Malta Today grinds another axe – this time it's Tarcisio Mifsud's
Tarcisio Mifsud, wearing his nice, white bouffant wig, having made the overnight switch from black
Malta Today never runs a story without an agenda – an agenda being an entirely different kettle of fish to an editorial line. By some happy coincidence, its agenda often meets and melds with that of another axe-grinder and the two collude for some mutual grinding all over the centre-spread interview.
The latest such ‘you grind my axe and I’ll grind yours’ interviewee is Tarcisio Mifsud, quizzed by the man who left Al Jazeera to become the misfit in Saviour Balzan’s stable of weird unkempt single men and Julia Farrugia – Karl Stagno Navarra.
Tarcisio Mifsud was once finance manager at Enemalta and now spends his time backseat-driving the corporation via the internet in between discussing the Wolverhampton Wolves on the Molineux forum, where he has recently been named ‘fan of the month’ and where, in the accompanying photograph, his wig is still dark brown.
It’s a damn shame that of all the people in this country who might have spoken about the power station contract, and spoken clinically, Malta Today had to go for the Axe-Grinder of the Decade and fail to put him in context – precisely because it wishes to hoodwink its readers into thinking he is an unbiased observer and altruistic whistleblower.
But Google ‘Tarcisio Mifsud’ and, setting aside his Wolves discussions {“What about a calendar of the Wolves women’s team. I would buy that.’} and his Facebook page where his wig is also dark brown and where he tells us that he is a fan of Malta Today employee Julia Farrugia (oh happy coincidence), you’ll see that he has been spending his retirement in harrying Enemalta and Austin Gatt in cyberspace.
You get the impression that the worst thing that happened to this man is retirement from Enemalta, where he would still very much like to be, possibly in the role of a chief rather than an Indian, as he would have it.
Here he is on di-ve.com last November:
Regrettably, I am told that Enemalta has now finished with more chiefs than indians. Managers over Managers. Secretaries to Secretaries and the people have to keep paying from their noses.
The Board of Directors is more interested in new doors,lifts, air conditioners,cars and several other superficial things and matters, but not preventive maintenance, transperancy in financial issues,timely information etc.
A few hours after the accident happened, I was told that 2 truck loads of airconditioners arrived at Marsa Power Station, because now they are buying them by truck loads, that is how our money being spent.
The first time I heard that somebody was saying it may have been a sabotage, I immediately wrote in another fora, that it could not be, for nobody in Malta is ready to put his life at risk.
Why is Enemalta paying such high remuneration packages with no accountability?Come on be serious, remember people, this was the third that happened this year. Minister Austin Gatt has such a disgraceful record, with Enemalta under his responsibility, and he admits he dictates at this Corporation. He should resign, as he is unable to offer any security to our beloved Country. What a disgrace.
And here he is on Maltastar, a few days ago, beneath a report (mis)quoting something Austin Gatt had said:
As usual everybody is wrong, except him.
There is plenty more in that vein, but the really interesting piece of information that the internet yielded was that last June, Labour MP Marlene Pullicino submitted to parliament, with the gravitas of somebody presenting the latest scientific report on the subject, a copy of Tarcisio Mifsud’s dissertation, written for his Henley Management College MBA a full 11 years earlier, called ‘Why does the electricity division of Enemalta Corporation underperform when compared to international electricity utilities? Will benchmarking with ratios of the electricity authority of Cyprus provide the answer to this problem?’ (Paper No. 2488; Sitting No. 128, 16 June 2009)
She did this, presumably, because she imagined that a Henley Management College MBA dissertation written in 1998 would be useful guidance for the government of Malta in 2009.
For one brief moment there, I wondered what Marlene Pullicino might have been doing, rifling through Henley Management College’s store of MBA dissertations all the way back to the 1990s in search of something that might be useful to the prime minister.
But it wasn’t long before the internet yielded the answer to that one, in the form of a report on a press conference held by the Kazin Banda San Filep.
The press conference was addressed by the Kazin Banda San Filep’s secretary, Tarcisio Mifsud, and its president, Godfrey Farrugia, the man for whom our Marlene – who said on television that she models herself on the Madonna, is against divorce and a dilettanta tal-festi u l-knisja – left her husband Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando, prising Farrugia away from his own wife in the process.
But of course, when Marlene Pullicino plonked Tarcisio Mifsud’s MBA dissertation on the table of the House, she didn’t tell the Speaker: “Here’s an MBA dissertation written by my lover’s associate at the Kazin Banda San Filep.”
There was more, of course, as there invariably is with this crackpot bunch who are straight out of some South American novel set in a remote town five days’ ride from the rest of civilisation, where the population has gone bonkers through isolation.
Tarcisio Mifsud, on behalf of the Kazin Banda San Filep, has filed a judicial protest in the Civil Court, claiming that San Filep is the oldest band club in Malta and demanding that the L’Isle Adam band club desist from claiming that immense honour for itself.
Apparently, in this latest episode from The Histrionic Tales of Strange People in Maltese Public Life, the secretary of the L’Isle Adam band club had said on television that his band club and the De Rohan band club in Haz-Zebbug are the oldest in Malta, having been founded in 1860.
Not so, thundered Tarcisio Mifsud in his judicial protest. His band club has documents to prove that it was set up in 1851, a full nine years earlier.
It turns out that Tarcisio Mifsud and Mrs Mifsud were at Tony Zarb’s protest against the utility tariffs that Monday evening when Zarb expected Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando to vote against the government and bring it down, whereupon Joseph Muscat would walk out in triumphant expectation of an immediate electoral victory.
Here he is, telling us about it on Maltastar:
Il-mara u jiena konna hemm. Morna nipprotestaw ghax mhux veru li t-tariffi huma mhabba l-prezz taz-zejt u ghax qieghed nikteb hekk.
Meta l-prezz taz-zejt kien madwar $140 il-barmil, il-kontijiet kienu gholew, imbaghad kien nizel il-prezz lejn it-$80 il-barmil u l-kontijiet kienu rahsu ftit. Issa qieghdin jerghu joghlew aktar minn meta z-zejt kien $140 il-barmil, meta fil-fatt iz-zejt ilu diversi xhur minn Ottubru 2009 sa issa jvarja bejn $70 u $80 il-barmil, allura t-tariffi li kien hemm sa Dicembru 2009 kienu diga fihom il-prezz taz-zejt kif inhu llum u kif ilu hekk.
Mela mhux veru mhabba l-prezz taz-zejt. Ma hemmx trasparenza u ghalhekk morna nipprotestaw u ghalxejn il-PM joqoghod idawwar id-diskors. Imissu jara l-hela li hemm go l-Enemalta, mhux kullhadd imaxxtar u l-poplu jrid ihallas. F’diversi drabi sa l-ikel ta’ nofsinhar tal-kbarat jithallas mill-flus taghna go l-Enemalta.
As for his wig, I must say that it looks like a pretty impressive natural head of hair, the sort that Rock Hudson might have worn in another era.
Had I not full recall of those press photographs from 1998, when Tarcisio Mifsud very oddly opened his door at midnight without a qualm to three strange men who then proceeded to hit him across the head with a length of chain, I wouldn’t have known it to be a wig at all. They were police photographs, showing the damage caused to his naked pate.
Mifsud said in his Malta Today interview that if he still worked at Enemalta Corporation today, he would be ashamed to show his face in public.
That’s strange, coming from a man who wasn’t too embarrassed to whip off his wig for the photographers and then put it back on again the next day to go to into the office – while the rest of the staff were around the water-cooler poring over the photographs of what he looks like without it.
This sent me to the archives to look up that story and what ensued, because the details had become a little sketchy in my mind. Two men were found guilty of causing Mifsud slight bodily harm and were fined Lm25.
Mifsud then decided to claim financial compensation of some thousands of liri from the government, saying that he had been attacked for political reasons.
The government refused his request, pointing out that his injuries were slight, that he didn’t miss a day of work, and that his claim to have suffered a permanent disability was not credible because he had no medical certificate. Also, there was nothing to suggest that the attack was political and his attackers had in fact demanded the keys to his car, escaping when the neighbours turned up.
Years after the event, still in hot pursuit of his financial compensation, Mifsud produced a medical certificate which was dismissed as suspect. He enrolled the support of the Ombudsman, who backed his case (but I’m not going to be drawn into saying why he would have done this) and Austin Gatt – in his own inimitable style – more or less told them both to go and f**k themselves, using that medical certificate as a sex aid.
Cue the start of Mifsud’s bad blood with Gatt.
But of course, you wouldn’t have learned any of this from Malta Today, even though Karl Stagno Navarra, who interviewed Mifsud, worked for the Nationalist Party media back then and has all the details at his fingertips because he probably wrote the stories.
What can I say? Every time I think I’ve run out of weird people to write about, another one pops out of the woodwork. This place is full of them.
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I didn’t know that he tried to get financial compensation. Well, as long as he complains about the high remuneration given to others.
Is his wig that important?
[Daphne – Very. Men should never wear wigs, because bald men are acceptable to society and men in wigs are not. Also, wigs are not elephants in the room, except in Malta, and therefore they can be discussed – just as Silvio Berlusconi’s base make-up made the world news and Tony Blair’s gave him the press moniker of ‘the orange man’.]
Put it another way: would you buy a car from a man with a wig?
He looks like a poor man’s Liberace with that head rug. Wonder if he also plays the piano and has a boyfriend. Malta must have the highest per capita consumption of head rugs of all EU member states. And that’s without the ‘Dear Leader’ about to order a container load.
As you have said Malta does have a huge percentage of nut-cases and weirdos. It would be interesting to see the stats on the number of Maltese who have passports, those who have ever left these islands and the numbers of people who have traveled further afield than to just Sicily, Italy and Oxford Street, London.
Isn’t he too old to be on Facebook?
“What can I say? Every time I think I’ve run out of weird people to write about, another one pops out of the woodwork. This place is full of them.”
Thank goodness for that then. You get oodles of material about which to write, the individuals get the free publicity that they hanker after – though perhaps not quite in the way they seek, and we readers learn something new and have great fun in the process. It is a classic win/win/win situation.
“Men should never wear wigs”
Who are you to decide that men should never wear wigs ? I repeat… who are you ?
I can never imagine myself passing such comments about the female sex. I will never imagine myself saying female should never wear prosthesis of any kind.
To all men wearing wigs….. KEEP ON WEARING THEM IF YOU FEEL MORE COMFORTABLE IN A WIG.
You are offending all poeple with alopecia.
I know the answer. YOU ARE NO ONE.
[Daphne – Wearing one yourself, are you? It’s not me who’s decided that it’s unacceptable for men to wear wigs. It’s the social norm almost everywhere I’ve bothered to look. There’s a simple reason for this: baldness in men is normal. Baldness in women is not normal: that’s why it’s almost mandatory, and not just acceptable, for women who suffer from baldness for whatever medical reason to wear a wig. The last time wigs were acceptable for men was in the late 18th century, and then they were designed to look like wigs – false fashion accessories, in other words – and not to mimic nature. I think what you should be asking yourself is why a bald man would want to wear a wig in the first place. The next thing you’ll be telling me is that it’s all right for men to go about their business in lipstick.]
L-irgiel normali jitfarstu, mentri n-nisa le (sakemm ma jkunux taht xi kura) u ghalhekk jilbsu l-parrokka.
Men wearing wigs are only accepted in fancy dress parties. The wig was one reason why I could never take Alfred Sant seriously.
Better a head without hair, than hair without a head.
“Men should never wear socks stuffed down their trousers”
Who are you to decide that men should never wear socks stuffed down their trousers ? I repeat… who are you ?
I can never imagine myself passing such comments about the female sex. I will never imagine myself saying female should never wear prosthesis of any kind.
To all men wearing socks stuffed down their trousers….. KEEP ON WEARING THEM IF YOU FEEL MORE COMFORTABLE WITH SOCKS STUFFED DOWN YOUR TROUSERS.
You are offending all poeple with tiny…[I’ll leave that out].
I know the answer. YOU ARE NO ONE.
Some tiny hints for the empty vessels: I am 35 years old and no I am not wearing a wig. I WOULDN’T MIND IF I NEEDED ONE. I am a doctor too for a change.
Alopecia in males can be pathological. Losing hair from the forehead is one thing and doesn’t bother anyone, but losing patches of hair randomly at a young age is another thing.
Can you imagine being at the workplace and one day your hair is fine and after a month three quarters of your hair is gone, patches falling here and there ?
[Daphne – Just shave it. That’s what the normal men do, the ones who don’t think that a wig is less embarrassing and more attractive than a shaven head, that is. Ask around: women would rather you took a razor to your head than walked out in, horrors, a rug.]
Alopecia areata multilocularis or Alopecia areata totalis – it’s nasty but it can happen to anyone. It might affect your job, your social perception, driving you into depression. Cheap people like you are not helping these people. It’s like making fun of disabled people. It’s on the same wavelength. Bad isn’t it ?
I’d like to express MY SOLIDARITY with all people wearing wigs.
STOP THIS RUBBISH. Empty vessels make most sound but they’re still empty vessels.
I am as bald as a coot. Daphne is perfectly right. She did not offend anyone and she did not mention alopecia which could be an illness. Men with normal age/sex related hair loss should never wear a wig. It is an awful reflection on their personality. It demeans them. What I am saying is accepted practically across the globe.
Some mothers …..Malta do have them.
Gee, I would never have known all about these guys and their bed partners had it not been for this blog. I think another new edition of Eamon Duffy’s ‘Saints and Sinners…Malta from the time of St. Paul’ would make interesting reading.
John Tabone accused you, Daphne, of insulting people who wear wigs, and then he compares them to the disabled, purely because they’re bald men. So now baldness in men is a disability.
Try to read what I wrote again come on. Read it SLOWLY if need be. Another empty vessel making noise.
And you. The emptiest, of all.
Lionel Jeffries, the actor, once tried wearing a toupee. His folly didn’t last long. He said “it looked like a dead moth on a boiled egg.”
I suggest that Alfred Sant and Vince Farrugia should get in touch with Tarcisio and enquire about his wig as I must agree with you Daphne, this guy is an expert when it comes to wigs.
@ John Tabone
Dear Dr Tabone, your argument is ridiculous. I am bald and happy. I started losing my hair at 25 and back then my hair was very important for me but I just accepted it and would never ever consider wearing a wig. It is simply ridiculous especially in a country like Malta where everyone knows everyone.
He wears a wig to hide the scars left by PN tugs after the 98 elections.
[Daphne – He wore a wig before he was attacked, Grace. He opened to the door to those strange men at midnight without his wig on, hence the cuts to his scalp. The wig would have afforded plenty of protection, its only useful purpose. He then released photographs to the press showing the cuts on his bald head, and sadly, the sight of Tarcisio Mifsud without his wig obscured the story of Tarcisio Mifsud being attacked. So get your facts straight. Also, tugs pull ships out of harbour and there was no political motivation involved in the attack. The question that was never answered, on the other hand, is this: those men who he said he had never seen before rang his door-bell in the middle of the night when he was alone at home because his wife and daughter were out of the country. And instead of speaking to them from the balcony or an upstairs window and then calling the police, he opened the door to them. But after all this time nobody cares, really. Just remember: he wore a wig before 1998.]
Why are you all arguing about the wigs and all that … you people seem like you have nothing important to do … this is a free world. If men want to wear wigs let them wear wigs. Would it make any difference to the way you are living? Are they taking any money from your pockets? I really don’t mind them. Some do seem rediculous but who cares? It’s their problem not mine .. or yours!!!
I remember him in the news with Sant fawning all over him, wearing his stock facial expression for what passes for concern among emotionless automatons and Labour leaders.