So as usual my New Year’s post, this one comes with a heavy heart, and hope for the future. It comes with some reflexions and observations that I hope some will be able to take away and use to protect themselves from hurt, or just learn about happiness, and unlike previous posts has some clearly defined parts… Love, Government etc.. It is a little long, but worth the read (I hope.)
On the subject of of Love..
So this year started badly, I was in Canberra and was told I was going to get a divorce in 2017, well that’s happening now (and 0started in 2017), I should have known then the writing was on the wall, but instead I listened to my heart. So to my first tips to a happy life, or at least getting out before you get hurt is watch for the signs.
First tip to something is wrong…
When you find, “Tinder” on the home screen of your partners phone, your partner is screwing around, or at least trying to (and no I didn’t go stalking her phone, she opened her phone to read a message whilst sitting next to me.)
Second tip…
When your partner spends all their time texting on their phone, but clicks the home button, clicks the power button to lock it, then puts it in its case and finally places it face down on the table on the opposite side from you (and it’s always the opposite side – ie change sides next time) when you walk into the room. Another sign that your partner is screwing around. The psychiatry of this is very simple, someone with nothing to hide may close their phone and put it away, but they will nearly always use the same hand to do it, they will nearly always place it in the same place (their left, their right, their handbag, their back pocket etc), they won’t do it when you walk into the room they’ll do it when they have finished speaking/texting. If you’re unsure, leave the room, count to 30 and walk back in if they do it again, you know there is something they don’t want you to know about going on, the look on their face will tell you how bad it is.
Third tip…
When your partner dislikes everything you suggest, tells you they are bored all the time, but wants to go out ‘with their friends’ and when they do you note there are photos of their friends minus your partner put up on Facebook… you know the drill. Of course the excuse will be that something happened, they had to go elsewhere, they got bored, went with a different friend etc…
Forth tip…
Love is a partnership, this means there are two (or more, but generally two) in the relationship. If you’re the one doing all the work, giving all the love, there is an even better chance that that you are in a bad relationship. To break this down more, if you find yourself doing all the cooking, cleaning, organising of nights out, working, even initiating intimate contact you are in a one sided relationship, and it doesn’t matter how much you love the other person, they do not love you. The person you are with cares nothing about you, they care about themselves and what they can get out of a relationship.
Fifth tip…
(This is a general one, not just when it comes to ‘love’.)
When you are to blame for everything, and facts are manipulated to make you the blame, the person is looking to absolve themselves of any responsibility rather than take responsibility. Applying this to love, remember love is a partnership, you are responsible together. An example in point, if you have an argument and the person you are with gets physically violent and you call the police and they get an arrest record that causes them to lose their job. They have *NO RIGHT* to blame you for them losing their job. Similarly, if they told you two weeks before they wanted a divorce, then similarly got violent and you email a immigration and they lose their visa or right to work they *CANNOT* lay blame on the writing of the email (especially where the legal requirement of a partner sponsor is to notify changes in a relationship.)
So the take away, don’t just accuse your partner/friend because something happens like above, however do remember if it feels wrong there is probably something wrong, trust your feelings not your heart.
Government…
USA
“Donald Trump” … need I say more? .. probably not but I will.
For those that are so smitten by his hard line on immigration and how he is making America great again, think on this. My employer suspended all travel across the USA borders for non-essential trips. My employer subsequently employed more staff around the world. Net result: United Airlines got less revenue from this American company, more staff were employed outside of the USA than within. Say no more.
Malta
Well most of you I left Malta for good in the latter part of last year, well unfortunately Malta didn’t leave me. There are things that I cannot talk about here because they will prejudice the court case that is going to start against those involved in the purchase of my house, but suffice it to say if you are a foreigner in Malta you are subject to all sorts of corruption and even when you have done everything you need to, they’ll find something to take more money from you without any apparent risk to themselves.
What I can tell you about Malta is after being there for eight years and making some really good friends, there are also some of the most two face back stabbing hypocrites I have ever met in the world living there, and for the size of the island the the proportion of genuine people vs bad people is highly disproportionate. Worse, the selfishness and corruption I came across extends to a high percentage of the population and if you’re a foreigner you are a target. Examples of this, just take a walk through Paceville, go into the stores and look for prices, where there are none, come back later with a friend that is Maltese and ask both of you separately ask how much for the same item. The foreigner will nearly always see a higher price, you should also note that this practice is completely illegal in Malta. Same thing happens when it comes to work on your house ask for your bathroom or kitchen to be tiled, you’ll get multiple quotes that turn out to be estimates depending on whether you speak Maltese, whether you are male or female etc. Now don’t get me wrong, there are some honest builders, but not many.
This selfishness doesn’t just extend to services, it will also extend to personal relationships, many people I met only want to know you for what you can do for them, and don’t expect that your service to them will be in anyway reflected in their services to you. I for example and a computer programmer, service technician, a network engineer and security engineer (ie I cover most things anyone can ever want or ask for at home.) I have spent hours, sometimes days working to solve peoples’ computer troubles, and charged them very very little if anything as they are a ‘friend’, however when I needed help from them, I had to wait sometimes weeks, I would be quoted higher prices than *any other* quote and I wouldn’t always get the job I had asked for. According to my ex, this is a very Italian trait and all Italians are worse than Maltese, and the Maltese get it from the Italians.
Corruption in government and their departments continue, many of you heard about the journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia being assassinated in the latter part of 2017. Make no mistake, this was an assassination, not murder. Her death was paid for by persons currently not disclosed, we may never know who paid for her assassination, we certainly will never see justice done.
Personally I was the subject of corruption, I had my truck and bike stolen under the guise of a legal government transaction. I had the government, the prime minister himself Dr Joseph Muscat, tell the police department to look into it. I was told by the then Commissioner of Police, that they had seized my vehicles from the thieves they had inspected them and found that there were a number of immediate anomalies like engine and chassis numbers being altered (badly), false number plates fitted, the documentation said the vehicles had been scrapped (aka garaged), that they were batched up with other vehicles for sale as a job lot instead of being sold off individually…etc… The then Commissioner of Police was then told to resign/fired just a few months later and that was almost the last I heard of the investigation. The only further contact was with Detective Jonathan Ferris who refused point blank to consider my case consistently referring only to the illegal modification as the end of the investigation, and ignoring the first part of the case where the ADT Manager of Hall C, on the 20th June 2010 refused to sign the ‘ok to proceed’ customs form without a €1000 bribe. This resulted in the start of the paperwork that resulted in the theft of my vehicles. It should be noted that the vehicle that was refused was my English purchased Toyota Hilux (which is exempt import tax or VAT under EU rules) which I had also obtained an import tax exemption in place because I was told I needed to, and the same manager refused to sign the release even with these in hand. The people of Malta know that they can keep any court case going for many years and that if at any point you miss a case they can permanently dismiss it in their favour, and that it costs in excess of €50.000 to get a case in to the European court so you will lose regardless.
When it came to ARMS this corrupt organisation is legalised mafia flouting EU rules, general decency and stealing from the public. They over charge electricity ever single day for every single customer, they refuse to refund when you over pay saying that you can have the money off future bills, but they won’t pay interest to you even though they are fast to take it from you (which is actually questionable when it comes to European Credit law.) However, my little story which I explained way back here the culmination of which was a €76,900 bill which resulted in them cutting power to my premises, stopping my business, and I still refused to pay as the courts had already told ARMS more than 3 years earlier that they had to change my tariff to the commercial tariff. They hadn’t even changed my tariff from ‘holiday home’ to ‘normal household’ even though I had a certificate of residency. An email to Fredrick Azzopardi the CEO and a meeting was called. At the meeting, it was not expected by them that there would be my ex, my lawyer and witness and myself. They planned the same intimidation tactics they tried in court by filling the room full of lawyers and staff, however to his credit Fredrick Azzopardi realised I was not going to backdown. He realised that my next step would be going back to court, so came to the table and arranged for the power to be reconnected immediately and the bill corrected on the the condition I paid some €23,000 within 3 days. Power was restored and I paid a revised but still incorrect bill. They refused to backdate the change to when I had originally requested the change, and they refused to acknowledge my residency to the start of the bill costing me an estimated extra €5,500 and charging me some extra €3,000 in interest.
Lastly, selling my house, Promise of Sale signed, however despite having all the paperwork the notary told my Power of Attorney that if they did not sign an extension both myself and they would be liable for damages by the buyer. Legal advice has been taken, more on that later after court.
A general piece of advice if you are looking at moving to a new country, unless you have €500,000 to lose to corruption don’t even look at Malta. It used to be a nice place, now it’s just continual replacement of all architecture, and anything green (eg trees) with concrete and tiles in the name of profits.
Australia
Only been here for 2 months, but I have already seen the true spirit of Australia, and oh how I have missed it.
Almost immediately on arrival I was presented with the opportunity to attend a meeting about the National Broadband Network (NBN) and challenge a number of people about the implementation. On entering the hall I had the opportunity to speak to the local ABC radio reporter whom chose to interview me about the NBN as it was obvious to her and others that I knew a lot more about the NBN than even some locals. This then led me to meet Debby and Michelle who are labour party supporters who subsequently introduced me to the local mayor, and various politicians, and Dawn an advocate and campaigner for the Same Sex Marriage bill.
The following day every news report seemed to contain my interview and statements from reporters about events completely ignoring the politicians. Seems they like my style of interview, and therefore on the announcement of the Same Sex Postal Survey (not allowed to call it a Vote or a Referendum 🙂 ) they brought the TV cameras and I had my say on ABC TV. Of course those that missed it, the result was a big resounding ‘Yes!’ and the Same Sex Marriage bill was the subject of debate in Parliament and the Senate over the next few weeks eventually making it into Law with no amendments.
The sad fact of this development for me personally is that my ex-partner, soon to be ex-wife was so impatient, (selfish?) so without personal responsibility, didn’t wait for the result before calling for a divorce for the second time because she wanted to be in Australia, to have her visa. This time I haven’t argued and won’t, despite us being legally married and despite the rules changing with immigration so she now cannot be refused a visa, despite me being in love with her… she has shown that she does not love me, she has shown that her life is a constant complaint about what she should be entitled to, and how she is so hard done by that I’m done running after her. She has her bed, she has made it how she wants it, she is determined to lay in it, so I have given up trying to change that.
Personal thoughts for 2018…
So if you got here after reading it all, well done, it’s long and I can only apologise for that, what comes next for me you might think?
This year, I honestly don’t know, this year what I thought was going to happen won’t happen. I was looking forward to moving into the new house with my now ex. We were planning a family, to have a child, I was looking forward to this, even enquiring about the IVF that we would need. I was looking forward to spending less time on the computers and more time relaxing with nature all around. Well that all went down the proverbial, so now I’ll knuckle down with work, see if I can come up with a new idea/project/company that can generate money (my retirement plan) and I’ll get on with a couple of environmental projects that I have been thinking of over the years.
One thing is for sure, I won’t be leaving this area anytime soon as the people here have been super-friendly and supportive absolutely no discrimination or comments. Everyone within days introduced themselves, the local club welcomed me and invited me to join their snooker club (I politely declined, though I do play against them in the Friday night pool competition.) People wave and say, “Hello” all over the local area and greet me with a smile… After 8 years of people talking behind my back and stares in supermarkets etc I must admit that I’ve been a little uneasy at how nice everyone is.
Regardless of everything, I wish everyone the New Year you deserve, look at yourself and think why did I say that? It means if you are genuine to yourself and those around you, that you are kind to those around you, and you are selfless in your actions I wish you all the success and happiness in the year to come. If you are selfish (and only you will really know, so be honest with yourself because I don’t care) then I hope you meet selfish people and you all experience the misery of your selfishness. If you are greedy (particularly developers) I wish that the housing market collapses and you lose every penny you have so you have to live the misery that the ordinary people and their lives that you have destroyed… Unfortunately it will probably take someone else of greater greed to take that wealth off you. You should however take note, you cannot take your wealth and properties with you, and people only remember people that are good, you will die like the rest of us, but you vanish into oblivion, some of us will be remembered for the good we do.
Happy New Year, friends, relatives and all the truly good people I have met.
