The stadium was bright and empty, but in a few hours, I knew it would be something special. It wasn’t the kind of special that came with roaring crowds and foam fingers or the thunder of a championship game. No, this was a quieter special. Stranger. Tender in the way only history can be tender when we remember the good things that happened.

The Runner There must be a metaphor somewhere in the image of a runner in the snow, but I couldn't think of it. So I will stick to the truth, and nothing but the unvarnished truth. He runs because running is the only way his thoughts behave. They line up, fall into rhythm, stop nagging and shouting. Snow needles his face, the kind of cold that wakes the blood.

He appeared on a night when the snow finally got it right. Not the thin, apologetic flakes that vanish on contact, not the dry powder that squeaks beneath boots and refuses to cling to itself… but the heavy, breathing kind. Four inches at least. Wet. Willing. The sort of snow experts talk about with authority, the sort that knows how to hold a shape.

As I looked down at the ground and saw the deflated balloon, I said out loud, “I wonder where this came from.” It lay there with an air of having given up, collapsed into itself as though embarrassed by its own presence. I had the strangest notion that the balloon had been waiting for me to notice it. The texture was wrong for a balloon.

“When the Police say ‘Stop’, you stop. That is all.” Victim-blaming statements like this, are being used to justify murder. ICE officers are not Police, albeit ICE has been granted the same level of secrecy as the FBI. The distinction isn’t just semantic; it shapes how the public understands power, accountability, and the limits of authority. Under U.S. law and policy, when deciding whether to shoot, or chase and arrest, there are clear delineations.

Id-dar tal-Belt li darba kienet tan-bużnanna Lina kienet ilha aktar minn tletin sena ma tinfetaħ. Minflok ċavetta, in-Nanna Kitty kellha muftieħ daqsiex. Saħansitra mill-isprall tal-kantina kien qed jixref il-ħaxix ħażin. X’riħa taqsam ta’ umdu ħarġet meta nfetaħ il-bieb! L-għamara kienet kollha mgħottija b’lożor daqs dinja, li darba kienu bojod, iżda issa miksijin bit-trab. Fleur u Lee ħassewhom li kienu fil-film Ghostbusters, u f’kemm ilna ngħidu, telgħu u niżlu mis-sular ta’ kif tidħol, sa fuq il-bejt, u sal-kantina, xi tliet darbiet.

David Marcus lumped all women into ‘organised gangs of wine moms’ who ‘listen to too many true crime podcasts’. He thought he was subtle, but he may as well have said winos. Hell hath no fury like a woman. It is acceptable to go beyond peaceful protest in response to ICE enforcement, and we believe in civil disobedience as way more than an art form.

A recent post on social media featured an empty waiting area at the Emergency Department of Mater Dei. The poster said it was ‘proof’ that people tended to avail themselves of the service ‘needlessly’, sometimes, and implied that the place was empty exactly for this reason. This, of course, put out the fire with gasoline, because the response was immediate.

Pastizzi vs. Tinnes Pasties Colour, texture, taste, appearance, ingredients… where do I begin? It was recently decreed that a tinned pasty is the same as a pastizz. Just like a candle is the same as the sun, or even a 1,000 watt bulb, and instant coffee is the same as Panama Geisha or Ethiopian Yirgacheffe. Actually, a tinned pasty and a pastizz are categorically different foods, and definitley not variants of the same thing.

''As I looked down at the garden hose, I smiled at the possibility for fun on this hot summer day.'' There were about ten of us ten of us , all under 10 years old. In those days we did not have computers, so we made our own entertainment, a hobby that often looked Death in the face, and laughed.

Fleur and Lee – Of Castles and Pies ‘“Look, children,” said Miss Marija, as she unfurled a poster with a picture of a castle floating between the sky and the sea. “Which would you rather have, a castle in the air, or pie in the sky?” Fleur’s hand shot up. “They’re both figures of speech, though!” she said. Julia sighed. “There she goes, clever-clogs…”

“The only person who can stop Trump is Pope Leo,” ran a recent The Independent headline. Really? Because they are both American, and powerful in their own way? If that’s the logic, what about the spineless gits paying homage to Trump as if he were the Second Coming? And whatever happened to the separation of Church and State? Or does that cease to matter when the Church is foreign, as in the Vatican?

The tin makes a promise. A woman with good posture and pioneer cheeks smiles from the label, holding out a pasty like a minor miracle. Canned Pasty. Fully Cooked. It says what it is. Or rather, it says what it wants to be. What it is supposed to be. What it is promised to be. This is where Katie Meluacomes in, humming “What It Says on the Tin” ever so politely.

When hydration turns into habit — and habit into harm This is not about fear — it’s about informed choice. It’s an uphill battle trying to explain why children should not be given “energy drinks” with their school lunches, just as it’s difficult to explain to adults why “diet” soft drinks can wreak more havoc on the body than sugar-laden ones.

The Armenian Apostolic Church observes Christmas on January 6. Advent is a Quinquagesima known as Hisnag, or Hisnak, from “fifty”; this period begins with the first of three periods of fasting for one whole week, as preparation for the Holy Birth -... 1 December 2009| Tanja Cilia |03 min readTimes of Malta The Armenian Apostolic Church observes Christmas on January 6.

Fleur and Lee were excited. Nanna Kitty’s old schoolfriend, the one who had given her the Vedas and Puranas books, had invited her for supper, and told her to take them along. The moon rose full and deliberate over Sunita’s garden, hovering over the almond tree, and silvering the leaves, as if it had an appointment it did not intend to miss.

Mentioning an unspecified ‘her’, Ogden Nash , wrote “Her picture’s in the papers now, And life’s a piece of cake.” He chose not to write ‘a piece of pie’ – in any case, for whoever ‘she’ was, ‘the living was easy’. In the same year, British author Evelyn Waugh used it in his novel A Handful Of Dust. There are still some people, however, who insist that the idiom is connected with slavery in the American southern states, in the 1870s.

ĊELESTINU: U STELLA Stella: Ajma kif għajjejt, jaħassra! Ċelestinu: Jien ukoll, ta. Għandi l-ġwienaħ ma nistax inferfirhom iżjed. Stella: Anzi, sibnihom. Ċelestinu: Iva, vera. Jien kont ser nibda’ naqta’ qalbi... Stella: U jien kont ser nibda’ naqta’ nifsi... Ċelestinu: Dawk it-toroq kollha dojoq u jserrpu ta’ Nażżaret, għall-ewwel ma stajtx inisb irkaptu. Stella: Jien ma kellix problema, għax il-mappa studjata sewwa qabel ma tlaqna ’l isfel.

Getting at least halfway across the bridge was my only hope, but they were closing in rapidly. The taxi-driver was one of those garrulous ones who tells you what he would do if they were President, Pope, Prime Minister, or Dear Leader. I answered him in monosyllables, and laughed and sighed and grunted and exclaimed when he expected it of me.

Before I stepped through the Distortion for the first time, and found myself there, I would have assumed that the Catskills were somewhere in Shropshire or Lancashire. I mean, I knew that my granny was American, and that my father moved us back to Malta to be closer to his dd who was terminally ill- but I didn’t make the connection.

‘Listen up, Class,’ Miss Marija announced with an enthusiastic clap of her hands, ‘Would you like to explore the homes of our ancestors?’ ‘Oh, yes, please,’ said Rita. ‘My Nanna was from Qormi. They had a big, big, house, with all the rooms around a central courtyard, and to go to the toilet, you had to step out into the yard, even if it was raining…’

Il-Knisja Kattolika ma tridx li l-fidili jmorru għand min jaqra x-xorti. Dan imur kontra l-fidi u l-fiduċja f’Alla, u jagħmel ħsara spiritwali. Il-futur jinsab f’idejn Alla. Meta persuna tmur għand min jaqra x-xorti, tkun  qed tfittex tweġibiet jew sigurtà minn sorsi oħra minflok mingħand Alla. Il-prattiċi okkulti: qari tax-xorti, tarot, astrologija, spiritiżmu, u affarijiet simili huma tentattivi biex jinkiseb għarfien jew qawwa “moħbija” li mhux ġejjin minn Alla.

In the film Breakfast at Tiffany’s, the Cat does not have a name. I used to, but I forgot what it was, because the person I own has dementia, and she has forgotten too. Her children, if and when they visit, refuse to use it, because that would give me the pleasure of knowing they acknowledge my existence; I’ve heard them say this a zillion times.

It began with an ordinary Saturday evening, or so Fleur and Lee thought. Miss Marija had set a science challenge about the Moon, and the twins were on the roof of the apartment block where Nanna Kitty lives, sketching the grey and silver craters through the telescope. Lee adjusted the focus. “Look, Fleur! Doesn’t that ridge look like a doorway?” he said.

Friday, 8th January 2010 My friend collects antiques – specifically, anything that looks like a tea-caddy, preferably made of glass, china, ceramic or pottery (but if it’s a gift she will also accept wood and metal). The other day, as I was on my way to the dentist (oh, joy!) out of the corner of my eye I saw the smaller version of one that I had already given her.