It’s impressive to know that Catherine Tabone, Labour’s favourite government director for culture, has accumulated up to €500,000 in precious jewellery and handbags throughout her time as a director under the Labour government. I could not confirm with Catherine whether she is registering these gifts with the public register, because as a government director, she is surely obliged to do so. This may very well be one of the most brazen and stupid attempts at washing money. Catherine Tabone has also begun a collaborative campaign with Malta’s Philharmonic Orchestra and a cultural organisation of a Russian oligarch.
Here are just some of the items she is openly exhibiting on her social media profiles. The products I list here may not be exactly the same as hers but are the same type and brand and price range.
Mark, could it be you’re making the same mistake as Daphne’s? not providing your blogs with a Maltese version as well.
That way those that were told what Daphne wrote without ever having read a line of hers, from you they’ll be getting the Full Monty.
It’s a very long road to get there due to financial constraints.
I see nothing wrong with a Maltese version but I do not think bilingualism will grow the readership of the blog significantly, as you seem to be hoping.
I believe (admittedly, I have no data to support this) that the people who would be happy reading a Maltese version of the blog are the same ones who do not mind reading it in English. Readers of L-Orizzont and KullĦadd (both Labour propaganda rags) stick to those particular newspapers, not because other media are not in Maltese, but because they refuse to acknowledge a worldview which does not worship the Labour Party. When an article critical of the Labour Party is published in, for example, the Times of Malta, Labour diehards find no problem making it to the comments section to defend the government, even if they prefer reading in Maltese.
So who exactly do you think a Maltese version of the blog would attract? It sounds to me like it would be an expensive, time-consuming project which would slow Mark down from publishing posts as soon as they are written (if he has to wait for a translation to materialise before clicking ‘publish’ – I am assuming he would want to have both the English and Maltese versions available at the same time because, otherwise, what is the point?).
Is there a significant cohort of independent-minded citizens (hence willing to give the blog a chance) intelligent enough to understand Mark’s (or Daphne Caruana Galizia’s) writing but only literate in the Maltese language, and therefore being denied the opportunity to peruse the blog? I seriously doubt it. The real impediment for those who constantly belittled Caruana Galizia without having ever read a word she wrote, I believe, was not linguistic, but intellectual. A closed mind refuses to have one’s worldview challenged, and I don’t see how blogging in Maltese can change that.
Newsbook has a bilingual model. It would be interesting to know how many users of that website pick the Maltese version instead of the English one, and whether they would refuse to use it if it were only in English. I think creating a Maltese version of this blog would be a lot of work for very little gain, and, if memory serves me right, Caruana Galizia also used to say something on these lines when someone would suggest a Maltese version of her blog.
Adjust your computer clock to summertime.
Haven’t you put out feelers for help from friends?
Isn’t that what friends are for?
I rarely do. I prefer to pay.
Tħobb is-sriep qisha, din! Mhux ta’b’xejn komda ma’ tal-Labour!
Excellent analysis Mark. If only people questioned unexplained wealth. The reason is very simple – No one wants others to question their own unexplained wealth, even if that “wealth” amounts to a few extra Euros from undeclared income.
UNEXPLAINED WEALTH. THE ONLY WAY TO JAIL THESE BASTARDS…..OR BITCHES.