We Maltese carry our proud traditions with us wherever we go
David Muscat cut down all the trees in his garden and when his neighbours complained, he put up this installation.
There were online reports yesterday of David Muscat, billed as ‘Australia’s neighbour from Hell’, who hacked down all the trees in his garden without the required local authority permission.
You have two Maltese classics right there: regarding trees as the enemy which must be decimated, and not bothering with trivialities like permits.
When other people in the street protested against his behaviour, he brought out his chainsaw again and used it to carve the trunk of one of the trees he’d killed into a giant fist flipping the birdie at them all. Then he stuck it on his front lawn, where a large tree had stood before.
So when a feud between Park Orchards, Australia residents and David Muscat boiled over, the feared “neighbor from hell” constructed an enormous wooden sculpture to flip the bird to all passers-by.
The sculpture, a local newspaper reported, “is highly visible due to the lack of greenery on Muscat’s front lawn”.
They should consider themselves lucky. Had he stuck to Maltese tradition all the way through, he would have paved the whole thing over, biex ma jkollux hassle u dak il-hafna hmieg.
What are the odds that Muscat gej minn familja Mintoffjana?
He carved the thing the wrong way round, so his giant fist is flipping that birdie at his house and not at his neighbours as they go past.
Nahseb li jigi minn tal-Maltastar, zgur.
The Muscats are social pariahs in their community. One of his neighbours told the court that Muscat head-butted him, “shoulder-barged” his wife, and pointed a leaf-blower in the couple’s faces after they asking him to please turn it off.
Another said: “We would all be quite happy if he just packed up and went away.”
Muscat pleaded guilty to all charges and was fined.
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Another candidate for Labour’s bring-in site.
Another Muscat!
“Muscat pleaded guilty to all charges and was fined.”
So not so Maltese after all – he didn’t plead innocence. Then again the Australian legal system most likely favour guilty pleas.
http://news.ninemsn.com.au/national/8280704/melbourne-neighbour-from-hell-fined
“He carved the thing the wrong way round, so his giant fist is flipping that birdie at his house and not at his neighbours as they go past”.
That’s the first thing I noticed about the picture. Ironic, isn’t it?
It also has six fingers.
A symptom of inbreeding back in the ‘rahal’ perhaps?
When you point one finger at others, you are also pointing three fingers at yourself.
You can take them out of Malta but you cannot get Malta out of them.
The man who devastated Baħrija mhux minn familja Mintoffjana.
[Daphne – The last time I looked, dery, Bahrija was utterly devastated by horrid little maisonettes built on plottsijiet tal-gvern by rabid Labour voters. It is still the sole Labour stronghold in this part of Malta.]
They were not built right on the watercourse destroying the habitat of one of the few indigenous species Maltese fauna. And an endangered one, to boot.
It had to be the President of the PN to do that.
[Daphne – Actually, chavs, it was an architect who lives with the sister of the future Labour Minister for Justice, and who receives visits from Joseph Muscat at his home in Siggiewi at 10pm, and who will almost certainly be a candidate for the Labour Party in 2013. The house was not ‘built right on the watercourse destroying the habitat etc’. That is what Astrid, a woman who is spectacularly uninformed and probably never saw a freshwater crab in her life, told you. The house was there already. It was a conversion/footprint development. As for Bahrija itself, those Labour maisonettes built by Mintoffjani on plots given to them by il-gvern taghhom are a definite and horrible blight on the landscape, watercourse or no watercourse.]
A fair dinkum Mintoffjan, no doubt about it.
No doubt that, like the other Muscat, he thinks that whatever he does around his house is a private matter regardless of how many laws are broken.
You have to admire the comical value of all this though.It’s undoubtedly unneighbourly but you have to give the man some credit for taking the time to carve a huge birdie.
I find it all really hilarious, a bit like the nougat hawker story.
Here’s another Malti tal-Awstralja who made the news:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/1531005.stm
Baxxter, There you got it. The wind of change.
Another society reject for Joseph’s team.
The Neighbour from Catholic Malta.
Well – the Italian’s have something similar in Piazza Affari, Milan – http://www.ab-web.it/notizie-web/114-il-dito-medio-di-milano
Why do you assume that all Maltese Australians are ‘Mintoffjani’?
[Daphne – Because most of those who went there in the mass emigrations of the 1950s and 1960s were Mintoffjani, yes.]
U l-Maltin tal-Kanada, u tal-Amerki, u l-Maltin tal-Ingriterra, u issa parti tajba mill-Maltin ta’ Brussel ukoll.
The Maltese are born Mintoffian by default. Those of them who develop thinking skills wean themselves off it. Those who emigrate before the onset of critical thinking skills will be Mintoffian for life.
Yes, this is yet another Ricotta Question. Another skeleton in the Maltese closet.
There is alsa a small minority that left in the 70s and early 80s because of Mintoff. Alas, they are too few to re-balance the rahal mentality of the typical Maltese Aussie.
I think they fit in nicely with Australians, who are quite provincial in fact and uncouth.
Your claim that Maltese emigrants of the 1950s and 1960s were all ‘Mintoffjani’ is a gross generalisation.
You have developed the habit of attributing dispicable behaviour such as that of David Muscat, to only Labour party supporters, as if PN voters are immune of such behaviour. They are not. Both the PN and the PL have their skips that need to be filled with rogues.
Your generalisation founded on the deceptive argument linked to the MLP’s rogue past has an irrational basis and reminds me of the tactics used by Dr Goebbels, Reich Minister for propganda in Nazi Germany, to defame Jews.
Intelligent people who contribute to your blog should have spotted that.
[Daphne – Intelligent people tend to see things the way I do. I’m sorry to disappoint you on that one.]
Tghid dan jigi minn Joseph ta’ Burmarrad?
The one in Piazza Affari depicts a hand with its fingers cut off.
The artist, selected for Milan’s annual public art exhibition, describes it as a take on the fascist salute. The theme this year is ‘against all ideologies’, linking the work to the rational style of the square built by the regime.
Presented in 2010, located in front of Italy’s stock exchange, it becomes a statement about hedge fund and derivatives based capitalism propelling our belief in society.
The palm, (imagine it intact) looks towards the borsa, trying to control it; the result becomes the market’s response.
Orientation in this case was key, and the city authorities have decided to make it a permanent landmark, especially after the stock exchange voiced its support. If it were to look the other way it would have been restricted to facile provocation.
How admirable then of Muscat to produce his own iteration in Australia. He manages to exceed Cattelan in Milan by becoming himself the subject of his piece. We understand his gesture and wholeheartedly accept it.
Here’s another Malti ta’ l-Awstralja – http://www.theinquiry.ca/wordpress/rc-scandal/other-countries/malta/maltese-priest-based-in-melbourne-charged-with-sexual-assault/
I don’t recall reading about this in the Maltese newspapers.
Hilarious! I think he put it the other way round to show his nice handy work in sculpting the fingers.
Next headline; Man offers 10,000 au dollars for berdie sculpture!
Daphne, you do a perfect job in describing ‘Mintoffjani’. I find it almost impossible describing them to Brits. ‘Mintoffjani’ have such a narrow-minded and blinkered attitude that a normal person is unable to understand them.
I believe even the young in Malta, who do not have first hand knowledge of the Mintoff tyrannical years, are unable to understand the ‘Mintoffjani’ mind-set.
English Mintoffjani are running amok in London today and this has got nothing to do with the Tottenham protests the day before.
The Maltese vulgarian behaviour now transcends political parties as well as social and geographical provenance.
Tragically, it has become the culture of the majority (a perverted national culture) and persons who do not ‘conform’ are ostracized or hated. One cannot help noticing that when in public, the Maltese (especially men between the ages of 25 and 40) delight in rudeness and in annoying everyone around them. I cannot understand why this happens but I am sure the Maltese were not like that in the distant past.
It seems that the benefits of increased wealth, especially from the 1970s onwards have been channelled towards disdain to others rather than self improvement.
The elimination of social skills and good manners during the Socialist era (in line with ‘revolutionary’ policy of communist countries) has now resulted in conceited egotism that culminates in anti-social behaviour. What goes on in Paceville is a case in point.
In a few years’ time Malta may become an unpleasant place and the Maltese unpleasant people. The government should seriously try to do something about this. Blaming the opposition is hardly a solution and reinforces the culture of disdain towards others which David Muscat continues to cultivate in Australia .
One word: Xarabank. Oh-eh-oh and so the darkness spreads.
True, but sadly, Xarabank is a PN creation which proves what I wrote earlier that vulgarian behaviour now transcends political and social class.
[Daphne – Xarabank is not a ‘PN creation’. It was created and is produced by a private company. Learn to tell the difference. And it does not transcend social class. On the contrary, it is QUINTESSENTIALLY working class, but again, it is an excellent and successful example of the genre.]
Perhaps that is why some people think that voting PL rather then PN is inconsequential, because the latter is behaving like the former! The PN brought this on itself.
I am amused with references to ‘private companies’. One has to realise that a private company is not necessarily independent of the political Esatblishment or government control.
[Daphne – I never thought I would find myself using a Facebook Wall expression, but OMG. How can the government control a private company? What is the political establishment? Doesn’t it occur to you that some people – strange as it might seem – support the Nationalist Party and favour its policies because they can think and because they want to? You are drumming out the same tune as those who say that I favour the PN because I’m paid to do so. This is because they just cannot accept the fact that somebody who’s obviously got a bit of a brain and can use it has used it to work out that Labour is rubbish and the PN is much better.]
I think it would be naive to deny that the company responsible for Xarabank does not have links to the Establishment (PN controlled) and therefore, its continued success reflects the PN administration’s policy. Nothing wrong with that.
[Daphne – What? My dear, you’re not thinking straight. You’re saying here that Xarabank is successful because it has links with the Nationalist Party and reflects PN policy. The definition of a TV programme’s success is viewship figures and audience ratings, and it is on this basis that shows are repeatedly included in the annual schedule. Your mentality is the unfortunately primitive but typically Maltese one where success does not come through merit and hard work but through patronage and ‘links’. That is why people who think as you do cannot perform outside the narrow world they inhabit and don’t even know where to begin working for things and applying themselves to a goal.]
There are lots of private companies in the world where the government owns the ‘golden share’, effectively controlling the policies of the company.
[Daphne – When the state – not the ‘government’ – owns a controlling stake in a company, the company is no longer private. Malta (the state) does not have a share, controlling or otherwise, in the company you mention. Go to the MFSA site and find out for yourself. The state-owned company in this equation is PBS, hence its name.]
In Malta, political parties gain control of ‘private companies’ by proxy, i.e. syncophants.
[Daphne – OMG again. Private companies exist for one reason only: to make a profit. Socialists do not understand this, and when they do, they assume that profit is evil or worse, that the people who make it don’t have a right to it and they should have it instead. And it’s sycophant, as distinct from, say, synchronise.]
Effectively, Xarabank is a PN creation intended to attract working class votes.
[Daphne – I hate to disappoint you, but it’s actually a profit-making venture by a private business, and a very successful one at that. PBS will keep it on post 2013 for the simple reason that it makes shedloads of much-needed money for the beleagured public broadcaster. Your assumption that the working-class is made up of dumbass people sitting there ready and waiting to be manipulated is typically Labour. Nobody patronises, looks down upon and abuses the working-classes more than the socialist party and its various leaders. They were all really patronising to those they considered their intellectual inferiors: Mintoff, Mifsud Bonnici, Sant and now Muscat. Their thinking seems to be of the Groucho Marx sort: ‘if they put me here then they must be really damned stupid.’]
The problem is that it has nurtured the worst elements of working class culture rather than imbue rational and civil national debate. The result of this can be seen all around us, where even the middle class is constrained to behave like the proletarian sub-class if it wants to get anywhere.
[Daphne – The ‘middle class’ of which you speak, Farrugia, is actually working class to begin with, but with some recently acquired money and education. But you probably can’t recognise that. When people LIKE ME are surrounded by others shouting and interrupting and talking over each other, they retreat into silence, not join in. The higher up the social scale you go, the less noise there is. Yesterday, I saw this illustrated live when I swam out to sea and took a long-distance look at two immediately adjacent parts of a beach: one a smart lido and the other a public-access bit of sand. No voices could be heard from the lido, which was packed, but the sound emanating from the 100 or so people on the sand was like the rumble from a crowd or a football pitch, or the Tottenham riots. It was really incredible. I had to ask myself why they were bawling at each other and why in God’s name they feel the need to talk, talk, talk, all the time and at full volume.]
Try to be polite in this country and you will be viewed suspiciously, an anomaly. Don’t blame the PL for this!
[Daphne – It’s the other way round, Farrugia. I blame the bawlers for the Labour Party, and not the Labour Party for the bawlers. They created it, made it in their own image, and vote it in.]
It is a sad day indeed when the Prime Minister of the Republic chooses to discuss policy not with David Frost or Patrick Poivre d’Arvor, but on Xarabank.
Not only is he patently not transcending social class, he is proving that he is working class.
The unwritten rule in Malta seems to be that you cannot refuse an invitation from Xarabank. You are there at their pleasure, and you owe it to them. It angers me beyond words to see subliterate proles wielding such power.
“Peppi” Azzopardi has even inveigled his way into various think-tanks and committees. Him! He who needs the clapper boy’s help to pronounce “DVD”.