“People notice me more because now there is social media and the internet” – Michelle Muscat
The prime minister’s wife gave an eye-popping performance on Ilsien In-Nisa on the Labour Party’s television station last night. I bet her four hostesses, for whom I ended up feeling sorry, needed a really stiff drink after the show.
What should have been a five-way discussion became, within seconds of the show beginning, the Michelle Muscat Monologue, as she rambled and rabbited endlessly on, talking nonsense and revealing – to my amazement, because I had never heard her speak at such great length before – that she is not properly articulate or coherent. Her thoughts and words jump from one thing to another – a Molly Bloom stream of consciousness broadcast straight from Labour TV into our living-rooms.
Her four hostesses made repeated attempts to break into the monologue and turn it into a proper conversation between them all, but with the appalling manners of one of those dinner-guests who monopolises the entire table and holds it hostage with a detailed account of his kitchen renovation and a shaggy dog story in which he is the principal player, Mrs Muscat just droned on and on and on and on, until those other women were reduced to slumping back in their chairs, their eyes glazing over, and giving the occasional verbal interjection you do to somebody who is going on neurotically: “Okay.” “Okay.” “Okay.” “Hmmm.”
One of the most extraordinary assertions Mrs Muscat made was that even though she has no “posizzjoni Konstitizzjonali” her “rwol kien dejjem hemm”.
“Mrs Gonzi used to do all these things and charity work too, and so did Mrs Fenech Adami, but nobody focussed on it because there was no social media and the internet or blogging.”
Really? No social media, internet or blogging in the last six years? Even if there were all three in high-action in Mrs Fenech Adami’s time, we wouldn’t have been talking about her because she took great care to do the opposite of what Mrs Muscat does, and stay out of the public spotlight, which she hated rather than loved (and Mrs Muscat adores it).
Mrs Gonzi was the prime minister’s wife in the height of the social media era, but while social media users were fixated on her husband, nobody ever brought her into anything for the simple reason that she did all her charity work right beneath the radar, with no press and photographers in attendance. That was how she wanted it, because she did her charity work for the sake of the charity work and not to give herself something to do or to create a role for herself or to help further her husband’s political advantages.
I have no doubt that the reason Mrs Muscat was on Ilsien in-Nisa last night was to bring out the vote. She made a real hash of it, because she missed ever lead her hostesses threw her to talk sensibly, coherently and intelligently about Labour’s policies and instead spoke incessantly about…herself.
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A narcissist, just like her husband.
No wonder her husband sent her to Rome instead of him – he needs a few days without that constant nattering when he gets home.
Yes we notice you Michelle, so very very much but all for the wrong reasons.
Michelle Muscat is incredible for all the wrong reasons. Everyone knew about Mrs Gonzi and Mrs Fenech Adami but not because they were in the limelight. As Prime Ministers’ wives they were supportive, always present but understated, which is as it should be.
The very idea of Kate Gonzi or Mary Fenech Adami worming their way into an official delegation at the Vatican in the absence of their husbands and then infiltrating the queue to meet a head of state – which is who the Pope was at that point – by posing as someone else’s wife, is so ludicrous it could only have been thought up by the vulgar housewife of Burmarrad.
And the mind boggles at the thought that either Kate Gonzi or Mary Fenech Adami would scrounge their way into a luxury room at one of Rome’s most expensive hotels and tootle off on a shopping trip instead of attending to official duties.
Her performance definitely puts her previous speech in ‘English’ in context. No wonder she botched it so badly. It wasn’t just about lack of familiarity with the language itself.
And she has the gall to compare herself to previous prime ministers’ wives. They did not seek to represent the government and they worked discreetly for their causes.
Mrs Muscat, on the other hand, can’t resist the urge to make any media appearance she can and make us see and/or hear her no matter how much we don’t want to.
Her “rwol kien dejjem hemm”.
Political legitimacy with a tinge of royalty thrown in.
The divine right of kings.
No Labour prime minister since Paul Boffa has had a wife on board, and that was 64 years ago, in 1950. Dom Mintoff’s wife ran off to England, taking the children with her, so nobody ever saw any of them.
Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici was never married and didn’t have any kind of consort or child.
Alfred Sant had an ex wife who was out of the picture long before he became prime minister, and he and her mother were wise enough to keep their daughter well out of the public eye except for a single appearance at his swearing-in.
A wife is a new experience for a Labour prime minister and they don’t know how to handle it, though they should certainly follow Alfred Sant’s example on the matter of keeping their daughters shielded from the public view, instead of constantly pushing them out front.
That hat reminds me of a famous sketch by JL David of Marie Antoinette driven in a cart, on her way to the guillotine. The other hat is floppier and the overall attire, less frumpy.
Yes, I watched Michelle Muscat’s monologue yesterday.
She is so self-centred. Fancy giving such interesting and intelligent snippets of information like “if I feel cold I am not happy”, “my shoes have to be comfortable”, “I have many veils”.
She mentioned Michelle Obama as if she was her next door neighbour and kept dropping names of designers maybe trying to impress everybody.
I did not feel sorry for the others ladies there, not at all. They invited her as a guest on their show or maybe they were told they must have her as part of the Joseph Muscat propaganda machine.
She even told us all that “you know there is protocol for the Pope – you have to wear black”. Thanks for that, Mrs Muscat.
When we are surrounded by daily tragedies such as the mining disaster in Turkey or the drowning of so many illegal immigrants close to our waters and so many people who can hardly afford a daily meal, hearing the Prime Minister’s wife talking about her clothes and the importance she gives to clothes was really sickening.
Protocol is not concerned with fashion, but with appropriateness in appearance and behaviour.
Wearing black is a dress code, Mrs Muscat, not protocol. Protocol dictates that you do not infiltrate an official delegation on the basis of being married to a prime minister and then impersonate another man’s wife to push your way into meeting the Pope.
Protocol is concerned with ceremonial procedure, etiquette, appropriate behaviour, and respect for precedence, not with which of your many black veils you choose to wear for an event in which you have no place.
Oh and by the way she ‘collects veils’. She has three in her ‘collection’.
Voting Labour – the gift that keeps on giving.
The Vagina Monologues.
I guess it will sound too vulgar in Maltese though more suited: Id-diskorsi ta’ l-Ghoxx.
I admire you all for having the patience to sit through all that tiresome rambling.
Please highlight in bold the sentence where you write that Kate Gonzi “did her charity work for the sake of the charity work and not to give herself something to do or to create a role for herself or to help further her husband’s political advantages.”
Michelle Muscat simply doesn’t get it – or doesn’t want to get it.
Was this programme recorded somewhere?
I’ve got the beer and the salty snacks. All I need is a comedy show to watch.
Lucky you. This government is a five year comedy so you can sit back because the entertainment is guaranteed.
But many of those who have no option but to watch this comedy do not have the beer and the salty snacks. Ask those 8,000 on the unemployment register.
Uzgur li ma kienx jezisti s-social media sitt snin ilu, ovvja, jekk telghat ix-xemx f’Malta f’Marzu tas-sena l-ohra ghal Michelle u r-ragel taghha.