coffin with money as if he would corrupt death, and purchase life with riches."

I suspect piety is a hard act to maintain, but some of the faces of the Inquisitors look like rather evil characters indeed.  I keep wondering is it just me or do some of them look seriously disturbed?

I am one to talk, I take a bad photo myself but seriously, these guys were painted so surely with artistic skill they could have made them look more human.

All I can say is I would not like to be questioned by these characters while implements of torture were lying around conveniently placed.  Being found in possession of books on their index of forbidden texts would have been enough to get you into serious trouble.  Kepler's scientific treaty on the movement of the planets etc would have certainly got you strapped to something painful. Galileo's championing of the planets moving around the sun resulted in him being tried and suffering house imprisonment for the rest of his life.  But there were a whole range of things that could get you into trouble.  (see below)

It's quite a list and the last one could include informing the inquisition of the sins of others.  By not doing so you could get into real trouble.  In Malta the major sins seem to centre around witchcraft/evil eye etc. Mostly it appeared the use of love potions was common.  This activity was hard to stamp out despite the intensity of their best endeavours.  Pope Alexander VII, when inquisitor ,so filled the cells with people to investigate they ran out of room to put their suspects.  The longest serving Inquisitor in Malta was Paolo Passionei  (1743-1754). Unfortunately, he had several nasty secrets of his own which caused some difficulties.

"He was guilty of 'Loose living' including fornication. Inquisitor Passionei secretly had a mistress, and he became the father of two females .... When in 1749 the Pope requested him to go to Switzerland as an Apostolic Nuntio he refused, being afraid that his scandalous life would become public! He left Malta on 1754 and was unfrocked. " 

It's a tricky business this judging of others, not perhaps a healthy spiritual exercise.  "Let he who is without sin throw the first stone..." applies surely?

The inquisitors lived in some comfort.

The room in which they interrogated suspects had a rather unpleasant feel to it.  The torture implements in the dungeon down below must have helped loosen tongues.

There is a special staircase to the prison cells below which meant they could be taken secretly to and fro without being seen by others.  The cells themselves had tiny low doors and small high windows.

The contrast between the prison cells with their cramped quarters down below to the luxury above is stark.

Strange to find in one building such marked differences only a staircase away.  Below all dark and tortured while above all light and comfort.

"A prisoner in the Inquisition is never allowed to see the face of his accuser, or of the witnesses against him, but every method is taken by threats and tortures, to oblige him to accuse himself, and by that means corroborate their evidence."

John Foxe

When you think about the inquisition it is hard to find positive things to say about this period.  Lessons have to be learnt from history and until we do it seems society will never progress.  I liked this piece by― Alfred Whitney Griswold in Essays on Education,

“Books won't stay banned. They won't burn. Ideas won't go to jail. In the long run of history, the censor and the inquisitor have always lost. The only sure weapon against bad ideas is better ideas. The source of better ideas is wisdom. The surest path to wisdom is a liberal education.”