Franco Debono does not write all his own blog-posts
Come on, Franco, spill the beans: who’s doing some of the writing for you?
I’ve suspected this for some time, because the standard of English, the construction of sentences, and the general idiom are so different in parts to the dismal and abysmal writing which we know for certain is Franco’s.
Franco has trouble with the definite and indefinite article, and constructs sentences this sort of way:
So its good for you election at Christmas????!!!!
Or,
problem was always pipi
And yet look at this opening salvo in his latest blog-post:
With Austin ‘bendy buses’ Gatt in cabinet I will vote against the Budget
9 Oct 2012
The day after Austin Gatt was given a standing ovation by the Maltese Conservative Party’s General Conference for his bendy buses public transport reform, I resigned from the party because I thought the situation was ridiculous and medieval. Were the PN councillors living in a parallel universe?
The resignation was not accepted even though I had insisted.
Today it was reported that at the UK Conservative Party General Conference fun was poked at the fact that Austin Gatt lumped bendy buses on Malta !
Definitely, but definitely, not Franco’s work. The dead give-away is the syntax of that last line. Very, very few Maltese people construct sentences using that sort of syntax, and Franco is most certainly not one of them.
———
Compare that with the opening salvo in the blog-post immediately before it.
From the eighties with love :
Where there is Austin ‘pipi’ Gatt there is turbulence !
Gonzi is wraking havoc with the Westminister model! In the House of Commons it should be mentioned that Nationalist MP Franco Debono objected to all of this, and I am proud of it, and I was banned from contesting the next election for objecting to this and the ban was pushed for by Austin Gatt, the man behind bendy buses in malta !!:
Can the Times now ask what was Austin ‘pipi’ Gatt’s contribution, if any to the troubles of the eighties ? Was it Mintoff the real problem or was it Austin ‘pipi’ Gatt ?
Hands up those who think that Manuel Delia looks like a bendy Bus !
I dont know wheter Delia wears Ralph Lauren like me, but he surely wears braces, being a clone of Austin ‘pipi’ Gatt, but it seems every0ne has seen and noticed that except Daphneeeee .. . . Does Bindi- wear braces too?
When I was ok with Gonzi I was ok with Daphneeee, now work it out for yourselves . ..
——–
Are they written by the same person? Obviously not. Franco definitely wrote this one, though.
Now it’s just a matter of working out which native English speaker is giving him a bit of a helping hand here and there. I have my suspicions, but to quote the man Labour spent years calling HuBastjan, I’m keeping them in pectore.
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If I were bold, I’d say it was Yana Mintoff.
I reckon it’s DD (Daphne Debono) trying to give hubby a helping hand.
Could be, Baxxter, however, I suggest he has discovered the latest Apple app, the ‘Automatic Sentence Generator’. Input your message, garbled as it may be, and the word generator spews it out in perfect English.
The elephant man should take note, as should the bulk of his looney cohorts.
I also understand that Michelle has contacted Apple and has requested an ‘Automatic Porn Generator’.
,
Or Mary Mifsud.
:)
You re not even bold enough to write under your own name.
We love Baxxter just the way he is.
I’d lose my job if I had to write under my own name. Do not mistake suicidal stupidity with boldness.
Hey Daphne,
This comment is not related to your article, but I’m really curious to know what your opinion is on The Mayor of London’s comment regarding the bendy buses clogging the streets of Malta.
I mean it’s not like you don’t experience this a few times a week during your drive along the Sliema Front.
Let’s hear about it….. Life before and after the Bendy buses alobg Tower Rd.
[Daphne – I drive along the Sliema front perhaps five times a year, if that, and I don’t do it ‘to drive along the front’, but only if I happen to be visiting my parents from a point in St Julian’s. I am not interested in complaining about buses. The old ones were much worse all round. I have had it up to here with moaners and whiners, and if I had my way, I would corral them in a Siberian work-camp in January to give them a real reason to moan.]
Fine. Whatever, so what was your experience during those 5 times?
Your so good at telling it like it really is, everbody knows that….It’s what made you famous!
[Daphne – What was my experience during those five times? Do bear in mind that I was born and bred next to the Preluna hotel and lived on Tower Road until I was 26, so driving along the front is not exactly ‘an experience’ for me. I make no issue about it. The real problem, I find, is with the visitors and total strangers, who clog up the place on summer nights and weekends all year round. The bendy buses drive through, but the screaming Johnnies hang around, tolerated only because they spend money in pizza and pasta places.]
Private cars and not bendy buses are the problem.
Well so I presume that removing the bendy buses will be an election promise by Joseph. OK let’s wait and see.
Didn’t want to offend the great Austin Gatt !
Kemm ha ndum nighdlek biex tmur tistad, Dward.
The only reason you don t moan is because you never have to wait for a bus to turn up in the morning,
[Daphne – No, it’s because I’m not predisposed to moaning. I have had experience of very real suffering, so I am not inclined to take waiting for a bus seriously on the scale of human difficulties. I don’t moan when I spend an hour in traffic driving from my home to Valletta in the morning, either.]
Yeah, your’re right….
Those who were born, bred and lived half their lives on Tower Rd have to put up with all the visitors and total strangers from London and even as far away as Mellieha.
It’s a real problem all right. Come to think of it, we’re sounding like a couple of moaners and whiners.
We just might as well hop on a bendy bus so it can whizz us to a Siberian Camp, far from the madding crowd. I’m off to bed. Got a bus to catch tomorrow moring…….. See you in Siberia perhaps? ZZZZzzzzz…..
[Daphne – No, I’m very content in Bidnija. There are bendy buses, but no chavs treating the place like a great night out, though I must admit that winter Sunday afternoons are quite dreadful because you can’t move for the picnics.]
Who’s this creep?
As far as I know, the use of a space before an exclamation is almost exclusively a French trait…
Privitera does it too.
” … Gonzi is wraking havoc with the Westminister model!”
That is definitely Franco Debono. Whilst declaiming as some self appointed “expert” on the Westmintser model of parliamentary democracy he stlll has to learn how to spell it – even though I pointed it out to him many many months ago!
” … minister” is what he obsessively wants to be but will never be.
“Wraking” is probably a typing error. “Westminister” instead of Westminster is his habitual Freudian slip.
I have always believed this, Daphne – Franco’s style is lumpen and he translates his Maltese thoughts literally into English.
The other writer’s style is journalistic. But most importantly, it lacks egocentricism.
Unless it’s Franco’s other personality. In any case, either way you see it, it is bad.
Lo and behold, just a few hours after Franco or his Puppeteer wrote specific articles on the bendy buses & Austin Gatt, the MLP comes out with new posters on Austin & the bendy buses. Coincidence?
When you consider the work required to design, print and install the posters, I do not believe it to be a coincidence. But could it be that Franco’s puppeteer is also one of the strategists at the PL?
Benoit?
[Daphne – No. She still writes like a Sacred Heart schoolgirl.]
Could it be the one from Northern Ireland? Can’t remember the name.
[Daphne – Tyrrell? No, definitely not. As I said here already, the ghost-writer is Maltese, but a native speaker of English. And almost certainly a woman.]
How could you tell it is a woman? I am intrigued.
Sorry Daphne, I have just noticed that you have already answered this question below.
Ghost-writer or ghost-rider?
http://www.maltastar.com/dart/20121009-in-memoriam-of-good-man-ernesto-che-guevara-45th-anniversary-of-his-murder
‘He was a first rate, hands-on guerilla leader.’ I can imagine who was behind this load of manure.
Ok again, time to call in the international spy web to unearth and blow the cover of this native English speaking guy (or girl) helping out Franco.
[Daphne – I happen to think it’s a she, for a variety of reasons, including the most obvious one that Franco cannot cooperate with men.]
Good heavens. Could it be Michela Spiteri?
Could be, she made an impassioned plea asking him not to go some time ago.
Whether you have guessed or not, she knows him and likes him (and thinks he’s debonair).
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20111120/opinion/Franco-s-Debonair-week.394647
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20120603/opinion/What-on-Franco-has-Gonzi-done-.422524
Ah, “I never guess. It is a shocking habit — destructive to the logical faculty.”
Very likely. Her blog posts about Franco Debono betray an almost erotic attraction for him.
Definitely Marisa Micallef Leyson.
I’m going with Marisa Micallef. She must be doing something to earn her salary, and we never seem to see her around.