In 1974 my parents took us to Malta to see our relatives who were in the UK Forces out there. My memories are of endless cold Easter rain, Sorrow by David Bowie and For ever and ever by Demis Roussos being played endlessly on the hotel PA.
Don Mintoff had just taken Malta independent of the UK, there was no butter to be had on the island outside the NAAFI, and the power went off promptly at 10pm.
This time we were hoping for a better experience.

2 hours and 45 minutes from Gatwick, the world's busiest single runway airport, lie the islands of Malta, Gozo and Comino. Strategically placed between Sicily and Libya, they are, apart from the tiny island of Lampedusa, the Southermost outcrop of the EU.
Fought over down the centuries, owned by most of the Eurpean countries you've ever heard of and a few you haven't, they ended up asking the British to colonise them in order to throw out the French, and in 1955 even asked to become part of the United Kingdom (which would have been of huge benefit to both countries) but when refused entry (no one seems to know quite why) they promptly sued for independence which they gained in 1964. They joined the EU (that great Socialist experiment seemingly designed exclusively to transfer money from Northern Europe to Southern Europe) in 2004 (along with most of the rest of the world) and will be joining the Euro in 2006.

Have you ever wondered where all those old 1970s British cars, vans and trucks went? AECs, Fodens and Leyland trucks, Hillman Imps, Austin 1100s and 1300s, Marinas, Hillman Avengers, Vauxhall Vivas, Vauxhall Crestas, AEC coaches with fins like F86 Sabres, MkII Cortina Estates with the unmistakable staccato-sounding starter motor...
Amazingly, not all went the way of the crusher; some survive in Gozo. Spared the ravages of cold, wet English winters and salt on the roads, the bodies have survived, and whilst the commercial vehicles have had to have had engine transplants by now, the antique cars look staggeringly original. Specialist shops have sprung up to support them, offering spares (and sympathy, I suspect).

It's amazing they survive at all because although the road system, in spite of being quite well planned with wide carriageways, roundabouts and no traffic lights, is totally unmaintained and has universally appalling road surfaces. My theory is that Malta joined the EU just to get some funding for new road surfaces...
The road signs are rare, contradictiory and confusing. Place names change from signpost to signpost, and roads, especially within built up areas, bear little relationship to their cartographic representations. Malta is badly in need of a satellite-photo based map.

And they are truly dreadful drivers: not actually dangerous, because they never get up enough speed to be dangerous, just really dumb.
Pulling out unexpectedly without indicating, parking stupidly, stopping unexpectedly, driving along the wide roads very close to the centre line forcing unnecessarily extended forays in to the opposite carriageway to overtake (and you'll want to do a lot of that, because they are really slow...).
And the white centre lines are all set to "No Overtaking" except where it is blatantly lethal to do so, so there isn't really a clue as to where it may be safe to overtake.
Indicators are simply not used. At all.
Vague hand-signals are occasionally used, but quite what they are intended to signify, only the driver knows: anyway they are universally ignored.
Lane discipline is non-existent, except that once a lane is chosen it is stuck to no matter what, even if you pass on the left.
Import taxes on cars must be high as very few decent cars were in evidence.

In many ways Malta is more English than England: a little like Barbados, it seems rooted in that Morris Minor Traveller, warm beer, nuns cycling to church on misty mornings past the village green, smack of leather on willow, jolly hockey sticks, Marquis of Queensberry rules olde England that disappeared in the long-haired, groovy '70s. Whereas we've moved on: punk, yuppiedom, Acid, Cool Britannia, Blair. Maybe not better, then, just On...
The food shops contain all those vital 70's food groups you thought were extinct: Birds custard powder, Spangles, Oxo cubes, gum drops, Pale Ale Party Sevens.... all UK packaged, so there must be big business in FMCG exports to Malta.
The local cuisine's a bit unimaginative: except for the odd local pastry, you could be anywhere. Surely there must be native cusine beyond rabbit, which I can get fresh at my local (excellent, organic, supplies all the Oxford colleges, strictly cash, mind you...) butcher?
I am told that stripped of fur, cat looks and tastes remarkably like rabbit; not that I could possibly comment....

The buildings are, without exception, constructed from locally quarried sandstone blocks, which may be indented by fingernails and sanded with the naked palm of your hand. The softness and lack of tensional strength in relation to most building materials makes for interesting architecture (where they haven't resorted to pre-stressed concrete in tension members). The older houses are constructed entirely from huge arches very close together holding up short-span floor blocks. As Malta and Gozo were deforested a very long time ago, decent wood simply did not exist, and the floors and ceilings are all stone. Floorboards seem an entirely alien concept and wood is only used for doors and windows surrounds. This does, however, make for excellent insulative properties, however, with the houses remaining cool throughout the day.

The salt air ablates the sandstone soon after quarrying and creates an attractive hardened skin, with every block a slightly different shade of brown, which makes the house a whole lot more interesting to look at than breeze block.

We had a Kia Sedona as we were 5 and the difference between that and a FIAT Stilo were Night and Day: the Kia had great seats, bags of grunt from a 2.9L, 16V turbo diesel engine, flexible seating, bags of headroom and separate air-conditioning settings for front and rear passengers. If it had rear wheel drive (and was built by BMW) it would be perfect.