He came, he saw, he was conquered

He came, he saw, he was conquered

When I get to meet Italico Rota to find out all about his life, I feel immensely happy. He makes me feel special, he makes me feel as if I am the most important person around.

Signor Rota makes you live a dream, your dream. And this is exactly what hospitality is about: making you believe you are in your little part of heaven, away from your cares, away from your daily drudge.

Mr Rota is a GM extraordinaire and one of Malta’s most loving and useful ambassadors. He is not a member of any diplomatic corps but he helped Malta get known and get loved for over 30 years. After living here for so long he feels even more Maltese than most of us locals.

 He has Maltese citizenship and also retains his Italian citizenship, not that he needs it that much nowadays he says, since he ha everything he needs here. “Malta is a corner of paradise. Everything about it is good and I love it grandly." He is more Maltese than most of us because, unlike us, he does not find fault with everything Maltese and with all that Malta has to offer. He talks to everyone, locals and foreigners, about the charm, the beauty of Malta and of the loving Maltese people. I wish I could clone this man and have him teach us all how to love what we have on this little rock. And grandly he does it too.

He might have lived most of his life away from Italian shores and piazzas but his way of communicating and loving life is definitely a remnant of his Italian origins, a part of the old Italy where the gentlemen were always exuding limitless charm. He is so proud of being Maltese that he manages to imbue a good feeling in all those around him.

When I meet him at the Corinthia Palace Hotel & Spa in San Anton, where he is GM, I instantly notice that it’s not just the guests who feel this electrifying Rota energy. In or out of his presence, all his staff are a bundle of energy, all full of praise for him. All this might sound as if his only job is to exude his natural charm. But this couldn’t be further from the truth. The hotel seems to run like clockwork. Staff are friendly and make sure you are given prompt attention and service. He also moulds and grooms people to become leaders.

In the Corinthia Group he is the eldest GM, while his protégé and ex-deputy Jonathan Pace became the youngest GM in the history of the Corinthia. Jonathan Pace worked closely and most happily with Signor Rota. He eventually became his deputy and thanks to Mr Rota’s faith and trust in him, he was handpicked to run the Marina Hotel at the Corinthia Beach Resort as GM when he was only 27. A true feat for Mr Pace and another milestone in the Rota list of successes.

And Jonathan Pace, Mr Rota’s ‘pupillo,’ has now moved even higher: he has become GM at the Company’s Panorama Hotel in Prague. Another first for a man just over thirty. Mr Rota’s main words of advice to Mr Pace and everyone he has had to guide or mould is “to have a shower daily before coming to work.” I stupidly think that he is talking about personal hygiene: but the shower he speaks of is of humility, which gives you a strong bond with all the people around you and makes you a great leader.


As Mr Rota says “the highest person in any organisation is the one who never knows enough and is always learning”. How does he do it I ask him? How does he find the strength to remain so positive all the time? “It’s easy” he says, in his sonorous sing-song English that still lilts beautifully with an Italian echo. How come it is easy? I stress. “Because I love it, I do not strain to do it. I love people. I love being with them and making sure they are happy and that they feel special.”

While we are going round the hotel, he greets everyone effusively and the women are treated like a bevy of Duchesses of Cambridge straight from their royal weddings. He bows to them, kisses their hands, compliments them and booms his words of advice about where to go or what to do. And the males are greeted as eloquently and with heartfelt smiles and handshakes.

At some point I pin Signor Rota to his story. I ask him what he started life in hotels as. As a lift boy, he quips. And proceeds to take out from his pocket a very well-preserved silver dollar dated 1881. “This has been in my pocket practically since I started working. I was working in Milan when I was 14 and an Italo-Americano asked me a few questions about me and my life. He then gave me this dollar which I have preserved for good luck ever since. “It has been my own ‘porta fortuna’ for 59 years. It has never left me and it has been a great deliverer of good luck and good stories.”

Oh how annoyed and angry I feel. Why can’t silly dollars speak? I want to ask it all that it has seen to get the full story of this man. Throughout our conversation he peppers it with comments about how good his staff are, how he needs them and how he just contributes his little bit. Speak dollar, speak and tell us more of bellboy days and other secrets.

While in Milan working continuously, he studied all the languages he knew he would eventually need. He studied English, German and Spanish, while French and Italian he already knew, and now he also speaks Maltese. And he worked, as he says, round the clock, to save enough to go to university in the USA. Meanwhile, this man kept rising in his roles: from bellboy to positions in F&B, HR, accounts and even sales and marketing. His lifelong dream however was to go to university and he managed.

So from his little town of Parma, Mr Rota went to Milan at the tender age of 14 and subsequently all the way to New York. In New York he finalised his thesis, which was purchased by a leading hotel group, the Sonesta Corporation, which subsequently employed him on the strength of that same thesis. The chairman of Sonesta gave him the special task of introducing and implementing in Europe the hotel management system the corporation had developed in the USA.

Italico was very successful in this and travelled between New York and various places. Eventually he wanted to find a base, so he settled with the same group in Munich, then Milan, then Beirut. However, the settling hardly happened, as he had to travel back and forth to New York, so he came to Malta for a holiday to get away from it all. And the man who came for a few weeks of rest fell in love with the island and the rest, as they say, is history.

Thankfully for us Maltese the man’s history is tied unequivocally to Malta and Gozo. Or rather Gozo and then Malta, as his first years here were spent in Gozo. And the chairman of Sonesta was shattered, but still happy that his own ‘pupillo’ left his company to further his career. He remained in Gozo to develop, for an Italian entrepreneur, a site in Sannat, which was turned into one of our most interesting hotel stories: the Ta’ Cenc, which under Mr Rota’s management, became one of the most sought after places in the Mediterranean. It featured in Conde Nast Traveler as the 21st of the top 100 hotels in the world.

While in Malta, Mr Rota met another man who mesmerised him. This man was Mr Alfred Pisani, chairman of the Corinthia Group. And then six years ago Mr Rota joined Corinthia as GM of the Corinthia Palace Hotel & Spa in San Anton, where 49 years ago the Corinthia-Pisani story all started.

Mr Rota tells me: “Mr Pisani is a man of great vision, a born leader and an example to us all. I say this because I truly believe he is one of a kind and Malta is lucky to have had him and his vision. My chairman is a down to earth person in reality, as are most of the intelligent men on this planet.” Before I leave, a beaming Italico Rota tells me that Malta has given him everything: he met his charming, loving German wife while he was in Malta; he had his children here; he discovered real friends here and he found his real happiness here. His final words to me are “Malta is a gem, an old precious gem that never loses its worth.”

I leave the hotel on a high just as I am sure most guests staying at the Corinthia must feel.

And what does Italo Rota’s own pupillo think ?

I spoke to Jonathan Pace about Mr Rota to see what he thinks of the man and if he thinks of him as a legend. Mr Pace was once Mr Rota’s deputy and today has risen, at an incredibly young age, to become GM at the Panorama Hotel in Prague, one of the many hotels that are owned or run by the Corinthia Group.

To Jonathan, Mr Rota gave him the best lessons not just in hotel management but in life. According to Jonathan “Mr Rota is such a people’s person who treats people well. Whether you are a guest at his hotel or a member of staff—in whatever grade—he makes you feel good. He is always positive and this is felt throughout the hotel. Mr Rota is not a GM who stays at his desk crunching numbers; the numbers and reports are important but can be done when there are no people and by others. To Mr Rota the best thing to do at the hotel is to look after your guests and make sure they are treated like very important people.” 

According to his pupillo, Mr Rota’s presence is electrifying and he is there to make sure all is fine with the food, the service and the whole hotel operation. According to Jonathan Mr Rota does a great job and also knows how to enjoy life. He loves his food and travelling but most importantly for his job he loves his staff. The way Mr Rota treats his staff is part of the living legend of a man who came from nearby Italy for a vacation to rest and overstayed by over 30 years.

The rest is part of Malta’s hotel history.    


This article first appeared in the June 2011 issue of the MHRA magazine

Feeding the soul

I love Mdina must be a well worn cliché. But every time I go there the place manages to fascinate me. I meander around the old lanes and streets and never tire of exploring new sights, new surprises, new features. In the morning it is, bar the many guided tours, a real gem with the light casting interesting, ever-changing shadows. In the evening the place turns into another priceless gem. And walking around in the dark I always manage to get lost in silent reverie. I see noblemen and their dames of old in resplendent clothing worthy of any old-time theatre set. I see young men furtively kissing their beloved in terrible dread of being caught and quartered. And the little lady, coquettishly red in the face, nods her hesitant approval. Yes, Mdina is a place for dreams, dreamers and everlasting surprises.

I headed to Inguanez Alley where Bacchus restaurant lies. The little alley is one of those places which epitomise Mdina for me: small but full of character and history and always capable of oiling my dreams. Bacchus was always one of those dependable old favourite restaurants of mine. I hadn’t been for some years and felt rather as if I had abandoned a great friend or intimate partner for no reason. So I tiptoed inside and waited for a table. I am usually loud and a bit of a lout when I eat in company but Mdina does manage to make me change and keep my volume down. Maybe it is the thought of all those noblemen who walked imperviously or maybe it’s the thought that this is the silent city. It helped that on this particular visit I had with me, my soon-to-be-a-quarter-of-a-century-old son, who loves his food but loves savouring it in relative silence.

I explained to him that I had always loved Bacchus because it is always full of surprises, and unlike some other restaurants it is full of positive surprises. The place, just like Mdina, used to be a dream and the food was always a new revelation of sensations for the palate. I spoke volumes about this to my dismayed son who was worried that my garrulous self would not only disturb his joy but also build up expectations which could not be matched by the food on offer.

Unfortunately when we went it was still nippy so sitting out in the garden was not an option. The beauty of the garden on top of the bastions is amazing. I’ve seen it a few times but it still manages to overwhelm me every time. If you go on a hot day do sit outside; unlike the rest of Malta when we all burn and gasp with sullen tiredness caused by the heat and opt to sit in air-conditioned surroundings, dining out in Mdina will be cool and breezy, especially in the evening.

The place itself is full of historical anecdote and architectural charm. Bacchus, which today offers plush and comfortable seating, was once a gunpowder store back in the time of the Knights. Its bellicose past is hardly discernible, with food and drink served and enjoyed in the most serene surroundings. Bacchus, that god of wine who loved to eat and drink so much, would surely approve.

The history of the restaurant reflects the history of Mdina. Parts of it date back to Arab times, parts to the age of the Knights and all of it has been tastefully and tactfully renovated to give comfort but never indulge in ostentation or strident minimalism. The modern style just would not work in a place like Bacchus, steeped as it is in history and, for a dreamer like me, in fables and age-old stories. How can you visualise a lacy dress and a rouged courtesan in minimalist surroundings?

I made a quick visit to the bathroom before we started our meal. I have never forgotten what a friend once told me: the state of the bathroom is a good indicator of standards. Bacchus passes with flying colours. All in order and spotless. One small problem would be tackling the steep stairs after too much to drink. Bacchus might opt to just drink, eat and forget the ‘rest’.

Now let’s tackle the food or, as my son would say, the place is great, the staff is welcoming but what about the grub?

We were both hungry and we both over-indulged. The food is beautifully presented, in crockery that, to use more vocabulary of the young, rocks. Although we over-ordered, the food is brought to you with just enough of a break to allow you to enjoy and digest it. The waiters are not at all stuffy while doing their job magnificently in clockwork fashion, constantly attentive to every call. The place is relaxed without being provincial – just what dining should be about.

My son ordered a beef carpaccio with local goat’s cheese, argula and olive oil. One look at his face after his first bite made me ask for a taste, which he reluctantly gave me. Yes, I agreed and I would have done an Oliver and asked him for more if he had encouraged me even slightly – but no luck! Oh well, I had my own delight to savour. I had gone for the asparagus in filo pastry. Unfortunately I had to return the favour and part with some. The pastry was superb, the asparagus succulent. My worries about having over-emphasised how good the food and the place was, were over. My son was already truly inspired. But more was to come – and more compliments were due to the chef.


We ordered a bottle of Marsovin Antonin and a Meridiana Melqart. The Melqart was a perfect companion to the carpaccio, the pasta and the veal while the Antonin added fulsome flavours and piquancy to the asparagus and the grouper. Once more Bacchus would nod his divine approval both at the wines imbibed and the choice at his own restaurant.

For my next course I opted for paccheri with goat’s cheese. The only complaint here was that I should have taken a less heavy dish to appreciate the rest even better, but I am not at my strongest when tempted by pasta. And at least it wasn’t an exaggeratedly big helping. My son only gives praise when it is unashamedly due so even a few words from him are impressive. And he was garrulous about his rich seafood lasagne which he described as divine. By this time I was beginning to wonder if the chef was Olympian and got lost on his way back home and thankfully stopped in Mdina.

My main course was a grouper (cerna) with a very original artichoke raviolo with a lobster and dill sauce. I wondered if this dish was going to be overdone, with too many different tastes attacking my buds. But the cerna was another success, as attested by my attendant and attentive son. He had ordered veal escalopes with caramelised fig and apple chutney, which again received a very impressed and impressive nod.


What next? A feast of sweets! We asked for and were allowed to savour a sliver of each delicacy on offer. Sweets are definitely not in short supply and they were freshly made. Why oh why do other restaurants forget our sweet tooth? Why can’t they copy Bacchus and give us a fitting end to a lordly meal? When very often I am presented with sweets that resemble cardboard both in look and taste, with smidgens of shaving foam, my heart and my soul bleed. I loved them all but my firm favourites were the old baker’s brioche and grandmother’s ricotta tart, while my son voted for the warm crêpe and the panna cotta.

Indulge in a great dream, get yourself to Bacchus and let his heavenly food captivate you as it did us and, obviously, by looking at the happy and satisfied faces around us, all the other diners. So I can honestly, hand on heart, shout out: Bacchus is as good as it has always been. If the soul needs feeding then what is on offer there is surely its food.

This article first appeared in the June 2011 issue of MHRA magazine

Land of reflectors

Friday was the day of reflection before we cast our vote in a referendum that should not have been and that had a weighted question that should not have been even more. I promised myself ages ago I wouldn’t talk divorce let alone write about it. But promises and reality are hardly compatible so we should get them divorced. Or is that unlawful or sinful?
It was the day of reflection when we, all contemplative and reasonable, weigh most intelligently whether to give an aye vote or a nay. Friday morning I had warned all around me not to mention the “D” word in case they influenced me with their words and looks and deeds.
I had nearly suggested to my wife, whom I love dearly, that we should save ourselves the trip to the polling booth on the dreaded day. You will surely, I said, vote the opposite of what I will, so once our votes annul each other we might as well stay at home. How do we know how we will be voting I hear someone ask? Married for over 30 years gives you special intuitive powers; and being married for so long makes you disagree with your beloved spouse even if deep down you want to agree. In spite we trust.
Back to my contemplative Friday. After discarding the idea of remaining in bed to really reflect on the issue and to keep away from the temptation of reading some more bilge about the not-to-be-mentioned divorce issue, I slowly crawled out of bed and grabbed all the Iva and Le propaganda that had piled up on my bedside table. Not a huge pile except for some battered woman, innocent children and some other strange endorsers─like God and his Son─ we were spared the many obnoxious faces on postcards which we get during elections.
Anyway while throwing away all this detritus I tried hard to keep my eyes off pictures of pompous politicians and pious pastors who could sway me with their wholesome or nefarious ways. That done I switched on my laptop hoping to keep all corrupting stuff from reaching my brain. Alas that was impossible: messages unseen the day before were glaringly trying to sway me. I took a cursory look at my Facebook page and bam! more images, more messages, more words of wisdom asking me to save our families or give new families a legalised future. I inwardly cursed laptops. I even had a cryptic message from a Catholic group asking me to vote yes to divorce. Why were these interfering agents trying so hard to keep me from reflecting alone on how I should vote?
Satan smiled at me and said that the yes vote was his doing while a horrific Jesus begged me for my vote (sorry Jesus for calling your picture horrific but it is just that. If I were You I’d come down again, rip up the picture and place a proper one of the real me, I mean You). I nearly blew my top and felt like permanently closing my Facebook account. Couldn’t the electoral commission reach an arrangement with Facebook and make them stop all this corrupting ware from reaching us? We had a Green person trying hard to attend as an observer and the electoral commissioner tried hard to stop him. Couldn’t the commissioner also do something and block this Facebook and blogging interference on my reflection?
I left home and headed for my car. I tried hard not to look at the bumf strewn all over the streets. The yes and no camps might have been at loggerheads about everything but in getting our country to look shabbier they heartily agreed and managed. I then drove round a bit to contemplate more on my vote on Saturday. Then horror of reflective horrors, more propaganda, all displayed in resplendent boredom, greeted me. Billboards bored into my brain ordering me to vote “yes” or “no” in the referendum. I tried hard not to look but didn’t wish to meet my doom before my time by crashing into one of the billboards. Although come to think of it maybe that’s what we should have done: crushed all billboards out of existence. I tried hard not to look at the boards. I think I could have looked at them till kingdom come and I would not have been swayed one way or the other.
The two camps, the aye-seekers and the nay-seekers, didn’t come up with the most exciting of stuff. Some billboards nearly literally drove me up the wall because I had to look at them a few dozen times to understand what they were trying to convey. Most times I didn’t understand what the hell or heaven they were saying. Thankfully all came conveniently with the “yes” or “no” neatly ticked at the bottom so I could work out who was desperately trying to appeal for my vote. As we are admonished at all times: look at the small print. I never knew that this advice actually referred to referendum billboards.
I kept trying hard to keep away from these corrupting, illegal messages which were trying to convince me one way or the other but the day went on with hardly a moment when someone or something didn’t jar my reflective contemplation.
Friday then was thankfully over and we moved to the big Day, voting day. The suggestion that my wife and I stay at home never materialised. So off I went together with my wife to cast our votes. As I was jotting my choice I reflected a bit more: how many couples were voting together and whose next step was going to be to ask for their divorce papers?

When love is on the rocks

I really love Malta. Anyone who says it doesn’t rock must be stone deaf or worse. Some time ago while the world was passing through one of its most momentous periods tinged with blood, tragedy and radiation fears, we, or, rather, our representatives in Parliament, discussed for eight or nine long sessions how or when we were to vote for divorce. And the vote approaches where we will have to agree or not to divorce. If our esteemed members don’t deserve their salary and super-special pension for anything I’m sure no one will grudge them their earnings for being super good at nitpicking.
I don’t know if, after all this time, anyone remembers or followed it very well – the marathon debate, I mean. We had Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando promising us he would vote with the opposition even before the debate opened. So if he knew even before he heard the debate how he was going to vote why bother debating? Couldn’t he, at least, have told us he thought he was going to vote with the opposition but that if, by any chance, one of the long speeches in Parliament changed, or maybe dulled, his mind, he would change it and just maybe vote with the government side? At least it would have given us a bit more interest in the outcome.
It was like watching a game of football with extra time and a few dozen penalties but with foreknowledge of the result. Rather an inane exercise, I’d say. The referee could have stayed home and cooked a wholesome meal for his friends. If Dr Pullicino Orlando hadn’t told us how he would be voting, he would have proved to all of us he really was a free spirit unshackled by pre-conceived, pre-ordained ideas.
In fact, I now await his solemn pledge that in the referendum he will vote, not according to what he wishes or thinks is right, but that he will come to a conclusion after all the bigwigs of the land have regaled us with more insights and studies and views. This will prove to us, lesser mortals, that his vote will be cast as a real, free-spirited person in what should be a choice based on very solid and sound conclusions.
I also need a lot of weighing in the divorce debate. I just can’t decide how to vote, so I am still waiting for said bigwigs to convince me. I am at heart very much in favour of divorce, so, at first sight, I wish I could vote yes to divorce as proposed by the referendum. But I’m not too sure I want to vote yes and have a strange smile-fest from the likes of Dr Pullicino Orlando, Joseph Muscat and Evarist Bartolo, all doing an Irish jig to celebrate the passing of their Irish-style divorce in Malta.
As the famed DJ and anti-divorce campaigner told The Times, after the divorce laws are in (if they are) he will be waking up every day thinking of and wishing he could divorce. I do fear that the uncontrollable desire to get divorced will surely happen to us married men and women of this rock. We will all end up craving to get divorced just because it’s in the statute law. And at my age, waiting for four forlorn years to get myself a divorce will really be tough. Four years added to my age right now and I’ll end up being given the divorce papers, or whatever you get when you get divorced, together with my kartanzjan and pension. Not really the best time to get myself back on the marriage market.
So, maybe, I’ll opt for a no to divorce on that day. This will mean, of course, that my cherished idea of being a young-at-heart liberal would then go down the proverbial drain.
At the start of the campaign we nearly had an eerie silence from the Church authorities. Now, close to the actual vote, we seem to have a deluge of words and actions but still not, it seems, officially sanctioned. Bishop of Gozo Mario Grech has declared a holy war on all Catholic adults who even dared think they would vote in favour of divorce. The bishop raved and ranted against all “brigands” and “wolves”. There seems to be a whiff of antagonism in the house of our bishops. Would they − horror of diabolical horrors − be allowed to divorce or whatever happens to bishops who can’t work together?
The Archbishop and the band of seven wise priests seemed to indicate that the best way forward would be restrained debate and definitely no crusades. I know history teaches many lessons and the Church in Malta does not want to go the whole hog and fight divorce the way they fought Dom Mintoff and his obnoxious ideas back in the 1960s by using all sorts of Catholic, but hardly Christian, stuff and decrees. The way the Church has been acting makes you feel it has lost its bite.
Even the anti-divorce campaigners don’t seem to have made much of a campaign. I remember the frontman of the campaign promising us that prominent politicians and other leading personalities were going to join the fight against the damning demon of divorce. The yes to divorce campaigners sound even more histrionic than the more sedate, supposedly anti-liberal no-to-divorce camp. In fact, the dullness was only coloured by a silly Nazi slur swung by one divorce campaigner.
Except for a few ex-Presidents and a DJ, I haven’t been too impressed by what the anti-divorce movement has produced. What’s happened? Is it all going to be let loose on us closer to the day of reckoning? Will we, the startled and wanting-to-be-illuminated citizens, before making our decision be assaulted with all sorts of mind-numbing data and arguments that we will not be able to refute or refuse?
Could it be that, then, this onslaught of ideas will change the course of our coarse history and Dr Pullicino Orlando, after weighing all the arguments, will publicly recant and tell us that, after a long and proper deliberation, he will, after all, not vote in favour of divorce?
This article first appeared in The Times May 21 2011

Manners and the healing profession

Malta has been renowned for its treatment of the sick right through history. It is interesting and poignant that tiny Malta, a simple dot in the Mediterranean, is still highly associated with the Knights of St John who were hospitallers before they became a warring Order. The Order of St John was renowned for its battles against maladies and suffering and the Sacra Infermeria in Valletta was internationally acclaimed. Today, the Knights have once more donned the mantle of hospitallers and are now a worldwide order, assisting and propagating medical and caring causes.
But is Malta also on the forefront of treating the ill with the care and humanity they deserve?
Of course, the most important thing in any medical person is his medical knowledge and no amount of good manners can substitute medical proficiency. Our medical system, with all its drawbacks, delays and deficiencies, is the envy of many, especially for a country our size and with no natural resources except our people. The medical people we have managed to produce are another enviable source of pride to all of us on this tiny rock. It is a pity that some bring it all to disrepute and some patients have to suffer the ignominy of being treated as mere numbers.
At some point or other in our life, most of us, including the best medics, become patients. It is with this acceptance of reality that we should look at patients’ rights. All humans are potential patients, so all humans should be treated with dignity and as humanely as possible.
The world will be celebrating Patients’ Rights Day today. But all rights are a collection of fancy words unless they are accompanied by a modicum of human care. In general, the medical profession in Malta deserves a shower of praise. Medics and those involved in the caring profession, are, in their vast majority, very attentive to detail and they sacrifice a lot for the sick and suffering. It is a sad fact, however, that they do not always remember or care to use etiquette while exercising their profession. When handling relatives of very ill patients or when imparting the news of their patients’ illness or situation, medical people sometimes lack manners and gentleness. It is true that, on the whole, we are used to putting up with a lack of manners in all spheres but when it comes to health and, especially, when someone’s life is in the balance, we expect more care than in other less traumatic instances.
To an extent, all medical people have to don a hard shell to protect them from empathising too much with their patients. A doctor or nurse has to be slightly aloof from the suffering and also from the emotional problems the sick and those close to the patient go through, otherwise they will find it impossible to carry out their work.
This aloofness, however, must not lead the doctor to forget that the afflicted are humans and, as such, deserving of proper and humane treatment. Sometimes, an illness seems minor but for the patient in his particular circumstances it may appear to be verging on the tragic. Imagine a minor ailment like a constant pain in the larynx, which could mean a curtailment of too much talking. Simple enough to anyone and petty-sounding to any doctor, I presume. Quite right, unless the sufferer is someone who depends almost entirely on his vocal chords, like a teacher or a radio talk show presenter. I know two people who have suffered from this seemingly silly ailment. One was treated with care and compassion, the other one was brusquely told to thank her lucky stars it wasn’t much worse and life-threatening.
All doctors and nurses and medical people and all personnel who come in constant contact with patients need to be well trained in people management.
Back in 2008, the New England Journal of Medicine published an article by Michael Kahn who said: “Patients ideally deserve to have a compassionate doctor but might they be satisfied with one who is simply well-behaved? When I hear patients complain about doctors, their criticism often has nothing to do with not feeling understood or empathised with. Instead, they object that ‘he just stared at his computer screen’, ’she never smiles’, or ’I had no idea who I was talking to’. During my own recent hospitalisation, I found the Old World manners of my European-born surgeon – and my reaction to them – revealing in this regard. Whatever he might actually have been feeling, his behaviour – dress, manners, body language, eye contact – was impeccable. I wasn’t left thinking: ‘What compassion.’ Instead, I found myself thinking: ‘What a professional’ and even (unexpectedly) ‘What a gentl­man’. The impression he made was remarkably calming and it helped to confirm my suspicion that patients may care less about whether their doctors are reflective and empathic than whether they are respectful and attentive.”
I think if we give this good doctor and all he points out a more important standing when teaching and training our doctors, professors and nurses we, as a nation, will feel more fulfilled and prouder of those who look after us so well in our hours of need or loss.
A forum about patients’ rights, organised by the Malta Health Network, will be held at the Conference Hall, St Vincent de Paul residence in Luqa today. For further details e-mail info@maltahealthnetwork.org or phone 9949 3999.

This article first appeared in The Times April 18 2011

Is democracy possible?

The pounding by Western forces of Muammar Gadda­fi’s troops has just started, so, hope­fully, by the time this is published Libya will be rid of him and his family’s deathly grip.
I don’t support any war or, in an ideal world, any intervention in someone else’s internal affairs. But this is hardly an ideal world and, in this case, I would have loved to have seen Malta take a proper stand in the military build-up and not sit on our, oh so comfortable, fence.
In the military intervention what terrifies me most is the huge clumsy boot of the US. When the Americans get involved they are like a bungling giant in a small shop which has problems with some thieving, violent neighbours. The giant might mean well and might seem like a saviour and said giant will be a guarantor for those horrid neighbours to be subdued into peace.
But the giant’s bulk causes nearly as much mayhem or harm in the shop as the previous neighbourly threat. And the giant then starts asking to organise the shop to fit him and his bulk and, all of a sudden, he is more a hulk of terror himself. Now less of a fighter but more of a suave man in a suit, he starts buying stuff from the shop at cut prices and starts demanding all sorts of strange deals to accommodate his friends and relatives who are far from the shop he initially saved.
I know the situation in countries is a tad different. I know the Libyan population, who rose against the oppressing Gaddafi regime, are hardly going to worry about what the Yanks will bring with them besides liberation from the tyrant. They just want to rid themselves of the ghoul of Tripoli, the scourge of liberty. So, on with the pounding if a pounding is what is needed.
The US only went in at the instigation of the UN and, most surprisingly, of the Arab League. The latter are already, at the time of writing, having second thoughts. Although, as I have already mentioned, I am usually against all forms of aggression, I believe the attacks against Col Gaddafi and his troops are more than justified. In fact, I think the world took too long to get involved and so let too much blood be shed unnecessarily. But I do hope the way in is as easy as the way out.
I hope the US and the other enforcers of the no-fly zone will make a quick exit out of Libya. However, these things don’t happen so easily and the post-Gaddafi process of reconstruction and regeneration will hardly be an easy ride.
Saif al-Islam Gaddafi is, was, or could have been the apparent heir to Col Gaddafi’s top post, which, in a further twist in that twisted family and the way of running (or is that ruining?) the country, was not a proper and real post at all. Col Gaddafi had no official status. In fact, he once said he could not resign as he had nothing to resign from.
However, Saif and the Colonel, both virtually unemployed, still decide they can call most shots in what happens in that country – even ordering their fellow Libyans shot. Anyway, I digress. Said heir apparent to the most important but fictitious post of de facto leader/dictator in Libya, is aptly called Saif. Both in Libyan and in Maltese his name ominously means sword.
Until a few months ago, this Saif was the West’s hope for Libya. He seemed suave and the new face of Col Gaddafi. He had influential friends in various Western democracies and was educated and refined, unlike the uncouth father and some of his renegade brothers. And once, when Saif was interviewed by Sky News while the rebels were taking over most of Libya and were seemingly victorious, Saif said that, yes, he understood they had to introduce more democracy and more freedom.
To him and, unfortunately, to many people in the West when discussing undemocratic countries, democracy is understood as a gift to be given out to appease the populace. A lot of us seem to think we can invade a country, raze the wicked ruler to kingdom come and then install democracy in a few easy steps. Can it ever work that way? Has it ever worked that way? Isn’t democracy and the rule of law and freedom a bit more complicated than that? If a country has been misruled, its moral fibre ruined and the country has hardly ever had an independent judiciary and freedom of speech, how can one just wake up and impose such cherished but not easily attainable goals?
I do hope the Libyans have a peaceful future. How that future can easily be attained with a modicum of democracy is hard to envisage. I hope no giant outsider, however well meaning he may be, will try imposing his own brand of democracy. May the Libyan future be a rosy one, untainted by further bloodshed and tyranny.

This article first appeared in The Times March 23,2011

When grown-ups stamp their feet

We humans are pretty petty. Most of us are hardly pretty but petty we sure are.
I thought of our national pettiness when some time ago a few of us were having a bright and light conversation with one of our nation’s better artists. When I say “our national pettiness” I actually include myself as I know I’m terribly (better than pretty no?) petty.
Anyway, said artist related a story when she was chosen for some project or combined exhibition and someone else wasn’t. Now life, as they say, might be a bitch to me but a darling to my neighbour and it is all part of human nature: this neighbour might be mega-rich and loved and followed by hordes of belles. While I, who work harder and try even harder to succeed, am poor, hardly worth looking at and would not have hordes of belles even if I paid them. Same with talent and the daubing on a canvas: an artist might think she is the best around but if critics do not like her painterly oeuvre and the men and women who matter usually bypass her stuff, then the curators might opt for another artist instead of her even if the chosen artist, according to her, stinks.
Life, as I said, is like that (a bit tough on some of us). No amount of annoyance and rumour-mongering at the way the choice was made or at life or at all corrupt curators will mend the perceived, and usually delusionary, injustice. But where does pettiness come in? Oh, the artist who wasn’t chosen bitched about the chosen one and now acts all aloof and detached when in the presence of the “chosen” one.
On the national level, all this hardly matters I hear some inner voice admonishing me. But it does really because as a nation we are petty to a degree that frightens me and we are getting worse.
History books tell us that while Rome burnt, Nero fiddled. Not fiddled the books, of course, but played his musical instrument. You would be forgiven for thinking Malta’s Prime Minister not only fiddled the nation’s books but he also managed to spirit away all the Central Bank reserves noting the way Jean-Pierre Farrugia acted and ranted while making an outcry about the rise in the ministers’ salaries.
It’s true the way the salary debacle was handled was terrible. But I still wonder: if the eminent doctor of Floriana had been, as he had expected and demanded, nominated minister or mini-minister in Lawrence Gonzi’s Cabinet way back after the election, would he still have done all this ranting? And would he have given, publicly and with loads of fanfare, his pay rise to the charity of his choice? Or would he have been a member of the maligned Cabinet who pocketed their salary?
There is even more pettiness in local politics and morbidly even in the praise of dead people. Right after Mario Felice’s death was announced, Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando wrote a letter in The Times about him and his ways. Dr Pullicino Orlando reminded us all how Dr Felice was his, and his father’s, hero.
I took the dentist to be merely praising an ex-minister and fellow ex-Nationalist; nothing too ominous there. Then, a few days later, Dr Farrugia went all gooey about Dr Pullicino Orlando’s letter and agreed with all his fellow backbencher said about Dr Felice.
All this is ominous when one remembers that, in life, Dr Felice was a brilliant man renowned for several things but definitely not for being a party man or a man who followed his party leader. He was rather a maverick, in fact, so that has made him the hero and saintly idol of all present mavericks and ranting backbenchers. Oh, and by some strangely terrible coincidence, when the letters by our present petty mavericks praising Dr Felice were appearing in The Times, our commissioner in Brussels made it known he was still in the political arena. He was throwing dull tantrums and stamping his feet crying “It’s not fair”, obviously refusing to accept he has lost the leadership race once and for all.
Some of our politicians act just like the petty artist who was excluded from the exhibition. When life’s a bitch to us we get our own back by bitching away till we become a sorry sight. Our country needs politicians who can steer us out of any future problems and not get lost in petty squabbles and even pettier jealousies.

This article appeared in The Times on February 26 2011