Wow! I have – thanks to Jo-zeff – just seen how the other half lives... and how! Yes, for the past 10 days I have been the ‘honoured’ guest of Is-Sur... (He doesn’t want me to broadcast his name, so let’s leave it as: A prominent and very wealthy property and land developer). I have been his ‘extra special’ guest on his luxury yacht, cruising the Mediterranean.
How about that? Socialism with a capitalist face.
I saw Naples and lived, I passed out in Potsalo, I was caught short in Capri and stayed up really late in Syracusa (No truly, it was 10.30pm... I checked). It was... the voyage of a lifetime, thanks to Is-Sur. And all for free!
Well, free except for one or two favours I intend to do for Is-Sur ? Simple little things like freeing up some ODZ land in Gozo, so that he can stick some hotels, flats and top-of-the-range villas on it. And clearing the way for him to get some import licences he tells me he really, really needs from our new best buddy China. It will be a pleasure.
I have to say, after my holiday of a lifetime, I really do wonder how Jo-zeff, his lovely wife Micheline and his two beautiful daughters could manage to top that with their well-deserved vacation. But I expect they managed.
Back home in Malta, the work of a dedicated government backbencher goes on relentlessly, despite most of my parliamentary colleagues – especially those from the other side of the house – being still in shutdown mode.
I make sure I am seen every day making my way into my office in Parliament. (This will be a lot easier to do, once we move to City Gate... it is so much more visible) I also spend the rest of the working day – no half days for an MP... well, not this MP anyway – holding a series of constituency clinics in my district.
I pledge to speak with every one of my constituents who turns up and to give their own personal problems my very best attention. Even if they are – like senile old Mrs Carini Grayling – so trivial and off-the-wall, I agree to try. Time wasters are a bane of MPs... ask any one of them... any one of ours, that is. Mrs Carini Grayling wants me to get her nearest bus stop moved 20 yards nearer her home. Idle old slapper, let her walk the extra few paces... even if she is 94, half blind and arthritic.
Jo-zeff himself could well have had a stellar career as a movie star
But to be fair, I did meet one or two people, during the course of my clinics, who do appreciate all we government MPs are doing for them. For instance, just last week a very nice man came to see me. He told me he thought I was the best MP this district has ever had and – of course I couldn’t possibly disagree with that.
He then went on to say that, at the last election, he had instructed all his extensive family to vote for me.
Well... after that, how could I refuse his politely phrased request to work untiringly to find untiring work for his – reputedly unemployable – eldest son.
He sounds like just the sort of person our Civil Service is crying out for and – he can be assured of my total cooperation.
But what am I thinking of: This blog was always intended as a paean to our charismatic and lovable (c & l) leader... Jo-zeff. And here am I hardly giving the great man a mention. Well, let’s rectify that here and now.
Did you see the boost our c & l leader recently gave to the local film industry when he endorsed the closing of Mġarr ix-Xini, to allow his great friends Brad Jolly and Angela Pitts – known in the biz as Bragioli – to shoot their blockbuster there this month?
In the wake of this, I have heard some people say that indeed Jo-zeff himself could well have had a stellar career as a movie star.
He has the looks, the charisma, the chutzpah, he’s a politician, so he has the acting skills; all he needs now is the opportunity. Go Jo-zeff!
Comments:
Blue Fin writes: “Oh no! It’s the age of Mintoff all over again, isn’t it.”
Backbencher replies: “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me... er...”