SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS – it’s Kaa the Ssssssnake from The Jungle Book
I heff juSSSSSSt teliffert a sssspeech at de Luntin Ssssschool off Ekkonommicssssss
You can listen to Joseph Muscat’s speech at the London School of Economics in the podcast link below.
It’s excruciating, and that’s just the accent and the rigid delivery, like somebody reading out a speech written by somebody else for somebody else, and trying to act as though he gives a damn.
Totally wooden – that the audience kept from dropping off is testament to the rigid self-discipline that gets them into that university in the first place.
But the thing I really can’t stand is the SSSSSSS every time he sssstumblessss across an S in a word.
“Here’s an S,” he must tell himself, “so I must pronounce it like ‘hiss’.”
Will Leslie Skipper please find him a good elocution teacher or speech therapist or whatever it is they call them nowadays and train the prime minister in the proper pronunciation of that ruddy S.
Like so many Maltese who have catastrophic difficulty with the English ‘s’, he sounds like Kaa the Snake from The Jungle Book – and when he runs into a battery of S-words, I almost feel sorry for him.
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http://richmedia.lse.ac.uk/publiclecturesandevents/20140721_1830_commonwealthAt65.mp3
Have I missed it or have Alternattiva Demokratika not said anything about Wenzu Mintoff’s judicial appointment?
How can they get away without releasing a statement?
Can someone stick a microphone in Arnold Cassola’s face and ask him what he thinks?
They shouldn’t be allowed to escape their past so easily.
It is ALTERNATTIVA DEMOKRATIKA’S FOUNDER we are talking about here. It’s useless acting holier than thou about Edward Snowden, Palestine and drug liberalisation if you can’t take a stand on such a pressing issue close to home which affects them so directly.
So what’s it going to be? A statement of regret à la David Cameron’s or a suldat ta’ l-azzar moment à la Joseph Muscat’s?
These things matter. Alternattiva Demokratika have a respectable exterior and some good policies but there’s always the sneaking suspicion that they’re Communists in disguise, or that the sole reason why they persevere in spite of their dismal electoral performances is to hamper the Nationalist Party.
Do the masses even know that Alternattiva Demokratika was established by a Labour activist who, when tired of his own party, returned to Labour?
This is Alternattiva Demokratika’s chance to either come clean about their political leanings or to nail their flags firmly to the Labour mast. Either way, the many (ex)-Nationalists who vote Alternattiva Demokratika and feel so comfortable doing so should be told.
We want to know whether Alternattiva Demokratika congratulate their former leader on his appointment or whether they think his appointment is risible and is an affront to democracy. It’s time for Alternattiva Demokratika to to take a stand.
Someone who votes Alternattiva and has still not realised what this party stands for, is not a Nationalist. I would say good riddance.
http://carmelcacopardo.wordpress.com/2014/07/16/l-imhallef-wenzu-mintoff/
It would be fair the point out that AD was not founded or set-up by either Wenzu Mintoff or/and Toni Abela, but by environmentalists who believed that it was time to participate in elections rather than remain a lobby group.
I believe that Wenzu’s and Toni’s bold public denouncement of the MLP, and their expulsion drew solidarity from the likes of Cassola, Vassallo, Mallia, Cachia, Manduca, Balzan & Co. – and they were roped in.
Wenzu was elected the first chairperson simply because at that time he was an MP.
AD’s Carmel Cacopardo has writtten on this subject. http://www.inewsmalta.com/dart/20140717-im-allef-wenzu-mintoff
What Little Joey needs is a good stand-in like ‘Albert RN’
Gieli nnutajt kemm imeclaq meta jitkellem?
“I do not know who put down the plane and I don’t have the intelligence to say that.” – It really sums it all up quite neatly.
[Daphne – Not a Leslie Skipper job, then. In idiomatic British English, ‘put down’ is what you do to horses when they break a leg. And a brighter person would have immediately noticed the inherent pitfall in giving Muscat a sentence like ‘I don’t have the intelligence to say that’.]
That wasn’t in Muscat’s crib sheet. He was answering a question.
Unfortunately, I had a bout of insomnia last night and decided to sit through the whole gruelling 90 minute podcast.
Clearly, Muscat is delivering a lecture on a topic in which he is clearly way above his depth, but hardly stumbles whilst reading the scripted speech. His pronunciation as always, is atrocious but we do not really expect any better when he rips his own mother tongue to shreds, let alone English. We can also forgive his somewhat cocky (verging on inappropriate) comments and his attempts at humour (somewhat offensive), but he is young and he is hip (or so he thinks).
Muscat starts to go off track in the Q&A session, as no amount of scripting could ever prepare him for the random and diverse questions that he was asked. Funnily enough, a Maltese person in the audience asks about the commonwealth and Malta’s immigration problems, which had me wondering briefly whether the audience was peppered with elves.
In his attempts to reply to these questions, Muscat starts to flounder and if his pronunciation was already bad, it worsens significantly, as does his grammer. Clearly, he is being forced to come up with replies on the spur of the moment and his CPU is now overloaded. In an attempt to formulate some sort of reply, he fails to collect his thoughts and replies in sometimes incomplete phrases of badly pronounced maltesisms.
His phrase “I do not know who put down the plane and I don’t have the intelligence to say that” had me laughing as I felt it so befitting of this ‘wannabe’ heavyweight who has no clout whatsoever.
I find it somewhat humiliating to have a Prime Minister who is so capable of showing his complete lack of lustre the moment he is off script. The Q&A session shows the real depth of his knowledge on the subject, and what is more, it shows him up as a Prime Minister who is unable to phrase a single fully articulate sentence unless he is actually reading. Go figure.
“Equating me to Mandela makes me a bit nervous.”
Nobody ‘equated you to (sic) Mandela’ you silly sod. They just gave you the same little something. There are other, far more important and worrying things going back home, of which you have full knowledge, that should make you more than just a little bit nervous.
Forget Mandela, Joey.
Cyrus Engerer got there before you.
Try Mahatma Gandhi next time or, perhaps, Adenauer.
None of them have any Ss.
Elocution Lesson number 1.
Now repeat with me for a hundred times. No that’s not four hundred dumbo.
I am an arsssssse, I am an arsssssse.
Totally wooden?
Don’t say that. He may be sold for firewood miskin.
At five euro per twenty kilos it will be ‘wert’ it.
Hawn man, ghandi xkora ta’ mitt kilo.
Leslie Skipper would have to be an alchemist not a speechwriter to entertain the delusion of managing that.
Why is he so damn proud of his age?
The same thought occurred to me. He never misses a chance to mention his age.
Ghax ahna il-Maltin hi nitkellmu b’hafna lingwi, u ma nitkellmux wahda minnhom sura ta nies hijja orrajt.
Tenk you.
What are the hafna lingwi. The majority of the Maltese cannot string together an intelligible sentence in Italian and this is a language of our close neighbour.
I notice that Dr Muscat made a remark about English food and the audience laughed. This is an insult to the English. I find traditional English food better than Maltese food.
Did the British Minister of State introducing the P.M. use the word “astonishing” as in an “astonishing 19 heads of states from Commonwealth countries” in attendance at the P.M.’s speech?
He spoke of Malta seeking independence – could not come sooner (not if MLP had its way), and then the reasons why Malta cherishes the EU more than the Commonwealth…because of shared values!
I’m gobsmacked. Next thing I was expecting him to say is the importance of respect for human rights by all partnering countries he chooses to deal with and flaunt about back at home!
The jjjjjjjjj and the aaaaaaaaaaa complement the ssssssss whenever Joe tries to soften scandal by moaning ” U x fijjjjjaaaa din ?” We have been bearing with Caesar`s weaknesses and ailments for nigh two years now.