Perhaps it's time to ring the men in white
Saviour Balzan’s marriage plans don’t seem to have made him any happier or more stable (he’s getting married on 8 May, but you wouldn’t have guessed it).
He’s back to banging on about how I “vilified his late wife”. If Malta Today were to allow me use of the right to reply (they never do), I would scotch this madness in a simple letter. But when I write letters to Malta Today to correct their deliberate misinformation, those letters are ignored.
As with its bedmate Maltastar, Malta Today never lets the facts get in the way of a good piece of fiction.
I never vilified Ebba von Fersen, who was married to Saviour Balzan – not during her lifetime and certainly not after her death two years ago. I actually really liked her. We shared a lot of interests – art, books, political philosophy, and dogs. Very few people keep tal-fenek dogs, but we both did.
Whenever we met at social gatherings we would enjoy speaking to each other. Then her husband developed a passionate hatred for me, which has long since turned into obsession, and she clearly felt her loyalties were split. As one must in these matters, she respected her husband’s point of view (wishes?), and thereafter it was only a nod, a hello and perhaps a few words.
The reason why Saviour Balzan developed his obsession with me has never been quite clear. I suspect it started with professional envy, escalated when I turned down his offer to work for Malta Today (why would I want to do that?) but really spun out of control when he backed John Dalli in the party leadership race and that plan failed.
Suddenly, I became the devil incarnate. All his resentment about the failure of that plan was projected onto me and a couple of others who he decided were responsible. The irony is that I didn’t much care who became Nationalist Party leader at the time. I wasn’t much enamoured of Lawrence Gonzi when he was elected, and it was hard to adjust to a new face and personality after all those years of Fenech Adami. But there you go – that’s Saviour Balzan for you.
At this stage, I don’t care about the genesis of his fixation. I have had to cope with fixated and sometimes unstable people throughout my career in the media. It appears to come with the territory.
But I cannot allow Saviour Balzan to keep spreading the rumour unchallenged, in print and in private, that I vilified his dead wife – and this not for his sake or mine, but for hers.
She was a really nice woman, and an interesting one.
What I wrote was something else altogether – the very opposite of vilification, in fact. I wrote that it was shameful for Saviour to be seen in public in intimate physical encounters with a woman just a few weeks after burying his wife.
Of course that kind of behaviour is shameful. Anybody would say so. And that is why Saviour Balzan reacted so badly and madly and converted this into the accusation that I had ‘vilified his dead wife’. It is just another case of projection of guilt. He knows that his behaviour was extremely distasteful, but can’t admit it even to himself, so he projects it onto me for pointing it out.
Perhaps it’s time to tell him now that his behaviour is completely schizoid. He bangs on about his late wife, pretends to defend her honour unnecessarily against my non-existent attacks, publishes a book of her work, has her mentioned in his newspaper on a regular basis (and on his website), and all of this while pursuing another woman just weeks after she died.
When that romance fell through, he pursued somebody else and within weeks had set a marriage date. Now he’s getting married again, just two years after being left a widower.
Good luck to him. I mean it. It’s always blessed news when somebody finds happiness again. The trouble is that Saviour doesn’t seem happy at all. In fact, he seems angrier, crosser and more bitter and resentful than ever.
Other people are not to blame for your problems, Saviour. You are.
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I can confirm that a few weeks after the death of his wife I saw Saviour kissing his girlfriend at an outdoor table of a small coffee shop in Naxxar, the one in the corner next to the stationery.
I also saw them a couple of days later walking a dog in San Pawl Tat-Targa. I remember being very surprised that he had hooked up with someone so soon after his wife’s demise.
They were also spotted around the same time seated at an outdoor table in a popular restaurant in Marsalforn.
Saviour Balazan has a grudge against all that is Nationalist. So much for fair journalistic comment.
It is no wonder that he persists in demonising you as you are the only journalist who has the gall to stand by what you say.
My sincere congratulations to Mr. Balzan on his forthcoming wedding.
He also comes across as anti-“Sliema people”. That makes you wonder about his choice of wife-to-be … or rather, on her choice of husband, for that matter.
http://www.maltatoday.com.mt/2009/06/21/sbalzan.html
I browsed through that link and came across the paragraph ‘Who informed Ivan Camilleri?’ … Seems Mr. Balzan should sharpen up his clairvoyance powers.
I believe this blog has more readers than Malta Today so an entry here is even more effective than a letter in that paper. This doesn’t excuse Saviour’s lack of ethics though.
Ironically the day he wrote that you vilified his late wife was the same day he had a champagne party to celebrate his engagement to another woman.
His fiancee must have been very happy that day, with the man she planned to marry going on in the newspapers about his late wife instead of concentrating on her and their future together.
Perhaps Saviour should read something written long ago by another Daphne: Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca.
I take it Saviour’s future wife did not attend St Dorothy’s Convent, otherwise she might have run a mile at the prospect of having Madam Balzan as a mother-in-law.
and a sister-in-law Madam Balzan MK II
live and let live, before u go thru an experience do not JUDGE.JUDGE NOT LEST U BE JUDGED.
‘joanne pace’ – You certainly were not at Saint Dorothy’s as my guess would be that you would still be stuck in grade 6.
That is such a stupid thing to say, Joanne. If it were mandatory to ‘go through an experience’ before we ‘judged’, then we might as well suspend the justice system until we can find, say, judges who have murdered somebody or dealt in crack.
As for the subject in hand – for I take it you refer to Saviour here – if he were to wait until he went through an experience before he ‘judged’, then he might as well shut down his newspaper.
Is it a fact or is it not a fact that Saviour Balzan was seen in intimate embraces in public with a woman two weeks after his wife died? With several witnesses to this, including the writer of this blog, one can safely assume that yes, it is a fact.
I don’t think anyone needs to go through a similar experience to have an opinion on that. There can never be any justification for it. Do what you like behind the four walls of your home, but courting a woman in coffee shops a couple of weeks after your wife’s funeral is distasteful, even if the relationship might not be and there might have been good reason for it. It was Saviour’s behaviour that showed lack of respect towards his late wife, and not other people writing or remarking about it.
It should have occurred to Saviour that had he been anyone else, nobody would have bothered about this or felt the need to remark on it except out of passing curioisity. The strange thing is that he keeps bringing up the subject, when everyone else had long since forgotten about it. I certainly had.
Perhaps he should now concentrate on his fresh start, without the shadow of his first wife and first marriage hanging like this over his second.
Hate to tell you Saviour but……jaqq, jaqq and more jaqq.
Read the post again, carefully this time. The judgement is that Saviour Balzan claimed his first wife was vilified when she was not.
Try telling that to MaltaToday, MaltaStar, One News … You get my drift.
Who’s judging? Heaven forbid if we dare say that it is not right to be with somebody new two weeks after your wife dies.
Maybe Saviour has been suffering from the syndrome of being left outside alone.
Let us hope that with his marriage, he turns a new page in life, and will find new interests with which to fill his time more interestingly than he fills the pages of his paper.
Shame on him
“The reason why Saviour Balzan developed his obsession with me has never been quite clear. I suspect it started with professional envy, escalated when I turned down his offer to work for Malta Today (why would I want to do that?)”
WORK OF ART!
The persistent impression I have always had of this man is that he is subject to perpetual mortification due to his over-riding ambition which definitely doesn’t fit in with his being a helpless seventh-rater.
Saviour Balzan does have a problem. And like those who REALLY have a problem, he is not aware of it.
Maltatoday have never ever let any fact get in the way of their stories. It never ceases to amaze me how they allow themselves to be such a vehicle for gripefests.
Re obsession (let me scare you a bit): love and hate are but a line apart….forsi he has the hots for Daphne.
While admitting that I more than appreciate DCG work and hope that this proper form of journalism will restore our faith in various sectors of our community (most obvious being judicial), I do however question the importance of reporting on Saviour’s love life.
Also, every story has a circumstance.
You’re right. Nothing could be less thrilling than Saviour’s love life. Even he knows that.
Daphne is right Saviour, every time I see you you’re always sad, never a smile on your face. Try to get out more and meet happy people or just sit on the beach and look at the sky, and maybe who knows a fly might pass by.
She was fighting cancer as hard as she could for years. She was a brave woman indeed. And as a brave unselfish woman I believe she wanted to see her husband happy after she parted away from this cruel life.
Most of the time those waiting and watching their loved ones dying a slow and painful death start accepting the fact of departing. This is a fact, and it is a relief when they finally rests as the pain and suffering ends for all involved. It is not easy taking care of someone you love and see him/her in so much suffering. He took care of her till she closed her eyes and rested in peace and that is what’s important. He did not neglect her as far as I know. Correct me if I’m wrong.
Unselfish souls would want their partner to do the same and go on with what’s left of their lives. Some talk about it as one of their last wishes to not hold on, to find a decent person and not be alone. I see nothing wrong with this guy in getting married and being happy. I’m sure she would have wanted it this way.
You don’t know nothing about their relationship, what was agreed before she died. What they talked about, her final wishes, so how can you assume and jump into conclusions. For God’s sake let the woman rest in peace and let her husband pick up the pieces of what’s left and be happy for some years. I’m sure he had enough on his plate dealing with everything that happened to them.
Can’t you be more compassionate about others and leave their private lives in peace especially under such circumstances. I hope none of you will ever experience such pain in life.
As an editor the guy is donkey and has his own agenda like all editors. Attack his journalistic skills, agenda and integrity on those grounds.
@Oranges and Lemons… Well said…
However, this is not an easy concept to grasp. Understandably, only those who have been through this will accept it.
@ Oranges and Lemons
I agree…shame on all these comments above…stop intruding into everyone’s private lives….
It is Saviour who needs to leave his wife rest in peace. As for what they agreed before she died nobody knows. But it is Savour who chose to bring her up on the day of his engagement, and it was Saviour who chose to act in public like a sixteen year old with hormones running haywire.
The fact is Daphne did not vilify his wife. Why would she vilify somebody she liked and respected?
Bravo to Oranges and Lemons. Saviour’s private life has nothing to do with us. We all try to seek happiness, may he truly find his; all the more deserved if he loved his first wife and did his best by her.
He should try and do his best by Malta Today. He should try and bring it up to standard. This may be difficult with the racanc he employs. But lets give him the benefit of the doubt, after all he tried to seek Daphne’s services, but failed.
No one is begrudging Saviour Balzan marital bliss after his first wife sadly passed away. What rubs the wrong way (rather big time), is the time frame. I would definitely NOT be too thrilled to know that my hubby was in a relationship barely TWO WEEKS after I was gone.
He couldn’t possibly have thought, even for one second, that people weren’t going to comment negatively on the insensitivity he showed to the memory of his first wife. There really is NO excuse for his behaviour.
Whoever knew Ebba knows what a beautiful soul she was. Her art was as beautiful as her spirit.
It is clear that both Flossy and Daphne held Ebba in high regard as did many others too. So please Saviour let your misconceptions end here.
Oranges and Lemons is absolutely right. If we are Christians we are OBLIGED to agree with him
As usual Saviour was playing il doppio guoco. Like he did when he was asked by the Government to lead (sic) negotiations about hunting and trapping, and was treacherous enough to put the government in the bag (or so he thinks). One cannot trust a former diehard socialist cum communist like Saviour. His love was also treacherous. First he cries and makes a show about his former wife and the next moment he is kissing his new one under the moonlight. That is Saviour Balzan the man without any form of loyalty.
Give the guy a chance. Surely none of this is anyone’s business but his and does it occur to those writing such venom that they could be damaging innocent parties. For their sake, shut up and find something worth worrying about.