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Finally got in at 4am and grabbed 3 hours sleep on Sophie’s couch before work.

Malta is a beautiful place to go and I fully recommend it if you are interested in history and travel and food but they only have a couple of reasonable beaches. Today we decided against touring around and getting lost again and spent it at the beach getting half a tan. The front half.

On the food front I had the two best steaks I can remember having for a long time today. As Sophie would say ‘mmm meat’.

COOZER

Another holiday game that I invented a while back is called Coozer. The idea is to get the word ‘coozer‘ into as many peoples home videos as possible. This is usually done by yelling it loudly while people are filming tourist attractions. The Easter Weekend All Malta Coozer Classic was a tightly fought contest that was neck and neck all the way and went right down to the wire i.e. Sophie won 3 to 2.

EASY NEW DRINKING GAME

At the airport we played a game I heard about ages ago but have never played. It’s quite simple. Everyone puts in their credit cards in a bag and the person whose card is drawn out pays for the drinks. Murphy’s law of drinking games states that the person whose bright idea it is to play this game will undoubtedly end up paying for the first round. Doh!

Up early to pick up a rental that is looks a lot like the car Mr Bean drives only it’s not that cool. The tiny Hundai Atos is ideal for Malta where the roads are thin and windy and parking spaces are rarer than hens teeth. We have lovingly christened it The Bean Machine.

Drove down to Marsaxlokk, a gorgeous little fishing village with brightly coloured fishing boats and a lively market. Then after some effort we found Mdina which is a stunning old city/castle in the centre of Malta.

Driving is Malta is an interesting experience. The roads are in quite poor condition and they never seem to go where you want them to go. Often the roads you want to take are closed or a one way coming in the other direction. This leads to endless circling and massive detours through narrow streets. The final obstacle for the intrepid tourist in his rental is the near complete lack of anything resembling a road sign. The few signs that there are, are frequently obscured by trees, rendering them completely useless. In the evening the drive home that should have taken twenty minutes ended up taking over two hours. When we finally made it home we spent another thirty minutes looking for a park and eventually found one a mere five minutes walk from our hotel.

Sophie kept us entertained by talking non-stop all day. Her best comment was ‘What is Good Morning Vietnam from’? The first correct answer on the back of a ten quid note to my new flat gets an authentic Maltese fridge magnet.

More casino in the evening. This time I doubled my money. Woohoo. Mind you two times almost nothing is still almost almost nothing. Bummer.

Slept through alarm and kept whole tour group waiting. Felt bad because it didn’t look like many of our fellow passengers have much time left.

Gozo is a gorgeous little island littered with things to see. Some are totally worth it like the beautiful bay at Marsalforn where I had my first swim for 2005 and the castle at Ggantija. Others are totally missable like the worlds oldest temple which is a collection of badly stacked rocks that apparently predate the pyramids and some cave which was the poorest excuse for a tourist attraction I can remember paying to see in all my travels.

Malta has a long history of religious patronage. The two small islands of Malta and Gozo are chocker-block with 365 churches that have all been fully funded by donations from the faithful. That is one church for every day of the year paid for by people convinced that the same guy who let six million Jews get gassed by the Nazis (amongst other things) will give them everything they ever wanted when they die. I admire their confidence.

After dinner we gambled the night away in the local casino (if there is a heaven I am so not getting in). It wasn’t anything compared to the Vegas casinos and you have to pay for your drinks but a great time was had by all. I even managed to break even. After the casino we hit Malta’s hottest nightspot, Paceville. Had a blast laughing at the local underage drinkers going nuts. Was surprised by how tackily the obviously underage local girls dressed considering Malta is supposed to be over ninety percent Roman Catholic with eighty percent of the population attending church every Sunday. Staggered home for kebabs at 4am.

Somehow we managed to get up in time for our complimentary breakfast. This was followed by another long sleep. Normally I like to get up early and do as much as possible when I am travelling but today I broke that rule. I must be getting slack in my old age.

Ambushed by our ‘holiday rep’ who tried to plan and book our entire weekend for us at no small commission to herself. In the end we booked one overpriced excursion to the island of Gozo for Saturday. Spent the remainder of the weekend thinking up a catchy name for her. Needless to say none were very nice.

We caught a bus to the Capital Valetta in the afternoon. The buses here are a hoot. They are all owned by their drivers and because of this some are brand spanking new and some look like they are classic buses from the fifty’s. All of them are beautifully maintained in their original glory.

Valetta is a beautiful medieval stone city rammed with distractions for tourists. Saw some of the amazing buildings and churches. Sophie was kicked out of one for dressing like a tourist whore. Funny. For some unexplained reason we left for home just before the Easter Friday street parade and missed the whole thing.

Quiet night as almost nothing is open in staunchly Roman Catholic Malta.

Today I am heading off to Malta for Easter with my friend Sophie. This is the forecast for the next 5 days.

I NEED SUGGESTIONS FOR A NAME FOR THIS GAME ANYONE

There is a game I like to play when I go on holiday with London friends. Every time you run into someone in a foreign country when you are on holiday and you did not know that person was going to be there everyone else in the group has to buy you a beer. No sooner had I finished explaining the rules to Sophie when she runs into two friends, Johnny and Michelle from Shepherds Bush. Gutted.

The four of us arrived in Malta drunk as monkeys at 3am and basically passed out.

I attended the London launch of a facinating book called Mind Hacks at Foyles Bookshop near Tottenham Court Road tube.

The presentation was very interesting and I bought the book which looks excellent.

It’s described as: “Mind Hacks is a collection of probes into the moment-by-moment workings of our brain with a view to understanding ourselves a little better and learning a little more, in a very real sense, about what makes us tick.”

Personally I prefer the old fashioned way to hack the mind – with drugs and alcohol. But that is just me. I’m a traditionalist.

Today is my last day in a run of days off that started on the 21st of August last year.

Yes sadly I have actually landed a contract despite my best efforts.

Well I shouldn’t complain really it’s not every year that you can have 205 days off in a row.

I am finally making the big move out of the West London antipodean stronghold of Acton. I moved here in 2001 a staggering 42 months ago. But it is time for a change so I am moving to Balham in South London at the end of the month.

On the up side the new flat is flash as. On the down side my rent has doubled. But as they say, you get what you pay for.
Here are some pics.