Mifsud defeats Manchester United

Can you believe this? A Malteses football star scoring twice against Manchester United in the Carling Cup. He is already a local and a CCFC hero. This will put him further into the international limelight.

Michael Mifsud! Make us proud!

Check out the headlines in the Newspapers:

The Guardian: Mifsud's Maltese magic sends United's young stars crashing
Daily Mail: Mosquito bites floor Sir Alex - Dowie pays tribute to his sky blue pest
La Gazzetta dello Sport: Mifsud, "il Messi di Malta" che ha steso il Manchester

Back from Eire

Yes, I am back.

What a wonderful place to visit. All green..and green. Coming back, I started suffering from... the green syndrome. Flying over the Maltese Islands, you see two predominant colours: brown (the colour of dryness) and white (the colour of our roofs and buildings). Get my point on green syndrome?

Well, on a positive note, the holidays was really excellent! We saw quite a lot and did as much as we can. We went from Dublin to Kerry, Wicklow and back. The scenery was lovely and food was great. I especially loved County Wicklow. It has such wild terrain and very few white colour (except for the above clouds). We stayed in Glendalough at an excellent B&B that was fit for Kings. Just wonderful. And speaking of the weather, we were very lucky. It rained on few occasions but we had the weekend that was nice and bright...good for walking and going to high spots to take all the panoramic pictures.

As usual, I promise the nice pictures...patience is a virtue

Off to Eire

This shall be my last post. Actually I don't know how I manage to post before going away. I shall be leaving for the airport in 30 minutes time. I just hope I have all in place.

Well yes, off we go. Me, Baanisuu and her parents for a promising 1-week trip in land of rolling green hills, legends and Guinness!

I have promised to show you the pictures of my Planning Summer School trip. Well, that has to wait a little more, but I should upload the pictures online when I come back. You know, it is just a touch of an 'Upload Photos' that is required....but that is just too difficult to press. Anyway, I am off to do the last 'Have I got this?' checks and aboard the Ryanair flight FR 7243.

See you in a week!

Can we save the planet?

I have just read this interesting opinion from George Marshall on the The Guardian.

Here are some quotes I thought I should pass on:

people have already acquired a severely distorted sense of priorities. Forty per cent of people now believe that recycling domestic waste, which is a relatively small contributor to emissions, is the most important thing they can do to prevent climate change. Only 10% mention the far more important goals of using public transport or reducing foreign holidays

With recycling, Mori concluded that it was becoming an act of "totem behaviour" and that "individuals use recycling as a means of discharging their responsibility to undertake wider changes in lifestyle"

People can make informed decisions in the knowledge that, say, a return flight to Australia will have the same climate-change impact as 730,000 plastic bags or 176,000 overfilled kettles

And let's be clear that voluntary action will never be enough - we will need radical political, economic and social change

Interesting I may say. However, the aim of individual action also includes putting pressure on governments / businesses to adopt a stronger approach towards mitigation and adaptation. I dare to say that hard political decisions will be few and probably too late. Unfortunately, we have become too used to a life of excess, waste and carelessness which we believe makes us feel good, look rich and be happy. Changing this way of life is akin to moving mountains.

I want to live in Russia

Just have a look at the following articles and you will know why. In an age where the Maltese government is reducing off-days (because of the public holidays on weekends issue), you have a Russian region that actually promotes a day off. But this is not to celebrate a feast or national holidays. On the other hand, it is aimed at couples to go home, together, and make babies. Just lovely. And if you succeed by giving birth to a child on Lenin's birthday (12th June) you will also get a prize ranging from a car, fridge or cash:

Russians given day off work to make babies

It is an incentive to increase the dwindling population. I like it and it works:

More than 500 women signed up for the second contest, in 2006, resulting in 78 babies being born nine months later, which was more than triple the region's daily average.

Now that the election is very close, how about some political party bringing this up as part of its manifesto?

Malta draws 2-2 against Turkey

What a match!

I missed it cos I came on the 8th but went straight to Gozo to catch up with Baanisuu and my other friends.

Back from Planning Summer School

Yep, I am back from this years RTPI Planning Summer School that was held at Swansea Univeristy, Wales. Since I was part of the international delegation (coming from Poland, Kosovo, Namibia and South Africa), we had an initial 3-day study tour. This took us to Bath, St. Davids, and Milford Haven.

The summer school consisted of lectures be keynote speakers on several planning related topics, followed by workshops. In all, there must have been around 140 planners coming from county councils, consultants etc. The first day featured an eco-day with most of the talks revolving around climate change. This was very interesting, mainly due to my deep interest in the subject. Other topics that were dealt with were the affordable housing issue and the changes to the planning system.

I had to do a 10-minute presentation which was attended by around 50 delegates. It featured some work that I was involved in. The presentation can be seen here.

This was a really great and fulling experience. It also gave me contact to several planners working in private to public posts where we often discussed issued pertaining to our countries. I also have to admit that I did a pub crawl with some guys from Swansea University up to Mumbles. We walked up, but came back with a taxi.

I am attaching a map of the University location below. The place was lovely and the weather was nice and sunny. Just perfect!

I shall be uploading some photos too.



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