What rubbish, Lino
Lino Spiteri is back with the cant again, this time saying that Dom Mintoff and George Borg Oliver never attacked each other personally.
Well, what can I say? Mintoff never attacked Borg Oliver personally in the same way that he never ransacked Eddie Fenech Adami’s house or burned down The Times personally.
We lived two streets away from the Borg Oliviers, and as an urban child, the only bulls I ever saw were the ones driven past our house on lorries surrounded by half-naked apes on their way to or from Victoria Avenue.
This means I saw my first bull aged around six, in 1970. This was the way that primitive people conveyed the message ‘kornut’ (cuckold), which is literally translated as ‘with horns’.
The prime minister’s wife had had an affair and a child was born of this relationship that year. The prime minister raised the child as his own, until he died 10 years later, and never made any public bones about the matter.
I was on my way, with my grandmother, to Burroughs, the chemist on Amery Street (now a house where friend-of-Michelle Elena Zammit Lewis’s Labour aunt lives). That’s one of the streets between Milner Street (where we lived) and Victoria Avenue (where the prime minister lived).
“Bulls! Bulls!” I shouted. “Look, nanna, those are bulls!” I noticed her contemptuous expression and demanded to know whether she didn’t like bulls, and what those men were planning to do with them anyway.
She swiftly rearranged her face. “They must love bulls very much.”
Then we got a shower of lemons.
“Why are they throwing lemons at us?”
Of course, what those savages didn’t know was that practically everyone in those few streets was Labour or pro-Strickland (see reference to Elena Farrugia Zammit Lewis, above – her grandfather Totty Farrugia, a real Laburist, lived round the corner), and that many of them were planning on voting Labour the following year and did so.
They’re roughly the same ‘tal-pepe’ who are saying now that we should let bygones be bygones and not say horrible things about Mintoff.
In fact, when I look back I think that probably the only proper Nazzjonalist in our street was Tonio Ganado.
One of the advantages of growing up where I did is that I know so much about where certain people are coming from, and I NEVER make the mistake which so many make, especially in the Nationalist Paarty: that of assuming that the more tal-pepe a person is, the more likely s/he is to be Nationalist.
They’re actually more likely to be people who voted for Mintoff in 1971, or whose parents or grandparents did, because they were raised hyper-anti-Nationalist as Boffisti or Stricklandjani or even 1950s/1960s Mintoffjani.
Count my lot out, of course.
John Attard Montalto will remember those bulls very well. In 1970 he lived with his parents in the house directly across the street from ours. That’s how I know John – as a neighbour, not as a politician. His parents and mine lived a few feet away from each other until his parents died.
They were just one of the anti-Nationalist or pro-Mintoff families that made up the majority in our tal-pepe neighbourhood. Why, even the people who opened a hairdresser’s shop a couple of doors away from our house were Mintoffjani then and are Laburisti now: Pierre Camille and his wife Rita, sive Carina.
So were the people who opened the only other shop in the street and came to live above it: tat-Touch of Class.
Every election, as the lorries came screaming and honking through the street, the only bit of amusement was telling myself ‘If only they knew that most people in this street voted for them.’
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As we say in Maltese “Il-gurnata min filghodu tidher”.
You must have been quite a bright little girl, remembering those events that happened when you were only six, not only that but even the exact words.
[Daphne – Yes, I was. It’s a shame, isn’t it, that I’m not also cracked like Franco Debono and so don’t consider it important. I also remember being taken swimming to Delimara by the wife of the Labour accountant across the street – along with her children – and noting how strange it was that these two men, one of them in a swimming-cap, kept throwing a ball at her playfully and swimming around her. She was very attractive, with long blonde hair and a 1970s bikini.]
Actually I lived, nearly all my life, not more than 30 meters across the road from Borg Olivier, but I must confess I don’t recall any of the incidents you mention,and I am nearly 3 decades older than you, but to tell the truth I was never considered as a boy genius.
[Daphne – Yes, Silvio, but then you’re incredibly busy posting comments on Maltastar, beneath its story about how horrible I am to say what I say about Mintoff, agreeing with them and criticising me. And what’s more, unlike here, you use your real name of Silvio Loporto – you know, so that the incoming government will clock your existence and your views. You are so very much a typical example of what I wrote about here, except that in your case, you came from one of the few Fascist families in the neighbourhood.]
What I remember perfectly is that years after Borg Olivier’s death, whenever Mintoff was in the neighbour hood, he always made it a point of visiting Mrs. Borg Olivier. This I can vouch to.
[Daphne – Ara, kien jigi jiehu gelat ghand il-Lungomare? Jew kien imur izur il-John Bondin kantuniera l-boghod f’Stella Maris Street, fejn kien jghix mat-tifla ta’ Valhmor Borg dak iz-zmien? You can be so silly sometimes.]
U fejn qghad tista tara sal-lum il-nofs kelma “fus” imnaqqax fil-mera tal-lift.
I lived even closer to Borg Olivier than you did, Daphne, and I would like to share some random memories from my childhood.
I, too, remember the bulls.
I particularly remember a carcade following an open truck with a bleeding dead bull’s head fixed to the roof of the cabin. Shirtless, tattooed men were banging metal pipes and planks of wood on the side of the truck as it drove through the dead streets of Sliema. One of them brandished an axe.
My memory of this is crystal clear because the men spotted me in the balcony and started shouting at my family to show our faces. I was 7 years old at the time. My family were Stricklandjani.
[Daphne – There you go. What did I say about ours being a neighbourhood of Stricklandjani, Boffisti and Mintoffjani? That’s what the tal-pepe were.]
I also clearly remember that all the cars behind the lead truck carried horns or some sort of bull or other – most of them felt bulls, the kind you’d get in cheap souvenir shops in Spain.
I imagine someone must have imported them and handed them out since people almost never travelled back then.
I remember thugs getting off their trucks and peeing on doorsteps.
And I remember my mother and sisters sobbing and screaming for me to get away from the window.
I have more cherished childhood memories from The Golden Years of Mintoff, such as Il-Fusellu at Stardust (we weren’t spoiled for choice with our bars and clubs back then) trying to chat up a friend of mine.
When she ignored him, he pulled her boob-tube down to her ankles. She was 15 at the time.
A group of us went to report the matter to the police. They seemed to be taking us seriously until we mentioned that it was Fusellu who did this. The immediate change in the policemen’s attitude was tangible and they kicked us out of the station with a curt “tkellmu bil-Malti, f’ghoxx il-pepe taghkom” (or words to that effect).
You did not need to live in Sliema to see bulls, coffins and lemons being carried by half naked men on trucks.
I remember them very clearly, aged 10, at Rabat going round the various streets (and in my case, most of our neighbours were staunch Mintoffjani).
Dear Daphne. I never criticised YOU, but yes sometimes I criticise what you WRITE.
[Daphne – Oh, I see! Like there’s a difference, or the typical Maltastar reader could pick it up if there were. All the Labour Party sees is ‘Ara, Nazzjonalist jismu Silvio Loporto qieghed jikkritika l-Daphne fuq Maltastar! Dan iehor gie maghna!’. And that’s exactly what you want them to think, isn’t it, which is why you used your full name and posted your criticism on the Labour Party site. I’m 48, Silvio, not eight.]
Irrespective whether I am ,as you wrongly say, a facist, one thing you can never accuse me of, is the reason of being a Nationalist was because my party(Strickland)ceased to exist.
[Daphne – Silvio, the reason my (birth) family vote Nationalist is not because the Strickland Party ceased to exist, but because today’s Nationalist Party reflects the values and ideals which made them vote for Strickland’s party. It is nothing at all like the pre-Eddie Fenech Adami Nationalist Party. Ironically, the fundamental shift in values and attitudes drew in people like us but pushed out the far right Fascists like you.]
I’m not certain but I think it’s called Turncoat,or sometrhing like that.
[Daphne – Actually, it’s called above-average intelligence, but I don’t wish to be rude.]
I must admit I like your style, first you attack me and than when I retaliate you accuse me of harassing you.
[Daphne – Oh no, I just think you’re politically confused, the reason being that you were raised with politics as a sort of religion, so you can’t really assess the issues.]
Since when is it that crticising Daphne means one is no longer a Nationalist?
[Daphne – Sigh. Silvio, you have said on more than one occasion that you are not going to vote. If you were a supporter of the Nationalist Party you would be planning to vote for it, not planning not to vote for it. Deploy some logic, for crying out loud, ghax ezawrejtni issa kemm tirraguna mhawwad.]
I don’t agree that the values and ideals of the Strickland party reflected those of the P.N.
[Daphne – Yes, Silvio, they do. The Nationalist Party has moved from far right to left of centre. And that’s exactly why you don’t like it anymore.]
Actually most of the Stricklandiani became Labour supporters.
[Daphne – No, it was mainly the working-class ones who did. Most of the tal-pepe ones – and the vast majority of tal-pepe were Stricklandjani or Labour already – moved to the PN after an initial flirtation with Mintoff. Others skipped the Mintoff stage altogether because they couldn’t stand his guts, and after a period of doubt, firmly shifted support to the new Nationalist Party under Fenech Adami.The Nationalist Party grew by absorbing the Strickland vote over the decades. This is still the chunk which gives it trouble to the present day.]
I think that this argument is going astray and I respect you too much to see it turned into something no gentleman would desire.
Silvio Loporto, dardartna. Qisek dak il-pinnur tar-rih li tibdel fejn jaqbel lilek.
Daphne,
There’s a way around ‘the trouble this chunk gives it to this day’.
Still THE taboo, but wounds can be healed and materia restored. Some day we may realise the latter requires its language.
The ‘Maltin hielsa’ will follow, no need to delegate to manipulative ideology.
Niftakar wara l-elezzjoni tal-1971, lil Charlie l-Boxer fil-pjazza ta’ Rahal Gdid ghaddej ma’ corma nies ohra izomm barri minn qrunu u jbellaghlu l-whisky mill-flixkun!
Ever the progressive movement, they soon changed to dead rabbits dragged behind cars.
The last time it happened was during one of Sant’s meetings in 2003, some jerk waving a dead rabbit from his roof for the crowds to cheer, Alfred Zammit was next to him, calmly taking pictures.
Left to their own devices, they degenerate into a vicious bloodthirsty pack, physical elimination of the adversary the goal.
http://nikitaalamango.com/collection-of-thoughts/
[Daphne – That’s some brain, isn’t it. “Contrary to what people believe I grew up in a politically mixed family.” Then she goes on to tell us that both her parents voted and still vote Labour. Impressive.]
What a shit blog.
“[Joseph Muscat] has a vision of Malta becoming the best in Europe, backed with policies and ideas”. What policies? Who does she think she’s kidding?
“they truly were the foundations of the Malta we know and are proud of today” Oh so we’re proud of the Malta we have today? I thought it was ruined by evil GonziPN.
FFS, we’ve been in power for the last 25 years (bar 2) and I think it’s safe to say the Malta we have today is product of PN policies.
Her English hasn’t improved since she used to grace the pages of The Times website.
But this time we surely cannot accuse her that she has plagiarised Gillian Tett’s work. That post reads like a composition from the secondary school days – form 2c maybe – for which one would at best get 40 marks out of 100.
The same way he never called Eddie , vavu tal – harqa.
Maltastar this morning.
‘The plans that the Labour Party has drawn up in the last four years and is still in the process of drawing up in partnership with business, unions and civil society show that the party has the open, focused and flexible attitude indispensable to lead the country successfully in tomorrow’s uncharted waters.’
Reagan once joked how the democrats are like some lover who keeps telling her all night how good it’s going to be.
I wouldn’t disparage the Democrats (in the USA, I am one), although Reagan was a remarkable Republican President.
As for the (Malta) Labour Party’s “plans”, I think the general “plan” is to get everyone to join the Cult ta’ Joseph. Then the poisoned laced Cool-Ade comes later.
Yes, I suppose comparing Joseph to Obama or Clinton can be offensive.
“Yes, I suppose comparing Joseph to Obama or Clinton can be offensive.”
It is offensive. Both Obama and Clinton have presidential hair.
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20120827/local/-He-didn-t-know-he-would-miss-Moira-so-much-.434491
This is the rubbish that Times are trying to feed us. They have for a moment forgotten Arriva issa jekk Alla jrid kull min i-boss fuq Mintoff news.
When will i read one of your articles were you do not calls people names. I mean a normal article with no name calling. We should be civil. I am sure you have your reasons to be “frustrated” as others have their reasons to be “sad”.
Loved this bit of insight.
I think at the time Nationalists were predominantly either from the professional classes (which back then meant mainly lawyers and a handful of medical specialists) and priests (not necessarily friars) or from the lower middle/skilled worker class because of the Church issues that already were decades old.
People in this latter stratum had an attitude of blind following of the Church’s stand on everything (The Church was always at loggerheads with the British and pro-British, to an extent, and therefore, by extension even with the Stricklandjani).
The tal-pepe circles were, I believe, looked upon as being more open and modern and therefore wouldn’t have been so staunch in their allegiance to the Church and all it stood for. But this could be my perception.
[Daphne – It’s not. It’s fact. ]
Daphne, you actually lived a corner away from the grocery owned by Labour MP Michael Falzon’s father in Amery Street.
[Daphne – Yes, I know. ‘Muse’. He was our grocer and I used to go there every day to collect our ration (imagine explaining that to the junior Mintoffjani). That’s how I know Michael Falzon: from childhood. He’s a couple of years older than I am, and he had (has) a slightly younger brother called Silvio. His mother still lives in Amery Street.]
In between Milner Street and Victoria Avenue there exist Amery and Stella Maris Street. Amery Street was quite a stronghold of the P.N. in those days. I just cannot understand why you had to mention Pierre Camille and Carina in your blog since I consider them to be very decent people. After all we cannot be all Nazzjonalisti.
[Daphne – Decent Mintoffjani is a contradiction in terms. I have nothing to say about her husband, but Carina has taken to raving about how wonderful her personal friends Joseph and Michelle are, and how Malta needs a change, making it sound as though the wonders of Joseph and Michelle have converted her to the Labour cause. I think it pertinent to point out that she comes from a family of Mintoffjani and was always one herself, so even if the new leader of the Labour Party had been a one-legged pig, she would have voted Labour. It’s nothing to do with Joseph. Oh, and she dresses Michelle. Way to go. If these are your decent people, keep them. I thought she had simmered down about Labour for a while back there, and thought, oh well, all right, but now that she’s crawling all over Labour like a rash again, no thanks.]
Pierre Camille is the name of the shop. His real name is Pierino Camilleri.
As for Rita (Carina), you can tell she’s a diehard Mintoffjana. They all tend to idolise him and set him as their role model.
Whilst growing up in the fortizza Mintoffjana in Bormla I felt a certain unease, as I was easily picked out from the crowd for not thinking that Mintoff was is-Salvatur. I think I would have felt no differently living in that particular area of Sliema surrounded by such a number of labour sympathisers.
Not important at all, but I think it was Burrow’s Pharmacy.
[Daphne – That’s right, it was. I spent a few minutes trying to work out whether it was the one or the other, and Burrow’s didn’t seem to make sense even though it was what I remembered.]
I know the area very well. Burrow’s, Howard’s, Fabianne (down the road), and even Mose’!
you are so full of shit its coming out of you mouth
[Daphne – Mhux ahjar tiehu ftit lezzjonijiet b-Ingliz qabel ma taqa’ izjed ghac-cajt?]
you so full of shit guess you need a really man to keep you happy
[Daphne – What is a really man, and do they sell them at the Labour Supermarket?]