Sunday Circle Issue 231

www.sundaycircle.com

MARCH 2014 – ISSUE NO. 231

Feature

FinDinG FAtHeR PeteR

Interview

A Gentle Revolution

Biographer Daniel Massa on Fr Peter Serracino Inglott See page 25

Musical sister duo The New Victorians See page 58

Exclusive

stefano mallia On a professional life built entirely on European affairs: from navigating his way around the committees of Brussels, to throwing his hat into the ring as a European Parliament candidate See page 16

PLUS

Blogging Fashion: meet the young bloggers revolutionising Malta’s fashion scene See page 31

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. contents .

INTERVIEWs

fEATURE

MEP candidate and EU expert Stefano Mallia tells Philip Leone-Ganado why he’s relishing the challenge of entering the political arena

As things become easier to replace than repair, David Schembri asks: are we too quick to throw things out?

16 Thinking EuropEan

25 FinDing FaThEr pETEr

On the second anniversary of Fr Peter Serracino Inglott’s death, his biographer and friend Daniel Massa opens up to Philip Leone-Ganado

67 STarTing FroM hoME

David Schembri meets Julian Azzopardi, the man with the plan for RA1SE, Malta’s newest NGO, as he raises funds to build an orphanage in Zambia

LITERATURE

20 WonDEr EMporiuM

Debut novelist Teodor Reljic speaks about finding magic in Malta’s underbelly as Philip Leone-Ganado listens on

sTyLE

47 can WE Fix iT? sPORTs

52 king oF ThE ring

Kickboxing supremo Marlon Conrad Hunt tells Ivan Borg about remaining on top in a sport where defeat is always just one mistake away

mUsIc

58 a gEnTlE rEvoluTion

Sister duo The New Victorians tell David Schembri that they want to change people’s lives, one tune at a time

hEALTh

71iMplanTS anD bonE graFTing

Dr Jean Paul Demajo explains the ins and outs of bone grafting, and why it is important

31 an inSTanT DoSE oF FaShion dININg 80 bEST oF boTh WorlDS Fashion blogs aren’t restricted to the world’s couture capitals; Sasha Staples meets the faces behind some of Malta’s best

bUsINEss

38 a houSE in ThE ciTy

Nicholas Portelli, of Hyde Park Residential, tells Philip Leone Ganado why high-end property in London is a good investment

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Chef Carl Zahra and Maitre De Charles Cordina of Grill 3301 tell David Schembri about going the extra mile

REgULARs

8 a WorD FroM ThE EDiTor | 10 c boDy 12 c FaShion | 14 c bEauTy

shOPPINg

74 gEnEral | 76 FooD & Drink 79 FaShion

Send your letterS to: Philip Leone-Ganado, the editor, Sunday Circle, Network Publications Ltd, Level 2, Angelica Court, Guzeppi Cali Street, Ta’ Xbiex, XBX 1425, or email: philip@networkpublications.com.mt. The editor reserve the right to edit letters for clarity and where space is limited. For advertising enquiries email: renee@networkpublications. com.mt or call: 2131 6326/7/8. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole, or in part, is strictly prohibited without written permission. Opinions expressed in the Sunday Circle are not necessarily those of the editor or publishers. All reasonable care is taken to ensure truth and accuracy, but the editor and publishers cannot be held responsible for errors or omissions in articles, advertising, photographs or illustrations. Unsolicited manuscripts are welcome, but cannot be returned without a stamped, self-addressed envelope. The editor is not responsible for material submitted for consideration. The Sunday Circle is printed by Progress Press and distributed free with The Sunday Times every month.

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B AY S T R E E T, S T. J U L I A N S R E P U B L I C S T R E E T, VA L L E T TA

A word from

the editor

There’s a long history of referencing the weather in this little corner of the magazine. Have you ever noticed that? Somebody once told me that while people over the world speak about the weather, in most places it’s fodder for the smallest of small talk; in Malta, it’s up there with our most serious concerns.

So maybe the weather influences our thoughts a bit more than I’m willing to admit. You can certainly see the imminent arrival of spring in the upbeat folksy music of young sister-duo The New Victorians, an interview with whom brightens up a few of our pages this month. And maybe we also hearken back to rainy days in, with debut novelist Teodor Reljic chatting about the appeal of fantasy and the magical quality of the everyday.

enter the circle

Elsewhere, Professor Daniel Massa looks back on the life and (often hilarious) adventures of his friend Fr Peter Serracino Inglott, as we approach the two-year anniversary of the death of one of Malta’s foremost intellectual heavyweights. We also get the opportunity to meet another sort of heavyweight in the (quite intimidating) shape of Marlon Conrad Hunt: the winner of a barely believable 11 Kickboxing World Championship titles.

Our cover story continues our encounters with the men and women contesting next May’s European Parliament elections: meeting Stefano Mallia and family, and finding out why the EU expert is ready to enter the ring himself.

This and more inside. Thanks for reading.

PUBLISHER John Formosa Network Publications Ltd www.sundaycircle.com

MARCH 2014 – ISSUE NO. 231

Feature

FinDinG FAtHeR PeteR

Interview

A Gentle Revolution

PUBLICATION & SALES MANAGER Renée Micallef Decesare

Biographer Daniel Massa on Fr Peter Serracino Inglott See page 25

Musical sister duo The New Victorians See page 58

EDITORIAL Philip Leone-Ganado EDITOR

Exclusive

stefano mallia On a professional life built entirely on European affairs: from navigating his way around the committees of Brussels, to throwing his hat into the ring as a European Parliament candidate See page 16

Scan here with your smartphone or tablet

PLUS

Blogging Fashion: meet the young bloggers revolutionising Malta’s fashion scene See page 31

ART & DESIGN Sarah Scicluna Jessica Camilleri GRAPHIC DESIGNERS

COVER PHOTO Steve Muliett PHOTOGRAPHY

SALES & MARKETING Marisa Schembri

David Schembri

FEATURES SALES MANAGER

DEPUTY EDITOR

Jessica Borg

Ivan Borg Sacha Staples

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Sunday Circle | March 2014

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Sunday Circle | March 2014

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Sunday Circle | March 2014

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COVER STORY

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Sunday Circle | March 2014

COVER STORY

Thinking EuropEan

EuropEan parliamEnt candidatE StEfano mallia haS alrEady bEEn around thE block in bruSSElS a numbEr of timES – but thE upcoming ElEctionS will bE hiS firSt rEal StEp into thE political arEna. hE tEllS philip lEonE-ganado why hE’S rEliShing thE challEngE P hotograPhy

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by

S teve M uliett -§- a rt D irection

here’s something of a stereotype in the media these days about a new European breed of politician: those who cut their teeth in the businesslike atmosphere of Brussels yet find themselves adrift in the murkier waters of local politics. Is there any truth to it?

“One of the most frequent questions I get these days is ‘x’fettillek?’ It’s as if I’ve killed someone,” Stefano Mallia says with a smile. “But I’ve always enjoyed a new challenge, and I really believe that whoever is in the MEP post can do a lot of positive things for the country.”

After a professional career built entirely around European issues, Stefano’s first taste of local politics also came with a dash of Europe: assisting the Nationalist Party during the 2009 European election campaign. “I’m more sympathetic towards the people trying to run the campaign now,” he laughs. “In 2009 I went in quite naively thinking it would all be about the EU, but in reality it was all fought on local issues, which was a huge shock.”

Five years on, as he launches his own campaign, he’s better prepared. “I’m more at ease with the way local issues dominate the scene. But I’d still love to be able to debate Europe.”

Stefano’s passion for European issues should come as no surprise. After graduating with a Masters in European Studies, he joined EMCS International – where he now sits on the Board of Directors – and quickly adopted a European focus, preparing reports on the economic and social impacts of potential EU accession. He has been involved as vice-president in the European Movement in the run up to the 2003 referendum, ran Simon Busuttil’s MEP office, sat on the board of the European Chamber of Commerce, and two years ago was appointed to the European Economic and Social Committee, where he serves as Vice-President of the Employers’ Group.

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J eSSica c aMilleri

In this latter capacity, Stefano has got to witness the ins-and-outs of European politics from the front line. The Committee discusses legislation and Commission proposals, and deals with the Commission, the Parliament, and the Council of Ministers. Memorably, he also had the opportunity to form part of a delegation to Ukraine just before Christmas, where he took part in an opposition rally and met the movement’s leaders.

His work on the Committee also sees him travelling to Brussels every two weeks, which he admits is sometimes difficult to balance with the demands of his young family. As we sit for our interview at his home in Bidnija, Nina, 10, is working on her homework while her brother Adam, 9, is more interested in showing me his pet lizards – the family dog, Sacha, has been exiled to the garden after an over-enthusiastic showing during our photoshoot.

Success in May would of course mean a more extended absence from the family’s day to day life.

“It irritates me when people say candidates are just after the salary,” says Stefano. “For me, family time is extremely precious. If elected I’d be leaving my family here and travelling up and down every week”.

Stefano points to the support of his wife Faye as invaluable, especially now that the realities of the campaign trail have started to weigh heavier. For her part, Faye is confident that the family will find a suitable balance, as they have already. “The truth is that during the week he works until late in the evening, and I do most of the running around, so our time together is quite limited. It’s nice in the evening to be able to settle down and have a chat, but when he’s away, he’s away, and you get used to it,” she says. “But when he’s here, he manages to cut off. You sense that he’s no longer worried or hassled about work. He brings a real positive element to the family.”

March 2014 | Sunday Circle 17

COVER STORY

In his work on the European Committee, Stefano has involved himself specifically on issues that affect Malta: immigration, SMEs as well as online gaming, for which he acted as the Committee’s rapporteur. “The general climate in the Committee is usually very businesslike, but on this it was...hardcore,” he recalls with a trace of disbelief. “People were saying outright ‘my government wants this’ and ‘my government wants that’. You never hear that sort of speech usually. They were already up in arms because I’m Maltese: they thought I’d just be pushing Malta’s gaming interests. In reality, what I tried to do was to balance consumer rights while protecting the single market.”

This specific experience, he believes, illustrates the reality that whoever is elected in May will find themselves facing when they take up their post. “The pressures on Malta within the EU are increasing. When countries are going through a crisis they start nitpicking. Germany and France are pushing for tax harmonisation, which would basically mean that we would lose the advantage we have in attracting companies to set up operations here. With online gaming they don’t want a single market, so companies in Malta would find it difficult to offer their services to consumers in other EU countries.”

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Sunday Circle | March 2014

And Stefano believes his work on the committee has equipped him with the tools an MEP will need to navigate these difficult circumstances.

“The next five years are going to be crucial,” he sums up. “Whoever is there needs to be there with experience.” The dynamics of the European Parliament, he believes, are not too different to those he has become so familiar with. “It’s all about understanding the system, building alliances, and presenting credible arguments.”

When I ask him what his priorities would be if elected, his belief in the single market comes to the fore once again. “One of our small failures as members of the EU is that we haven’t accessed the single market enough: I would have liked to see more small enterprises exporting. Before we joined, the main advantage that people spoke about was EU funding, but to me the main advantage is that we can sell our goods and services into a huge market of 500 million people.”

This belief ties in to Stefano’s focus – shared by the Nationalist party in general – on the economy and jobs as the centre around which everything else should revolve. “If our economy fails, our health system will fail as will our education system and social welfare

system. We have to provide a healthy business environment, where businesses can open quickly, access finance, and flourish,” he says.

Given his background in the private sector, this business focus is understandable: Stefano has sat on the council of the Chamber of Commerce for 9 years, and is a partner in a firm that employs 30 people in Malta and 20 in the UK. But Stefano’s sights extend beyond business affairs. He is keen, for example, to involve himself in the agriculture committee, giving those working in the sector their first direct representative in the Parliament. Another issue he specifically points out is the employment of people with disabilities – he points to the fact that current figures stand at a dismal 7 per cent – and the status of their carers.

In conversation, Stefano’s conviction is constantly evidenced, driven by a belief that he can use the role of MEP to push forward important issues and make a difference both to the country and to the lives of individuals.

“Few people realise the impact you can have on legislation, and at what stage,” he says. And as the campaign intensifies, he is ready for all it brings with it.

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LITERATURE

wonder emporium If there Is a quIet, magIcal heart beneath malta’s yells, bells, and smells, serbIan-maltese author teodor reljIc Is determIned to fInd It. he talks to PhIlIP leone-ganado about hIs debut novel, Two P hotograPhy

by

J acob S ammut

I don’t really believe Teodor Reljic when he says that he reads about ten books a year. With him, an otherwise entirely reasonable number seems faintly absurd. Every available surface in his apartment is covered in books; his bookcase is a hulking construction that threatens to collapse into an avalanche at any moment. As he shows me around, he seems to follow waymarkers in the forest of printed matter: these books he got from a new independent publisher whose output he admires, these he keeps meaning to reread. When we finally settle down for our interview, he draws up a knee-high pile of books to serve as a makeshift coffee table – obviously.

Stories, if it needs spelling out, are an important part of Teodor’s life. “I’m not one of those people who wrote as kids, but I’ve always been interested in making my own stories,” he says. His father is a graphic designer and his

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Sunday Circle | March 2014

literature

mother a fashion designer, so from a young age, Teodor found himself drawn towards the visual. “I was a fan of comics as a teenager, and I originally resolved to be a comic book writer.”

something about Malta through his work. He counters that perhaps that is true of any writer about his homeland. “But I wouldn’t have been as drawn to telling this story if it wasn’t set in Malta,” he concedes.

Ultimately, however, it was the written word that won him over. And it was, perhaps inevitable that his debut novel – Two, out later this month – is not only a rich story in its own right, but is as suffused with other stories as its author’s own life. “It’s one of my fetishes,” he jokes.

“I like stories about stories: I like the idea of storytelling as much as I like actual stories.”

For Teodor, the dynamic is a particularly interesting one. Serbian-born, he first moved to Malta when he was 7. His main character, William, lives in London, and is 8 when the novel opens with an image of Malta from an airplane window. “I remember something Tea Obrecht said: for your first novel, you can’t escape your childhood, it finds you,” he says. “It was impossible to escape Malta because coming to Malta was such a defining experience in my childhood.”

Two is about a boy dealing with his mother’s stroke by remembering the bedtime stories she used to tell him, which form a parallel narrative and into which are subtly woven tropes from traditional Maltese folktales. “Instead of showing the mother’s Maltese background and upbringing through speech or other traits, I wanted that to seep in through the stories – but in an indirect way, because the stories are actively an escape from Malta,” Teodor explains. “They take in the standard Grimm fairy tale setting, but also Tolkienesque lush greenery and verdant valleys, which is the opposite of Malta.”

I put it to him that, looking at the local publications of the last few years, it seems difficult for a fiction writer in Malta today to escape saying

Pinning down the presence of Malta in the novel is not easy. Through the mother, Elizabeth, we are privy to what Teodor calls the “standard” view of Malta: small, limiting, claustrophobic. ‘Now we’re clenched’, we read in one of her diary entries. ‘Clenched is what we always were in Malta, wheren’t we?’ But in William, we see a different Malta: a Malta of textures and details – the colour of stone, the musicality of prayer, even the density of the air.

“As kids we would go back to Serbia for the summer, and when we got back the first thing to hit us was always this humid gust of immobile air,” Teodor recalls. “It’s like a Pavlovian connection with Malta for me.

March 2014 | Sunday Circle 21

LITERATURE

to Teodor. If you were to embark on the foolhardy task of trying to define his sprawling bookcase, a common thread of fantasy, sci-fi, steampunk, Victoriana and everything in between would be your best strarting point. That said, Two, he insists, is not a particularly extreme example: despite the genre-blending fairy-tale elements, the narrative style itself is relatively straightforward.

But nor does he shy away from calling it a fantasy novel – and as one pitched towards adults, it is quite a rarity. “Culturally, across the West there’s an ingrained snobbery that won’t go away,” he says. “There’s the idea that it’s for a readership that isn’t entirely mature, that it relies on cliches, that it’s mass-produced rubbish that has nothing to say artistically. But there’s a richness to it which I think people miss out when they resist the fantastic mode: it’s very open, very varied, very colourful, very democratic.”

“I do acknowledge the mediocrity and petty wranglings...

But I would also like to acknowledge something quieter and more numinous”

At the time, Serbia wasn’t exactly war-torn, but it was still in crisis, and you could see it all around you. So the humid air became a comforting thing, like a blanket.”

Perhaps as a result of the vividness of the child’s gaze, the Malta that emerges as a sum of the details is a strange, exotic place. “I do acknowledge the mediocrity and petty wranglings,” says Teodor.

“But I would also like to acknowledge something quieter and more numinous.” He references something the British author Lawrence Durrell wrote about Corfu. “He talks about a kind of allseeing eye at the core of the island: petty human dramas are of no concern to it; people amble about and it just goes on. And Malta being so old...” He trails off for a second. “I’d be faking it if I tried to comment on the Malta that Vella Gera and Stagno comment on. I think there is a more subtle and magical quality to explore.”

From his early days dreaming of being a comic book author, fantasy has always been important

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Sunday Circle | March 2014

These days, he’s particularly enamoured with a movement called the New Weird: where fantastical, almost pulpy, subject matter is blended with a more developed, artistic style.

It is a similar philosophy that inspires another of Teodor’s ongoing projects: Shlock Magazine, a bi-monthly online anthology of short and serialised fiction, poetry, illustration and more.

Interestingly, it was in Shlock, which he co-edits, that Two had its first outing, as a piece of ultrashort flash-fiction when the magazine was little more than a way for a few friends to motivate each other to keep writing.

The content is varied, weird and wonderful: comics co-exist with poetry, fantasy stories with pop culture reviews. “Schlock started because we’d just graduated and we needed a release,” he explains.

“It was a way of tapping into our primordial artistic inclinations and then bringing in what we’d learned. There’s a lot of fun to be had with the traditional path as well: you learn intertextual links, you learn to play around with things.”

Through all Teodor’s work, the power of stories – in all guises and forms – remains central. ‘Could it be that all these thoughts could be made into words?’

William muses in Two. ‘Could it be that if we tried hard enough we could manage to put everything into pages of books?’ For an answer, perhaps, just keep an eye on his author’s future career.

Two is published by Merlin and will be launched on March 26 at Cafe Wignacourt in Rabat

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POP CULTURE HISTORY

Finding Father Peter On the secOnd anniversary Of the death Of fr Peter serracinO inglOtt, POet and academic daniel massa – his friend and biOgraPher – sPeaks abOut his years Of effOrt chrOnicling the life, thOughts and adventures Of the man he believes tO have been the mOst intelligent in the mediterranean W ords by P hiliP l eone -G anado P hotoGraPhy by J acob s ammut

March 2014 | Sunday Circle 000 February 25

HISTORY

W

hen you sit down to write the biography of a man who looms as large over our island’s recent history as Fr Peter Serracino Inglott, finding material to pad out your pages is never going to be an issue, even when you have 900 of them at your disposal.

“In his time, Fr Peter was recognised as the most intelligent person in Malta, and arguably the most intelligent person in the Mediterranean,” says Daniel Massa, author the recently released biography PSI Kingmaker. “He was involved in so many enterprises for Malta: he had a hand in the writing of the Constitution, he was the principal consultant for Eddie Fenech Adami, he was important in theology, philosophy, liturgy – after all, he was a priest first and foremost.”

If it were his intention to provide a résumé of Fr Peter’s achievements, he could go on for a while yet: Rector of the University, a lecturer in philosophy and theology, and the recipient of numerous national and international honours. It’s now well-known when the PN was elected in 1987, it was not any of his future ministers that Fenech Adami first turned to for advice – it was Fr Peter. “That’s why the title of the book is Kingmaker,” says 26

Sunday Circle | March 2014

Massa. “His views, arguments and opinions were taken into consideration by everyone.”

But when Massa was approached by Dr Louis Galea in 2005 – with Fr Peter’s health failing fast – to write a biography, it wasn’t a CV that he set out to write. “I wanted to get to the heart of who Fr Peter was as a person. I didn’t want to just tell people about him, but to show them.

This is his life, thought, and adventures, and some of those adventures were hilarious.”

So the first of many anecdotes that he shares with me over the course of our interview, for example, concerns a very different sort of CV – that Fr Peter had written for himself in order to obtain a letter of recommendation from Archbishop Gonzi to enter the seminary in Rome. “Fr Peter went out to find paper, and the best he could find was a paper napkin from a bar, and started writing everything in a very jocular way, starting with the time his mother dropped him on his head when he was a baby. He expected the Archbishop to reject it outright, but Gonzi gave him a letter endorsing everything Fr Peter had said about himself: he hadn’t even read the CV. When it was opened by Cardinal Montini in Rome, he was shocked. He told Fr Peter: ‘you are eminently unfit to join our seminary.’”

The story has an epilogue: 10 years later, it was Montini (by then Pope Paul VI) who ordained him – and asked him to stay in Milan to teach philosophy.

Massa first met Fr Peter when the two were colleagues at the University – one a lecturer in English Literature, the other in philosophy – and over the years, the two remained close friends, working, corresponding and travelling together.

When the time came for a biography to be written, Fr Peter specifically asked him to be the one to write it. Why him? “He didn’t want a sanitised biography,” Massa recalls. “And I think he knew that I would be able to do that; that I wouldn’t be influenced by my great friendship towards him.”

So in late 2005, he got to work. “At first I thought it was going to be a very short process, because Fr Peter was so unwell. I thought I’d just be delving into his papers and letters,” he explains. But of course, Fr Peter turned out still to have a number of years left in him. “Soon I was interviewing him every week at University or Dar tal-Kleru in Birkirkara. In the end, I had gathered over a hundred hours of tape.”

THE POINT, TIGNE’, SLIEMA REPUBLIC STREET, VALLETTA

HISTORY

True to his promise to deliver a warts-and-all biography, Massa never simply accepted anything Fr Peter told him about himself or events in the past. “I asked questions and challenged him constantly. We’d hold an interview, then I’d go back the next week and say: I’ve checked with others and I don’t think this could have happened like this.” For his part, Fr Peter was very open to the process. “I made clear to him that whatever he said, he couldn’t unsay. There was no such thing as off-the-record with us. There were things we agreed not to go into because he didn’t want to hurt people, but in general we didn’t censor ourselves.”

Then he started travelling. Massa followed Fr Peter’s footsteps from Campion Hall in Oxford, where Fr Peter studied as a Rhodes Scholar, to Insbruck, Milan, and the Seminaire des Carmes and the Sorbonne in Paris. At every stop, he explored Fr Peter’s old haunts, interviewed people who knew him, and unearthed documents that even Fr Peter was unaware of. “I once asked him whether he’d ever taken a group photo at Campion Hall, and he was sure he hadn’t. But I met a friend of his there who found me one. Apparently, they had called him for a photoshoot and he had wanted to skip it to go watch a film, but they forced him to come back.”

As Massa opens a copy of the book to show me the photo (Fr Peter stands reluctantly in the corner of the shot), his gaze darts over countless others, each one a tale: serving breakfast to Professor Tolkien in Oxford, the time he was arrested at a protest against French Algeria, the fountain he was sick in after being dragged into an overwhelmingly rich banquet in a posh Parisian hotel.

Finally, Massa’s eyes rest on a photo of some clowns visiting Fr Peter at Dar tal-Kleru. “Now there’s a picture,” he smiles.

“Clowning was his great missed vocation. When he was about 10, his father took him up to Rome to visit the circus.

After watching a particular act involving a clown, tiger and donkey, he was so enthused, he decided he wanted to be a clown. But his father told him that clowns had to be musically gifted, and Peter knew he couldn’t pitch his voice.

So that stopped him in his tracks. He said the next best thing was to become a priest: ‘the clown is always down but always rises, and that’s the role of the priest as well.’”

Clowning was his great missed vocation... He said the next best thing was to become a priest

For all the hats he juggled, it is sometimes easy to forget that Fr Peter was a priest above all. “His main vocation was to go in search of holiness and to try and lead others to holiness,” says Fr Peter. One of the dreams of his life, Massa explains with a hint of wistfulness, was the establishment of a malefemale liturgical community in Tarxien. When it fizzled out, Fr Peter counted it among his biggest failures.

But two years after his death, Massa’s biography stands testament to a man whose achievements will forever overshadow any failures.

PSI Kingmaker: Life, Thought and Adventures of Peter Serracino Inglott is available in bookshops now

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Sunday Circle | March 2014

MASSIMODUTTI.COM S p ri ng/Sum m er ColleC ti on n ow i n S to r e t h e poi nt Shop p i ng m all , t i gné

style

AN INSTANT DOSE OF FASHION Fashion blogs are not only reserved For the couture cosmopolitans oF new york, london, paris, and milan. meet the Faces behind some oF malta’s beautiFully curated online Fashion hubs I ntervIews

StyleMe by Kira Drury

by sacha staples

Kira Drury, 30 Fashion fame: Interned at British Vogue (“It was very Devil Wears Prada!”)

stylemebykiradrury.wordpress.com

How often do you blog?

I blog if I have attended an exciting event, or if I am working on a cool project, and also whenever I feel inspired. Blogging is something I truly enjoy and I do not force it; it is a pleasure, not a job.

Where do you find your inspiration?

I adore street style and when I am shooting party photography, I often snap away at cool tops, shoes, or whatever catches my eye. The English fashion scene is a huge inspiration for me – I lived in Nottingham, I studied at London College of Fashion, and I started my career at Look Magazine (the UK’s number one selling weekly glossy), so Brit fashion is where my heart is.

Lama Photography

Do you think blogging can improve the local industry?

Blogging is a great way to inspire people and share ideas. Before the onset of local fashion blogs, people were more wary about their personal style, but now style is being embraced.

With blogging, people in the industry have a way to inspire themselves, while showcasing their talents – not just locally but on an international scale.

Ezgi Harmanci, 26 Fashion fame: Attending Milan Fashion Week this year

Lawyer at Work

How would you describe your blog?

I write my blog for professional people like myself who also love fashion. In many careers, you are required to dress professionally, but it is fun to play around with conventional style and add fashionable touches.

lawyeratwork.tumblr.com

Where do you find your inspiration?

I am from Istanbul, which is a cosmopolitan and inspiring city in itself, and when I travel I realise that elegance comes from simplicity. I find a lot of inspiration from people-watching in beautiful cities such as Istanbul, Paris, Rome, and Barcelona. Many people are intimidated by extravagant or eccentric clothing, but life is too short for boring clothes!

Do you think fashion blogs are just as important as fashion magazines?

Blogs and print media are two different areas that perhaps should not be compared.

Print media is beautiful; I love books, magazines and newspapers because I appreciate editorials, and even the smell of the paper. With blogs you have the immediacy which print media lacks. Blogs are constantly being updated and readers can share images, ideas, articles, and news every minute of the day.

March 2014 | Sunday Circle 31

style

The Clouded Revolution

Nicole Farrugia, 24 / Claire Galea, 24 / Sandro Rizzo, 23 Fashion fame: Collaboration with Debenhams to create a series of short films How did the three of you come together to start the blog?

We came together as friends over our shared love of fashion as students at St Aloysius College. We began working together professionally while attending the University of Malta when we were approached by Insiter to style the magazines editorials. Following graduation we decided to create the blog to help launch our styling careers to a wider audience.

thecloudedrevolution.com

What are your thoughts on the current state of the local industry?

It is definitely an interesting moment for the blogging scene as bloggers are being given greater importance and acceptance. With the growing interest in fashion and an increase in online media use, bloggers have a responsibility to bridge the gap between the industry and the casual reader. That being said, unfortunately when we tell people that we work in the local fashion industry, we are often not taken seriously.

Photo: Marija Grech

How do you find the local blogging community?

Being quite a small community, you cannot help but compare, so yes, there is some competition. On occasions where we have met other bloggers, however, we have always felt at ease.

Bianca Darmanin, 25 Fashion fame: Contestant in The Search for Malta’s Supermodel at age 16

The Fashion Carousel

Has the local fashion industry improved?

Compared to other industries in Malta, I believe that the fashion industry is less recognised and under-appreciated. We do not lack talent on this tiny island, but unfortunately the talent is not given that much importance. That being said, I have seen a rise in quality and professionalism in recent years in terms of fashion events and media, as well as seeing younger generations embracing fashion to express themselves.

Most memorable blogging experience?

Every comment and email I receive is a joy; having people find my posts inspiring is a huge source of satisfaction. Probably the most memorable experience was when a reader from Washington, wanted – at any cost – a dress that I had designed and sewn.

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Sunday Circle | March 2014

thefashioncarousel.com

What is the significance of the name of your blog?

I called my blog The Fashion Carousel because it is an online carousel of outfits and styles that I wear. I do not have a signature style; I like to try out different looks and trends. Besides outfits, the blog is a merry-go-round of things that inspire me.

March 2014 | Sunday Circle 000

SLIEMA

ST. JULIANS

style

Emma Camilleri, 22 Fashion fame: Interned with Temperley for London Fashion Week 2012

Style Stalker

Is there a particular topic that interests you that you explore on your blog?

I am always interested in various ways one can look stylish and feel chic and on trend without going bankrupt. What is most important is self-expression.

emmacamilleri.com

Do you think fashion blogs are just as important as fashion magazines?

Certain bloggers have become overnight sensations with the success of their blogs.

Some have become fashion icons, while others influence what we wear, how we think about fashion, and the industry as a whole. In Malta, since it is still a small industry, it is more feasible to start a fashion blog than a fashion magazine. A blog costs you nothing but your time and effort.

What advice would you give someone interested in blogging?

Be yourself. I see a lot of people who aspire to be like others, but you are unique: nobody is like you and you should exploit that. Being true to you is the best way to express yourself.

Caroline Fashion Styling

Caroline Paris, 30 Fashion fame: Winner of the Best Stylist Award at Malta Fashion Awards 2013

carolinefashionstyling.com

What sort of topics do you cover on your blog?

I write articles offering advice on how to dress according to different body shapes, on the latest trends, as well as on local and international designers. I enjoy interviewing people involved in the fashion industry, such as models and designers.

34 Sunday Circle | March 2014

How do fashion blogs and fashion magazines function differently?

I think blogs and magazines are two different entities entirely. Bloggers often use their blog to express their honest opinions about products, brands, and experiences. Even if the blog is sponsored by a company, a blogger is unlikely to write a positive review of a product they do not believe in, for example. With magazines, generally the opposite is true – when products or brands are mentioned it is usually a promotional advert.

Any notable experiences since starting the blog?

I love it when my readers get in touch and let me know how much they enjoy reading my blog. I think feedback from readers means a lot to any blogger, since writing can be an isolating process – when readers connect it makes everything worthwhile.

March 2014 | Sunday Circle 000

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BUSINESS

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Sunday Circle | March 2014

BUSINESS

A House in tHe City If you have a few mIllIons you’re lookIng to Invest, how about an apartment In one of london’s most prestIgIous addresses? maltese busInessman nIcholas portellI – founder of hyde park resIdentIal – offers a glImpse at the lofty peaks of london’s thrIvIng property market W ords

by

P hiliP l eone -G anado

London is familiar territory for many Maltese: a first port of call away from our shores, whether for a short shopping trip or an extended stay for work or study. For Nicholas Portelli, it is the city he calls home – and today, the city he helps wealthy investors to call home.

Nicholas is the founder of Hyde Park Residential, a company specialising in the search and acquisition of luxury real estate in Central London.

“When I bought my property in London, I realised there was a gap in the market,” he says. “The market in London is very active, and with estate agents there was a push to buy very quickly, which made me feel uncomfortable. I felt that there was scope to create a service providing a more boutique, private client approach to property – in much the same way banks offer a private client service for investors.”

Drawing on his 15-year background in investments, Nicholas created a business model that exclusively represents buyers. “We’re not tied to any estate agents, so we have access to the whole market. That gives the client the peace of mind of knowing they’re buying a property that suits their requirements, rather than the other way round. This type of client doesn’t have time to run around looking at properties, to look at bad properties. So we give them what they don’t have: they mandate us to go the whole 9 yards in terms of searching, acquiring, even leasing if they’re not going to use it themselves.”

The areas that Nicholas focuses on read like the fashionable end of a Monopoly Board – Mayfair, Chelsea, South Kensington, Knightsbridge, St John’s Woods, Notting Hill – as do the prices.

Nationwide, the average property price is just over £168,365. In Chelsea, you can expect to pay about £1000 per square foot at the lower end of the market; move inwards to Mayfair or Park Lane, and the average is in the region of £3000. So a one-bedroom apartment in so-called prime central London might run you £1.5 million, a two-bedroom – one of the most popular property classes – closer to £3 million. “And of course, there are bigger, very beautiful properties that can go up to tens of millions,” says Nicholas.

His clients are international buyers – largely Russian, French, Italian, and Chinese – who typically do not intend to live or even work in London. So the property they’re interested in is less of a home, and

more of a home-shaped investment. “When you do have clients looking to buy a property as a residence, there’s emotion tied to it,” Nicholas explains. “I try to disassociate myself from that and always approach it as an investment. You may plan to buy a house for 20 years, but circumstances change. So my focus is on liquidity, which means either it will sell quickly, or it will rent quickly.” For a potential investor at this level of the market, Nicholas believes, prime central London is about as safe a bet as you can hope for. “In the last 40 years, the growth there has been 10 per cent per annum.

Obviously there was a dip in prices in 2007, but within 12 months the market recovered immediately.” The main factor driving this growth is the shortage of supply in London – estimated at 22,000 units a year – and the rising population, which is expected to reach 10 million in the next 15 years, coupled with consistent international demand.

Further down the property ladder, that same shortage of supply is a very different proposition: in the borough of Kensington and Chelsea, nearly 800 households have been relocated to the suburbs as prices driven up by foreign investment render benefits unsustainable, while middle-earners are increasingly priced out of the market. Although the government remains opposed, Boris Johnson has called for increased taxes on owners of vacant properties: “London homes aren’t just blocks of bullion in the sky,” he told City investors in January.

But for those investors, the government’s drive to ensure that new supply comes onto the market presents another new opportunity.

Nicholas explains that Hyde Park Residential is now primed to open a new facet to its operations – HPR Investments – focusing on the lucrative development market. “There are new schemes that are encouraging developers to enter the London housing market, and I think the returns can be quite significant. The spend is different: you’re looking at between £10 and £20 million, which would require an equity investment of between £3 and £6 million.

But for investors with that sort of appetite, this is an opportunity that can provide above average returns.”

He is also keen to see Maltese investors getting in on the act.

“Maltese investors are very keen on property, and the UK is very familiar territory for the Maltese. The Maltese property market, like every market, will go through its ups and downs, but London will provide a good investment return over the next 5 to 10 years.

And I think Hyde Park Residential is well positioned to tap into that market and offer a service to Maltese who now want to venture outside Malta in this industry.”

www.hydeparkresidential.co.uk

March 2014 | Sunday Circle 39

PROMOTION

team limitless Great response to the Limitless mobile plans led GO to extend Limitless goodness to the popular Home Pack bundles. With Limitless Home Pack, GO customers are now benefiting from Limitless calls and Limitless Internet downloads from home, in addition to an amazing line-up of TV channels. Students were also given a Limitless treat with the launch of the Limitless student plan. The most recent addition to GO’s Limitless family is Limitless Duo Pack. This pack gives customers the benefit of Limitless calls and Limitless Internet downloads from the home.

Creating Limitless was a team effort bringing together various GO departments.

Here we meet some of the team who made it happen.

ian BugeJa

Marketing Communications Officer “we managed the go to market phase for Limitless, producing the adverts and putting together the media schedules for the launch.”

gordon CaChia

Project Coordinator

“Our office planned all the necessary meetings throughout the project and made sure everyone stuck to agreed timelines.”

Javier arriaga Fixed voice Product Manager “My role was to plan for specific add-ons to Limitless Homepack, including free international minutes to fixed lines.”

annette Bezzina Manager Residential Segment “My team and I are responsible for Home Pack and were involved in each and every stage of making Limitless Home Pack a reality, for our customers to enjoy.”

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Sunday Circle | March 2014

PatriCk gatt Customer Relations & Call Centre Manager “Limitless is an unparalleled product on the local market. So it came to no surprise that this product has created so much vibe and interest.

We have been very busy managing the flow of information between GO and our customers.”

promotion

LimitLess has been a success story thanks to a team of people who have enabled limitless mobile calling and texting as well as generous internet surfing at home. sunday circle explores how limitless is unfolding and who brought about these results

Simone muScat Network Service Assurance Manager

Beppe Vella

Ron Bonnici

Pricing & Tariffing Analyst

Intelligent Network Manager

“It’s crucial that all the devices being used by customers are configured correctly according to the plan they’re subscribed to.”

“Prior to the launch of Limitless, we built various business models to ensure we are offering the best value to our customers.”

“We configured the complete logic for the Limitless plans, designing the tariffs, building the product catalogue, calculating a customer’s credit rating.”

thomaS DegioRgio

Product Champion

Segment’s role was to ensure all channels were going in the same direction, and together we perfected the Limitless Plans.

ingRiD gatt IT Core Applications Development manager My role was to manage the project ensuring that all business requirements have been captured and tariff plans have been implemented on the IT systems.

chaRmaine BoRg Customer Experience Coordinator “Testing the Limitless plans from a customer perspective was absolutely crucial.”

coRinne Fenech Customer Experience Back Office & Bill Query Support “Our team ensured that our customer experience is exceptional through product definition and testing.”

March 2014 | Sunday Circle 41

society

Malta’s controversial detention policy is both a syMptoM and a further cause of the worrying level to which we have dehuManised the plight of irregular Migrants. it’s tiMe to ask where all this is leading, says philip leone-ganado P hotograPhy

42

by

D arrin Z ammit L uPi

Sunday Circle | March 2014

soCiety

The discussion of irregular migration in Malta tends to be distressingly cylic. The investigation – and public debate – in the aftermath of last week’s riots at Lyster Barracks will undoubtedly prove useful, but they will hardly break new ground.

Mandatory detention Malta’s detention policy has consistently attracted criticism from various human rights organisations: Human Rights Watch, the International Commission of Jurists, Medicins Sans Frontières, the European Network Against Racism, and Amnesty International, to name a few. Irregular migrants who apply for protection are automatically detained until their asylum claims are processed. Rejected asylum seekers and other irregular migrants who cannot be deported are detained for up to 18 months before being released. Only those falling into the ill-defined category of “vulnerable” are exempt. “Detention in Malta is akin to punishment for arriving by boat and seeking asylum and has proven to be ineffective as a deterrent,” writes Dr Alison Gerard, Senior Lecturer in Justice Studies at Charles Sturt University.

elements; subjected to the worst of the summer heat and winter cold, with insufficient blankets to keep them warm. Access to an exercise yard was limited to one and a half hours a day. After being returned to Malta following a failed escape to the Netherlands, she was imprisoned for six months, during which time she miscarried, before being returned to detention.

It is not difficult see the riots like these as a natural consequence of these conditions. MP Marlene Farrugia, who was part of the delegation present during the riots, suggested as much when interviewed on Times Talk in the aftermath. “If we keep [detained migrants] in degrading conditions – sometimes you think: not even animals are kept like that – we can’t expect them to come out of detention as better people. You’d expect that somebody who feels his dignity being eaten away is going to rebel.” She pointed out, for example, that accommodation at the detention centre is all makeshift, and questions why a portion of the funding Malta has received to deal with immigration has never been allocated towards a purpose-built centre.

And all this is to say nothing of the actual conditions of detention. In an ECHR judgement last year - Aden Ahmed v Malta - the court found that conditions in Malta’s detention centres were not compatible with respect for human dignity, and amounted to inhuman and deTgrading treatment. Among her claims, the court heard that Aden had been detained for 14 and a half months, housed in a dorm with 40 other women and children. The dorm was exposed to the

March 2014 | Sunday Circle 43

society

“It can be easy to forget that other people have minds with the same general capacities and experiences as your own” The science of dehumanisaTion We should be startled at the way our country is so willing to detain in these conditions people who have not committed a crime (and let’s be clear, arriving in another country for the purposes of claiming asylum is not a crime). But instead, what is striking is how popular rhetoric has been twisted round to defend the indefensible. By now, the arguments of a thousand Facebook posts and online comments should be familiar to us: they’re illegal; we don’t know what diseases they may be carrying; we don’t know whether they’re terrorists; they didn’t have a roof over their heads in their countries (wherever they might be), so they should be grateful just to be here; what about our human rights?

There is a clearly a failure of empathy somewhere along the line: it seems we have stopped seeing migrants as individuals and instead started viewing them as an amorphous problematic mass.

This is not in any way a problem unique to our culture.

In his book Mindwise: How we understand what others think, believe, feel, and want, Nicholas Epley, a professor of behavioral science, suggests that the essence of dehumanisation is a failure to recognise the full human mind of another person. “It can be easy to forget that other people have minds with the same general capacities and experiences as your own. Once seen as lacking the ability to reason, to choose freely, or to feel, a person is considered something less than human.”

It may be useful to situate this cognitive process within a broader context. Dr Gregory Stanton, President of the organisation Genocide Watch, lays out a ten-stage model for how societies resort to genocide. Stage one is classification, where people are distinguished into “us and them” on the basis of race, religion or nationality: German and Jew, Hutu and Tutsi, Maltese and immigrant.

44

Sunday Circle | March 2014

Next, classifications are given names and symbols - “Jew”, “Gypsy” - or distinguished by colour or dress. In the third stage, a dominant group uses law, custom, or political power to deny the rights of other groups. The next stage, dehumanisation, sees one group denying the humanity of the other, equating them with animals, vermin, insects, or disease. This, Stanton points out, is crucial to the process in order to overcome our predisposition to empathy, and specifically the normal human revulsion to murder.

What follows is organisation, polarisation, preparation, persecution, and ultimately, extermination.

This is not to suggest that we are on the road to genocide.

But more subtle forms of dehumanisation are all around us.

While we are all primed to feel empathy – we feel pain when we see images of others in pain, for example – we are also all susceptible to this failure to engage with the complexity of other minds, to understand that others also experience the human condition as richly as we do. According to Epley: “Members of distant out-groups, ranging from terrorists to poor hurricane victims to political opponents, are also rated as less able to experience complicated emotions, such as shame, pride, embarassment, and guilt than close members of one’s own group.”

sTemming The Tide It is not, perhaps, as simple as suggesting that if people understood the plight of migrants, the divisions we are currently experiencing would simply evaporate. Certainly there is value to be seen in the work of individuals such as Goitom Yosief, who led an outreach tour across Maltese schools with his book Kidane: a story of hope, which aimed to foster understanding of our shared humanity. And equally, it is becoming increasingly clear that the current policy of detention is, in itself, exacerbating the problem. The UNHCR, a vociferous critic, recently commented: “One would expect that a national policy that requires asylum seekers and migrants to be held behind bars induces a perception in the public that people arriving are criminals.”

It is worth noting that the stages in Stanton’s model follow each other predictably, but not inexorably: at each stage, preventive measures can stop it. At an early stage, he suggests, the key is to “develop universalistic institutions that transcend ethnic or racial divisions, that actively promote tolerance and understanding, and that promote classifications that transcend the divisions...This search for common ground is vital.”

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SOCIETY

CAN WE FIX IT? When’s the last time you repaired something you oWn? as things BeCome easier to replaCe than repair, david sChemBri asks: are We too quiCk to throW things out?

March 2014 | Sunday Circle 47

SOCIETY

M

y heart pounds through my sweaty fingertips as the metal tabs start making their way for my laptop keyboard being pulled from the body. I swap it around with its sibling – keys worn out but still working – and proceed to do the inverse.

I send the connector ribbon through its hole, refasten the tabs over the new-old keyboard, reattach the connector and go through the litany of screws that hold my potentially-rejuvenated MacBook Pro. The keyboard, the hard disk and the logic board belonged to my older specimen that had broken; the screen, the chassis and other parts came from an identical laptop that had a near-perfect exterior but fried insides. My index finger, adrenalin at its highest making it tremble, neared the power button.

I pressed hard, not taking any chances, and the computer woke up to its new lease of life.

This computer, on which the same fingers are now typing, trembling but for deadline reasons, did not start life in this way. Yet, thanks to a guide I found online, patience, and a couple of different screwdrivers, I was able to extend the life of a computer many parts of which left the assembly plant well over seven years ago.

Not only that – I also saved myself the hundreds of euro required to buy a new laptop of the same level. The high this gave me has resulted in people with no interest in electronics having to stare bemusedly as I animatedly recall that moment when it all came together. It’s a wonder I still have any friends, at this rate.

Kyle Wiens, founder of ifixit.com, knows this all too well. “Taking apart something which isn’t working over which you have no power, you putting it back together and it working: that’s a really great feeling,” he says over a Skype call.

Wiens’s experience in trying to repair his own laptop and frustration in not being able to find the service manuals to do so online led him and his friend Luke Soules to start the website that provides hundreds of step-by-step repair manuals for hundreds of products that are easy to follow, accompanied by highresolution images. Although the site has a commercial

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arm, selling parts and tools, the repair guides are totally free. While the site is increasing in popularity, with three million visitors a month (and nearly 30,000 visits from Malta in 2013), Wiens notes that some products are hard to repair. “Repairing a screen on an iPhone is difficult, but it’s not impossible; it just requires lots of patience.”

However, he believes people have no excuse not to carry out easier repairs, like changing the RAM on one’s laptop. “There are some products which are definitely getting harder to repair; we’re seeing more products glued together than we ever have before.

The iPad, for example, is a category of product which should have probably never have been built,” he says.

He doesn’t say this out of an aversion to Apple; after all, he seems to care a lot about the iPhone he has repaired countless times over the past three years.

Rather, in creating a product that was slim, sleek and seamless (read: no battery access) – the trade-off was a product that could not be repaired. “I wouldn’t say it was Apple’s intent to create a throwaway product, but I would say that that’s the end result,” he says.

It’s not just electronics. Keith Vella, a car enthusiast with an engineering background, says: “The biggest problem with modern cars is that they’re so complicated that you wouldn’t even dare to open the bonnet without a service manual. Obviously, this is kept rather under wraps. Also, customers don’t have access to the internal service bulletins addressing known issues. In that regard, Internet forums are a godsend.”

The problem runs deep; Another part of it, according to Wiens, is that “we’re on this treadmill of buying more and more...If we just took a step back and started to learn about and understand these products a little more, we would want to hang onto things longer,” he says.

The trend for mass-produced, cheaply-made and sold goods has also cut out the market for repairs when it comes to certain products, as cobbler Joseph Said knows too well. “Nowadays, shoes are being sold for €5, €10 – those are not worth fixing. It is only the leather shoes that are worth fixing,” he says.

SOCIETY

"We have to be very clever or innovative in the Ways We look at our Waste"

Emblem of the Ifixit movement

But it would appear that the value of repairing things has not been altogether lost in Malta. Dr Maria Attard, who heads the Institute for Climate Change and Sustainable Development at the University of Malta, believes that there are still households in Malta that value repair.

“When WasteServ opened its website Reuse Malta, they received positive feedback from people wanting to re-use or repair rather then buy new,” she notes.

She notes that locally, choosing to throw something away as opposed to try and extend its life had its own consequences.

“We have a natural limit to waste production particularly because of our limited capability to allocate land for landfills, and our recycling possibilities because of overall low volumes (from a relatively small population). We have to be very clever or innovative in the ways we look at our waste (i.e. whether to repair or replace). And here we have a very big educational challenge!” Dr Attard says.

It’s not just about filling landfills, it’s also an issue of what the land can give us. Wiens notes that “over time, what’s going to happen is that as the raw materials used to make these products become scarcer and more expensive and manufacturers are going to have to be forced to get into refurbishing and remanufacturing,” he notes. Ifixit also has a political dimension: it sees repair, and reparability, as a tool to create jobs and avoid the problems posed by recycling and waste disposal.

And in repairing our things, we do not just solve problems; we imbue them with meaning and build a relationship with them. “We move through life so quickly; we don’t take time to appreciate people or things,” Wiens says. “I think if there’s a way to slow down, and say let’s take a little bit more care; that means more care in our relationships, more care of other things.”

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Sunday Circle | March 2014

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sports

KING Of THE RING Marlon Conrad Hunt, aka tHe GaMe, Has won 11 Professional world kiCkboxinG & k-1 rules titles. now based in Malta, and GearinG uP to defend His title yet aGain, He tells ivan borG about reMaininG on toP in a sPort wHere defeat is always just one Mistake away P hotograPhy by r yan g alea

Imagine being a world champion, at the very apex of your profession.

Imagine a gruelling preparation programme designed to prepare the human body for extreme outbursts, while withstanding the same from opponents. And imagine climbing this Mount Olympus 11 times, across different weight categories, in a sport predicated on kicks and punches. When I meet kickboxing champ Marlon Hunt for the first time, I’ve already done my homework about his credentials.

Besides quickly climbing to the top of my personal ‘people I’d hate to encounter in a dark alley’ list, I’m expecting some serious ego. 11 titles is no joke. Within minutes of my meeting him, Hunt dismisses both of these rather obvious (sorry, sports fans) expected traits. “Your mind, your body and your spirit have to be working as one,” he explains. “If there’s one that is not right, you’re not going to achieve your goal.”

My first question is also rather obvious. 11 titles: how? “Yeah, I’m an 11time champion, but I’m still in the gym every day,” Hunt explains, “Still learning my kicks, still learning my jabs. Practice, practice, practice”.

Clearly, this fellow is less of a brawler and more of a student of the sweet science. I ask him what kind of mindset it takes to voluntarily get into a situation where you’re struck, and very roughly. “No one is born with the right mentality; you need to find that out for yourself.

You can be the best in the world on the pads, but if someone hits you or kicks you, and you can’t handle the contact of it…then you probably aren’t a competitive fighter.”

He goes on to explain that in kickboxing there are various levels of training that are accessible according to one’s level of commitment. You’re not going to get thrown into a competitive match before you’re ready and willing, and certainly not before you’ve proven you can handle yourself well enough to keep everyone involved relatively safe. A lot of folks learn the techniques from a martial arts perspective, or use it primarily for conditioning, and never graduate to competitive matches.

Those that eventually do would be able to choose a particular weight category to compete in. Marlon Hunt, for instance, has competed and won in weight classifications from 76 to 88 kilograms. Fighters are known for their ability to manage their weight. I ask Marlon what he has to go through to contend with this aspect of his profession. “If there’s a shorter timeframe to prepare for a fight, there’s different ways of getting the weight down,” he explains. “The healthiest way is to do it gradually. There’s a lot of tricks, like water-loading, saunas, and things of that nature.

However you have to watch yourself. If you cut the weight too quick it’ll affect your performance. It’s not just about kickboxing, there’s a whole umbrella of things that you need to be the perfect athlete.”

Marlon is known as ‘The Game’, a nickname earned on the strength of his meticulous game-plans and preparation. He’s also known for continuously adding

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sports

March 2014 | Sunday Circle 53

sports

In combat sports, It only takes one mIstake and It s over. you can be a world champIon, all It takes Is one mIstake to his bag of tricks. He explains how he’s on a constant lookout for ways to improve, even crediting athletes from completely different sports like football and athletics for valuable lessons. However, no amount of preparation can completely prepare you for one on one competition. Marlon paraphrases Mike Tyson: “Everyone has a game-plan until they get punched in the face!”

“In combat sports, it only takes one mistake and it’s over. You can be a world champion, all it takes is one mistake,” he elaborates. He tells me that he walks a fine line between concentration and a reliance on nearautomatic instincts, honed by a lifetime of practice. During competition, he’s totally focused on his opponent – but he’s not as focused on his own movements. They’ve long become second nature to him, after more than two decades of training As our conversation progresses, it’s clear that Marlon has a very strong support system around him. He’s not overly concerned with hogging all the credit. He is particularly 54

Sunday Circle | March 2014

appreciative of his wife, who has been in his corner, figuratively speaking, for years. He concedes that he wouldn’t be able to do what he does without her constant understanding, especially close to big fights. He also tells me about his late early mentor, a legend in his own right, who was instrumental (along with some seminal Bruce Lee and Van Damme cinema) in luring Marlon into kickboxing.

Marlon is now based in Malta, and is fighting for his twelfth title over here in a widely-televised event. He’s giving a number of local competitors a place on the card, essentially giving them more exposure than the Maltese scene is accustomed to. This title fight really encapsulates what Marlon Hunt is trying to accomplish at this point of his career. Breaking the Guinness World Record is all about legacy. “There are lots of fighters who come and go. I want to be Marlon Hunt, the guy who won thirteen titles”, he proclaims. He’s currently one of two human beings tied for 11 titles in the record books. His fight this month would give him an uncontested record at twelve. His stated goal of thirteen would make him very hard to dethrone.

Another aspect to his legacy is his commitment to the Maltese scene. Malta is now the place he calls home. He’s full of praise for Maltese fighters, and says they’ve got a lot of spirit. He’s trying to expose Malta to a top-tier competition, and actively trying to be a change-agent over here. “It’s all about young talent – you need to get them from a young age,” he explains. “If you invest in them, it’ll pay off.”

On the evidence, it’s absolutely incumbent on sports fans of all persuasions to pony up and show up for the fight. There’ll be two of the finest athletes in the world going at it – and hopefully Marlon will get his record. He should get the benefit of a home crowd too, and not only because he lives here. For the local scene, he’s actively trying to be the tide that lifts all boats.

Smash Muay Thai 8 will be held at the Oracle Arena, Dolmen Hotel in Buggibba on Friday 28 March. Tickets start at €18. For more info contact 9953 3377 or bookings@karlborgevents.com

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music

a gentle revolution Asking bands where they met is a common enough question. Ask The New Victorians, however, and Bettina and Philippa Cassar look at you puzzled.

“You know we’re sisters, right?” Philippa asks. Now 18, she was born after Bettina and her elder brother Sam had been praying for a baby girl for nine months.

“Our parents told us to pray for a baby sister when they already knew it was going to be a girl,” Bettina, 21, says. “And your dream was fulfilled!” Philippa quips.

The two were born into a musical family; their mother plays the violin, while their grandmother, Mary, who now knits their sweaters, was a soprano. “She is the great knitwear provider,” Philippa says. She then changes her chair – the last one has collapsed under her constant bouncing.

“Nanna would be knitting or cooking while singing out whole operas, singing everyone’s parts,” Bettina, the calmer of the two, says.

Both of them started learning their instruments at a very early age – Bettina started the piano aged seven and now has a degree in music; Philippa started the guitar aged six, and was already writing “really dramatic songs in minor keys” by age eight. “I don’t really know how I learnt to write songs, I think it’s quite natural for kids to create things,” she says.

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When she was around 13, Bettina discovered that her music could make a real difference in people’s lives. A friend’s father had passed away, and the school was in shock. “I remember feeling so much compassion which I didn’t know how to show that I wrote down some words and started singing a tune to it, and by the evening I recorded it on a recorder and sent it to her, telling her it’s my first song, and that it was for her. It really helped her out, and that encouraged me to show people the songs I wrote.”

Although the two were reluctant to show what they’d written to other people, they would share them with each other. “Bettina would come up to me and say she had this song which she wasn’t sure was good, and then she’d play this masterpiece in the basement,” Philippa says. In the meantime, the two were getting live music experience while playing in the band for Y4J, a youth group founded by their mother.

While the groundwork for The New Victorians had been laid out in their genetic code, this step in the duo’s musical lives starting taking shape when Bettina, then a fresher at university, entered a songwriting competition and snuck Philippa, then still a fifth former, in. They placed second, but they went

DaviD Schembri meetS SiSterS bettina anD PhiliPPa caSSar – the new victorianS – anD getS a DoSe of the infectiouS energy behinD their vintage, folkSy muSic

back home with the realisation that they worked well together. Their next gig was a cousin’s wedding, “and everyone said ‘why didn’t you do this before?’” Philippa says.

The next step involved crossing an ocean: “The following year I was on Twitter in a lecture and I learnt about this songwriting competition in America– as one does – and on the day of the deadline we recorded Tom, Dick and Harry and sent it off,” Bettina says.

They forgot all about it, only to be reminded when they were told they’d made it to the Top 10. “We woke up our parents in the middle of the night to tell them, but we didn’t think they’d be able to get us to America,” Philippa says. But they did. “That was when I realised that our parents really believed in us and what we were doing,” Bettina says; they went on to win the youth division of the competition.

Back in Malta, Phyllis and Bertie, as they called themselves then, were introduced to producer and manager Howard Keith Debono, who agreed to take them under his wing. The first thing to change was the name.

music

I remember feeling so much compassion which I didn’t know how to show that I wrote down some words and started singing a tune to it

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music

The two brainstormed, eventually settling on The New Victorians because it fit their “vintage, folksy style,” according to Philippa. I quip that Queen Victoria was famous for her folk singing. “Yes, she particularly loved the banjo,” Philippa retorts. “Joking apart, the Victorian age was characterised by lots of innovation and change, and we want to bring that.”

The music is certainly fresh – but there is depth beneath the whimsical compositions and the mellifluous voices. “I don’t know if it’s a Malta thing, but people feel they have to stick to the normal route. We have a line in Tom, Dick and Harry which says ‘too many people stop because few say go’ – all people need sometimes is a positive push.”

The two write about everything – “there are songs about love,” Bettina says, pausing briefly, “songs that are deep, stuff that I’m learning”.

Another song, Dust Pile, speaks of a cat that keeps jumping into a dust pile and a mouth screaming when the toe is stepped on. “That song is about trying to be a good person – sweeping up dust – and someone else – the cat jumping in – and making a mess all over again,” Bettina says. “As musicians, as people, if someone else is in need, we have to help out. If we’re one body, the mouth screams when the toe is being stepped on, and it is the mouth that has to speak for the rest of the body,” she says. “So that’s our little activist song.”

Working with a producer who pushes them has been a learning curve for the two, but it fits well with their perfectionism. Moreover, since

teaming up with the four guys who make up their band about a year ago (Kurt Vella on drums; Ryan Paul Abela on bass, Sean Borg on violin and Pete Farrugia on various instruments), the pair’s songwriting has evolved to start taking the new line-up into account.

The album – slated for a May release – will have a 50:50 mix of freshly written and older songs that were “too precious” for them to abandon.

Despite the recent trend for folksy music, Bettina is adamant that “The Vickies” are about self-expression first and foremost: “I don’t think it should be about aiming not to sound or to sound like someone: it should be about expressing what comes out of you, whether or not people are going to love it or hate it, whether it’s the fashionable thing or not. So if I create a song on a piano and then add a guitar and whatever, it’s coming out of us,” she says.

The sisters fight “very often”, but it’s never out of fear of being upstaged by the other. “As we were getting our makeup done this morning, it really hit me that I can’t imagine me being in it alone,” Philippa says.

Rather, their conflicts seem to be mostly about clothes. “Sometimes we’ll be mid-song in a rehearsal and I’ll shout ‘you’re wearing my top, get it off,’ and the boys would be like: ‘what’s going on?’” Bettina says.

The answer? It’s their gentle revolution.

You can watch an exclusive performance of Tom, Dick and Harry on sundaycircle.com

Sunday Circle | March 2014 000

March 2014 | Sunday Circle 61

5:11 a.m. – Preparing for drumming practice with mum’s saucepans.

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POP CULTURE

1. Charlene Ellul, Jonathan Micallef, Melanie Tanti & Alfred Borg

4, Emidio Friggieri, Renee Sultana & Bernhard Meidl

3.Saviour Debattista & Josef Vella

2. Naum Janakiev

5, Philippe Coution, Ivan Zammit & Alexei Sciberras

PAPARAZZI • 1-3: Nestlé’s 2013 Xmas Party which was an evening reception at Grand Hotel Excelsior • 4-5: Motherwell Bridge reception at Le Meridien St Julian’s Hotel & Spa to launch its official representation for Hoffmann Group in Malta and Libya • 6: BOV Employees celebrating their 30th Anniversary at a dinner held at The Ta’ Xbiex Water Polo Club on 16 February 6. Ray Debattista, Simon Azzopardi, John Vella, James Schembri, Shirley Mifsud, Renato Vella, Godfrey Farrugia, Edward Grech, Trudy Causon, Christine Albani, Charles Galea, Louis Gatt, Anthony Scicluna, Jackie Spiteri & Alan Micallef

• 7-8: Disco event, Colour TV, at Black Pearl on 31 January • 9-10: Launch of the new Mercedes GLA at Auto Sales Ltd. Kinds, Lija on 25 February * For inclusion in Circle Paparazzi contact Marisa Schembri on marisa@networkpublications.com.mt ** For more Paparazzi photos log on to www.sundaycircle.com

7. Amy Sultana, Lelly Fenech, Sandrina Cachia & Philippa Rizzo Naudi

9. Richard Bonnici Kind, Bernadette Bonnici Kind & Pierre Borg

8. Maya Dowling & Thomas Vassallo

10. Colin Fitz, John Peel, Stef Peel, Richard Bonnici Kind & Anthony Bernard

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PHILANTHROPY

Starting from Home Meet Julian azzopardi, the Man with the plan for ra1Se – Malta’S neweSt nGo – aS he raiSeS fundS to build an orphanaGe in zaMbia W ords

by

d avid s chembri

“I’m the eldest of four siblings, and we were always taught to look out for each other,” Julian Azzopardi says. It is his way of explaining why, when he quit his EU job in 2006, he went round the world doing voluntary work – starting from India, where his friends were invited to a wedding. He tagged along, but, he says: “They went back up to Brussels and I went to Calcutta and got to work.”

Julian, then 30, left India with the addresses of every Missionaries of Charity house in the countries he was going to, taking him to homes in South Africa, and around South America.

His degree in International Relations overqualified him for the work he was doing – maintenance, cleaning, distributing food, assisting doctors, helping the elderly, looking after children – but he dismisses the notion the work was easy: “It’s not easy to digest, because the conditions are extremely dire. I’ve seen people walking in to help and walking right back out. In Kalighat, people come to die in a dignified manner; not everybody can clean up the mess an old person leaves behind. Watching doctors undertaking minor surgery in full view of everyone is not easy from an emotional perspective, either.”

March 2014 | Sunday Circle 67

PHILANTHROPY

"Had I done tHIs experIence wHen I was 18, wHen most people do a gap year, I don't tHInk I would Have apprecIated It as mucH" What kept him going, he says, was the fact that he felt he was making a tangible difference in people’s lives. “You can see it in their eyes, they appreciate everything you’re doing for them; the sisters appreciate, too.

Them smiling back at you is priceless.

“I seriously believe everybody deserves a helping hand. I was lucky to have been brought up in a context where I lacked nothing, but other people haven’t been so lucky.”

Helping out those in need didn’t mean he missed out on enjoying his travels; the stories he heard from the people he met and the long bus rides across whole countries ensured he didn’t miss out on the wonders travel can offer. “Had I done this experience when I was 18, when most people do a gap year, I don’t think I would have appreciated it as much.”

Incidentally, 18 was the age when Julian’s promising footballing career was cut short by a knee ligament injury. Years later, however, he was able to use his footballing experience while coaching youngsters in Zambia for an NGO. Following his year of voluntary work, his priorities had shifted, and he soon decided to enrol into a Master’s programme in development studies at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa. “I thought it best to study development studies in a context of development,” he explains.

While in South Africa, football featured again, as his research was focused on an NGO in Durban which educated children on health matters through sport.

Once back in Malta, he started working with Inspire, which is where the seeds of starting his own NGO were sown. He tried setting up a professional NGO on those lines upon leaving, but the lack of backing saw the project being shelved. He then went on to accept a job as a project manager with a local company. But while plans for his NGO were dormant, his charity work 68

Sunday Circle | March 2014

wasn’t, and last year he led a group up Mount Kilimanjaro, raising €63,000 to build a home for 100 disabled children in Kenya.

This year, Julian founded RA1SE (Raising Awareness, Interest, Support and Engagement) a voluntary NGO founded on the motto of “one for good causes”. The NGO’s aim is to provide support to charities or individuals working towards a good cause. In fact, RA1SE already counts salespersons, accountants, hairdressers, business owners, teachers and PR people among its volunteers, all of whom pitch in with their expertise and time.

“The NGO market is also very competitive in terms of the resources they try to bring in, we tend to work against each other, whereas I believe that, as Inspire had done, once you pool your resources, you’re reducing your overhead costs while increasing your efficiency output,” Julian says.

He isn’t alone – the life lesson him and his siblings learnt has meant that the NGO is governed by all four of them, with an external treasurer.

For its first project, this NGO has its sights set overseas, on a project Julian got to know of through his experience in Zambia. “One of the player’s brother had an orphanage in Zambia, and we’re going to help them build a new orphanage this year,” Julian says.

A group of 15 volunteers will be travelling to the central African country between April 12th and 26th to help build the orphanage. Julian says that once their first project is over, the NGO is open to help wherever it can. “I don’t want to replicate, I want to assist,” he says. RA1SE is aiming for an international project and a number of local projects that the NGO would assist every year – “after all, charity begins at home.”

The Ra1se launch party will take place saturday the 15th of March at Cafe del Mar, Qawra, and will include a buffet lunch, a chance to win a flight to Corfu and some of Malta’s top musicians to keep you entertained until late.

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Implants

HEALTH

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BONE GRAFTING Dr Jean Paul DemaJo exPlains what bone grafting is anD why it is imPortant

If you have to undergo implant surgery, you have probably been advised you might require a bone graft.

But what is a bone graft, and why is it necessary?

A bone graft is the addition of bone to your own bone so as to increase the bone material around your future implant.

An implant requires approximately 2mm of bone thickness around its structure embedding it in a solid foundation for long-term use and success.

Types of Bone grAfTIng mATerIAl:

The ConCepT

1. Autograft: This human bone is the patient’s own bone. The bone is removed from a donor site and transferred to the recipient site; common donor sites include the upper and lower corners of the mouth, where the wisdom teeth are usually present, as well the chin area. This type of bone is the gold standard of bone grafts.

Bone grafting is possible because bone tissue, unlike most other tissues, has the ability to regenerate completely if provided the space into which to grow. As native bone grows, it will generally replace the graft material completely, resulting in a fully integrated region of new bone.

2. Allograft: This is also human bone, but bought through an overseas bone bank.

3. Xenograft: This bone is not human but either pig or cow bone. This bone is completely rid of all its organic content only to leave its inorganic mineral content. These bone substitutes have been used for many years, and carry very high success rates, with minimal repercussions.

4. synthetic variants: bone replacement materials include bone ceramics like hydroxyapatite and tri-calcium phosphate.

CAuses of Bone loss 1. Trauma 2. periodontal disease 3. long-term tooth loss 4. genetically missing teeth When Is Bone grAfTIng neCessAry? ·

Anterior implants: It is crucial that the aesthetic zone is looking perfect. gum tissue is supported by bone. If bone is missing the gum tissue, including the inter-dental papillae, may look collapsed or insufficient, giving rise to a shadow or an asymmetric unaesthetic feature. missing anterior teeth, usually due to trauma, more often than not require bone grafts.

·

posterior implants: In the upper jaw, the loss of posterior teeth reduces the volume of bone present between the gums and the sinuses above them. If not enough bone is present, then the floor of the sinus must be raised and a bone graft placed below it. This is crucial for the long-term success rate of the implant. In the lower jaw, missing bone reduces the distance between the gum and the inferior alveolar nerve running through the jaw. To increase the distance between the nerve and the gum, blocks of bone must be placed below the gum.

Xenograft: Bovine bone granules

In most cases implants may be inserted at the same time as the bone graft. however, in some cases the bone must first be grafted and then the implants inserted a few months later. yes, placing bone grafts is not the most pleasant of procedures, but it does mean that you can have dental implants, which will make eating once again a pleasure. explore your options, see what’s best for you and ask you dentist for advice.

Dr Jean Paul Demajo is a Dental and Implant Surgeon trained in London and working in private practice in Malta.

March 2014 | Sunday Circle 71

SECURITY

SAFE AND SOUND TAKING RISKS WHEN IT COMES TO SECURITY IS A GAMBLE YOU MAY REGRET FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE. PROTECT YOURSELF OR YOUR BUSINESS WITH OUR HAND-PICKED SECURITY OPTIONS

WireleSS peace of mind The new upgraded Agility™ 3 is a state-of-the-art two-way wireless alarm system designed for the residences and small businesses that provides more than a standard home security system. Agility™ 3 supports visual verification with a self-monitoring smartphone app (also available on your web browser) which enables homeowners to control their alarm systems remotely as well as view real-time images taken inside their premises with passive infrared (PIR) camera detectors.

In the event of an alarm, the PIR camera is automatically activated and captures a sequence of images, which it then sends to users via RISCO’s smartphone/web application. This capability enables users to view the images and confirm if there is a crime in progress. Monitoring stations can also benefit from the visual verification feature, as the facility to ascertain whether there is a false alarm saves them valuable time and resources.

Agility™ 3 is easy to install, can be managed remotely and gives peace of mind, and therefore provides benefits for installers, monitoring stations and end users.

The system can also be enhanced with a wide range of accessories that provide additional protection against theft, environmental hazards, as well as solutions to enable elderly users to access help more easily in case of an emergency.

ALBERTA: Tel: 2549 0466 | Email: sales@alberta.com.mt | Website: www.alberta.com.mt

Safety firSt SECURITY AROUND THE CLOCK JF Security makes your safety their priority, offering a range of security services to keep you and your household protected. All our services are available around the clock, making your peace of mind our commitment.

PROTECT YOUR HOME For as little as €50 a year you can connect your home alarm system to our 24-hour control room. Our officers will react immediately to an alarm trigger by getting in touch with you or the police, or sending out someone ourselves to investigate.

JF SECURITY, 81 Vinci Buildings, B.Bontadini Street, B’kara Tel: 2069 1053 | Fax: 2069 3334 Email: info@jfsecurity.com | Website: www.jfsecurity.com

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PROMOTION

Family EstatE Planning in PracticE Is estate plannIng only relevant to the very rIch famIlIes? Isn’t a wIll all I need or are theIr other estate plannIng tools? demystIfy the world of famIly trusts and how It can help you plan for the future

W

e often spend our lives working hard to earn enough money and property to make the lives of our spouse, children and friends happier, wealthier and more secure then our own. And yet most of us fail to do one essential thing: we don’t make sure that our loved ones do benefit from our hard work; we fail to plan our estate.

family assets, the Trust will be used to hold and protect the assets for the benefit of your child who will not be the legal owner. The property will not be subject to creditor’s claims arising from the child’s actions.

Furthermore the child will not be able to sell the assets, dispose of them or terminate the Trust.

A will is often one of the most important pieces of estate planning, however an increasing unpredictable and litigious society have made wills not necessarily sufficient. Sole traders, family business owners, professionals and employees in general need a tool which they can use now, which is “alive” and develops with them and their estate.

· It can protect the individuals and the family in general from possible future creditor claims. When settled in Trust, the assets are no longer legally owned by yourselves, and as such they are protected from liabilities which may arise in the future against you.

The solution is the Trust, and what usually develops is the Family Trust.

This is a simple tool providing the family with an estate planning mindset, together with confidentiality and protection.

A Trust arises where ownership of property, in its various forms is transferred by a person, the settlor, to another person, the trustee, to be managed, administered and protected for the benefit of yet another person, the beneficiary, who can also be the settlor himself. The property does not form part of the trustee’s estate, it is a separate patrimony and it is not available to the trustee’s creditors.

· It can provide benefit of use and enjoyment as if still held personally.

Assets settled in Trust may have a number of beneficiaries including the parents who actually potentially settled the assets in Trust. This means that although the asset is no longer legally owned by you, you will still be able to use and enjoy the benefits of the asset during your lifetime. This type of arrangement is commonly carried out with immovable property which although transferred in Trust is initially used by yourselves and only after your death is it transferred to your children.

So what are practical scenarios of a trust in action?

All details of parties involved or assets settled are held in full confidence.

Trusts are not public documents, they are private arrangements known only to the settlor and the trustee. Setting up a trust involves meeting up with your Trustee who will understand your situation, your intentions, the assets you own and therefore guide you accordingly. In many instances the client needs some time to digest the difference between legal ownership and beneficial ownership, but once the terms of Trust have been agreed upon and signed off, the Trust is formally set up.

· It can preserve family wealth and assets from spendthrift children. In situations where your child may not be sufficiently responsible with the

GANADO Trustees & Fiduciaries Ltd | T: 2123 5406 | F: 2122 5908 171, Old Bakery Street, Valletta VLT 1455 | www.ganadotfl.com

Therefore besides the legal owner, the Trust context results also in a beneficial owner. It is the beneficial owner who effectively benefits from the fruits of the assets held in trust despite the assets not being held in his name.

March 2014 | Sunday Circle 73

think clearer A combination of the standardised GK501® ginkgo and G115® ginseng extracts, Gincosan® is scientifically proven to naturally optimise concentration, learning and thinking by improving oxygen supply to the brain.

Discover how we prepare, vitalise, protect and restore, naturally and effectively, at www.ginsanaproducts.com

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Available from pharmacies and health shops.

Distributed by Vivian Corporation T: 2132 0338 W: www.viviancorp.com

COME AND SEE WHERE SMILES ARE MADE AND CELEBRATE PLAY! The Brand-New VISIT TO THE VET Range is now available at the Playmobil FunPark. See it in store today, join in the fun and enjoy a nice snack at the FunPark Cafeteria at Family Friendly Prices. You can also view our products and prices on our website and on our Facebook page Playmobil FunPark, HF80, Industrial Estate, Hal Far T: 2224 2445 E: funpark@playmobilmalta.com Opening Hours: Mon-Sun 10.00 - 18.00 By bus: Route no. X4 By car: Proceed to the Airport then follow the signposts

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SHOPPING

thE nEw mErcEdEs-bEnz gLa

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EmbracE your IrIsh spIrIt

Progressive in design, serene in day-to-day motoring and with off-road capability, the Mercedes-Benz GLA impressively reinterprets the compact SUV segment. It easily masters all day-to-day challenges and is also robust enough for off-road excursions.

As an SUV, the new GLA enthrals with its off-road proportions. It is an all-rounder with hallmark Mercedes-Benz SUV genes, but more youthful, sculptural and full of subtle drama.

For more details or to test drive the GLA, call Auto Sales Ltd on Tel: 2331 1138 / 2331 1142 or visit www.mercedes-benz.com.mt

LIght your way wIth pasIon, ExcLusIvELy at FarrugIa LIghtIng Mantra introduces PASION, an innovative collection from international designer Hugo Tejada. Finished in black and white epoxy, Pasion offers the perfect syntax of smoothness and elegance, making use of the latest ecological technicology, combined with a clean and contemporary design.

For the latest variety of light fittings and accessories, including a vast range of architectural lighting, visit Farrugia Lighting and Interiors, Iklin. Tel: 2141 9111, W: www.farrugia.com.mt

Jameson’s is an exceptional Irish Whiskey. It won ‘Irish Whiskey of the Year’ and ‘Irish Blend of the Year’ in the 2013 edition of Jim Murray’s Whisky Bible – the guide to the world’s best whiskies, which also awarded it the coveted ‘Liquid Gold’ title. The unique triple distillation process used for Jameson’s produces a whiskey which is incredibly smooth.

Enjoy it neat or on the rocks. Or, for something completely different, top it up with ginger ale and add a squeeze of lime.

thE nEw nIssan QashQaI… thE crossovEr Icon

your InFInItE pockEt LIbrary Have over 1 million books at your fingertips with the new Kindle. This eBook reader features an advanced 6” E ink screen combined with a 5-way controller navigation for easy use. Get reading your favourite books in less than a minute with its built-in Wi-Fi. The 2GB Kindle holds up to 1400 books and includes free cloud backup.

Redesigned from the ground up, the all-new, much anticipated Nissan Qashqai has just been launched and is now available in Malta. Awarded with the What Car? Car of the Year 2014 and 5 star Euro NCap rating, it comes as no surprise that huge demand has been generated around the new Nissan Qashqai. Every engine uses a turbocharger to reduce capacity, emissions and fuel consumption while maintaining excellent performance with class-leading CO2 emissions - from only 99g/km. The starting price is from just €22,500.

Enjoy even better contrast on the latest Kindle Paperwhite. Whites are whiter and blacks are blacker, creating sharp, clear text. The high-resolution display allows for elegant typeface options including Baskerville and Palatino, and all fonts on Kindle Paperwhite have been hand-tuned at the pixel level for maximum readability and comfort.

To book your test drive today, kindly visit the Nissan Showroom, Antonio Bosio Street, Msida, call 2133 4196/ 9946 3750/ 9940 7554 or visit www.nissan.com.mt.

Available at Forestals and Matrix outlets, or online at forestals.com and get free delivery

With a stunning HD display that features IPS in-plane switching technology to ensure a great viewing experience at all angles, the Kindle Fire HD with Wi-Fi is the perfect family tablet.

March 2014 | Sunday Circle 75

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food & drink

CAMOMILE

CAMOMILE

Reputed to have relaxing properties, Reputed camomile to have relaxing properties, c is considered by aromatherapists to is be calming considered by aromatherapists to be and soothing. Made with pure camomile and flowers, soothing. Made with pure camomi Tetley Camomile Infusion has Tetley a beautifully delicate Camomile Infusion has a beautifu colour and flavour for the perfect colour relaxing cuppa! and flavour for the perfect relax

Home of mARmALADe AND PReSeRVeS

Nothing goes down as well as genuine, homemade treats. Mackays, a family-owned business, is the only remaining producer of marmalades and preserves in the Dundee area of Scotland, the ‘home of marmalade’. Be original and taste some of the vast variety of flavours such as Orange & Lemon Marmalade with Ginger, Orange Marmalade with Whiskey and preserves like Scottish Strawberry, Lemon Curd, Rhubarb & Ginger.

Collect wrappers and exchange for gifts or money vouchers at: CD Gift Scheme Centre, Vincenti Buildings, 15/2 Strait Street, Valletta.

Tel: 2123 6629. Trade Enquiries Tel: 2146 0375

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4 portion packs for freshness & convenience High source of fibre Red October Co. Ltd, 272, Mdina Road, Qormi.

Tel: 2147 0400 | Fax: 2147 0300 | Email: carlosc@redoct.net Suitable for vegetarians The Liquer Shop Tel: 2155 6531 | Email: info@wisto.com.mt Collect wrappers and exchange Tomato & herbs containfor olive oilgifts CD Gift Scheme Centre, www.redoctobermalta.com Vincenti Buildings, 15/2 Strait Street, V Visit: www.cbiscuits.com Tel: 2123 6629. Trade Enquiries Tel: 21 Red October Malta

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www.facebook.com/PetroleaMalta Valley Road, Msida | Tel: 2123 4501 / 2123 5487

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Saving for your future is about seeing the bigger picture

No matter what you want to save for it is never too early to start saving for your future.

Talk to us now for more details For more information on our range of Savings Plans contact us today on freephone 8007 2220, visit our website at www.msvlife.com, contact any of our Tied Insurance Intermediaries, your Insurance Broker or visit any branch of Bank of Valletta or APS Bank.

MSV Life p.l.c. is authorised by the Malta Financial Services Authority to carry on long term business under the Insurance Business Act, 1998. Bank of Valletta and APS Bank are enrolled as Tied Insurance Intermediaries of MSV Life p.l.c. COM210513

WHERE LIGHT IS LIFE. PONSOMBY STREET, MOSTA MST4032 2143 2571 INFO@VCT.COM.MT WWW.VCT.COM.MT MON-FRI 08.00-18.00 THU 08.00-20.00 SAT 09.00-12.30

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FASHION & BEAUTY

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CLARKS’ Over 170 years of caring for kids’ feet have helped us become perhaps the world’s best known name in children’s shoes. Millions of mums and dads trust us, not only for fit, quality and durability of our shoes: they also trust us to deliver style with substance. For Clarks’ Spring/Summer 2014 we’re doing more of what we do best. Our designers have combined materials that contrast that combine with trim and finishing touches.

Clarks Kids, Merchants Street, Valletta. Tel: 2258 2727 Clarks Kids, Tagliaferro Centre, High Street, Sliema. Tel: 2258 2777 Clarks Adults, Merchants Street, Valletta. Tel: 2258 2727 Clarks Adults, Tower Road, Sliema. Tel: 21314674 Clarks Adults, Pavi Shopping Complex, Qormi. Tel: 2258 2778

OVS

BURTON

Burton believes in combining accessible style with great value. We want fashion to be easy and comfortable, as well as stylish. We pride ourselves on great fit, fabric, and detail which can easily be added and combined to update any contemporary wardrobe. We embrace our British tailoring roots but we also understand the importance of kicking back in great pairs of jeans and hoodies. We love a good laugh and we love our sport, but we also know the importance of “looking the business”.

Burton, The Strand, Sliema. Tel: 2134 6766 Burton, Merchants Street, Valletta. Tel: 2122 7728

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Spring/Summer 2014 for OVS kids discovers a new harmony in terms of theme, this time coordinated according to gender for greater definition of an unequivocal style that can be recognised and divided according to boys and girls. Optical blacks and whites but also whites and blues. Graphic, sharp and easy to wear; two-tone effects become obligatory for city living between the school and the playground. Little checks and stripes, dots and simple two-way lettering come together easily in an eternal, chatty visual effect.

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2/28/2014 11:39:02 March 2014 | Sunday Circle 79 AM

DINING

best of both worlds Welcome to Grill 3301, Where excellence is just the beGinninG

Good things come in twos at Grill 3301. The restaurant has a wide enough range of prime meats that it could easily qualify as a quality steakhouse; yet it also specialises in fish, with six or seven types of fresh fish on display every day. Located in St Julian’s postcode area 3301 (hence the name), with a breathtaking view of St George’s Bay, its patrons still have easy access to the restaurant through the free underground car park available for it.

Head chef Carl Zahra and Maître d’Hotel Charles Cordina run the restaurant as if it were their own, ensuring five-star service and sourcing every last ingredient that goes into making a fine dining experience.

Having headed the restaurant’s kitchen since its birth five years ago, Carl takes it personally. “Each plate that comes out of my kitchen has my name, Charles’s name, and all the staff’s name on it, and it has to be up to our quality standard,” the chef says. Proof? As our photographer focuses in on the plates he’s arranged, Carl takes out his smartphone and takes a snap of his own creation.

Nothing is left to chance – every ingredient has its own place in the menu, like an instrument in a symphony; nothing extra, nothing missing. Every sauce, every garnish is prepared in-house, down to the flowers Carl garnishes the plates with, which he picks himself. He has just been in touch with a farmer friend of his to source broad bean flowers for his menu; he is now looking forward to when the garlic and chive blossoms start to appear.

The menu is nothing if not eclectic. The Irish, Aberdeen Angus, USDA Prime and Wagyu Kobe beef are allowed to speak for themselves (accompanied by a range of sauces), while the other meats are given that special touch.

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The Scottish lamb chop, for instance, is given an Arabic twist with a Rasal-Hanut marinade, while the pork belly has been cooked in a sous vide for hours before it is plated, tender as nothing else. The fish, fresh every day, can be prepared to patrons’ liking – grilled, roasted, poached or al cartoccio, with a choice of sauces.

“We’re not out to radically change the flavour of things, we’re looking to give it a more colourful, individual ending,” Charles says. “And even though we might have dishes which other restaurants make, we go down to every single detail – including making our own butter for a risotto.”

The restaurant also organises themed food and wine pairing evenings, the next of which is a Tuscan five-course feast on March 14th.

The service is equally special. Although the sea-facing restaurant can take up to 200 covers, it is only set out for 70. This way, Charles explains, a business dinner and a romantic evening can both take place with no interference.

Furthermore, the staff is also given training in wine and food pairing, so that customers can make the best of the varied wine list. Carl, who revises the menu every six months, has his eyes – and palate – on the future.

“Nowadays, you have to be creative, you have to keep moving forward,” he says. “We’ve made lots of progress from the day we started.”

Charles characterises Grill 3301’s approach as “going the extra mile” – in terms of quality service, attention to detail and even portion size. And, it would seem, to pick out that perfect flower.

For reservations, call Grill 3301 on +356 2370 2537 or +356 9999 3301 or email grill3301.stgeorges@corinthia.com

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