Maria and Michael Abateo, forty winks

Here lives Maria and Michael  Abateo.  Maria is a bubbly fifty-year-old Maltese lady.  Full of life and laughter.  You’d pass the house and not notice it, except perhaps the flowers spilling down the front in total abundance.  They suggest someone different lives here.  She loves clothes in bright colours but has good taste so they make her seem younger than her years.  Her husband jokes continually with her, but it is tinged with admiration.   Life with Maria has brought surprises.  Like this week! 

Maria was driving up a steep street in Sliema and spotted a tourist pushing a woman in a wheelchair.  It was midday, the sun was blistering hot and he was obviously finding the slope too much.  Maria drove past but when she got to the end of the road, she circled back round to the couple and stopped next to them.  She asked them where they wanted to go.  The man said, red faced and panting, that they were heading to The Point, a shopping arcade.  Maria told him she would take them there.  Maria has a huge jeep so they all fitted in, wheel chair included.  While they drove, Maria found out that they were a married couple, Doug and Claire from the UK.  Doug had been Claire’s nurse in hospital in the early days of her muscular dystrophy.  Now, Claire was completely wheel chair bound and even required a catheter.  During, their short journey Maria discovered that the couple were trying to find somewhere to eat, so immediately Maria suggested taking them to her home.  “I’ll make you something,” she offered generously.  They readily agreed and Maria was as good as her word with a delicious Maltese meal ready in short time. 

After the meal, the couple were tired and Claire asked if she could have forty winks.  Maria, once she understood what forty winks meant, knew just the place, her large cool corridor with a light blanket thrown over Claire’s wheelchair.  Within minutes, in the cool breezy corridor, she was sound asleep.  Doug and Maria sat in the spacious living room sofas chatting for a while.  But an afternoon siesta is an attractive proposition when you've been out in the sun most of the morning.  So, in no time at all, Doug and Maria were sound asleep each on a large sofa in the shuttered, darkened room. 

When Michael returned early from work shortly after, he was startled to discover a lady in a wheelchair in his entrance hall with his own favourite blanket tucked cozily around her.  Tip toeing into his living room he was nonplussed to discover his wife and a complete stranger also sound asleep in his living room.  Only Maria, Michael laughed, could spring such surprises.  He tells the story well of that day, with animated gestures and eyebrows raised and both of them erupt in gales of laughter.  What a lovely couple, in a welcoming home, with radiant faces and hearts.

Old age isn’t a battle, old age is a massacre.

 Philip Roth

How well said.  This getting older is a process and I know it began the moment we were born and that should be comforting, but it isn’t.  Just because you were born into a process doesn’t mean you were automatically given the skills to cope with it.  It’s a bit like someone throwing you into a river and telling you to swim, you might be lucky and have enough visceral and body fat to keep afloat (I suspect, I would float quite high in the water, myself!) ,but unless someone had taught you to swim, you are not going to learn in the next few minutes of your life, are you?  So what are the life skills that you need to sustain this massacre.  Well here is my list

1.     a sense of humour because if you cannot laugh at yourself you are going to be very tired of others doing it for you

2.     don’t assume old age makes you smell less – the opposite is true.  As we get older we are like orange juice concentrate and we become stronger, thicker and less dilute.  This applies to all our attributes, so if we are slightly sarcastic in our twenties, we will be bitingly bitter in our thirties and really rancid in our forties.  Some personal progress on a daily basis is not a nicety, it is a necessity.

3.     most things you see around you are a distortion of the human spirit not its essential nature.  The good news is that people are much nicer than we think and this applies to you too.

4.     It’s a good idea to look around you and feel that you are surrounded by spiritual giants, it will compensate for the fact that you, probably like me, are from the pigmy tribe of spirituality.  Don’t think of this as a negative, the humble posture of learning this engenders will help you grow.

5.     Everything you have and everything you own will eventually be taken away from you, it’s a fact, face it.  Now, spend your precious remaining time on what cannot be taken away from you, your service to humanity.  If you don’t know what that means, find out and fast!

6.     Be conscious of the fragrances around you, jasmine brought to you on the night air, rose’s wafting across the garden and those human scents of cooperation, concord and love.  Surround yourself with such things until they become part of you.  It will help you smell less in old age!

Sometimes when we are being massacred something beautiful happens, that takes ones breath away.  Dr. James Simon, born in Berlin on 29th September 1880, was a solidly-trained composer, pianist and musicologist. In late March or early April, 1944, Simon was one of a thousand inmates deported to Terezin, a Nazi camp. 

Simon quickly entered into the musical life of the ghetto.  On July 9, 1944, he set Psalm 126 for Karel Fischer’s Durra-Chor, which was performed seven times in Terezin between July and October. 

From Psalm 126

"Our mouths were filled with laughter,

    our tongues with songs of joy.

Then it was said among the nations,

    The Lord has done great things for them.

The Lord has done great things for us,

    and we are filled with joy."

On October 12 he boarded the transport to Auschwitz and died in a gas chamber shortly after his arrival.

He wrote on a dedication sheet to a friend,

 ‘Do righteous deeds and throw them into the sea.’ – Arab proverb

I hope you, like me, have caught a fragrance of this sweet soul and feel the benefit of knowing such flowers existed.

Feel the seaweed between your toes, the wind upon your cheek, the rain in your eye and glow in the experience.

Sitting in a 5 star hotel luxuriating in the wonderful air conditioning.  Outside is baking in noonday pavement roasting madness but here inside this place of the rich, all is well.  A pampering spa offers a massage, pedicure or facial rejuvenation.  On level 1 there is an expensive hairdressers.  You can tell how much they charge, as even 5 star guests can obviously not afford to go in.  Bored staff look at you with genuine distain.  “You cannot afford us”, they seemed to positively glisten with the knowledge.  They, of course, are absolutely right.  In fact I can afford none of this I am an interloper on foreign turf. 

This 5 star luxury is a stolen moment and I sit here awaiting the hand on shoulder, saying in pitying terms, “be gone, lowlife!”  But I have a small protection; I am wily to the ways of the rich and their patch.  First, you must dress as if you belong.  Wear your best but be careful to look as if it is some old thing you’ve just thrown on.  Be careful of shoes, watches and jewellery they give always too much about you.  But it is also the attitude you need to have that languid air of, this is all just not good enough.  It is an air of unhappiness tinged with “I’m paying through the nose for all of this and it is just not what I am accustomed to?”  Towards the staff they radiate the message, “you could do better if you only made an effort”. 

Inside, I celebrate the free air conditioning, the icy cool against my tomato skin.  I am in ecstasy at getting all this for free.  At my flat, I’d be sitting glued to my small fan but here I can take my pick of seats opulent and rich with breath taking views of the blue Med below and the sweating tourists on the open-topped buses below.  What is it about open topped buses?  Are they a torture that countries have invented to vent their dislike on unsuspecting tourists?  Here in Malta, red-faced tourists with shoulders the colour of raw beef sit in the blazing sun, trapped on the moving barbeque.  Only their abundant sweat to fry in. 

We have the opposite version on the North coast of Ireland, where I’m from.  There, the tourists clamber eagerly onto open topped buses to see the Giant’s Causeway and beautiful north coast.  It pisses rain on them in torrents, often combined with a ferocious horizontal wind and tourists frantically wipe their soaked camera lens to capture the sodden splendour of our green isle.  Nothing excites a tourist more than an open topped bus.  Downstairs is for the cautious and those who make it to the top deck, whether cooked or drowned, grin their happiness and appreciation, waving childlike at passing strangers. 

The five star guests at this place will never know the ecstasy of open topped buses.  Theirs is a different world from the rest of us.  Living in luxury, insulated from the working masses, they hug their boredom and discontent to themselves.  Vaguely aware that they are missing out on what they deserve but pacified by the subservience with which they are cushioned.  Only the best is good enough, you sense, but uncertainty remains.  Is this really as good as good as it gets? 

If you really want to see a happy tourist look to the open topped buses.  These guys know that to really enjoy anything you have to let go and remember the child within.  Feel the seaweed between your toes, the wind upon your cheek, the rain in your eye and glow in the experience.

Love of humanity not love of nationality

It is disheartening to see the rise of racism across Europe.  The tide of illegal immigrants flocking to its shores, combined with an economic downturn have prompted the rise of a growing nationalism and a swing to the political right.  I lived in Rhodes for almost a decade and was devastated by the common occurrence of boats filled with refugees sinking as they made their way across into Europe from Turkey.  Searching for a new life and fleeing impossible conditions these hopefuls were instead washed ashore on holiday islands, their dead bodies bloated and distorted. 

Now, I am living on Malta the fleeing refugees keep coming, this time from Africa and again holiday islands are the first piece of Europe encountered by the fleeing masses.   You used to read in history about when a civilisation fell it was customary for its men to be slaughtered and its women and children sold into slavery.  It seemed barbaric and inhuman that this was so common an occurrence in our history.  But living in Rhodes, during the fall of the Soviet Union, I was to learn a new lesson in modern forms of the same.  Russian women worked on the island as cleaners and sent their money home to their families in Russia.  Often these women were qualified workers in Russia but had not been paid and so had fled to find income to support their children.  They work so hard these women and they don’t complain.  Whatever disaster unfolds they just buckle down and try a little harder.  Hardship strengthens you, they say.   It felt horrific to see a kind of modern slavery of sorts and to sense their vulnerability. 

Here, on Malta the economy is good and yet already a weariness of this tide of refugees is in evidence.  In Greece, where the economy is far from healthy, the rise of the right wing extremist party has brought violence onto the street against foreigners.  It is not just the newly arrived that are targeted.  A friend of mine, who has lived in Greece for many decades, as an eye doctor was targeted by racist thugs in the town where he lives.  I remember using his services when one of my young sons had something painful in his eye at a summer school, we were both attending in northern Greece.  The doctor delicately rolled back the eyelid and blew, the obstruction was cleared and my son’s relief was immediate.  To think that this decent man was beaten so badly that he is on crutches defies belief.  When I saw his photograph after the attack I wept.  Both at the pain and suffering he endured and at the stupidity of those who do such things to other human beings. 

Most people would not attack foreigners in their midst but many will come out with racist comments that fuel the actions of the ignorant in our society.  When a tide of racism is on the increase one hopes that those who believe in a better society stand firm in their principles.  We so often look back to Nazi actions and celebrate those who protected the Jews and went against the tide of public opinion around them.  Perhaps, people will look back at these days we live in now and speak of those who knew how to keep grounded in their love of humanity, despite the challenges and confusion.

Careers, Dick and Conferences

My difficulty career wise is a habit of shooting myself in the foot.  This usually happens when the organisation I work for crosses my line.  Yes, I have lines and when there are crossed my career changes.  I often wish those lines were not there.  Here’s an example.

I worked for a university and because their funding was reduced, gradually they pruned services for students.  First it was tutors.  They went from having 40 tutors across the UK to a single one, namely myself.  Great savings but at what cost to the service they supplied.  Then they decided that printing and posting out the course material was too expensive, so everything went online and students had to read it on screens or pay for their own printing. 

I watched the train wreck happen powerless to control the disaster.  Students who had paid for the course got nothing but web links.  I had visions of future education were learning consisted of vast online banks of information which students did not look at but merely had to know where to find them.  The job of educator was to become akin to a non- speaking tour guide who ushered clients from one virtual site to another encouraging engagement.  As the process continued I was called to a meeting at the main office to discuss further cut backs with the course team. 

At this meeting I felt duty bound to point out that a high percentage of students were not even finding their way to the courses website homepage.  Never mind tackling the online assignments.  By now tutorials were cut back to once a month, so for an eight-week course you were halfway through the course before you realized students were lost on the web.  During the consultation it became apparent that the next cost cutting exercise would be to get rid of the last remaining tutor, me!  By now, to be honest, the course had become a mere shell of what it had been before.  Just a fake façade to lure in the paying pundits.  So I was ready to walk but rather than say so, I came up with a game plan of my own.

What we need, I explained to the course team, to make the course successful was a really stupid student.  The course team turned and looked at me in amazement and I elaborated.  Most students think or fear that they are the weakest one of the pack.  Whether through lack time to prepare or sheer ability, most students fear that every one else is racing ahead, succeeding and leaving them behind in their wake.  So why not create a virtual student.  We give them a plausible name and student ID and access to all the student conferences and an email address.  This student “Dick” will make postings to the course conference early on in the course complaining that he has not received the course material by post.  Then, I as tutor can point out that actually the course material is online and give the web address.  This will alert all the rest that the  course material is available.  The virtual student can keep everyone else on track regarding assignments by asking really stupid questions that will help everyone else’s confidence grow. 

The course coordinator leant forward and said, “there’s a problem, when it comes to the tutorial they’ll all discover that Dick does not exist.”  I smiled patiently and responded, “Oh no, that’s part of the beauty of the plan.  Dick’s first posting after the tutorial will be to explain how he couldn’t find his way to the venue for the tutorial.  Imagine how cheered those who actually attended will feel.  At least they got there, they were ahead already would probably feel quite smug.

I could sense a growing enthusiasm around the table.  The red headed course assistant burst in enthusiastically.   “Dick could be used to activate postings on themes in conferences.  He could express a need for career advice and then our response might trigger others to consult our career advisor.  My first convert!  I decided to fan the fire. 

“From previous analysis of student drop out dates we know the times in the course when we lose most students.  Dick can be particularly active during these points making postings to the conference saying things like, It’s all too difficult, I’ve had family/health problems or I’m too far behind etc ”

by now red head could not stop himself interjecting excitedly, “And of course the responses given to Dick from the moderator will be read by all the students and could help them hang on in during these critical points.”

I smiled my approval and went on to my next point as if uninterrupted.

“Another problem Dick will be able to help us with is conference posting etiquette.”

A deep sign from everyone in the room showed I had hit a raw nerve here.  The course director scratched his head and looked genuinely perplexed, I don’t know how Dick could have helped prevent the European tutor conference debacle.”

For those of you who have never heard of this, let me explain.  There was an online conference set up for lecturers within Europe which became infamous in net etiquette circles.  All participants had been trained in good online conference etiquette (be polite, never insulting, no rude comments, no capitals – ie shouting, no political postings, religious rants etc) but it didn’t stop the disaster unfolding.  Neither could the poor conference moderator despite his pleas for restraint and reason. 

It had started off innocuously enough with a posting by a lecturer in Spain about the need for a printed copy of the course material to be sent out to all the tutors at least.  Another lecturer commented on the grammatical and spelling mistakes in the former posting in a rather offensive nit-picking manner.  Before a day had passed, the tutor in Spain had pointed out that since he was fluent in Italian, Spanish, German and English it was very rich to be scolded by someone who could only function in one language.  This prompted an angrier response, at which point the online moderator had intervened and called on both parties to account for their postings.  Neither would back down from a flaming escalating series of personal attacks including some unsavoury slights on someone’s mother.  A rather obscure university online conference was now being read avidly by all participants instead of the normal 15 out of 200 as the vitriol and intensity grew.  In desperation the online moderator took decisive action, he barred both from making any further postings by withdrawing their permissions to post from their profiles.  Now they could only read postings but not post their own contributions. 

Silence reigned for two days but figures monitoring the conference remained unusually high.  Obviously people were waiting breath abated for the next thrilling abusive missive.  Unbelievably, a normally innocuous mild mannered tutor from southern Spain took up the cudgel on behalf of his colleague and sent in a posting about how the English were insensitive and anally retentive due to their public school system.  There was a furry of heated responses and the fire was on again as heated as ever and spreading. This time when the online moderator warned of consequences there were five immediate postings on the theme of free speech, which triggered twenty the next day.  Righteous indignation followed when the first five freedom of speech posters were barred from the conference.  By now, there was 100% monitoring of this obscure online conference.  Some tutors were clocking five hours a day online waiting for the next exciting instalment.  A senior moderator with more experience took over at this stage and said that he would start disciplinary proceedings against whoever broke conference etiquette from that point on.  There was silence on the conference for two hours but the tense expectancy grew as all monitored the conference. 

Then at 11..30pm on Sept 23^rd there was a single posting

“Bugger you!”

The moderator was as good as his word and not only took away the contributors posting privileges but wrote a terse letter of starting preliminary disciplinary proceedings to the culprit and copied the same to the whole conference.  Like lights on a Christmas tree the postings took off in one-word entries from all over Europe

“Bastards”

“Hitlers”

“Fascists”

These came from different tutors but grew in intensity and tempo.  By the middle of the night at least 80% of postings to the conference became swear words and they grew in their virulence as if each one was desperate to outdo the previous offering.  The senior moderator gave up and pulled the plug on the conference and closed it all down.  It became known to us all in the trade as the Fully Unexpected Conference Killer or FUCK as it was shortened to.  Just mention of it had course directors losing sleep, if this was how tutors behaved what would happen if FUCK ever happened in a student conference?

With this background, I wanted to show how Dick could have been deployed in such situations.  The course director was lost and red head was looking puzzled.  I clarified, for example Dick could have made a posting along the lines of “Last year on our online conference there was a suicide caused by poor net etiquette.  Poor Harry, a mate of mine, was on a course on the enlightenment to recover from a messy divorce.  Little expecting that hurtful postings would end his life.  It was so distressing that I had to drop out of the course myself and that’s why I am repeating the course this year.  Can I urge everyone to make sure they respect the vulnerable members of our student group and adhere to online etiquette for all our sakes!”

I finished by saying that was only one of many tactics that could be deployed by having our virtual mole, “Dick” in place.

The course director coughed and said, “I can see you’ve given this quite some thought and the idea has merit.  Perhaps we can have a meeting to build on the Dick idea.  He could have another useful role to play in tutor training.  For example, by inserting a Dick into a conference to challenge etiquette, tutors could be trained how to address such issues more efficiently.  Sort of a trial run so to speak.  I do think Dick has legs, what do the rest of you think?”

Red head nodded vigorously and the rest showed approval.  Dick was good to go.  It was time to pull the pin on all of this.

I began

“I’d like to point out that we started out with good course material with excellent tutors.  Then to save money we dumped the material online, got rid of the tutors and  tutorials.  The fact that this course team has spent this meeting talking about an non existent student Dick, on a course with hardly any tutorials and zero course materials seems the natural conclusion of this whole enterprise.  It would appear to indicate that now we have reached the natural climax – a course team with Dick all on their minds.”

Yes, indeed it was time for another career change!

Economists Versus Craftsmen - No contest!

The Craftsman

One of the joys of having no watchable TV means that you are constantly straining to find new input.  Friends of mine in N Ireland were almost unique in having no TV and their home was such a lovely sanctuary filled with music and books in piles.  I remember most of all their sensitively and spirituality.  Interested in everything from art to science, travelling to music it was like bathing in a different atmosphere.  Here, on Malta, I found a pile of old Economists from three years ago and am devouring them.  Find the economic predictions interesting and at times have to stop myself chortling at the self-satisfied smugness of financial experts.  With the benefit of hindsight much of their insights come across as the ramblings of smug enthusiastic schoolboys.  But then again when you have the luxury of knowing what actually happened then predictions can seem all too flawed.  You find yourself suddenly doubting the assumed wisdom of these so-called experts.  So it is nice reading about something that perversely keeps its integrity despite the passage of time.  It is an obituary about Alan Peters a furniture maker from England whose love for his profession comes through in his art. 

He handled wood as a lover and his dedication to arts and crafts was as natural to him as breathing.  He claimed a perfect drawer had to slide in on a cushion of air, and when pulled out had to cause the other drawers to retract, very slightly, into the almost airtight case.  He stroked wood and understood it, claiming that reclaimed Victorian wood was ideal as drawer sides as it was as stable as it ever was going to be, while solid sweet smelling cedar of Lebanon was perfect for the drawer bottom.  But his desire was always to make an honest and simple piece, one he could put his name to.  I knew nothing about his work but the more I read about the arts and crafts movement the more noble and inspiring it seemed.  Especially, compared to those seedy economists.  Even their attitude to work raised my spirits, here is a quote by William Morris from an address at the Annual Meeting of the School of Science and Art, The Wedgwood Institute, Burselm, 13th October, 1881

“I know by my own feelings and desires what these men want, ...employment which would foster their self-respect and win the praise and sympathy of their fellows, and dwellings which they could come to with pleasure, surroundings which would soothe and elevate them; reasonable labour, reasonable rest. There is only one thing that can give them this -- art.”

Given present day working conditions that much of the world slogs under this seems aspirational indeed.  Note the date, it would appear that those in the arts and crafts field got off to a head start on the rest of us!  Doesn't it make you want to take up a hammer and chisel in a quiet workroom with the smell of fresh wood surrounding you?  But, perhaps what I like most about this profession is the results.  Your breath is taken away by the simple elegant honesty of their workmanship.  Here is no sleight of hand or sales talk the pieces speak for themselves.  They speak of the artist that made them, their integrity and passion.  Alan Peters, learned his trade as an apprentice to purists like Edward Barnsley, who spurned power tools of any sort.  So, perhaps, this is how excellence is attained, it is built on the shoulders of other quiet giants.

“Arts crafts and sciences uplift the world of being and are conducive to its exaltation. Knowledge is as wings to man’s life and a ladder for his ascent. Its acquisition is incumbent upon everyone.”

― Bahá'u'lláh

Anxiously concerned with the needs of the age

Yesterday while walking through Valletta, Malta I came across a procession.  Lead by a pipe band it made its way through the narrow streets of the old city.  A group of children in long white cassocks followed and then adults with dramatic gowns and the Maltese emblem emblazoned on each shoulder.  Following them came a group of men struggling under the weight of a huge wooden structure carrying a cross and other figures.  Their walk was peculiar with a sideways sway to every step forward.  Then as they grew closer I saw the strain on their faces and began to appreciate the weight they were carrying.  At the corner of a street they lowered their burden and huge swollen patches on their shoulders were evident.  Not red patches but massive protrusions the size of two huge fists.  They looked sore beyond belief and suddenly the spectacle had ceased to hold any appeal.  It reminded me of the followers who scourge themselves for religious reasons.  I felt my heart sink, much as I tried and did admire the tenacity of their devotion.  It just seems to be that in this day our devotion much surely be shown in service to our fellow humans not in such practices.  Here on Malta there is a 80-year-old Franciscan priest who has been running a shelter for the refugees fleeing to Europe for forty years.  Being on the edge of Europe, people in makeshift boats head across the Mediterranean to find sanctuary and refuge.  The centre called the Peace Laboratory provides an oasis of calm and security to those who have nothing.  At a time when so many want to make their mark on the world, wouldn’t it be good if many more chose to serve humanity and became anxiously concerned with the needs of the age we live in.