Malta’s Most Famous Person (apart from Britney)

Yes, Britney Spears has some sort of vague Maltese connection if you trace her family back far enough, but in all honesty it’s a bit of a stretch to call her Maltese.

Wikipedia says she is ‘of distant Maltese and Sicilian descent’ which doesn’t sound like she has a Maltese flag for a duvet cover. Canadian sing-along merchant Bryan Adams has a Maltese grandmother, but that doesn’t quite make it either. Besides, he’s one of Canada’s most famous musicians – they need him. Sharleen Spiteri… okay, for this list only people born in Malta are going to be considered. I actually saw alternative musician Martin Grech play live in Dublin once – along with about 7 other people – but that’s not enough for him to get on the list either, mainly due to the fact that he’s rather less famous than the others .So who is the most famous Maltese? Well, I don’t know if the three I’ve chosen are exactly household names (in fact they definitely are not, especially the second one) but I feel they deserve a place on a list of Notable Maltese. As always, feel free to disagree:

(3) Tony Drago: Snooker player. He is known as the tornado, apparently, and is the only one of these three I would even vaguely recognise if I bumped into him on the street. Even then he’d probably have to help me out with some charades style mimicry before I caught on. He was once ranked as high as 10th in the world, but of course time and tide wait for no man, and he’s slipped down the ladder a little bit since buy diflucan 50 mg then. However, if he challenges you to a game of pool in your local pub, keep your wallet in your pocket because he will take you to the cleaners.

(2) Juan Bautista Azopardo: No, can’t say I was too familiar with him either, but apparently this gentleman founded (or at least became the first commander of) the Argentinian navy. And no, it wasn’t the largest navy in the world at that time, but still pretty impressive for a man from Senglea. He managed to serve under the flags of France, Britain, Spain, the Netherlands and Argentina, which suggests a man with an eye to the main chance, but in my opinion this merely demonstrates admirable flexibility of thinking.

(1) Edward de Bono: Nicknamed “genius” as a teenager, and he seems to have lived up to that nomenclature as he got older. If you have ever used or even heard of the expression ‘lateral thinking’, well, that was one of his creations. In fact he is generally regarded as one of the greatest thinkers of our time, and as anyone who has tried will know, it is very difficult to become internationally recognised as a ‘thinker’: Too many distractions on TV. As if this weren’t enough, he created a documentary in 1995, which was designed to be viewed by people emerging from cryogenic hibernation in 2040. Not sure whether they thought that idea through all that well, but I’d still be interested in checking out a copy if anyone stumbles across it.

No, I don’t expect you agree with this list, so if you can come up with any better alternatives please go right ahead!