Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1493799
13 maltatoday | WEDNESDAY • 1 MARCH 2023 OPINION IF you're anything like me (and I hope, for your sake, that you're not)… your entire life will have unfolded against the backdrop of its own, imaginary sound-track. It's a little like having your own personal, randomized Spotify play-list, set on permanent repeat in the background… but with a few small differences. One is that the random 'music' that plays in your head will be completely inaudible to every- one else around you… until, that is, you momentarily lose contact with your immediate surround- ings; and suddenly belt out an un- expected, rousing chorus of… … oh, I don't know: the last time it happened to me, it was Jim Di- amond's 'I Should Have Known Better'. Specifically, the part that goes: "But I thought you'd un- dersta-a-a-and…! WILL YOU FOR-GIVE… ME? (Aye-aye- aye! Aye-aye-aye-AYE-aye-aye! No-Alpitu-ur…!") Or something like that, anyway. Meanwhile, it was roughly halfway through those impassioned 'Aye- aye-aye-aye-ayes!', that I heard a polite little 'cough' in the back- ground… only to realise that the person I happened to be calling, at the time (to fix an appointment for a MaltaToday interview, please note) had already answered the phone… There, see what I mean? 'Be- ing like me' can land you in some rather awkward situations, from time to time. After all: how do you explain to the PRO of one of Mal- ta's regulatory authorities, that the prospect of 'requesting an inter- view with its CEO' would cause me to spontaneously burst into song (and a gushing, incurably roman- tic, 1980s LOVE-SONG, at that)? Which brings me to a second difference between 'real' and 'im- aginary' music. Unlike any ran- domised playlist – which merely reshuffles the musical contents of your hard-drive - there is often a good reason for your mind to 'choose' which particular track to start playing for you, at any given moment. Sometimes – and I suspect the Jim Diamond example was a case in point – the track itself would have been 'triggered' by an audi- ble sound: like, for instance, the hooting of a car-horn; or the ring- tone of a mobile phone, which happens to be in the same key (and yes: I know I'm trying des- perately to come up with plausible excuses, here… but what the heck, wouldn't you?) On other occasions, however, the 'choice' is literally dictated by the circumstances currently un- folding before your eyes. For in- stance: roughly halfway through the video of last Monday's protest in Valletta – when Adrian Delia emerged triumphantly from Par- liament; and all the previous 'boos' and 'jeers' suddenly transformed into a rapturous tumult of ap- plause – my mental DJ dug deep into my memory banks, to throw out a classic TV theme-song from the 1990s. I'm pretty sure you're all famil- iar with it, too: so let's sing it all together, shall we? [Note: some of the chord-changes are a little tricky, so I've marked them out in square brackets] Ready? A-one, and a-two, and a-… "[A] So no one told you life was gonna be this [G] WA-A-AY! [A] Your job's a joke, you're broke, your love life's D.O. [C#m ] A-A-A-AY! [G] It's like you're [Bm] always stuck in [A] second gear… [G] When it hasn't been your [D] day, your week, your month, [E] or even your year… BUT…" Yes indeed, folks! 'FRIENDS'! Because that's what everyone sud- denly wants to be with Adrian De- lia, right now. And by 'everyone', I don't mean just the crowd which applauded outside Parliament on Monday (and which, to be fair, probably included the same peo- ple who had also supported Adri- an Delia through thick-and-thin… as opposed to 'just today'…) No, I mean absolutely everyone: Jennifer Aniston, Lisa Kudrow, Matt Perry, David Schwimmer, Courtney Cox… EVERYONE! But if those names are too 'im- probable' for you: then how about Jason Azzopardi, Beppe Fenech Adami, and – most incredible of all – Karol Aquilina (who even made a solemn declaration of his eternal 'friendship' with Delia, during the Parliamentary debate itself?) That's right: at least three of the celebrated 'Blue Heroes' who had (until just two short years ago) worked so tirelessly to engineer Adrian Delia's undignified re- moval from the Nationalist Party leadership – in some cases (Aqui- lina and Azzopardi, in particular), even to the extent of openly accus- ing him of 'fraud' and 'criminality' - are all now eagerly climbing onto Delia's glorious-and-triumphant bandwagon, themselves… … but only now, of course: only after Delia has already succeeded in achieving what the entire Op- position had so far failed to ever accomplish (under, it must be said, the leadership chosen to re- place him): i.e., the rescission of the 'Vitals' contract; and with it, the restitution of three stolen hos- pitals to their rightful owners, the people of Malta and Gozo. Hmm. You know what? If I wasn't such an incurable roman- tic, at heart – you know: the type who sings gushing 1980s love- songs to himself, when he thinks no one's listening – I would sus- pect that those 'Blue Heroes' (es- pecially, Karol Aquilina) were being somewhat slightly less than 100% honest, with all those decla- rations of 'undying friendship'. After all, it is a little hard (even between the best of buddies) to reconcile all those statements made over the last couple of days… with all the things the same 'Blue Heroes' used to regularly say about Adrian Delia, until only quite recently. This, for instance, is lifted from a 'Guest Post' (authored by a cer- tain Joe Azzopardi) that appeared on Manuel Delia's blog in July 2020: when Adrian Delia was still staving off an open Parliamentary Group revolt. I think you'll find that – beyond the obvious bias – it actually gives a reasonably accu- rate account, of Delia's entire po- litical career. "In 2017, Adrian Delia came out of the blue to contest the leader- ship of the Nationalist Party. He was a good lawyer with corporate clients and a former president of a football club. Nobody knew him. His campaign was aggressive and many thought that he could be the answer to the PN's woes. "Then Daphne Caruana Galizia wrote a blog about his connection with shady deals in Soho prosti- tution. She alleged that Delia had had an offshore bank account in Jersey which received payment on behalf of his client for 'rent' of a property in London. This proper- ty had been used as a brothel, and the 'rental' income was said to be proceeds from prostitution […] "[…] In October 2017, Daphne Caruana Galizia was assassinat- ed and Adrian Delia immediately stopped all libel cases against the journalist. Very soon after his elec- tion as PN leader Delia, in Decem- ber 2017, was again in the news about family problems. He was also accused of domestic violence. […] "[In 2020] The Times published a Whatsapp chat between Yorgen Fenech, the man accused of being the mastermind behind the killing of Daphne Caruana Galizia, and Adrian Delia. Delia did not come clean about his relationship with the murder suspect. Instead he went to the police to try to force a local newspaper and journalist to expose their sources. Unheard of in a democratic country. "[…] Nationalist MPs lost faith in him. Finally, last week, 17 MPs de- clared publicly that they had lost confidence in the Leader of the Opposition and confirmed this to the president […] Adrian Delia is not taking Malta's future serious- ly… " There was, of course, a lot more to that blog-post – I merely iso- lated the most egregious, of the many accusations that have been publicly levelled at Adrian Delia over the years – but already, you can see that it actually follows the lyrics of that 'Friends' theme-song, rather closely. 'Your job's a joke', for instance… how many times was Adrian Delia told exactly that, to his face (by the same 'Blue Heroes', no less)? Or to be more accurate still: that he himself was a 'joke', when occupy- ing the role of PN leader? "You're broke; your love-life's D.O.A. [Dead-On-Arrival]…' It's all right there, implicit in the above quotes: in the tumultuous three years between 2017 (when Delia was elected PN leader) and 2020 (when he was unceremoni- ously booted out)… Delia himself went from being the 'promising lawyer-candidate', described in Paragraph One; all the way down to the 'corrupt, possibly criminal' wreck of a human being – driven to destitution, by 'financial' and 'family' problems - we see by the end of the article. And while not all those misfor- tunes may have been deliberately inflicted upon him, by those 17 Nationalist 'rebel MPs' in per- son… most of them (especially, the Soho connection; and the Yor- gen Fenech Whatsapp chats) were lovingly repeated – and even em- bellished - by the same 'Blue He- roes' who now count themselves among Delia's 'friends'. … with Karol Aquilina, in par- ticular, even adding a few other al- legations of his own (like that time, just before the 2017 PN leadership election, when he hinted that an Adrian Delia victory would result in the 'Nationalist party being tak- en over by Freemasons'…) Now: I don't know about you, but… that's not exactly the sort of behaviour I would realistically expect, from anyone who called themselves my 'friend'. But then again… a) I'm not Adrian Delia; b) I AM an 'incurable romantic', at the end of the day; so… c) Who knows? Maybe Karol Aquilina, and the rest of those Blue Heroes, really HAVE changed their own personal opinion about Adrian Delia, over the past couple of days… And now, they are merely trying to reassure their newfound 'best- buddy', that…(All together now, once more!) '[A] I'LL BE [D] THERE FOR [E] YOU! (Like I Never Was Be- fore!…) 'I'LL BE THERE FOR YOU! (And I Won't Backstab, No More!…) 'I'LL BE THERE FOR YOU! (Just Be There For Me, [G] Too!…) [Repeat to fade] We're all 'friends' with Adrian Delia, now… Raphael Vassallo