Look at the unacceptable way the PM pats his minister three times rapidly on the back
Published:
October 18, 2014 at 8:03pm
That’s the patronising gesture people use on old biddies, children and serfs, and on those to whom they feel superior and better off in general, or for whom they feel some kind of pity.
That single gesture of the prime minister’s is one of great arrogance and of assertion of his superiority over the pitiable Konrad Mizzi.
The arrangement and comportment of the two men in this video is in fact that of master and serf. While it is the prime minister who has had a bucket of water cast over him, Mizzi looks like the servant who has been ordered to give his lord an unconventional shower before sorting out his clean underpants for the morrow.
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Laurel and Hardy reincarnated.
Blackadder and Baldrick. Strike that, make it Baldrick and Ivor “Jest you not” Biggun.
[Daphne – My, another one. Amazing how many Maltese people think that Baldrick and Blackadder are slapstick comedy characters of the same genre as Laurel & Hardy, but more contemporary. One despairs at times.]
Ok,Ok, make it Basil Fawlty/Manuel. Or am I relegated to Benny Hill status?
But what actually happened to all those ice cubes we were shown at the beginning of the clip? Did they wait until they dissolved?
The water they used had no ice in it.
Blackadder and Baldrick, more likely!
[Daphne – If you think that comparison more accurate, then you haven’t understood the show.]
Can you imagine Dr Gonzi and Tonio Fenech doing something similar? Or anyone else from the PN Cabinet for the matter? And yet a vast majority of people voted for this. Yes, at times like these the mind really boggles.
How stupid we look
What is even more telling is something he said. Daphne, you might have missed it. He said “Gibtu mieghi”, when referring to Konrad Mizzi.
“I brought him with me”, is something you say when talking about a dog, a child or a person you want to project as your inferior in every way.
[Daphne – I didn’t miss it, but simply assumed that it was the ignorance of his family background that causes him to speak that way. But you’re right, the average person who has escaped that background doesn’t need lessons in good manners to know not to say that, and most people would naturally say gejt ma’ anyway because the way we speak reveals our attitude even if we are not conscious of it. I’m not quite sure, though, whether he says that kind of thing deliberately or whether it’s automatic, that it reflects the way he thinks and he’s not even aware of it. Example: man to wife, “I’m going for a walk. Do you want to come with me?” Wife hits roof, saying that what he should have said is, “Shall we go for a walk?” Man can’t understand what he said wrong. But wife has synthesised man’s attitude towards her in general in that simple question.]
People who know him well agree that a lot of what he says and does (or does not do) is about power games.
There is something else I saw in this video – the way he holds back his head like a ‘glamour model’ when the water hits him. This tells me that he has rehearsed this.
[Daphne – I’m not sure it was the best idea, though. I instinctively felt, when I saw that as a woman, that he wasn’t trying to appeal to women and that even this was reflexive and not intentional.]
Even looking at the still picture before you start the video, you can notice Mizzi’s arms close to the body with the hands in front of the genitals in that awkward position as well as his downward, sideways gaze.
Muscat is looking at the camera with his hands on his hips trying to make himself look bigger and bolder even though he is short and podgy. There is no need for ice cubes for this dynamic to give you the shivers.
It’s a sartorial problem. Both men are fat, and have lost the V-taper (if they ever had it). But they wear fitted shirts. So the gut is even more pronounced. And they both resort to tricks.
Mizzi tries to hide his belly, covering it with his arms. Muscat tries to puff out his chest and spread his shoulders to make it look like he has a V-taper.
Both fail.
Of course they would have been spared the embarrassment had they refused this stupid stunt, like grown men who are running a country.
But they are not grown men, and this is just another glimpse into Muscat’s locker-room government. They’re buddies. They’re in it for larfs.