Toni Sant's Blog

Love's Dream

noreply@blogger.com (Toni Sant) — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 05:33:00 PST

I'm in Hungary this weekend attending a conference on youth culture and new media in faith-driven communities under the InYgo banner. I was actually invited to give a keynote address at the start of the conference in Dobogokö yesterday and stayed on to follow the rest of the proceedings and sample what Budapest has to offer on a Saturday afternoon/evening. You can't really get the feel for a

No Hassle Night

noreply@blogger.com (Toni Sant) — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 01:03:01 PST

From time to time, when I sit down to blog about my podcast there's little else to say except what's in that particular week's edition and a few related bits and bobs. As you read on it'll become very apparent that this is one of those occasions.There are a couple of interesting picks on this week's Mużika Mod Ieħor podcast, which is the 186th in the series, now sponsored by Vodafone. All the

Once More

noreply@blogger.com (Toni Sant) — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 06:59:47 PDT

From time to time I feel I've reached a state of calm. This is a good thing. It means that the excitement and energy driving me to do something or other has subsided, but it also means that there's something else coming up just around the corner. Unfortunately my periods of calm rarely last more than a couple of weeks. If you don't believe me just browse through my blog.One way to gauge these how

Waterloo Sunset

noreply@blogger.com (Toni Sant) — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 02:20:41 PDT

Last Tuesday evening I was walking across Waterloo Bridge from London's theatre district heading towards the National Theatre on the South Bank to hear a spot of live jazz and take in an exhibition of Maurizio Buscarino's photos from Grotowski's Apocalypsis Cum Figuris. Suddenly I realized that if I turned to look back on the Westminster skyline what I was really experiencing was a Waterloo

Unnatural Selection

noreply@blogger.com (Toni Sant) — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 05:55:00 PDT

I'm in Malta this week. It's a quick visit for personal and professional reasons. It's all good stuff, even if I don't particularly like traveling long distances for short visits. This is exactly how I feel whenever I go to academic conferences or other professional engagements. Then again, it's a way to get out of my head, ward off severe bouts of cabin fever and meet all sorts of delightful

Call Me

noreply@blogger.com (Toni Sant) — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 05:12:45 PDT

As we approach the end of the fourth year of weekly podcasts in my Mużika Mod Ieħor series, the show is now sponsored by Vodafone. I'm grateful that we now have the required support to not only continue promoting music from Malta but also a new push towards the possibility of develop things even further in the coming months and years.I've just embarked on a year-long academic sabbatical to focus

Haven’t Met You Yet

noreply@blogger.com (Toni Sant) — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 03:09:51 PDT

I seem to be involved in more new web development projects than I actually have time for right now. Thankfully, some of the people I'm collaborating with know what they're doing, so I have good reasons to believe that it'll all start coming together very soon. This is not to say that I'm not (always!) looking for new collaborators. Quite the opposite, actually.One of these web development

So Far, So Good...So What!

noreply@blogger.com (Toni Sant) — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 09:23:43 PDT

I've compiled a list of alternative music from Maltese recording artists released so far in 2009. This is the fourth year that I'll be polling my blog readers and Mużika Mod Ieħor podcast listeners towards establishing the top favourite releases of the year.The number of new releases is already slightly larger than it has been in any year since 2006, even if, as ever, I have a feeling my list is

Only When You Leave

noreply@blogger.com (Toni Sant) — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 12:55:15 PDT

Earlier this month it seemed as if the grim reaper was working overtime, particularly on Maltese fifty-somethings. The prelude came with the passing of the gentle mannered Dennis Vella: a great loss for the contemporary Maltese art scene. Most recently, after at least two other Maltese men in their fifties, it was my old friend Remo Mifsud who died. He was only 51 and a very active doer of many

Come So Far Yet Still So Far To Go

noreply@blogger.com (Toni Sant) — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 06:22:26 PDT

For once in my life I feel surrounded by more positives than negatives, more knowns than unknowns, more good than bad, and more effective action than hot air. This is what change feels like. Much of it is personal, so I don't expect everyone (or even anyone!) to feel the same way as I do. If there's one thing that's around right now that I can pick to demonstrate the strong shift I'm trying to

Here It Comes Again

noreply@blogger.com (Toni Sant) — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 08:34:21 PDT

This time of the year is the part I prefer above all others. I like it far better than Christmas, Easter or even the start of summer. From American marketers (of all people!) I've learned to call it 'back to school' time. Since I moved to the UK it has also been time when I mark the turning years I've spent working and living here. Since 2005, immediately after what in the States we'd call Labor

Wild Young Hearts

noreply@blogger.com (Toni Sant) — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 00:58:59 PDT

It has not been exactly five years since I started living with the fact that I suffer from WPW Syndrome. Discovering that I'm afflicted by this heart condition has given me an answer to previous unexplained questions about my health, but it has also made me acutely aware that I'm no longer an invincible young man.In many ways, living with WPW Syndrome is hardly inconvenient. I take a little pill

Petits Machins

noreply@blogger.com (Toni Sant) — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 04:30:32 PDT

A few days ago I discovered an old VHS tape from 1989. I was pleasantly surprised to see myself present a special edition of the weekly popular TVM current affairs programme Malta u Lil Hinn Minnha with Paul Azzopardi. I had forgotten all about this. For many years before Malta's liberalization of the broadcasting airwaves, this news show was the main (if not only) current affairs appointment for

We Are Golden

noreply@blogger.com (Toni Sant) — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 13:51:00 PDT

When blogging about the summer of 1969 last week, I forgot to mention the infamous Helter Skelter murders by the Manson Family. It's remarkable that all that negative energy was in the air at (more or less) the same time as other such landmark events.When Les Paul passed away at the wonderful age of 94 a couple of days ago, his death was marked with respect by many cognoscenti. Although he was

Summer of 69

noreply@blogger.com (Toni Sant) — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 05:02:12 PDT

A couple of weeks ago much was made of the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission and the first men to walk on the moon. This weekend, hundreds of Beatles fans gathered on the famous pedestrian crossing in Abbey Road to re-enact the iconic cover photo of the album with the same name, which was originally snapped 40 years ago to the day. And next weekend many aged hippies will be marking the

Don't Know Much

noreply@blogger.com (Toni Sant) — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 04:08:48 PDT

This summer is building up into an interesting one. It has its fair share of ups and downs, but the ups seem to be really good. Even some downs have an up side. Now that our dear friend Dennis Vella has passed away, his professional aspiration to create a National Museum of Modern Art for Malta is on practically everyone's lips within the Maltese art scene, or at least on their minds.On a more

Erudite Eyes

noreply@blogger.com (Toni Sant) — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 06:26:17 PDT

What a shock to hear this morning that my dear old friend Dennis Vella passed away last night. He was only 56. As with so many of my other friends in Malta, we had lost touch ever since I left the country about fifteen years ago. Still, our paths would cross again every now and then.Dennis was a perennial presence in my social life as I grew up in Malta. We first met in Tigne, where we both

Someday Soon

noreply@blogger.com (Toni Sant) — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 10:39:49 PDT

The last few days have been quite a whirlwind in terms of travel. Following the weekend in Cardiff Bay, I went to the Isle of Man to deliver a public lecture on Virtual Worlds, hosted by the British Computer Society (BCS). I was touched by the warm welcome I received during the two days I was there, and I look forward to returning for another visit sometime in the future.After I had returned to

Walking on the Moon

noreply@blogger.com (Toni Sant) — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 06:30:53 PDT

I'm in Cardiff this weekend for WordCamp UK. WordPress always struck me as excellent web content management software and I've been hovering around it for several months now. Yet this is the first time that I've had the opportunity to send a couple of days focused on it. It really is remarkable software.To say that this blog will very soon be switched from Blogger to WordPress is only an initial

Stuck On You

noreply@blogger.com (Toni Sant) — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 03:07:45 PDT

ToniSant.com has been offline for the last couple of days because the hosting company forgot to move the files that make up this website during server migration. Other websites I own or manage where involved in this server migration but they seem to be working fine. Now that you're reading this, the situation has been restored.I'm in the process of switching the whole site to WordPress. I had

Master Blaster

noreply@blogger.com (Toni Sant) — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 10:52:24 PDT

In all the years I've lived in the UK I don't ever remember nicer summer weather than what we're heaving this year. I'm very amused whenever any of my British friends or work colleagues complains about the heat. How would they survive anywhere south of the Alps during the summer? I wouldn't even dream of going to that part of the world in July and August unless I really had to.Sadly, Scarborough

Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough

noreply@blogger.com (Toni Sant) — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 12:15:20 PDT

I haven't seen anything like this since Elvis Presley or John Lennon died. I'm referring, of course, to public reaction in the wake of Michael Jackson's unexpected demise. From the perspective of media coverage, we haven't seen anything like this since 9/11. The two events are clearly very different, but the way new technologies (particularly mobile devices and the internet) are being used is

Little Green

noreply@blogger.com (Toni Sant) — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 03:46:16 PDT

Goings on in Teheran right now are quite sad and very disturbing. There is very little people like me can do from afar. I've been following the protests and the violent reactions mostly through Twitter. My main source is @TehranBureau but @kvella has also introduced me to @StopAhmadi. Between tweets about the clashes I've also been interested about the media talk around the power of Twitter and

Waiting for the Miracle

noreply@blogger.com (Toni Sant) — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 10:57:29 PDT

Whenever an academic year draws to a close, my brain is always flooded with ideas for things I'd like to do over the summer months. Many of them have been with me for several years, and yet I never seem to manage to make time for them. From time to time I dedicate countless hours to something or other that stays with me for many years to follow. My weekly Mużika Mod Ieħor podcast started out as

You're My Number One

noreply@blogger.com (Toni Sant) — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 14:01:45 PDT

With the European parliament elections underway there's far more political campaigning in the air than most other times of the year. Local council elections make things more exciting for all involved, but also alienate those like me who are not really very interested in governments, local, national, or whatever. I was very amused to read Mrs Maltagirl's tweet this morning after she voted: "...if