Joe ‘Peppi’ Azzopardi has made himself the face of Maltese hamallagni

Joe Azzopardi started off with a future and then at some point seems to have taken a deliberate decision to make himself the face of Maltese hamallagni.

What he used to do before, he used to do cynically, for showmanship, to get the viewers. Now he’s sunk right into it. There’s no difference between him and the savages in his audience.

He thinks being like them is democratic. It isn’t. It’s patronising, self-demeaning and ultimately offensive to them because, whichever way you look at it, he’s not like them in reality: he’s on television every week, lives a privileged life and earns far more money than they do.

Maybe some of them would be better than he is, given his money and his privileges. Maybe they would use the money to get themselves an education.

Look at Joe’s comment about books and libraries: books are boring and anti-social, unlike, say, a night at Cavett’s Place or Medasia.