Not sure about the calm see.  I've had some proper kickings in that part of the Med.

Malta is beautiful but I've always found it a slightly odd place as given its location and history it isn't really sure if it's part of Europe or part of Africa.  The language is a fascinating mix of Italian, English and Arabic.

I reckon today's rof challenge should be to design matthew a tattoo for next year's hollibobs.

It was a very well written, considered piece. 
 

I have to say I’m pretty unimpressed by a lot of the comments. comments from professional, educated people whose business is, in purest essence, the rights of man. The world is absolutely fooked.

We had a similar character in Majorca earlier in the summer, who parade it up and down the promenade between hotels and the sea cliffs with his top off, and his Swastika adorned pecs twitching at the impure majority.  
The owner of the hotel said he was a Russian and had been in the town for about nine months.  
He did this parade every day. One day when we were there he got into an argument with an old man who challenged him to be less of a tw at and think of others and be peaceful. In reaction the Nazi was waving his arms, and stepping back to make an angry space between them, speaking louder and louder,  and then he toppled back off the edge of the low sea wall and onto the steps, and tumbled a few meters down clunk clunk clunk into the flat rocks below. He stood up bleeding from the shoulder blaming the old Spanish man. And the elderly gentlemen just raised an arm and said ‘Heil Hitler’, laughter abounded. Perfect. 

FTAOD my comment was intended to point out that I would have been a pussy, not questioning Matthew's surprisingly brave but lawyerly sensible action.  TBF he is a knight and I am not.

Matthew's subsequent feeling of pity and contempt is interesting. Many fascist types are absurd. Hitler, Trump, Mussolini, Berlusconi: all of them absurd, almost comedic in their puffed up ridiculousness. But capable of doing terrible things. The real problem is how to know when to laugh and when to fight. Hindsight makes the distinction clear, but I suspect it's not clear at the time. How does a state turn fascist? Like bankruptcy: gradually and then suddenly. 

Strap in- we’re about to find out.

the recipe is social instability (triggering the evolved survival instinct to identify with perceived prevailing norms) + fascists in position of influence

stability is the most important thing in the world but we mostly take it for granted

Wigs on the Green is a brilliant illustration of what Heff said. 

I very much like Malta and Gozo.

I agree, clergs, though I also think stability is quite unusual

some historians have commented that you get very long periods of stability punctuated by massive change, but I think the reality for most people has probably been that instability is more usual

even agrarian societies where we have massive periods of time in which nothing seems to have happened were probably in reality constantly struggling with weather and famine, to say nothing of constant illness and death (particularly of children)

then you have really quite long periods of time where there is massive instability: 100 years war; wars of the roses; the reformation and associated religious wars like the 30 years war; the British civil war period, French revolution, Napoleon, 1848, Russian revolution, etc etc etc

Saw an Italian Nazi staying in our hotel on a Greek island about 5 years ago.

He wasn't completely tatted in swastikas etc but did have an SS double sieg tattoo on one of his inner upper arms.  We mentioned it to the hotel staff who hadn't previously noticed it and were utterly disgusted. They went away checked the booking and told us they were leaving tomorrow anyway.

Given their reaction to having a Nazi exposed as one of their guests I'm pretty confident that his next bowl of tzatziki with his last evening meal was not racially pure and had more than a little, er, Greek DNA in it.