He has GOT to be joking
Il-ftit minghand il-hafna u malajr nigbru l-flus biex nixtru wiehed minn dawn ghal Joseph
You know what they say about nature abhorring a vacuum.
With Jason Micallef kicked neatly sideways into Super One, Labour Leader Doctor Joseph Muscat has morphed into a drama queen and filled the gap.
After doctors advised him not to wear himself out by going to one funeral yesterday and another today, he picked today’s, because there are more dead people and more television cameras – and oh yes, the corpses belong to what were some of his father’s best clients.
And then he proceeded to turn on the amateur dramatics by having his people tell the priest, before the mass, that he would be unable to rise from his seat and walk the titchy distance up the aisle to receive holy communion, ‘because of his medical condition’. Therefore the priest was to descend into the aisle and walk up to the severely incapacitated Labour Leader Doctor Joseph Muscat instead.
You know, if the mountain is playing the invalid, then Mohammed must go to the mountain.
Then the television cameras homed in on this excruciating moment: the weakling who wants to run the country when he can’t even walk a few steps up the aisle, stealing the show from the coffins before him by demanding special attention from the priest.
And why has it now become common practice to film funerals and broadcast the show on television? Both NET and Super One took a step further into the gutter by broadcasting this afternoon’s funeral live and with a running commentary.
It is only state funerals which should be broadcast, and then certainly not in their entirety unless they are of, say, the Princess of Wales who has died in extraordinary circumstances, and the funerals of heroes, like the anti-Mafia judges who were blown up in Sicily.
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How did he make it all across the church parvis and all the way up to the front row?
He borrowed a sedan chair from Casa Rocca Piccola and had Toni and Anglu lift it as he cast pennies at the paupers while holding a scented handkerchief to his nose.
No, Maryanne. They told him to lie down and then they rolled him in.
“Both NET and Super One took a step further into the gutter by broadcasting this afternoon’s funeral live and with a running commentary”
Looks like somebody is a closet masochist, doesn’t it?
I think the TV stations have really reached the bottom with this one.
Do people have no right to grieve in private anymore?
This is just morbid. I’m disgusted.
It’s the family who give permission for the cameras to film the proceedings. They are perfectly within their rights to ask the media to leave, and can have photographers and cameramen removed by the priest or the police.
It is the families themselves who are exhibitionist, and whenever I hear of a funeral filmed for the news, the first thing I think is ‘How vulgar do you have to be to parade your supposed grief to a national audience?’
Weddings and funerals – they’re all the same to us, which is why Maltese weddings are invariably packed with women committing the major transgression of turning up to celebrate a happy occasion wearing mourning dress. Black, black, black everywhere you look. And to heighten the effect, they occasionally wear dark glasses, too.
And they’re so UGLY! Short fat women with fat arms wearing black T shirts and black MUSEUM skirts weeping hysterically and throwing flowers at the coffin, which is being carried by six overweight men with a gut, badly-fitting shirts and dark sunglasses, while the village band plays on. It all screams PROVINCIAL.
I am disgusted by my own country. I mean I was taught not to flaunt my ugliness. But Malta puts its backwardness on show with breathtaking audacity.
Since 46 years of independence and six years of EU membership have done nothing to advance the level of civilisation on this island, I am ever more convinced that there is only one solution: This gene pool must be terminated. With extreme prejudice.
[Daphne – Your description of the people at the funeral could have been plucked from Il Gattopardo. I trust you are aware of this.]
I am aware of it. One would have thought that 164+ years of British government would have made a difference. No. We’re sinking deeper into the morass of hamallagni.
When I was young, back in the eighties, it seemed as if the backwardness was limited to the usual village types. It’s hard to explain. Now the phenomenon has sort of globalised itself.
It’s hard to put the blame on anything specific, but I think the rise of the nouveaux riches and their television productions, coupled with the liberalisation of TV stations had much to do with it.
We’ve taken the lowest segment of ultra-hamalli and given them wealth, technology and a nice big forum in which to air their backwardness (aided by that media dictatorship called Xarabank). The rednecks reign supreme.
@HP
“This gene pool must be terminated.”
Norman Lowell can deal with that.
For the TV stations to film the proceedings they have to get the permission of (A) the family (B) the parish priest and (C) the funeral director.
Having got all these permissions, there was nothing to stop the media stations to broadcast the funeral of a tragic happening which occurred on the quiet island of Gozo.
Why should it not be so? All people of goodwill grieved for these victims. Some of them may have been responsible themselves for their tragic end but still they are victims and were human beings like you and me.
They deserve our utmost sympathy and solidarity. At least for their own families. Any one has a heart for all this? Or does this scandalise you? The good book says there is a period of crying and a period of joy, So cry with those who cry and laugh with those who laugh.
No. I refuse to give my sympathy and solidarity, and I’ll tell you why.
Sympathy means understanding someone’s feelings. I can never understand someone who, completely ignorant of the processes involved, dabbles in dangerous stuff and shrugs off accidents as the will of god.
As for solidarity, I have nothing in common with the fireworks groupies, except my Maltese passport. And it’s not that I’m being a snob. They’re the snobs. If I were to approach them with my warning about studying chemistry and my blunt declaration about them not being professionals, I’d be chased out of the village with shotguns.
The good book is stupid if it identifies only two states: laughing and crying (and how very conveniently Maltese). I have a heart, and my heart bleeds for the good sense and rationality that is all but extinct in this nation of ours.
What scandalises me is the sheer backwardness of it all: from the firework enthusiasts, to their families, to the chemical importers, to the priests with their inanities about how life is precious (is it? then grow some balls and tell them to give up fireworks), to the prime minister who attended the funeral, to The Times who goes along with the charade, placing adverts for slick, modern and thoroughly European business, finance and insurance whatnot right next to the most platitudinous provincial nonsense you can imagine.
Therefore, in a nutshell, I am no more sorry for the victims than I am for the characters in “Jackass” when they injure themselves.
How did Dr. Muscat get aboard the ship?
Do you mean the MSC Splendida?
Yes the MSC Splendida.
I suspect he walked in on his own two feet. From the way events unfolded in Fontana this afternoon, it seems that God had to walk to him.
They borrowed a hoist from the Civil Protection Department. Michelle saw the president emeritus make his final journey using that means of transport and couldn’t bear to be outdone.
Bil crane
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_kQRsC8W3WqE/Sa4qL5w-8sI/AAAAAAAACuk/OBrfUXceL5A/s400/MSC+Splendida+(8).jpg
Joking apart – I’m beginning to believe that Muscat does have some medical condition or other (apart from his broken leg that is).
After all even the elderly manage to get around with a stick or crutches when they break a leg.
Jiena nahseb li Muscat gralu bhali. Meta weggajt saqajja ma stajtx naqbad tarf u fini kif nimxi bil-krozzi.
One word: gout.
Gonzi, Muscat and Abela have a dilemma now. Will they, as of today, start going to the funerals of all accident victims?
The answer is Yes, if the cameras of Net, PBS or One are also invited.
Imbaghad biex tiehu risposta ghal interview mal-Prim Ministru trid taqla’ l-bajd, ghax “l-Onorevoli huwa busy”. Dazgur li busy jekk l-agenda mimlija funerali ta’ rednecks Sqallin u vjaggi fil-hop-on bus mat-tfal tal-iskola.
A true case of “Santa Messa” turned into a “messa in scena.”
I get more and more disgusted with this country with every passing day.
Petards were let off at this maxi funeral – bad taste. At yesterday’s funeral two girls walked in front of the cortege – one bearing a photo of the deceased posing with a petard.
Seriously, if the dead person was killed in a car crash would anyone think of parading a photo of the guy posing with his car?
Alfred Sant was never my favourite politician, but a few months back he said something to the effect that we delight in organising big dos after a tragedy but never get down to the root of what causes them.
Sant would have stayed away from this charade.
I am also perplexed by how a story on the front page of The Malta Independent, last Sunday, seems to have caused no stir whatsoever. It suggests that this tragedy may have been pretty much self-inflicted.
Petards were let off at this maxi funeral – bad taste.
It is unbelievable. Since the tragedy happened, whenever I hear fireworks, I feel uncomfortable. And then they go and give them a fireworks salute.
Ah, but those who die blown up by petards are village heroes, hence the huge photos, the long procession of men and boys clad in white and the weeping ladies.
This story is now taking on grotesque proportions.
What hairline fracture? He either has bone mets or else (he thinks) he is taking the Mickey out of all of us.
Time will tell.
As for the other clowns in this circus is it possible that they have so little else to do?
No wonder the “nation” is in deep ****.
As for the weeping, I have seen it in Sicily, Calabria and in Naples. They call them “prefiche”. Tommasi di Lampedusa gives a good description of them. That was 150 years ago.
I must go. My wife is yelling something about my supper getting cold.
In an interview given on TVM, a couple of years ago, I remember Dr Gonzi saying that he had a hairline fracture in his right thumb during the run up to the last election.
He said that by the end of every long day, after shaking hands with his constituents, well wishers etc, his thumb would be swollen and in pain. He never let on about this and we only got to know later. Imagine the scenario if this had happened to Joseph Muscat.
U nimmagina li d-dahka baqghet fuq wiccu wkoll, ta’ l-inqas fejn jarawh in-nies.
Ftit iehor jibda jmut xi hadd b`xi overdose, u fil-funeral kulhadd jarma jpejjep il-haxixa jew jittaqqab! Mhux hekk?
Malta’s soon-to-be leading import from West Africa
http://bushofghosts.wmg.com/images/MercedesCoffin_large.jpg
Min isuqha? Il-mejjet?
Muscat’s condition must have deteriorated from the time of the cruise to the time of the funeral Mass.
Some Maltese journalists write like this: L-eku tat-tragedja ta’ Ghawdex kompla meta l-bierah sar il-funeral bil-murtali…
Yeah, Eco Gozo.
Why did the president, prime minister e bella compania feel the need to attend these funerals?
People die every day, so why not attend all the funerals? Why should they differentiate between a person who dies blown up in a fireworks factory explosion or in a car accident, or the workplace or of heart failure, or of cancer?
The president’s and other VIPs’ presence at these two funerals has diminished the value of their attendance at any other funeral. Their presence at funerals should be exclusive to people of a certain degree of importance to the country.