I simply love Maltese women. If anyone of them will not take my word for it, then I most certainly encourage them to contact me for more concrete – well at my age shall we say semi-concrete, proof.

I say this because in spite of my keen attraction towards our many luscious and mouthwatering specimens, I have been married twice, but never to a Maltese woman. The first was French, the second Russian, and who knows what the future may hold…

I must have a nondescript international face, as wherever I have lived or traveled to, everyone always automatically assumes that I am from that same country. With my current Russian wife, everyone seems to think that I too am Russian. When I lived in France, not one single person ever thought I might not be French. Trust my luck to be whorish and easy not only in nature, but also in looks.

But with my present wife we speak English, so people only believe that I am Russian until I open my big mouth, which is admittedly rarely shut. So although the illusion is common, it is always short-lived.

With my first wife, on the other hand, we always spoke French, so everyone always assumed I was French, more so when we were living in Malta together.

Now the Maltese have so many qualities that I cannot even remember any of them right now, so I will focus on their defects, which somehow are always so much easier to recall. One of them, which has thankfully abated but not totally disappeared, in recent years, is the extraordinarily dumb habit of certain local neanderthals to throw in seemingly imperceptible swear words and insults in Maltese, within sentences otherwise in English, when talking to foreigners, simply for their own dimwit amusement.

Back then this was even commonplace and as may be imagined I was the target of such pathetic practices many a time, when out and about with my wife and audibly speaking in French. A few of the more amusing examples spring to mind.

During her first year here we played a lot at tourist, which didn’t help, as we ended up in typical locations frequented by tourists where we were even more target to such linguistic abuse. Naturally, in my typical fashion, I don’t only give as good as I get, but usually give much more and happily and skilfully take it a few levels further!

Once in one of the prehistoric temples, we approached the ticket booth talking in French and when it was our turn, this elderly sour looking man looked at my wife and said “Hello, zejza how many?” (boob) to which I immediately replied “zejziet tnejn ghandha imma daqqa ta’ ponn go mohhok wahda intik” (she has two boobs but I’ll only need to give you one punch in the head”. He slithered down all the way in his chair mumbling obscenities to himself as he handed us our tickets with greatly trembling hands.

On another occasion I decided to take her to the Good Friday procession in Rabat. This can get rather crowded and a very young and rather short couple were squashed directly behind us, unable to get a good view of proceedings. They went on to call us all kinds of names in Maltese of course, such as bloody foreigners, why don’t we cut our fat heads off so they could see, we should have remained in our country rather than coming to Malta and spoiling their view, they should have stayed in their native Qormi rather than coming to Rabat to stand behind two dirty tourists, etc, etc.

I purposely let it go on for some time, just to let them really and truly put their massive foot into their ghastly mouths. Then after perhaps half an hour of them amusing themselves entirely at our expense, I turned around calmly, looked them straight in the eye and told them in Maltese “I am from Rabat, I am not going anywhere, I am not cutting my head off, next time you stay in Qormi and kiss my ass”. Which of course in Maltese has the added advantage of rhyming. I turned around calmly and continued chatting with my wife. As many know, the Good Friday procession is long and tedious, very long actually. For the several hours that ensued they didn’t utter one single word. Nothing not one, probably still reeling in shock.

On yet another such pleasant occasion, we were dining in a mess of a restaurant disguised as a high class establishment, which thankfully no longer exists. We had a terrible meal all round from beginning to end. I very rightly complained throughout, but to no avail, as things just continued to deteriorate throughout the evening.

At the end of the meal, this scruffy, dirty looking chef shuffles clumsily out of the kitchen, busy foraging deep into his nose as he approached one of the waiters who was standing right next to us, and asked, pointing towards us “Are these the idiots who complained?”. And without even waiting for a reply, especially the most important one that I was actually Maltese rather than French, which the waiter knew perfectly well, but the chef didn’t, he continued by telling the waiter “Ara kif ser nitnejjek bih” (watch how I’m going to fuck around with him). So he came up to us and said “Good Evening mur tnejjek, was everything alright?” To which I just let out a calm and eloquent monologue which simply never ended, in Maltese, while I literally saw his face changing colours as I spoke, glaring deeply into his eyes. It went something like this. “We have never eaten in such a pigsty in our lives, you gave us your worst table, although you are half empty, the service was totally shit, we were served the wrong wine twice, the food was disgusting, we couldn’t eat the starters as they were vile, the fish was definitely not fresh, the potatoes and vegetables never arrived, the gateaux were still frozen, the coffees were cold, the wine decanter is chipped and I suggest that you go and fuck around with your mother or you’ll be wearing it soon” (u ahjar tmur titnejjek m’ommok ghax sa nlibbisulek).

I am a nice, gentle, even loving person in my normal state, but don’t try to take the mickey out of me because Mr Hyde is never far away.

But just seeing his face was priceless and I just couldn’t stop laughing compulsively all the way home. I even remember having laughing fits for most of the night, that at some point my poor wife simply gave up trying to sleep next to me and went to sleep in the spare bedroom.

But I must admit that nobody is above such childish nonsense. No nobody, not even me. We were once at St. Lukes Hospital for an outpatients visit and had to take the lift. And just after us walked in this extremely scruffy woman, dressed like a secondhand scarecrow. I don’t know what the hell got into to, it could have been some form of stress therapy or self-preservation reaction to our miserable surroundings, but I looked at my wife and let out as many derogatory and vulgar expletives against this poor woman, in French, as could come to mind. To the tune of “Look at this dirty slut, what a fat slob she is, I wouldn’t fuck her if I were blind drunk and she gave me a million bucks”. The doors opened half way up to our desired destination, and this poor woman looked at me coldly with a glint of hatred in her eyes and told me in perfect French “Excusez moi monsieur, je voudrais sortir malgre que ca ne soit pas mon etage” (excuse me sir, I would like to leave, although this isn’t my floor).

I didn’t laugh then. Oh no and nor did my wife either. Although she did sleep in the spare bedroom again that night, but for entirely different reasons.

But perhaps my favourite memory of the sort was when I took my wife on a Comino Cruise with one of the better known cruise companies from Sliema. It was one of those red boats, named after a well known rum, whose name starts with the military rank which lies between Lieutenant and Major and finishes with the word for morning in German, but I’d rather not make it too obvious now.

There was a small bar on the boat form where you could purchase different drinks and which was manned by two middle aged orang utan lookalikes, both from their physical appearance as well as their total deficiency of intellect. I turned around towards my wife and asked her in French what she would like to drink. One of the primates ambled on his knuckles towards me, gave a quick naughty grin to his pen mate, gave me his best crocodile smile and uttered “Yes demel”, to which I immediately retorted “Hopleaf hara”. Demel being manure and hara being shit. But the funniest thing of all was that in this case it was he who was upset at me and scolded me for not having warned him beforehand that I was Maltese. Do not even try to figure this one out.

I sometimes miss being insulted in such endearing ways by my fellow compatriots. I can speak a bit of Russian and should really make an effort with my current wife not to speak English when out in public. Such wit and instant repartee should not be reserved for Facebook chats alone.