West Germany to Malta - 1973

From left that's my Uncle Johnny, my late Mother and  Uncle Tano in Hamrun Malta on the feast of San Gejtanu 1973.

Germany to Malta 1973 & The San Gejtanu feast in Hamrun

 

I've been digitizing my father's 8MM cine films. It starts on a southern German autobahn somewhere between “still in Bavaria” and “we’re definitely going south now”. The car is a proper 70s Ford Estate, the road is empty by modern standards, and everyone looks quietly thrilled to be escaping the grey.

Then the Brenner Pass. Mountains, hairpins, that peculiar Alpine light that makes everything look like a postcard someone left in the sun too long. Italy arrives without ceremony — just the sudden switch to autostrada, faster traffic, and the sense that the holiday has properly begun.

Malta. White light, dusty roads, the ferry, the first proper heat. And then, by pure accident of digitising these reels today, 7 August, we land slap in the middle of the San Gejtanu feast in Ħamrun which is today. Bunting, fireworks, the whole village out, the band, the statue, the noise. Fifty-three years later and the feast is still happening on the same date. Some things refuse to change.

After the noise and the crowds, the film cuts to Golden Sands. Proper beach day. Sea the colour of a 1970s travel brochure, kids running about, adults pretending they’re not knackered from the drive. Classic end-of-journey reset.

Whole thing is maybe fifteen minutes of silent 8mm memory. No commentary needed. The pictures do the talking, and they still talk perfectly well. 

Malta Identity

Rare Cuneiform Mobile Phone Not Discovered In Austria

Discovered in Fuschel am See in Austria which is quite far from the nearest Mesopotamian 7 Eleven, leading us to conclude that globalization isn't as new as we like to think. But then you know by now I disagree with the Smithsonian fairy tale. Link here.

However this fragment of agate stone turned up in the Tas-Silg temple complex of Malta with cuneiform engravings.