The education curriculum assumes that all Maltese children are native English and Maltese speakers

Malta has two official languages: English and Maltese. Thousands of Maltese children are being brought up in families where English is not spoken regularly. We have also thousands of children living on these islands whose first language is not Maltese. Although we are officially a bilingual society Maltese and English are taught in our schools as if these are two native languages that our children acquire automatically through schooling and socialization.

We have a one-size-fits-all language policy for all our children and schools. This has not worked as on average only 56% of our students walk away with passes in the Secondary Education Certificate (SEC) in English Language and Maltese. At least 44% of our fifth formers still do not manage to become competent in English Language and Maltese after at least 12 years of schooling. SEC and Junior Lyceum examiners still refer to poor spelling, weak grasp of grammar and syntax, poor reading habits and lack of imagination and creativity in their year reports on students’ performance in English Language and Maltese SEC and Junior Lyceum examinations.

To change all this we need to design appropriate curricula, examinations, syllabi, content and pedagogical methods in the teaching and learning of English and Maltese.

The Maltese SEC and MATSEC examination needs to be split into two different papers: a language component and another in literature. Our students should be given the option to choose one of these papers and a pass in the Maltese Language SEC and MATSEC exam should be enough to qualify them for a course at the University of Malta. Steps should be taken to modernise the teaching of Maltese and choose content that is more relevant to the young people going through their education now.

Forcing thousands of our teenagers to do a Maltese SEC syllabus that is closer to a pre-industrial Malta 80 years ago than to their daily life makes them hate Maltese literature and gives them the sensation that Maltese is a strange and remote language.

We have very good writers who are creating literature that is very relevant for young people growing up today but this literature is kept away from our schools.

Teaching material and methods have been developed to help foreigners learn Maltese but our schools do not make any use of these experiences. The same goes for the teaching of English where the success we have achieved in teaching the language to over a million foreigners has not been transferred to our schools to teach our own youngsters.

We should use the know-how and experience we have built in the sector of the teaching of English as a foreign language to improve the teaching of Maltese and English in our primary and secondary schools.

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Losing sight of the coast is necessary, sometimes.

Evarist Bartolo, Shadow Minister for Education and a lecturer in communications at the University of Malta, writes about the need for critical distance. And the need to sail away from our comfort zone.

Most of us Maltese know very little about the Maltese Islands.

We do not know much about these islands because of the way we have been brought up to look at our past. Most of us look at our past with a set of ideas and assumptions immersed in myths, legends and mostly lack of information that give us a poor picture of ourselves and our ancestors: that we have always been Catholic and nothing but Catholic since St Paul converted us nearly 2000 years ago. This way of thinking about our country and us is such a poor caricature of our rich past and identity! We need to discover our past and ourselves.

But to do that we must stop hugging the old familiar coast we know. We must sail forth … away from the comfort zone we have created. It will be worthwhile as the Maltese Islands we will discover, will equip us to feel more at home in the diverse, borderless and multicultural world of the 21st century.

If we explore our past with new eyes we will discover what a multicultural and diverse identity we have: that we were Muslim centuries ago; that several Maltese were persecuted, even burnt at the stake, for spreading Lutheranism in Malta; that perhaps for centuries these islands had no people living in them and we are a nation of immigrants; that we have Maltese and Gozitans living in every corner of the globe and we have many amongst us whose ancestors come from many different countries with a diversity of cultures and religions and that even three centuries ago you could walk up Valletta’s main street and hear people talking to each other in many different languages.

As Andre`Gide says: “One does not discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore.” Are we ready for it? We now have enough serious historians who have researched and discovered our past but their work has still not reached our schools and media and so we still look at our country and ourselves with the same old eyes.

Photo: Aron Mifsud Bonnici

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No way we're opening for the next two weeks!

Anyone who has holidayed in continental Europe in August, especially in cities, will know that many bars and restaurants are shut, sporting notices such as ‘Ferie’ or ‘in Vacanza’ in Italy, for example. Just as you, the unsuspecting tourist arrives, those who should be making a buck out of you at this peak summer holiday time of year have chosen to go on holiday too. So what happens in August in Malta, holiday islands in sun?

What to Expect in the August Shutdown
The next two weeks are Malta’s peak, local summer holiday time of year. If the father of the family hasn’t taken a break yet, he will now be shipping himself and family somewhere like a holiday flat or second home in Gozo or up North to St Paul’s Bay, abroad, or if very lucky, aboard a motor cruiser island hopping to Sicily. Mid August often sees a change in the weather to humid, sweaty, still grey days that promise rain. We can see the odd freak flash flood storm as a taste of autumn rains to come.

The summer recess in Malta moves in mysterious ways. We might not have ‘Chiuso per Ferie’ on our windows as our Italian neighbours do, but the habitual two weeks’ shutdown does leave its mark. Here’s how:

The good news
Everything a tourist needs stays open. Local businesses know that this is the time of year to make almost all their profits if they rely on tourist bucks from sun, sea and sand seeking visitors. None of the habits of Italian city restaurateurs here.

The bad news:
If you’ve moved to Malta recently, you might not know that a lot of firms – even those in service industries such as advertising, and retail businesses such as kitchen and bathroom showrooms, for instance, will be firmly shut for almost two weeks either side of 15 August. So, if you forgot to order that spare part for the washing machine, or need a new tap, like I do, you will have to wait till well after the 15th. Even then, next deliveries after the summer recess can take often until end September or longer to materialise in Malta. You will notice too that supermarket shelves may run out of favourite brands as shipments slow in August.

Although Malta has a dwindling number of manufacturing plants, the tradition of closing up the office still holds even if a firm doesn’t have a production line. The knock-on effect of the shutdown ripples through the economy. We’ve said before that the public sector is hard to reach on the phone after 12.00 from mid June to mid September, but I doubt you’ll get anywhere until September if you try to call a government office now with a query.

The other bad news is that we are all left to battle for the best places on the beach, best restaurant tables and best parking places as the islands teem with holidaymakers, locals and visitors. For some insane reason, we like to take our holidays now, altogether in a pressured two weeks. Malta’s schools don’t go back till around 24 September or later, so we’ve plenty more time to take a break.

The traditional August shutdown, while not strictly needed for most firms these days, is a habit hard to break. Maybe we can blame it on Malta’s most important public holiday, Santa Marija, which falls on the 15 August. The day is in Malta’s psyche; not only because Malta is predominantly Catholic, but also because it marks the end of Malta’s second ‘great siege’ when a small, war-torn convoy of Allied forces’ supply ships limped into Grand Harbour relieving the islands. More on that in our second August holiday article to come.

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Guest Rule 1: bus it.

It’s peak summer, if we hadn’t noticed, which means it’s the season to be visited in Malta if you live here. Just as it gets really hot and anything but floating in pool or sea is tiring, emails from wannabe guests start populating your inbox. I’ve had a guest for almost a week which is why we’ve been silent in the past days. It’s also the reason for this post.

If you’ve lived in Malta as many years as I have, family and friends, far flung, have all been, seen and ‘done’ Malta at least twice or thrice and decided it’s time to holiday elsewhere. By now they’ve decided ‘the islands are so small’ and that ‘it’s far too hot in peak summer to sightsee isn’t it?’.

My list of guests has included a relative who wanted to see all the religious festas in an action-packed Easter, an Italian with a young son in tow who dug holes in my kitchen table, and a New Yorker who wanted picking up from the beach at will, generally in the peak heat.

As I waived good-bye, I made a mental note of the points that make for all-round easier, less stressful guest stay in Malta. The list is based on years of hosting experience. If you’re newly living in Malta, read this and be better prepared. The next few summers will see masses of repeat visitors coming your way. Do ask them to read this before they book the flights!

Hosts

Say NO!
If you’ve any nagging doubts about your guests’ stay (heavy workloads, kids sick, back from your holiday the day before they arrive, or you aren’t that close to them), just be brave and say a polite, quick reply, ‘NO it isn’t convenient’.

Be Prepared
Sleeping arrangements, extra beds and bedding, bathroom space, transport, car hire, sightseeing itineraries, food, ideal restaurants, kids’ activities, how to fit in with your routine, and a whole lot more needs working through before they arrive if you aren’t to feel like a stranger in your own home while guests are around. You will also be asked about medical things so make sure you know the times of a local doctor and how to guard against and treat mosquito bites and sunburn and sunstroke.

Guests

Please, please, please think about all this before you stay with a friend in Malta, especially in summer months..

Sun & Heat
June – August can easily see temperatures sore to late thirties and even over 40°C. Do expect to find that unbearable if you’re from northern climates. Do take precautions. Don’t expect your host to be sympathetic when you loll around at their house saying it’s too hot to go out, or because you got sunstroke on day one. Don’t ask them to pick you up at the hottest times of day – our cars are boiling! Stay put in the shade somewhere, then bus it home.

Electricity & Water: fans, showers, aircons and plugs
We pay among the highest price in Europe for our electricity in Malta, so please don’t leave fans, aircons or lights on when you’re not in your guest room. Do try also to save water and not shower four times a day. Plugs are UK 3-pin so bring enough adapters if from Continental Europe.

Transport – hire cars, buses
Our latest guest was supposed to hire a car but the two near misses as we drove on day one, within 100m of our house, was enough to put him off the idea. But do talk to your host in advance about how you intend to get around sightseeing or to the beach; don’t assume they can always fit in or want to pick you up. Hire cars are still cheap in Malta and a good way to explore. See our tips for safe driving. Buses are very hot this time of year but think about how quaint the journey is in our ageing vehicles!

We are not on Holiday!
While your hosts will take time to be with you, remember that they are likely to be working through summer except for perhaps the regular shutdown around 15th August ‘Ferragosto’ (to the Italians) and Santa Marija week here (15th is a public holiday). Don’t expect your host to be able to stay up late every night or be on hand to please all the time. Be thoughtful about their work routine and ensure they have space and time for themselves too.

Read up About Malta
My latest guest somehow thought that Malta would be far greener and lush – in mid July? Err…
Do read up a bit, at least, on the Islands so you won’t have the wrong expectations. Some guests seem to think that because they are staying with people they know, they don’t need to plan at all! This site might be a good place to start.

There is way more I could add to the list, but perhaps I am just too tired in the heat to pen the thoughts. Or recovering from the guest and catching up on work perhaps?

Photo: Gethin Thomas

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How to survive the heat by the Malta Inside Out office cat

Much of northern and eastern Europe is having a hot time this summer. Last weekend, the UK’s metereological office issued a heatwave alert. It touched 31°C daytime and around 20°C at night in some parts of Britain. Here, we’re well up in the 30s now, with the next day or so seeing 35°C midday, and around 24 or so at night. See the Malta 5-day forecast.

We don’t get heatwave alerts until almost touching 40+ here in Malta, and so we ask ourselves what all the fuss is about up North! I haven’t noticed my elderly neighbours keel over in the summer, though they are along with the very young, in a more ‘at risk’ group in extreme heat.

The main reason why we cope in the Med is that we know the heat is coming and prepare for it: shutters and hasiras (cane blinds) are down; working hours in most offices, definitely public sector, are reduced (OK for some then!); people get errands done by 8am (foods shops are all open very early); and we hole up inside till we venture out after 5pm for a swim. Despite aircons in offices and 24/7 ‘always-on’ communications, we’ve not really seen a change in working or cultural practices in Malta in summer.

But, apart from shifts in our routine, what else can keep us cool in Malta as summer hots up? We’ve done a round up of events, places and pastimes to chill out at or with whether you’re a local or just visiting.

Beaches
The obvious place to chill out, but also get sunstroke! So don’t forget the sun-sense tips and what to do about jellyfish. Also, do take time to remind yourself about how to keep kids safe around water.

Tourist Trail Cities
Some sightseeing places are just out of the question if you’re a late riser. Hagar Qim and Mnajdra Temples are tourist must-sees but they are on exposed rocky coastline with little shade, though a great visitors’ centre may help keep you inside a bit. Walking around Valletta, Mdina and Birgu are still good options as their narrow streets and location give good shade and often through breezes. They also house lots of museums to hibernate in.

Sunsets
The best summer pastime is sunset catching. Head out at 7pm for a sundowner – either take your own bottle (and take the empties home) or find a cafe to perch in. Ghajn Tuffieha bay is my favourite. Here are some other sunset spots.

Troglodyte Sightseeing
Underground sightseeing is a weird and wonderfully cool option I was reminded of while visiting Fondajzzoni Wirt Artna’s air raid shelter ‘Malta at War’ museum in Birgu last week. The tunnel bomb shelters are 40 feet underground, and were very cool (if a bit musty). There are plenty of other fascinating museums and places to visit underground.

Visit Churches
OK, so they won’t be open at midday, but it’s already hot by 9am right now. Churches are always cool and calm. I love the moment’s blindness when you walk from harsh sunlight to deep darkness within. The Chiaroscuro effect is what a Maltese summer is all about. Our top pick of churches to visit.

Cool Gardens
Nothing like lolling on benches under large ficus trees and listening to fountains. Malta public gardens are an oasis in the parched summer months.

Open-air Evening Events
Do as the locals do, if you’re visiting, and stay up and out late to catch what breeze there is. Waterside events are aplenty right now – 15, 16, 17 July sees the Malta Jazz Festival at Ta’ Liesse below Valletta and Grand Harbour side. The Farsons’ Great Beer Festival starts 23 July and runs till 5 August at Ta’ Qali and is a chill-out event for all the family (strangely enough)! Clubbing may be more your thing. Cinemas are air-conditioned so bliss this time of year; and with National Cinema Day 17 July, you can get in cheaply.

How to Avoid the Worst (crowds, heat and stress) of Summer Sundays!
We’ve ideas to get you through the endless summer Sundays, which can literally be to die for!

What to do with Kids in the Heat?
Always a key question this one! With locals having to get through three months of kids’ summer holidays, and tourists needing a good crop of ideas to keep little ones entertained, we’ve this round up of cool, fun and relatively stress-free ways for parents and carers to keep sane! If you have to have kids in tow when you’re working, here’s how we got through a very hot day, office included.

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The White Cliffs of Malta...a symbol of home? Barren and no bluebirds here, so perhaps

I love Malta, my homeland. Yet I often find myself critical of it. Maybe because I feel that my country’s small size means it has the potential to be an environmental showcase. Maybe too because I feel we are such a nation of procrastinators, that we are quite happy to let things degenerate and then spend time finger pointing.

A friend of mine once told me that Malta was a great country to come up with world changing ideas – the UN Law of the sea, for one. Yet if Malta were to be trusted to implement and coordinate these ideas they would likely die on the drawing board.

The fact that we were one of the last countries to ratify that charter, which included the creation of marine protected areas (MPA), which we still dream about, and the statement that the sea is the common heritage of all mankind, may bare testimony to my friend’s opinion.

So here I am again in Bavaria as I write. This time in resplendent, verdant summer and amazed to see it’s even greener than it was in winter.

Being here always makes me feel sad for my country, and not solely because I miss Malta, but because I look at the environmental policies here and feel humbled by them, their scope and aims. I am a son of Malta, a culturally rich country, with a unique natural environment with some 300 endemic plant species, many of which, incidentally, are under threat of extinction. But I worry about Malta as a country that has absolutely no idea how to manage nor what to do with its rich heritage.

One of the things that strikes me here in Bavaria is that in most urban developments, they consider green living areas. Gardens or trees are everywhere; children are actually playing in green areas, among trees and not on tarmac or concrete.

Blocks of apartments are put up in really fast time, AFTER consultation with ALL the neighbours and adhere to some form of aesthetic standards. Where we would build on the entire footprint, here they sacrifice some of the space to ensure the block of flats has some form of garden or green area.

I see constant reminders of the fact that it is legislative requirement for built areas to contain a certain amount of green space and also for planners to create a certain number of children’s playgrounds for a given number of apartments built.

Recently, I have noticed that many of the flat roofs have actually soft landscaped gardening. Looking from the 5th floor of the hospital where I visited a friend, I noticed that all the flat space on the roof is green with wild grass and flowering plants.

In fact, not too different from the weeds and plants our councils and government are so keen to eradicate along many of our roads and country lanes .

I started to visualise how fantastic Malta would look if our flat roofs became soft landscaped gardens, (soft as opposed to potted plants), and think about the environmentally-friendly insulation these would give us during our hot or cold seasons.

The hospital here too is an oasis of green with trees, grass and flowers everywhere. Here too I cannot but help imagine how we ended up with a bleak and barren landscaped hospital which houses the very people who may need to have spirits lifted by a pleasant environment but who are greeted instead by tarmac, concrete and rocks.

Only a couple of hundred meters away we have the Wied Gollieqa conservation area in the valley between San Gwann and the hospital. But instead of trying to at least blend to some extent the landscaping of the hospital area with its adjacent nature we go way off in the opposite direction and build a modern hospital without any natural environmental considerations. These environmental considerations include not only the lack of greenery but also its planning without consideration of renewable energy.

Often when articles like this appear in our papers we read vitriolic and intolerant statements such as “if you don’t like it then leave”, or “don’t visit Malta”. Or one is accused of being “unpatriotic”

Well, the fact is that I am Maltese and live in the country. The fact that I criticise my homeland does not make me less patriotic. My criticism comes from a love of it and the knowledge that we can be better and should aspire to all those high-minded, but often simply implemented ideals that can change the environmental face of my homeland.

Photo: courtesy Leslie Vella

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The Many Faces of Strait Street. ('Museum Night' 70x100cm acrylic on paper)

Strait Street, Valletta, has been getting quite some attention in recent months. Not that its name hasn’t had a certain resonance for well over a century – ask any British ex-servicemen who were stationed in Malta up to the ’60s or so.

Famed, or notorious for its music halls and less salubrious life in Valletta of old, Strait Street is now high on the agenda for rehabilitation and becoming an ‘in’ venue for those who love art, wine and music.

Wine bars and little hole-in-the-wall galleries have emerged along its very narrow thoroughfare, and thrive. By day M&S, that most British of retailers, is open for business in a designer-renovated building and further down, as it dips towards the end of the Valletta peninsula, law firms have lovingly done up patricians’ houses into amazing offices.

And, a couple of months back, we got the new Strait Street public conveniences! Which were talk of the town when they opened.

Riding on the crest of all this interest in the once much maligned Strait Street, this year’s Malta Arts Festival has created an event to celebrate the street. Spaces or Spazji is all about representing visual arts in a way the festival hasn’t captured them in previous editions. Rather than a conventional exhibition, the scope of this year’s project was to find and create a ‘new’ space for the visual arts.

The Art Exhibition
A privately-owned space near the upper end of Strait Street (nearly opposite Trabuxu wine bar has been ‘loaned’ out especially for the occasion and now hosts the works of five independent artists.

In complete contrast to the street’s physical boundaries, the works on show are broad in theme. The artists – Sean Gabriel Ellul, Fabrizio Ellul, Ruth Bianco, Anton Grech and James Micallef Grimaud, selected by curator Lisa Gwen Baldacchino – have been drawn together in the hopes of setting a precedent.

Spaces|spazji runs from July 9 till July 30 at No. 187, Strait Street, Valletta. Opening hours: 10 a.m. till 7 p.m. daily. Entrance: free.

More on Malta Arts Festival.

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For a cool seat at the Malta Jazz Festival, cruise with the Hera

This is our second piece about boats in as many days, but with Malta sweltering right now, all thoughts turn to water. Having been stuck in the 1pm rush hour from Valletta today, with my son singing ‘Mad Dogs and Englishmen Go out in the Midday Sun’ behind me, I can tell you I was pleased to get this cool news when I got home and checked mail…

Malta Jazz Festival Cruises
I can think of fewer better ways to spend a sultry July night in Malta than listening to some world-class jazz with a cool breeze from sea enveloping me. If that appeals to you too, then listen up, because booking’s just opened for a places on a Turkish Gulet, the Hera, which is running Malta Jazz Festival (15,16,17 July) evening cruises of Grand Harbour with a buffet included.

Those veteran Jazz Festival goers among us will have seen the boats anchor up each year for one of the most memorable seats in town. The Hera is a sponsor of the festival, so has its rightful place among the craft that are bound to jostle along the wharf near us landlubbers and the stage. Even if you’re not on board, the yachts bobbing nearby make the setting uniquely Malta Jazz.

Booking Details
Tickets are €50. The package includes a 45-minute cruise of Grand Harbour taking in the sunset, and a cold buffet and welcome drink.

Departure from Sliema Ferries opposite Burger King/ Nazzarenu Church.

Time 8.00pm – 11.30pm
Price €50 per night
Transport included.

For further details, e-mail:
info@heracruises.com or call +356 21330583/ 21347483

To book, call 79445448

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The Hulda Festival: a ship on a journey of science & art

First, there’s the boat – the MS Hulda, built in 1905. And then aboard it is a travelling exhibition of scientific sculptures by the Turkish-Swedish artist Ilhan Koman (1921 – 1986). The Hulda is now birthed at Grand Harbour Marina, Birgu (3 – 13 July) as part of the Malta Arts Festival. And it’s running some some great, hands-on workshops for kids, for free. But what is Hulda all about and why is it in Malta?

What is Hulda?
The Hulda Festival features events celebrating the meeting of arts and sciences around Hulda and Koman. The Festival kicked off in March 2009 and will draw to a close in November 2010, by which time the Festival aboard ship will have visited Stockholm, Amsterdam, Antwerp, Bordeaux, Lisbon, Barcelona, Naples, Malta, Thessalonica and Istanbul. The festival benefits from the active partnership of some of the most prestigious art or science institutions based in these 10 cities.

Ilhan Koman’s creativity combined arts with sciences, make him a representative of a universal approach that descends from Leonardo da Vinci. For the Hulda Festival, Koman’s artworks embark aboard Hulda, the boat that was his residence and workshop. Visitors are welcome to play with the artists’ most interesting pieces to get feel for their scientific properties and artistic qualities.

Workshops for Children
In parallel, ten different workshops have been conceptualised for children by a local organisation in each of the Hulda’s pit stops. The workshops bring artistic and scientific disciplines together to make them more interesting and playful through topics such as “Sculpture & Aerodynamics”, “Creating the Nautical Charts of the Middle-Ages” and “Art and Alternative Energies”. In Malta, the Art and Science Youth workshops are organised by Il-Kunsill Malti għax-Xjenza u t-Teknoloġija (Malta Council for Science and Technology) : 3 – 13 July 2010 – Hulda Tent.

Booking & Info
Workshops will be open to a maximum of 25-30 children each session. You will need to pre-book. For more information please contact Martina Castillo at martina.castillo@gov.mt or give her a call on 23602122.

Background on the Hulda Festival project, which ends in Istanbul to celebrate its year as a European City of Culture.

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There's nothing like home sweet home for a BBQ!

It’s a Sunday evening in early July as I write this, which is an appropriate moment to tackle that great Maltese seasonal institution – a large, loud gathering of family and friends out for a beach BBQ.

Tomorrow morning, many a Maltese beach will bear the signs of this weekend’s nighttime invasion – litter, spent charcoal, chicken wings and detritus of all kinds will be left behind. While some litter, there are others who spend hours doing voluntary beach tidy-ups. It’s a never ending cycle of litter, tidy, litter… but perhaps we’ve reached the tipping point, or nearly.

The Beach BBQ’s Environmental Impact
Of course, it’s not solely the beach BBQ that contributes to beach littering, but here’s an anecdote on its polluting effect which isn’t all about litter.

A couple of hot July’s ago, I went out for an expensive, splash-out meal at a restaurant right next to a small bay. The establishment suggests guests arrive to catch the sunset views from the al fresco dining area. We did. And that was about the best bit of the evening, and the meal. I won’t do a hatchet job on the meal (which it deserved), but the evocative sundown drink was spoiled within around five minutes of our arrival by the chugging into action of a generator and the waft of petrol, followed by floodlights, shouting and general mayhem. The beach BBQ was in full swing.

Now, I like the idea of a beach BBQ, and went on a couple in the past. But we were responsible enough to keep noise to a minimum. The people I was with enjoyed chilling out in the mellow heat and listening to the waves, not music or generators and scoured their patch of beach meticulously using torches to ensure not a scrap of litter was left. If all nighttime BBQ-goers did this, then there’d be no need to…

Ban the Beach BBQ
Mellieha Local Council used by-laws to ban the BBQ last summer from Ghadira Bay, to some uproar. Some quarters saw it as another attack on popular ‘cultural’ pastimes. Not that the beach BBQ can be compared with the Ghanafest.

Ghadira Bay has a nature reserve behind it and is aiming for Blue Flag status as a beach with outstanding environmental and safety credentials. While the Blue Flag criteria don’t stipulate a ban on BBQs, Blue Flag status and barbecuing don’t sit happily together; the pollution the beach BBQ produces in Malta would make attaining and retaining Blue Flag status nearly impossible.

Two beaches in Malta now have the Blue Flag – Bugibba (this year) and St George’s Bay (awarded last year). Interestingly, both are ‘new’, man-made beaches and in built-up areas popular with tourists. They have no local tradition of BBQs.

Yet, the more rural, beauty spot beaches, which should have greater potential to reach Blue Flag standards aren’t yet quality enough; the BBQ culture must have something to do with that.

Conspicously, today, I noticed a row of temporary info boards on Golden Bay beach explaining Blue Flag and the local sealife and fauna and flora. The Malta Tourism Authority’s info boards nearby, also a new addition this year, clearly said BBQs were not allowed, neither was camping.

So, plans are afoot to make more of Malta’s beaches BBQ free in pursuit of that elusive Blue Flag status no doubt. I love the idea of footloose and fancy-free summer nights on the beach with a Barbie as much as the next man. But given our islands’ limited beach space, masses of beach goers and our enduring lack of self-discipline, the BBQ must stay at home. About time.

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