Bruxelles n’est pas une belle femme

That pain in the arse Jacques René Zammit, him of the blogging revolution, that annoying thorn in the side of us honest, sincere, loyal Maltese politicians, has just landed in my territory on some conference or other and is already telling the world that he thinks the place is a dump. Ci mancherebbe altro insomma! These opinion columnists are so full of themselves that they eclipse even the most attention seeking of my fellow politcos. And I’ll admit that when you see how some of us bang on as if the world rotated round their navel, that’s saying something. Madonna, jifhmu f’kollox dawn l-opinion columnists come mi stanno sui coglioni. You name it, they’ve got an opinion about it: politika, architecture, literature…everything. At least we politicians stick to politics. Vera, hemm minna li jizzattat. U meta tara min hiereg ghall-elezzjonijiet li jmiss, iggib ghajnejk wara widnejk. Kif, ghadu ma kkonfermax li se johrog il-hmar ta’ Bendu? Non mi stuperei a questo punto. Kulhadd jiffolla biex forsi jirbhu biljett ghal fuq it-treno dei desideri.

Insomma, back to Zammit. Nirrispondih bi quote tal-habiba gdida tieghi, Oksana.

“You won’t fall in love with Brussels. Paris est une femme fatale, Roma e’ una ciociara, New York a broadway diva, Bangkok a pole dancer. Brussels is a good friend. But you’ve got to be patient with her.” 

Ghogbitek Zammit?

Eh, iva, ziedet ukoll “Luxembourg? Luxembourg is a stock broker.”

Ciao amici!

VOTE NO.1 SIGMUND KOLINKOVA (isem il-girlfriend) BONELLO

Post-Turkey Coma

Sigmund had a fairly spartan Christmas this year. Moderation and treating it like a normal day was the name of the game. Just in case you were wondering our restraint had nothing to do with the Big Bad Credit Crunch. We just thought that chilling at the spa, hanging out with mates and cooking healthy was the best bet this time round. But for those of you who did pig out on roast pheasant, gateaux and lasagne, I dedicate this spot-on entry from The Encyclopedia of Guilty Pleasures. Enjoy you greedy guzzlers. I hope you find it painfully familiar. And please remember to be SUSTAINABLE in 2009!

Post-Turkey Coma

This is the true meaning of Christmas: senses dulled by a combination of Baileys Irish Cream and the deepest blood-sugar crash you’ve experienced in exactly 365 days, you slump on a sofa at the epicentre of a noxious fug of your own making while allowing piss-poor, lowest common denominator bland-u-tainment to invade your optic nerve and numb your already crippled synapses into submission. Forget all that Scrooge rubbish; peering over a painfully distended, poultry-packed belly at a thirty-two inch cathode ray tube full of leering idiots is what yuletide is all about.

SIGMUND WISHES THE DOZEN-OR-SO READERS OF HIS BLOG A SUSTAINABLE NEW YEAR!

2008 is coming to a close. The Rebbiegha Gdida Poll.

Bloody WordPress Poll isn’t working. Just when you thought that you were getting on top of all this technology, bang, bad news, niet, ne, le, non, nein.

So here’s our hand-made poll where we ask you to name:

The political highlight of 2008.

1) Xarabank: 15th season at the top and going strong.

2) Lawrence Gonzi: Huti Maltin u Ghawdxin, ser nibnu Parlament

3) Daphne Caruana Galizia, March 2008: “AD voters are setting themselves up as hate figures”

4) Joseph Muscat: Inhobbkom. Pause. U Hobbuha Lil Din ghax Hi Thobbkom

5) Monsinjur Pawl Cremona: Warns against ‘culture of secularism’

6) L-iskandlu tad-data sharing: Ma gara xejn gravi. Darb’ohra oqghod attent meta taghfas ‘send’ Pawl, ruhi

icare icycle uvote

Sigmund Bonello on his ecological bandwagon

 

Candidate Sigmund G. Bonello smiles broadly as he waves at passers-by and well-wishers on his icare icycle uvote tour of the Maltese islands. “I want to put green issues at the very top of my agenda. I pledge to cycle to my Floriana office every day. Everyone can make the effort, but I wanted to get the ball rolling” a buoyant Sigmund told journalists as he stopped for a breather and chat with “Joe Public”. “Ja qahbu”, an irate man shouted from his white Ford Escort as the Sigmund peloton whizzed past, “Ser ikollok taqdef mela, b’dak it-tlugh u nzul kollu minn Brussssellll.”

A Politician For All Seasons

Sigmund apologizes to his followers and detractors for his month-long absence. We were on a much needed sabbatical from the political circus. But we’re back with a BANG. Here, in the form of a poem, we launch our campaign for the forthcoming Mother of All Parliaments Elections.

Why you should vote for SIGMUND BONELLO

I’m PROGRESSIVE

I’m TRANsGRESSIVE

I’m GREEN

I’m RED

I’m BLUE

I’m YELLOW

I’m BLACK (THANKS OBAMA)

I’m COOL

I’m CARING

I’m MODERATE

And

SUSTAINABLE.

And given

Half a chance

I’d stab

Anyone

Who stands in my way

To death.

You’re warned.

 

Go Barack

This blog, written as it is by a cynical politician, is about the less savoury side of politics.

It’s about the cynics, the shameless, the opportunistic, the free-riders, the gravy-trainers and their hangers-on. 

But even cynics like Sigmund get genuinely emotional from time to time. And we have been getting more and more emotional as Big Tuesday approaches.

So fingers crossed tomorrow. God bless you Barack.

Catharsis

Can a blog serve as a cathartic experience? By the looks of things it can.

 

It’s just a pity that some local blogs make such depressing reading – proving, perhaps, that the insult is still Malta’s most powerful form of conversation. The top Maltese blog of the moment (judging by the number of comments sent in) is, in essence, an exercise in humiliation in which politicians are turned into animals, their physical defects routinely scrutinized and mocked. People who write in criticising the author’s take on things are told to fuck off and get a life (after being told that they possess a pathetically inferior intellect). Sigmund has been wondering why an intelligent person would choose to spend his or her day shovelling shit on other people in the most direct way possible – comparing them to garbage and to animals. Engaging, in other words in a process of dehumanisation. It brings us back to catharsis in a nation which doesn’t really know the meaning of the word “shame”. If discredited politicians can be brought back into the fold with a pat on the back and a hug without much ado for the sake of party unity, qisu ma gara xejn; if politicians can get away with crapping on Europe one day and metamorphosing into the nec plus ultra of European values the next (OK, OK – Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa); if talk of media ethics (a good thing in itself) rings of hypocrisy…Basically if the same old people who fucked up in the past are all over the place, grandstanding, making statements, telling you how things should be done, occupying the overcrowded public space which one hell of a small country provides…you’re going to find people who can’t stomach the fact that those people who fucked up so badly are still in their face, smiling at them smugly from TV sets and sweet-talking their way through newspaper interviews.

 

Some folks can’t stomach them and look the other way. Others can’t stomach them and empty their bowels over the entire country.

 

A catharsis of sorts and not entirely without cause either.

Let me kiss your ass…

Teatrin tal-Puliti

« Humour exists because it’s sort of funny. Most of the time… »

Sigmund was in the Motherland for a short, incognito visit and plodded along to the city built by gentlemen for gentlemen for a night at the theatre…

We were looking forward to seeing where things stand on the local satirical front – in our book, there’s loads of material to lampoon in a thought-provoking manner. We were bitterly disappointed. Seriously unfunny skits gave way to passé numbers followed by pieces lifted from British comedy circa 1970. The general impression was that this was a haphazard cut-and-paste job: Basil Fawlty meets Pierino in a tal-pepe-hamallu interface with a bit of ABBA thrown in as an excuse to dress up in shiny costumes. And fuck me, it’s depressing to see that linguistic hang-ups still provide us with endless barrels of laughs. The mere mention of the word LIBA sent the entire audience into fits of hysterical laughter. Hilarious, innit? One above-average sketch prevented us from asking for our money back but to be fair, the audience seemed to love every minute (“How talented they are, ay?”) and so did the critics who described this uninspiring hodgepodge as “a brilliant collection of comedy sketches (which) proved that (contrary to popular misconception) the Maltese not only know how to laugh at themselves, but they do have a sense of irony after all”.

I guess that in situations like these, one must bow to the principle of supply and demand. As a politician, I know what I’m talking about…

 

Contenti loro, contenti tutti.

 

 

Stejjer tan-Nejk 1

Għadkom ma xbajtux ittuhom daqshekk importanza? Ħlief b’politikanti ma tismax.

Xi pjaċir. Il-ġinġer daħaklu daħka ċinika, l-ieħor ittrattah ta’ tifel zgħir, u l-ġgajta ċċapċap.

Ikolli ngħid, aħjar tinżel sax-xatt – forsi ssib siegħa mistrieħ…