D.I.Y – Insert Sanity Here
Congratulations, you are now the proud owner of one of the most sophisticated piece of equipment known to man, please unpack carefully.
Sanity is generally a given for most of us; in fact unless your parents are direct blood relatives or the midwife that delivered you preferred to opt for a crowbar when extracting you, you should possess at least some realm of sanity.
But what I often mused on was “So what drives a man insane?” Well obviously you have: repressed childhood, abusive family and such like, which create people like Fred West; it’s an egg timer effect, it trickles away and you’re medically insane.
But that wasn’t what I was musing on, what I was musing on was the notion of why a person of reasonable social stature would go from well-mannered work colleague and friendly smiling neighbour one day and then transform to assault rifle wielding madman that wants to take out as many people as possible before turning the gun on himself the next day.
I have that answer.
D.I.Y . . . the mother of all emotional dispositions that the human mind can cope with.
Regardless of the job at hand, I would rather try my hand at D.I.Y and repairs on my household than pay someone else to do it properly. In fact unless my house is a burning mass or a Boeing 747 has ploughed through the neighbourhood I will generally be found trying my hand at doing the work myself before admitting defeat. I have, however, had some proud D.I.Y moments; I beamed with pride at my laminate floor laying skills, or at least I did until I read that even that fat retard’o Russell Grant can do it.
I even once tiled my bathroom, sure it’s still not entirely finished (three years later) and some of the tiles form ramps which would be useful if you could defy the laws of gravity on a motorbike, but hey, I did it with my own bare hands damn it.
Like most men (and dyke woman) I own power tools. Ok, unlike most men I go for the cheap alternative over the expensive models. I was quietly confident that my Homebase own brand 8 Volt battery powered drill would make mincemeat of any material including diamond.
So putting a roller-blind up was merely child’s play . . . right?
With a childlike enthusiasm and a song in my heart I took to what should have been a relatively simplistic task for even the most ham handed person. So after some basic preparation such as using my fingers to measure the distances out and a few test holes drilled; I was well and truly on my way to enjoying the thrill of new blinds, this clearly was to be a moment in my life to be proud of.
Until of course I encountered the lintel.
For those that don’t know, a lintel is a basically a load bearing chunk of metal that stops your house collapsing onto your beaming head after you open the window to breath in the morning air and wave to your elderly neighbours who are having angry sex in their greenhouse.
I have encountered lintels before, and unless you have the kind of hardware only available to James Bond villains then you’re going to struggle eternally when trying to drill a hole into it.
But of course with alpha male determination I switched my cheapo drill to hammer mode and my reasoning to “primate” and applied a pressure that was almost hernia causing, such was my ambition to get through the metal bastard.
As with all things in life I don’t see the point in spending decent money on tools, food, medicines et cetera, but surely a drill-bit only comes in one variety right? No. Apparently my Argos made drill-bits have the mining qualities of Daniel Day Lewis in ‘My Left Foot’, so what happened when I tried to drill through the lintel should have been expected.
With the hole drilled approximately an inch deep you can only imagine what happened when the shitty Argos drill-bit met construction grade metal . . .
The drill-bit flexed and eventually bent itself into an L-shape, thus gutting the wall as opposed to drilling it. Within a few short seconds I resembled a 9/11 escapee as the plaster broke away in the same manner you’d expect if I had taken a shotgun to it.
Never wanting to admit that it was my fault I took to blaming the wife with a scream of “Why do you always buy such cheap shit?” I was of course blaming the prone roller-blind that lay inanimately on the floor and not my ham-handed self.
By the time I had managed to get the blinds up I was covered in plaster dust and rage; it looked as if I had emerged from a coalmine, when in fact I had only drilled eight holes. A thick spittle had formed into the corners of my mouth and the wife had pretty much packed her things into a travel case. It was at this point I quietly reflected at my previous D.I.Y attempts.
The bird table that strikes fear into the heart of small children and has killed more birds than actually providing a well-deserved pit-stop for our avian friends.
The three legged table I once made, admittedly I ran out of wood, but I thought it was quite jaunty, but you couldn’t sneeze/talk/look at the thing without fear of a catastrophic collapse.
The loft ladder that is such a fucking liability that I often ask the wife to open it whilst I watch with nervous anticipation from behind a Perspex screen whilst also wearing a crash helmet and having 999 on speed-dial.
The skirting board that juts out at a seriously dangerous angle like a crude medieval ankle breaking device.
The simple repairs to my previous shed (R.I.P) that resulted in the windows suddenly being blocked out with liberated pallets and the door opening only enough to slide one hand through.
Anything related to D.I.Y I will always attempt before admitting defeat but I feel I should look back upon these rambling notes before I take on any more homely tasks.
Insanity . . . insert drill here.
It’s Meant to be the Beautiful Game – Let’s Try to Keep it That Way
I find it very hard to feel sympathetic for footballers. But the image of A.C. Milan’s Kevin-Prince Boateng rifling the ball into the stands, ripping his shirt off, and storming off the pitch (the rest of his teammates in tow) in his club’s match against Pro Patria was certainly a poignant one. “I don’t care what game it is,” Boateng said defiantly, “a friendly, Italian league or Champions’ League match – I would walk off again.”
So what on earth had got up his nose? Along with three other black players on the Milan team, Boateng had been subjected to racist chants from a section of opposition supporters. His decision to put an end to the abuse by putting an end to the match was praised by other players across the globe, but was it justified?
Clarence Seedorf doesn’t think so. The well-respected Dutch midfielder seemed to characterise Boateng’s response as immature: “I don’t see it as such a positive thing because [it] empowers more and more of this behaviour,” he observed. And his argument has an enticing logic to it. By enabling hooligans to cause the disruption they so crave, we show the minority that they have the power spoil the game for everyone else. Far better, says Seedorf, to boot out the offending faction and carry on playing.
The question is not whether racism (or, for that matter, any other form of abuse) has a place in stadia, but whether players have a right to take matters into their own hands if nothing is done about it. Ever since the rightly ridiculed Michel Platini, UEFA President, threatened Mario Balotelli with a booking if he refused to put up with racist hollers from the crowd at Euro 2012, there’s been a fair amount of controversy over the issue – not least because of Sepp Blatter’s gaffe six months earlier when he told players that on-field racism should be resolved with a handshake. (Why hadn’t anyone else thought of that?)
In fact, at almost every level, football’s governing bodies have failed to tackle racism. Just compare UEFA’s initial £65,000 fine on Serbia following persistent abuse of some of England’s Under-21s last October, to the £80,000 that Nicklas Bendtner was forced to dish out after revealing his branded boxer shorts after scoring at Euro 2012. And no, you didn’t misread that. Oh, and what about the paltry £65,000 the Croatian FA was charged after racial abuse at Euro 2012? Or the £32,500 that Lazio shelled out for anti-Semitic jeering at Tottenham fans in September? Or John Terry’s mystifying escape (with just a £220,000 fine and a four match ban), like a cat with nine lives, from the Anton Ferdinand incident?
The simple question is this: why are footballing institutions so reluctant to act? It’s a question that never gets answered. At least we’re not in Russia, where both Christopher Samba and Roberto Carlos have been offered bananas by fans. Zenit St Petersburg’s biggest supporters’ group (called Landscrona) was responsible for one of the most horrendous sporting stories of 2012: they went completely unpunished for writing a manifesto making the oh-so-reasonable request that the club recruit no more non-white or gay players – please. The multi-million pound signings of two black players who were “forced down Zenit’s throat” had broken “an important tradition that underlines the team’s identity”. And gay footballers? Well, they’re just “unworthy of our great city”. Evidently.
But don’t be fooled into thinking everything’s dandy over here. English football isn’t immune to racism, even if the problems lie just beneath the surface. It still shocks me that only three of the 88 managers listed by the LMA are black. The imbalance is uncomfortable, to say the least. Indeed, the very fact that two of the most high-profile in-game incidents of racism – involving Luis Suarez and John Terry – in Premier League history took place just last season is extremely telling.
Given all the evidence, it’s hard to accept Seedorf’s cynical view of Boateng’s stand. It was one that has long since needed to be made – and one that must continue to be made until the establishment makes some serious changes. As Reading striker Jason Roberts noted, “until the authorities take appropriate action and start taking this issue seriously, this battle will have to be fought by the players.” It’s by no means ideal, but for as long as footballing bodies refuse to clamp down on every kind of abuse, there seems to be no other option – an ugly situation to be in, in a game now drowning in cash but thirsting for morality.
Put yourself in the boots of Kevin-Prince Boateng, the ball at your feet as thugs behind you whoop and holler. “Imagine yourself,” as Fifpro’s anti-racism spokesman, Tony Higgins, does, “at work and someone standing right next to you is constantly insulting you in the worst way possible. Would you accept that?”
I know I wouldn’t.
Italian Food & The Space Time Continuum
Italian cuisine is always a mixed emotion for me. I married into an Italian family so I tend to find myself either completely maxed out on Italian or pandering for more like a junkie.
I guess there must have been a shortage of Italian food in our home because I was needing a fix.
Enter the restaurant “Ask”. Literally. In we went.
The restaurant was pretty much empty, which should have had me edging towards the door or signalling to the wife to bring the car round. But I didn’t. I must have assumed that the evening rush just hadn’t started. Either way, we were sat in an empty restaurant and looking at a menu with hungry eyes.
We were left uninterrupted by the waitress for a considerable length of time, in fact such a considerable length of time that I was able to read each item on the menu numerous times and even read the small print on the rear of the menu.
Eventually a surly waitress that had all the joy and enthusiasm of a teenager asked to clean their room shuffled over and took our simple order in the manner of someone that was meeting their attacker for the first time.
The waitress then shuffled off and into the kitchen.
And then something unexplainable happened. It was one of those moments that is featured on the Discovery Channel and has speakers such as Stephen Hawking or Professor Brian Cox and almost certainly some profound perspective from a NASA scientist, because no sooner had the kitchen door closed behind our delightful waitress had it burst back open with her holding two plates of food and steering towards me and the wife.
And then it happened . . . the plates were placed in front of us. I looked at my offering for a few moments before looking up to the wife. My lips flapped but words would not escape from my voice box. Had I taken a serious blow to the head whilst in the restaurant? Or had they been pumping monoxide in via the air-conditioning? Because this seemed an amazing speed in which to be served a dish you had ordered less than 45 seconds prior to it arriving. I’ve had slower falls down stairs than this, and the drinks weren’t even with us yet.
I reasoned that this must be some space anomaly whereby everything operates at a speed that the poorly evolved human brain just can’t comprehend and therefore I must have already had my drink – obviously launched at me in the form of protons that were blasted at me as if from an exploding neutron star.
So with a perplexed look I raised my fork and tucked into the pasta.
What was I really expecting? Compliments to the chef? A rolling of my head as I make orgasmic sounds of sheer delight?
Well, I know Italian food well, and this, this pile of jaundice blandness was not even comparable to a petrol station pasta bowl that has sat two weeks past its sell-by-date.
No, this was the offering of a meal that had been reheated for perhaps no less than three attempts in order to sell it.
It was a disgrace to the Italian world of food.
Hell, it would have been a disgrace as a first attempt at cooking by a primate that had been pumped full of sedatives.
I couldn’t stomach more than a mouthful, and I’ve eaten at a Little Chef before.
I hacked at the pasta until it was a pulpy mess – in the hope that they couldn’t reheat and serve this to the next poor S.O.B that enters Ask with a slither of hope of receiving an edible meal.
I covered my plate with my paper napkin, as if covering a victim of an accident that didn’t make it, and pushed the plate away with the repulsion I reserve only for when Jordan appears on TV.
The waitress scuttled over and slammed two drinks down in front of us and then took my road kill dinner away without even asking (ironic) if I enjoyed it. Had she enquired, I feel I would have stood up and fired off a tsunami of abuse about the insult to my taste buds that I had just gone through.
Let us not forget that all of this, the food order, the food serving, the pulping of the food, the drink servings and removal of my plate had happened in less than three minutes . . .
I didn’t even wait for the wife to finish. She too had had a single mouthful of this utter garbage and what with her fiery temper, I thought it best to settle our bill and exit before she went all Godzilla on the restaurant and reduced the building to debris.
So, short of around £18 later, I exited Ask with a feeling of betrayal, confusion and hunger.
One thing I always promise after a bad dining experience is that the establishment that wronged me will never, ever see another penny of my money and with that I will ensure that anyone prepared to listen will know of my woes. It might have been a bad day for the restaurant . . . however, is your stomach asking for sustenance? Then just Ask yourself, do you feel lucky, punk? Well? Do you?
On the Right to Bear Arms
It’s at times like this when I can feel every inch of the 3,675 miles that separate London from Washington DC. Oakland, Aurora, Oak Creek, New York City, Minneapolis, Brookfield, Newtown, New York, Chicago – and that’s just a small selection of 2012’s mass shootings (you can read about some more here). I could fill this entire article with the names of the wounded and the dead. It’s almost too much to take in. Never has the American anti-gun lobby had more ammunition. And yet, as it stands, I’m more inclined to despair for it than to hope.
What took place at Sandy Hook Elementary School was beyond nauseating, beyond horrific. Another mass murder, another gun-wielding maniac, another tragedy. The day itself may not have been about politics, but its aftermath should be. And when Newtown is finally left, out of sight of the cameras and the speculators, to pick up the pieces, I wonder what – if anything at all – will have changed.
“We can’t accept events like this as routine,” President Obama intoned in the wake of the shootings, “Are we really prepared to say that we are powerless in the face of such carnage?” Obama’s emotional barometer was spot on, but what of his political one? Sadly, the promise of “meaningful action” can only be received with a dose of cynicism; we’ve seen it one too many times.
After the near-fatal shooting of Gabrielle Giffords at Tucson, the President assured the public that there would be a “national conversation… about everything from the merits of gun safety laws to the adequacy of our mental-health system”. There was no conversation. After the Aurora cinema murders, many pleaded for a debate about the laws that allowed James Holmes to own the semi-automatic rifle, shotgun and handgun with which he massacred 12 people and injured many more. There was no debate. Change has been slower than glacial.
So what more can we expect now? US gun laws are as lax as ever: the ban on assault weapons ended in 2004; Republicans, with all their links to the NRA, currently dominate the House of Representatives; and recently, the state of Michigan passed a bill which means that people will be able to carry concealed guns into schools (including classrooms and dormitories), bars, hospitals, places of worship and entertainment venues. And all this with the knowledge that 15 of the 25 worst mass shootings of the last half-century have taken place in the Land of the Free, with the knowledge that five of the 11 deadliest American shootings have taken place since 2007.
Still the pro-gun lobby won’t concede defeat. Still they persist with their “guns don’t kill people, people kill people” nonsense, even when the statistics belie their beliefs. It’s no secret that the US has a gun problem: 2009 saw 11,500 gun-related homicides, 554 unintentional deaths and 45,000 non-fatal assaults. With 88.8 guns for every 100 citizens in 2007 according to the Small Arms Survey, the USA has more firearms per person than any other country in the world – almost double the number of Yemen, the country in second place. But at the same time, this is a country where the NRA (a group of over 4 million members) could throw $2.9 million into its campaigns in 2011 alone, ten times the amount its opponents could muster.
It’s hardly a surprise, then, that the Second Amendment continues to be treated as sacred. Not when Republican Louie Gohmert isn’t the only one wishing that there had been more guns, not less, at Sandy Hook: “I wish to God [that the principal, Dawn Hochsprung] had had an M-4 in her office… so when she heard the gunfire, she pulls it out… and takes his head off before he can kill those precious kids”. Not when radio host Alex Jones isn’t alone in baselessly refiguring the events, with extraordinary conviction, as a conspiracy, a staged shooting designed to demonise gun owners’ rights. Not when Larry Pratt, head of the 300,000-strong Gun Owners of America, isn’t the only one who thinks that it’s the gun control supporters who “have the blood of little children on their hands”.
Perhaps the pervasiveness of such pig-headedness – opposed as it is to any debate over Second Amendment rights – is the reason why the words ‘gun control’ weren’t even whispered in the presidential campaign. They’re not, after all, vote-winning words. It’s by no means realistic to expect guns to be outlawed overnight; views are far too entrenched for that – the very fact that events like Newtown prompt Americans, absurdly, to bulk-buy assault weapons (without a moment’s hesitation) for fear of them being banned says it all.
And the fear isn’t unwarranted; it’s recently been announced that Obama supports proposals to outlaw assault weapons with the kind of federal law that expired in 2004. For the safety of the countless American lives at risk, you’d better damn well hope he means it. For as long as the Second Amendment and all its implications remain undebated, unchallenged, unexamined, heinous massacres like Columbine, like Virginia Tech, like Newtown will keep happening with the regularity of clockwork.
No longer is Barack Obama fishing for votes; and no longer is he seeking re-election. And though he’s up against a powerful pressure group indeed, now is the time for him to fulfil his promises. As Paul Waldman and Jaime Fuller wrote so incisively in The American Prospect, Obama may have reacted to the Sandy Hook tragedy as a parent, but he must act as a president. Then, and only then, will we be justified in having the audacity to hope for change.
“Being Gay is Disgusting” An Interview with Author Edward Falzon
The following interview was originally printed in Freethinker magazine, and has been kindly permitted to be reproduced here.
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The Christian right are always quick to cite the Bible when opposing gay marriage, claiming their bigotry is a reflection of God’s will. But how well do they actually know their “holy” book? Are they aware that the same book also advocates human sacrifices or that, as well as condemning homosexuals, it bans cross-breeding animals and wearing clothes made from multiple types of thread?
In Being Gay is Disgusting, Edward Falzon argues that religious fundamentalists are cherry picking which parts of the Bible they follow to suit their own prejudices. He points out that the god of the Bible displays a moral code that is at odds with that of most modern day Christians and draws attention to the parts of the so-called “good book” that nobody who isn’t a complete psychopath could possibly follow. Being Gay is Disgusting lays the Bible bare and pokes fun at some of its less ethically commandments. I caught up with Edward to find out the inside story of this controversial yet highly necessary book.
RS: What inspired you to write Being Gay is Disgusting?
EF: Many years ago, I became curious about the contents of the biblical books – not from a spiritual “I’m looking for answers” perspective but rather an intellectual curiosity. I began to read a Bible and immediately fell asleep. I had discovered why even Christian websites admit that over 90 percent of Christians haven’t read it; it’s long, it’s boring and it’s repetitive. Incidentally, I never use a capital for “bible” any more. It’s not like there’s only one of them; there are countless translations, leaning towards whatever ideology the translators desire, so “bible” has very much become a noun.
RS: Your book sheds light on disturbing parts of the Bible that most Christians probably don’t know exist. Do you think that Christianity’s popularity is partly down to its followers’ lack of familiarity with the book?
EF: Absolutely. In fact during the “Biblical Morality Tour” that I’m doing now, I’ve spoken several times on the subject of Christians not following their own bibles. Not only that, but they wouldn’t follow some biblical directives if Jesus himself were standing next to them holding a crucifix to their heads. They think they’re following the bible in their morality and lifestyle but they simply aren’t. That’s what I try to discuss with Christians and I want to encourage them not to follow [the] Bible any more than they are now.
RS: Can you say a little bit about the tour that you’re doing?
EF: I’m presently travelling throughout North America giving speeches, primarily on biblical morality. I’d prefer debates but ministers and theologians are yet to step up and share the stage.
The Secular Student Alliance has been very supportive, with several student groups booking me to speak on campus. Many groups connected to the Center For Inquiry have also invited me to speak. It has been great meeting so many atheist and secular people who are as concerned for civilisation as I am.
My expat friends in Shanghai, where I’ve lived for four years, aren’t really aware of the constant and seemingly accelerating encroachment of religion into politics, education and law. I want to do my part to stop that, and so I’m on tour, speaking to anyone who wants to listen.
RS: As well as being informative and insightful, your book is also laugh out loud funny in places. How important a tool do you think humour is in the fight against hateful religions such as Christianity?
EF: I think humour is crucial. It’s perfectly okay to ridicule the ridiculous. People have been misled – not since the last election, not even their whole lives, but for literally millennia. They don’t realise it, so taking what they have perceived to be solemn and true all their lives and delivering it as an insightful punch line has the effect of helping them to see how silly these notions are. In some cases, it can even snap someone out of religion entirely.
RS: Have you received much opposition to the book from Christians/religious types?
EF: The only opposition I’ve encountered so far is people saying that Being Gay is Disgusting only covers the Old Testament, which Christians say isn’t as relevant as the New Testament.
Of course Original Sin, from which Jesus is said to have come to absolve us, all the commandments, which Jesus is said to have come to uphold, and the prophecies of Jesus’ coming, which Jesus is said to have fulfilled, are all in the Old Testament. No one would have been on the lookout for Jesus if the Old Testament didn’t exist.
The OT also accounts for 80 per cent of the content and ninety-five per cent of the timeline of any Bible, so to disregard it is to disregard most of one’s owner’s manual. Other than that, there has been a small amount of opposition on “moral” grounds, but for the most part, even Christians have been positive about this book, acknowledging that it’s okay to laugh at the silly parts of the Bible.
RS: What would you say is the most disturbing part of the Bible that you discovered whilst writing your book?
EF: It’s hard to pick just one, since it seems that any minor transgression comes with a death penalty, which is pretty damn disturbing. Of course, above that would be the transgressions that were not specified as wrong but which resulted in death anyway.
Lot’s wife comes to mind. All the angel said was “run for the hills and don’t look back.” Apparently he meant that literally because when the missus looked back, she was killed by being turned into a pillar of salt.
But I think the most disturbing story might be the one of Jephthah in Judges 11. He makes a deal with Yahweh that if he wins in the upcoming battle, he’ll sacrifice whatever first comes out of his gates to greet him when he gets home. He wins the war, heads home and his daughter come out of the gates. He’s sad but still goes ahead and sacrifices her on the altar. There’s better morality in Mein Kampf.
RS: Why do you think some Christians are so obsessed with homosexuality?
EF: Because they’re trained from the pulpit to be bigots and taught only to read the “happy” parts of the bible. They don’t realise that something as random as Yahweh liking the smell of burning fat is mentioned more often than homosexuality.
RS: How has Being Gay is Disgusting been received by the gay community?
EF: Extremely positively. I was very gratified to see reviews come in from South Florida Gay News, Out in Jersey, Out in Perth and so on. Actually I think most of my reviews have been from gay mags and every single one was extraordinarily supportive.
RS: You have previously stated that you were raised in a Catholic household. When did the turning point come where you realised that the Bible probably wasn’t true?
EF: Actually that was only once I started reading it a few years ago. As a Catholic kid, I was never given a Bible to read; I was just told that Jesus totally loves me and Hell is a bad place.
After prepping myself with multiple shots of Red Bull and Jolt Cola and sticking toothpicks in my eyelids, I began reading through it from page one. But there’s the problem; page one is just objectively wrong. It asserts that the moon is a source of light, that the sun is inside the sky of earth, above which there is water stored for rain, and that the stars are there purely to remind us of the seasons.
I also delved into archaeology to find out the accuracy of the Bible’s historical claims. It didn’t go in favour of the biblical account. Archaeologists have found less than nothing to support the biblical account, by which I mean they’ve not only found nothing in support of it but also an abundance of evidence against it. The Old Testament biblical accounts, at least in the books of Moses, are entirely, inescapably untrue.
RS: You have criticised the Bible’s effect on children, stating that growing up in a household run by religious fundamentalists can jeopardise a child’s well-being. Can you elaborate on this?
EF: Though most households, Christian or otherwise, make the safety and well-being of their kids the highest priority, many fundamentalist families have allowed their children to die rather than take them to those Satan-inspired hospitals. Mothers have drowned or even stoned their own children because they’ve sincerely believed that Yahweh and/or Jesus told them to. A quick search on CNN, BBC or Huffington Post will show story after story.
RS: Finally, do you have any more books on the cards and what can we expect from you throughout the years to come?
EF: My Biblical Morality series is a pentalogy that began with Being Gay is Disgusting. I’m now writing the fifth volume, which will be about the whole New Testament, from Matthew to Revelation. The title is Women Should Shut Up and Listen. It’ll be out just as soon as I’ve finished it. Then I’ll write the three in the middle.
Phase one of my tour covers the Pacific and Midwest states of the USA and the southwestern provinces of Canada. I’d like to get enough interest to be able to do phases two and three, which will take me to Southeast Canada, the northeast states of the USA, the southern states and the West. I’d like to be on tour until next year but this depends on how long my budget and sanity hold out.
I’ve also started blogging on the Huffington Post at www.huffingtonpost.com/edward-falzon so that’s a great place to keep up with what pisses me off in current affairs. I’m gradually developing a YouTube channel for the enjoyment and ridicule of netizens everywhere, which you can find at www.youtube.com/edwardfalzon. Naturally, I also do the whole Twitter and Facebook things so follow me at @edwardfalzon and add me at www.facebook.com/edwardfalzon.