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2015 Now that’s done, what happened and where to now?

So at the beginning of last year I made some resolutions… well not so much resolutions but goals (New Year’s resolutions tend to last only a few hours-days so I don’t do that…)

The …umm.. goals:

  • To cut down on Facebook usage.
    • Wish a ‘Happy Birthday’ personally not using Facebook.
    • Not to sit reading ‘Newfeeds’.
    • Not to post when I’m going to the toilet, or blowing my nose.
  • To cut down on helping others before looking after myself.
    • In past years I have run myself to the point of getting sick taking photos, helping people out, etc.
    • This year only doing stuff for people that look after me and are concerned with my health.
    • To allow people to join me in my life (share my life) rather than follow everyone else in theirs.
  • To treat everyone with the respect and attitude that they treat me (for better or for worse.)
  • To cut down the amount of time that I work (for my employer) to something closer to resembling the actual times/hours I am supposed to work (using the hours to look after my family and friends.)

So how did it all go?  Well a mix of both success and failure, the easier ones were a complete success, the more difficult and controversial not so much. ie Facebook a no brainer, some took offence, some didn’t realise, some followed suit.  Some people treated me with complete disrespect and bad (awful) attitude, but I couldn’t bring myself to return the feelings no matter how much I wanted to.

2015 In Review…

Michelle Proposes to Gabie
The proposal…

The beginning of the year began with a proposal just a few seconds into the new year…  I tried to make it the stroke of midnight but this in reality was never going to happen, so it happened with the first minute of the new year.  This I think is how everyone should start a new year…  Not a proposal of marriage, but to start it with a happy note: Start in the way which you intend on going on.

I find in my life that no matter how hard you will try to keep everything on a positive note, there will always be those who try and spoil things, there will always be a negative, 2015 was no different.  Within a few weeks we (Gabie and I) lost a bunch of friends.  Some closer than others.  Some didn’t like the fact we were getting married.  Some didn’t like to see us happy. Some people just have to ensure everyone else is as miserable as they are in their lives.  Some people are just unfathomable and are just better left to wallow in their own self pity.  The result was after a great deal of stress and angst Gabie changed jobs to avoid someone who was poisonous in our lives, not to forget she hated the job.

After that little upset was dealt with, Gabie set her heart, with my full support, on pursuing an ambition of hers… To teach again.  For this she needed a TELT (Test for English Language Teachers) course to begin the process and in February she took the course, she thoroughly enjoyed it, at least until the exam and the early start preceded by an anxious and therefore sleepless night.  We found later, as I expected, she had passed it.  We booked the TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) course so that she may continue with the dream.

Michael, his lovely wife Anna, and the two beautiful children with us in their garden at Easter.
The family… Michael’s.

Easter was the next point in the year when things happened and fortunately it was also good.  We headed to the UK to visit my family, first my mother in Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, then later my brother and his family in Mirfield, Leeds.  My sister came for Easter Sunday dinner with Mum so Gabie got to meet her then.

The Easter trip was a really good one as we found a great hotel, the Holiday Inn, Leeds-Brighouse… definitely on the list of places to stay!  (In fact we went back there at Christmas 2015 – more on that later.)

Next event was Gabie’s course, the May 2015 TEFL course and the resulting certificate (for those successful.)  A potentially stressful time, but  with the exception of Wedding plans I had managed to remove as many as possible sources of stress for Gabie, and this paid off as she also aced the course and got her certificate.

Attacked by a bouncer..

You’ll note at this point I haven’t mentioned a lot about me or what I have done, well that’s because there is not a lot to tell.  After a number of court events the case against the bouncers that had attacked me  was dropped because I couldn’t identify him as the attacker (when you’re attacked from behind and kicked in the back of the head it’s a tad difficult to identify the attacker) and it was obvious that he had friends as none of the witnesses – even the police witness – stepped up to identify him and the CCTV footage was mysteriously absent… apparently for the hour when the attack happened… apparently the system malfunctioned… as is often observed when its the staff being prosecuted.

On the work side of things I was not following my goal and was doing many many hours fighting to get things working correctly at the OS level, leaving me to blog a warning about FreeBSD particularly for production use…

So towards the end of May we had good news and bad news in the papers, first was Ireland who became the first country to approve same sex marriage by popular vote.  The local papers reported on the problems in Swieqi started happening again, this time not only vandalism but also thieves… and again it was my CCTV video that resulted in the capture…  Much to the annoyance of some people, but the residents were very happy which is all that matters.

July would mark one of my few photographic events of the year where I covered XMA 2015, it also marked the ‘full steam ahead’ on the wedding plans.  It also made for a trip to Edinburgh, Scotland to visit the good people from ‘Your GP‘ who wrote medical reports that resulted (eventually) in me obtaining my GRC (Gender Recognition Certificate) which also gave me my new Birth Certificate…. all of which was a pre-requisit to getting approved for marriage in Malta.

August went with a blur, and was marred by an insult or two.  Won’t go into the details of who here, but suffice it to say, if you’re invited to someone’s Wedding it is polite to either attend or at least say that you can’t.  Similarly if you’re invited to a stag or hen night and you don’t want to deliver one of the biggest insults in Malta, you tell people you can’t make it, you don’t just not show up.  Lastly for the wedding you don’t tell people you never received the invite “a week before and it was too late” if you’re going to show it to other people who might actually tell the happy couple two-three weeks before!!!  Weddings in Malta are a personal thing and the bride side of the event is very very personal.

So September and the wedding itself, well what more is there to say…?

The vows captured by The Malta Independent.
The vows captured by the photographer from The Malta Independent on Sunday.

Well quite a lot, but not for this post.  Things didn’t go according to our desire, but according to the wedding planners design, despite our being quite specific.  The important thing though was we got married, and most of those people important to us were there to witness it.

Our honeymoon took us to Iceland, mainly chosen as a location as its spectacular and very difficult/expensive to get to if you live in Australia.

Panoramic View of Iceland on the way back to the Airport
Panoramic View of Iceland on the way back to the Airport

Iceland was rather different and brought some disappointments, it was very expensive for a lot less… especially considering it is ‘part of Europe’ .. the year before I spent less money on our holiday for more days in the Seychelles than our fleeting visit to Iceland where we seemed to spend all the time driving from place to place.  What topped off the whole experience was getting back to Malta and having Europcar Iceland try and accuse us of putting a massive dent in the roof of the car and try to charge us an addition €3500 to have it repaired….!  Worst part of the whole ordeal is that we had already read about various rental companies trying this on in Iceland, so we went with Europcar because we figured “Big well known name, will be reputable” … how wrong we were.  Result was we informed the bank they had no permission to make such a withdrawal and told them to take us to court.  They no doubt figured with me having photos of the vehicle before and after they would end up with a fraud charge in court and I haven’t heard from them since.  My advice in all such cases, always get evidence, and always stand your ground.  In most countries if you are innocent you can claim all costs associated with a lawsuit (legal fees, flights, hotels etc)…

So skipping to Christmas 2015, for the first time in many years, I did not put up the Christmas decorations, we knew we were going away and the house was a bit of a mess with everything that has been going on renovations wise so figured ‘why bother’.  That said, lights went up on the outside of the house, though in a diminished set.

So at the end of 2015, despite haven attended court several times against both defendants, “Sean Borg” and “Xelinu” nothing has progressed, every time the case has been adjourned, quite literally. So I am no further forward in reclaiming either my truck or bike, though I have a new lawyer on the team.  For those who have forgotten what this is about… A previous blog entry…

The ARMS saga is still going on, they finally just 3-4 weeks before our wedding decided they want to talk to me about the rates.  They had to wait until I got back from honeymoon as I was way too busy to deal, and they agreed I should be on commercial rate but insisted only from the point of the March 2012 telephone call… some 18 months (and €15,000 later.)  They have told me that if I supply paperwork on older forms than I have currently found then they will reconsider… I have so far found 8 forms of various different revisions (though plenty from 2011 and 2013) .. and have 3 more boxes of paperwork to review.  The problem being there, is that there is half a tonne of concrete slabs in front of the boxes which was supposed to have been removed already.. didn’t stop them threatening to cut the power over Christmas, or adding nearly €300 in ‘other charges’ which in the fine print was for ‘legal services’… next thing for me is to charge them for the legal services relating to the fact they *still* are billing me on the incorrect rate and charging me interest on the invalid bill, and without a credit contract or credit control…. and they have the audacity to threaten me when they are illegally charging fees against an account they have failed to bill.  (Note: a judge confirmed my case as stated in December 2013, they are trying to negotiate a change to that judgement.)

Anyhow so there you go 2015 in a nutshell, the only thing I haven’t covered is I’ve changed from doing 70(ish) hours per week for my employer to more like 45 hours per week this has had a *massive* difference… nothing new has been developed by me, my paperwork has been done when other things have gone the wayside, and visa versa.  Finally with all the failures of the network most of the time I have had has been wasted trying to fix other peoples’ problems just so I can actually do my job.  Good job the service I am responsible for is in my control and not the control of others or the entire service would be long dead and gone by now.

Here’s hoping 2016 will bring more success.
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Old School corruption still around in Malta…?

Well all those know me, know I do not have tolerance for Political parties or Political grandstanding however, in the case of the 2013 Maltese Elections it is time I waded in with my 2 cents.  This is not a political statement for either side, because to be honest, if I were voting I wouldn’t vote for either one, both are in it for themselves and not in it for the people as elections really should be.  However, this is about the events (or more specifically one event) surrounding the election which is a clear disgrace…

According to the Maltese Law, 24 hours prior to the opening of the polling booths all campaigning must cease or those responsible will be in breach of the law and subject to arrest.  This applies to all candidates, parties and news media (both the services themselves and journalists.)

This evening, in Malta well know blogger and journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia was arrested for blogging about the election in her usual, sometimes course, manner.  This in itself is not wrong, and indeed it appears her arrest was made with good reasoning and because it appears she violated the 24 hour law.  What is NOT right and clearly a prejudice either against her, or what she stands for, the the fact that some of the candidates themselves continued their campaigning clear into the 24 hour ‘no campaigning’ period, and no-one else has been arrested.

Lou Bondi, from TVM’s Bondi+ was there at the time of the arrest and the video of the arrest has been uploaded to You Tube here.  Now before any of you the readers get hot under the collar about the police officers involved, please remember they are doing their jobs, they were told to make the arrest.  Instead, focus your attention and appeals on the two following things:

  • First: Who ordered those police to arrest Daphne Caruana Galizia?  
  • Second: Why were others who clearly violated the same laws not arrested?

What follow are screenshots of the Facebook pages of some of the candidates and their delegates, all of which are in violation of the same law.  All of the people posting should be arrested on the same charges as Daphne Caruna Galzia immediately.  If the person ordering the arrest of Daphne Caruana Galizia is not willing to order the arrest of these people, that person should be fired and prosecuted for discrimination in the highest, and investigated for corruption.

 

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You will note, that there are candidates from both sides of the Election.  All should be arrested for the violation of the 24 hour rule as they are all clearly in breach.

 

Note: Comments are open, however any political statements for or against any party will be reported as campaign statements or deleted.  I will allow comments about the unbalanced treatment of the parties and journalists involved in this scandalous arrest.

Note 2: Just to be clear, I am in the USA currently, and have no idea of the timezones/timestamps on the Facebook pages, these have been reported as postings within the 24 hour window to me, please excuse and inform me if any are not in fact in the 24 hour window.  Also if there are other examples, please screenshot them and post them to me at michelle@shellsshots.com and I will update this page with them.

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Facebook, why didn’t I receive that update…?

 
Noticed how sometimes you don’t get notified of someone’s update, an event or a post in your interest lists/groups?  Missed that party for your friends’ birthdays?  Here’s why…
 
So many of you will have seen posts similar to the following:

Facebook is now pushing administrators to pay to promote every post/update from their page. In an attempt to make page administrators and users pay for “promoted posts,” Facebook will now only notify 7% of you receive each update posted. Meaning that now, in order to receive all messages/posts from things you have ‘liked’, you must do the following:

1) Go to the the page (eg: http://www.facebook.com/mhix.org for ‘Shells Shots’).

2) Hover your mouse over where it says “LIKED” and click on “ADD TO INTERESTS LISTS”

For users/friends:

1) Goto their timeline, or hover over their name in one of their posts in your newsfeed.

2) Hover the mouse over the ‘Friends’ Button.

3) Click ‘Settings’

4) Click ‘All updates’

By doing this, you will be able to see all posts for pages and friends alike in your news feed. Please “share” this post with your friends.

Note: They also set the ‘Sort’ on the newsfeed to only put the top posts (those that have paid to be at the top) at the top, change it to ‘most recent’ to see what people are posting when they post..

Please share this post/information with everyone so all can know what Facebook are doing…!

Thank you!!

 
 So what does it mean?
 
Well simply it’s the response to Facebook‘s latest attempt to get money for its investors.  Facebook’s stock is falling, people are loosing money, the company is failing… Privacy is required by many people, and laws have mandated it so they can’t sell your data to others as they once did, advertising is failing particularly as mobile devices don’t see most of it…  They need to make money…
 
So as most users of Facebook (the reported billions of users) are not actually real users (eg my Ex Katie Crothers has/had three “Officially her” accounts, plus at least 30 fake accounts in various alias names (eg Leon Mconnell etc) that she created to attack my account with, then later stalk me to try and to ‘collect evidence’ for my former employer to take me to court for breach of a non-disclosure agreement and right waiver that prevents me from taking them to court over the sexual harassment and discrimination I suffered whilst employed.)  Then we have those like me, where I have 3 accounts, one for me publicly, one for my closest only friends, and one that I use to investigate people with (as part of my job, and for evidential evidence against the stalking and harassment.)  Finally, I know many other people that have at least 2 accounts, one for employers, one for friends etc… So based on knowing many people with 2 legitimate accounts, I would suspect that Facebook’s user Total of 1.01 billion is actually around half that, despite their pathetic attempts to weed out fake accounts.
 
So back to the original question… what does it mean?
 
Well simply, they need to make money, and make money fast, so as they cannot get money from the fake accounts, and they can’t get people to pay for the newsfeeds they are relying on companies to pay for their ‘page’ posts to ensure that all their users get the updates.  The problem with this is they are targeting the vast majority of pages by asking for payment to those pages that have less than 5000 ‘likes’, ie all the less known ones.  The ones where people want to get themselves up on the limits so they don’t have to pay…
 
Here’s the problem though… it didn’t work, the little people won’t pay when the big ones get it free, and they worked out that if they have a second phone number and access to a limitless number of email addresses (like me) they can create ‘fake’ accounts, in this case the ‘fake’ is because they don’t represent a real person, they are the company, someone that can post adverts when they are your friend and you get them in your newsfeed as ‘Pages’ used to do…
 
To combat this, Facebook has been changing your ‘Newsfeed’, first they changed the ‘Sort Order’, it used to display the latest posts at the top, now by default it only displays ‘Top Stories’ – these ‘stories’ are those that go viral, ones that get shared, ones that get ‘liked’ ones that get lots of comments.  So when this happened, I amongst many others told people how to change it back..
 
Go to the ‘News Feed’ and hover your mouse over ‘Sort’ and select ‘Recent Updates’ instead of ‘Top Stories’ (Note that ‘Top Stories’ only shows ‘Sort’, where after it’s changed it says, ‘Sort: Recent Updates’ – quite deliberate so you as a user don’t realize.)
 
Problem is everyone changed it back when they saw the posts alerting them to the change, so they change it back every so often, because they want you to always see ‘Top Stories’ first…
 
So their next attempts (and the current issue) is to make everyone suffer the ‘promoted posts’ issue…  As a user, only 7% of your friends will only see any post you make, if you get a lot of people ‘Like’ing or ‘Comment’ing on your post it goes up the ‘Top Stories’ list and more of your friends *may* see the post…
 
Sooner or later Facebook is going to have to bite the bullet and start charging people for access.  The problem they have with that is the user base will fall dramatically, their number of active users will probably be just a small percentage of their current total..  Why is fairly obvious, fake accounts will vanish, people will only have access if they have access to a credit card, and of course some will refuse to pay as there are free alternatives out there…
 
So here’s a list of the Advantages I see with a ‘pay for’ Facebook (and I’m only talking about paying $5 per year as this would if they insist that majority of their 1.01b users are real, $5.05b in revenue):
  • Fraud and Fake accounts will be stamped out (one account per credit card number.)
  • Revenue is generated.
  • People will not abandon stolen accounts so readily.
  • They can better ensure that children (under 18s) are not allowed access without their parents knowledge.
  • Abuse by stalkers and harassers will be greatly reduced (it won’t stop it though, stalkers are psychotic and determined.)
  • Spam and other abuse will be reduced (though it is unlikely to stop it.)

Disadvantages:

  • Many people will just stop using it in favour of ‘free’ services.
  • The real figure of Facebook users can be accurately calculated, audited and reported (and if it is significantly lower will decimate the Stock Price.)
  • “Stolen accounts” trade will increase on the black market.
  • Facebook ‘Phishing’ attempts will greatly increase as abusers will attempt to steal other people’s accounts.
  • Facebook will have a contract with end-users so their legal obligations will significantly increase (terminating an account someone has paid for will require due cause/process and is auditable by a court – this would have significantly helped me in my received abuse and harassment by my ex..  Facebook would not want to get involved in such cases, but they would have no ability to get away from it.)
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United finally get it right… (wonders will never cease)

Well in all fairness I have to post this, normally I am only seen whinging about United Airlines (and with good reason) but as I am also a fair and honest person, time to give credit where credit is due.

Today I had to take a flight from San Francisco (SFO) to Baltimore (BWI) and was booked on flight UA558.  I wasn’t looking forward to 5.25 hours in yet another badly maintained plane with rude staff, and an awful checkin system..  What a pleasant surprise I got.  A quick drive to SFO from Sunnyvale, was uneventful, the roof was down and Rammstein was blasting out at full volume (much to the angst of fellow road users who looked decidedly afraid, of the Goth in a big convertible mustang, banging out some very metal tunes… I suspect they thought at any minute I might draw a shotgun and start taking pot shots for fun!)  Arrival at SFO was also uneventful, car was returned to Hertz, no comments, complaints in fact several of the staff started head banging to the sound of the (still very loud) Rammstein!

I got to the check-in desk and as usual, they weren’t manned at all, leaving only the computerised systems, my heart fell, however a very cheerful dark skinned lady (United staff) decided to help me through it…  [Hang on a sec, you say, Michelle is a techie and programmer, how come she needed help….  My response to all of you.. you ever tried checking in using one of those damned machines?!?!? 😉 ]  anyhow, after initial problems with getting the machine to read my passport (my fault) it asked questions and I responded.. including a question, ‘this flight is full, would you consider helping us out and taking a $250 flight voucher for taking an alternative flight’… I thought, I answered, “yes” …  I hurried in to the departure lounge to talk to the boarding staff because I wasn’t all that sure about it… just wanted to make sure there were no problems..  I mean, 36 hours to get to Baltimore, sure, I could take a different route.. but they had to ensure my back was not destroyed in the mean time…  They offered (and I accepted) alternative flights, a hotel for the night and an upgrade to first class as well as the $250 voucher…..  I said, “yes please” 😉 [Note: in the end I didn’t get it because 2 people didn’t make it to the flight so they didn’t need my seat, but that was a bonus I was willing to take 😉 ]

So, the flight.. Airbus 319.. very small aircraft, old and notoriously uncomfortable for people like me..  they gave me Seat 7D at checkin..  just behind the business class section, tonnes of leg room but completely impossible to watch the movie… glad I bought a book. 😉

Now loud and proud.. United I had done many flights with you, some using my Frequent Flightier card (so you know who I am) some without…  The following people do you credit:

Terri Clark

Monica Travis

Ronda Novotny

I have *NEVER* had a flight with United that even comes close to the quality and standard of other airlines (even with a $7500 one-way Business class ticket).. however, this was an Economy Plus flight, and I thought I was on another airline, the service, the staff, everything was good.  Service was with a smile, they were helpful and courteous, there was none of the, “You’re a dirty low class economy piece of s**t” that I have experienced in the past.  These people answered the bell within a few minutes, they served me food and wine when I asked (even if they didn’t have 3 of my choices, it doesn’t matter, they served in a manor that made up for the shortcomings of what was in the galley.)  I watched the business class service from where I was and the same was happening there… All I can say is (and I never thought I’d ever say it).. For the United Flight UA558 on the 20th Oct 2012, Top marks from me!!

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Rude, Arrogant or just plain stupid…?

One would expect public figures to be the example, certainly in other countries those in public office, rock stars, actors and generally anyone famous has to set an example for others.  Where the law is broken, those famous often get heavier sentences as an ‘example’ to others, indeed as a person who has worked for a customs office I was warned as part of my induction if I was ever caught in possession of drugs I would likely get the maximum sentence by any court etc..  Where laws are not broken but ethics are, jobs are lost, people are distanced from colleagues and the culprits are discredited.  So the question is how does the Maltese political parties fair in this game of showmanship?

Well yesterday I had to fly back to San Francisco for my 3 monthly visit to ‘Head Office’ and I wasn’t looking forward to it.  United Airlines are renowned for the worst service of any passenger airline, and traveling some 60,000 air miles per year, I have to say I have had my fair share of their awful service.  However, my ‘travel dramas’ of the past were surpassed to my amazement and disgust by and incident at the very beginning of my journey…  Happening right in the Malta International Airport (MLA).

I was waiting patiently in line for a checkin assistant to become available with at least one person in the queue behind me, and a couple of friends being served already, then an older man came up and stood near the desk.  Thinking this guy was just after asking a quick question I did not challenge him, checkin continued and my friends started to move away, and to my amazement the guy stepped forward and put his suitcase on the conveyor belt and handed over his passport.  I immediately called, “excuse me! excuse me! There is a queue here you know?!?!” to which the reply was, “I see no queue.”

I did not hear the reply, but my friends had, I repeated myself with the addition, “are you really such a rude person that you will jump the queue whilst there are others waiting?”  The reply, came under his breath, “F’oxx …” (I did not hear the second word but am fairly sure it was “Ommock” ..  Now for the benefit of the non Maltese speakers, “F’oxx” is equivalent to “Fuck” in English and “Ommock” is “Mother” (ie the term is “Fuck your mother”, which is used rather offensively instead of “Fuck Off”) ..  I was outraged and turned to the checkin assistant who was a young girl and she said, “he’s Flypass”

Now Flypass members get preferential treatment, they get to use the business class lounge etc..  However, their privileges does not extend to queue jumping, and in the event that someone does have that privilege they are to use the ‘business class’ line, or wait to be invited by the assistant.

Mr Joe Debono Grech
Mr Joe Debono Grech – MP for Labour

Remember me saying that I travel around 60,000 air-miles per year?  Well, that’s around 20,000 ‘Flypass’ miles per year, I am known to Air Malta staff in Malta, Germany and the UK (though not this girl on the check in desk).. I was flying Premium on Lufthansa in this case, I am a Gold ‘Star Alliance’ member (Lufthansa Miles and More, and United Airmiles etc)  I am a silver British Airways member and just 4,000 airmiles off being a Platinum Etihad member… I fly a lot, and have been doing so since 2009, I don’t enjoy it….  Not that it made any difference in this case the assistant still allowed him to continue and the poor people behind me had to wait for this ignorant twit.

Another Lufthansa staff member became free and checked me in.

I spent 30 minutes in the departure lounge wondering where the person had gone to, and boarded the flight on time, several minutes later one of the last people to board came into view, and who would it be, you guessed it, the rude person from checkin, and to my astonishment, he continued past my seat into the economy area and sat approximately half way down the plane…  Yes folks, this guy was not even a premium class traveller…!

Incensed by finding probably the most rude, ignorant person in Malta, I formulated a plan.  The plane landed and I jumped up and got off the plane as fast as possible, taking my carry on luggage with me, little did he know I would be waiting at the gate in Frankfurt with my Nikon D3s and F2.8 lens…  Camera checked, turned on, set to highspeed shooting (9 frames per second).. he walked off the plane and one of the pictures was uploaded here..  My plan to name and shame him into better behavior…  Give him an unwelcome 30 seconds of Internet fame…  Little did I realise who “he” is…

Within minutes of posting the picture to Facebook several people messaged me to tell me it was none other than Mr Joe Debono Grech, a politician parliamentary candidate for Labour. Many describing him as a relic of the 80s, some stating quite clearly that my report about his conduct has made up their minds on which way to vote at the next election.

Personally I am shocked that someone holding public office would conduct themselves in such a manner that brings their party into such disrepute.  Labour, not for the people, for everything they can get for themselves, is what comes to mind.  Well Mr Debono Grech, I will not stoop to your level, I will not tell you to “F’oxx ….” I will not use my frequent flyer privileges to be rude and inconsiderate to others, I will be the example you obviously cannot set, and I pray that the people of Malta never have to suffer election of someone so ignorant in the future.  I fully expect you to use your contacts to make my life hell, well do your worst is all I can say, I currently pay 4000EUR in income tax per month, I can claim most of those back with all the loop holes in the tax law, I choose not to!  I put my taxes into the community for the benefit of all, I support local artists where I can, often at great cost to myself, and never charge a penny.  I am polite most of the time (I am just not polite to people who don’t take ‘no’ for an answer) and I believe in the Maltese people and way of life.  I was not born here, and I do not have relatives here.  My only connection with Malta before I moved was that my father was stationed here in Malta during World War II..  I am 43 years old now, and I have never in my life seen *anyone* with a attitude as disgusting as yours, and I am just glad the new generation of Malta, whilst not following in as much tradition as many would like, are better behaved and respectful to others than yourself.

 

Oh and the right (Dis)Honorable Joe Debono Grech…. just for the record… you won’t be getting my vote either.

 

PS: I am learning Maltese, not because I have to – but because I WANT TO!!  So yes, I could understand what you said to the assistant.