The Transport Minister is going to do a Marie Antoinette and try a spot of living like those peasants

Published: July 17, 2013 at 12:59pm

Joe Mizzi

But instead of setting up his own toy farm and playing at being a milkmaid, he’s going to take the bus a few times “to personally experience people’s problems”.

How patronising, making a public announcement that he’s condescending to use the bus like a common mortal. Why didn’t he just shut up and do it?

He talks as if he’s spent his life in gated grounds, ferried around by a personal chauffeur, while holding a scented handkerchief to his nose.




29 Comments Comment

  1. K says:

    “His bus commuting in the coming days, he said, would be unannounced.” (Times of Malta)
    Arriva won’t see it coming, im sure.

  2. di says:

    He also announced that this week he will do unannounced spot checks so that Arriva will not better the service ‘on his behalf’. Great announcement, subtle!

  3. Paul Bonnici says:

    Excellent Daphne, I enjoyed reading this blog, it made me laugh.

    Though I still like Joe Mizzi despite his shortcomings, he is down to earth really.

    • Last Post says:

      I’m not sure you live here in Malta, Paul. If yes, you KNOW that all Labour ministers, candidates, officials etc are all SO down-to-earth – really!

      It’s partly the reason why Labour is so popular with the ‘average’ Maltese voter: “Taf kemm hu minn taghna hux. Dak bahbuh” (until elected).

      Besides, they are all oh-so-liberal-modern-and-progressive. They have even sponsored, for the first time, the Gay Pride parade.

  4. Joe Micallef says:

    What’s happened of his promise to strike oil! I’d rather have him do that than ride buses.

    On the other hand it’s good he not anywhere close the transmission antenna – that is if he doesn’t ram one with a bus.

  5. Jozef says:

    When will these morons understand that the problem is traffic congestion, double and triple parking outside every pastizzeria and not the bus?

    I’ve noticed all cranes along the Sliema front have lost their wardens and every street’s undergoing some kind of roadworks, these being the ones you’re allowed into, if you please.

    In Cospicua, a row of brand new steel bollards, lock nuts still unscrewed, were given an artistic twist when pallets of paving tiles were delivered hastily to replace broken ones previously laid, as heavy plant trenching alongside rode over.

    Or, as the industry has it, kulhadd jghaffeg fuq xulxin. Storbju shih, taparsi qed nigru.

    Hoarding and clear pathways for the residents? Forget it.
    They carried a story on ONE a whole week when someone sprained their ankle two years ago.

    Bus routes disrupted everywhere.

    • Rumplestiltskin says:

      Some councils contribute by irrationally permitting the erection of cranes in places where they cause the most traffic havoc. For example why permit a crane to be erected at the foot of Triq is-Sorijiet, St. Julian’s, at Mrabat Street right at the entrance to the most notorious bottleneck in the Sliema/St. Julian’s area?

      Why can’t there be a rule that any developer who needs a crane must erect it within the property boundaries rather than on public land?

      • Jozef says:

        That’s what lift shafts are for around the rest of the planet. But then, those cranes are latest generation, self stabilising and capable of hoisting themselves up the floors as works proceed.

        That renders practically all the local ones redundant.

        Not that they aren’t already, it’s become normal practice to leave them standing rather than risk having them certified in dire need of major mechanical refurbishment, before erecting them elsewhere.

        Thank goodness their reach can go around a number of blocks then. We’re asking for it.

        Now if that contradicts Muscat’s promise li jhallihom jahdmu, fuq min jaqa’ jkun sultan.

  6. T. Cassar says:

    Why now? They criticized Arriva before it was born and they had never actually tried it? That goes to show who we are dealing with… They were taking us for a ride and now he’s going for one himself!

    • Jozef says:

      These were the same guys who grumbled about having to walk across the bridge into the new parliament building.

      Industrial action coming up, preferably August.

      Evarist Bartolo pre-electoral comments regarding Arriva’s contract had some very sinister undertones.

    • ninnu says:

      Will he be wearing shorts while doing spot checks?

  7. Alexander Ball says:

    There will be an entourage.

    No ‘mystery shopper’ is our Joe – no chance for a ‘don’t you know who I am’ moment.

  8. La Redoute says:

    Will he be wearing his Datatrak boiler suit? You know, a sort of disguise, so that he can travel icognito.

    • ciccio says:

      I am expecting him to camouflage himself as a black African immigrant.

      This way he will also establish what problems the immigrants face on public transport.

  9. Neil says:

    Shouldn’t he have resigned by now? Or have we struck oil and I missed the newsflash?

    • ciccio says:

      I think we all missed the newsflash. From the way they have embarked on a Big Government exercise and the way they have created positions for all those who gave a hand in the electoral campaign, it looks as if they struck oil somewhere.

  10. Wayne Hewitt says:

    He’s going to dress like a ninja, so that noone spots him…

  11. Guz says:

    He will be taking the “road map” with him

  12. mattie says:

    He thinks he’s Boris Johnson.

  13. Francis Saliba MD says:

    All that is missing is to announce the actual dates of the commencement and the end of the experiment.

  14. xewka says:

    We want either the oil or your resignation.

  15. camata says:

    I can imagine him gawking at the Arriva voice-over: Il-waqfa li jmiss, Fatati, Santa Venera…..

  16. scott brown says:

    May I suggest to Joseph Muscat to do the same thing? ie grab his wife and children, fly to Libya and board the first boat with illegal immigrants to Malta.

    The hotter the temperature the better. Maybe then he can feel what these people go through.

    He can then ask the police or AFM people to let him and his family sleep on the depot pavement for a night or two and then ask the same people to separate him from his wife and children and board him on the specific flight back to Libya where he can be beaten to death after saving his family from sure a death.

    I deliberately left the trip from Ethiopia to Libya out of his ordeal.

    Should the idea be to his liking he can always ask his whole cabinet to join him with their respective families. After all they are in agreement with this savagery.

    I wonder, just wonder whether it will ever cross his mind whether Europe will be smelling his coffee or aware of his stamping of feet or British humour.

  17. charon says:

    He reminds me of another half-wit who years ago announced on MTV that he would, together with his wife, be driving around Malta counting and taking note of all the potholes he encounters along the way. There was however one fly in the ointment. He failed to state that following this exercise steps would be taken to rectify the state of the roads in question.

  18. M... says:

    Ethnomethodology is for students not for ministers.

  19. Min Jaf says:

    Tajjeb ghal-xoghlu imma, ghax il-veru tal-bus.

  20. Pandora says:

    Guess there will also be a TV crew tagging along, though in a very inconspicuous manner I’m sure.

  21. Mickey Mouse says:

    Issa jrid imur bl-Arriva? Meta l-iskejjel u l-istudenti kollha jergghu lura f’Ottubru ghandu jaghmel dan l-esperiment.

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