Exclusive pictures of the prime minister’s special envoy to the World Tourism Organisation arriving in Madrid today
Joe Grima, the prime minister’s special envoy to the World Tourism Organisation, was in Madrid last week with Tourism Minister Edward Zammit Lewis and Malta’s ambassador in the Spanish capital, Mark Micallef.
Grima must have loved it, because he flew back there again today, on Ryanair. And I can bring you an exclusive photograph that solves the enduring mystery of how Muscat’s junk-food-quaffing special envoy fits into his seat: the armrest on the aisle is levered up to allow for the spillover.
There is another exclusive photograph showing how he is ferried from the plane through the airport in a wheelchair because of his obesity-related condition – otherwise known as too fat to walk any distance. He has disguised himself heavily with a cap pulled right down and a pair of dark glasses.
In both photographs, he is glued to his smartphone, just as he was in the official Department of Information photographs showing him at the WTO meeting table with Zammit Lewis and Mark Micallef. He loves that phone.
Now, having a special envoy who’s permanently confined to a wheelchair because of injury, disease or congenital reasons is one thing. Nobody is going to argue with that. Equal opportunities and so on.
But a special envoy who needs a set of wheels to get through airports because he’s forever stuffing his face on junk food and is too obese to walk even that short distance? No, honey, I don’t think so.
But this at least clears up the issue I wrote about here when he was first appointed: how he can possibly get on and off planes and buzz through airports when he has a disabled parking space just outside his flat because his weight/age combination renders him unable to walk any distance at all.
Hang on – one bit of information is still missing, isn’t it. How did he get up the stairs to the plane at Malta Airport? Gravity will help him down, but up is a bit taxing.
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L-aqwa li niehdu s-selfies liebsin l-isports cap. Tisthajlux gej minn xi workout.
After all, he has to have something special to be nominated special envoy.
He must have had someone accompanying him.
They have a goods lift type of elevator usually accessible at the rear door.
Usually the first passengers to board are mobility restricted persons.
But sending around the world an obese, very senior Mintoffian ex politician whose very children are close to pensionable age is such a joke.
http://www.ryanair.com/mt/questions/how-do-i-advise-ryanair-of-my-condition-or-request-special-assistance/
Under the Special Assistance Options heading, he’d be either option 1, 2 or 3.
Passengers who for some reason or other have difficulty in walking are boarded/disembarked using the catering lifter truck.
It’s not the catering lift truck. Have some respect for the baguettes.
It’s called an ambulift and its specific purpose is raising passengers with reduced mobility into an aircraft, whether they are wheelchair-bound or walkers.
As if he is going to be trusted on the catering truck. Min jaf kemm il-baguette irriserva.
They wouldn’t dare… He’ll eat everything.
To answer your last question, there is a special chair lift that is used to board people who are wheelchair bound, or have trouble with stairs for some other reason such as old age and the problems that can bring. They simply elevate them up to the plane’s door, and the passengers enter accordingly.
In Malta Airport’s case there are staff specifically employed to wheel those people around, bypassing the security part and the stairs/escalator before you reach the tax free shop and departure gates. They come up via a separate lift, although security measures are still taken.
You don’t provide equal opportunities by hogging on to a good job when you’re donkey’s years past your retirement age.
Bloody bastard.
A family member of mine is suffering mild but degenerative ostioarthritis, with smaller bones (fingers, ankles etc) first to go . KMPD / TM would not offer us an exemption from tax to buy an automatic car and we have to take a loan. Imbghad jigi dan bil-wicc tost kollu. U le!
Andy from Little Britain.
If you look closely, he has an orange seat belt extension across his belly because regular seatbelts are too short to go all that way around.
Note also the (orange) belt extension
More like Malta’s special convoy.
‘How did he get up the stairs to the plane at Malta Airport?’
Through the use of a ‘fcuk lifter’ perhaps?
A passenger with reduced mobility should never be seated in an aisle seat or emergency exit row. These are industry regulations.
It’s not nice to say, but the reason is that in the event of emergency evacuation, a slower (or disabled) individual would not hamper anybody else’s (his neighbours’) exit.
Now, as Ryanair has recently introduced seat allocations at check-in and finding a seat is no longer an experience akin to a LIDL barbecue-set sale, we must assume he booked his flight and boarded the plane as an able-bodied passenger and wangled his way into a wheelchair in Spain.
And a spare reserved parking slot across the road, just in case.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMyTs6H2__4
Go to 4:30 and see our man in Madrid flaunt his linguistic talent Renzi style (sono mucho enamorado de España)
http://www.rtve.es/television/20140324/comando-actualidad-gran-avenida/902740.shtml
Judging by his size, it seems that Mark Micallef has been gorging himself with Joe Grima on the tapas and paella.
I see that the advert on the back of the seat in front of him is about fresh sandwiches. Can one sue Ryan Air for this cruelty?
Here in Malta he used an ambulift.
‘He has disguised himself heavily with a cap pulled right down and a pair of dark glasses.’
He has yet to find an effective disguise for his figure.
Ryanair charges for excess baggage. Does he count as excess baggage?
Like all the ministers from the Golden Years, yes, he comes with a lot of baggage.
The extra ‘baggage’ must have cost him dear.
There are few instances I don’t agree your blog posts. This is one of them which I find a bit in bad taste. But if anyone dares to comment that it shouldn’t have been written then we should refer him to when “je suis Charlie” was the phrase of the day.
You say that it is in bad taste because you think that it’s about the obese or the disabled. It is nothing of the sort.This is about public accountability.
A man who is very clearly not fit for purpose has been given a sinecure.
I have seen many people in wheelchairs who get things done easily, move around by rolling the wheels of the chair themselves and are generally full of energy. Joe Grima is definitely not one of them.
Look at the way he’s slumped, enjoying that wheelchair ride and making absolutely no effort.
Secondly, what on earth is he doing constantly on his phone? I know that this is a modern illness which affects many people but, as a public official, he should be seen talking to people and liaising with his counterparts, not having his face glued to his phone, even during meetings.
Thirdly, the man is just a leftover from the Mintoff regime. Every time he opens his mouth or puts his fingers to a keyboard, nothing but rubbish comes out.
The man is 79, for God’s sake. He should have been disposed of long ago. And no, that’s not an ageist comment. Joe Grima was awful even when he was young.
What goes up must go down. Spiccatlu l-arja u il qziez li kellu.
F’mohhi jigini l-attakk fiziku li kien ghamel dan id-dinosawru fis snin 80 fuq dak li kien editur ta’ The Democrat, Tony Mallia.
i think the plane wasted a bit more fuel to take off with him onboard
Sometimes you’re on these flights where a group of passengers start clapping when the plane lands. This time, the applause might have come when the plane took off.
People have been becoming more unhealthy ever since they discovered agriculture and had to run around and hunt less. The creation of the car, junk food, the office, the cubicle and the computer really put the final nails in the coffin.
Unless you go out of your way to do some exercise and eat healthy food, you will put on at least a few extra kilogrammes. Our body has unfortunately never adapted to our lifestyles and it still stores fat as if it doesn’t know when or from where the next meal is coming.
All that said, I still find it incredibly hard to understand how people like Joe Grima manage to become so fat that they cannot walk. It simply boggles the mind. It takes more than just a little extra indulgence and lack of exercise.
It requires a particularly extraordinary effort akin to a sumo wrestler’s lifestyle (massive fatty meals and lots of beer followed by a long nap to let it settle) minus the exercise.
On American news, you regularly hear these stories about people who became so fat that they literally became one with their armchair and their significant other or family member has to feed them and clean them while still sitting in the chair. And then they die of a heart attack and have to be brought out of the house using some heavy duty machinery.
It’s sad and terrifying. How does it even happen? I know about gainers (sick individuals who get sexually turned on by becoming or helping their partner become extremely fat) but what about the rest? Is it deliberate or just an accident?
Choices and values from Adam to coffin.
Ingredients in both.
Precision.
Detail.
Discipline.
Sriep f’saqajn in-Nazzjonalisti kellna…mela naghtuh program fuq in-NET TV
The prime minister should be asked, in parliament, what tangible efforts his special envoy has made in Malta’s regard since his appointment to the post.
I don’t care whether he’s able or disabled, slim or not, what interests me is that he’s 79, coming from another kind of politics (of the past), and all he has to do is stay apart from politics and lead the life of a pensioner. The life of a well-off pensioner.
He is only PRESUMPTUOUS.
He must have been Muscat’s larger than life hero, some people are easily impressed.
https://fbcdn-vthumb-a.akamaihd.net/hvthumb-ak-xaf1/v/t15.0-10/p235x350/244770_10150197897460974_10150197892125974_37380_2089_b.jpg?oh=3f318b5d9d2974b6dd1ffed181da8463&oe=5560E833&__gda__=1431997735_cba8c4272ba346432bc3b5a60b54f187