Actually do you know what it is?

For years we’ve had to make allowances for hamallu behaviour and “those more unfortunate than us” – which amounted to the same thing and not to what it should have.

It started, from what I was able to observe personally, in 1983. School Honours would be conferred not on the person actually voted in but, with quiet and direct intervention of the School Head, on one of “those more unfortunate than “x” so as to set an example.”

Accepting their attitude, behaviour and speech at school, “because they didn’t know better.”

Accepting the loud hamalli on the beach, because in a democracy the beach is free for all and one would have to wait until 11pm before a disturbance of the peace report was possible, by which time…it was sometimes easier just to vacate the place.

Then life progressed: expect the hamallu crowd to invade and possess any cool hangout not just the beach.

Money brays and provides title?

We have long since been pushed indoors or to the territorial extremities.

People in their 20s and early 30s wouldn’t notice this because the school class was already a changed scenario. They too found it less necessary to open a book. Clubbing and partying a right. Education, if insufficiently obtained at home, was obtained on the streets where the dumb blond was supplanted by the sculpted hamalla/ hamallu..

The hamallu invasion happened as they grew up. Even their syllables are now different without their families noticing precisely when this happened.

The blind (and deaf), the accepting and the silent:

Those that accept for business to proceed.

People influencing each other with the over-riding message that religion was no longer linked to State and that therefore values could fall by the roadside.

I’ve had it with tolerance and allowances on this score:

I refuse to mingle with this fake newly-acquired-but-stunted social graces crowd for any reason: far less clutter in the aftermath.

As you say Daphne, it’s not a rich/ poor; North/South, left/right thing.

It’s an attitude that entered as a handicap, and on that ticket, and appears to have sadly become the lifestyle choice of the majority.

Il-Partit Nazzjonalista lanqas kien kapaci jerga jibni l-unika fortizza li kellu madwar il-port.

L-stess post li kien ipprova jeqred Mintoff malli telgha fil-gvern billi waqqgha blokk shih ghalxejn bhala tapttija ghal meta kienu tefawlu t-tqiq.

Malli rega` nbidel il-gvern dak li ma rnexillux jaghmel Mintoff ghamluh in-Nazzjonalisti ghax komplew il-missjoni tieghu billi qerdu r-ruh tal-Arciperku. Ghax il-bicca kbira tal-postijiet li nholqu jew gew battala nghataw nies mill-Kottonera b`tendenzi Laburisti.

@ bob-a-job

I’ve often compared the two, especially going through current events and having had to deal with people types who are remarkably similar.

The weeds that are easiest to pull out are the ones that create a linked rooting across a stretch. The sandier or looser the surface, the easier it is for the whole string of linked weeds to be pulled out. The superficial sort. No deep roots. They also look different: The red stalk variety have a carroty smell.

Then there are the ones where the root goes deep and gets thicker beneath and longer above. These are best uprooted when the ground has soaked over a number of days. When the earth is dry these break on the uprooting and the weed just gets stronger and thicker again.

There are weed family types.

But the worst are the seeds, as you say, they blow everywhere with no containing them.

Severely cold climates arrest growth. Hot climates have them flourish fast.

Gas flame burning is a bother: the flame isn’t strong enough or the weed still too “wet.”

Acid on plants stifles the growth but persistent roots take off again in three years.

Treatment by glyphosate may burn some plants in the vicinity for a short while, but has the better controllable result and keeps the area weed free for months.

Reflecting the heat off the ground instead of attracting it into a dark surface helps.

Bio measures, as much as one may prefer to use these, are not as effective as a radical glyphosate.

One may get rid of the weed by changing the surface.

A thorough raking helps reduce the root network that isn’t visible from the surface.

Some weeds have their moments and 3 monthly appearances after which they stop spreading and just grow.

Other weeds just keep on coming, growing under and through walls.

Some are clingy.

Some grow inside a bushy tree or up a trunk, twirling around the branches and end up stifling growth.

So much more to say.

Interesting that you mention it.

Demographics is the big Maltese taboo, even bigger than Dom Mintoff’s sacrality or decolonisation.

I don’t expect the Nationalist Party to ever win another election, because they spectacularly fail to take demographics into account. I doubt whether they have anyone who can understand a graph since Cachia Caruana left.

What you say is true. That’s fact. The C2DE demographic is the fastest-growing, at twice the rate of the ABC1. Now let’s make an intelligent deduction, based on another fact, also taboo: The C2DE demographic is Labour’s core vote. Deduction: Labour’s core vote is growing at twice the rate.

And the NP fools hand out stipends and build MCAST campuses, so their political adversaries can have it easy and squeeze out more of their own.

How about the PN work on the social pact?

Start at the very beginning, Burke’s inquiry. A timeless piece.

They’re not attracting men either. I say that as a gay man.

Of Man and weeds

In general weeds grow faster than other plants because weeds are plants that are adapted to disturbed habitats. (Mainly Southern Harbour area)

In nature disturbed habitats occur wherever something messes things up. (Dom Mintoff)

Since disturbed habitats are generally short-lived, weeds must reach reproductive maturity in a hurry and make lots of seeds so that some of their offspring have chance of dispersing to a newly disturbed place. (Births in Southern and Harbour areas are double those in remaining areas – Demographic Review 2010)

Unfortunately gardening and agriculture are disturbances (that’s why Eddie Fenech Adami’s ‘rikonċiljazzjoni’ failed in 1987 – it just produced more weeds)

Human activities have provided weeds with opportunities for success on a massive scale. (Xarabank, Bundi Show, One Productions etc.)

It is said that vinegar is a natural weed killer.

If they don’t drink to that – I will

Videocracy, the film to watch. It depicts Italy’s descent into the same form of barbarism, where popular consent is the ticket to stardom or more probably a generalised 15 minutes of fame.

The only difference being that Labour had access to the radical chic, compounded the gay lobby and by default, encompassed the ‘arts’ scene.

Ever noticed that their facebook profiles are chock loaded with Mediaset productions?

I agree with Daphne that the PN was outdone by this phenomenon, and that’s something it has to identify as being the main source of the haemhorrage in consent.

What happened in Italy, may well be happening in Malta at a faster rate, what is termed ‘sdoganare il costume’, in English that would be having behavioural models approved at border customs.

Like any cultural revolution, restoration starts with the silent majority. Call it the Renaissance.

Baxxter, watch Lele Mora’s clip closely, what’s on his phone.

The epilogue;

Berlusconi was found guilty of tax evasion, Mora was found guilty of white slavery, Fabrizio Corona, guilty for blackmail.

To this day, Italy struggles to find herself. To understand Malta, a bleak comparison with precedents set there always tends to provide some explanation.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjxq2gIctWo

No. Not evey artistic endeavour in North Korea is met with applause. There are no artistic endeavours to speak of, only officially sanctioned performances scripted by the government.