Dr Joseph Vancell

Go to this link http://www.jc.um.edu.mt/sok/noticeboard to check the deadlines for submission of the essay and portfolio.

Open or download the SOK Action Plan 2010-2011 by clicking on the title.  Only my 1st year students at Junior College need this action plan.

I designed the cover page of this new book.  Check it out.  It is available at €11.95 from all leading bookshops.

Sing to the tune of Peter Seeger's Where all have all the flowers gone?

Where have all the workers gone?
Some time passing
Where have all the workers gone?
Some time ago
Where have all the workers gone?
The Pope thanked them every one
When will we ever learn?
When will we ever learn?

Where have all street cleaners gone?
Some time passing
Where have all street cleaners gone?
Some time ago
Where have all street cleaners gone?
Taken holidays every one
When will we ever learn?
When will we ever learn?

Sharleen Vancell (2010) Untitled no. 1
Mixed Media on paper







After failing to secure a generous sponsorship deal from her parents - esteemed patrons of the arts in the local context - to continue her cycle of non-figurative frescoes in the family living room, this budding 2-year old artist has turned her energy and creativity to the more mundane representation of metaphysical issues using a variety of mediums including pencils, crayons and the more versatile pen and wash (plus the occasional chocolate cookie).

The polychrome drawing above, reminiscent of Vassily Kandinsky's and Jackson Pollock's work, was produced in one sitting.  It shows Vancell's current attempts at answering the metaphysical question "What is quality?", a question which has troubled philosophers for millennia.  Indeed, through the use of polychromic lines of various lengths, widths, depth and intensity, and the use of a presitgious colouring surface - the back of her father's printed curriculum vitae - she manages to critically evaluate the human being's relationship with the supernatural and his perception of beauty.

In Malta hunters and trappers are fighting for what they believe is their natural human right to trap and/or kill birds during Spring. Indeed, they even had the guts to claim that they are "experiencing psychological torture while waiting for the government's decision on the opening of spring season, as recommended by the Ornis committee last month". Luckily, for those who hate lead shot, bird torture, killing and stuffing, the government opted for a short six-day spring hunting spree.

In London, the French contemporary French artist Celeste Boursier-Mougenot has put birds to better use.  He's using them as musicians!  In his installation at the Barbican Centre in London 40 zebra finches are creating a cacophany of noises (music?) when they perch on the necks of amplified electric guitars. 

Hello, my name is Cleavage

By Kristina Chetcuti

From: http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20100411/opinion/hello-my-name-is-cleavage

What would you do if your child came back from school one day and told you she had a boy in her class called Cleavage?

Surely, you would think, there's a mistake somewhere? But no, there isn't. Cross my heart: it's a real name given to a real boy in Malta. His mother, bless her, is delirious with pride that her son has a unique name: "I had to register it, as there's no one else with that name," she told a friend of mine.

Here's another real one: a father accompanying his toddler to the clinic told a doctor his daughter's name was Dyslexia but, sorry, he wasn't sure how to spell it.

Another mother gave her daughter a practically unpronounceable nine-letter name. She explained her word-game strategy: "Every month during my pregnancy I chose a letter and then at the end of the nine months, I jumbled them up and came up with this name."

Another parent was equally haughty about the 'avant-garde' names she gave her sons. "This one is Skylander," she said as she pushed them to the front, "And this one is Cleverson. Eh? What do you think?"

What do you think indeed? We've all heard of Jurassic Pace, of Britney Spears Borg, or Celine Dion Darmanin, Mysharona Brincat. Why, I had even heard of Jack Daniels Falzon. But Dyslexia? Cleavage?

If I'm honest, this is the stuff of severe attacks of giggles. I mean, Cleverson? Are we resorting to Red Indian nomenclature now? What ever next? Dances-with-wolves Vella?

But then when I wondered if these were just one-offs and was firmly told they are, in certain areas, quite the norm, it felt like a slap in the face. You would think you know the society you live in. Here I am, week in week out, writing about social issues when really half the population is simply concerned about having babies just so they can give them more original names than their neighbours' children.

I wouldn't like to think that parents inflict such torturous names on their children on purpose. So the problem is, of course, sheer, utter ignorance. And I can say this safe in the knowledge that no one will be hurt reading this article, because parents of these kids cannot know how to read in English. I hope, against hope, that at least they do read in Maltese - but I have my doubts.

Because it's not just the names. It's other things too. Here's another incident, which I know sounds like a 'have you heard the one about?': A lady patient was given suppositories to treat a particular ailment. She went back a couple of days later, complaining that she couldn't swallow them.

The doctor politely explained that she has to insert them in her patata (bottom). She returned some days later baffled because try as she might, she just couldn't get the suppositories to melt in mashed potatoes. My friend, stumped, had no choice but to resort to the vernacular of 'arse' in Maltese. "Oh. Why didn't you say so, immediately?" said the woman.

Again I can vouch this is a real story. And so is the one about the woman who was diagnosed with a cardiac murmur, and told the nurse that they had found a mermaid in her heart. Or the fact that hundreds of women - teenagers and twenty-somethings - do not know how to say period. They say 'imperial'!

And this is very worrisome. If you don't know the proper name of something that you get every month of your life, it means that you just repeat the sounds you hear, parrot-like, and you don't bother to improve when corrected, and you are illiterate.

It is simply unacceptable for the new generations to be unable to read basic English. There is simply no excuse for it. My own grandmother, now in her 80s, never learnt English at school. She just painstakingly took up reading and kept at it, and last week even won the Bookworm of the Year at our local library.

I'm not claiming to be a clever clogs but, if people do not read, how can they actually think? I suddenly have this nagging fear that our society is made up, mostly, of people who do not think. Yet they have a vote. And they get to decide on very important things such as referenda issues. I shudder to think how they can decide on concepts they can't even grasp.

Perhaps it's time we stopped laughing at ignorance and started taking serious action, by for example, insisting on stricter rules at the Department of Public Registry: 'Cleavage' is one name that should have been categorically rejected.

The Pope's route will pass by the monument

Mayor John Schembri described the art work as "vulgar" and "embarrassing", saying it should go "as a sign of respect" for Pope Benedict XVI.
Colonna Mediterranea was created by artist Paul Vella Critien and has been on show in the town of Luqa since 2006.
Mr Critien responded by calling his critics "ignorant" and "uneducated".
Pope Benedict's route through Malta will involve passing by the roundabout at the entrance to Luqa, where the monument stands.
"The object... is not the most fitting way in which to greet the Pope, especially by what is considered to be the most Catholic country in the world," Mr Schembri was quoted by the Times of Malta as saying.
He told the newspaper that the council would again appeal to the government to order the removal of the column.
Mr Critien said his creation was not a phallic symbol but a modern representation of a symbol dating back to ancient Egypt.
He said the Pope "would look at it as a work of art. [He] is not the man in the street".
The government has said it has no plans to remove the sculpture

Yet another fireworks factory blast and more lives lost! The youngest a 21-year old enthusiast. When will this carnage be stopped? Should amatuers and dilettantes be allowed to work in these 'factories'? Why are these factories blasting off so oftenly? Surely the so-called fireworks factories in Malta, or the personnel working within, are not up to scratch in terms of health and safety measures.


Image from

Despite the beauty of fireworks displays the risks of production of same fireworks remains very high as the frequency of explosions and death manifest. I am in no position to judge the talents and skills of the fireworks enthusiasts who work in these 'kmamar tan-nar', yet, since they are working in such high-risk conditions (for themselves and third parties), shouldn't the authorities ensure they have basic training and/or technical qualifications in handling explosive material? I'm sure that, for example, army personnel composing the bomb ordinance unit (or whatever it's called) have been professionally trained, and are constantly updating and upgrading their knowledge and skills to handle dangerous substances and artefacts.

Above all ... the 'kamra tan-nar' is ominously close to the tal-Handaq Junior Lyceum.