pleasureisland.mt

an open invitation to write about love, sex, pleasure.

it’s up to you but please do spread the word.

Yours,

Sigmund

“Un maximum de haine dans un minimum de territoire”

It’s odd what my friends get up to these days. At least three of them have totally fallen in love with my native country. Eloise (French, slightly hysterical) calls it ‘eccentric’. Zitka (Czech, hints of melancholy) calls it ‘kitsch’. Federica (Italian and a total egoist) describes it as ‘piu’ Cattolica di Ratzinger, piu’ mafiosa di Palermo’. And amazingly they’ve all taken to trawling Maltese blogs – which for some odd reason they find fascinating - in their free time. Federica explained that ‘ormai si puo capire l’anima di una nazione leggendo le discussioni on-line’. Zitka is taken aback by people’s intensity ‘in such a peaceful country’. Eloise (weird girl) just seems to get off on the on-line bitchiness.

Today she sent me a mail which read:

Ton pays: un maximum de haine dans un minimum de territoire. PS: c’est quoi un “GH-O-X-X”? 

How am I meant to answer that one?

Sexy Proposals for a Hip Malta

It should be obvious by now that my aim is to turn Malta into the sexiest country on planet Earth. Sigmund for a young, cool, hip, down and dirty Malta.

Which is why I decided to spend 9 entire days traveling around Ukraine on a fact-finding and networking mission - from Kiev to Yalta via Odesa to the little known Tatar homeland of Bakhchysaray. In a gesture of kindness to the Maltese Volk, the trip was ENTIRELY paid out of my own well-earned cash and not a single miserable hrivnia was extracted from the justifiably irate taxpayer’s pocket. Sucks to you Clyde.

At any rate, I jotted down a few random thoughts in my little notebook. My closest collaborators (Janice, Peter, Kurt and Maxine) called the ideas ‘absolute genius’ but I’ll let you judge for yourselves.

Here goes:

1) All girls over the age of 16 must be coached into wearing high heels. The higher, the more colourful and the more jewel-coated the better.  

2) Schools shall teach children to smile at eachother in social situations. Scowling and “X’izzobb qed thares?” looks are to be banned and punished with a fine (multa) not exceeding 300 euros.

3) A ‘fat tax’ will be gradually introduced.

4) A general Live and Let Live ethos will be encoraged to counter – and eventually wipe out – any traces of the present High Moral Horse stance adopted by persons in public life.

Capitalism Kills Love

Before Sigmund flies East on some very well-deserved holidays, he’d like to leave you with two pieces of wonderful Bruxellois wisdom:

1) CAPITALISM KILLS LOVE (a white flashing neon sign which Sigmund discovered today over a nondescript garage on the Rue Jourdan. The neon sign appears to be privately owned)

2) LA VRAIE POLLUTION C’EST VOTRE SYTLE DE VIE (sprayed graffiti written in friendly handwriting in a road off Place Fernand Cocq)

3) BOREDOM KILLS LOVE (a big banner which Sigmund would like to hang on Portes des Bombes, Floriana, Malta)  

Stay healthy folks.

Love, hugs and kisses

Outrage

“This is definetely (sic) a joke” says Joyce Calleja

“I urge every Labourite worth his or her own salt to protest at this travesty” protests Martin Portelli in vain. 

“Toujours ca change, toujours la meme … forgive my abysmal French, but seriously!?!?!?!!??” writes Andrew Borg Cardona (proving that his French is indeed abysmal)

“Now let the circus continue”…. orders F. Grech

“What a disgrace”, complains Silvan Mifsud

“What a farce of a political party”, exclaims Fleur Hili

“One political suicide after the other”, cries Ray Bartolo  

“A very very sarcastic and antipatku Micallef”, opines Josette pace

“He’s so arrogant”, writes J Vella.

“They’ll look like a circus act: Joseph, Jason, Toni and Anglu” is Daphne Caruana Galizia’s verdict.

“Collective hara-kiri at the Mile End” is Malta Today’s doomsday reference.

You’ve got to give it to my nation’s people. They love a bit of hyperbole and exaggeration. They’re masters of drama when it comes to political judgement and criticism. How they love to be shocked, amazed, left aghast, dumbfounded, disgusted and traumatised.

But my humble opinion is that they miss the point. So Sigmund’s going to spell it out for them all in the form of a couple of hypothetical statements:

1) If the Malta Konservattiva Party had a choice between Barack Obama and Lorenzo Smile, they would choose Lorenzo hands down.

2) If the Earthquake Party had a choice between Vaclav Havel and Joe Love, they would choose Joe hands down.    

Why?

Easy. Because Joe Love and Lorenzo Smile RESEMBLE the people who elect them. That’s why politicians get elected – because their values, tastes and attitudes MIRROR those of their electorates. Simple but true.

So give Jason an effin’ break will you?

PS: Thank God for my small but loyal fan-base. Where would I be without you?

Bisous

Sig

Unique

Psychologically the bottom line is that, in terms of powerful emotions, feeling different far outweighs being logical.

Abandoned and lonely following the departure of an increasingly liberal Veronique (‘Ghandi x’naghmel illejla Sigmund, qalbi’) and as the rain comes down in a monotonous, uniform drizzle over Brussels - a metaphor, perhaps, for Europe’s obsession with harmonizing everything it can lay its hands on - Sigmund dreams of home and thinks the unthinkable…

What if the stuffy conservatives back home - with their archaic ‘values’, Allaharesqatt lingo and resistance to modernity - what if they were the real revolutionaries in this atomised world? For you’ve got to have spunk and self-belief to hold out against the inevitable. There’s something exquisitely powerful in saying ‘No’ to the patently obvious, the accepted, the mainstream view. There’s almost something Rock ‘n Roll about standing up for your right to be unique.

And it’s quite obvious that nations like to think of themselves as unique in the same way that humans do. Nations like to feel special. When you think about it for a while, what’s so revolutionary about aping things which were a big deal thirty years ago?

No, divorce is to Malta what bullfighting is to Spain. A quirk, an eccentricity. A two-fingered salute to normality and logic.

Sigmund feels he should drink to that tonight.

Pragmatik Politiks

With the nationalist movement bubbling up and the USSR disintegrating, many politicians within the Communist Party of Ukraine (CPU) saw the writing on the wall. After the Soviet counter-coup in Moscow in August 1991 failed, they decided that if they didn’t take their country to independence, the opposition would. So on 24 August 1991, the Verkhovna Rada (Parliament) met, with speaker Stanyslav Hurenko’s wonderfully pithy announcement recorded by the Economist for posterity: ‘Today we will vote for Ukrainian independence, because if we don’t we’re in the shit.’ 

(source lonely planet – Ukraine)

You’ve guessed it. Sigmund is in holiday-planning mode but can’t help the occasional political reference. Bad habit? Probably, but all play and no work makes Sigmund a dull MEP. Incidentally, we wish fellow pain-in-the-buttocks blogger Dr. J’Accuse a fun break in Londonski. Great place but we prefer the real thing.

Love and kisses

Sigmund