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.

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.

Ok,Ok, make it Basil Fawlty/Manuel. Or am I relegated to Benny Hill status?

“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.]

[Daphne – If you think that comparison more accurate, then you haven’t understood the show.]

[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.]