Leaving London, Moving to Malta

Posted on 2011-11-13 by Andreas Moser

When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford,

said Samuel Johnson in 1777.

I have been living in London for two years now and it is a remarkable city. The most international, cosmopolitan city in Europe with a myriad of cultural and intellectual offers every day. This August, it even got exciting enough for me for a few days thanks to the London riots.

The almost limitless range of possibilities that London offers is a trap into which many Londoners fall: They stay in London year after year because there is always something going on, a new museum to visit, a new show to watch, some new building or park to admire, a constant influx of new people of course, now the Olympics are next, and so on. Because of this constant array of attractions and events, many Londoners think this city is the centre of the world. Too often I have heard “I would never want to live anywhere else” from people who have actually never even been anywhere else.

But there is a big world out there, and it’s time to get travelling again. Because as Confucius said:

They must often change who want to be constant in happiness or wisdom.

In line with my life plan to move to a different country every two years at the latest, it’s now time for me to move again.

After two years in a metropolis with 8 million inhabitants on a rainy island in Northern Europe, I thought a good next stop would be a small, sunny, sparsely populated island in the Mediterranean: I will move to Malta in December 2011.

Malta is the smallest member state of the European Union, both in size (316 km²) and population (416,000).

It is located south of Sicily and is the sunniest and warmest European country. It is actually further south than Tunis, Algiers, Tangier, Aleppo or Mosul. It has the perfect climate to spend the upcoming winter months.

It will be perfect to relax, concentrate on my studies, but also to explore the history, the culture and the nature of this island. And thanks to its central location in the Mediterranean, it’s a good base for exploring Sicily and North Africa.

So, enjoy your winter! I’ll be sitting here, reading a book and smoking a cigar:

Why don’t you come for a visit?

Posted in Europe, Life, London, Malta, Travel, UK | 86 Comments

“Be nice to people on your way up, because you might meet them on your way down.”

Posted on 2011-11-09 by Andreas Moser

If you always thought that “Be nice to people on your way up, because you might meet them on your way down” is a silly saying, you might want to consider the following case in point, brought to us by Muammar Gaddafi of Libya:

You won’t forget this rule ever again, will you?

Posted in Libya, Politics | Tagged | 3 Comments

Progress in the United Kingdom

Posted on 2011-10-30 by Andreas Moser

After a mere 300 years, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland has found the time to modernise the laws on royal succession:

  1. Girls born into the royal family will no longer need to cede the throne to their younger brothers. Until now, it was always the eldest son that ascended the throne; even older sisters missed out as long as there was one male, regardless of his age. The current Queen Elizabeth II could only become queen because she didn’t have any brother(s).
  2. The king or the queen may even marry a Catholic in future. Until now, such a marriage would have disqualified that particular royal from the succession.

If you are now overwhelmed in the light of so much modernisation, equality and progress, I will have to dampen the joy a bit:

“With these sons, you HAVE to stick to the throne as long as possible.”

  • The new rules won’t be relevant for the foreseeable future because Queen ElizabethII’s first child is a son, Prince Charles, who again had only sons, Princes William and Harry. For the next two generations (which based on the reign of the current queen could be 100 years) no woman will become head of state. Only if Prince William and his wife will have a girl as their first child will these rules become relevant.
  • Similarly, nobody in the current line of succession has dared to marry a Catholic.
  • Furthermore, the lifting of the ban of Catholics only pertains to the spouse of the king or queen. The monarch himself still must not be Catholic. He or she also must not be a Jew, a Muslim, a Mormon or in fact anything else than an Anglican Christian, because the British monarch is also the head of the Anglican church. Having a state religion already sounds far less modern.
  • These cosmetic changes cannot hide the fact that we still have an unelected head of state, who reaches this positionexclusively by virtue of his birth, irrespective of any (lacking) qualifications.

“That’s not what I had in mind.”

Princesses being able to become rulers without democratic legitimation, is no reason to celebrate. Especially not in 2011 and in a country that still doesn’t have a codified constitution.

(Es gibt eine deutsche Version dieses Artikels.)

Posted in Law, Politics, UK | Tagged , , , , , | 9 Comments

Fortschritt in Großbritannien

Posted on 2011-10-30 by Andreas Moser

Nach schlappen 300 Jahren macht man sich hier in Großbritannien – bzw. wie der offizielle Titel des Landes lautet: im Vereinigten Königreich von Großbritannien und Nordirland – mal wieder daran, die Regeln über die Thronfolge zu modernisieren:

  1. In Zukunft soll das erstgeborene Kind des Monarchen unabhängig von seinem Geschlecht Thronfolger werden. Bis jetzt war jeweils der älteste Sohn an der Reihe; selbst ihm vorgeborene Schwestern gingen leer aus, solange nur ein männlicher Sproß vorhanden war. Die jetzige Königin Elizabeth II wurde nur deshalb Königin weil sie keine Brüder hat(te).
  2. Der König oder die Königin dürfen in Zukunft sogar mit einem Katholiken verheiratet sein. Bis jetzt führte eine solche Heirat zur Disqualifikation des Staatsoberhauptes.

    "Bei solchen Nachkommen MUSS man ja so lange wie möglich im Amt bleiben."

Falls nun jemand überwältigt ist von so viel Modernisierung, Gleichberechtigung und Fortschritt, muß ich die Freude leider dämpfen:
  • Auf absehbare Zeit sind die Neuregelungen nicht relevant, denn Königin Elizabeth II hat einen erstgeboren Sohn, Prinz Charles, der wiederum den erstgeborenen Sohn Prinz William hat. Für die nächsten zwei Generationen (also nach bisherigen Maßstäben ca. 100 Jahre) wird keine Frau Staatsoberhaupt. Erst wenn Prinz William und seine Frau ein Kind bekommen und dies ein Mädchen wird, wird diese Regelung relevant.
  • Ebenso hat es niemand aus der aktuellen Thronfolgerriege gewagt, eine Katholikin zu heiraten.
  • Zudem gilt die Aufhebung des Katholikenverbots nur für die Ehepartner des Königs oder der Königin. Der Regent selbst darf weiterhin kein Katholik sein. Er darf auch kein Jude, Muslim, Mormone oder überhaupt irgendetwas anderes als ein Angehöriger der Anglikanischen Kirche sein. Der Grund hierfür ist, daß der britische König auch das Oberhaupt der Anglikanischen Kirche ist. Insofern gibt es hier eine Staatsreligion, was sich schon weit weniger modern anhört.
  • Diese ganze Kosmetik ändert nichts daran, daß wir noch immer ein nicht gewähltes Staatsoberhaupt haben, das diese Position allein aufgrund seiner Geburt, unbeachtet jeglicher (fehlender) Qualifikationen innehat.

"So habe ich mir das nicht vorgestellt."

Daß nun auch Prinzessinnen zu demokratisch nicht legitimierten Herrscherinnen werden können, finde ich keinen Grund zum Feiern. Erst recht nicht im Jahr 2011 und in einem Land, das weiterhin keine kodifizierte Verfassung hat.

(There is an English version of this article.)

Posted in Politics, UK | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Smoking Cigars

Posted on 2011-10-29 by Andreas Moser

The following e-mail might have been well-intended, but not only the subject line has too much of a condescending and dismissive tone to it.

Subject: Brainwashed by photographs of writers and other intellectuals
From: Andy Kopra (andykopra@mac.com)
To: Andreas Moser (moser@moser-law.com)
Sent: 28 September 2011, 2243 hrs

“Just follow the cigar smoke.”   [from your blog]

Smoking killed my father. Smoking isn’t impressive or sophisticated, it’s an addiction that causes health problems. And when you die early, it will hurt everyone who cares about you.

Perhaps it’s none of my business, but after all, a blog assumes that you do want everybody to care about your business.

Sincerely,
      Andy Kopra
 

I agree that smoking is not healthy, that it can contribute to your premature death or cause horribly painful illnesses. But I knew all of that when I picked up the habit.

Trying to be impressive or sophisticated is not the reason behind my affinity for cigars. In fact, I mostly smoke when I am alone in a forest, on top of a mountain or at a beautiful beach, where nobody can find me.

I enjoy cigars. I enjoy the taste, I enjoy looking after the clouds of smoke that I puff out and that still hang in the air for a few seconds until they are dispersed by the wind.

Cigars have something special that cigarettes don’t have, which is why I don’t even touch cigarettes. For a cigar, you need time and preferably idyllic quietness. Smoking a cigar may take anything between 30 and 90 minutes, so when I light up I know that I don’t want to be disturbed for the next hour or so. I turn off my phone, seek out a peaceful spot next to the lake, take a book with me and forget about all my sorrows for a while.

As Thomas Mann wrote in “The Magic Mountain”:

I never can understand how anyone can not smoke—it deprives a man of the best part of life … with a good cigar in his mouth a man is perfectly safe, nothing can touch him—literally.

a perfect day on the porch: a cigar and “Süddeutsche Zeitung”

Guadalajara, Mexico

Baltic Sea, Curonian Spit, Lithuania

Baltic Sea, Curonian Spit, Lithuania

cigar sunset

near Winchester, England

Piatra Craiului Mountains in Romania

Piatra Craiului Mountains in Romania

Posted in Life | Tagged , , | 34 Comments

Don’t be afraid of the stranger!

Posted on 2011-10-28 by Andreas Moser

My default attitude towards other people is trust. Unless or until I become aware of a reason to mistrust someone, I will trust anyone whom I meet. Because of this

  • I use Couchsurfing when travelling,
  • I host Couchsurfers,
  • I have hitchhiked in cars, on quads, on pick-up trucks and lorries,
  • before I gave up on cars, I always stopped for hitchhikers and gave them a ride,
  • I have gotten together with total strangers for hiking in Montenegro, for a trip through the desert in Australia or to share a room in a hostel in Jerusalem,
  • I have stayed at strangers’ houses in Las Vegas, Beirut and Mitrovica.

I am still alive, so obviously nothing happened to me. Never have I gotten killed, mugged or kidnapped. Instead, I experienced pleasant surprises and interesting adventures.

Give them a ride!

Many people find my behavior dangerous or naive. Their default attitude is one of mistrust or fear. They fear the uncertainty, they fear that the hitchhiker turns into a murdering maniac or that the stranger turns into a strangler. If I tell them of my good experiences, they say “you’ve been lucky so far” (which might be right) or “better safe than sorry” (which leads to a boring life).

For these safety-obsessed folks it might come as a surprise that my open and trusting ways of life actually accommodate the principle of “better safe than sorry” more than their timidity because crime statistics show that half of the victims of violent crime know the offender. “Only” 39 % of violent crimes were committed by strangers. For women, the numbers are more striking even: 64 % of female victims of violent crime knew their attacker, most of them were friends or acquaintances.

These recent statistics suggest that it might actually be safer to get into a stranger’s car than to ride home with your friends. It might be safer to pick up a hitchhiker than driving your brother or your boyfriend to campus. It might be safer to sleep on a stranger’s couch than to stay with the in-laws. – Of course staying alone is still the safest option of all, but that’s not for all of us.

So next time you see a hitchhiker, pick him or her up. Don’t be afraid! There is no logical justification for your fear. By overcoming it, you will make the world a better place.

Although, there is one exception. Don’t pick up innocently looking young girls. It will turn out to become a disaster:

Links:

Posted in Life, Travel | Tagged , , , | 18 Comments

Death to the dictator, and one more wife for me please!

Posted on 2011-10-24 by Andreas Moser

I am happy for Libyans that they have toppled, with just a bit of help from NATO, the dictatorship of Muammar Gaddafi. Many Libyans have shown great courage and resilience which may serve as an example to other oppressed peoples in North Africa and the Middle East.

The end of a dictatorship however does not immediately result in a democracy, let alone one with human rights and rule of law. Today’s “liberation speech” by Mustafa Abdel Jalil, the head of the Transitional National Council, demonstrated that everyone in Libya must remain alert about which direction the country will head to:

Mr Jalil pledged to repeal all laws that didn’t conform with Islamic law, the Shariah. This not only overstepped the authority of the Transitional (!) National Council, but it was even more worrying because one of the two examples chosen was the marriage law. (The other was a populist promise to outlaw the charging of interest.)

“We don’t care about democracy, jobs or security. We just want to get married!”

Apparently, in the view of some Libyan revolutionaries, when you have just brought a 42-year dictatorship to an end and won a bloody civil war, when oil needs to be pumped, jobs need to be created, a constitution to be drafted and elections to be organised, one of the most important and urgent tasks is to make it easier for men to marry a second wife.

One minister of the temporary cabinet explained – without any intended irony, I assume – that this would happen in the interest of women: “A lot of young ladies lost their husbands in the battle” and they would want to remarry quickly. – So, it’s polygamy for the sake of women‘s rights? Because apparently Libyan women are just as crazy for a wedding as women all over the world, and they have no other problems to worry about.

Is this what Libyans fought for? Is this what Libyans died for? Is this what NATO bombed for?

Posted in Family Law, Human Rights, Islam, Law, Libya, Politics | Tagged , , , , | 11 Comments

Calvin and Hobbes explain the Economy

Posted on 2011-10-24 by Andreas Moser

Calvin and Hobbes, my most favourite cartoon, have something to add to the current debate about how corporations think and act:

(Click on the image for an enlarged view.)

I don’t know when this particular strip first appeared, but Bill Watterson stopped writing and drawing Calvin and Hobbes in 1995. For that, he predicted the current behaviour of corporations very accurately.

Posted in Economics | Tagged , | 3 Comments

Take your time with good books

Posted on 2011-10-15 by Andreas Moser

I love to read books. So much that I sometimes even read several books at the same time. I also like to talk about books with other readers, I like to receive new suggestions on what to read next and make recommendations of my own.

But there is something that I don’t like about these conversations. Every now and then somebody will scream out “What?? You haven’t read War and Peace/Jane Eyre/Vanity Fair/Ulysses/To Kill a Mockingbird/Crime and Punishment/Homer yet?” with a condescending look and implying that I am not to be taken seriously as a reader because of this omission. Students of literature seem to be especially prone to displays of this behaviur. Similarly, some people will show off at what age they read a certain book that I have just recently read: “I read The Magic Mountain when I was 15.”

I don’t understand the sentiment behind these statements because

  1. While you were reading the books you know and deem indispensable, I was reading something else which you just may not know. It doesn’t mean it is less good.
  2. On a similar note, especially students of English literature should realise that other languages and literatures do exist.
  3. Outside of school or university, there is nothing that I must read.

Beyond these fundamental points, I even agree that some classics deserve to be classics. I might disagree with you about which classics are worth being read, but I am not disinclined to admit that some of the books which have been read and recommended for decades or even centuries are indeed more worthwhile than most of what occupies the weekly best-seller lists.

But even among these masterpieces, there is no need for this rush. Life is not a contest to read as much as you can as quickly as you can. And actually, it is much smarter to take your time with good books:

  1. Our life expectancy is around 75 or 80 years. We still have plenty of time to read these really good books.
  2. This is especially true if you consider that great authors like Thomas Mann, Franz Kafka, Charles Dickens, John Steinbeck, Hermann Hesse, Boris Pasternak or Heinrich Böll don’t write anything new any more.
  3. If you read all the classics in your teens or twenties, you might be forced to read Harry Potter when you’ll be 40 and dime novels in retirement. Save some of the good stuff for later!
  4. Afraid of running out of time? I can assure you that nobody will regret not having read Moby Dick or The Divine Comedy once they’re dead. But when you are 80 and alive and there is nothing good left to be read, you might regret having rushed through all these volumes earlier.
  5. I don’t care how smart or educated you were when you were 12 or 17, but I doubt you had the same life experience as a 35- or 55-year old. With increased life experience, you will read One Hundred Years of Solitude or Doctor Zhivago quite differently. – The Catcher in the Rye might be an exception, better to be read in your late teens.

Two years ago, I recommended Catch-22 to my father. It is a classic and one of the best and funniest books I know. It caught me by surprise that my father hadn’t read it yet because he is a well-read person in his 60s and a fan of anti-war literature. But only the fact that he had not yet read this book allowed him to enjoy Catch-22 for a few wonderful warm summer evenings, sitting in our garden and casually smoking a cigar.

No, there is no need to rush. Neither with books, nor with other things in life.

Posted in Books, Language | Tagged | 7 Comments

A Match made in Italy

Posted on 2011-10-04 by Andreas Moser

Sometimes you know of two people and you want to bring them together because you just know that they will hit it off:

I know of this old guy in Italy. He just turned 75 last week, but he is still full of life, especially when it comes to girls. And I mean girls, not women. The younger, the better. In fact, he is so much into girls that he doesn’t have much time to take care of his other hobbies which include running a media empire, defending himself in court against corruption charges and governing the fourth-largest economy in Europe.

Silvio Berlusconi

And then there is this girl who had been spending some time in Italy until today. She is 24 years old, attractive and said to enjoy kinky sex orgies which sometimes result in the stabbing and killing of her sex partner.

Amanda Knox

How could fate fail to bring these two together? Their encounter might have conveniently solved some of Italy’s political problems.

Posted in Italy, Love, Politics | Tagged , , , , , | 4 Comments