Laugh of the day

Published: April 2, 2012 at 1:40pm

Mintoff and Karmenu Vella (no, the young men didn't cost two pounds)

Posted by Silvio:

Mintoff was in London with a delegation which included Miss Barbara.

Being still lin his prime, he wanted to enjoy the night life there, but being as they say a bit stingy, he refused the offer of one of the Soho girls, telling her that in Malta no one epects to pay more than two pounds for that kind of thing.

The next morning, it being a nice day and to save on the taxi fare, they decided to walk.

Miss Barbara was at his side when they came face to face with last night’s girl, who looked at them and said: “See what you get for two pounds in London, sir?”




32 Comments Comment

  1. H.P. Baxxter says:

    Hang on a minute. He might have been stingy with everything else, but not with his women. How else could he have brought Vanessa Redgrave aboard his yacht?

    [Daphne – He didn’t have one. That was the Noneta, owned by a Maltese wine producer. And it wasn’t Vanessa Redgrave. It was Charlotte Rampling. She was shooting a film here in Malta at the time.]

  2. TROY says:

    No country for budgie-smuggling old men.

  3. TROY says:

    Good one, Sivio. I guess the lesson here is: you pay peanuts, you get monkeys.

    • ciccio says:

      I can’t believe this story is true, but if it was, I think that rather than enjoying a night with the girls, Mintoff would have had a much better time spending the night negotiating on the price.

      He would probably have ended up claiming that he was the one who should be paid, rather than the other way round.

      • john says:

        This is an old joke. It’s the first time, though, that I’ve heard it told with Mintoff and Agatha as the protagonists.

  4. Francis Saliba MD says:

    And was not the “Noneta” the same borrowed yacht on which Dom Mintoff decided to anticipate a planned visit to Communist Albania, unannounced, and finished up in the middle of a minefield from which he was rescued by the Albanian Navy? On such banal incidents depended the course of Malta post-Indipendence history!

    • Not Tonight says:

      This is news to me. Tikber u titghallem! Sew, mela Mintoff jasal kmieni u Joseph jasal tard. They just can’t get it right. That’s why there’s protocol in such instances, I believe. So that everyone knows what to do, when, and how.

  5. carlos says:

    And what about the fall from his horse which later turned out to be something else as pictures handed to the speaker by Lorry Sant have revealed?

    • Antoine Vella says:

      I was a student in the 1970s and one of my summer jobs was as a stable groom at Marsa (or the Marsa as Britons called it).

      It was impossible for Mintoff to fall from his horse – whenever he went riding he would have a mounted policeman on each side plus two in front and two at the back. He used to be completely surrounded and they never went faster than a slow canter.

      Another thing about Mintoff’s stinginess: he owned several horses which were all kept for free at the police stables.

      • Francis Saliba MD says:

        And I have reliable information that those Arab horses were themselves a present from Gaddafi and occasionally served as police horses to “justify” their free board and lodging in the Marsa police stables at public expense.

      • Joethemaltaman says:

        Antoine, I don’t think you’re right. I clearly remember Mintoff riding his horse from Bormla in the direction of Tarxien across Fgura accompanied only by a second horseman. What I don’t remember is whether it was late 60s or early 70s.

  6. Riff Raff says:

    Odd Man Out for Dummies.

  7. ta' sapienza says:

    It’s what we got for our two pounds too. Remember the red two Liri?

  8. Mario says:

    Din smajt li grat vera.

    Go klassi fi skola primarja it-teacher bdiet isaqsi lit-tfal jekk hux qed jaghmlu xi forma ta’ penitenza jew sagrificju jew sawm fi zmien tar-Randan.

    Tifel wiegeb li l-familja kolla qed jaghmlu sagrificcju flimkien.

    Din staqsietu x’kien dan is-sagrificcju u dan wiegeb li flimkien fi 7.30pm jaghmlu 10 minuti jaraw l-ahbarjiet fuq Super One. Ghaxar minuti iebsa, Miss, it-tifel qalla, ghax hlief affajiet ta’ dwejjaq f’dawk l-10 minuti ma tismax imma nissaportuhom ghal hazen tad-dinja, Miss.

  9. Francis Saliba MD says:

    Carlos, people who had a glimpse of that head wound opine that it looked much more like the edge of a vessel than the mark of a horse shoe.

    By the way it is not fair to accuse Mintoff of being stingy when sea-borne on a borrowed yacht. I have it on good authority that Mintoff would refresh himself only from a sealed drinks bottle that had been freshly unsealed in his presence but once the bottle escaped from his field of vision it would be generously passed over to crew and shipmates for their delectation.

    Unkind souls whispered that he did not trust a drinks bottle after it had escaped from his surveillance but others maintain that it was his way of rewarding his followers for their devotion to him.

  10. Iz-Zanzi says:

    What title tattle; let me clear this up. The alleged story is a based upon a well known Tas-Soho joke about an Arab and a camel visiting Soho for the first time.

    “Miss Barbara [camel, get it] was at his side [Arab] when they came face to face with last night’s girl, who looked at them and said: “See what you get for two pounds in London, sir?”

    Dom visited London in April 1972 and stayed at the Savoy (good luck to him).

  11. Herbie says:

    @Mario
    u jaghtuna ‘il-FATTI tal-gurnata’

  12. A. Charles says:

    When I was in Israel, I was told the story of how Mintoff was stopped in his stride when he protested at the UN against that country.

    Newly delivered Israeli gunboats, on their way from France, entered Delimara during a storm without informing the Maltese authorities which for humanitarian reasons is the norm.

    Golda Meir had phone Mintoff and told him that if he continued with the charade, she would publish his Swiss banks account numbers.

  13. Miss O'Brien says:

    Thank God I haven’t yet had my breakfast.

    When paper money with Agatha Barbara’s mug was first issued we used to check whether it was the genuine article and not a false not by running our index finger on her face…to feel the stubble. Good times!

  14. Francis Saliba MD says:

    @ A Charles.

    Mintoff had raised a storm of protests about that Israeli seacraft (sheltering to the leeward of l-Gharix during a storm) and suggested nefarious attempts against his life.

    Golda Meir simply shut him up be sending him a number that she knew Mintoff would recognize as well as its Swiss banking connection.

    • Jozef says:

      Toni Abela could use Luciano Busuttil’s logic regarding Gaddafi’s deposits and have a go at retrieving those monies. If he resigned from the Labour Party on principle, it should follow. Whether Wenzu Mintoff would be pleased is anyone’s guess.

      It is highly unlikely, but what if Dom Mintoff intends to leave part of his estate to the party? Could explain Yana’s appointment by the leader himself. Otherwise, why would he do it?

  15. Dee says:

    If you REALLY want to know just now STINGY and MEAN he was with his immediate family and other close dependants, ask some of his ex servants/home help. housekeepers etc.
    Like any other petty dictator, the man was more interested in people fearing and hating him than in respecting him. That way , he thought, he could control everybody.

    • Rita Camilleri says:

      My late father was a policeman and he was often stationed at Mintoff’s house in Tarxien. Mrs Mintoff would wait until her husband had left the house before giving my father, the policeman at the door, a glass of tap water.

      Not a soft drink or even tea or coffee – no, TAP water – that is how stingy Dom was. Mrs Mintoff wasn’t at all stingy herself, but had nothing to offer and was too afraid to give the policeman in the sun even a glass of tap water while her husband was there.

      My father also used to mention how Mrs Mintoff would sometimes ask him to kill one of their chickens so that she could cook it, and how they would have to pretend that it had been found dead of natural causes and so she was cooking it not to waste it, rather than wasting it by killing it to eat it. She was scared stiff of him.

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