Does anybody know what Anglu Farrugia meant by Empire Station?
Do you think he meant this? And if so, how can he possibly think that David Copperfield made it disappear and reappear the next day? Scary.
I watched Bondiplus and now I’m spring-cleaning the kitchen cupboards because my mind is puzzling so hard over this problem that I just can’t sleep yet.
Does anybody out there know what Anglu Farrugia meant by David Copperfield (which he pronounced Copperfeed) making the Empire Station disappear?
When he asked his audience whether they had ever heard of David Copperfield, I thought well, what do you know, Inspector Farrugia, who can barely read or write yet graduated summa cum laude (life is full of little mysteries) actually knows who Charles Dickens is and even knows the name of one of his novels.
But no, the David Copperfield he had in mind is the magician. I know a bit about him. He was engaged to Claudia Schiffer. But I think that if he had made an entire skyscraper disappear and reappear the next morning, as Inspector Farrugia told his credulous audience he had done, we would have heard about it.
It would have made the front pages of the world press.
And what did he mean by Empire Station?
Did the Empire State Building mate with Grand Central Station and give birth to a Manhattan mutant?
Which skyscraper did King Kong climb in the famous film of the same name?
Ah yes, the Empire Station.
Maaaaa, kemm hu injorant bazwi. A wouldbe minister of the interior and deputy prime minister who looks at one of the world’s most iconic buildings and says “Ara Mer, dik l-Empire Station.”
U tar-Re Xemx ma kienitx tajba, jew? I nearly killed myself laughing, until I remembered that he’s going to be minister of the interior and deputy PM in 24 months, and then I stopped cold. Tghid ma qarax Nancy Mitford?
“Ir-Re Xemx kien jorqod fuq is-satin u jiekol li jrid, imma barra mir-rixtellu tal-palazz in-nies ma kellhom xejn.”
I mean, did he really have to tell a live television nationwide audience that Labour delegates have a mental age of five, which is how he got to be deputy leader in the first place?
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Maybe he meant the Taj Mahal.
Or maybe he gave the wrong example. He could have cited the case when Houdini made an ELEPHANT disappear.
It is one of Houdini’s most famous tricks.
Unless of course he had in mind the Empire Gas Station, located on 2 Madison St Mastic Beach, NY 11951, where they sell cheap PETLOR.
Our bloody Deputy Prime Minister. God – give me a million Tonio Borgs every day.
I wouldn’t say that. I think that Tonio Borg is not any good either.
Maybe he meant the Empire Stadium – you know, the one in Gzira.
And didn’t he graduate magna cum laude (second class upper)? Summa cum laude would imply that he got first class honours.
I don’t know about the Empire State Building but David Copperfield once created an optical illusion that the Statue of Liberty had ‘vanished’ for a few minutes.
That’s nothing, however. Labour made liberty itself vanish from Malta and it wasn’t just for a few minutes. And they did it without mirrors too, just the odd submachine gun.
And it was KMB, I think, who spotted an American aircraft carrier even though it was safely berthed somewhere in the USA.
Here’s is a David Copperfield quote for Inspector Gadget:
“The real secret of magic lies in the performance.”
I find it so appropriate in describing the government’s good performance at safeguarding jobs during the international crisis.
They are so sad, they’re funny. And they’re squandering the little chance they have of winning the elections – after all I doubt anyone wants to return to the so called glory days of Malta in the 70s.
Magna cum laude, please. Let us not exaggerate.
[Daphne – Still a magnificent achievement for somebody who can’t write or speak.]
I’ve already said this here: the Law degree is over rated.
Give me one name of a person who has followed …. hmm let’s say a medical doctor’s degree who can’t speak or write.
[Daphne – The only medical doctor speaking at that conference was Entni Zammit, and I wasn’t impressed. Anglu Farrugia has a law degree and he can do neither.]
Again I stress that many degrees – (Ha nikteb bil- Malti hawn ghax ma rridx nghamel hsara lil universita ta Malta jekk jaqraw dan barranin) – ma fihomx wisq gherf biex tiggradwa fihom. Bazikament li trid taghmel hu li tiddoba in-noti li jkun tak xi professur xih u terga tirriproducijhom f xi ezami. Ara hafna mil lectures kif isiru fil kors tal ligi per ezempju.
You’re too infatuated with local politics. I meant any doctor and not someone speaking at some little parochial ‘conference’.
God, if that man’s patients could speak out.
[Daphne – Why doctors, particularly? The discussion here is about politics. Not local politics, but national politics. I don’t even know any involved in local politics except for the Sliema Local Council, which is infamous.]
Ma jmissux hallih jisparixxi l-pajer station. Dak iz-zmien li ghamilha kienet taqa taht il-pulizija allura jmissu arrestah. Ara kieku sparixxa l-istatut tal-liberta zgur ma kien se jaghmillu xejn.
I think he might have meant this:
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanishing_the_Statue_of_Liberty
A tall woman in Albert Town once made Charlon Gouder’s wallet disappear. She could have been David Copperfield’s sister.
I hate to be a wet blanket for all this jollity and mirth, but I’ m afraid that you’re missing his point. You’ll see that the “empire station” is incidental, and therefore secondary, to the allegory.
He said that Gonzi’s tactics are, like Copperfield’s “magics”, smokes and mirrors. You think you see the “empire station” disappear, but it’s only a gimmick because next day it’ll still be there.
Bondiplus goes on air at an unearthly hour, so it’s OK if some of us are tired after a day’s work and miss a few bits here and there ….
Why bother with allegory at all? There are simpler ways to make a point. He could have just said what he means and meant what he said, but perhaps that’s too difficult even for someone who famously graduated magna cum laude.
You can’t graduate with a class if you’re doing a doctoral…
How he did it…..
http://www.magicianschool.com/play.php?vid=97
What do you expect from someone who says petlor?
He confused it with the Empire Stadium in Gzira.
What is the petlor station next to the Empire stadium called?
Faccata tal-FIF’s pastizzeria?
So Anglu Farrugia doesn’t know the difference between a petrol station, an iconic building and a symbol of liberty. Why did he bother?
Didn’t you hear Toni Abela speak about something called “Standards u pooo”?. Go to di-ve.com and hear it there on Bondiplus.