Maybe it would be more courageous, Mr FKNK, to use your real name, as I do. Otherwise you are just a bully using the police instead of a gun. Enough said. Off you go to make another report!

[Daphne – Yes, well, that’s what happens when you field cabbages for candidates.]

Association of women hunters – France
http://membres.lycos.fr/beaussy/contenu.html

The italian hunting federation’s president is a woman
http://www.confavi.it/

If you would like any more details of hunting associations around the Mediterranean that have thousands of female hunters as members, iIwill gladly supply them.

Indeed, far from being butch as you suggested, many women enjoy more than just needlework.

[Daphne – I never said anything about butch. I merely pointed out that the springtime sexual urge to hunt for a mate is often sublimated into the springtime urge to shoot birds, which is just as well for those who are married.]

Interesting exchange of views. Political parties in Malta whether they like it or not have to embrace the fact that Malta is an EU country. Not doing so would be poltical suicide. So what’s wrong with that?

[Daphne – To spell it out: there is a world of difference in meaning between ‘We believe that EU membership is good for Malta’ and ‘We have no choice but to back EU membership because the majority has voted in its favour.’]

Incidentally, talking about the past : the church school saga which exemplifies Mintoff’s and KMB’s arrogant 80s was about free Church school education with as well as church properties. I may be mistaken but at the time two of Fenech Adami’s cavalli di battaglia were the above issues. Oh well after 1987 the church and state agreed about both issues in a manner that is not much different to what Mintoff had proposed. By your definition, Daphne, Fenech Adami was an opportunist as much as Joseph Muscat.

[Daphne – Hardly. The Labour government wanted the church to provide free education using its own resources. It was a way of ‘punishing’ the Catholic Church in the same way that the same socialist government used to punish the rich (though not all) or those perceived to be privileged. The Nationalist government arranged for church education to be subsidised by the tax-payer so that the schools wouldn’t collapse, having realised that a return to the previous fee-paying regime would have meant that hundreds of children of free-loading parents would have been pulled out of church schools as soon as fees had to be paid, causing a great deal of disruption. The end result is that the tax-payer is funding the education not just of those in state schools, but also of those in church schools. The government partly offset this financial burden by reaching agreement on joint administration of church-owned property. A Labour government would simply have requisitioned the lot. The Nationalist government’s handling of the church schools issue was one of damage limitation, as with so many other problems caused by Labour. Had Labour not made that mess, church schools would have been allowed to carry on charging fees, and that would have been a good thing as they would have retained their integrity and identity, which have long since been dissipated. All the children who would in previous generations have been sent to church schools are now being sent to expensive fee-paying independent schools, with the result that the social culture of church schools is now no different to that of state schools.]

[Daphne – Yes, they’re all over the place, aren’t they, like the women who play football.]

2. Actually its an area of 16 tumoli and I assure you its privately owned. I never said it was in the valley, only said it was on the other side, Reaching wrong conclusions again.

[Daphne – You said it’s beneath my house and near the olive grove. That’s in the valley.]

3. If you kept music booming all day it would not be illegal, most bars do that anyway. The law says you can do so till 11 p.m.

[Daphne – That illustrates the difference between you and me. The fact that the law allows me to disturb people until 11pm does not mean that I feel perfectly within my rights to do so, and I won’t.]

4. I use ear plugs whilst shooting, as do most shooters, so if you have a problem with early morning shots, what’s wrong with wearing ear plugs so as no to hear them. I know of many people that wear them not to hear their spouse snoring! As for music from a car at 2a.m, that would be totally illegal, whilst hunting at dawn is perfectly legal. The sound of a shot travels far so I can see no better alternative then the ear plugs suggested.

[Daphne – You are an extremely selfish, self-centred and bigoted person. You wear your ear-plugs to diminish the effect of a problem you create for yourself. You have no right to demand that other people wear ear-plugs too because of the noise that you make. A well-mannered person would avoid disturbing others, rather than demand that they wear ear-plugs to avoid hearing the noise he’s making.]

5. You don’t bother with the police because you know you have no right to stop what you complain about since it is perfectly legal. Your buying a gun and shooting at birds to scare them off, therefore shows the real issue is not about noise! Indeed you sound confused!

[Daphne – I am not at all confused. I don’t call the police because I am pragmatic. I see no point in dragging them out here when I know that by the time they arrive, the culprit will have left. Also, the valley is large and the shot could be coming from anywhere within it. It is practically impossible for the police to trace the person. I think I can tell the difference between a bird of prey and a turtle-dove, thank you. Also, the shots I hear now are obviously illegal shooting, given that there is a ban.]

6. In fact, I did not buy my house. I had it built. Also, I lived in my parents’ house which is next door to mine for just under 40 years, long before the quarry ever existed. You would never have done such a thing, and yet you bought a house in the country were you knew hunting was practised, and now complain about a known “problem”. This is what I meant by saying that unlike yourself I have learned to put up with the inconvenience.

[Daphne – I’m not the sort of person who puts up with inconveniences, especially when they are unjust, uncivilised, offensive and now, even illegal. It is precisely because I do not put up with inconveniences that I left Tower Road, Sliema, one of the most inconvenient places that one can possibly choose to live.]

7. In your case, how do you expect hunters that own land adjacent to yours to show their tolerance. Do you expect them to wait for you to leave your house before they start shooting.

[Daphne – Shooting should never be permitted next to houses. The fact that it is is quite beyond belief. As was established in the Gharghur fireworks factory judgement recently, it makes no difference whether two or two hundred people live in the area – a fireworks factory should not be allowed. The same principle should be applied to shooting. I have had my scalp burned by lead shot while in my own garden. If birds fly close to our house, when a shooter misses, the shot lands on our property. I find birds riddled with blood beneath my windows, which means that they were hit while flying over my garden. This is outrageous.]

8. Tolerance is accepting to live with the “problems” of country life. Have you ever had manure laid out in the fields next door? Or a tractor buzzing from the break of dawn till dusk? Are these not problems too. Or is it just the shots that annoy you?

[Daphne – Please don’t be irrational. I accept the smells and noises necessary to grow the food that we eat. I do not accept the capricious causing of a public nuisance for the selfish delectation of a few. That’s why the comparison to playing loud music is so very apt. It achieves nothing, annoys others and is completely selfish.]

Indeed Daphne, how about swapping houses with me.

[Daphne – You should be so lucky.]

But of course you agree with her. That is my point, dearest.

[Daphne – I think you’ll find that all people who know their manners will see it exactly the same way. It is neither here nor there. You might as well suggest that we see things the same way because we handle our cutlery in an identical fashion.]

Here’s some Benoit for light entertainment:

I quote from the ‘Life and Times’ of the Madame herself:

“The presentation was done in English since a good number in the audience were visitors and anyway the Maltese present were all English speakers or they would not have been there listening to Mozart and Haydn.”

And look at this, “naughty” Brian Schembri let la Madam down:

“On a final note let me say that there were many who thought it was a pity and also impolite in view of the number of visitors who so graciously support the Manoel Theatre, when Maestro Schembri spoke in Maltese at some length at the closing of the concert, thus completely ignoring those who did not understand a word of what he was saying. He is a much travelled man, lived in Russia and Paris, speaks both Russian and French fluently and also a speaker of English. The least he could have done is to speak in Maltese (since he seems so nostalgic for our native language) but also give a resumé in English thus acknowledging the presence of those who could understand absolutely nothing of what he was saying. How much more embracing and good-mannered of Dr Gonzi, Mr Albert Fenech and Ms Jo Caruana to give their brief presentation at the beginning in English. Sorry Brian, why do you always want to be a naughty boy and go against the grain?”

http://www.independent.com.mt/news.asp?newsitemid=86865

[Daphne – You illustrate my point. Those who know me know that I speak Maltese or English as and when appropriate. The person you quote, on the other hand, is a Sacred Heart girl who never grew up, and who insists of speaking to everyone in English, including members of the Labour and Union Press newsrooms, who have difficulty with the language and are far more comfortable speaking Maltese. They don’t diss her for doing it because she votes for the same party, even though she sounds absolutely ludicrous. However, I must say that in this case I agree with her completely. When your audience is international, good manners dictate that you speak a universally understood language – English – especially when you have no problems with the language yourself. Making a point of speaking Maltese and cutting out many members of your audience is sheer bad manners. Unfortunately, it reveals poor breeding rather than national pride.]

So by this you mean that Labour should have disregarded the vote and kept on insisting that Malta stays out of the Union? Imagine that – you wouldn’t have been writing about consistency now.

[Daphne – Kevin, please understand the difference between saying things and meaning them. What Labour said or didn’t say after 2003 is IRRELEVANT. What counts is what Labour believes. Belief in whether Malta should be in the European Union or not has nothing to do with majority rule: it has to do with consideration of the arguments for and against, and reaching a conclusion. Hence, if Labour believed on 8 March 2003 that EU membership was wholly unsuitable for Malta, then one assumes that Labour still believed the same thing on 9 March, despite the referendum result. Either that, or it wasn’t a belief at all, but an assumed position. If you tell me that the experience of five years in the European Union has caused Labour to change its mind, after seeing that it turned out to be a good thing after all, then that is something I would accept, because experience does change people’s minds. But changing your mind according to what you think people want you to say? No. That screams ‘I’m shallow’ and ‘I never meant it’. The problem Labour has now is that nobody actually knows what it really believes about the EU. What we know is only what Muscat says.]

You know, Daphne, once I warned you that you are fast becoming another Benoit. You’d do yourself a lot of good if you take heed. The only difference is that she does not twist arguments the way you do.

[Daphne – If I were another Benoit, Kevin, I would be just that – another Benoit. But I’m obviously not, so don’t waste your breath. Men are extremely irritating in this business of comparing one woman who writes with another woman who writes. Try finding a man to whom to compare me, if you must compare me to anyone, instead of going on the basis of sexual organs. Marie Benoit has far more in common with you, despite the different genitals. You both support the same political party, and you both voted against EU membership, and you both, when left unable to answer, accuse your ‘opponent’ of twisting words.]

No Daphne, it’s not worse than you thought. In 2003 the people said Yes to membership in a referendum and again in an election one month later. Recognising the will of the people is a democratic act. My point of course is that they went too far to the Europhile side. But for a rookie like you this makes little sense. Perhaps it’s best you keep to analysing the Angelik phenomenon – that’s where you truly excel.

[Daphne – Rookie? Hardly. My track record in that field is a lot more successful than yours, sweetheart. I just find it convenient to hide my light under a bushel. Changing one’s opinion depending on what you think people want is not a democratic act but an act of opportunism. Political parties have policies and beliefs. Their job is to drum up support for those policies and beliefs, and not to change them by popular demand. Your way of thinking perfectly encapsulates why Labour has failed repeatedly over the last 32 years: it doesn’t stand for anything. Meanwhile, the Nationalist Party has been very clear about what it stands for. It has not tailor-made its policies according to market research. It decided those policies were best and convinced people of the wisdom of them. What you are describing is a Labour Party that feels comfortable turning on the racist xenophobe act when it registers that racism is a popular Maltese sentiment. Get this: electors are not a special breed, but ordinary people, you and me. We can tell the difference between a person who is convinced of what he is saying and a person who is telling us what he thinks we want to hear. People don’t change their opinion overnight because of an electoral result, not if they are truly convinced of it. If the No vote had won, it wouldn’t have changed my opinion that Malta’s place is in the European Union.]