Well, at least they used ‘good day’ properly, for once

Published: January 20, 2013 at 2:43am

More money to burn, I see. This is the short feature/advert which the Labour Party is showing in cinemas before the full length feature film you’ve gone to see.

The ghastly old man is Narcy Calamatta, mejda tal-qubbajd on Xandir Malta in the 1970s and 1980s and star of many a cheap and awful penny-farce at the Catholic Institute and similar.

What a joke. “The Maltese will never surrender”. Like hell. People like them were DYING to surrender. That’s why, a couple of generations down the line, they’ve still got that bewigged old queen, Renato, singing ‘Mitna ghall-barrani’, though in 2013 he has, at last, stopped wearing his cat-suit.

So what’s it to be, eh? Mitna ghall-barrani, we were only in the war because of the colonial hakma, kienet gwerra tal-Inglizi u ahna ndhalna ntortament, or we will never surrender?

Il-vera tal-misthija.

Maybe it’s time they tell us where they’re getting all this money. Maybe it’s time they realised that the more they splash money about to sell their jacksh*t product and their intrinsically worthless leader, the more they turn us off.

Narcy Calamatta, my eye.

Was this a Mario Philip Azzopardi production, by any chance? It has his fingerprints all over it.

This video can’t be viewed on an iPad.




62 Comments Comment

  1. admin says:

    Do read this piece by Fr Joe Borg, and also the comments beneath it:

    http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20130118/blogs/deliverable-not-delivered.453787

  2. P Shaw says:

    Shameless re-writing of history, and regarding a historic war at that! I guess it is true that the bigger the lie the more people will believe it.

    By the end of 2018, the Maltese would have gone through five years of re-education campaigns, similar to what the South Vietnamese went through after 1975.

    By then, our kids will be convinced that Mintoff introduced democracy and was God’s gift to Malta, that the 1980s were the best years ever in Malta (easy to believe given the boom experienced in the USA and Western Europe during that time), and that in Malta there was a terrorist group known as PN, who beat the police and innocent victims in Zejtun and Rabat and who tried to topple a Labour government democratically elected and supported by the people.

    • mandango70 says:

      Ara vera m’ghandekx xi tghid P Shaw. Re-education and that all cr*p. Fejn minghalik qieghed f’dal-pajjiz?

      Hallina minn dac-cucati.

      • P Shaw says:

        If your level of IQ is insufficient to filter and question any MLP propaganda, then I am afraid you will never be able to see the writing on the wall, even if it is staring at you in the face.

      • Tumas-Muscat says:

        You’ve obviously never studied Maltese or international history in an academic (and bias-free) manner to back this piece of expensive – but utterly inaccurate – propaganda.

        And re-education and twisting events is a fact of life in different parts of the world (as Mr. Shaw gave a concrete example), and it is propaganda like this that does it.

      • Vera_qieghed_sew says:

        The world is full of politicians re-inventing themselves, because the world is fuller still with morons.

        Million of Americans believe that Obama is a Muslim. Millions of Africans believe that AIDS is a scam.

        The majority of Labour voters believe that Mintoff pioneered women’s rights, abolished university fees and kicked out the Brits.

        Little wonder the obnoxious pseudo-journalist who heckled Eddie Fenech Adami live on the national TV station, and led the media campaign against Malta’s EU membership, is now shamelessly presenting himself as a Fenech Adami admirer who will lead Malta to the top of Europe.

  3. Village says:

    Labour is a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

    Most Maltese know this but some conveniently ignore it or wish it wasn’t so or maybe things have changed.

    The Nationalist Party should put it to the test and let all know if Malta is truly Taghna Lkoll.

    Start off by organizing mass meetings in Senglea, Birgu,Zejtun and Bormla. Get Muscat to condemn the violence perpetrated by Mintoff.

  4. cintura says:

    Narcy Calamatta, was, is and remains a joke.

  5. Gahan says:

    This is pure fiction and twisting of factual logic.

    Who was this Mr Caruana speaking in the name of the Maltese people? He never existed.

    One thing I know for sure – as soon as the war started and the Maltese parliament began debating the bill against the deportation of the internees and came to vote against il-Barrani’s bulldozing tactics, Sir Ugo Mifsud head of the PN fainted in parliament after making a passionate speech and later died that very night.

    Dr George Borg Olivier voted against the British decision and Dr Paul Boffa (Leader of the Malta Labour Party) voted in favour of il-Barrani and against his fellow Maltese.

    Boffa was knighted by the British and Borg Olivier was not.

    The only thing we have to fear is Labour. Just look at their past.

  6. Gahan says:

    Daphne , I think I can read through these jesters’ minds.

    Does anyone recall last year’s hullabaloo about the legality of political satire in carnival? And that Labour showed agreement with the Carnival participants to shift the Carnival dates?

    Well, after watching Narcy, who spoiled my day out, I think they have something up their sleeves for this Carnival.

    Jester Joseph either has Maskeruni for the Nadur Carnival , face masks of Austin or Franco or a King carnival float of Alice in wonderland for the Valletta parade.

    So PN strategists should be on the lookout for some Labour stunt , money, for Labour is of no concern it seems.

  7. JPS says:

    The airtime / advertising space was probably given for free. This is typical of the Decesare brothers who besides coming from a Labour background are masters at brown-nosing both political parties.

    [Daphne – I have their assurance that the Labour Party film is being carried against payment.]

    • giraffa says:

      I am a weekly customer of Eden cinemas, but, as I go there to be entertained and not be subjected to political propaganda, I will refrain from going there until the advertising stops.

  8. Joseph Caruana says:

    Shameful.

  9. Natalie says:

    Well, I must say I’ve already given up on this campaign. Labour seems to be picking up momentum, uttering absurdities, and everyone is believing them blindly.

    They’ve had countless experts telling them that their project can’t be done, at least within their projected timeframe and monies. They’ve had 5 or 6 consultants criticising and contradictingtheir claims about cancer. They openly declare that they will break national and EU law, and bypass permits, risk assessments etc.

    And still they keep rolling on, people believing all the way.

    Then, you look at the PN. I was shocked at how tired Gonzi looked on Xarabank. His speeches didn’t have that punch as they usually do. I would say it was a clear win for Joseph.

    And then I remembered, he’ll be soon bowing out of the PM office but he’s still battling the EU for a great budget for Malta for the coming years. And that’s a PM with integrity and devotion for you.

    But what about the rest of PN’s team? There’s no imagination or creativity in their campaign.

    The billboards are weak to say the least. Xoghol, Sahha, Edukazzjoni. Futur fis-Sod. Utter BS. I do like the videos they release though.

    We need billboards advertising the great achievements this government has obtained. The praise we’ve had from the EU. And highlight proposals from the turned-down budget, that’s still PN’s to boast about.

    This way the people can see how far we’ve come and where we plan to go. That’s how it works, not plastering a meaningless slogan all over the country.

    Anyway, I can see that the party has given up on this election, and I’m getting hopeless myself. So I think I’ll just say a little prayer and prepare to have the country handed to Other Malta for the next five years.

  10. maryanne says:

    “Il-Maltin hadu r-riedni f’idejhom”. Is this a joke?

  11. Ivan Attard says:

    This “Malta taghna lkoll” slogan will be given a very different interpretation by a future PL government. It can easily be converted into the anti-EU sentiment when faced with intricate EU regulations which can hinder their dangerous shortcut attitude in project management.

    Failures in achieving promised target dates can easily be blamed on Brussels.

    On second thoughts, “Malta taghna lkoll” is nothing but an anti- EU slogan.

  12. manum says:

    Dear Daphne
    is this your personal quothe?
    “So what’s it to be, eh? Mitna ghall-barrani, we were only in the war because of the colonial hakma, kienet gwerra tal-Inglizi u ahna ndhalna ntortament, or we will never surrender?”
    because I believe that we were only in the war because it was the british war. Enlighten me please.

    [Daphne – I won’t bother. You are clearly deficient and seeking to waste my time. ]

    • P Shaw says:

      It was a world war, stupid. The countries that pretended to be neutral (Greece and Spain) were not neutral at all, while other neutral countries (Ireland) paid a dear price afterwards.

      Do you think that Malta would have avoided the bombs if the British were not here? Malta would have been swooped up in a matter of minutes.

      We need to thank our lucky stars that the British happend to be here during those dangerous 5 – 6 years.

      • Vera_qieghed_sew says:

        To put it simply, Manu_M, the British might have been arrogant imperialists, but the Nazis were genocidal ones.

  13. Gakku says:

    Did they have to go back to 1942 to find something positive to say about decisions taken by the Maltese?

    What about 2003 and the EU referendum? Dawk kienu Maltin ukoll.

    • bystander says:

      The 2003 election was a single-issue election because Sant said he was ignoring the referendum result and NOT joining the EU if PL won the 2003 election.

  14. This video has turned me more against the Labour Party. What the hell do they think they are?

    My great grandfather served in the Royal Merchant Navy, and yes, he was Maltese too. He died serving Britain, AS WELL AS MALTA when the ship he was on, HMS Louvain was torpedoed in the Mediterranean by an enemy submarine in World War 1.

    The re-writing of history by the Labour party since Mintoff’s Death as some kind of Gensna 2 is utterly disrespectful to all those Maltese servicemen and civilians who died in the World Wars.

    What do they think? That if the British weren’t in Malta at the time, Malta would have just been a little Lilliput unaffected from the rest of the world. I bet Mussolini would have easily laid his hands and arms on it with consequences which are too graphic and extreme to even conceive.

    Ironically, one must not forget that WW2 was a war caused by fake political ideologies in Germany, with the creation of ruthless nationalism, similarly to what Labour is trying hard to create now. In the 1930s, Hitler was very successful in twisting sensitive and tragic pieces of history to his own gain, as Muscat and his cave of dinosaurs are doing now.

    That sad thing is that if a competent historian were to try and refute this bucketload of crap, the PL will do their utmost to ruin his/her reputation and accuse him/her of political bias just as they did to the real Energy plan/Gas/Ship/Auditor/Power Station experts.

    Although I’m young, I’ve studied politics and analysed many elections all around Europe, and bar Lech Kazinchy’s presidential run in Poland in 2008, I’ve never seen such a filthy and offensive campaign not only towards their opponents but to the history of the nation and all those who unfortunately died through one of the saddest episodes in the history of the world.

  15. Sigmund says:

    Little did they realise that they were sitting on the state of the art modern benches in the refurbished Rabat gardens before you go to Mdina and Mdina ditch – projects worth millions spent by the PN for the PN clique – that is the Maltese people.

    Little do they know that they were already enjoying their future.

    Their problem is that shooting anywhere in Malta or Gozo will have a PN project for the PN clique (the Mlatese people), always in the limelight (backgroung or foreground).

    And isn’t Narcy Calamatta brother to Peter Calamatta, who benefited (and probably still benefits) from several roundabout embellishment projects embarked upon by the PN for its clique?]

  16. busu says:

    What a shameless lie!

    This is like the other one about Jum il-Helsien.

    And typically 1970s Labour.

    Most labour supporters sympathise with everything British but then they massacre the language when they use it.

  17. manum says:

    I wonder if they will manage to change the colour of Elve Central to blue in time for the election.

  18. george grech says:

    A piece of expensive nonsense (not to say sh*t).

  19. Beauty and the Beef says:

    I was lucky – I went to see Les Miserables on Friday night and this advert wasn’t shown.

    People who went the day before weren’t so lucky though.

  20. silvio says:

    “beat the police etc”
    You forgot to mention THE BOMBS.

  21. observer says:

    Niftakar li, madwar hamsin sena ilu, Narcy Calamatta kien diga beda l-karriera ta’ attur – cioe’ dik li jirrecta! Ghadu jaaghmel dan sa llum.

    Niftakar ukoll – u dan dokumentat b’filmati tal-okkazjoni – li kien Narcy Calamatta, allura fizzjal fit-territorials, li, gharkubtejh fuq wahda, kien jippoza bil-bandiera (ma niftakarx kenitx Maltija, Ingliza, jew sempliciment tar-Rigment) quddiem ir-Regina Elizabetta meta kienet giet Malta fl-1967.

    Kien hemm Maltin dak iz-zmien, jew le?

  22. xmun says:

    “Malta “needed” Eddie Fenech Adami in 1987, the same way it needed Dom Mintoff in 1971, Labour leader Joseph Muscat tells The Sunday Times in an interview today.”

    BUT Malta does not need Joseph Muscat in 2013, thank you very much.

    [Daphne – Nor, clearly, did it need Mintoff in 1971, 1976 or 1981. The damage he did was terrible.Compare the results of 16 years of Mintoffianism to 16 years of the PN in government. Mintoff could have done that, but he didn’t. He just didn’t have what it takes, and he was motivated by negative, not positive, sentiments and objectives.]

    • maryanne says:

      That is why Labour thugs ransacked his house and beat up his family. Malta needed him but Labour did not.

      Joseph Muscat is trying to compare Lawrence Gonzi with Fenech Adami. Where does that leave Alfred Sant whose poodle was Muscat. He cannot wipe off and dismiss Sant without going down with hm.

  23. Josette Jones says:

    It’s about time we started calling Labour what they really are: KonMiPL.

    • Josette Jones says:

      Cheap cardboard cut-outs in their blue ties, trying to pass for the real thing.

      The made-in-China version of GonziPN trying to fool us that their flimsy plastic knock-off proposals will fly and are actually superior.

      It’s an article waiting to be written, Daphne.

  24. SPAM says:

    Morning Daphne,

    something not related to the topic, since I know you like music and you might like Jeff Buckley this young artist will have some refreshing music in 2013.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4-OxOmsqR0

  25. Joe says:

    This would certainly be amongst the top 5 of the Rotten Tomatoes film review

  26. TROY says:

    Nothing to fear but fear itself.

    I just wonder, if there was nothing to fear, why they went to all that trouble of changing from MLP to PL, from red ties to blue ones, from the dreaded torca flags to a white, ice cream one.

  27. Wilson says:

    The ignorance of quite a few Maltese regarding Malta’s involvement in WWII is flabbergasting to say the least.

    I would suggest that some of them should speak with other people from the Mediterranean that were occupied by the Italians and the Germans and then re-formulate their opinion.

    Many Maltese regard the Italians as just simple participators in WWII, and they (Italians) still do their best to hide it. But if you question many villages/islands in Greece and the Balkans you will understand that they fully participated as much as the Germans (putting it mildly).

    I really wonder how many Maltese would still be alive if Malta was occupied, considering the multitude of opinions and hotheadedness!!

    Mitna ghall barrani is such an idiotic, populist story. It is the kind of communist/socialist feed through which Mintoff’s foreign friends’ fed to the ignorant masses developing revolutions which led them nowhere except to hunger and attrition from the rest of the world.

    Of course, Muscat, Malta needed Fenech Adami, otherwise people like you couldn’t go to St. Aloysius and afford a car, buy a house, eat enough to get a tummy like you have and have some semblance of grey matter to occupy the position you do today.

    If you were still under Mintoff, most of the Laburisti would probably be working in some half-baked job and spending the evening fuq l-ghatba tal-bieb talking nonsense.

    If Mintoff elevated the poor from a nonentity to something, Eddie developed the poor with the possibility of really owning something worthwhile and making them stand on their own two feet.

    But no one up till now has removed the crass ignorance which still exists and Muscats latest election campaign has proved this.

  28. La Redoute says:

    Yes, it is a Mario Philip Azzopardi production. He was interviewed about it on Dalli’s Daily Show on Super One.

    [Daphne – Aren’t I good (said with irony, lest some Labour supporters fail to understand.]

    • Josephine says:

      Mario Philip Azzopardi, nephew of Fr Anton Azzopardi, one of the St. Aloysius’ College Jesuits who fought so hard for students’ rights in the 1980s.

  29. jae says:

    About a week ago Mario Philip Azzopardi was a guest on One TV (I think it was Bla Agenda). Towards the end of the programme they showed this video.

    Azzopardi had nothing but praise for Joseph Muscat. He reaffirmed the need for change.

    The video was produced by Mario Philip Azzopardi.

    [Daphne – Mario Philip Azzopardi was always Labour. If he gave the impression that he switched because of Joseph, it’s false. Besides which, he’s lived in Canada for decades, probably fled as soon as the Nationalists were elected, so what does he know about the need for change.]

    • silvio says:

      I’m surprised by you taking to task Azzopardi for having lived in Canada. If that should mean that is a drawback and is to be considered as something negative, I fully agree with you,just have a glimpse at that IDIOT Lou Bondi.
      If he is not the personification of stupidity, I don’t know what is.
      As a matter of fact I hope he still has his Canadian passport.
      Who knows he might need it, as they must surely miss him.

    • P Shaw says:

      He went to Canada in 1978

  30. Frodo says:

    I saw this advert in the same cinemas last week during a viewing of The life of Pi and nowhere was the PL logo shown as in the video posted above.

    I did not appreciate paying 9 euros to watch a 4-minute political advert when I went there to relax and watch a good movie.

    • Gahan says:

      That’s precisely what I experienced – the logo was not there.

      I thought that my mind was playing tricks on me, I felt frustrated and infuriated.

      It took my blood pressure some time to go down.

  31. MX says:

    What do you think the odds on her knowing that quote was from Roosevelt up to an hour before the shoot are?

  32. phoebe says:

    Isn’t it enough that one cannot tune in on the national television station and fill it full of political propaganda? So now one goes to the cinema to relax and get away from it all, and after paying for the ticket, one has this shoved down one’s throat.

    No one bothered to complain?

  33. Macduff says:

    How Maltese historians and academics can stand this is beyond me.

    “We will never surrender”, eh. In June 1942, the only four merchant ships which managed to break through the bloackade spent the best of three days berthed idly in the Grand Harbour. By the time the dock workers got themselves organized to unload them, the Axis sunk the whole lot.

    A month later, the Maltese dock workers had REFUSED to unload the HMS Welshman, a minelayer with supplies from Gibraltar which had zigzagged along the North African coast sending gibberish signals to the Axis until it reached Malta safely. In the end, it was the British servicemen themselves under Lord Gort’s direct supervision, which did the job.

    Spare us the histrionics, please.

    Because, you know, it seems to me many people from all over the Commonwealth died for the Maltese, not the other way round. And our own gallant tarznari spat in their faces (yes, it’s always THEM aristokrazija tal-haddiema).

    And Churchill must be turning in his grave.

    • H.P. Baxxter says:

      Macduff, chapeau.

    • The other hatter says:

      …along with Roosevelt.

      And by the way, the 26th and 32nd presidents of the United States always pronounced their shared family name as “roh-zuh-velt”. As do we all, in the English-speaking world.

      [Daphne – Thank you. I was dying to say that myself.]

  34. Narcy Calamatta may wish to recall his involvement in the publication of “Ix-Xewka III”, which on 3 December 1987 published a scurrilous acticle about me that led to a court case which found the editor of the paper, who claimed that he had nothing to do with what was printed in the newspaper, guilty of libel and fined 800 Malta Liri, a record for that time.

    Calamatta was the only person who gave evidence on behalf of the stooge editor, and it was the MLP that signed the cheque.

  35. J Abela says:

    Haha, but at the cinema they’re not switching on THX! So all you hear is some babbling, then the ‘Malta taghna Illkol’ comes up and everybody burst out laughing. I think the whole thing is backfiring a bit. *sigh*

  36. marcus says:

    RUBBISH! What would have happened if we were not a British colony? Do these people really think that the Axis powers and the Allies would have been so kind to leave us alone in the middle of the Mediterranean?

    This is an insult to all those who died in war and this is the first time that I’m hearing that the British wanted to give us away.

    [Daphne – Malta was indeed on the verge of surrender but the reason was starvation and lack of fuel. The ‘Santa Maria convoy’ saved the day. That is why it is still commemorated and why so much fuss is made of it. It wasn’t just any convoy but the convoy that made it unnecessary to surrender. It should be bloody obvious even to the cretins who made this film that the British couldn’t have given Malta up even if they wanted to: they would have lost the war in the Mediterranean.]

    They do not know what they’re doing. Up to now they used to tell us that we died for the ‘barrani’ and now this Caruana comes and tells the Governor that we’ll not give in, implying that we were ready to continue dying for the ‘barrani’.

  37. Sarah says:

    Mario Philip Azzopardi left Malta before 1980, probably around 1976. He is a very good friend of Albert Marshall and Alfred Sant but quarrelled strongly in the time of Agatha Barbara as Education Minister for being deprived of some productions at the Manoel and Xandir Malta.

    Left for Canada and had a very hard time until he did manage to succeed after some 5/6 years. He comes from a PN family in Hamrun.

    • Superman says:

      Yes it’s him. He was on Super One and introduced these very clips.

      Also he had said he was working on a ‘surprise’ when he was interviewed earlier last year by TVAM.

      He is known for directing Stargate sg-1 too. Pity cause he doesn’t have any idea of Malta since he lives abroad.

  38. wazir says:

    Mr Caruana looked very well fed for someone living through a three-month blockade.

  39. joseph says:

    Is it just me, or do I feel like my history lessons were wrong after watching this video? Or is Labour seriously treating us like 5 year-olds and telling us a fictional story?

    I have no knowledge of such event EVER happening and neither can remember any mention of a ‘Caruana’ who speaks for “the maggorittijj of the moltijz pijpil”.

    Kindly, correct me if I am wrong.

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