This is such a good article
I had missed the bit of state news where Michelle Muscat sent over a present for the Duchess of Cambridge. To answer Ivan Fenech’s question, a minaudiere is a tiny ‘bag’ with a hard shell, only just large enough to carry a powder compact and a lipstick, generally made like a piece of jewellery. They were fashionable in the 1920s and have gone through a bit of a revival with actresses on the red carpet, with Russians, Beirut fashionistas and the like.
Unfortunately, Mrs Muscat’s present was more of an embarrassment that reflects her taste and her ignorance. In London, any item of clothing or accessories with Swarovski crystals on it is strictly for Russians and Saudi princesses. It is, in fact, a very particular market.
As for Mrs Muscat’s role – she has none, so asking the question is pointless. This is simply a woman who never had anything and who has now found the keys to the sweet shop. Father Christmas comes every day and she’s having the time of her life. I would say let her do it. If nothing else, it’s an amusing spectacle.
Unless the Muscats make some serious money off the Chinese, it’s going to be over soon enough, and midway through their lives, not in their twilight years…though of course, in 25 years’ time, her husband may be brought back as Malta’s EU Commissioner, just like Karmenu Vella.
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http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20140930/opinion/High-flying-adored.537833
I wonder what Varist Bartolo – the well-mannered, well-educated Minister of Education – has to say about Mrs. First Lady-cum-Fashion expert’s decision to take her twins out of school without any justification.
I await his reaction, especially after the storm he created when accusing parents of justifying their children’s absence from school.
[Daphne – Evarist Bartolo is neither well mannered nor well educated.]
I know he isn’t. I was being ironic there.
Seriously, what is going on with that hair? Couldn’t read anything because I was too distracted by that stupid hairdo.
The only way to get hair like that is by sticking your head out of the window of a fast moving car, like some excitable pets do, tongue sticking out and all. Which is what I’m assuming she did when she reached New York.
Michelle Muscat had a very full programme of her own in China, when she and her husband and their ladies-in-waiting were met at the airport by Liu Qintao, who heads blacklisted China Communications Construction Company.
That very full programme remains a secret. We have not been given any details, regaled with any press releases, or treated to any photographs.
What are the Muscats hiding?
They should be hiding – their faces in shame!
Politica alla Puttanesca
Not just Swarovski crystals, but a great big in-yer-face Salib ta’ Malta too.
Exactly what an East Beirut fashionista would wear.
A Salib tal-Kavalieri to mark independence. You just have to laugh.
Joseph Muscat can always become an MEP for a few years.
“it’s going to be over soon enough”
Daphne, are you saying that the PN has a sporting chance of winning the next general elections? Your insight on this is most welcome.
[Daphne – No, I don’t. I think Joseph and Michelle Muscat are going to be there for 10 years, by which time people will be so sick of her showing off, boasting, simpering, and social climbing, thrown into sharp relief by her lack of eloquence and education, that she will be one of the main reasons for her husband’s downfall. I meant ‘soon enough’ in terms of her life, not soon enough in terms of everyone else’s. The years 40 to 50 pass in a flash. However, I am quite sure these two have a plan so that they don’t have to return to ordinary life in Burmarrad with the most thrilling feature in their social diary being yet another day on Phyllis Muscat’s boat or a downgrade to Marlene Seychell’s. That’s where all the power-broking and dealing enters the equation. ]
In 10 years’ time the Duchess of Burmarrad will be the First Lady.
[Daphne – Yes, and the ‘tu quoque’ response from her husband will be that Eddie Fenech Adami did it too.]
She’ll need a new title since she calls herself first lady now.
Daphne, are you excluding that she could lead a coup against her husband’s government?
One can never tell.
But I hope it’ll never come to the point where her husband raises taxes and she has to intercede on our behalf.
By the way, ‘Prof’ Lino Bianco has been appointed on the Wasteserv Board of Directors a few weeks ago.
Another trough for that snout.
Minister Mallia’s typos in a tweet.
http://imgur.com/jYcnDgo
Daphne, it is a real pity that you missed the only significant happening in Malta in the four weeks you were away.
The SMOM cosmetics bag/wallet/pouch.
I am so sorry you were not here. It was really great fun.
Overheard in Gzira: “Dak il-handbag li tat lid-dukessa biex tirremetti fih?”
Not sure if she was referring to her morning sickness, or feeling sick at the sight of the Swarovski crystals.
The song continues:’A rich…an instant queen’. I’ve skipped the words ‘beauitful thing’ on purpose.
If I had bought that kind of handbag for my wife, she would have kicked me out of the bedroom.
A purse covered in crystals and emblazoned with the cross of the Order of St John? What were they even thinking?
Swarovski crystals? She just doesn’t get it. And that’s apart from the fact that the eight-pointed cross is not synonymous with Malta but with the Knights of St. John.
You don’t mark Malta’s independence with the symbol of one of its ‘colonists’.
I do not think that the Muscats are in it for the ‘pittance’ of a prime minister’s salary. Joseph Muscat is no different from Mintoff in terms of avarice, and might actually be worse because unlike Mintoff, he has a grasping hamalla for a wife, who is determined to – and I quote her own words – “make the most of it” and get “more treatment”.
I do not think that it is only the Chinese who are going to finance the Muscats’ lifestyle post the PM stint.
By the way, did you read how the Chinese Communist Party is trying to persuade the Hong Kong tycoons not to ally themselves with the ongoing pro-democracy protestors? Sounds familiar. Thankfully, there is now a backlash by the Hong Kong protestors against the same shallow tycoons.
I wish that in 25 years we can send Dr Muscat as EU commissioner and that this excuse of a government will be over soon enough. I hope you have some prophetic powers Ms CG.
I’m baffled you would wish that unless you are a fan of Dr Muscat. I hope we will not be seeing his sorry face again after his stint as PM.
My wish, unrealistic though it may be, is that he is defeated at the next election and that we are rid of this lying, scheeming megalomaniac for good. I never thought I would once again witness such a ransacking of the public purse as there is now.
http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-29484083
Rings a bell, doesn’t it?
I do agree about the bad taste shown by Mrs Muscat in sending that kind of gift to Prince William’s wife.
It does reflect the pseudo Maltese/Indian/British taste of the so-called designer and the person who chose that gift.
I do differ, however, from the comments about Swarovski crystals. They are used by the best of real and authentic designers like Tom Ford and others. It is how and for what they are used that should be the judge of their use in haute couture fashion.
[Daphne – Hi Noel, yes of course I know that they are used by designers like Tom Ford, but that’s strictly for the Russian oligarch/Middle Eastern/Chinese market which is where most of the money to keep haute couture afloat comes from. You will never see Swarovski crystals on anyone else in London, and certainly not on the Duchess of Cambridge. Even the most cursory assessment of the sort of clothes she is always photographed wearing – never anything remotely flashy, and always mid-range designers – could have told Mrs Muscat what she needs to know, even if she is oblivious to the fact that the Maltese definition of what is (oh horrid word) ‘klessy’ in clothes is the exact, polar opposite of what it is in England.]
Klessy for women. For men it’s “smart”. As in “dejjem smart, gotbless”.
What worries is not the in-your-face excesses of the Taghna Lkoll crowd. Nor even the constant envelope-pushing in the pursuit of these excesses.
No, not at all.
What has me very worried is that people seem to accept these things as if they are normal.
They are in turn flaunted by the pigs busy at the trough, and somewhat enviously admired by the unfortunates left sniffing the feast from afar, i.e. on the Times of Malta comments-board.
Who started it? I would say it was the constellation of intellectuals, shadowy or otherwise, who rose to prominence in the wake of the 1987 PN government and economic liberalisation.
They set up a positive feedback loop, where bling was declared the new religion, the politicians ran with that message, the people started flaunting their new money, and the intellectuals praised the brave new world.
Then came Xarabank, and the marriage was consummated.
Call me jaded, but to those of us with neither power nor bling, it all looks like enslavement through democracy.
I am quite sick of her plastic smiles and droopy eyes. It seems as though government representatives and their families (who are pushing protocol to the limits) are mainly interested in photos for their album and fun they can have.
Can they really tell us what jobs have been created, what new industries have invested, when the power station is going to be really a finished project, which is really their contingency plan for Ebola and Isis and wars breaking out next door.
We seem to be living in a pretty pink bubble, a surreal world. What exactly is the plan?
I mean where is the road map taking us to…and where is the real sensible sense of the Opposition which does not hammer on these issues daily. Please all stop treating the electorate as idiots even though quite a few may be others aren’t.