The Sliema Business Community needs to clear something up. Were those twins really foisted on them by the Office of the Prime Minister?
Having the six-year-old twin daughters of the prime minister launch the shopping festivities in Sliema yesterday was – as expected by all sensible people – very badly received indeed.
Now word reaches me from an aggravated member of the organisers, the Sliema Business Community, that the twins were not their choice but were “foisted on the Sliema Business Community by the Office of the Prime Minister”.
I sort of had an idea there might have been some wrangling about it, because the invitations were not mailed out but emailed just 20 hours before the event. It’s as though there was a tussle at the 11th hour about the surprise news that the twins were going to be dispatched to the event instead of their mother or father.
Even more significantly, the girls’ unfortunate names were left off the invitation (take a look at the image shown here). Given that this is not the correct form, what it tells me is that there was some kind of internal stand-off and a refusal to have an already farcical invitation made even more risible with prominent use of the names Soleil and Etoile.
If the Sliema Business Community really did ask for the prime ministerial twins to launch their festivities, they had better say so and explain why they thought this such a brilliant idea.
We shouldn’t expect them to release a statement saying that the twins were foisted on them. That would be bad manners, and would probably also start a war they can ill afford with the vindictive Muscats.
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So what? Why not?
Before he had time to produce his first solid stool the latest royal baby earned himself the title His Royal Highness Prince George of Cambridge.
After all Soleil and Etoile are the princesses of Castille.
Forget all that high minded hype about meritocracy.
If the Sliema Business Community was behind this idea, then no wonder their business is mixed up.
A basic street party serving mixed fruit juices of the cheap kind would have been enough to attract loads of people to the shopping scene.
People love free public parties and free parties cost less than the entourage they got to inaugurate the festive season for shopping.
I pity the poor girls.
I suppose IF they ever had a sister she would be named Lalune.
I don’t care what the Sliema Business Community says about this. They are off my shopping tour for this year, at least. And I know of others doing the same.
They should have thought of this before.
Businessmen shouldn’t bear the brunt of this nonsense.
Thank you, Joe. One commenter with a bit of sense between his ears.
They are off my shopping list too. Off to Valletta tomorrow. I want to savour GonziPN’s legacy. The entrance to the city is becoming breathtaking.
There is a PL stand of some sorts at the Valletta entrance. I went with the kids today and it looked like a corner meeting for insecure morons.
This morning I decided to go to Valletta and could not believe my eyes or ears. Near the beautiful new steps which lead to Hastings Gardens, buskers from Peru; further down on the right, slap bang in front of the new parliament building, Super One’s new Christmas toy truck complete with their own version of Tuba Santa spewing out how Joseph kept all his promises on meritocracy – oh the irony. And bringing up the rear on the corner of the new theatre, a popcorn stand!
To complete the picture, the area was filthy with dropped popcorn and food trays on the ground. The whole spectacle made me feel like I was in a surreal world, a throw back to my sixth form days in the early eighties. I just turned round and left, wishing I was 30 years younger and could leave this frikking rock forever as well.
PL ..Partit tal-Lanzit..kien, ghadu u jibqa.
They can’t leave an open space alone, it riddles their brains.
Brace for the stalls with their closed tarpaulins set against Palazzo Ferreria and resign yourselves to the cheap aluminium shacks outside the ditch.
The ditch will be filled with a freestanding concrete spaceframe with cars on top. Nice.
The upper part of Merchants Street has been reclaimed for parking, the entrance itself will be taken up by GM plates as soon as parliament is transferred.
Then the purveyors of the baroque will cry foul if an overgrown tree, totally out of place, is trimmed to size.
We’ll never see the wood for the trees, that’s their eternal agenda. When your soul’s empty, metaphysics and the power of geometry become taboo.
In fact they may just as well re-open Bisazza Street to traffic, now that its loudest shopkeeper has got almost all that she prayed for.
Thank you so very much. This is why this country will never move forward. Simply by owning a business premises in Sliema, we are now to suffer your boycott simply because of a decision taken by the OPM, and communicated to Sliema Business Community Committee as a fait accompli.
We who have invested in our businesses to buy premises, stock them and employe people, and now doors are being slammed in our faces. Remember one thing though, it is the employee who will suffer first by becoming unemployed irrespective of their political sympathies.
Calm down, Shopkeeper. I don’t think all the people here represent all of Malta but bits of it who have given up on you lot.
Besides, what’s this about getting members of parliament to inaugurate your scene?
Do you ever see the Queen – her Royal Highness, inaugurating the start of the festive season at Harrods, Tiffany’s and De Beers?
Malta is a smaller scale and so is the competition here but business is strong for those who have the acumen for it and one way to make it stronger is to leave politics and politicians out of your field.
Qiskom qabda haddiema tal-Gvern tiddependu mill-ahmar jew il-blu biex jifthulkom ix-shutters fil-ghodu!
I am sorry but the argument that the OPM decided this and communicated it to the Sliema Business Community as a fait accompli does not hold water. The invitation is from the SBC not the OPM.
I would not have decided to boycott if it was the Prime Minister who did the inauguration, but the fact that the SBC is participating in this charade is another story altogether.
Little bit petty, don’t you think?
Not at all. Please see my reply to Shopkeeper. The SBC should have thought out the consequences of such decisions.
Furthermore, the threat of laying off people does not make any sense. It’s been tried before.
We in the west are not accustomed with these things. It is only in other places that children are directed like this. Who knows…future placements?
I hope that Paul Vincenti will now have the balls to call the Prime Minister and Michelle Muscat to show his disapproval of them using their children to gain more popularity instead of coming here to wrongly accuse Daphne of involving the twins because he thinks that she has a problem with the Muscats.
Had I been one of the business owners I’d be very pissed off. This is beyond ridiculous and an insult to anyone serious professional.
I am sure that there is a handful decent people within Labour who are uncomfortable with this football-star couple behaviour, but, for now, no one is in a position to speak out.
The invitation itself looks as bad as the whole idea. It has tell tale signs of email ping-pong.
The Sliema business community should choose between the backlash of the immature Muscats or the backlash of the intelligent customers.
The choice is theirs.
They should have refused at the outset to be used as a pawn of the Muscats. There is no justification whatsoever about their accepting this comic-out-of-Disneyland “imposition”. People who cherish certain principles are also people who are ready to take risks.
I am sure that they are going to miss out on their profits this year. Suits them well.
That is the problem with this country and it is more so under Labour.
Principles have gone out of the window and if you keep to them you are branded an idiot.
Doesn’t one just love how most issues in Malta are looking like bad ‘Who done it’ movies with the end revelation chopped off?
By the way, did we ever find out who gave the job to Sai Mizzi and where her office is? Seems like someone has discovered that not finding the culprit means blame cannot be put on he who deserves it. We certainly ARE an island of gentlemen aren’t we?!
No shopping in SLIEMA – the SLIEMA BUSINESS COMMUNITY should know better.
It is all well and good for you all to preach but you definitely don’t walk in our shoes.
Unfortunately laying off people is an unfortunate consequence of setting € x sales target and not getting there. You unfortunately again end up having to reduce your shopfloor personnel to make up for losses.
With regards to Muscat being asked to inaugurate the lights and the girls being sent in his stead, I personally still don’t agree on the girls being sent. But on the other hand we are faced with a double edged sword.
I know the comments above don’t reflect all and sundry but it’s extremely upsetting to see our livelihood being torn to shreds by a few pathetic naive diehards. Our business day does not start by turning on the shop lights at 9am and locking the door at 7pm. Far from it.
Why are you faced with a double edged sword? Last time I looked we were not living in North Korea …yet.
Again this is a surreal throwback to the early eighties. Surely you could all have sat down and addressed the issue with whoever was responsible. Surely someone sane would realise that it is just not done for six year olds to be brandished around cutting ribbons and switching on lights.
I’m sorry for your circumstances, Shopkeeper, but you really need to think outside the box.
Why are you and your neighbours in the situation you are in?
The general situation is slow: the economy is slow, the job situation is slow, overtime hours have been cut and replaced with time-off.
Job opportunities are, at the moment, nonexistent and the part-time work offered is the kind nobody wants to do – this leaves the customers you ‘need’ with less earning power thus less spending power.
It’s not the few who are here discussing things who are interrupting your reputation (God forbid Malta’s economy was controlled by a few commenters) but the overall situation.
If I need socks and you sell them, I don’t care, I’m going to make you my regular outlet but if I am not earning like I used to and I know that job security, my job’s peace of mind, are threatened, I’m going to eat, sleep and live in the same socks. And the same theory applies to whatever I may need.
So you really must ask yourself, why has there been a sudden change of scene? People are either falling short of money or are feeling threatened financially so the only security they have left is the knowledge that if they save their money and scrounge and buy less, even if it changes their standard of living, at least they know they have something to rely on if things get worse and I don’t blame them for creating their own ways for peace of mind because at present, the county has not got any.
We had peace of mind before because the country was controlled by effective strategies and a vision that competed with European standards of politics but now who knows?
Do you? I don’t!
Why on earth did you invite the prime minister? He’s not a unifying figure, knows eff-all about business, and doesn’t do any shopping in Sliema himself, or anywhere else, as far as I can gather.
His presence is more likely to alienate than to attract shoppers.
Moaning doesn’t generate wealth and inviting the Prime Minister over doesn’t either – may serve as bit of publicity for the political side but not for the business community.
So my advice for next year is for you and your neighbours to stay out of that scene – it’s not yours. You are not government workers but independent people who have come a long way to generate income.
Keep it that way.