Thoughts and happenings from a life on Malta

As children, most of us must have owned a piggy bank and, when we grew older, we discovered the more business-like expression “cash cow”. Now, with great pleasure, I announce Malta’s contribution to the world of finance – the “money bus”.

If every miser’s dream is to see money literally flying all over the place, then I recommend a journey on EBY 584. During a 10-minute ride, euro coins were being flung all over, and out of, the ramshackle bone-shaker that is licensed as a public transport vehicle.

The cause of this unexpected munificence? The reverberating complaint by a British tourist to an inspector about having been shortchanged €1. This tourist was in high dudgeon because he claimed the same had happened the previous day on another bus.

The preamble took the form of a shouting exchange down the gangway, with the driver asking the tourist to approach him so that he could verify the change. Without even bothering to go through the handful of coins spread on the outstretched palm, he proclaimed that €1 was a pittance and scornfully offered it to the passenger. Not to be outdone, the latter then counterclaimed that he was not interested in the money but had simply had enough of being taken advantage of.

To prove the worth of his words, the driver flung one euro in the direction of the litigant; with questionable aim, I must add. Faced with this challenge, the passenger had no option but to also back up his earlier claim by throwing the handful of coins out of the door (from where I was seated, I was unable to determine the denominations involved). Boasting a more accurate aim, or possibly because he was standing, he achieved a better result, with most of the metal raining down on the pavement while a couple of coins remained stranded on the bus, rolling disconsolately to their final resting place.

All the while, countless pairs of eyes watched the drama and this flurry of flying money – curious eyes, greedy eyes, apprehensive eyes, entertained eyes. Yet, even though the majority were aware of the precise landing spots of these vagabond euros, no one ventured to pocket any of the orphaned ones.

Misers begone, money in Malta no problem!

If there are some days when music is the spontaneous dance partner of time, then last Friday was a typical example of this choreographed interplay.

Having woken up with a stiff neck, which made the slightest twist to the right a very painful affair, I decided against using either my bicycle or motorbike for work. Instead, I opted for contingency plan 645 – the bus which passes through Xemxija Bay on its way to Sliema while travelling along the scenic Bugibba sea front and Bahar ic-Caghaq coast road. To contrast with this visual tranquility, I opted to listen to the soundtrack of Natural Born Killers, which in itself is an album of contrasts. Leonard Cohen’s Waiting for the Miracle or The Future for soothing, seductive tones and L7’s Shitlist or Jane’s Addiction Sex is Violent for an injection of adrenaline.

I had another soundtrack lined up for my lunch breaks at work and the return trip home: Amadeus. There’s one track in particular from this double CD that I never get tired of listening to – Requiem, K.626: Introitus; just over 11 minutes of sheer aural pleasure.

Back home, I stripped down into a pair of shorts and T-shirt, strapped myself onto the rowing machine, donned my headphones yet again and set my MP3 to a compilation called Club for Heroes. This contains some of the most popular tracks of the 80s: Visage’s Fade to Grey, Ultra Vox’s Vienna, Talk Talk’s Talk Talk, Soft Cell’s Tainted Love and Teardrop Explodes’ Reward.

Until then, all the music I’d been listening to were my selections. However, while having supper I tuned in to Radju Malta. That Friday happened to be the feast of Our Lady of Sorrows, an important day for the Catholic Church in Malta, and so the state radio had a program dedicated to the event. Besides giving very interesting information about this feast, they also played the complete album of Karl Jenkins’s Stabat Mater. How satisfying to be completely overwhelmed by compositions of such touching beauty … all the more when I was least expecting it.