Angelina's Ghost

Since I still get a lot of hits on this blog by people who unfortunately don't keep travelling to my new blog home (which, by the way, is http://scagozo.com/blog/ ), I'd like to announce here, too, that my first novel - ANGELINA'S GHOST is now available for sale online at lulu.com.

You can read the first two chapters here!

Hope you'll like it. Here's a link to the books details on lulu.com:

I moved my blog!

Hi everyone,

As of this morning my blog is going to be integrated with my website. It took a lot of huffing and puffing and little html fights, but in the end I defeated all odds and arrived where I wanted to! You can get to my blog either directly, using this link, or via the menu in my site.

I like blogger, but the advantages of having it hosted directly on my own site are greater. See you there...

The Da Vinci Code

Thanks to the numerous history teachers who without exception managed to bore me stiff right through my entire school career, I am often hard pressed to see anything exciting in history per se. Even though, I must admit the lecturers we had during an MTA course a few years ago - Malta, t-turist u int - were amazing, inspired and inspiring teachers, who I wished I had met sooner! But I digress...

I am a voracious reader... But because of my bad head start into the subject of history I have taken to the habit of giving give wide berth to books whose title even remotely indicates their contents being connected with history. It's shameful, somehow, but I just can't help it. Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code was no exception. For a few months, while the debate about its story began to simmer, I withstood the temptation with ease. Then the subtle advertising techniques of the Catholic Church worked on me, too, and I succumbed. Against my expectations, I devoured it within a couple of days, thoroughly enjoyed it and went on to read three other books by the author. Controversy has always been the best marketing tool!

(Just a thought on the side: should I build some silly controversy into my novel and have the Church rave about it?)

Now a group of Maltese Catholics that consider themselves holier than the pope are striving to have the film banned from being screened in Malta... I will not go into detail about the scandalous issues surrounding the Da Vinci Code. I am not a Catholic and I have no intention of hurting anybody's religious sentiments. Suffice to say, I have trouble understanding just why it is so scandalous. First and foremost, the story is a very well-told work of fiction. And why should it be shocking to imagine (the keyword for fiction!) that Jesus was indeed married and had a daughter? Last but not least: Today, in 2006, who can give definite proof that this was not the case?

And I reckon that exactly is the bone of contention. The Church has a long history of making every effort to keep the common people out of the know. (Funny this snippet of information has stuck in my anti-historian memory...) Knowledge is power, and power is a dangerous thing for an ordinary person. The strange twist here is that it is ordinary persons who are going out of their way in their endeavour to prevent the Maltese people from watching this film.

It seems they are indeed making their own valid contribution to the movie's box office success!

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Update 27/04/2006

...and the story continues - read here!

Attn Literary Agents & Publishers :-D

I don't think literary agents are a species known in Malta, at least I haven't heard of any. To publish a book in England, for instance, you'd need one of those - at least having one considerably heightens your chances of getting published. Now, to get in touch with them when you're based in Gozo is a rather tedious task. When I finished my first - and so far only - novel a couple of winters ago, I got hold of a copy of the latest "Writers' & Artists' Yearbook" and did some severe homework. Subsequently I sent my manuscript to several agents as well as publishing houses directly. Each time freshly printed, of course, and attractively presented.

Needless to say, they all came back to me (at least they do return them... Maltese publishers - judging from my experiences - don't bother!), all minus the attractive folders but plus those dreaded refusal letters, telling me off in a polite way.

In the meantime I've read it myself often enough to practically know it by heart by now. I still believe in it... And while I updated my new website's archives page I had this idea to use - once again - my online resources to maybe, just maybe, attract someone to it who could start believing in it, too. The synopsis and first two chapters can be found here.

Even if you cannot help me getting it published, I'll be very happy with your feedback - be it positive or negative. If I were just seeking blind admiration I wouldn't expose it to all and sundry in this way! ;-)

I know this smacks of moderate despair, but it really is not much more than one of those spontaneous ideas of mine, which I just as spontanously put into action. It won't hurt, that's for sure!

Eclipse! What Eclipse?!

I have no quibbles to describe myself as an unphotographer. Oh yes, I'm quite good at inventing new vocabulary on a daily basis :-) I'm totally content with my little digital camera, for which I own no special lenses or filters and whose various functions that go beyond the "auto" settings I'm happily ignorant of. I have enough learning curves to fight through at the moment, so getting into unnecessary depth of photography is not exactly what I need right now.

Notwithstanding... I was dying to capture today's partial eclipse in pixels. If you'd seen me you'd have had a grand laugh. I was giggling all by and at myself, actually - I was confident that nobody observed me! So there I was, equipped with a tripod (oh yes, I do have one of those!) and several strips of old, blank negative film.

I'll spare you more details - if you've even read this far. It was all utterly useless - even though I did see the eclipsed sun through those filmstrips! What I captured are countless suns in blue skys... no sign of an eclipse, although it was strangely cold in the sunshine. Perhaps the blue of the sky was a little more intensive than is usually the case. Or that was just my imagination.

So here are two specimen of the Mediterranean just-about-afternoon sun (12.20-12.30 pm). That it was eclipsed by the moon to about 68% - well, I'm afraid you'll just have to take my word for it! Or see a proper picture in tomorrow's newspapers. :p

__________________________________

N. B. "Spank" of Malta Forums fame had the better equipment/knowhow to take photos! (Just so you have proof that there really was an eclipse! :-D

Tuesday

Good morning! I just read an interesting piece of information on my beloved Malta Forums; Melliehasimon writes:

A new survey today says one in three workers says Tuesday
is the day they do the most!Monday's are generally spent
checking E mails and recovering from the weekend....while
by the time we get to Thursday and Friday we are too busy
planning the next one to do much!

But Tuesdays are actually 'do a bit of work' day!!!

Oh well... today is Tuesday (and a glorious spring day, at that) - and this quote actually made me feel a wee bit guilty. It seems I'm destined to always swim against the tide: so far it has been an extremely unproductive day for me! But then, I've also kept unusually busy for the last week or so (including the weekend and even yesterday!), which is a reasonable excuse for my falling into an empty hole today. So if I'll still remember by then I'll watch out for my output level next Tuesday!

On a different tack, there are two little things in my life that I truly consider balm for my soul. One of these is my garden; this is a photo that I took a few minutes ago:



My other mood-lifter is music. I just received a precious gift from a fellow German who's also a Roger Hodgson fan, and who I met for the first time in Kathy's chatroom a couple of Sundays ago. He sent me two concert recordings, one of Supertramp dating back to 1983 (I actually attended a concert on that "Famous Last Words" tour!) and the other of Roger Hodgson solo, from last year. Soooooo nice!! Thanks so much, Gregor!

Summer Time

Today we switched to what is officially called daylight savings time... Most people call it summer time, which sounds less forced and a little nicer. For me it means plainly that I'll be robbed of an hour's sleep each night for the next 7 months.

Funny thing is, we remembered to turn all the clocks in the house forward by an hour before going to sleep, but I totally forgot all about it today. Kathy, forgive me: I'm going to be late for the chat because we're going to eat now instead of an hour ago...

Not only do they cut your beauty sleep short by an hour, they also turn your life upside down (and to think that today's only Sunday)!

Anyone who'd like to join us in the chatroom of Roger Hodgson's best fan-site? A warm welcome is guaranteed! Chat - supposedly - starts at 8 pm - in ca. 15 mins! But it doesn't matter if you pop in a little later. ;-)