Nikki is a noseless dog. She is completely deaf and partly blind from an eye too, and every seven heartbeats she misses one... she's 14 years old and she lives with gordon...
I am dying. Not a physical death - I mean, we're all moving towards death, physically, but that's beside the point. They say that the seed must die in order that the plant, the flower, grows. These platitudes might mean a lot, might serve as encouragement. But nobody tells you how painful that death might be. And how hard it is to see the end of the tunnel, even if you know it's in there somewhere. The current government's exposed corruption have led the country to take draconian measures against small enterprises and businesses (for fear of repatriation by the larger ones) in an attempt to placate the international community at fears of tax evasion and corruption taking place in this Mediterranean gem. This has entailed the dismantling of my practice, the end of my freelance work and the entry into full time employment, with the stresses that it brings for persons with my current stance. It's taking it's toll, and I'm always tired. This has also entai...
I focus on a positive outlook. That is the nature of human resilience. A few months back, I wrote about having to move work, because of a number issues. Of course, things always happen for a reason - we repeat this cliche over and over, when we are on the other side of the fence. Yet, only weeks later, I got a proposal for a very large project - to take over a business all of my own. This would not have been the first time I branched out on my own but it wasn't going to be easy. "Challenging" is one way of wording it, I suppose, and the journey hasn't been some lazy river ride. Taking on the responsibility of two employees, one of whom has a child, is no mean feat. Neither is taking on a portfolio of new clients something to be overlooked. Summer flew by, and I must admit that the pressures haven't been easy to manage, least of all internal ones. There comes a time when one has to take the bull by the horns, however, and to deal with such issues in the...
This week I was involved in a court case which allowed me to witness a serious problem that led to justice not being served. I don't frequently practise before the criminal courts, but this was a case where I was appearing for the victim. The Maltese law now allows the criminal court to award damages to the victim, based on the actual damage suffered. In this case, I was dealing with a police inspector and we were working on the gathering of the evidence in order to charge the attacker in a street fight with grievous bodily harm. The parties had been involved in a scuffle after a near-miss vehicle incident, and the other party hit the victim who now stands to lose her front teeth. Last week the case was due to be heard, and we discovered that another police inspector had already filed the case, got a quick hearing, and the defendant was granted an acquittal based on the lack of evidence in the case. The charge in the other case was for a less serious offence. However since he had ...
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