The most exciting thing ever to happen at the Stella Maris feast
The feast of Stella Maris parish in Sliema is a serious contender for the most boring feast in Malta, if not the entire Roman Catholic world.
In all the years (21) I lived down the street from Stella Maris church, you couldn’t even tell it was happening most of the time. It was that subdued.
Michael Falzon, now the famous Labour politician, dedicated his youth and much of his adult life to trying to vamp it up and generate interest with fireworks and a purcissjoniand so on, but there you go.
It was mainly people who lived in the narrow back streets leading down to the xatt (he didn’t) who took an interest and nobody else even noticed.
The kind of people who predominantly lived in that parish are just not into festi. I don’t imagine much has changed with the more recent waves of incomers who have replaced them, because they don’t have the acute sense of distinction between the three Sliema parishes, between the relative qualities and significance of this street and that street, that the original Sliema natives do.
And they don’t much care about festi either, unless it’s that of their own native town or village to which they return for the occasion along with the rest of the extended family.
So when this 28-year-old German woman danced thrillingly around the band on the big night, it was the event of the centuries – the late 19th century when the parish came into existence, the entire 20th century, and this one. For the first time ever, the Stella Maris festa was worth going to. I would have loved to have been there for the laughs.
But instead she was arrested, kept overnight in a police cell, then charged in court, where she pleaded guilty to “disturbing a service of the Roman Catholic Church” (I quote Times of Malta).
How ridiculous. For a start, it was not a service of the Roman Catholic Church but a band march, and secondly, she did not disturb anything because, presumably, the band kept playing and marching unless they were frozen to pillars of salt with erotic excitement of seeing a young woman in a bikini for the first time in their lives.
Her words – “I think it was a bit much” – must be the understatement of the month.
31 Comments Comment
Leave a Comment
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20140828/local/god-will-forgive-me-says-bikini-woman.533424
“A bit much” especially when one thinks of the boys from the kazin throwing beer and beer bottles everywhere and showing parts of their body the sun and no else should see.
And this was another exaggeration:
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20140828/local/museum-treasurer-held-for-alleged-child-sexual-molestation.533496
This will discourage volunteers to help scouts, football nurseries and other voluntary groups who have children under their care.
[Daphne – Exactly what I thought: that I would advise any man to stay well away from anything involving children.]
Issa naraw kemm se japplikaw biex imorru għalliema u kif qal tajjeb Ġaħan min se jindriga jieħu ħsieb it-tfal? Biċċa taħraq verament. Hawn Malta kollox spiċċa tal-biki.
Did the police bother to verify whether there were any (more serious) incidents involving this person?
He had to resign his teaching job and his reputation ruined based on a claim of one child.
I recall another incident when an adult with a child’s mental abilities was charged with touching the private parts of a woman’s baby – she was nappy-changing on the beach.
He was acquitted of course.
Silly mother and even sillier police.
It’s already happening in North America. The teaching profession is now so much overwhelmingly empty of male teachers that many are wondering if it leaves young boys without that one extra male adult figure in their life who they can look up to.
It’s also leaving several female teacher single. Let’s face it, many people meet their future husband at a workplace. Hard to do that when all the teachers are women.
She should have gone to San Gejtanu in Hamrun and she would have been part of the crowd and cheered on, served free drinks, raised shoulder high, and protected from the police by Hamrunizi.
Ma nistax nifhem x’raw differenti l-pulizija minn dawk it-tfajliet fil-marċi tal-festi, nofshom għariewen, b’xorts bilkemm jgħattilhom patatthom u b’Tshirt bilkemm jgħattilhom sidirhom, mxarbin għasra u b kollox see through. Two weights and two measures.
Jien naf x’raw different.
Din barranija.
Mela naghmlu l-arja. Il-Pulizija ta’ Malta m’huma xejn hlief manigoldi bl-uniformi.
U le Baxx, forsi haduha dawra bir RHIB wara.
Tidhaqx. Ghax Kif ghamlu l-arja maghha, jistghu jaghmlu mieghek.
I had my particulars taken for sitting on a bench outside a police station. I kid you not. I wasn’t sure whether refusing to give your details to a police officer is a crime, but he was huge and menacing, and I didn’t fancy a night in a cell. So I gave in, like thousands before me.
Surely you mean two boobs, two weights etc?
Contender for most boring feast in Malta ? – Santa Marija ta’ H’Attard……
Attard can’t be faffed with festas.
She must have been the cutest one there.
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20140826/local/bikini-dancer-shouldnt-have-been-sent-to-court.533240
I’ll take a pretty dancer in a bikini over a tramp any festa anytime. http://daphnecaruanagalizia.com/2014/08/maltas-ambassador-to-belgium-at-the-festa-tal-hamrun/
Perhaps the cherry on the cake was l-Onorevoli Falzon’s speech as president of the band club on Thursday 21st, at the conclusion of the concert commemorating the band club’s centenary celebrations.
It was an exercise in divisiveness and class hatred which disgusted all of us who were intent on listening to some good music – sewwa jghidu id-demm ma jsirx semm.
[Daphne – That’s the result of being raised as the Mintoffian grocer Muse’s son, with an illiterate mother, Karmena (who was, I must add, a very nice and decent woman well liked by most), in a requisitioned house in Amery Street, one of the smartest streets in the smartest parish in Malta’s smartest town, surrounded by members of the hated class who his father served at the counter in his shop a couple of doors away from his requisitioned house in the same street. And the irony is that the class hatred was not reciprocated, certainly not by the children who in our time lived in almost every house in every street of the neighbourhood, all of whom ran riot together in those streets regardless of political or socio-economic background, with few noted exceptions like Michael Falzon and his slightly younger brother Silvio. They were not allowed to mix with the rest of us in the street and were made to stay in the shop and study instead.]
Can we have an open and honest debate about class hatred in this country?
I was always intrigued by the ridicule and contempt shown towards tal-pepè for using Maltese words in English conversation, by people who might say “Aghmillu nice lid-doggy.”
But there you are – you use this column to complain. You should have blown a few raspberries, just like in panto, and shown him how ridiculous he was.
Slimizi bla bajd, the lot if you.
[Daphne – Ahem, excuse me, but….]
There might be something in that. Back in the mid-Fifties, when Dom Mintoff was Prime Minister and actively putting his class hatred into practice, his mother said to me: “I used to keep Duminku at home when he was young, making him study, while his friends were out at play. Do you think that is why he holds such a grudge against society?”
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20140824/local/woman-fined-for-running-dancing-in-bikini-near-religious-procession.533053
Nahseb il-Knisja ta’ Malta li l-hin kollu tishaq kemm hi Kristjana u Kattolika ahjar tiehu naqra hseib dawk l-gharajjes li qed jizzewgu fil-Knisja bi lbiesi mqacctin u skullati – ilbiesi,strapless, darhom kollu barra, – u l-bridesmaids ta’ maghhom, milli qed joholqu chaos fuq tfajla baranija li kienet bil-bikini fit-triq waqt li ziffnet mal-marci tal-festa tar-rahal.
Pajjiz tad-dahk. Jew tal-biki.
U xi nghidu ghal dawk il-hamallati meta il-vara tidhol il-knisja u kullhadd liebes kif irid. U l-kappillani ma jifthux halqhom Mbaghad tmur xi mara barranija sleeveless u jkeccuha l-barra jekk ma tilbix xi xalla.
L-aqwa li ngħajtu Viva l-qaddis/a…. u niġbdu l-vara lura ħalli ma nħalluhiex tidħol. Ma niflaħx aktar nara purċinellati waqt li tkun dieħla l-vara jew fil-knisja sakemm il-vara titpoġġa f’postha, kollha f’isem il-qaddis/a. Min jaf kemm jidħku bina minn hemm fuq.
What she did is a fraction of what happens during those horrid festas. RACIST POLICE FORCE !
Sorry Daphne you got this one wrong…San Girgor beats the lot (thank God) for boredom…despite Silvio’s contributions and incense swaying.
But why give money to the church?
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20140829/local/bikini-woman-produces-shirt-to-raise-funds-for-stella-maris-church.533634
Shall we pool together and get Michael a T-shirt?
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20140829/local/bikini-woman-produces-shirt-to-raise-funds-for-stella-maris-church.533634
I disagree, the firework show was excellent and worked very well with the music. I never noticed this dancing woman at all. But as bringing publicity to the feast, 10 points I guess.