Sunday 25 May 2008

Holiday snaps

Yes, I know. Now settle down and stop grumbling.

I know it is cultural imperialism to mock foreign languages, but really. I ask you. Maltese. It's impossible.

Photobucket

Apparently it is a mixture of Arabic, Italian, Spanish and English. And they have extra letters in their alphabet. It sounds very odd, because it's completely incomprehensible and then there's a completely English phrase in the middle of it like "Ok then, see you later" or "big football match tonight" or "here's the bus now".

Very unsettling, you're never quite sure if the person is talking to you or not, and the temptation is to respond to the English bits.

As is my wont, I took photos of signs that took my fancy.

This one was at the airport, just a little bit along from where someone was using an angle grinder, sending huge fountains of sparks all over the arrivals hall. Perhaps they were cutting up contraband chicken.

no chickens

This one was in the museum. And I thought our Imperial/Metric confusion was bad.

weights and measures

I liked this one very much.

"No, sorry, you can't park here."

"But I have fish to hawk!"

"Oh, I beg your pardon, please, be my guest."

fish hawkers

This one was in the prison museum, to stop numpties defacing the old graffiti on the walls, left by generations of prisoners. But I do like the idea of being surveilled. It sounds so mysterious.

watched

This one is of the dive boat sailing away, leaving me marooned on Comino like a queasy Ben Gunn.

marooned!

And this one is of my feet, after I realised I had burnt them whilst barfing over the side of said dive boat.

burnt feet

This is a small stone model of a nougat vendor. The obvious choice of subject for a stonemason with time on his hands.

nougat vendor

And if you can get this on a triple word score in Scrabble, you're laughing.

scrabble


There. I might do some more if I can be arsed. You know, scenery and that.

4 comments:

Mr Farty said...

Ow! Commiserations on the feet.

I heard that 80-year-old Xiao Zhihu had been pulled from the rubble in Mianzhu 11 days after the Chinese earthquake and my first thought was also Scrabble. Funny how the mind works, innit?

livesbythewoods said...

We're sick, sick people.

We should play Scrabble together.

elizabeth said...

Ouch on the feet. Never nice.

The surveilled sign is great.

I was away in the Dominican once and the menu offered scalloped potatoes with money. I kept ordering it - just in case. ;-)

livesbythewoods said...

Elizabeth, the feet are recovering nicely ta.

Never tried putting money in my food, sounds dreamy though.