end of the line

It's time to take the bus back to the depot.


WHY?

Since I don't keep statistics (the counter has been broken for ages), I've got no real means to gauge the readership of this blog, although I'm pretty certain readership is dwindling not increasing. Not only did I commit a few blogger cardinal sins such as writing too sporadically - two in a week and then nothing for a month, I also wrote - repeatedly - on topics that were too esoteric, too specific, too narrow or too boring and managed to alienate a few others. I'd like to write about a few other things but it's useless at this point. Exclusively 'marketing' this blog to a somewhat fickle Maltese base was another mistake.



TRY

The blogs were the best thing to ever happen to the Maltese literary scene. They were fun to read and some of the stuff written was better and more exciting than practically any book in Maltese I have ever read. It's a shame that no traces will be left of the scene in 2 or 3 years. One of the main reasons that kept me going was the reward system inherent to them - I always hoped that one of my posts would, at least partially, inspire another blogger to post and I'd get to read some wonderfully flowing prose or an intelligent opinion for my efforts. I also got some vapid rubbish sometimes, like you did from me.

To those bloggers who bemoan the fact that they're not blogging even though they'd like to but they're too busy - well, it doesn't take that much time. It doesn't take much time or effort to post twice a week. At twenty minutes each post, that's less than the average person spends removing fluff from his belly-button or finding the right pose for his/her Facebook profile pic.



BUY

I can't stop dreaming of being a farmer (of all things). I've got no real idea what being a farmer entails. To me farm-life is one pastoral, idyllic image after the other. It's not me toiling the land at 5AM and filling in complicated EU CAP subsidy forms - it's me tasting goat's cheese and walking about my farm chewing straw and bleating back at my fat ruminants.

For other mindless optimists and/or property fetishists here's some rustic land-porn to get you excited:

Arable land + townhouse (i.e. pile of rubble held together using duct tape and goatshit)

• 2000 sqm, Rocca Santo Stefano (Rome/Tivoli) - EUR 23,000
• 5500 sqm, Lazio - EUR 18,000
• 8500 sqm, San Felice a Cancello (Caserta) - EUR 108,000
• 3000 sqm, Nicolosi (Catania) - EUR 35,000
• 7000 sqm, Bersagliera (Bologna) - EUR 120,000

Just the townhouse (and some magnificent views)

• No arable land (townhouse), Rocca di Cave (Rome/Frosinone) - EUR 19,000
• 180 sqm (townhouse), Montabone (Turin) - EUR 26,000
• No arable land (townhouse), Valbrona (Como/Swiss border) - EUR 55,000
• Stone chalet, Saint-Marcel-le-Grand (Aosta Valley) - EUR 25,000
• Stable/townhouse for people who look like horses, San Giovanni (Abruzzo/L'Aquila/Rome) - EUR 14,000

Tuscany has become very expensive.

Around May/June 2008 I've got something big lined up. Let's just say I'll have ample time to look at abandoned places in Northern and Central Italy, but won't have the cash to even think of buying any of them - not even a pile of rubble in Italy's remotest province. If anyone needs a sensaro, someone to deal with the workers, or someone who can actually build a wall, whitewash or pass a few cables without (hopefully) electrocuting himself, I'm your man. I'm the (self-styled) Del Trotter of the Apennines.



BYE

It's been a nice three years, but this bus is heading back to the depot now.

See you on another ride - maybe soon, maybe not. So long.

why old people don't suck

Right! Enough is enough!
No more sesame seed bars for you!

Since moving to St-Gilles I've come into contact with a species endemic to this part of Brussels. The area I lived in before moving here was a bit like a starched version of Neukoelln in Berlin. I had grown to like the Turks as an ethnicity - they're a quiet, conservative lot (unless you're party to a bit of Kurdish flag-waving that is). The area where I lived was mostly inhabited by older, middle-class Turks more interested in waxing their white BMWs and moving further up the social ladder than partying or having more kids.

The area where I'm now living is kind of like a grubbier, grittier version of Prenzl'Berg

The species I discovered is a species I thought I'd get along with quite well. We share similar values after all, but it seems the gulf of understanding is too wide. They're conscientious couples in their mid to late twenties (or early thirties) and I found the small-mindedness some of them display not only surprising but disturbing.

Here's how to spot one. Caveat - blanket statements ahoy!

1. The women wear garishly coloured clothes in various outlandish shades of orange and fucshia. To say these pants are baggy is an understatement. They're baggier than the pants I used to wear in the 90s when everyone thought camping in your own trousers was cool. Not just that - the crotch area itself is so baggy it looks like they just shat themselves or someone secretly slid a pétanque bowl when they were comparing the length of panpipes at Oxfam.
2. They're not so much francophones as anti-English. They could speak English if you're struggling but they won't. You see, English is the language of the U.S.-dominated hegemonisation (actually fuck that... hegemoniZation) of the world. They also speak South American Spanish (they've been to Peru and Ecuador). All their friends are francophones too. They only listen to music from the francophonie and are inordinately pround of their francité. Their MySpace/Facebook profile is exclusively in French and they've only got French-speaking friends. They're, ironically, as linguistically conservative as a small-town Texan.
3. They party. Often. Until 5 AM. They don't give a shit about the neighbours cuz they're young, wild, haven't got a job and since they're ethically superior to a pack of sedulously recycling whales, they know that all shall be forgiven because they're saving our world. And you're not. Scum.
4. They buy bio (organic). But only when you're looking.
5. They procreate. This is the worst bit. They procreate and then let their kids run completely amok. Their blond, bellicose kids will stand behind them in small supermarkets, screaming and hurling cans while they continue, unperturbed, shopping for which brand of fresh soya beans has the healthiest hue. Other shoppers will brow their foreheads, or stand there their mouths gaping in censor like a disapproving goldfish, but they won't take any notice of them. Their kid is sacred, his poop is a golden nugget from the hands of Zeus himself, his scream a dulcet harmony. Their laissez-faireism is troubling. I've dealt with some of their kids and they're some of the most annoying, unpleasant kids I've ever dealt with in my life. The Mediterranean way of constantly chastising kids is as ludicrously ineffective as the other extreme, but a small dose of discipline and restraint to remind kids that they're not alone in the world is necessary. But not for their kids.
6. They never comb or cut their hair but it always looks good. Bastards.
7. They're laidback and slow-paced... but uptight at the same time. How did they ever manage that?!