Tissue?

I sat next to a friendly, Dutch-speaking lady on the plane. She didn’t speak English, so we just smiled at each other occasionally. She was about sixty, small, with grey hair. She read a trashy magazine. She ordered a bottle of wine, took a sip and turned to me and made an astonishing noise, clicking at her teeth with her tongue. I think it was meant to express “mmm … delicious!’, but sounded slightly industrial.

Then she reached into her handbag and pulled out a small packet of tissues. She looked at me, smiled, and offered me one. I checked my face for dribble and my nose for runs. Then I declined. She offered again. I smiled again. It turns out she suggested I have a tissue because she was having one.

Malta, despite the jellyfish, is still one of my favourite places. Where else can letters like this and this make the national newspapers? I found an article in French on David’s blog about the Maltese, the highlight of which reads “Le Maltais moyen est petit. Le Maltais petit est minuscule. Il n’y a pas de grand Maltais”. (The average Maltese person is small. The small Maltese person is tiny. There are no big Maltese people.”) I can vouch for the veracity of this, as I stood head and neck over everybody last night, at a party where I excelled myself with charm, wit and amiability. I took Patrick under my wing, newly arrived from the States, and introduced him to everybody I know over the course of a couple of hours.

Unhappily, I found out on the way home, that Patrick’s name is actually Mike.