pride

Two companies have an exceedingly firm grip on the Maltese. HSBC attempt to sponsor everything in sight – including windscreen-sized bits of card that you shove inside your car to stop the sun roasting the front seats – and when you've succumbed, and finally opened your account with the former Midland Bank, Rothmans are on hand to persuade you to invest heavily in hundreds of packets of fags. In a walk around the largely deserted capital city of Valletta last night, the most eye-catching attraction was am enormous, luminous, inflatable tent in the main square, provided by the EU, plastered with images of cigarettes snapped into two and erected in an attempt to wean the Maltese off their beloved Rothmans. It was massive. People wandered by, en route to a stall selling Rothmans. Brussels is going to have to try a bit harder.

Before reaching Valletta we went on another unpredictable drive across the island. On the first day here I bought a 1:45000 scale map (if I've got that the wrong way round, I'd like to reassure you that the map is not 45,000 times as big as Malta) which I've been trying to use to guide us around. But so rabid is the road building over here that it bears little relation to reality, with major arterial routes in and out of, er, Ghajn Tuffieha snaking through enormous areas of dusty rubble, with nothing to guide us through save for a solitary parked-up pick-up truck with 3 men inside, swigging beer and grinning. After not inconsiderable cursing, we finally ended up in Bugibba. A waiter, on hearing we were British (although he could easily have predicted that, with several pasty fat men in England football shirts wandering around the resort for 9 months of the year) reminded us that it was election day in the UK, before shaking his head, sadly. "I've been looking at the news just now," he said. "Oh ,right... and?" "Well, you know, they are only exit polls, you know, but still," he said, continuing to shake his head. "Right, and what's the news?" "Well, it's not good, you know," he said, still shaking his head. Jenny's patience boiled over slightly. "TELL US!" she said in a high pitched voice. "Oh, Labour are ahead." We both breathed a sigh of relief. "Thanks."

We went to get some petrol, and pulled up next to an AGIP pump. Jenny turned to me. "Do you know what side the petrol cap is on?" I didn't. Suddenly our quiet musing was shattered. "UNLOCK THE CAP!" A tattoed, slim, heavily made up girl in hot pants was wielding a pump and screaming through the back window. "UNLOCK THE CAP!" Her demands weren't that unreasonable, considering that we were there to buy petrol, she had the petrol, and wanted to give us some petrol, but her manner belied the guide book's re-assurance that, in general, the Maltese have a laid-back and unhurried demeanour. "UNLOCK IT!" Jenny opened the door. "Look, it's a hire car, so when I've worked out how to unlock it, I'll unlock it, OK?" Hotpants lady rolled her eyes. "HOW MUCH?" she barked. There's no particular end to this story, but you get the gist.

In the evening we treated ourselves to a swanky cocktail at a posh hotel that we couldn't afford to stay at. It was the kind of joint that would clearly have turned their noses up at a concoction called "Sex On The Beach"; instead they gave their cocktails names like "Seduction". Jenny was seduced by the notion of a Seduction, and ordered a Seduction. Her Seduction arrived. "And for the lady," the waiter said, winking furiously and licking his lips, "I bring you..." (he winked again) "A Seduction!" He put it on the table with a flourish that a bullfighter would have been proud of. It was garnished with a pineapple slice and a glacé cherry. "Thanks," said Jenny. "Enjoy that, won't you, dear," I said.

Later, in a restaurant, the toilet wall carried an advertisement for an album by Barry Lapard, entitled "Variations".



I can find no reference to this album on the internet, nor indeed any to Mr Barry Lepard, and I suggest that Barry Lepard or his record company set up a website immediately. I hunger for information. neil_scott would probably design it for you, on the cheap. Upstairs in the restaurant, the CD player was playing a selection by Heather Small, formerly of M People and once memorably described in the pages of Time Out as a "grunting fvckpig". Her song "Proud" came on. "What have you done today, to make you feel proud?" she asked. Apparently she was once interviewed about this song and that line in particular, to which she replied that she believed that it was important for everyone to ask themselves this question, every day of their lives. The interviewer should have pushed a nearby 7-year girl onto the screen, who had been flown in especially from war-torn Sudan, and forced Heather to ask her the question. Stupid, arrogant pop stars, eh? Gotta hate 'em, haven't you.