You know, I really don’t believe he’s even remotely interested in football.

Published: March 4, 2014 at 3:01pm

Somebody must have told him it’s good for his image – more manly, popular appeal and all that – like lifting weights while gaining no muscle and plenty of flab.

That bit when he unsnaps his seat-belt and leans across his driver – I can’t get over it.




48 Comments Comment

  1. Alexander Ball says:

    Why is he supporting a foreign team? He should support his local club or else he risks being called a traitor.

  2. Joe Fenech says:

    Oh, so now were at the ‘arresting the opposition stage’… What’s next? Exile to Filfla?

    And, blimey his body language. He is one one very bitter, angry man!

    PS: stop waving incessantly – you look like a bloody chimp.

    • Gaetano Pace says:

      Stop forming that canal between the eyebrows, it gives you away completely as a furious ired man.

  3. robert says:

    Maybe he is having special meetings like Dalli had in the Bahamas for secretive charitable revolutions and doing these trips around a football event helps erase any suspicion

  4. Magister says:

    True, Daphne. He is completely uninterested in football or any other sports.

    He never participated in any sports activities at school and he definitely hated and dreaded playing football.

  5. Tabatha White says:

    But he did reveal to us by his retort the extent to which he was irked by the stand of the Maltese-Australians against his IIP scam.

    Kulhadd kontrih. U kien lest ghal-glieda.

  6. P Shaw says:

    That was a violent and Muscat’s natural reaction for confrontation. Taking the cues from their leader, the MLP thugs will soon be out in force.

    • Natalie says:

      That’s what I thought he looked like: a thug. Or else one of those cercuri lesti ghall-glied.

    • gaetano pace says:

      That was the form V prefect of class talking to Junior College prefect with a bit of spite, hate, ire, jealousy. Zepp could not afford to be away on holiday for 6 months, like Simon. So Zepp had to be treated to a trip to watch a football match. Is he a jinx ? Milan could tell better. Ever since he`s been to watch them play they never managed to beat anyone. I know that the previous administration had no finger in this, as Zepp had.

  7. ciccio says:

    His reaction when he pulls away his seat belt shows that since he got off that plane and saw the Net TV crew, he had been building up his rage and in his little brain had been thinking about a retort, one which would be offensive to the Opposition Leader, as usual.

    Still wondering: what does the Opposition Leader’s visit to Australia have to do with the PM’s trip to Milan? The only answer that comes to mind is that he has no real interest in football, and that he actually travelled to Milan on purpose, only to spite and humiliate the Opposition Leader during the trial before the Parliament Committee. The schemer.

    • albona says:

      You said it ciccio. It had nothing to do with Milan at all. In fact, an intelligent journalist would make their next question directly about Milan. For example, who are the main wingers? Who did Milan buy last transfer season. His answer will probably be:

      ‘naħseb aħjar tmur issaqsi l-dak it-traditur ta’ pajjiżna, xmun għax dak ikun jaf’.

      Same old reds. Malta=PL, PL=Malta. An attack on one is an attack on the nation. Thinking caps off; the reds are at the helm again.

  8. M. Cassar says:

    ‘That bit when he unsnaps his seat-belt and leans across his driver – I can’t get over it.’ The facial expression that follows speaks to one’s gut and what it says is ugly. No amount of foresight can sweeten THAT truth.

  9. C.Portelli says:

    They look like they ate a lot of hot-dogs while watching the game.

  10. Neil says:

    You really surprised me, not picking this up when it came out.

    [Daphne – I was otherwise engaged.]

    I was astounded by his reaction too, must have watched those few seconds 20 times, thinking ‘Is this horrible, inferiority-complex-controlled twerp really our Prime Minister? The one those brainless idiots gave Lawrence Gonzi the order of the boot for?’

    His worst ‘tu quoque’ moment yet, and there have been some real doozies to compete with it.

    • Harry Purdie says:

      Probably has already been sent to all his European counterparts, and beyond. Cringeworthy.
      Excellent for Malta’s reputation.

  11. Liberal says:

    For Joseph Muscat, anyone speaking out against government policy is “Ixewwex kontra l-pajjiz”.

    What a fascist prick.

    • P Shaw says:

      Mintoff and the 80s MLP ministers used to say that all the time. For that fake reason, they created a law called “kontra l-Indhil barrani”.

      Even though, I knew that Joseph Muscat and his ilk were not fit for purpose, I never ever thought that the claim of ‘tixwix’ will ever be used again.

      Joseph Muscat is my age, and I truly believe that he is intellectually and emotionally stuck at pre-puberty, around 11-14 years old, at the time when his nanna ‘educated’ him politically.

      I too was raised in a small village and had a nanna Mintoffjana, who used to tell me all kinds of stories about Mintoff and the evil Nationalists. I learnt all the stories by heart: how Mintoff used to go abroad and bring loads of money to fill the beloved ‘kaxxa ta’ Malta’ and how the Nationalists used to go abroad ‘biex ixewxu’ and how they were only interested in the ‘evil negozjanti’.

      I went to a lot of Christmas MLP parties where I learnt all the MLP propaganda songs. I also watched Gensna at Dar il-Mediterran.

      But I have evolved since then and I am not boasting about it. I see intellectual evolution as the natural order of things. Kids are taught and told a lot of crap, but then it is up to them to read and research and come up with an informed conclusion.

      Not having had a normal childhood and being unable to interact with other children in the usual manner, Joseph Muscat has remained stuck in that era of the eighties. His nanna and other similar adults were his world. Probably he never read a book except for the obligatory school textbooks. I can see that he was never stimulated intellectually, and we can all see the results of that today.

    • il-Ginger says:

      Saying that after going abroad to support a foreign team instead of doing his duty as the Maltese prime minister.

      Betraying his country for a football match and he has the gall.

      Send him back to the school yard. A few swirlies and wedgies will fix him.

  12. Kif inhi din? says:

    What’s the meaning in body language when the index finger points towards one’s face?

  13. Kif inhi din? says:

    Please, please don’t let him open his mouth in public without a teleprompter.

  14. Jozef says:

    Jigifieri Muscat jippretendi li anke jekk hu l-prim ministru, ghandna nkejluh bhal kap tal-opposizjoni.

    Tajba Guz, urihom xi dwejjaq ghandek, trid tqum kuljum filghodu u tlahhaq ma dal-pajjiz.

    Waqqaf il-karrozza biex jipprova jsib skuza ma jmurx jinqabad jiskarta, u x’kull wahda.

    Kemm se jwahhal f’ministri.

  15. Alex says:

    One wonders – who pays for these trips?

  16. Tinu says:

    I read the underneath from Tim Riley Law site http://timrileylaw.com/LNG.htm which shows the LNG history and LNG accidents, I wonder if they can be confirmed.

    LNG accidents within the past 40 years

    • Methane Princess Spill, 1965. The LNG discharging arms on a vessel which were disconnected before the liquid lines had been completely drained – caused another LNG accident

    • Jules Verne Spill, May 1965. Failure of the liquid level instrumentation – caused another LNG accident

    • La Spezia, Italy, 1971. Phenomenon called rollover, where two layers of LNG having different densities and heat content are allowed to form back flow of natural gas from the compressor to the nitrogen line – caused another LNG accident

    • Montreal East, Quebec, Canada, 1972. Explosion occurred in the LNG liquefaction and peak shaving plant of Gaz Metropolitan in Montreal East, Quebec. The accident occurred in the control room due to a back flow of natural gas from the compressor to the nitrogen line.

    • Staten Island Tank Fire, USA, 1973. A fire erupted at an out-of-service LNG tank that was being repaired. Forty workers then inside the tank were killed. LNG, which had leaked through the liner during previous fillings, had accumulated in the soil below and around the concrete tank wall berm. It has been assumed that an electrical spark in one of the irons or vacuum cleaners ignited the flammable gas reentering the tank.

    • Massachusetts Barge Spill, July 1974. After a power failure and the automatic closure of the main liquid line valves, a small amount of LNG leaked from a 1-inch nitrogen-purge globe valve on the vessel’s liquid header – pressure surge caused by the valve closure induced the leakage of LNG – caused another LNG accident

    • Aquarius Spill, September 1977. Difficulties in the liquid level gauge system – caused another LNG accident

    • Das Island, United Arab Emirates, March 1978. Failure of a bottom pipe connection of a LNG tank– caused another LNG accident

    • Cove Point, Maryland, 1979. LNG leak from a high-pressure pump found its way into an electrical conduit – caused another LNG accident

    • Mostafa Ben Bouliad Spill, April 1979. A check valve in the piping system of a 125,000 cubic meter vessel failed – caused another LNG accident

    • Pollenger Spill, April 1979. Leaking from a valve gland – caused another LNG accident

    • Bontang, Indonesia, 1983. Rupture of a heat exchanger in an LNG plant and resultant explosion – caused another LNG accident

    • Nevada Test Site, Mercury, NV, 1987. An accidental ignition of an LNG vapor cloud occurred at the US Department of Energy (DOE) Nevada Test Site in August 1987.

    • Bachir Chihani, Hull Cracking, 1990. Inner hull fracture occurred in a 130,000 cubic meter vessel at a part of the ship’s structure that is prone to the high stresses that accompany the complex deflections that the hull encounters on the high seas – caused another LNG accident

    • Mediterranean Off Gibraltar, Minor LNG Carrier “Collision,” November 13, 2002. LNG carrier Norman Lady was struck off Gibraltar by the USS Oklahoma City, a Navy nuclear submarine. Minor damage to both vessels was caused by submarine periscope. The company said the vessel, had already unloaded its LNG cargo in Barcelona, Spain.

    • Algeria, LNG Facility Explosion, January 19, 2004. LNG port facility designed to load only small LNG Tankers for short distances exploded; death toll: 27; workers injured: 74; blast felt miles away; facility destroyed; fires raged for 8 hours; property damage: approx. $ 1 Billion; cause: (initially believed: “defective boiler” which had earlier received “superficial repairs;”); insurance investigation determined cause: liquefied natural gas leak in pipe

    • Trinidad Tobago, June 13, 2004. LNG turbine explodes, workers evacuated. Scores of workers had to be evacuated after a gas turbine at Atlantic LNG’s Train 3 facility exploded. Details Still Unfolding…

    • Belgium, July 31, 2004. Fluxy’s LNG gas pipeline explosion kills 15 in Belgium. It was the deadliest gas blast in Belgium since 1967, when a tanker truck carrying liquid gas blew up, killing 22 people. “Debris from the initial explosion was found up to four miles away” (BBC video)

    • Norway, September 20, 2004. LNG tanker adrift north of Bergen. A fully loaded LNG tanker with a crew of 14 was adrift west of Fedje, on the west coast of Norway, north of Bergen. The ship’s engines had stopped, and the anchors were useless in the stormy weather. Tug boats couldn’t get the tanker under tow until the ship was only 30 yards from hitting rocks. There was strong wind and bad weather conditions in the area, and preparations were made to evacuate the 800 persons living on the island of Fedje, for fear that the tanker would explode if it grounded, NRK reports.

    • USA, March 2005. LNG Causes Pipeline Leaks and house explosion. On July 7, 2005, a company-sponsored study, launched after a District Heights house exploded in late March, found that subtle molecular differences in the imported liquefied natural gas the utility began using in August 2003 were drying the rubber seals of aging metal couplings that link sections of pipe. The breakdown of seals in the couplings of gas pipelines led to about 1,400 gas leaks during the past two years, and has required the company to launch a $144 million project to replace lines and equipment. Two other house explosions in the area are now under investigation.

    • Nigeria, August 2005. 28-inch Liquefied Natural Gas underground pipeline exploded – Wild inferno engulfed an estimated 27 square kilometers. Eleven persons are feared missing and aquatic life completely destroyed when a 28-inch Liquefied Natural Gas underground pipeline exploded at Kalakama, an Ogoloma fishing community in Okrika Local Government Area of Rivers State. The incident, which occurred at the weekend, resulted in a wild inferno which engulfed an estimated 27 square kilometers of the once rich Kalakama mangrove, killing sea foods and cash crops.So huge, the impact of the explosion was felt on the Okrika Island and the Borikiri area of Port Harcourt where, residents were forced into a stampede for safety. Nigeria LNG pipeline explosion

    • India, September 17, 2005. Winds just over a mere 40 knots led to an accident at Petronet LNG Ltd’s terminal at Dahej when the tug boats of LNG carrier “Disha” hit Dolphin Piles of the jetty. The LNG ship was casting off after unloading the cargo. Petronet LNG Ltd’s is evaluating the extent of damage. Mishap at Dahej LNG unit, supply hit

    • Savannah, GA March 14, 2006. A potentially disastrous spill was averted early Tuesday morning when the liquefied natural gas tanker Golar Freeze discharging its load at the Southern LNG terminal on Elba Island broke from its moorings and pulled away from the pier. The dock was shut down for about 36 hours while representatives from the Coast Guard and an LNG engineer from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission investigated the incident. Near-miss shuts down LNG imports on Elba

    • Trinidad & Tobago May 18 & May 21 & June 6, 2006. Fire at LNG Plant – “YET another blowout has occurred at Atlantic LNG in Point Fortin. On Tuesday fire broke out at the base of a Flame Pole when a seal broke loose. The incident which occurred around 8.30 pm, did not result in any injuries to employees or damage to the plant. According to a report from the Point Fortin sub-fire station, the seal popped and fire shot out. An employee nearby alerted a safety officer who quickly extinguished the fire. On May 21, Atlantic LNG employees had to evacuate the plant after a plug blew out and struck an employee in the chest. Three days before that incident, Train 11 plant had to be shut down for six hours when a natural gas leak was discovered in a two-inch pipeline.” FIRE AT LNG PLANT Trinidad News, Trinidad and Tobago

    • Ship carrying liquid gas burns off Jordan July 13, 2006. “AMMAN, Jordan — A tanker carrying liquefied natural gas caught fire as it unloaded Thursday in Aqaba, injuring 12 people, the manager of the Jordanian port said. Four of the injured were firefighters, who needed an hour to bring the blaze under control, said Awwad al-Maaytah, the director general of Aqaba Port Authority. The other injured were crewmen. The ship was promptly evacuated and towed away from the pier in the Red Sea port having unloaded only half of its cargo. Al-Maaytah said the cause of the fire was under investigation.” Seattle Post Intelligencer. Jordan Liquid-Gas Ship Mishap Injures 19 All Headline News

    • LNG Tanker Adrift Off Cape Cod Needs Rescue February 11, 2008. Coast Guard and tugboat crews rescued a liquefied natural gas tanker crippled off Cape Cod after many hours of drifting at sea at the mercy of powerful winds and high waves. Just 5-years-old, the fully laden LNG carrier was corraled by four tugboats about 25 miles east of Provincetown. Apparently, about 3 a.m. Monday its propulsion system shut down because of a computer malfunction according to the Coast Guard. The 933-foot Spanish-flagged LNG tanker Catalunya Spirit was heading from Trinidad to the LNG facility in Everett. 2/15/08 After several days of troubleshooting, repair specialists determined a malfunctioning boiler feed pump, which supplies water to the main propulsion boilers, caused the Catalunya Spirit’s loss of power and propulsion. Captain of the Port of Boston reviewed and approved the final repair certification presented by Lloyd’s Register and Teekay Corporation. The LNG delivery through Boston Harbor was cancelled.

    • Alexander Ball says:

      All the locals have to do is put a PL poster in their window and any blast from a leakage will spare their house.

    • N.K.O.T.B says:

      Well, we can’t have boiler no.7 hogging all the limelight, can we. Tsk.

    • Jozef says:

      Not to mention operational near-misses which go unreported.

      The list carries mostly accidents related to maneouvers as ships approach the docking facililty.

      We’ll have that operation in busy port without the protection a breakwater could provide.

      It has to be seen whether suppliers will actually accept to risk their ships in the conditions envisaged by Mizzi.

      How tragic is it that environmentalists turned civil rights gurus remain silent on this one. And don’t give me we’re no experts.

      The problem here is a government producing lies on such a scale nothing’s what it seems. Where that leaves the criteria of this proposal remains anyone’s guess.

  17. Wiki-Joe says:

    Was that his middle finger?

  18. curious says:

    So, we’re rooting for Nigel Farage now. Have Kevin and his Mrs. booked their flights to Malta for June?

    Eddy Privitera on timesofmalta’s comments-board:

    “Nigel Farage is the European Commission’s BETE NOIRE because he says the things which the EU hates that European citizens get to know !!!!!”

  19. Clueless says:

    For crying out loud! He is dictating what the future President should or should not do! Unbelievable!

    “The Prime Minister said her nomination was necessary as at this point in time the country needed a head of state in his prime and not close to retirement. Moreover, the next President was to be in charge of constitutional amendments.

    “Dr Muscat said people knew where they stood with Ms Coleiro-Preca. Admitting that the government would be losing one of its best cabinet members, he said she would have a social agenda.

    “The new President will still be in charge of the national strategy against poverty. She will also be in charge of the food aid programme, the national family commissions and the national prevention agency, among other functions.

    “She will not be there for a ceremonial role but to work with the people. She will be the social soul of this country and a reference point for all. He said that this will be a watershed point and a gift on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of independence.”

    http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20140304/local/coleiro-preca.509247

  20. Wistin Schembri says:

    Ironic? Cruel?

    It was Dr Muscat who made President George Abela state that after the election that “arrogance is over! the time of the blue and red is over!”

    Today Dr Muscat is ‘confirming’ it by nominating Dr Abela’s successor.

  21. Randolph Peresso says:

    PM Muscat is an avid AC Milan fan.

  22. Antoine Vella says:

    When he lets his guard down (which is happening more and more often).

    http://i1199.photobucket.com/albums/aa475/A_V11/Scowls_zps4cdaccf6.jpg

  23. The Mole says:

    He should be flying out to support the Maltese National team, if anything. What an utter dork.

  24. Connor Attard says:

    There goes that insufferable tu qouque attitude again. Journalists should really be trained to counter these sort of fallacies and expose them for what they really are: logical defects and kindergarten playground tactics.

    By letting Muscat – or any politician for that matter – off the hook like that, journalists are not only doing a great disservice to their more analytical and discerning readers, but also – perhaps unknowingly – paving the way for the Prime Minister to become even more of a dictator.

    In a sound democracy, bad government policy and conduct should be torn to shreds by the independent press, irrespective of whichever party is running the country, lest it become just another mouthpiece for the state. This is all of course, anathema to the spirit of democracy.

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