The grand obsession of a political party with a lone columnist
A moment of sajlinSSSS while we remember that Daphne is not elected, not a politician, not paid out of public funds, not the prime minister and not the leader of the Nationalist Party - because if we carry on this way people are going to think we're nuts.
I guess it won’t be long before the Labour Party is rifling through the contents of my dustbin (sadly, I haven’t got one) or hanging about on my doorstep like one of those wackos who take pot shots at the people they’re obsessed with.
The sooner somebody packs the lot of them off to the nearest psychiatrist – I hear there’s a good one currently heading the ministry of health – the better for us all. They’re clearly unhinged to the point where in their minds I am now more powerful and influential than the government and the Nationalist Party rolled into one, and more of a threat to their chances of winning the 2013 general election – hence their neurotic fixation.
They are not just mad. They are ridiculous. And some of them are just plain stupid, with the IQ of a goat. Why else would they behave like this?
It’s not a matter of them missing the target. They don’t even know who or what the target is.
Of the last 13 leading articles (the editorial voice) on the Labour Party’s official news website Maltastar, SIX are all about me and another two give me much more than a passing mention. That’s EIGHT out of the last THIRTEEN – Daphne, Daphne, Daphne, Daphne.
They’re totally obsessed – an entire political party, the government in waiting, fixated on a lone columnist. If that sort of behaviour were not outright weird and pathological, which it definitely is, it would be amusing in a sad and pathetic way.
But there is nothing sad and pathetic about a political party which commands the votes of half the electorate getting its tatty knickers in a twist over one woman who writes and who isn’t even a politician out there canvassing for votes.
They’re frigging crazy, no bones about it.
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What is Toni looking up at? It seems to be very, very interesting.
Tghid mhux xi dublett ta’ xi Teletuba.
@ Rita Camilleri – He’s watching the euro fall and wondering why there’s no such thing as the ‘Maltese euro’.
No, Kev. Maybe he’s looking at a bird before it gets shot by one of your wife Sharon Ellul Bonici’s fans. http://images.google.com.mt/imgres?imgurl=http://z.about.com/d/sanfrancisco/1/0/F/B/-/-/osprey.jpg&imgrefurl=http://forum.huntinginmalta.org.mt/YaBB.pl%3Fnum%3D1241552191/4&usg=__YGz0Qe_f34dVwDy-1rIXiffWmew=&h=768&w=1024&sz=250&hl=mt&start=36&um=1&itbs=1&tbnid=SC8s6QPrFvRw2M:&tbnh=113&tbnw=150&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dsharon%2Bellul%2Bbonici%26start%3D21%26um%3D1%26hl%3Dmt%26sa%3DN%26rlz%3D1R2ACAW_enMT341%26ndsp%3D21%26tbs%3Disch:1
@kev – tibzghax issa jitla Joseph u jkollok il “maltese euro” and we will live happily ever after
@Rita Camilleri – As to whether or not Kev and Sharon Ellul Bonici return to Malta for good when Labour is in power, we’ll just have to wait and see …
I very much doubt, Rita, on both counts.
They know you are good – they know your are truthful (and for people like these truth hurts) – They know you have a very good command of English and they know that you can express yourself clearly – that’s why this hate campaign against you – PLUS, of course, envy.
Envy is the over-riding factor in most cases of blind hatred for Daphne, especially that coming from other – albeit less successful – columnists and newspaper writers.
They may try to emulate her, but just can’t carry it off.
And why, pray, does this surprise you? The Labour Party’s motto is ‘Min mhux maghna kontra taghna”. The time-honoured “attakk fahxi” is their specialty, and woe betide anyone who fights back with their own weapon.
This is a group of people who truly believe that the sole purpose of getting into government is so that for the next five years they can favour their own and beat the others over the head.
Just look at how the Labour media machine turned up in full force to champion Consuelo’s cause. They are driven by passion and causes and emotion and to hell with the fact that they are the government-in-waiting. They are merely a street gang in sjuts.
Daphne, hawwadtilhom il-wires.
Labour seems to be banking on the fact that the “old guard” are back in the fold, hence their followers as well, plus the fact that Nationalist voters grumble because the government has not cleaned the grass from their pavement, and so these will be Labour votes in the next election. They are now safe with the bird-killers and trappers and so they have their minds at rest that come 2013 they will be in government, (with all the horrible consequences).
I can tolerate the grass – its aids my cats’ digestive system. Mind you, having the grass cut just before the elections is a tad insulting.
What I cannot tolerate is having a new power station that runs on heavy fuel oil and the convenient change in regulations that occurred just before this project was given the green light. This matter is not petty and the consequences will not be light.
I’m not saying that I’ll vote for LP next time round, but I’m far from happy with some things that are being done by the government.
Daphne – Labour are ridiculous and dimwitted, lost in a world of half-truths and make belief. Having realised that you carry weight, they decided to put you to rest by politicising your blog and shamelessly vilifying you and your family.
It never crossed the narrow tunnels of their mind that their actions are having the opposite effect as people enjoy reading down to earth and honest articles.
Considering the outstanding dexterity with which goats handle rough terrain, the IQ of this ruminant would be a godsend.
Red Rose, hold on a second,Nationalist voters grumble not only on grass but also on other serious issues.Be rest assured that no nationalist will vote labour because of grass, but willing not to vote at all because their cause was either neglected or not even listened to.More effort from the nationalist government side should be done to listen and act upon, before its late.
David g – I mentioned the grass to point out that the “grumbling” is NOT about national issues, but issues that might hit the individual personally: trivial things and not serious issues.
Well said, david g.
@ david g and red rose
John F. Kennedy: ‘Ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country.’ We know why some people did not vote PN in the last general election when they would ordinarily have done so. God forbid Labour should be elected next time round ghax addio il-gid kollu li sar dawn l-ahhar snin. Nergghu induqu dak l-imrar li konna insejna.
I know Labour supporters who are following your blog and they are also noticing the attention you are receiving along with the lack of denial from the Labour Party.
This lot must not be allowed to allowed to govern Malta. It will be a disaster. Their thinking will take us back to the Middle Ages, where they seem to be stuck.
The vile and hostile language churned out by Labour’s official and affiliated media indicates a dark future for Malta.
Look at Anglu’s body language with his crossed arms in the photo, he always look distant and cold with a forced smile on his face. This man is better suited for a job as a prison warden.
Would one be right in supposing that, by the same token, your constant blogging on the labour party could rightly lead many to believe that you are a little TOO obsessed with the opposition for someone who is “not a politician” and ” not paid out of public funds” as you claim yourself to be. But, for crying out loud, do you really consider yourself as an independent and objective journalist?
[Daphne – I am a columnist, not a political party. The political party which fixates on a columnist to this degree of obsession is clearly cracked and an obvious danger to democracy and free speech. The political columnist who writes, however often, about a political party is doing her job. Political columnists do not need to be ‘balanced’ because they are not the state broadcaster.
Indeed, if they are balanced they are automatically suspect, because it means that they have no opinions or are somehow reluctant to publicise them. The worst – the most utterly boring – of my columnist colleagues are the ones who try to come across as being ‘balanced’ or ‘impartial’, when we all know that every five years, like the rest of us, they express their preference in the polling-booth rather than sitting at home and voting for no one.
To be human, educated and intelligent is to have an opinion. My opinion is that the Labour Party is complete rubbish, that in my lifetime it has proved to be nothing but disastrous for the country – sometimes even when on the opposition benches (but that is not my opinion; it is fact) and that in its present incarnation it is no better and perhaps even worse than the previous incarnations I have known since 1971. I think that Joseph Muscat is an empty vessel, that his deputy leaders are dangerous clowns, that Super One is a gang of thugs led by the quintessential male bitch, that few in the party seem to know whether they are coming or going, that the few capable people in there are completely overwhelmed by the ignorance, idiocy and spite of others, and that we will be fortunate indeed if we see a single sheet of policy before 2013, and after that it will be too late.
As for your ridiculous implication that I would have to be paid out of public funds to be that much anti-Labour, you reveal yourself to be typically southern Mediterranean in your belief that it is best to keep your head well below the parapet and be nice to everyone lest you imperil yourself – unless somebody makes it ‘worth your while’. I am not made like that. On the contrary, the nastier the Labour Party becomes towards me, the more of an incentive I have to expose it for what it is, because when Labour behaves like that it only serves to shore up my view that it is not fit for purpose. I do not need to be paid out of public funds, nor would I accept any such payment for writing what I do. I am not Marisa Micallef, forced to prostitute myself in that manner because I have no perceptible abilities.
I am perfectly capable of earning my living in the private sector and have done so since the age of 17. I’m paid by the newspaper which employs me. The company pays me because the people who buy its newspapers enjoy reading what I write – whether they agree with me or not – and the magazines which I produce. It’s market-driven, something the Labour Party and many of those who support it have very great difficulty in understanding.]
Woh woh woh, calm down there. I did not imply you are financially dependant on the PN or anything. It is, however, very hard for a humble iljurant mis sawt like me to exclude the possibility that your personal fixation against labour and your fundamentalistic, ass-kissing approach to everything PN-related has not gotten in the way of objectivity and rational observation in your work throughout the years. You have become the journalistic version of a suicide bomber for chrissakes.
[Daphne – You must be joking. There are many thousands of people who think as I do (the sensible ones). That’s why neither my arguments nor my readership have atrophied over the years. My personal fixation against Labour as opposed to what – an impersonal view? A robotic assessment? A scientific dissection of the problem? Ass-kissing approach to the PN? Hardly. I rarely even mention them – hadn’t you noticed I write mainly about the Labour Party? That’s because the government is there now, but my preoccupation is with the mess that’s coming up behind, the Dad’s Army of tossers and wasters and lame ducks. ‘The journalistic version of a suicide bomber’ – if I were you, I’d give up waiting for my suicide bomb to detonate. It’s been 20 years so far. There is only one way to commit suicide as a columnist, and that’s by boring your readers or having them grow old with you so that they drop off into their coffins along the way and you become an irrelevance. Instead of trying to undermine me because they can’t buy me like they bought Marisa Micallef, the Labour Party should work out what I’m doing right. Let’s put it this way: I’ve held on to my job for two decades, roughly as long as they’ve been out of theirs.]
Hardly mentioning PN or not mentioning them at all is exactly the ass-kissing approach I was referring to. Given the precarious situation that we’re in, It is next to impossible for a decent journalist to write about the government without being very negative. So what do the ‘independent’ journalists and/or columnists like your good self, Lou Bondi, Peppi, ABC choose to do ? they write columns against labour or make TV programmes on how good a politician Louis Galea was or about Raymond Caruana. Just my 2 cents!
[Daphne – You know, I would take you a lot more seriously if you were to tell me who you are, but your cowardice in not doing so is indicative of why you think I receive payments in ‘danger money’, so to speak, from undisclosed sources to write my strongly-held views about the Labour Party under my own name.
I imagine you’re not the sort to do my job. Though you clearly have some strongly-held views of your own, there is no way on earth you are going to express them under a photograph and by-line – and quite frankly, going on what I see here, nobody is going to pay you for doing it, either.
Malta is not in a precarious situation, but rather the opposite. You see, I lived until the age of 23 in a very precarious country and so I have a good basis for comparison. We were also in an extremely precarious situation in the years 1996 to 1998, when it looked like we wouldn’t get to join the European Union ever and had a cracked leader to boot.
And then the situation was extremely precarious again in the run-up to the referendum of 2003, when the Labour Party campaigned with people to vote NO and Joseph Muscat ran a weekly show on Super One – Made in Brussel – highlighting the evils of EU membership and also wrote countless newspaper columns telling us to vote No and how Brussels would kill us. Those months were really precarious.
I still break out in a cold sweat when I remember the sick-making tension as the votes were counted, thanks to the freakish Labour Party and that empty vessel Joseph Muscat. My god, imagine if they had got their way. I can’t be negative about the government because I don’t feel negative about it. On the contrary, I feel very fortunate to be living in Malta as I see the despair of countless thousands of others living elsewhere whose lives have been wrecked because their governments have wrecked the economy with some help from the outside. The Labour Party, might I remind you, is the government in waiting. That’s why I write about it. If it weren’t, I would ignore it. I don’t ignore it because, unlike the government, it represents a real and direct threat to the stability of the country in which I, and presumably you, live.]
I am one of the sensible ones.
I hail from Zejtun, where I lived for 22 years – and my opinion about the MLP is exactly like that of Ms Caruana Galizia. I am of the same age group as she is and what I hate most about the MLP is the fact that they ruined my career/life. The subjects I always wanted to pursue at the university were never allowed under their damned rule. I have always contended that the MLP were and will remain a great liability to Malta. I have also commented on various online sites that the party has become IRRELEVANT in the Maltese political arena. Oh how I wish, for democracy’s sake, that a party that makes sense is organised.
A definite flaw in your statement of defence is the equation of ‘balance’ with ‘neutrality’. It is a case of mistaken identity. You are using the first word as a facsimile for the other.
Take note: one can be balanced without being neutral. Being neutral involves ‘having no opinions or being somewhat reluctant to publicize them’, whereas being balanced involves entertaining hardboiled opinions on ALL matters at hand, and giving them equal weight and airtime…
[Daphne – No, no, no, dear god in heaven, no. First of all there is no standard to which columnists are held except that of writing well and being entertaining. Those are the only two requirements, and they are paramount. Secondly, columnists cannot be balanced because, by definition, they are paid for their opinion and not for reportage. Opinion is by definition not ‘balanced’, because it is an opinion. Nor would balance, whatever it is, be obtained by having ‘hardboiled opinions on ALL matters’. I have hardboiled opinions on many political issues and all political parties, but clearly this does not satisfy your definition of balance because my hardboiled opinions are in favour of the Nationalist Party and against the Labour Party.
Though both views are hardboiled, you think me not balanced – unbalanced has a different meaning, as I expect you know – because I am against one and for the other. In your view, and for this I don’t blame you because it is a view inculcated through Maltese social culture which raises people to be fearful of strong opinions and of owning those opinions, I would be balanced if I were to give the Labour Party a beating one day and the Nationalist Party a beating the next day. Well, bollocks to that. It’s not the way things are done. Perhaps you don’t know that in the original home of democracy and the free press, there are entire newspapers and journals with an editorial line in favour of either the Conservative Party or the Labour Party. The Spectator, for example, is unabashedly pro-Conservative and makes no bones about it. The media in Malta are relatively unsophisticated, which is a reflection of their audiences.
People still think in terms of balance and fail to distinguish between opinion and reportage. Columnists cannot have strong opinions about everything for the simple reason that we are ordinary human beings and human beings don’t have opinions about everything, but only about what interests them. Many of my columnist colleagues are deeply boring and remain largely unread for the very reason that they believe they are expected to have an opinion about anything and everything that’s in the news. They try to work themselves up into a lather about something they find extremely trying and tedious, like the power station contract, and it shows that they’re struggling. In 20 years of writing a newspaper column, for example, I have never written about the government’s annual budget. I find it boring and I know that the majority of my readers do too.
In 20 years I have never lost sight of the fact that I am primarily in the entertainment business. Too many other columnists have made the fatal error of believing they are politicians, or teachers, or intellectuals. Go to your Sunday newspapers, and see for yourself: of the countless, endless columns, which do you read and why? The ones struggling to be balanced and neutral, so that their work reads like the literary equivalent of five hours at Zurich airport, or the ones who are engaging and as opinionated as hell?
Another point is that I find it amusing when I am hectored by (anonymous) people as to how to do my job. If I were haemorrhaging readers or acquiring no new ones, then I would accept that I have a problem and am in need of your advice as to how to do my job, but that is clearly not the case. You may have failed to notice, but I have, through this blog, actually acquired a whole new audience of many thousands who do not belong to the newspaper-reading public and who are half my age.]
Meaning that your postulate that a columnist who “is balanced is automatically suspect” is untenable. Actually, it is this self-same columnist who deserves our loyalty and deference, because his allegiance lies nowhere and is only too willing to lay siege to any point of discussion, whatever its political gravitation. That such columnists are rarer than life-bearing planets or honest lawyers is entirely besides the point.
I don’t believe your articles are ‘balanced’. You have occupied yourself almost exclusively with topics and people who have embraced the PL ideology, and while I cannot upbraid you for this, I must object to the Joan-of-Arc complex of unqualified journalistic sanctity that you have picked up along the way. It is unwarranted.
[Daphne – You are free to object, and even to misread the situation and confuse matters. My reputation is for something else entirely: saying what I think without fear or favour. This is such a shockingly novel concept in Malta even two decades down the line – largely because nobody else has ventured to do the same, leaving me with the market all to myself and with no competition, with the result that when I take a break and don’t write for a bit my enemies flounder about in a panicked vacuum – that it is assumed that I am 1. mad, 2. bad 3. dangerous to know 4. paid by the dark forces of the PN 5. not normal. Perhaps you should try reading outside the Maltese box and you’ll discover that what isn’t normal, on the other hand, is the enervating writing style adopted by most of our homegrown columnists.]
There are TWO parties in parliament, Daphne. Two. If Marvin the Martian where to read your blog to the exclusion of everything else, this would not be apparent to him.
[Daphne – You’re not very bright, are you? Columnists are not there to substitute all the other media. They are there as part of a package, like the wheels on a car not being the whole car. Columnists are never read to the exclusion of all else – just as you don’t disengage the wheels from your car and ride them to work. You are clearly no au fait with the media, so don’t even begin trying. Columnists do not provide an information service for Martians who read nothing else. They are there to entertain those who might choose, or choose not, to read other things as well. You strike me as the sort of person who would feel very much at home on some collective farm, because you’re not happy unless everything is spelled out and packed away in boxes. ‘I am reading this, can safely assume it is balanced, and therefore don’t need to think about it or use my initiative and read other things as well.’]
Marvin the Martian would emerge uninformed and uninspired, and unconvinced of your journalistic integrity. He would become the laughing stock of his Martian facebook profile, and losing all heart in the life-giving qualities of ginseng, he’d become a glueball and speed addict and end up by blowing his brains out in a filthy toiletstall in Marstown.
There is a lot at stake here, and while I deplore the PL for its sliminess and bottom-line politics, I feel I must encourage you to be more…balanced.
[Daphne – If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. I hope you apply that maxim to your life and work. I certainly apply it to mine. I suspect that’s why you’re here, rather than reading the Swiss train schedule.]
Writing well and being entertaining are the only two standards that columnists are held to? Heavens, and there I was all along thinking that ‘fact-checking’, ‘level-headedness’, ‘fair assessment of merit and fault’, ‘transcendence of thought’ and ‘offering more than just violent opinion’ held SOME portion of a columnist’s responsibilities.
[Daphne – You’re wrong. The two fundamentals are writing well and being entertaining. Then it’s up to the editor/publisher whether to go for type X, type Y, type Z or a mix of many different types all of whom fit in with the general editorial style of the newspaper and ‘speak’ to its typical reader. Fact-checking is taken as read – in all jobs, not just newspaper work. Or hadn’t you noticed? Probably not, just as you’ve failed to notice Jeremy Clarkson, to name but one London broadsheet columnist, and Rod Liddle, to name another, are far from level-headed or ‘balanced’. They are, in fact, a hundred times more arrogant, opinionated and outspoken than I am. That’s why they have the jobs they do.]
Was I.F. Stone boring? Edward R. Murrow? H.L. Mencken?
[Daphne – By today’s standards? Yes, immensely so. They were the products of the times they lived in, and today’s columnists are the product of ours. I tried to reread Mencken the other day and found I couldn’t. It all seemed irrelevant, like a voice from another age, but that’s because it’s precisely what it is – a voice from another age. ‘The past is another country; they do things differently there.’ If you are going to name names, choose them from the present. Incidentally, your choice of names reveals that you actually know very little about the media: besides being culled from a different age, not one of them was a columnist. Stone was an investigative journalist, Mencken an essayist (a very different form to the newspaper column) and Murrow worked in broadcast news.]
Perhaps I am in error, but I seem to recall they had a smidgen more ambition than being entertainment-industry stooges for some political ideology or another.
[Daphne – That’s because they operated in a context of unsophisticated media and an even more unsophisticated public. Their role was to instruct, guide and inform. It was pedagogic. Today’s columnists operate in a sea of varied media, and the public swims among information overload. Nobody needs columnists for information or guidance. Flick through your London broadsheets and tabloids – which columnists are pedagogical? Which are informative? None. They are all there to entertain – depending on your preference.]
Heck, if those are the only two requirements necessary for you to do your job, then YES, I am prepared to give you plenty of advice on how to go about it.
[Daphne – Thanks, but I really don’t need it. Instead of wasting time telling me how to be a columnist, why don’t you try your hand at being one yourself? Sadly, anonymity isn’t allowed. If you like, I’ll give you some advice after your first piece is published. And remember always: those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach.]
BTW, as soon as you make it a requirement for every person posting on your site to reveal their identity, then I will reveal mine as well. I’m surprised, though: you don’t seem to be overly perturbed by anonymity when the anonymous person in question is sucking up to you and poofing your ego.
[Daphne – You cannot know whether a person is anonymous to me or not. The fact that they use a nick for public view does not mean they use a false name or false email address for my viewing at the admin end. I do not have a problem with anonymity. I just think it cowardly and silly for somebody to engage me in a personal discussion while sitting behind a curtain. Only people without balls do that. Stone or Morrow certainly wouldn’t have. Nor I.]
Oh, I would be extremely happy on some collective farm or commune. Do you know of any good ones?
I’m dusting off my sitar as we speak. I’ve been wanting to play ‘Days of Pearly Spencer’ on this thing for ages.
Jeremy Clarkson? You’re bringing up that petrol-head and chattering hack? Of course he’s neither level-headed nor balanced! The fact that he even has a job – and a well-paying one at that – test-driving cars for the BBC while jibing endlessly at the camera in his paint-scraping drawl, is an eternal insult to the frayed memory of quality television.
You mean you actually look up to him?? Come on, come clean. You look up to that fraud? Please say it ain’t so.
[Daphne – I look up to nobody. As to whether I enjoy both his broadcasting and his writing, the answer is an unequivocal yes. He is supremely entertaining and irreverent, but then you are still locked in the era when people switched on the television to be preached at and hectored by those of ‘superior intellect’.]
On to point no.2: HL Mencken being boring certainly comes as news to me. I mean, this is the guy who came up with phrases like: ‘Nobody ever lost any money by underestimating the intelligence of the American public.” If anything, his message has become CLEARER and MORE RELEVANT with the passing of time. That makes it highly non-boring for anyone with even a passing interest in sociology (you know, like journalists, but let’s not get too optimistic).
[Daphne – I used to find Enid Blyton interesting once. Times change. Contemporary life has its ‘Menckens’ too, you know. Or are you the sort who holds up the Victorian novel as vastly superior to, say, Brett Easton Ellis?]
A slight aside. Why all the hair splitting? Stone and Mencken, in effect, qualified as columnists. I am providing you with the relevant Wikipedia articles:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._L._Mencken
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I._F._Stone
[Daphne – The man who cites Wikipedia is not worth listening to, but I’ll make an effort, as obviously, you’re learning this stuff on the hoof whereas I actually work in the field.]
Figure it out for yourself. I concede, Murrow was a journalist, not a columnist, but I’m willing to bet he wrote plenty of articles when starting out in his career.
[Daphne – If I were you, I would give up and discuss horses or birds or something as you’re ever so slightly out of your depth here. ‘Murrow was a journalist not a columnist’ – all columnists are journalists, but not all journalists are columnists.]
So why stretch a point so thinly? Journalists, columnists, op ed writers, these were men who took their jobs seriously and did not stoop to floozifying the news like so many are doing today. They reported it, period, and to hell with demographics or profits for the news division. Can you even start to understand this?
[Daphne – Read my lips: columnists do not report the news. Reporters do that. Reporters are not columnists. Columnists are not reporters. They do completely different jobs with different requirements. Op ed writers do NOT report the news. They write opinion pieces which are called ‘op ed’ because they are placed opposite the editorial/leading article, the most significant position in a North American newspaper but not in British or for that matter Maltese newspapers, where that slot is usually taken up by a regular columnist, most often than not beavering away in the rice-fields of entertainment.]
At one point you qualify the public and the media of these luminaries’ times as ‘unsophisticated.’ By analogy, are today’s public and media ‘sophisticated’?
[Daphne – By comparison to the public of Mencken’s time? Yes, definitely. Read this famous example, straight from history, of just how sophisticated media consumption was in the 1930s: http://history1900s.about.com/od/1930s/a/warofworlds.htm ]
I would call them chaotic, predatory, unscrupulous and SHIT, but certainly not sophisticated. If the media are there to entertain rather than inform, then who is doing the informing that we so sorely need to find our way through the swamps of infotainment and focus-group fare intended for mass consumption??
[Daphne – Your confusion stems from your determination to confuse ‘columnist’ with ‘news reporter’ and ‘media’. Columnists are there to entertain, news reporters are there to inform, and the media in general are there to serve a multitude of purposes, not all of them to do with news and information, but also that.]
Are you serious about me becoming a columnist? All I need is one shot. Will you help? If not, I’m gonna keep using my alias, thanks very much. Your name is fixed and made, and controversy merely gives you much-needed publicity. You feed off it like a sea-faring mammal feeds on plankton. Publicity for me would be meaningless at best, sordid at worst. What would I gain from it?
[Daphne – I see you don’t understand markets, either. It’s pointless becoming a columnist without making a name for yourself, because to be worth employing, you need the readership. Publicity is the last thing I need. If there is a person alive in this country at the moment who doesn’t know my name despite never having read anything I’ve written, please show him to me. He’s probably suffering from dementia at St Vincent de Paule. But even so, at some point over the last two decades, he’s probably come across my name. I don’t feed off publicity, actually. I had publicity thrust upon me, largely by the Labour Party – which, in seeking to make out that I’m a nobody, instead skyrocketed my profile and gave me even more exposure. I find publicity very boring. So would you, if you’d been a household name since your early 20s. But it comes with the territory, so what can you do. One thing’s for sure, you won’t catch me adding to it by posing near a pool in a heavily photoshopped image, or inviting photographers into My Favourite Room, even though half the nation would probably kill and maim to see that feature. I think you should find something you’re good at, and stick to it, because you’re clearly at a bit of a loss.]
Christ, what a boring lot. Can’t you just understand that Daphne Caruana Galizia owns “Running Commentary”, and she can do whatever she likes with it?
“You may have failed to notice, but I have, through this blog, actually acquired a whole new audience of many thousands who do not belong to the newspaper-reading public and who are half my age.”
True. You took the University campus by storm.
[Daphne – Another reason the Labour Party hates me, and another language the Labour Party can’t speak.]
There’s no reason at all, for one, even to imagine that the PL will win the next election. The way Gonzi PN is handling things, the situation will soon be defused, the sun will be out, and we’ll all be talking in favour instead of against the PN.
It seems that very few follow international news – Greece comes to mind; how is our economy faring? Watch the US situation – watch the world financial markets – then come back and criticize Gonzi.
Yes, they are fixated about you but you never hear them mention you during a discussion programme. They discuss what you write and refer to you indirectly but rarely with your name and surname.
[Daphne – The hate that dares not speak its name, and its common to Saviour Balzan/Malta Today (‘the Bidnija blogger’], Maltastar (‘the Bidnija blogger’, ‘the Bidnija witch’), tasteyourownmedicine (‘Vladimir’) and L-Orizzont/Torca/KullHadd (‘is-sahhara tal-Bidnija’). Pathetic beyond words – mentalita tal-medjoevu.]
Toni Abela jsemmik imma, u b’emfazi partikolari fuq il-‘ph’ ta’ ‘Daphne’.
[Daphne – DAAAAAHHHHH-FFFFFFFF- NEEEEEEEEE. That’s because he used to fancy me and wrote salivating articles full of sexual innuendo, back in the days when I wore very small skirts and he was even more of a vulgar and pathetic turn-off than he is now, if that’s at all possible. I know how those Teletubi puppets feel, I can tell you. Now he’s just cross with me because I called him an OX and a clown and he couldn’t sue me for calling him an OX without bringing a gynaecologist to testify and so had to sue me for calling him a clown instead, thereby proving the point.]
hahahahah — peccato, you would have made a lovely couple!
Aux langueurs d’Apollon, Daphné se réfusa.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VbQKO7unPfs
Yech, HP. Dik x’musika hi? Tar-rikkjuni u sfigati?
L-ewwelnett “refusa”. Sorry tal-accent zejjed.
Dak Jean-Philippe Rameau. Ma kienx rikkjun. L-udjenza tieghu ma kienitx maghmulha minn rikkjuni. Tfajt il-link ghax huwa ‘topical’ hafna.
Imma biex nezorcizza xi rikkjunizmu latenti li int hassajt f’din il-clip, hawn huwa l-antidotu. H.P. Baxxter fuq truck. Johloq streetparade mix-xejn. Inkluzi bagpipe players li huma VERY easy on the eye.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3W47NAhGME4&feature=fvst
Irrimarka l-genju ta’ H.P. Baxxter: din it-track m’hija xejn hlief rework ta’ Black – Wonderful life
Francisco Scaramanga
“Dik x’musika hi? Tar-rikkjuni u sfigati?”
Rikkjuni? I take it you’re referring to the LGBT section that the PL has recently set up.
These two – Scaramanga and HP Baxxter – are two good duellists.
Is their reference to “rikkjuni” – a corruption of the Italian equivalent of “queer” – a Freudian slip?
I ask since the Secret Service psychological profile of Scaramanga in the James Bond movie seems to hint at Scaramanga’s latent homosexuality.
Why are you so surprised? Ever since you exposed Consuelo Scerri Herrera’s antics, ‘missejtilhom wahda tal-klikka bis-serjeta’. That is what the most recent anti-Daphne hoo-ha is all about. Diversion tactics.
@ david g
Only fools want a government that wastes its time pandering to individual requests and causes. The government is there to run the country, read the signs and steer the economy through the shoals of crisis, not to reward you for voting for it. If you want a government that gets personal and petty, vote Labour.
david g………..
allura int tippretendi li tara x`jghamel il partit fil-gvern ghalik jew tara int x`tghamel ghal partit fil gvern.
Jien wiehed li ma tantx gejt moqdi mil-koxxa imma xorta ma ninsiex x’ghamel il-partit tal-Labour fil-gvern lili u ghalhekk taf kif nirraguna meta immur nivvota? Naghzel l-ahjar fost il-hziena: il-PN.
And your problem is that you still believe that the country is run from l-istamperija. (il-partit). remember that the country is run from Castille. (il-gvern).
U it-tmexxija tal gvern ghalkemm f’idejn il PN ma tridx tinsa lil ma nafx kemm il-elf ruh jahdmu fic-civil, u huma imhalltin bejn PN u MLP. meta tisma il-kelma “l-inkompetenza tal gvern”, see the big picture – Gonzi is not running this country singlehanded u lanqas il-ministri go l-ministeri. Ghandhom armata nies warajhom kollha, u mhux kollha gejjin mill-kamp tal-PN.
And you honestly think li jkollok xi Laburist se jahdem b-ilsienu barra jekk il-gvern ikun PN, u likewise bil kontra? Wake up dear, in-nies jahsbu li qed jaghmlu vendikazzjoni lil Gonzi bhala persuna u mhux lil-pajjiz – it is so sick.
What Gonzi is doing wrong in my view is that he has not yet (and probably never will) clean out the civil service. We all know they are over-staffed galore (barra postijiet krucjali bhal sptarijiet) yet, tmur fejn tmur dejjem tistenna. Fejn huma dawk il-haddiema kollha li kienu qed jahdmu fit-toroq qabel ma gie il-Papa? Kollha reqdin taht il-hitan tas-sejjieh jaqaw? Clearly, we get less than their salary’s worth, so clearly, we don’t need them 365 days a year.
Taf x’ghadu qatt ma hareg il-gvern (nahseb qatt hadd ma ndenja ruhu jinvestiga): kemm hawn nies actively employed fil-pajjiz? And actively means “qed jaghmlu xoghol that is of equal value to the salary being paid”.
Don’t get me wrong: jien bhalek nirraguna. Naghzel PN ghax ma nahsibx li ghandi ghazla ohra.
different argument
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20100428/local/education-absorbing-1-4m-every-school-day
one of the people commenting on the article:
P.Cassar(16 minutes ago)
THE TROUBLE IS IN WHAT’S COMING OUT
EU STATISTICS ARE VERY DULL COMPARATIVELY
RELATIONS WITH THE MUT ARE AT AN ALL TIME LOW
DEAR PM ALL THIS NEEDS CONCENTRATING ON NOT ONLY THE IMPUT
As you say, LIE DOWN AND WEEP
If you want to hurt a columnist, ignore him. Or her. Actually applies to lots of situations.
And do you blame thieir obsession? You’re their Achilles heel, and they know it.
[Daphne – I cannot be their Achilles’ heel because I do not form part of the organism called Labour.]
There’s nothing they can do. They can’t can’t stop you writing and they can’t stop their supporters from reading your blog. They are like inmates on death row, morbidly obsessed with their prosecutor, as they await their execution.
The LP has absolutely no idea how to deal with you, except perhaps to attack you personally to intimidate you. They know that thousands of LP supporters read your blog in the comfort and privacy of their home where they don’t have to show their political leanings. You touch a nerve with a good percentage of these supporters every time you expose their leaders’ behaviour and inadequacies.
You are more effective than the NP media.
log on to this facebook group : LE LE LE HALLUHA L-ARMA TAL-PARTIT LABURISTA.
Pippo and Pat Zahra.
You got it wrong. I never requested a favour for voting PN, but requests which concern the general public. Imagine families living in an area of total neglect and you complain. The response is, We do not have money,”Ghandna il-bsaten fir-roti etc..”il-kunsill ma jikkoperax maghna “, ahjar tikteb fil-galzetti, and loads of excuses.
Finally, my reasoning is, if we cannot settle such so-called petty issues, than how can we solve bigger problems and challenges. We cannot deny that there is a lot of mismanagement in the public sector, or a f**k you jack attitude. I always argue that civil servants need to be accountable and if not they should be fired, as we do in the private sector.
God forbid if we are losing millions from EU aid because the civil servants are not putting their efforts accordingly.
I never voted Labour and I never got jobs or favours for being so and I am proud of it, but on the other hand I call a spade a spade.
@ david g – well said! However one of Malta’s biggest problems is that the party in government has no competition as there is no proper ‘opposition’ so the voters have little choice, if at all.
I am haunted by the idea that Anglu Farrugia could run this country while Muscat is in Brussels for some meeting or other.
If you were to examine former Labour governments, you would find tough guys, violent machos, and the sort, but very rarely would you encounter idiots.
None of Mintoff’s ministers were idiots, despite their many shortcomings. The same holds for KMB. With Sant, we already start seeing the odd idiot here or there.
But now, idiocy is at the forefront.
I shudder at the thought of Muscat being unavailable and the whole government machinery turning to Anglu Farrugia for leadership and decision-taking. The man is incapable of focusing and zeroing in on problems, much less finding solutions.
The way he formulates thoughts is most often messy and chaotic. He homes in on minor issues, oblivious to the more important points which cry out for immediate attention.
We know nothing of his analytical skills, nothing of his ability to evaluate and identify the more well-reasoned among conflicting advice, nothing of his ability to co-ordinate projects, initiate reform, curtail abuse, reduce overspending, instill trust, inspire and motivate – we know nothing about him, except his penchant for antics.
As you say, he is a clown – a dangerous one. Dangerous because of all these questions, which so far seem to be unanswered.
Don’t even bother, Overestimated. Why you all speak as if EU membership never happened beats me. It says a lot about your perception of the EU (‘an economic club’, was it?).
I guess being entertained by columnists and misinformed by reporters should keep you fearing a Bellu acting PM.
It explains why you give so much credit to this glorfied EU protectorate and its provincial administrators.
Kev – you are at least two decades before your time!
At present, the EU is still a supranational entity, not a superstate.
Your assessment would be correct if the superstate ideal had been achieved. In the meantime, the Nation State is still here, and the administrators of the Nation State still effect our daily lives.
When regional or local government (subsidiarity) in combination with the European superstate (real European union) will start determining our everyday lives, then your argument will hold water.
Till then, I will seriously worry about Anglu Farrugia having the helm of the country in his hands.
The man is not bright, not smart, not quick-witted. If these were his only qualities, he would really be Inspector Gadget. The problem is that he is also very ambitious. This is the recipe for disaster.
He could be Deputy Prime Minister in a few years’ time – and he could be the one to take decisions affecting our lives.
I think this is a very serious matter. EU membership will not shield us from this man. We have to act in pre-emptory self-defence.
Overestimated Shakes – Two decades? I think not. The progression towards a superstate is clearly exponential. Not only does the Lisbon treaty pave the way, but we have a situation where crises created as a consequence of EU collectivism are solved by ‘more Europe’ – in other words, more of the same.
Take the Greek debt crisis – which is spreading like a virus now. It is becoming clear that the current eurozone set up is impossible to maintain (this has long been known), so they’re calling for more centralised decision making on fiscal and economic policies. The member states’ budgets will soon be under direct EU scrutiny too (which you might think is a good thing). That, in turn, will lead not only to harmonised taxation, but also to direct EU taxes – as Barroso himself pointed out in a plenary speech earlier this year.
Taxation policy, along with health, education and justice affairs are today still within the domain of national administrations, but only just. These areas have also been slotted by the Lisbon treaty for supranational control. This increase in EU competence (legislative and policy-making power) will ultimately lead to federal executive power in most areas, which will exist only to grow (Europol, for example, will become the EU’s version of the FBI).
Malta has no fiscal policy of its own, no economic policy (it follows the EU 10-year economic plan), no foreign affairs to speak of, and being a small state, hardly any weight in the decision making process.
You are not totally wrong, of course. National administrative blunders are still possible – probable even – but not where it counts most. Those blunders are/will be reserved for EU central planners. You must have a whole lot of trust in these central planners to allow them to proceed with this collectivist project for a ‘stronger and more powerful Europe’. The Soviet Union was very strong and powerful, but how did this benefit its citizens?
Kev – I think you are wrong. Possibly, you believe what Sharon says (though, at least, she does admit that she’s no Nostradamus).
The EU’s centralization of power, as it were, is not growing exponentially. The centralization process is a creeping process. And it will take decades to evolve into a superstate.
Following the two World Wars, and their ruinous aftermath, Europeans have understood that evolution is more effective than revolution. So they are taking the long and winding road to ever-closer union between European peoples.
When the Czech President opposed the Lisbon Treaty he was harping on the continuation of the GrossDeutschland project initiated many decades ago and then abruptly halted by the outcome of the war. He could have been right in his assessment – I subscribe to the school of thought that he was right.
Ever-closer union among European peoples has to grow slowly, because what the Czech President said is felt by many Europeans, even if at an unconscious level.
So, the centralization process has, of necessity, to be slow-paced, with changes occurring unnoticeably.
Only a few years ago, Europeans rejected a European Constitution. Why? Because the feeling of national belonging is still strong. Eurocrats and those in favour of further European integration are aware of this, and therefore stick to the slow-track method of integrating Europe.
Which boils down to one thing. Anglu Farrugia is a real threat. European integration and the centralization of power in the hands of a federal European government will not take place before 2018. Meaning that while Anglu Farrugia could possibly be Deputy Prime Minister of Malta, and taking decision while Muscat is in Brussels, the Maltese Government will still be in a position to affect our lives. Meaning we have to be cautious and ask ourselves: do we want our lives to be run by someone like Anglu Farrugia?
I don’t know whether you seriously don’t mind Anglu running your life, but I, for one, do.
I am concerned about this. I am concerned about the silliness and block-headedness this country might experience under the misdirected, myopic, rudderless, incompetent leadership Dr Farrugia might offer.
No kev. The EU will not shield us from Anglu Farrugia’s ego-trip.
It’s rather frustrating to argue here, more so when I myself have waddled though the waters you’re in now some 20 years ago. I know how it feels to be a Europhile. I was one.
Updating yourself regularly with EU and global news would smarten you up enough to recognise what’s truly going on, towards which goals, at what rate and to whose benefit – it’s as easy as that. With that accumulated knowledge, you then figure out the consequences.
Yes a ‘creeping process’ it used to be, but with Maastricht the exponential epoch began and with Lisbon we’re witnessing the final sprint. You wouldn’t know this from The Times’ cut-and-paste jobs, of course.
The only important role left to the Maltese government is that of budgeting the revenue it collects – and even here there are outer parameters set by EU bureaucrats.
If you think we’re economically progressing after EU membership check out trade statistics since 2000 and you’ll witness part of what the EU has cost us.
And look at how we’re now being forced to fork out 25 million euro to help bail out Greece. I hope Gonzi doesn’t come out harping that we’ve made a ‘sound investment’ through a ‘commercial loan’.
And by the way – the people, as you say, may have rejected the EU Constitution but then had the Lisbon treaty forced down their throats. Don’t tell me you didn’t know that both treaties are essentially one and the same. Or do I have to spell out what is already well known?
The PL web apologists should never have got into this melee in the first place. That is if they had any sense. Anyone with a brain would not have touched with a barge pole the defence of a lying, sleazy magistrate.
Consequently their mission was doomed from the start. They have now descended into the gutter. Good columnists, like Daphne, have class. This is hardly an acquired trait. Understandably there is a paucity of this asset amongst PL supporters. I like to think of DCG as Malta’s version of Auberon Waugh. He might have had a head start because of his father but her writings are comparable in class to his.
Agreed Anthony. DCG is a talent that frankly is wasted on half the population, although I must admit they must recognise her strength and her influence if the whole of the Labour party is out gunning for her
In reality all they should be doing is giving us working alternatives to the policies of the party in government, and winning our votes in the process. Instead, we have deputies, party people, consultants, pathetic web sites and the whole of the party machine in full battle order against …..Daphne! Jeesus, she must be good.
If I were them I would just read her writings and follow her advice. Believe me Joey you’d be on your way to winning the race if you did so. Just consider it a free consultancy, mate.
That, ladies and gentlemen, is your next government.
Daphne, expect those at malta-tarts to call you a “bigoted woman” – Gordon Brown style.
Daphne, it’s fascinating how Labour supporters are always complaining that your writing is not “balanced”. Truth is that they would like you to counter your own arguments since they are clearly unable to do it themselves.
[Daphne – I never thought of it that way, but dammit, you’re right. And for my next act, I’ll put glove puppets on both hands and have them slug it out in different put-on voices.]
david g
jien naqbel mieghek mela le, jien izda it tort li nghati lil dan il-gvern hu illi halla lil kullhadd jaghmel li irid minghajr l-ebda dixxiplina. Ha ntik ezempju: ikun hemm xi zball jew xi nuqqas f`xi kas li jkun nazzjonali, issir inkjesta u alla jbierek ma jgibu lil hadd quddiem il-Public Service Commission, jew inkella tmur biex tinqeda f`xi ufficju u tara partita nies jistennew ghax l-iskrivan qieghed barra jpejjep ghax miskin ma jistax ipejjep gewwa. Jien dawn idejquni.
Rigward il-kunsilli u il-kunsillieri, il prim ministru jew il-ministru risponsabli ghandu jara li il-kunsillieri jaghmlu xogholhom sew mhux xi jhud minnhom qieghdin hemm biex isahhnu is-siggu. Jekk mhumiex kapaci ghandhom jindifnu mhux iktar ma jghaffgu iktar incappcpulhom.
Jien dawn li idejquni, u irridu nammettu li ma hawn hadd accountable ta’ xogholu li dan huwa serq mill-fondi pubblici.
Wahda biss nghid u kullhadd jaqbel mieghi specjalment min hu ex civil servant: il-huta minn rasa tinten allura il-gvern l-ewwel ghandu jipponta subajh lejn il-kbarat u imbghad lejn ta’ tahtom.
U dawn jinsabu f`kull dipartiment, jekk nibda insemmi ma nieqaf qatt bil-kummiedji li nara.
U ha nghidlek wkoll li jekk jinbidel il-gvern il-kummiedji jibqghu l-istess imma min hu tal-qalba tal-partit jaghmlu li jridu u mhux kullhadd. Jien kont taht kwalunkwe gvern u jekk nigi biex naghzel nibqa insostni li mill-hazin naghzel l-ahjar.
Taf x’naf inghid – li taht dawn kullhadd jitkellem u jghid li jrid u taht il-gvern tal-Labour kullhadd imbezza jitkellem ghax jew taqla xi transfer jew inkella taqla xi xeba mill-bullijiet li kellhom.
Dawn ha nghidlek, jiggieldu biex jiehdu il-poter mhux ghax ihobbul il-pajjiz imma ghax ihobbu il-but u jaraw x’ser jahtfu taht idejjhom.
Saqsu lil Joe Grima, per ezempju.
Of course you don’t feel negative about the government. Why, for that matter, would any double barreled-surnamed inner circle member like yourself feel negative about governmentPN? Life is a tad different, however, for us mortgage and tax paying peasants and bear with us the fact that we do not really give two hoots about how bad labour was back when you were an adoloscent or how bad you think life would get if someone from Burmarrad becomes a Prime Minister of Malta. All we care about is the status quo and that the present government is crooked and that corruption and clientelism is the national sport of ‘Caqnu Malta’ and non-Inner Circle members like myself with no friends of friends to rely on will always be left out and, what’s worse, pay the bill for this political mess. Again, just my 2 cents.
[Daphne – Mortgages and taxes are a fact of life for everyone. Two surnames do not mean money on tap – but you might wish to check that with Alex Sceberras Trigona. Peasants are now as well off and in some cases more so than the original middle class – thanks to the policies of the Nationalist Party, which raised their standard of living rather than bringing down the standard of living of the middle class to that of peasants, which was Mintoff’s approach.
I have no problem with somebody from Burmarrad becoming prime minister given that I have lived there for the last 19 years – but I do have problems if that person is an empty vessel. You may not care about how bad things were because you neither experienced it nor do you have the sort of analytical mind that teaches you to assess situations based on the likelihood of outcomes.
The government is patently not crooked. I do not hazard guesses about corruption and clientelism. Caqnu is now the Labour Party’s best friend (oh, hadn’t you noticed? He’s sniffed the wind). Inner circles exist mainly in the dreams of those who feel they are left out and who are cross because they wish to be part of an inner circle themselves.
Most sensible people with skills and abilities concentrate on making a life for themselves rather than envying others, feeling hard-done-by and imagining that they have been left off the guest-list of some great big party at which unfair political goodies are given out for free. That’s what I do. You should try it some time.
In this current climate of complete freedom and opportunity, you have nobody to blame but yourself if you don’t make it to wherever it is you want to go. I have noticed that the people who complain most loudly about clientelism are those who are burdened with a clientelist mindset. You are one such example. It is clear from what is unspoken in your message that what bothers you is not clientelism but the fact that others, and not you, are the perceived beneficiaries.]
Contrary to your assumption, I am willingly a non-beneficiary of clientelism. Like almost everyone under the Maltese sun, I know people in politics but, call me a naive idealist, I would never try to use these personal friendships to gain any sort of advantage. But at least allow me to be pissed off at whoever does it. Corruption and all its forms are killing softly this country and you (and with you I include Lou, Peppi and ABC) have to have some serious cheek to say otherwise or to keep hush hush about all this shit or creatively try to deviate the attention towards matters of secondary importance.
[Daphne – Errrrm, let me just throw out a wild guess here: does your information on clientelism and corruption come from the same reliable sources that have made me a 20-year beneficiary of the Nationalist government which keeps me rolling in gold through secret cheques, jobs and bribe money? You see, that’s why I never fall into the trap of speculating about the corruption and clientelism of others or confusing rumour with fact: because I know just how crazy and false the ‘reliable information’ about me is.]
If you don’t punish a child for behaving badly he will think it is perfectly ok to misbehave and will blisfully carry on doing so, believing these are the standards people adhere to. Same goes to governments.