The lives of 8,000 Maltese men are threatened, John tells the European Commission
My childhood neighbours Michael Falzon and John Attard Montalto
I have a tough time getting rough with Labour’s Michael Falzon and John Attard Montalto, not because I agree with them (I really don’t) but because we’re all from the same immediate neighbourhood, and we lived there at a time when it functioned as a community.
That breeds a certain mutual respect, if not for our present circumstances then certainly for our shared past. John’s parents lived across the (narrow) street from mine until they died. Michael’s mother still lives two corners away.
I can’t say that the same level of sentimentality comes into play with AD’s Edward Fenech, who grew up 10 metres away from me in the flat beneath John Attard Montalto’s parents. But that’s because he’s quite happy not to respect the boundaries and likes to be first in with the spiteful remarks. He has a clear streak of malice, and Michael and John do not.
In any case, I find John Attard Montalto’s flamboyant nonchalance unfailingly entertaining. His distribution of cooking utensils to the crowds at his electoral meetings, with the air of an 18th-century lord distributing goods to the poor, was absolutely priceless. So are all those photographs, on his website, of him touring the world in all kinds of interesting outfits, and his live internet broadcast of his wedding on a cruise ship.
And who can forget the way he challenged Alfred Sant’s party leadership, after the 2003 general election, live to camera wearing a cheerfully coloured track-suit with the logo of a cruise-liner company on the breast pocket?
And when I cracked jokes about it, I found Interflora at the gate with a large bunch of flowers and an amused note.
He knows he is entertaining and that his behaviour inevitably gives rise to parody, so he does not react to jokes and criticism with the hysterical aggression you might get elsewhere. I can see, though, that he must drive his fellow Maltese MEPs completely nuts, and that the Labour Party has a problem with him, which quite obviously bothers him not one jot.
Today, he didn’t disappoint.
timesofmalta.com:
Labour MEP John Attard Montalto has asked the European Commission whether it is aware that the ‘belatedly pathetic attempt’ to eradicate hunting at the behest of extremists, “is having a live-threatening effect on up to 8,000 EU citizens (Maltese bird trappers and their suffering families), who regard this practice as a way of life they cannot do without, to the extent that there have been unexplained deaths?”
If Malta had a House of Lords, John Attard Montalto would sit in it and carry on oblivious. But in the absence of a House of Lords, the European Parliament suffices.
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John Attard Montalto should put his story in book-form. Stephen King made millions of dollars that way.
If the deaths are unexplained, how does he know the ‘live-threatening effect’ of the ‘belatedly pathetic attempt’ is to blame?
This man is in the wrong job.
Dear Daphne,
This has nothing to do with the present article. Just saw the Times…….breaking news……….another one for the skip.
John entertains when he talks crap, which is most of the time.
He does it with panache.
He inherited this unique ability from his grandfather, the unforgettable police corps medical officer, about whom dozens of lovely anecdotes could be written.
The urban legend of hunters and trappers topping themselves because they cannot practice their “delizzju” (or is it “namra” ?) has reached Brussels.
Well, a commission of experts will be appointed, take evidence, compile statistics, make recommendations like taking up Ludo or knitting as therapy, all at cost to the EU budget.
I am looking forward to the end of the hunting season. I am woken every morning by a continuous fusillade of hunting guns.
Maybe JAM will direct the commission of experts to people like me who need sleep and are traumatised by this barbaric “delizzju”.
I cannot for the life of me understand how mental health issues are an argument in favour of hunting. Surely if you’re mentally unstable you shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near a gun?
If John is the grandson of the police medical officer from whom I took over (after the blank interval of a few years) that would explain a lot.
Out of subject, but;
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20080731/local/faa-keeps-up-the-pressure-on-st-johns-foundation-application.218917
St. John’s Co-Cathedral: Friday, July 25, 2008
“FAA reiterates that these developments would violate the clauses of its National Monument Grade I scheduling as well as causing irremediable damage to Valletta’s underground chambers, tunnels, channels and water cisterns which should be mapped out, studied and preserved, and not damaged and exploited,”
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20111012/local/gate.388830
Cittadella: Wednesday, October 12, 2011
“The innovative use of these reservoirs as a non-intrusive visitors’ centre is an excellent example of rehabilitation of an old structure. While being modern in treatment, this conversion does not jar with the surroundings and will greatly increase our appreciation of the Cittadella’s past role, as well as attracting many more tourists to this historic site.”
This precedes the second paragraph about the Citadella:
FAA said it particularly welcomed the re-use of the enormous old water reservoirs just beneath the citadel’s outer walls which in the 1990s were risking demolition.
L-Irlandiz tar-regina fethilha……
Kemm ilu ma jersaq l’hawn.
I am not a trapper and don’t like it when my neighbour-trappers tell me to duck when I’m supposedly enjoying my time on my property “ghax ghaddejjin”.
Bird trappers cannot catch a quail or a turtle-dove while hunters can shoot it. There’s something wrong somewhere in the legislation.
The bird-trappers I know in my area have been practising this traditional hobby for many years since their childhood. They did so with their fathers or their grandfathers in the same areas.
Many of them are taking anti-depressants and medication and I heard about some suicides because of the bird-trapping and hunting bans.
These people don’t know what to do with themselves except hunting or trapping , or rather, sitting for long hours from early dawn waiting for the right bird (if it comes) to enter their bird-trap.
Sometimes I suspect that even if they know that they won’t catch a single feather in a whole day, they would still do the same routine for the whole season.
If it were for me I would leave the present licence-holders to catch birds in the open season and won’t issue new licences.
In ten years’ time the trappers will diminish substantially through natural attrition.
Instead of bird-watchers now we have hunter and bird trapper persecutors. I think these environmental groups are not attracting bird lovers but people who seek ‘adventure’.
John, the reason why some birds can be shot but not trapped is simple. A shooter can kill only one bird at a time but a trapper can capture a whole group – even 10-15 individuals – at one go, with one sweep of the net. The impact of trapping is therefore potentially much greater.
It does not matter that trapped birds remain ‘alive’: from an environmental point of view a caged animal is virtually ‘dead’ for it can no longer fulfill any role within an ecosystem.
Antoine Vella is factually correct. Laws on hunting and trapping are environmental laws, not animal rights laws or even animal welfare laws.
Antoine, since when do we see a group of 10 -15 turtle doves or quail? You would be lucky if you see those in a week let alone capture them.
We have more hunters than trappers resulting in the total obliteration of any bird which tries to fly over our countryside.Just look at last week’s influx of thrushes (imlievez). It is easier to shoot than trap a bird.
Hunters who do not have their own piece of land do a lot of damage in the countryside to dry walls and produce when they trespass, while trappers sit on their land and don’t move around to leave a trail of looting and destruction from where they pass.
If it were for me both hunting and trapping should be banned as the countryside is more peaceful without them, but I think the legislators have gone one too far against the traditional bird trappers.
They are past the age of being converted into playing golf. Let’s let the licence holders practise their only hobby. It’s their best medication for their mental depression. Their next of kin and friends will also be relieved.
I’d rather have a smiling trapper than a bunch of grumbling men walking around not knowing what to do with themselves who consider suicide as an option.
I’d rather save the quality of life of a human for the capture of a few birds.
And let’s put aside the excuse of the ecosystem. The miserable life of these few trappers and their families can be turned into a normal life with the capture of a few birds.
Aren’t trappers part of our social ‘ecosystem’? Where are our priorities? Birds before humans?
The life of these ignorant people is shattered. Don’t they have a right to live their stupid lives more than a common bird which sometimes happens to pass over this barren rock?
Daphne, this evening on One Radio, Joe Grima solemnly branded you as a “Rotweiller”, together with Lou Bondi and IM Beck.
[Daphne – When you next see him, please let him know from me that people who bear more than a passing physical resemblance to one are ill-advised in using that expression. He’s not the Princess of Wales.]
Actually, I think he looks more like a bulldog. Daphne, can you please upload some pictures of rotweillers, bulldogs and Joe Grima so we can discuss the resemblances?
I’d say more like a Neapolitan Mastiff.
[Daphne – I have one of those and I take offence at the suggestion.]
Sorry but I like the man. I hope he keeps wearing those outdated ties. After all they go with his time.
I heard his Joe Grima Alive program yesterday. He had the barefaced cheek to explain to his listeners how “fi zmienna” (Golden Mintoff era),
1.any problems that cropped up in various ministries between management and workers were ironed out in a civilized fashion round the board table.
2. the partit tal-Haddiema never considered Maltese mano d opera as “cwiec” or replaced them by foreign labour .
He was scandalized at the current democratic deficit evident in this country and the intimidation of that poor young student.
He seems to be suffering from total amnesia where the golden Mintoff / socialist era (1971-1987) is concerned.
A rotweiller has a strong compact body. Joe Grima is grossly obese and resembles more an outsized Vietnamese pot-bellied pig. Haven’t you seen him recently? He traipses his abdomen (or whatever revolting part of his anatomy it is that hangs lowest) along the pavement as he shuffles along, barely making progress.
[Daphne – It’s the head. There’s no dog on earth which shares that body.]
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20111013/local/engerer-inquiry-report-published.389045
The Times showing its shallow reporting. “Engerer inquiry does not exclude link between PN resignation and filing of charges,” nstead of heading the report with “Edgar Galea Curmi did not try to influence the police when he phoned the Commissioner”. Nowhere is it mentioned who Marvic Camilleri’s lawyers were. Interesting.
An inquiry should not exclude anything. So perhaps they could have headlined the report with “Engerer inquiry does not exclude that the police were tipped-off by Martians”.
Daphne I am not sure, but correct me if I am wrong, John Attard Montaldo is from Zebbug,and lives in BUZIETTA GARDENS?
[Daphne – John Attard Montalto is from Milner Street, Sliema, just like me. He grew up in the townhouse opposite ours, which when I was a child was demolished and replaced with a small block of flats named Despott Mansions, after his mother’s family, who owned it. His parents continued to live in one of those flats until they died, and his aunt and uncle Despott still live there. Meanwhile John had met and married Doreen and moved away, eventually to Haz-Zebbug. He met Doreen at the Golden Seven round the corner (this is information he gave in an interview).]
Oh the Golden Seven – what happened to it – is it still there ? Those bread rolls stuffed with lots of goodies – torpedoes I think they were called.
[Daphne – Long, long gone.]
Golden Seven . . . pure grease! But how it mopped up the Blue Label. Good times.
In my time, it used to be called Golden Harvest. AST, a Nationalist at that time, used to hang with the same clique that I used to frequent.
AST Nationalist?
Interesting. Please continue.
Politicians take themselves far too seriously. We need more of John’s ilk.