David Thake rings Lara Boffa live on 101
This post was published yesterday afternoon.
I’m listening to David Thake on Radio 101. He’s just rung Lara Boffa at the office – her office being that of the chairman of the Malta Council of Science and Technology, where she has been engaged as ‘personal assistant to senior management’.
The person who took the phone didn’t ask who was calling, and Miss Boffa came straight to the phone. Thake asked her whether she was unemployed when Labour was elected last year. She said she was, and launched into an explanation of why and how.
So would you say it is standard practice for unemployed persons to be appointed to the board of directors of Enemalta, he asked her.
“It’s what you know,” she said.
Ah, would you then say you have the required competence to sit on the board of a state corporation, he asked. “Put your question to the minister,” she replied.
Well, I’d like you to tell me, he said. I know whether I am competent to do this or that job in my field. Did you get your job because you voted Labour and were proud of it?
“Can you send me your questions by email?”
“No, not really. As I said, we are live on air so it would be a little silly if I emailed you now and then read out your answers later. You’re free to hang up if you want to.”
So of course she didn’t. “Look I don’t see why you should be asking questions like these.”
“You don’t see why? You’re on public money.”
She begins to protest, signalling that she’s going to hang up, but at the same time acutely aware that she’s live on air so best not be rude or cross.
Thake cuts in. “Wait, wait, just one more question before you go.”
“OK.”
“Were you in a relationship with Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando when you got your job at the MCST?”
“NO, I WAS NOT IN A RELATIONSHIP!”
I can feel Thake getting ready with the obvious question – So did you start seeing him after he gave you a job, then?
She saw that coming too, and hung up abruptly. Beep beep beep beep beep.
Then Alcazar’s hit number Sexual Guarantee came on the air (If you want my number, my sexual guarantee…), promptly followed by David Thake wondering out loud whether Tony Zarb would be amenable to negotiating collective agreements involving sexual guarantees.
It’s not often that you see people shuddering with laughter behind the wheel in the rush-hour traffic.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WY2XT3rpSO8
What a total let-down Manuel. I thought this was a recording of the programme.
Here you go…
https://soundcloud.com/david-thake/david-calls-lara-boffa-23-oct
Manuel, you get my least favourite person of the day award.
Mine too. I even reached out for the TV remote control to lower the television volume. What a let down!
Fantastic. Love it. I’m going to start tuning into 101.
Can we listen to this anywhere?
Does 101 do recordings of this programme? If not they really need to and throw it on-line.
More of this please please please.
Please , please , please !!
David Thake is the best thing to hit the airwaves in a long, long time.
I would say we have the equivalent of Daphne on air.
David, keep giving us more.
Funny I thought exactly the same thing a couple of days ago when he was trying to get Silvio on the phone – now we can say we have found something that really fits the word fenomenali – David Thake’s radio programme.
Which Silvio – Scerri, Zammit, Parnis, Schembri…?
Schembri.
David Thake tried to phone Cyrus Engerer, with no luck though.
Let’s see whose turn it is tomorrow.
David will be on Radio 101 from 10.30 till noon.
I won’t be on tomorrow (Sunday) as the IDEA MALTA Conference will be aired live.
B R I L L I A N T.
http://cdn.meme.am/instances/51054045.jpg
It’s funny, but let’s not forget that it was the people who believed Muscat’s lies.
Shouldn’t she have been moved when she started the relationship then? You know, there is that little thing called ethics.
Ethics? From a Labour poster girl? What have you been smoking M?
Brilliant timely statement from the Church on ethics, by the way:
http://www.independent.com.mt/articles/2014-10-25/local-news/Without-transparency-and-accountability-codes-of-ethics-are-useless-Mgr-Scicluna-says-6736124372
Increase the transmission frequency?
Well done,David. Give us more like this.
Pity that David Thake will not be continuing this programme. I am sure that Radio 101 upped its number of listeners
considerably.
We sorely need David Thake’s type of humour.
And therein lies the malaise within the PN.
Told him as much. Told me I was wrong. I hope I was. I fear I wasn’t.
Now now, Baxxter…. you said PN would take me off the air because on a FB comment I said that “The behaviour of the Nationalist Party now should not be geared at seeming “positive”.”
So why are they not keeping you on? See, to them you’re just a stand-in for Charles Saliba.
Once he comes back, you’re gone. And I bet there’s more than a few of the top echelon who are wringing their hands and complaining that this is “mhux sew” u li “David jaghmel personal attacks”.
Your programme is way over their head, except the ‘Vaffanculo’ bit, which is obvious (so they understand that).
The other side have six hats and the best British advisors. You have nothing.
I was only replacing Charles Saliba who was on holiday. The time slot was never mine to begin with.
I have told the Party that if they feel I would be useful, I’m prepared to make the time.
What happens next or doesn’t is not really in my control now.
Let’s do a podcast.
They would have to be blind, deaf and very dumb not to take you up on that, David.
Dear Ms Daphne,
Do you have the recordings of Joseph Muscat declaring to a large audience that he will resign, as the PN media do not know anything about, My husband and I heard it for sure for sure!!
Please do find it.
Would you call one company tenant or tenants?
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20141023/business-news/First-tenants-confirmed-for-Life-Sciences-Park.540900
Wow what a coincidence, these people have an agreement with MCAST.
http://www.aatresearch.org/aat-research-signs-collaborative-agreement-with-leading-college-mcast-to-develop-a-joint-inter-disciplinary-research-centre/
If anyone finds the peer reviewed articles, please let the rest of us know.
https://www.facebook.com/AatResearch/photos/pb.231161113649483.-2207520000.1414074295./590442477721343/?type=3&theater
Wicked!
At what time is David Thake on air?
[Daphne – Thursday 6.30pm to 8.30pm and Sunday 10.30am to noon on 101. He did the drive-time show only temporarily while Charles Saliba was away. I think we should petition 101 to have him on for drive-time at least a couple of days a week. Beats sitting in the car listening to your music downloads for the umpteenth time.]
Thanks!
101, being part of the PN propaganda machine, is rudderless. They have no clue how to tackle the competition. They’re destined to be a C-grade station. Radju Marija has more followers I suppose.
I agree
Listen to audiobooks and podcasts instead and you’ll never have to listen to the same old music downloads ever again.
The range of audiobooks has exploded over the last few years and production values are excellent.
I’m currently listening to The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire read by David Timson.
http://www.naxosaudiobooks.com/0125.htm
I have to start listening to this guy. Maltese radio is normally such a turn-off but this is brilliant stuff from Mr. Thake.
David Thake tal-genn, though I nearly crashed thanks to him.
David Thake, king of the airwaves. I’m getting hooked on his programme.
This is what we need to have on the radio during the huge traffic jams.
A call to Conrat’s wife in China asking her how business is doing and what the latest Chinese investments are, coming this way.
Then a live call to Norman Hamilton in Piccadilly, asking where we can get the best pastizzi near Hyde Park. And Cyrus Engerer in Brussels asking about his experiences of civil liberties where he works.
Drivers are requested to keep their composure.
You have to find her number first. It’s a state secret.
101 breakfast show with Gorg Galea and Robert Cremona is always drawing crowds. Listen to it in the morning traffic.
With David Thake the PN hit a massive jackpot.
The Lara Boffa call was recounted to me by two hardcore Labour supporters, who very obviously found it very entertaining.
Regretfully I couldn’t answer their question of when David is on air.
Oh, look who’s talking about digging deep holes.
https://www.facebook.com/lara.boffa?fref=ts
Ara vera stupida din il-mara.
She would have to be. I know the dating scene isn’t that great when you’re single and in your 30s, but still I’m sure she could have found somebody much better.
I was listening and also commented on the Radio 101 Facebook page. David Thake needs to be on air as much as possible.
What a breath of fresh air at last on Radio 101. No disrespect to Charles Saliba but I really prefer this guy to anyone on Radio 101.
David ‘s choice of songs is great as well.
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=EgMqHL7kCtc
Thank you everyone.
I will try and upload all the programs onto Soundcloud as soon as I get copies of them. They would be linked to the Radio 101 Facebook Page and also to the David Thake & George Galea on Radio 101 Facebook Page.
Thanks for being one of the very few people in Malta who are competent.
How about something a’ la Zanzara on Radio24?
They’ve managed to become every politician’s nightmare using one talented voice impersonator, uncovering juicy details and internal squabbling.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ei9peaP8QM4
This one has Barca, economy vice-minister venting his very personal frustrations thinking he was talking to Nicki Vendola.
Hats off to you, as always, David.
Let’s not forget that David was a key mover and organiser in the anti-MLP schools issue back in1984/85.
He was responsible for drawing out the largest protest crowd ever, from Valletta to Farsons/L-Iklin.
Was it 175,000, David?
I’m sure it was far less than that….
Thanks! You are doing a great job!
Well done to David Thake. He is managing to get people hooked to his progamme.
David Thake on Radio 101 at drive time is the best idea to hit the station for a long time.
His subtle, and not-so-subtle, comments are hilarious, but the important thing is that the message comes loud and clear. No beating about the bush.
For example, Following a recording of Joseph Muscat’s lies, played repeatedly, he interrupts to play the song ‘va fa n’culo!’ expressing what most people are telling the Prime Minister.
With all due respect to Charles Saliba, who usually does the show at that time (Thake was filling in for him) he should have been mothballed a long time ago or moved to the night shift. That’s peak listening time for radio, when most people are in their cars looking for something good to listen to, and on 101 they find an old man playing his weird favourite songs.
Radio 101 and Net TV should be used to ensure that the government’s web of lies, deceit and corruption is continuously exposed. That’s why political parties have stations, remember.
‘That’s why political parties have stations’
In big bold neon letters please.
Giraffa, showering praise on David Thake is appropriate, but your comments about Charles Saliba are really uncalled for. Comparisons are very odious.
Opportunity cost evaluation.
Could and should be a more regular exercise.
Entrenched positions that don’t max the potential at hand help who exactly?
No Edgar, it is time to use resources to maximum efficiency.
OK, so Charles Saliba isn’t an old man.
[Daphne – Charles Saliba IS an old man, but that’s not the point here. The point is that people go to political radio stations for politics, not music. And the drain of a radio station on a political party’s funds and human resources is justifiable only in terms of getting a political message across. It is not a commercial proposition but a means of communication for the party to get its ideas and policies across. At the time Charles Saliba is on air, people are caught in their cars, caught in jams, driving about and listening to the radio as their only distraction. They are the ultimate in captive audiences, because they’re going nowhere fast. If they want to listen to music, they’ll play their own. This is when people want to listen to something interesting.]
He did the same (a live phone call) to William Mangion around two months ago. I’ve been listening to his Thursday evening shows for more than a year now. He is brilliant. Hope he gets more air time.
Hilarious!
http://daphnecaruanagalizia.com/2013/08/the-amazing-curriculum-vitae-of-lara-boffa-enemalta-director-and-papro-at-the-malta-council-for-jeffrey-pullicino-orlando/
Getting some poontang from Anthony Quinn’s daughter comes with some strings attached.
Thake is unique.
Radio 101 is streamed live here:
http://live.nettv.com.mt/
What gets me is the arrogance with which these appointments in the public sector and service are made.
I would like to see competence and skills listings for the appointees, their qualifications and experience.
The latest appointment that got me was Henry Mifsud as ITS Director (reported by Malta Today) – a b(w)anker turned lecturer who has no background in tourism, a Henley MBA (which, incidentally is not an academic degree) and what else?
Yet he lands the top job at an institute which needs very careful and professional management…THAT is another recipe for disaster.
[Daphne – Oh but he is highly qualified politically. Very Taghna Lkoll. Campaigned all over the internet and social media with anti-PN and pro-Labour messages before the last general election. Jekk jiehdu Lara Boffa u Ramona Frendo, ma jiehux hu ukoll, miskin? Malta Taghna Lkoll hi.]
In Malta no distinction is made between “bank employee” (be it clerk, supervisor, manager, whatever) and “banker” (a person who runs or owns a bank or group of banks).
In London or New York there are many of the former but very few of the latter, who earn this title through managerial acumen and make a name for themselves in the financial circles that count.
From close quarters, Henry Mifsud, I would say,falls in the former category – not a banker but a bank employee.
And a slimy one at that.
In his early days at the bank in the early 80s, he had a lucrative sideline selling pots and pans, so much so that his colleagues called him “Henry tal-Borom”.
And then in the early 90s he suddenly resigned (or was pushed) from his fast-tracked career at the bank. He began teaching marketing part-time at the Institute of Tourism Studies, marketing experience no doubt gleaned from his selling pots and pans on the side while working at a bank.
More sleazy than slimy as PWG remarked here. From selling pots and pans to director of the Institute of Tourism Studies – meteoric career progression indeed.
I telephoned David Thake the other day after he aired a recording of Joseph Muscat promising to resign if the power station is not built on time and David mixed this clip with Marco Masini’s Vaffanculo.
I told David that there I was behind the wheel, and the feeling I got from the flow from Joey’s fake promise to Vaffanculo couldn’t have been more liberating.
Sur Segretarju,
Iftah mohhok, ahna programmi w prezentaturi bhal David Thake jrridu.
Thakes a million David.
It is somewhat saddening to see a young woman in such a state.
I chanced on Mr Thake’s shows a few times of late. They’re addictive and he’s very witty. Keep up the good work.
I adore your cartoons and my 3 year old is in love with you. Keep it up!
Is Lara working in Jeffrey’s directorate? “Ghax hawn bzonn ta’ bizla fid-direzzjoni”.
No , in his trousers.
Is she in a relationship with Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando I, Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando II or Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando III?
Is he reinventing himself? One lowlife is already one too many.
Ghax Lara temmen f’Joseph u fl-apparat ta’ Jeffrey.
I’d really like to know what she shares with friends, and friends of friends for that matter.
Have you heard anything about submarines being in our waters?
http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Bomb-Worlds-Craziest-Politicians/dp/1910183091
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20141025/local/two-maltese-named-among-the-worlds-craziest-people-in-politics.541178
Two of the top 300 craziest politicians in a book to be published next year are Maltese: Norman Lowell and Claudette Abela Baldacchino. Others include Farange and Salmond.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v80Fx4zdJCc
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20141025/local/two-maltese-named-among-the-worlds-craziest-people-in-politics.541178
Oh my
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20141025/local/two-maltese-named-among-the-worlds-craziest-people-in-politics.541178
Radio 101 also welcomed Eileen Montesin with open arms. She filled in the one-hour gap at 1100hrs after the morning political discussion/phone-in was removed from the schedule.
It is true that the phone-in contributions leave a lot to be desired. But stopping that programme was like telling a section of your most assiduous listeners/voters that PN does not want to listen to you, that the PN did not listen to you before the election, and has not changed its mind.
Substituting that with Montesin’s choice of music is nothing but a further insult to those particular listeners.
I wouldn’t be surprised that whoever is taking the above decisions considers David Thake’s contribution as ‘negative’.
[Daphne – This music business really has to stop. Eileen Montesin is an excellent communicator too – with a completely different audience, but that’s just the point – and she should have a phone-in/commentary show, not a programm tad-dedikazzjonijiet.
Do not underestimate just how many people were persuaded by her honest, simple and technical-detail-free public explanation of why she wanted Malta to become a European Union member state. And she went further than that by inherently understanding that any politicians/political party that took such a catastrophic and irresponsible stance on Malta’s position in Europe could not be trusted to judge any other situation correctly and responsibly.
She didn’t see the EU question as a one-off and detach it from the context of what it said about the political parties and their protagonists, as people like Ramona Frendo did. Those who voted Yes in the referendum and then PN to consolidate that vote, as Frendo claims she did, and then immediately reverted to voting Labour because they see it as a ‘fidi’ (Frendo’s actual choice of word) were merely making a pragmatic decision and not a general political choice.
They wanted Malta to join the EU but they also wanted to keep supporting Labour regardless of how bad its judgement is. Eileen Montesin is frequently dismissed because of the characters she plays on television, but in reality she is by far the more honest and sensible in her choices. And people like her and relate to her, so go with it.]
I do not agree. And I do so whole heartedly. She might be an excellent communicator and that she is reaching to a completely different audience. ( I know that that is true from first hand experience. ) But no not Ms Montesin.
Montesin might not have been a billboard girl this time round. But she was the one who whole heartedly sang ” Run Rabbit Run”. She is on the same level of people like Joe Grima who was given a program on Net TV.
[Daphne – Oh, for God’s sake. Do you actually know how old Eileen Montesin is? She is marginally older than I am. She is young enough to be Joe Grima’s daughter. She is, in fact, the same age as Joe Grima’s son.
In 1981 I was 16, which means that she was in her early 20s, if that. God help everyone if we have to be judged by our choices and decisions at the age of 21, especially when they are not really choices and decisions at all but a natural progression from a particular environment at home. Eileen Montesin is like me: we both made a rational choice, based on assessment, to vote for the Nationalist Party. And that is why we are both clear in our mind as to the reasons for that choice, unlike so many people who help sink the sink with their attitude of politics as religion or a football team.]
She is on the same level as Godfrey Grima who was given once the task to analyze an election defeat, and this time round was asked to address the PN convention. My opinion on Ms Montesin is not linked to her teleserials. I did not watch one single episode and as you can imagine I switch off Radio101 at 1100hrs. Her voice, to my mind, is directly linked to the Mintoffian years of hatred.
[Daphne – Well then, more fool you. Like you, I watched Montesin on television in those years and to me, as to you, her name was a byword for the awfulness of that government. But unlike you, I am able to understand that she grew out of it, that what she was in her teens and 20s was the result of how she grew up, and that when she sat down and thought about it, she made proper choices. I’ll tell you that Eileen Montesin is far more to be trusted than many of the flag-waving ‘Nazzjonalist minn guf ommi’ charlatans that you’ve got in there. And more credible, too.]
David Thake did ask her on air (during the Net TV 51 hour marathon) whether she thinks it is strange that someone with her kind of MLP involvement in the past was being given airtime on PN stations. Her reply was very, very disappointing. She showed no remorse for what she did in the past.
[Daphne – I don’t expect her to show any remorse because remorse does not come into it. If I had killed somebody at 20 I would of course understand the need to show the remorse I feel, but when we feel REGRET over decisions we took at 20, public shows of remorse don’t come into it, especially when we are not in positions where our judgement has an impact in the present: i.e. Joseph Muscat.]
A phone in programme to Eileen Montesin. A bigger no from my end. The same was done with Joe Grima and did that help in any way?
[Daphne – This shows how you don’t understand the differences between people and cannot assess them. Joe Grima is a charlatan, a conniving piece of fat trash who was a cabinet minister for Mintoff and Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici in his 40s, not a TV show host in her teens and 20s. By your 40s, your character is set permanently and so are your choices. Aside from the fact that he was a Mintoffian minister, the PN people who put him on NET should have understood that he was there only because of his ongoing beef with Alfred Sant who threw him out precisely because he was associated with the corruption and violence of the Mintoff regime. And that therefore he had not made a political shift (impossible in one’s 60s) but was acting out of pique, which he would immediately do again once Sant had departed from the scene.]
It only helped everyone to understand how much he adored Mintoff (and hated Alfred Sant). Likewise we will get to know how much she still adores Mintoff and how much she cannot stand Joseph Muscat for not giving her airtime on Super One.
Please do not mix Eileen Montesin with the Godfrey Grimas, Franco Debonos, JPOs etc.
She was Labour and as she matured found that the PN policies made far more sense.
By all means put her on NET and 101. Nothing wrong with being ex-Labour.
It’s the ping-pong balls that do harm when they are welcomed back, in my opinion.
It’s very clear that we will never agree on this one.
Using your own words, the PN people who put her on NET should understand that she is only there for her own interests. It is impossible that she made a political shift in her 40s/50s. She is acting out of pique with the Super One people.
Time will tell.
[Daphne – I’m afraid you are very wrong. Perhaps it’s because I know both these individuals personally that my view is different to yours. People whose political views are ‘Nazzjonalist minn guf ommi’ are most times unable to understand how political opinions are reached through a rational process of analysis and observation. That is how I got to my own political views and I am in absolutely no doubt that Eileen Montesin did the same. In her case the process was more complicated because she was raised in a Mintoffian family and I did not have that major disadvantage.]
Full marks to David Thake!
http://www.dailydot.com/politics/gchq-biggest-trolls-nsa-edward-snowden-jtrig/