For once, Bill Gates is superbly right!

Love him or hate him, he sure hits the nail on the head with this! Bill Gates recently gave a speech at a High School about 11 things they did not and will not learn in school. He talks about how feel-good, politically correct teachings created a generation of kids with no concept of reality and how this concept set them up for failure in the real world.


Rule 1 : Life is not fair - get used to it!

Rule 2 : The world won't care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.

Rule 3 : You will NOT make $60,000 a year right out of high school. You won't be a vice-president with a car phone until you earn both.

Rule 4 : If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss.

Rule 5 : Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your Grandparents had a different word for burger flipping: they called it opportunity.

Rule 6 : If you mess up, it's not your parents' fault, so don't whine about your mistakes, learn from them.

Rule 7 : Before you were born, your parents weren't as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about how cool you thought you were. So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parent's generation, try delousing the closet in your own room.

Rule 8 : Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life HAS NOT. In some schools, they have abolished failing grades and they'll give you as MANY TIMES as you want to get the right answer. This doesn't bear the slightest resemblance to ANYTHING in real life.

Rule 9 : Life is not divided into semesters. You don't get summers off and very few employers are interested in helping you FIND YOURSELF. Do that on your own time.

Rule 10 : Television is NOT real life. In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.

Rule 11 : Be nice to nerds. Chances are you'll end up working for one.

If you agree, pass this message on to your mates.
If you can read this - Thank a teacher!

Unpleasant Incident.

At the moment I am little shaken. I have just had to call the emergency services to send an ambulance for a 13-14 year old girl who was clearly dead drunk, and trying to cut her arms open with a broken beer bottle. Along with other people in the garden, I did try to calm the girl down, without obviously even trying to touch her to remove the bottle from her hand. She managed to wound herself quite seriously I think, and I could feel nothing but pity for her.

There was nothing else to do except call for help. Fortunately somebody else had also seen her stagger down the middle of the road in her inebriated state and called the police.

One might complain all he want about Malta, but not surely against these two stalwarts of law, order and health. Barely five minutes had passed and both police and ambulance were on site, taking care of the girl.

I could hear her swearing in English, cursing her luck and of wanting to die. What is it that drives such young people to this distress? Such a pity, for life is beautiful if lived right. Suffice to say that this girl is a year older than my daughter, and is well known here.

A few minutes after she was picked up by the ambulance, we could hear it screaming away into the distance... and we all know that ambulances do not use a siren for nothing.

Just another sad incident at Tarxien...

Do I moan too much?

I have a (thankfully large) number of friends who tell me that I am always moaning about this or that. Although I thank them for the interest they show in my little scribblings, I would like to set the record straight.

I grumble where there is cause to grumble. I praise where there is reason to praise.

Starting from Thursday afternoon. I listened in horrific silence as my wife explained to me how she was going to pick little Roxy from school, only to see parents running as a shout went out that a child had been hit by a car. Obviously all parents would be scared shitless at this horrible news, and my wife's imagination went riot as she imagined that it could be ours.

It was not Roxy thankfully, but another poor girl who had escaped her mother's grasp, and run along the pavement. Seeing one of the mammoth UGLY festa columns in her way, she nimbly stepped onto the road, where she promptly was sent flying by a car driven by a teacher at the school no less. The poor woman (who also happens to be pregnant) was innocent of the fact, and obviously was moving along quite slowly. This was a great shock to her too I can imagine, although not as much as it was to the poor girl who lay on the ground crying and screaming at the top of her voice. (Thankfully the little lady escaped with nothing to show for it except bruising and shock.)

So where is the gripe here? Let me say this straight. If it had been my daughter who had to go down into the road and get run over because of the 'festa' columns, I would make sure that there would be no festa ever in Tarxien. Ever! I would sue the bastards down to their last nut! It has become 'tradition' to adorn the streets with these monstrous columns which do not allow room for walking on the pavement. Shame on you guys. YOU know who you are. YOU know which street I am talking about. Is it legal for these people to do this? Do they have a police license to stick these eyesores on the pavement? Do you know the problem you cause with traffic in the morning and afternoon at school-time? As if it isn't enough to have petards shake your house for a whole week...God how I hate them. I just wish they would be banned.

Another dangerous ugly column is one that is at the top of the road coming in from 'Tal-Barrani' and corner with 'Main Street', just where the Tarxien Wine Bar street ends. I tell you one thing. YOU CANNOT SEE A BUS COMING because of this ugly monstrosity. I nearly swiped a Lotus Elan careering down the road. The driver ticked me off properly until I meekly replied that I couldn't see him because the column blocked the view.

"Damn you're right. Who put that fucking thing there?"

How would I answer that? So...please be careful of these things. If they block the view of the road, they are probably illegal. ACTION!

Let's cue to last Saturday evening. Right after band practice my kids wanted to go to Mc.Donalds at Gudja International. While not against the fast-food industry in any way, I would rather go to a nice quiet (on Saturday? Right!) restaurant, or at least a pizzeria...but no, they wanted to go there to meet up with friends. No problem for me anyways, I could never resist a good burger, although to be totally honest I think that the new paint scheme at the Gudja Macadoo sucks big-time. This is a burger joint for pete's sake, not a high-falutin fancy Italian restaurant!

And here I come up to the first problem, or as my mates say, first moan. I fully understand that Saturday is a busy day for any establishment, but to populate the serving counter with barely out-of-school guys and girls is asking a bit too much in my humble opinion. The serving girl gleefully managed to get all our order wrong, and no amount of pleading could I convince her that it was not what I wanted. But, I am a kind man at heart, and seeing the panic this girl had on her, I simply decided to hand over my money and let matters be. Fortunately she did get MY order right, but just about that was the only thing. She even neglected to give us spoons for the ice-cream! Ah well...the work will do them good anyway.

Alas, I have another moan coming up. My kids love reading, and as they finished the meal, begged me to take them to Agenda book-shop at the terminal to buy a book. I usually get all my books from play.com since they are invariably cheaper, but obviously take some time to arrive. However the girls at Agenda are always courteous and nice, especially to the kids, so we made our way down the car-park to cross the road right in front of the departures.

We stopped in fron of the zebra crossing, and seeing that the only vehicle coming was in fact quite far-off, we started to cross. What we did not realise was the high speed at which this vehicle (a red mini-bus!) was being driven. Do you think the driver stepped of the gas pedal to allow us to cross? NOT ON YOUR LIFE. I had to pull my daughters back to avoid an accident.

Here I apologise to the (very) few decent mini-van drivers...but I consider these people to be not much above the scum that dirties the road. It is no use trying to explain to me. Ever since I was young enough to notice this form of transport, I have come to realise how badly educated they are Truth is truth, and no amount of advertising will convince me otherwise.

So yes, maybe I moan too much. But I tell you something. If just ONE of my moans manages to right one wrong, then I feel vindicated.

As usual...KEEP ROCKING!