UPDATED/Saviour Balzan, too, needs to see a psychiatrist like his friend Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando
UPDATE:I’ve added to the transcript below a couple of lines that are in my original notes and which I missed because they were written on the other side of the paper. These are in bold.
When I rang Malta Today last week because of a criminally slanderous comment about my children, posted on its Illum website, I asked for Matthew Vella.
The receptionist came back and said that Matthew Vella is not available, but Saviour Balzan would come to the phone. I thought, oh, how very civilised.
I should have known better, given that he is unbalanced, can’t handle women and comes from a Mintoffian background.
What follows is a transcript of the conversation, and I apologise for the hideousness of the bad language, but it is necessary to repeat it so that you know what I am talking about. The capital letters denote shouting in a vicious and contemptuous tone of voice.
Me: “Hello, Saviour. I called you because there’s a comment….”
SB: “WHAT THE FUCK? YOU HAVE A FUCKING NERVE? FUCKING BITCH! I’LL TELL YOU THIS, QAHBA, YOU HAVE BALLS!”
Me: “There’s no need to be so rude. I called you civilly, rather than going straight to the police, because I prefer to sort these matters out by…”
SB: “CUNT! PISSPOT! YOU FUCKING BITCH CUNT! WHY DON’T YOU GO AND FUCK YOURSELF! FUCK OFF JA HARA! HARA! CUNT CUNT CUNT YOU FUCKING CUNT. QAHBA CUNT! NOW GO AND PHONE ROGER! GO PHONE HIM! YOU HAVE A FUCKING NERVE WHEN YOU WRITE WHAT YOU DO!
Me: “Please distinguish between opinions and slanderous lies presented as facts. I never write the lat…”
SB: “I’M NOT SCARED OF YOU! EVERYBODY IS SCARED OF YOU BUT I’M NOT SCARED OF YOU! HA NGHIDLEK TA, I’M NOT SCARED OF YOU! THEY’RE ALL SCARED OF YOU BUT I’M NOT SCARED OF YOU! FUCKING HARA! FUCKASS BITCH! FUCK YOU DEAD! ALL THIS IS BECAUSE SIMON BUSUTTIL DOESN’T HAVE THE GUTS TO STOP YOU. HE’S TOO FUCKING SCARED TO FUCKING STOP YOU BITCH! CUNT! ”
Me (thinking, what does he mean, scared of me, and quite obviously that’s exactly what he is which is why he’s saying it like some four-year-old boy in the playground): “Stop me? How and why? I don’t work for him. What does he have to do with it…”
SB: “CUNT HARA BITCH FUCK OFF PISSPOT FUCK YOURSELF CUNT.”
At this point, his voice has escalated to apoplectic levels, and I think he is about to get a stroke. After a final “CUNT CUNT CUNT” he rings off.
Why would he think it takes balls to ring a newspaper to ask for the removal of criminal slander, when you are right and the newspaper is in the wrong? Then I remember that when I once posted something about Balzan which he wished to have removed (it wasn’t even remotely slanderous, let alone criminal), he rang up even people who he thought had a tenuous connection with me and asked them to ask me. But he never rang me himself. It’s a shame he didn’t, because I might well have done so. It’s happened once or twice with others. I’m conditioned to respond positively to civilised behaviour and good manners.
I pause briefly to wonder how normal people can tolerate working in such an atmosphere, then I ring Roger de Giorgio, the other owner of Malta Today. Obviously, he doesn’t pick up. He never does when I call because he doesn’t have the courage to face me even over the telephone line.
So instead I send him a message telling him that I would never publish criminal slander about anyone, let alone about private persons so as to get at their parents, and that I am deeply saddened that he does not do the same. He didn’t have the decency to reply.
After some thought, I then followed up with another message: “I rang your office this morning with a view to asking for the removal of those comments, and Saviour came on the line with a torrent of abuse the like of which I have never heard. The language was utterly vile, the violence was insane, and I don’t think it is sensible for you to be associated with that level of hamallagni. The man is clearly not normal.”
Before going to the police to file a report against Saviour Balzan and Roger de Giorgio, I checked the website again and the comments in question had gone. So I messaged de Giorgio: “I appreciate the fact that those comments have been removed. Thank you.”
I checked out the Facebook page of the person who had posted them, thinking that it was very strange to have somebody posting criminal slander in her real name. The Facebook page said ‘works at Simons Farsons Cisk’. I immediately contacted Farsons human resources department to report the matter.
The head of human resources replied instantly, having checked that Facebook page, saying that they were very concerned to have the company’s name associated with such abuse. They didn’t seem to have anybody by that name but were checking with all their subsidiaries.
Soon after, I had another email saying that nobody of that name works there, and that they would be taking up the matter directly with Facebook to protect the company name and reputation.
So somebody has created a ‘real looking’ Facebook account, complete with personal details including place of work, to post criminal slander on websites that will have it, like those owned by Saviour Balzan and Roger de Giorgio. Perhaps, given the nature of some of their staff, especially at Illum, it is even one of them.
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Well, well now. Can’t his sister help him?
Saviour. Self control.
Just because a woman is good at her job, it needn’t get under your skin.
Your fault for selling out.
Imagine that receiver, splutter.
No she cannot help him really.
She’s not that sane either.
Please note that I’m feeling rather kind today.
He basically needs a psychiatrist because it’s too late for a psychologist. He’s at the stage where he needs medication.
Come on, Mariella, get your brother to attend one of your anger management classes. He’s a prime candidate…albeit verging on the hopeless case category.
Oh, didn’t know he was a necrophiliac too.
Oh I see, if Muscat’s scared of Mallia, Busuttil’s scared of Daphne.
Oh well, make sure his libel fund issues a receipt.
Does he realise his is an admission how easily he can be stopped?
Woof.
Nimaginah kien qisu hekk:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8O1yHh7IzwQ
Dak, almenu, kellu kuragg johrog jghajjat f’nofs ta’ triq biex jisimghu kulhadd. Saviour ma kellux.
Wara kollox, dak l-Indjan forsi kellu qasma ha.. nobis, miskin, u kien mugugh sewwa. Ghalhekk dak l-ghajjat u t-tkaghwig.
Ma nahsibx li Saviour kien qed ibaghti bl-istess sintomi meta kellem lil Daphne. Probabbilment tieghu kienu ferm aghar – ghaliex kienu gejjin mill-mohh.
Le, probabbilment kien għajjat ta’ uġiegħ; uġiegħ tal-ħlas waqt li kien qiegħed iwelled żrinġ.
Balzan would make an even better education minister than Bartolo himself.
He’s at Agatha Barbara levels.
But she was hairy.
And she had a handbag that bashed people, especially if they were related to past presidents.
But she had balls.
Worlds AIDS Day (1st December) seems to have passed by unnoticed by our favorite Minister, Chris Fearne.
Ghax hawn Malta, taf int, m’ghandiex bzonn awwarness kampejns dwar l-uzu tal-kondors jew l-es ti dees. Ghax il-barranin biss igibu l-mard.
As long as he keeps up the pressure on new mothers (easy emotional target, you know) by telling them what to do with their breasts he knows he’s got a sure right-wing portion of the vote. That is far far far more pressing and alarming then HIV.
ghax dak mohhu fiz-zejziet u treddieh
Daphne, please leave this post at the very top for at least a week.
Readers who are not regular with your Running Commentary will have the chance to realise how low, mad and vulgar this man is.
Agree 100 %
Bunch of loonies; Freud would have a field day.
I expected Saviour Balzan to turn the conversation into a battle of wits. But he gave up too easily.
One must be in possession of one’s wits to engage in a battle of wits. Nemo dat quod non habet.
Mr. Balzan does exhibit traits reminiscent of a tcyclothymic personality.
Most probably of the hypomania type.
Thanks for making me look things up in Wikipedia.
I think he was just trying to impress the employees who happened to be standing around him really.
[Daphne – No, he lost control and his voice was full of hatred and contempt. It’s a tone of voice certain men reserve only for women, and we learn to recognise it. It’s violence.]
One has to really understand how Malta works to understand what’s eating this man.
It’s a yoke you’re quickly rid of, Saviour, if only you’d let yourself.
Might require a few lifestyle adjustments.
You were better off when you started out.
I think that if employees happened to be standing by, they would have been disgusted too.
I hope that Daphne is in the habit of recording conversations with these losers, proceeds to let the police listen to them and then sue the bastard.
Maybe reaching into his pocket to pay fines will put him further in the hole and making the acquisition of blood pressure medication a bit harder to pay for.
He’s lost it and he may be just as bitter and disappointed at the Party, now government, he backed for many years. How long will it be before he invites Debono and Dalli to pour more gasoline on the bonfire of hatred and contempt against anything Nationalist and more so against a ‘blokker’ who dares expose this government’s utter inefficiency and corruption?
The woman not responding in kind or in tears is a shock to such a poor excuse of a man. You rattled his cage by being civil while he blew up.
Was it Chris Cardona who said the Maltese should not argue so much? Just goes to show how little he knows, he should have said that the Maltese should LEARN how to argue.
Now go and wash your mouth with soap, Saviour, you twat.
Would it be too much to ask you to upload the soundclip?
[Daphne – I don’t record telephone conversations. It’s completely unethical to do so without first informing the other person. I took down that conversation in writing.]
It couldn’t have been easy keeping up with the cunt(s).
Daphne up to some time ago I would have agreed with you , but now since ethics have been flushed down the toilet , I believe we should save ethical behaviour for people who are ethical themselves , these a–e h—s don’t deserve any better.
True. But considering the entertainment value you would be excused if you made an exception with BS.
Nothing wrong with recording phone conversations after advising the callers.
Had you done so and advised Balzan, he would have been more civil and not heaped abuse upon abuse which if I am not mistaken can be taken as anti-women venom of the first order.
If you don’t want to set up conversation recorders, you can pull a bluff by stating “your conversation may be recorded for research purposes”. The caller will never know and secondly, bona fide callers/responders will not mind it one bit.
Either way, he is one sick man.
You mean he is a certified lunatic?
No, that’s JPO and Franco Debono. Saviour is a self-employed lunatic.
Mhux biex indahhaq jew nirredikola, imma nahseb li Balzan haqqu Oscar, for the best porn script ever written.
Poor Saviour is probably still livid at having been led up the garden path on the evening of the shooting incident. The final nail in his journalistic coffin.
Fuq nota aktar serja, minn dan l-iscript jidher bic-car li ifferocjat bil-kbir, u m’hemm xejn li jista jirrimedja.
Persuna hamalla u baxxa, minn kliemu jidher li tellief.
Thank you for adding the next, previous and visited buttons. It does make it easier to follow especially on the mobile. Keep up the good work Daphne. I admire your assertiveness and professional judgement.
The Facebook person misspelled the name of the company. It’s SimonDs.
He’s got quite a bit of pent-up frustration, what with the violent rants. Is he transposing his anger for some other woman in his life onto you?
And this man has a news programme (Reporter) on PBS! If a BBC or other national television reporter behaved this way, he would be out on his ear before the day was done. But Dardir Malta probably consider him ‘riporter tal-azzar.’
What a rude idiot he is.
I remember him back when I was at school at St Edward’s, “teaching” environmental studies. He wasn’t an asshole or anything like that but he never really used to teach either.
He was more interested in starting a sentence and then walking outside to look at his homemade pond, then coming back, continuing and going out again. By the end of the lesson he may have gone through two or three sentences.
the photo chosen really fits the article
Oh for those video blogs. Obviously not with Labour in power.
He’s worse than we thought. He’s at the very extreme end of his insanity. Who would treat a person like that? And worse than that, what sort of ‘man’ would treat a woman like that?
I think that this is the result of a series of events that have led to the destabilisation of Saviour Balzan and others like him who had hedged their political and financial future on their blind faith in Muscat.
The latest event that these hedgers went through is Muscat’s credibility rating free-fall caused by the Mallia-gate, Helena-Dalli-gate, Helicopter-pad-gate, the invisible power station, Sai-gate and all the other debacles that the Muscat government has gone through since the year the Liar 36,000 anno non-domine.
These cronies who had believed that they would have it so good for some 15 or twenty years are now seeing their dreams turning into nightmares and are now in a very depressive state, fearful that their dream may actually end in 3 years’ time after which they would have to do real work to earn a living.
I wonder what Salvu did when he finished his offensive barrage.
He might have sat down and asked for a brandy. He might have had his staff applaud him for his exploit. He might have gone home, taken some sleeping pills and had a long siesta.
He might have called Dalli to tell him of his bravery in the face of such hostile enemy. He might have gone to his GP as his blood pressure would have gone to the roof.
One day, this pile of sick crap will go down and will go down heavily.
This clip aids one to get into the picture.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rjba0DeTUpo
Yeah, stay classy Saviour. Nice one. Keep on ‘saying it as it is’ (sic).
Apropos, any sales figure for that tome?
Saying it as it is, he needs the proceeds.
And you keeping your calm must have really made him see red.
What a vulgar, filthy mouthed man. You unveil them all Daphne.
Dear Saviour Balzan,
We all know you read these blogs.
Do you confirm the quoted conversation?
Are you proud of it?
How unprofessional can someone get?
Mr Saviour’s brain seems to run on murky gutter emotion instead of razor sharp logic.
There are too many childish men on Malta these days.
It must have been caused by spoiling them as children.
Can you imagine the waiting room at that psychiatrist’s?
I wonder what Julian Manduca would have thought, what with his portrait hanging in the boardroom and all that.
[Daphne – He would have been horrified. Aside from being a friend and my cousin, as well as my husband’s cousin, as you well know, he was also the epitome of decency. Unfortunately, this isn’t a case of ‘breeding will out’, because if it were, Roger de Giorgio wouldn’t be in this disgusting equation.]
Precisely.
Insomma f’kelma wahda bil-partit tieghu fil-gvern, Saviour xorta baqa ndannat.
Ezat! Hammer – Nail- Head.
All that swearing, and at the end of the day, you won.
What s sad tosser this guy is.
Roger Degiorgio can be difficult to get hold of lately, a regular at AZAD’s events.
[Daphne – Oh indeed. More fool AZAD. What are Saviour Balzan and Roger de Giorgio doing here – the usual Maltese thing of ‘direttur mal-Labour u direttur mal-PN ghall-apparenza’? Even Where’s Everybody had this set-up of a foot in either camp, I found out at the 11th hour: Chris Cardona’s law partner was a director and shareholder through all the years when the Labour Party was going on about Where’s Everybody and how much they earned. What a pantomime, honestly.
So let’s get this straight: the owner of a newspaper that has made a mission of campaigning against the Nationalist Party, and for Labour by default, and which NEVER has anything critical to say about Muscat except in the occasional leading article, is trying to creep back into the Nationalist Party. They should make it a condition that he sheds his partnership with Saviour Balzan first. How can you trust anyone who’s in a business bed with that man? The Nationalist Party’s eternal weakness: thinking that everyone adheres to the same standards of behaviour that it does, and has no ulterior motive.]
Erm, that’s in the audience.
Well, there is a rumour going around.
I suppose he’ll be given an ambassadorship when Simon Busuttil’s in power. You know, because he was at Tal-Barrani and is a Nazzjonalist Ta’ Veru.
And the rest of us idiots were just voting for the Nationalist Party.
Typical of Balzan journalism – nothing real or clear. Roger bears some sort of grudge against PN and pretends to be a victim to his wife and life in general. He is just another greedy bugger with a posh accent.
[Daphne – Thank you for bringing up his accent. I am led to understand that Saviour called mine ‘stupid’ when describing our ‘telephone conversation’ (without saying how he swore). Yet my accent is indistinguishable from Roger’s. So Saviour must think Roger has a stupid accent, too – or maybe mine is stupid because I’m a woman.]
One has to ask why Saviour should get so angry about Daphne. What is Daphne doing that is specifically causing, or threatening to cause, him harm of some sort?
[Daphne – Business, I suppose. He is one of those typical Maltese businessmen who seek to eliminate competition so that they don’t have to compete. That outburst came a couple of days after I revealed that this website had got the highest number of views ever since it started six years ago: almost half a million in a single day. I plan to carry advertising before long – I have to, because the workload is now too great to keep it on as a pastime any longer – and that makes him irate. Then there is the food magazine, which is going from strength to strength on genuine advertising pulled in through investment in a quality product, while his limps along on favours from contacts. And then we have the little problem where he asked me to leave The Malta Independent, seven years ago, and work for him, and I declined politely without even saying that I would think about it. Plus also the fact that he rather liked me 30 years ago or so, while I just saw him as part of the furniture.]
Can a man be so shallow as to scream such abuse at a woman because of business?
No, I’d rather go for your last reason.
Even there, the puzzle is not quite complete. So perhaps JPO is not alone.
Did he stutter at all during all this vulgarity? The poor man might be suffering from a severe form of Tourette’s syndrome.
Foul language through and through and he couldn’t even argue the point. Undoubtedly a recessive trait pertaining to an inferiority complex. Seemingly he’s the one who’s scared of you, Daphne.
This is another grown boy with a massive thing for strong opinionated woman like you.
I have a feeling it’s some pent-up bad energy they have harboured since childhood against their dominant mothers.
Now as grown man they want women to conform to bimbo stereotype and when she doesn’t they use genitals in their attack. Hymen, cunt, hara/shit.
But Daphne, how could you possibly not fallen for Salvu’s charm? What a lost opportunity.
Bsides seeing the funny side of this incident, I am horrified that such people exist, more so that a man of some social standing (OK, maybe I am stretching the term a bit here and I have not qualified what standing) can talk to a woman in such way.
Call me old fashioned, but isn’t there some kind of tacit understanding that in a civilised society, amongst mature and well educated people, such things do not happen?
I was embarrassed reading the transcript. Unbelievable.
People of the same ilk, the whole lot of them.
Nothing to choose from.
What a scum to use such language.
He should be ashamed of himself.
I never watch any of his programmes.
Another desperate case.
Hamalli hamalli hamalli. Roger and Saviour deserve each other and they both deserve the women they married. Maybe that’s why they are such angry, pathetic men. These people are disgusting and have taken bad manners to another level.
The British have a saying, like father like son, but Saviour Balzan’s father is one of the most educated persons, who ended his career as a Ship Manager at the Malta Drydocks.
Saviour should try to emulate his father.
The British have a saying, like father like son. However his father is one of the most educated persons, who ended his career as a ship manager at the Malta Drydocks.
Saviour should try to emulate his father.
And this moron is the new star of our national broadcaster, the host of a debate between the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition.
This country has become a cesspit.
IN-SANE (SB)
[in-seyn]
1. not sane; not of sound mind; mentally deranged.
2. of, pertaining to, or characteristic of a person who is mentally deranged:
“insane actions; an insane asylum.”
3. utterly senseless:
“an insane plan.”
Synonyms
1. demented; lunatic, crazed, crazy; maniacal. foolish, irrational. See SAVIOUR BALZAN
Well, Saviour screamed it out, loud and clear ! …. Daphne, you have BALLS ! ……. I have always given you that, but now Saviour is saying it too ! …… you are amazing Daphne !
“Hamallu” is a word that is overused in Malta. It stands for uncouth and vulgar.
There are people who have had the ill-fortune of being born, and growing up, in a hamallu environment, and who did not have the opportunity to rise above it.
I shall not demean such people by putting them on the same level of crass rudeness and vulgarity as Saviour Balzan, who presents himself as a paragon of rectitude to Maltese society in the media.
Saviour Balzan’s baseness, vulgarity, and scatology is self-chosen, as a weapon when he has no valid argument.
It may, and I emphasise “may”, be partly explained in a person who is under the influence of drink or drugs, or through some malfunction of the brain under stress, but in that case he is not fit to pose as a journalist, unless we are speaking of gutter journalism.
I am surprised that the surname of Degorgio that I have held in high esteem feels comfortable in such company.
Next time just push the record button on your mobile and upload the recording here.
Daphne, I recommend that next time you phone him record the conversation. If you call via mobile you just have to download an app and if by phone record when on speaker.
Saying this I assume that you already have because you cannot write all those words at once especially when someone is insulting you.
This is what he got for sharing company with Labour, foul language taz-“zigg”.