I overheard someone say: “Did you hear the one about the three Italians speaking about Malta?” I felt like running away in boredom, as I thought that the person cracking the Italian joke – called ‘wop jokes’ in America – was going to repeat once more the eternally insipid joke of the Italian who went to a Maltese restaurant and insisted on having a ‘fok’ on his table.

But this was not the joke at all. He explained that our friend called ‘Salvini’, whom in Malta we call ‘Dear Salvu’ as we love each other after forgetting their U-boats destroying former Minister Dr Austin Gatt’s bridge and tons of petards dropped on us from a country to our north, lost his geography book and/or GPS. Then he blindly and vociferously exclaimed that Malta was the closest territory to Africa and that we ‘must take’ immigrants invited aboard by Italian ships and French and Dutch NGO galleys providing a taxi service from a few kilometres out of Libya to land them in Europe. Listen, Salv, that you are not too bright in Geography, granted, (though someone told me you had an ‘O’ level in Geopolitics) as we can’t all be geographers. But, Dear Salv, what I don’t understand is that you seem to have a sketchy knowledge of international and maritime law (as explained by former PM Gonzi’s Minister Tonio Borg) leading to a solemn declaration that: “We sava dem; you taka dem.” Very logical indeed. Maybe that’s why French President Manu (meaning Leli) Macron uttered a salvo of strong words aimed at Dear Salv and eventually, maybe in a bad mood, told off a French boy calling him ‘Manu’ disrespectfully, instead of Monsieur le Président.

A second Italian, having spoken to Malta’s Joseph, said that the latter simply told him that Malta would not ‘taka dem, full stoppa!’  But Malta’s Joseph said that he gave reassurances that Malta would provide food and medical supplies to the saved persons. This means that the telephone line was cut off during the conversation between the second Italian, Conte and Malta’s Joseph, making it difficult for Conte to grab the last part of the dialogue. Or else that maybe Conte has some difficulty counting words – especially conclusions.

The third Italian, The Maio or something like that, gave me great pleasure as a Maltese greedy egoist that I am. Indeed he told one and all that he ‘gives’ us electricity through an interconnector. Please don’t blame me for jumping for joy, as we have been paying for the interconnector electricity supplied initially by former PM Lawrence Gonzi and continued by his ‘follower’ Joseph Muscat – pronounced Maskat by some Anglophone budding media people who practise hostility with interviewees. And do you know what this means? It means that all the money that Gonzi and Maskat have been paying through their interconnector and through our noses, was all a mistake. We were naively paying for something that Italy was offering free of charge. We did not know about this generosity and kept paying and paying. Now that The Maio stated that he has been ‘giving’ us electricity, we have every right to claim reimbursement and, please Mr Maskat, make sure you drastically reduce our electricity bills lump sum after The Maio’s return of our naively disbursed money.

And now we come to the fourth Italian. Oh, I know you will jump on me and tell me that I only mentioned three Italians up here. All right, ALL RIGHT!, so if three important Italians have the right to make mathematical mistakes, why can’t a simple Maltese make a tiny arithmetical error. So, after your countless remonstrations about my additions, let’s see what the fourth Italian has to do with the water and electricity issue.

I heard the fourth Italian singing ‘O Sole Mio’ (meaning midnight in Bugibba) on a construction site all day and again on his balcony in Qawra (pronounced ‘Aw ras!’ in Italian) in the evening when the same song ‘O sole Mio’ has a different interpretation and means ‘What jolly good fellows these Maltese are!’

So to stretch a short story long, the fourth Italian was saying: ‘There are now in Malta 40 000 of us, thanks to Mr Moscato, who invited us all from depressed Italian regions to contribute to the Maltese economy and reciprocate by loudly singing on construction sites and balconies free of charge (like The Maio’s interconnector electricity.) Moreover Mr Moscato, to be cosmopolitan, seems to be inviting thousands more Italians to Malta to help Italy’s bad economy. I believe the jolly good Eduardo, the Maltese economic wizard, has no problem allowing Italian workers in Malta sending Maltese money to Italy.

I would say that the fourth Italian is quite more grateful than the first three. But, as the Italian in a Maltese restaurant said…Never mind. We know the story.

I was going to say something about the Italian politician with impressive university qualifications from Malta and other countries. But more about this next time…

 

Dr Anthony Licari has a background of Human Sciences from various French Universities.