“Expensive clothes”
The tattiness of people’s clothes in Malta has always freaked me out. All that black polyester – you can’t light a match near some people.
But then I consider the general attitude about clothes being a waste of money (unless, of course, you’re splurging hundreds of euros on some horrid outfit to wear once to a wedding reception, in which case, oddly, it’s not a waste of money), and I cease to be astonished at stories like this, which was carried on timesofmalta.com a couple of evenings ago.
EXPENSIVE CLOTHES
Meanwhile, replying to another question, Dr Gatt said that two shirts bearing the Transport Malta logo and the Maltese merchant flag, along with trousers for five TM officials at the Morocco Yacht Show in 2011 cost €865.93.
He said the uniforms were needed for stronger exposure and better branding for Malta.
The same clothes were used for this year’s edition of the fair.
Consider the way the piece is written. Is it deliberate deception or poor grammar that makes it sound like two shirts and one pair of trousers cost €865.93? The poor Transport Malta officials had to share them, presumably while taking turns to man the stand one at a time, in uniform.
But no. Quite obviously, what we had here was two shirts and one pair of trousers for each of those five officials. This means 15 items of clothing for €865.93, which averages out at €57.73 per item. Given that many people still mentally flip prices to the non-existent Maltese lira for comparative value purposes, this is Lm24.77 for a shirt or a pair of trousers.
How, in God’s name, can this be described as expensive? I would say it is cheap, and would also hope that the quality – given that they were worn by official representatives on Malta’s stand at a yacht show, did not reflect the low price, especially when you consider that a significant part of that price would be for putting the Transport Malta logo on them.
If €57.73 for a pair of trousers is “expensive”, no wonder so many Maltese men look like refugees from behind the Berlin wall, circa 1986.
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Who asked this question ?
Could it be Luciano Busuttil, Silvio Parnis or Joe Mizzi ?
A prime suspect could have been Joe Cuschieri but now he is out of his depth in Brussels.
LM24.77 for a shirt, ”is cheap” for Daphne Caruana Galizia ! No wonder the PN has always been considered as the party “TAS-SINJURI” !
Jista xi hadd bi ftit melh f’mohhu jista jemmen li din is-SINJURA tista qatt tinkwieta li l-faqar f’Malta qieghed jizdied ?. U li hawn min lanqas “lunch” ma jaffordja jghati lit-tfal biex jiehduh maghhom li skola !
[Daphne – Don’t be a total arse, Mr Privitera. You live in a world of relative values, so get used to it. Yes, 58 euros for what should be a good shirt is cheap, or rather, inexpensive. The fact that some people can’t afford it (or rather, refuse to afford it, but then spend the money on a night out instead) does not make it expensive. When I was raising small children and had no disposable income, I didn’t describe the things I couldn’t afford as ‘expensive’. I just recognised the fact that I couldn’t buy them. End of story. How much do you spend on your shirts and what are they made of?]
Sur Privitera, kemm tiflah tkun vojt?
Hemm bzonn tonfoq eluf kbar biex tippartecipa f’yacht show internazzjonali; partecipazzjoni necessarja ghax minghajra mmorru lura. Tahseb li tajjeb tiffranka forsi 3% tal-budget, biex tispicca bl-istaff Malti b’hwejjeg tal-qamel (paragunat mal-kompetizzjoni) – meta xogholhom li jattiraw in-nies lejn Malta?
Kif ser issolvi ‘l-problema tal-faqar (illi f’Malta hija problema ferm izghar minn f’hafna pajjizi ohra) – billi teqred settur ekonomiku minhabba ghira bazwija ghas-“sinjuri barranin bil-jottijiet taghhom”?!
Daphne , you should get it into your head, that people in overpriced suits ( and overpriced education !)- like you – aren’t any smarter or any more ” in the know “, than others who come from more humble backgrounds.
[Daphne – I don’t wear suits, still less over-priced ones. And I certainly didn’t have an over-priced education.I went to a Dickensian school called St Dorothy’s Convent in Mdina in the 1970s, and then I went, free of charge but without a stipend, to the University of Malta.]
Privitera, old fellow, 10 000 Euros for a bespoke Turnbull & Asser outfit isn’t overpriced. Think of the expertise and hours of patient work that go into it, all backed up by two centuries of Savile Row tradition.
Now tell us about your humble background. I’m all ears. I bet you mine’s humbler.
H.P. Baxter: If your background is humbler than mine, then how come you support GonziPN ???? My father was a shoemaker. And yours ?
Ghalhekk ghandhekk lanzit ghax thossoq proletarjat?
Privitera, why does every single comment of yours have to declare “I am an arse”?
First off, I do not support GonziPN. And you would know it if you’d followed my comments. Oh but I forget – you can’t read.
I just despise Labour. If it weren’t for Simon Busuttil’s name on the ballot sheet, I wouldn’t be voting at all.
Secondly, your father would have been a shoemaker back in the 1920s. A lucrative trade even today. Back then, your family would have been above average in the hierarchy of social clout.
Mine’s below average. Which is how I know the underclass so well.
Thirdly, you claim that a “humble background” should draw a voter towards Labour. The reasoning – if one may call it that – being, presumably, that Labour will improve the lot of the Common Folk.
Complete arse, pish and twaddle. No party will ever improve anyone’s lot, neither Labour nor PN. My generation knows it.
Hence our disillusionment with politics. Your generation, the pampered grey goo, does not. Hence your quasi-erotic obsession with Malta’s political parties.
Take it up a notch, Renzo Piano’s expensive, the bridge reconnecting the breakwater money down the drain, the summit held last week a waste of money and so on.
Joseph stated that there can be no spinoffs from a parliament building, so economically speaking, it isn’t an investment.
I still remember when one of the FZL grumbled on their Super 1 to the futility of putting up fairy lights on the tamarisk saplings along Sliema front.
The superfluous is to be eradicated from this country, otherwise the ‘kuxxjenza socjali’ doesn’t prevail.
This reasoning could be extended to this week’s motoring event or the middle sea race, anything which isn’t to their taste, elitist they’ll say. A waste of time, effort and resources.
A brand is its values, I’m still waiting for the PL’s.
for the record, this is the first time I’m hearing about this bit of news.
however, if you say are on a fixed monthly income of eur1,500 and have to pay off your loan at say eur400 – eur500 a month. by the way this will just afford you a small sized apartment.
Therefore, you are left with eur1,000 as disposable income with which you have to pay for utility bill, feed your own mouth and that of any kid (if any) and your partner.
then no wonder why not everyone can afford to pay eur57.73 for a shirt or a pair of trousers.
just for the record, people reading this comment should not automatically assume i’m a labourite, just scribbling down some figures which came to my mind while reading this particular blog.
[Daphne – Malti, disposable income is what is left for you to spend AFTER you have paid your utility, food and other standard bills. You feed your partner’s mouth, do you? What a dead give-away that you’re a Stone Age Maltese man. How about she feeds her own mouth? Then you would have more disposable income.]
Daphne
can you tell please enlighten me from where did you deduce i’m a man? i said ‘and your partner’. Could be that a woman is the main wage earner in the family and she takes care of putting a plate in front of the family table. nothing wrong in that.
[Daphne – Yes, right, because that happens all the time, doesn’t it: women going out to work while men stay at home doing the dishes and washing the floor. Your second remark gives you away for being a man, too. Women ALMOST ALWAYS are the ones “taking care of putting a plate in front of the family table”, whether they work all day outside the home or in it. Who actually pays for the food is another matter.]
it’s also childish when people start calling ‘names’ to other people who they do not agree with. it’s not something i will do myself, perhaps maybe because i’m not a ‘Stone Age Maltese man’ as you have so nicely put it.
[Daphne – It might occur to you that, as a woman who has raised three children while working, I find the default assumption that men feed their wives to be most deeply offensive, especially when it is described as “feeding their partner’s mouth”.]
i stand corrected on the disposable income, therefore after deducting those expenses you will be left with maybe eur100 as budget to dress the whole family. with that budget would buy one item costing Eur57.73 for your kid and buy your partner 2/3 of a shirt and nothing for yourself?
I wonder.
[Daphne – The solution, my dear, is for both able-bodied adults in the relationship to earn their own living, and not depend on the other for two-thirds of a shirt. Yes, money will still be tight with children around, but nobody in the real world pays a mortgage, raises a family and keeps a wife at home on 1,500 euros a month. You can die trying, destroy your marriage, or spend years wearing polyester.]
Nice chatting with you
Malti wrote: “Daphne can you tell please enlighten me from where did you deduce i’m a man?”.
Ahem, if you were a woman, you’d be Maltija, not Malti.
did it ever occur to you that both partners in a relationship might be working and still earn a cumulative eur1,500?
[Daphne – Yes, it did occur to me, but that is not what you said. You said that one partner earns 1,500 euros and feeds the other partner’s mouth.]
if both work on the minimum wage or thereabouts its very much possible.
[Daphne – People on the minimum wage are irresponsible to have children. It is an act of great selfishness. If they come along by accident, well – but to actually sit down and plan a child on the minimum wage? I don’t think so.]
on the name calling issue, and I quote
‘I find the default assumption that men feed their wives to be most deeply offensive,’
I’m sorry if I offended you, really.
but there are other ways of venting your arguments, certainly not by name calling. After all we are supposedly living in a modern society but who am I to judge! i’m just a Stone Age man.
btw Kenneth Cassar’s comment really made me laugh, nice one :)
The wife probably does, I mean work, imma xorta tgerger.
For the record, Disposable income is the amount of money that households have available for spending and saving after income taxes have been accounted for. Your utilities, food and other expenses must be paid from your disposable income as well.
Read more: http://www.investopedia.com/terms/d/disposableincome.asp#ixzz29DQhm8GD
[Daphne – We are actually talking about discretionary income.]
No, I do not think it boils down to “poor grammar”.
What kind of PQ is this? Can you imagine this being asked in the House of Commons?
I think it is a misleading sentence written purposely to give the wrong impression to readers. Clearly not the first time.
Unfortunately, today’s journalists are not that clever.
I do not believe there are many journalists with that amount of wit; particularly at The Times. Our father encouraged us to read the newspaper when we were little. I doubt anyone in his right mind would entertain such a thought today.
[Daphne – I always find it odd when people say that their parents encouraged them to read The Times to improve their English. My parents did the opposite.]
I did not say it was the Times.
I can t believe you said that people on Minimum wage shouldn t have children.
Do you have any idea how many parents are on minimum wage.
You arrogant snob.
[Daphne – Arrogant snob? Of course people on the minimum wage shouldn’t have children – not unless they’re having them with somebody who has a much better income. It is YOUR attitude that smacks of arrogance (and selfishness): bringing children into the world when you don’t have the means to support them. The right to have children comes with duties towards them.]
Reminds me of your favortie photo of Leo Brincat with il-Guy, in that najs jumper.
In the past.. even the lower classes tried to dress well in Malta even if they could not afford it.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/51841741@N07/4793963697/in/photostream/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/51841741@N07/7162418248/in/photostream/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/51841741@N07/7162583660/in/photostream/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/51841741@N07/7181988728/in/photostream
[Daphne – What ‘lower classes’ do you see there? There are none, even among the spectators. And guess how you can tell? Their clothes.]
They are mostly lowers classes, the Marina gate photo has plenty of ne’er do wells and notorious character types that hung around wine shops (these shops that all magically disappeared right after World War II) along with the beggars and a Lascar sailor.
[Daphne – All right, I only bothered to look at two, and they were both of a crowd on Kingsway.]
The Nix Mangiare steps are close by and they were famous for their beggars. The stone masons in the right foreground are not lower classes and neither are the clerk types.
The East Street Valletta photo is chock full of the lower classes along with a peddler or two.
The photo with the country bumpkins looks like the farming labourers are in their Sunday best attire for a rustic fete or festa.
The march of the Maltese nobility has plenty of lower classes as the spectators watching their betters.
One thing I am good at is reading photographs and I been doing it well for fifty years, trust me.
Love those images, it gives an insight into how closely knit the community was. Ok, maybe the nobility took to sulkng in Mdina far too long.
I think it was about the languages spoken and how these blended together, complementing each other that made it possible. Harmony in semiotics resulted in understanding common ground.
This whole business about the ‘new’ middle class is to say the least, worrying. Why Labour has to erase everything and restart from scratch is beyond me.
If I had to wear something made from polyester – I would prefer to wear the plastic drink bottles than the textile itself…
Ok, calm down people; I mean ‘Malti’ whoever he/she is, just tried to explain his/her situation.
I don’t believe it’s right to snub a person over what… aarrgh, POLYESTER! ( I hate the name itself, let alone the textile).
However please do give ‘Malti’ a breather here.
I used to work in an office where my bosses wore polyester ties, and shiny suits made of synthetic material.
One day, during a heated argument in the board room, there was such a build-up of static that they caught fire. I was saved by my pure alpaca suit and my silk tie, since they started smouldering but never caught fire.
That day, I resolved to snub anyone wearing polyester, for safety reasons if nothing else.
Oh shite what did I just say, I mean polyester doesn’t ‘breath’, it makes your skin itch!
Still, I believe you people were a tad hard on ‘Malti’
Dear God! How embarrassingly cheap. 58e only for an outfit meant for presentation purposes? And what about the shoes and belts, ties and jackets?
This is ridiculous. I just spent close to that amount on a leather belt this afternoon and TM officials are presenting Malta with an outfit that cost only 58e?
[Daphne – 116 euros, actually: 58 for the shirt and 58 for the trousers.]
It was a yacht show. What type of market would Malta be targeting if it sent its representatives to a yacht show wearing Abanderado T-shirts? Certainly not the type that own a yacht.
Agreed, they’ll criticise the ‘expensive’ food and drink served on the stand, or the weight of paper used for the brochures next.
Malta’s bagging some of the most beautiful yachts, these people have been used to the service provided in Porto Cervo, Porto Rotondo and Viareggio. That includes fresh flowers in customer waiting areas every day.
A particular yacht yard in Viareggio has been included as a tourist attraction and houses a permanent display of pre-war wooden schooners and racing ketches.
If there’s some criticism to be made, it has to be the need for expanding the potential and headquarters of local yacht yards transforming them into boutiques similar in conception, even because some of them are located in spectacular surroundings.
Throw in the royal portraits hanging on the walls of the yacht club and the formula becomes irresistibly fascinating.
Last but not least, our yacht club is the only institution outside Commonwealth realms bearing the royal title. The only exception is Hong Kong Royal Yacht Club. James Bond was a member there. That is why they hung on to the title. It says prestige.
But we ARE in the Commonwealth.
I said Commonwealth REALMS. Not Commonwealth members. i.e. countries with the British sovereign as head of state.
I hope we all know the difference. Or the 13th December wouldn’t be a national holiday.
Absolutely. They should have worn a singlet, baggy sagging shorts and flip-flops. Isn’t that our national costume?