Karl Schembri's 'Eħlisna mid-Deni' has won this year's National Book Prize. It is a story about clerical abuse, which, though fictional, draws much from Karl Schembri's own family history.
Twenty years ago, Karl Schembri's mother was murdered by his mentally ill father, a tragedy with roots in the clerical sexual abuse suffered by Karl's father when he was still a child, at a time when speaking out against a priest was “unthinkable”, Schembri told Times Talk.
“For a long time, I couldn’t put my story into words. I didn’t even know where to begin. My dad killed my mum – how do you even begin to explain that?”
“When my father tried to speak to his family, they wouldn’t believe him. And the Church was much more powerful then, which enabled much more to go under the radar.”
“His case was never believed, never even became a case, and justice was never done,” he said.
“The Church, for many years, suppressed these cases and reassigned problematic priests across different roles to silence the scandal. Worse still, some were transferred into positions with direct access to children, even when their abusive potential was known, an act nothing short of diabolical.”
Karl Schembri, a a former MaltaToday editor, dedicated his award to victims of the clerical abuse and to “all those who were humiliated and silenced by the Church, by the State, and even by our courts”.
“Because the courts, when all is said and done, administer the law, not justice,” he said.
Sources:
https://timesofmalta.com/article/watch-father-killed-mum-abuse-illness-book-seeks-justice.1119271
https://www.maltatoday.com.mt/arts/books/144621/schembri_wins_national_book_prize_calls_for_clerical_abuse_inquiry
A stash of 4,500-year-old papyrus logbooks discovered in 2013, records the daily work carried out by an Egyptian official called Merer, during the reign of Pharaoh Khufu. The best preserved sections (Papyrus Jarf A and B) document the transportation of white limestone blocks from the Tura quarries to Giza by boat.
The Egyptian archaeologist Zahi Hawass has described this Diary of Merer (also known as the Red Sea Scrolls) as "the greatest discovery in Egypt in the 21st century". Parts of the papyri are exhibited at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.
Main sources:
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/premium/article/red-sea-scrolls-pyramids-egypt
https://www.amusingplanet.com/2022/07/the-diary-of-merer-4500-year-old.html
See also my related post: zafoid.com/post/view/11836
This is one of the most iconic album covers of all time: Abbey Road, by The Beatles, released on 26 September 1969, by Apple Records. The cover has at least three odd ones out, can you find them?
In July of 2023, The Rolling Stones magazine voted this album cover as the second best of all time, bested only by Joy Division's 'Unknown Pleasures' of 1979; whilst in August 2023, Billboard also voted this album cover as the second best of all time, bested only by 'The Velvet Underground & Nico' of 1967.
So what are the three odd ones out? Firstly, Paul McCartney is walking barefoot, whilst the other band members have shoes. Secondly, Paul McCartney is walking out of step, with his right leg forward, whilst all the other three band members have their left leg forward. And thirdly, all the band members are wearing suits designed by Tommy Nutter, except for George Harrison, who in contrast is dressed casually in denim.
Funnily enough, an Air France-affiliated website (www.en-vols.com) has totally confused the Sicilian 'cassatelle di ricotta' with the Maltese pastizzi (as per link here below). Whilst the said post talks exclusively about the Sicilian sweet pastries, it is illustrated with a single image of Maltese pastizzi — which is an entirely different king of pastry — thereby confusing the two food items and misleading readers that Maltese pastizzi and the Sicilian 'cassatelle di ricotta' are one and the same — which of course is absolutely not the case!
www.en-vols.com/en/taste/gastronomy/dessert-cassatelle-di-ricotta-sicily/
Physicists at UBC Okanagan say that they've debunked 'The Matrix' hypothesis that we are living in a computerised simulation.
Leslie Nielson, a classical Hollywood actor, back in the day, when during the 1950s he was cast as the leading man in very serious roles, and later on, in the 1990s, cast in a comic role as Lieutenant Frank Drebin, a bumbling but well-meaning police detective from the comedy film series 'The Naked Gun'.
The incredible acting career of Hugh Laurie, in four iconic images, as the Prince Regent in Blackadder (1983), as Lieutenant the Honourable George Colthurst St Barleigh, in Blackadder Goes Forth (1989), to Bertie Wooster, in Jeeves and Wooster (1990 - 1993), and more recently as Dr. Gregory House, in House (2004 - 2012). Hugh Laurie was listed in the 2011 Guinness World Records as the most-watched leading man on television and was one of the highest-paid actors in television drama at the time.
Marc Almond, the frontman of the 80's groundbreaking synthpop group 'Soft Cell', has just announced that his fellow band member David Ball (shown on the right in the accompanying image) has "died peacefully in his sleep on Tuesday night", after a long illness. The two musicians had been collaborating with each other for almost fifty years.
Farewell David Ball, and thank you for your unforgettable musical tunes.
With a heavy heart we note the unexpected death of Malcolm-Jamal Warner, who rose to fame as a child actor in the 1980s in the role of Theodore Huxtable on “The Cosby Show,” which ran from 1984 to 1992. Warner died at age 54 in an accidental drowning in Costa Rica, where he was on vacation with his family. Warner was swimming at Playa Grande in the town of Cocles in the province of Limón on the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica around 2:30 p.m. local time Sunday, when a current pulled him deeper into the ocean, according to the Associated Press. May he rest in peace.
