Everybody in Malta knows about Tiffany, but nobody in Malta knows about Dee
Dee Caffari - now she's somebody to be proud of
Nothing could possibly highlight just how chavtastic we have become (always were?) than a comparison of the fuss we made about the pretty girl who won Britain’s Next Top Model with our blank reaction to the name of Dee Caffari, one of the world’s most famous yachtswomen.
If you have a copy of today’s The Sunday Times (London), take a good look. She’s right there on the front page, so famous in her native Britain that she merits a prime position caption-story about how she will be spending her 38th birthday today.
Dee Caffari, like Tiffany Pisani, is the daughter of a British woman and a Maltese man. But in island Malta, the real achievement of ocean-racing means nothing while modelling shares a space right there at the top alongside the incredibly chavtastic Eurovision Song Contest.
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What about this, then: http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20110110/local/18-year-old-maltese-heads-for-the-afghanistan-frontline
[Daphne – Yes, his mother Doreen Fenech and I have been friends for 40 years, so I didn’t want to mention it myself.]
There are also two Maltese citizens serving in the Foreign Legion (that’s France). As far as I’m concerned they do more to honour my country’s name than any number of brilliant scientists or artists.
You know the world is f****d when mercenaries for hire are seen as honourable. Honestly.
The first Maltese to serve in Afghanistan is a good friend of mine who lives in the UK. If he gets to know I posted this he won’t be very happy!
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20071023/local/fighting-terror
How do we know he’s the first Maltese to serve in Afghanistan? Besides, he’s a crab, and an oggie at that. Seriously though, hats off to these men, and two fingers to every Ing./Perit/Dr/Prof. in a suit
Well, if you find one who served before I will gladly take back what I said.
Indeed, rather than be the perit that I am, I would rather be fighting someone else’s war against ‘evil’ Arabs or Afghans in a land other than my own. It would make a change to my 9 to 5 job for sure.
@H.P.Baxxter
Seeing that you’re not a coward like engineers, periti, lawyers and professors, why aren’t you fighting alongside Mr.Calleja instead of sitting there whining?
For a moment I was relieved you changed the subject from the MPs salaries… until I saw you mentioned the Eurovision.
Now, Daphne, thanks for giving some credit to Maltese men, after your previous post!
The Eurovision must be to Malta what the Sanremo Song Festival is to Italy. They literally go bananas over it, hijacking all TV stations 24 hours for about ten days; yet outside Italy nobody has heard of it.
Could it be something in our genes?
The only thing that I didn’t like about it was the reference to her getting clean underwear – but then I am being a pedant. I felt very proud reading about her achievement. As for Tiffany, well, the less said the better.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXrMSEA_Eeg&feature=player_embedded#!
http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/general/others/sailing-pioneer-caffari-in-her-element-even-when-the-whole-world-goes-wrong-816139.html
The problem is not Tiffany but the media people.
I could be wrong, but Tiffany could be one of the reasons why Living TV had to stop airing on cable tv.
You know what? You may be right. Probably the owners of ‘always freakin Charmed’ TV asked themselves ‘How are those people watching our show without paying a cent?’
And if Tiffany wasn’t on the show and we didn’t make such a fuss about it, probably they would have never guessed that we, speck of specks, were stealing their channel.
YOU were not stealing their channel. YOU were paying a cable network for it. THEY were stealing it.
I believe it is still a crime to deal in stolen goods
The same goes for other persons who are high achievers in the world of science and research and quite a number of them work in Malta.
But as Bob said, the problem is not the persons themselves but the media and indirectly (or directly) the audience. The media is only feeding what the audience wants – and seeing what the Maltese media is feeding says a lot about the IQ of the average audience.
“high achievers in the world of science and research and quite a number of them work in Malta.”
Name them. No, really, name them.
Because publishing in a peer-reviewed journal, if that’s what you mean, doesn’t make one a high-achiever. It’s expected of every scientist. Neither does performing successful heart transplants. It’s expected of every surgeon. In that respect, Tiffany Pisani’s achievement truly stands out.
So name these high achievers, that I may demolish your well-meant adulation.
I think that you are being very unfair. Yes there are Maltese scientists that are internationally acclaimed and have made a name.
With your argument, Bill Gates, Steve Job, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Mark Zuckerberg, Albert Einstein, Alexander Bell, Leonardo Da Vinci, Mendel, Volta, Marconi etc, have done nothing extraordinary as it would have been expected of them.
Once someone has been able to produce breakthroughs in one’s area, then one should be given one’s due.
And it is not just publishing in a peer-reviewed journal that makes one an achiever, but the impact of one’s work in that area.
I can assure you that I can name them. I shall not do so for the simple reason that I know all the names and thus I risk missing some important ones.
But a simple Google search with the keywords – Maltese scientists in the news – brings at least four important Maltese scientific groups in the first page (two in genetic cause of two important health issues, one in novel chemical structures – these done exclusively in Malta and another in neuroscience).
Another two who come to mind are in avionics and the other with a successful business in biotech – basically researching health products.
All of these hold a number of patents. And they are the ones that have made the news. There are others who few people know about but who are equally committed and productive.
And just to be clear, I can write under a nick as I have demolished no one and do not intend to do so as all those that achieve something in any field should be respected.
Alexander Bell? Ah, you mean the crook who stole the invention of the telephone and made lots of money out of it.
Research well, dear Snoopy, before building your arguments. Alexander Bell was a non-achiever. The telephone was invented be Antonio Meucci.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2002/jun/17/humanities.internationaleducationnews
This is true but is it only Malta? I think English and Italian mainstream media are pretty much the same. Focused satellite channels are a different thing, but when it comes to state/main commercial TV, there’s not much difference.
snoopy,
I don’t exactly agree. The media dishes out too much of ‘Peppi’, a little extra of ‘John ‘ and enough of ‘Deceduti’ and ‘Arani’. Of these I would rather have un bel niente.
We forget what a mentally immature people we are.
Is there any country which is not chavtastic? Big Brother must owe its success to something.
I wonder how many of your readers have heard of Dee Caffari, including myself! That does not make us chavs!
I am not interested in ocean racing nor perhaps 95% of the population in both the UK and Malta, so I would not have known about this woman had you not mentioned it.
[Daphne – You don’t have to be interested in ocean racing to know who she is, no more than you gave to care about football to know who Beckham is. This woman is front page news, not sports pages news. I don’t care about teen modelling, but I know about Tiffany Pisani. I did not say that those who don’t know about Caffari are chavs. I said that chav interests predominate in Malta: modelling competitions and song contests, for instance.]
The Maltese are as interested in this woman as much as she is interested in Malta which I suspect she is not, otherwise she would have made herself known to the Maltese media and promoted herself in Malta.
[Daphne – Errrrr, are you serious? Why would she make a point of promoting herself in Malta when the entire world knows about her? And what interest would she have in promoting herself in Malta anyway? Well, why would I expect anyone in Malta to know who she is when most people didn’t even know about the revolution 200 miles away until the Maltese media woke up when the president fled.]
See Snoopy’s reply re. promoting yourself in Malta. I f*****g give up. The only “Maltese scientists” we ever talk about are the tight-**sed big-egoed ones with some goddamn patron back in Malta.
Follow her on http://www.barcelonaworldrace.org – she’s currently sailing double-handed round the world with another woman on GAES.
De Marco was more successful than Kissinger in the Middle East (in the background).
Edible Oil had a CNN nomination for their bio fuel program a couple of years ago. Pippo is a great motivator, he was director at the time I think.
Vanni Bonello’s judgements are part of international law students fare. (VANNI FOR PRESIDENT).
Back in history a Maltese wrote the first publication on coffee and chocolate (again credit to Vanni and his wonderful books for that info).
Why doesn’t someone set up a “Great Maltese” group where anyone can nominate and peers can vote on whether to keep the individual listed.
And will everyone please stop saying “ghax ahna Maltin, ma naghmlu xejn” (excluding present company of course).
I think that on a per capita basis, Malta has produced more achievers than most nations, probably due to an inferiority complex.
Oh yes, what a great idea. A Maltese Hall of Fame. So we can worship the usual household names. De Marco, Giovanni Bonello, Serracino Inglott, Joseph Calleja, Alex Manché, the lot.
You know what? I’d rather have Tiffany Pisani in that hall of fame. At least she got where she did through her genetic good luck, not through patronage, or connections, or the Maltese media.
Is she culturally British or Maltese? She was raised British right? Well, that means he may be Maltese after all.
I’m saying this because from my little experience I see that many Maltese expatriates raise their children according to the culture of their adoptive country. Which is good…I think.
I’ve got two German cousins, two British cousins and two American cousins and I would say that there is very little that is Maltese about them other than one or both parents being Maltese.
Anyway, hats off to Dee Caffari. But I’ve got a gut feeling that her Maltese blood had very little to do with her achievements. I would say that her British mindset, cultured with the good old-fashioned British pioneering tradition that did it all.
[Daphne – The strange thing is that she grew up in a landlocked area, far from the sea, and makes a point of attributing her fascination with the sea to the fact that she is the granddaughter of a Maltese sea captain. Little does she know, probably, what landlubbers most Maltese area.]
Wow Daphne. I never realized you wrote this piece on Dee (Denise). She’s my cousin. The grandfather she spoke about was James Caffari. Very Maltese indeed. Born in Egypt to a Maltese father (John) and an Italian mother (Helene) in the early 1900s. However, her late father (Peter) was born in the UK to an English mother. So, I’m not sure how much Maltese culture she has. Most likely none.