Comment of the evening
Posted by Silvio, beneath my piece about Luciano Busuttil and his conviction that he took his children to a playground in Ghar id-Dud in Sliema (there isn’t one), where he found no wifi.
Around two years ago, I was sitting on Bus 63 at the Valletta terminal when three foreign teenagers boarded and asked the driver for three tickets to Sliema.
The driver said “This is not Sliema bus”, and told them to take the 60.
The girls told him that they have been taking the 63 for the last month.
The driver kept on insisting and so did the girls.
He couldn’t take it anymore, so he just got up, shouted one of those nice Maltese words and in perfect English said “Mela haq il-z………you drive” and just left the bus.
The girls gave up and got off the bus. Back came the driver, got the bus going and off we went.
As I was sitting right behind the driver, after I was sure he had calmed down, I told him, in a very nice way, “I think they were right and this bus goes to Sliema.”
He faced me and in his gentlest voice told me, “E haqq iz………. int ukoll?”
I told him, “Look, I live in Dingli Street and this bus goes there, so where do I live – Hollywood?”
He said in that know-it-all tone: “Mela missek taf Tas-Sliema il-Ferry, jew biex haqq al-M……..trid tahraqni.”
I just gave up.
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Cracked me up! Haha.
I just wonder how we ever made it to the EU.
I suppose once they had accepted Greece …..
Just noticed today that the longstanding ‘temporary’ bus stop at Ghar id-dud is now named ‘Sliema’. No qualifying expletives or swear words, however.
Too bad the whole incident was not videotaped. It would have made a perfect commercial aimed at attracting repeat tourists.
X’misthija. I wonder if this creep got a job with Arriva and is still practising his impeccable vocabulary of bilingual swear words.
Angus, repeat tourists? Who cares. We have a potential market of first-time tourists of over 400 million within three hours flight time.
At about 2 million first-time tourist arrivals per year. We can piss off all of them each year and still have a tourist industry that will last 200 years.
(Labour thug/driver thinking–those who think–maybe ten?)
Silvio’s comment should be used to remind us all that we have progressed a lot in the public transport sphere.
On Thursday, I needed to go to Zejtun and I boarded the bus and politely asked the driver where Bir id-Deheb was, and whether it was close to the Zejtun square.
He replied very, very rudely and in a raised voice, he told me: “Mela ma tafx fejn iz-**** qieghed iz-Zejtun u Bir id-Deheb?”
I said: “Le, ma nafx fejn qieghed Bir id-Deheb ghax kieku ma kontx nistaqsik, u frankament ma nippretendix illi nitla’ fuq karozza tal-linja u x-xufier ikellimni hekk. Kemm inti pastaz.” I left the bus, while, in a string of expletives, he told me that Bir id-Deheb is not in Zejtun.
As I left, he just snapped back to his trained self and called after me “Sinjura, Sinjura” and began to beg me (literally) not to report him.
He told me “Skuzani, skuzani, I’ve had a rough day and hundreds ask me that question during the day. Please do not report me PLEASE. Qeghdin fuqna bhal isqra.”
I was so surprised that he actually apologised that I did not even reply and he said “Please, please tkunx kattiva”.
When I finally realised that this was an apology of sorts, I told him not to worry because all of us have bad days. But it does not give us the right to snap at people, a statement which elicited agreement.
I do agree that the driver should not have behaved in that manner, but how strange is that: being actually apologised to by the driver.
Now that is a clear improvement.
[Daphne – It wasn’t an apology, Lomax. An apology means you are sorry for what you have done because you have offended the other person. Here, he was sorry for what he did because it meant you would report him and he’d get into trouble. This was not an apology but an attempt at avoiding trouble for himself. If there were no threat of trouble, he wouldn’t have regretted his behaviour and the insults and worse would have followed you off the bus. Clearly, this driver still doesn’t understand why he shouldn’t swear at passengers. He thinks it’s just to avoid being disciplined.]
Actually Bir id-deheb is in Zejtun – on the very outskirts bordering the neighbouring village of Hal Ghaxaq.
Yet we gave these animals €100k each!