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Edward de Bono has been at the government of Malta for years to give him, free of charge, some historic palace or other imposing building for his World HQ ‘Palace of Thinking’.
The government’s attitude all along was, as I seem to recall, that a man who buys himself islands and Venetian palazzi could ruddy well buy and pay for his own historic HQ instead of trying to freeload one off Sucker Malta. Eventually he was given some space at Villa Bighi.
But now, with his associates Shiv Nair and Joseph Muscat running Malta between them, and with his cousin Kenneth Zammit Tabona (son of Molly Debono) put in charge of the Valletta/Floriana Rehabilitation Committee, I’d say he’s got a pretty good chance of having his Palace of Thinking HQ installed in some whacking palace there.
Or perhaps even on the ground floor of Renzo Piano’s ‘cheesegrater’.
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You know, it’s kind of amazing how Joe Friggieri ever nailed his colours to the Nationalist mast.
Sorry, don’t get it but I’m intrigued. Would you take a moment to elaborate please ? Thanks.
The continuum between academia, punditry, power, politics and money is a taboo subject in Malta.
Just look at the number of “Profses” who’ve been MPs or government members. Edward Scicluna came out of nowhere, but he’d turned himself into a household name as “genju”, and the rest is history.
Maltese academia tends to be Labour. The Big Names at the University of Malta, and the Big Names who left Malta in the 60s and 70s, tended to be either Stricklandjani (the left-wing sort) or Mintoffjani. So same thing. They’re both ideologically Labour.
I’m going out on a limb here, but the academics at University of Malta are mostly Laburisti. We haven’t any proof to the contrary. Edwarde de Bono has his finger in the UOM pie, among the philosophy fraternity mostly, but not exclusively.
So Joe Friggieri has lived all his working life surrounded by Laburisti, rabid or covert. Wife’s sister is a Labour poster girl.
That’s why it’s amazing that he ever nailed his colours to the PN mast.
Joe Friggieri’s book on “Intentions” might throw some light on the matter. A penetrating read, especially in our times.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/features/the-thinker/story-e6frgabx-1225852743529
“”Somewhere, somehow” de Bono is going to abandon Albany for a “magnificent Palace of Thinking”. Unsure as to whether he will subsidise its construction or whether “a particular country or individual will make it happen”, he is determined to finally anchor his dreams. Palace functions would include generating, collecting and publishing ideas, teaching methods of deliberate creative thinking and, critically, symbolising the significance of creative thinking.
“But there is no point in having a back office on the eleventh floor of a skyscraper,” he smiles. “The world needs to have an iconic and beautiful building to give thinking the importance and dignity it merits.”
The article contains interesting references to positive thinking (“il-gvern huwa pozittiv, u l-oppozizzjoni qeghda tizola ruhha fin-negattivita”).
I thought that to think you just needed a functioning brain, not a building
I remember reading some of Edward de Bono’s books in the 1970s.
I got the feeling that the guy was a self-promoting fraud.
Probably just another Jesuit school old boy that is guaranteed success no matter what nonsense he hawks around.
[Daphne – No, he was at St Edward’s, along with Martin Scicluna, Maurice Calleja, Jaime Cremona and various other Old Edwardian Labour geriatrics. ]
Backwoods bunny Muscat will, no doubt, be impressed by de Bono’s pomposity.
Incidentally, he does have some of Kenneth Zammit Tabona’s mannerisms. I had no idea they were related.
You should see the negative character traits they knowingly focused on to exploit in the Labour campaign.
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20081015/local/edward-debono-proposes-palace-of-thinking.228926#.UlTgvmbTXMI
I always thought de Bono was a pompous prick. Now I realise he’s even worse than I thought.
I lost all interest in Edward Debono when he wrote a book called “I’m right, you’re wrong”.
I lost all interest in Edward Debono when I read the first ten pages of his first book.
I always was wary of self-help books (and their authors) which are of no help at all .
Perhaps Labour would like to use his idea to achieve peace in the Middle East, as promised by their manifesto.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/de-bonos-marmite-plan-for-peace-in-middle-yeast-1133338.html
de Bono’s hawked that particular joke around for years. The results speak for themselves.
“De mortuis nil, nisi bonum” is the Latin adage urging us to speak only of the good, and not the evil, peformed by those gone before us.
However, I cannot but recall Josephine Burns Debono’s infatuation with Dom Mintoff and the way he ran Malta. She was his arch defender in the letters columns of The Times and its Sunday sister, and far more literate than Eddy Privitera, who was at it already back then.
When confronted with evidence of the various wrongs perpetrated by Mintoff’s government – as they were going on – she would retort, “I’m certain Dom doesn’t know about this.”
In thinking laterally, her son Edward has yet not succeeded in moving beyond the nursery, politically.
That is the de Bono standard retort type to being caught in a lie.
It goes together with a slight sharp in take of the breath and a pursing of the lips that precedes the statement.
So Kenneth Zammit Tabona wants a flat on St John’s Square while his cousin the thinker wants a palazzo for free.
Way back in the 1980s Edward Debono’s thoughts and those of Robert Maxwell were anything but lateral. Debono paid the price.