STET

The last post

2005-12-21T23:16:00.000-05:00

It's almost midnight. The chirping of tiny frogs rises in orgiastic delight as the soft hiss signals the late night rainfall.

I will no longer post on this blogspot site, having migrated to riabacon.com. The site is in a very primitive state but that doesn't mean you should stop coming by and leaving comments. Wordpress tips in particular will be welcomed.

Thanks a lot to blogspot. I had fun here and learned a lot too.

See you on the other side ...

Yo ho ho

2005-12-19T21:15:00.000-05:00

Caption competition time.

(Haven't got time for my own text. Soon come.)

All I want from Santa

2005-12-16T22:39:00.000-05:00

A long infomercial in yesterday's Gleaner newspaper began with the following photo and headline:

The best part was the following text:

All members of the response team are well trained in firearm handling, tactical shooting, and covert action and customer relations.

Imaginary dialogue:

BLAM!! BLAM!!!
Tanks fe de glass a ice wata, mam.

Waterbeds III: the pics

2005-12-12T11:34:00.000-05:00

Apologies for the quality of the photos, but given the circumstances they were the best I could do. Next photos will be back to my usual high standards ;-D

This part of the hotel had just been renovated. The force and volume of the rain was such that water seeped through the window frames (?) and poured down the walls inside, causing the paint to bubble horribly.

A touch of Barton Fink and the peeling walls.

We laid the sodden books and games out in the corridor to dry out, then later tried blowdrying the pages, but they were just one big pulpy moosh.

By dawn the water had started receding and the pool area began to resurface.

Our hotel room was at the same level.

Waterbeds II

2005-12-08T20:12:00.000-05:00

Back online after a month in the netherworld of the unplugged, after a month of unpacking furniture we no longer need and machines that no longer work. Our house, like many here, has built-in closets in every room upstairs, rendering our re-packed flat IKEA wardrobes redundant. As for the machines, the switch from 220V to 110V was catastrophic on the computers (both now refitted with native power units), half-hearted with the power tools (blender and drill whirr at a mellow Caribbean rhythm) and ineffective on the rest (needed new vacuum cleaner and VCR). We also have two DVD players: the old one for discs produced for Europe and a new one for Region 1, the US. Stupid marketing plot to control when we watch new movies in different parts of the world. Go BitTorrent!

Also in the last month, my feet have been bitten by mosquitos over a hundred times and could now stand in for a photoshoot on the effects of smallpox. I sit typing with a citronella candle burning under the desk, my feet slathered in time-release DEET cream. No more toe sucking for a while.

So previously I left you with a cliffhanger ending, the dark and stormy waters raging round the bedspread...

I then made the second oddest phone call to a hotel lobby, telling them that our room was sinking underwater.

(The first oddest call occurred some six years ago in the Hotel Batafoé in Abidjan when I calmly explained that there was a large brown snake slithering across the floor towards me. The night clerk burst in, grabbed one of my best shoes and pounded the snake to pulp. I then heard high-pitched screams as he ran victorious back to the prostitutes in the lobby.)

"Yes we know about the water," sighed the desk clerk, "we're sending someone over". No sooner said than there was a rap at the door and our hero of the night appeared, the hotel security guard. He first told us to put our stuff on the beds, but it was immediately obvious that the water was rising as we watched. We'd seen shock horror docu-drama reenactments of floods on Discovery after the New Orleans disaster, but still it really was shocking to see how fast the water could rise.

We carried the kids up to the first floor, then thought what the hell and took them up to the top floor, just in case. Mr B and I then took turns to go back down to rescue our clothes, suitcases, toys, books, everything we had. We were sloshing and sliding along the corridors in our underwear, wide-eyed and adrenalin-driven. On the third trip I realized that the water was almost at the level of the electricity sockets. Would the system simply short circuit or would I be fried alive in my underwear while trying to save a suitcase of spiderman accessories? Tune in next month ... just kidding.

I shouted to the security guard who was helping us move out and he got the hotel handyman to shut off the power to our block of the hotel. So there we sat at dawn's first light, soaked and tired, reading to the kids by candlelight.

We managed to save most of our possessions - our biggest loss was some great children's toys and books (The Gruffalo and other books by the same team). We tried drying them with a hairdryer but the pages were just too pulpy to survive. We had left the children's stuff in a ground-level cupboard so that they could get to them easily, but of course so could the water. The suitcase with most of my clothes inside was also waterlogged. The hotel owner offered me a token for the laundromat the next morning. When I complained that one token was not going to cover the damage, she gave me ... two more tokens. Plus a little bag of washing powder.

Still, our losses were minor when we saw the cars being swept down the street before coming to rest six feet under water.

We moved to a different hotel the next day. We took a room on the sixth floor.

Waterbeds

2005-11-08T08:38:00.000-05:00

(Delayed post because of failed migration to new Web site.

Tip: do not attempt to emigrate both blog and family simultaneously.)

.......

As I mentioned previously, on the third night in Jamaica, we were flooded out of our hotel.

It was the fault of Hurricane Wilma, who had teetered back and forth over the Cayman Islands like a wobbly child learning to cycle - she never touched ground in the region (sorry, made land is the term everybody now uses), but as a result of her indecision, Jamaica was subjected to eight days of torrential rain. We were assured that it had never rained so much in living memory. Uh-huh. Just bad timing that we arrive in the middle of it.

We'd already been abandoned at the airport, when our appointed driver failed to show (he'd been given the wrong arrival time) and had had to file ever so slowly up to immigration control. We were last in line and had to shuffle forward for an hour and a half before our "interview". We'd been on the go for almost 24 hours at that point, so forbearance was never more needed. The kids played tag between the queue control poles, thankfully unaware of the delay.

Once through immigration with our temporary two-week visa (which expired ten days ago ...ssshhh!), we found our luggage carefully stacked on a trolley awaiting us. Odd. We pushed it straight through customs where we were met by a bevy of redcapped porters who insisted we couldn't take the trolley any further and that we would have to use their services. The problem was that we didn't have any currency that would interest them. (Our three hour stopover in London during which we had planned on stocking up on duty frees and dollars US and Jamaican had somehow been reduced to a mad dash to make the connection after only a 30-minute lunch.)

The porters domain was a 20-metre covered walkway to the outside, where drivers and taxis were waiting. Yet we were not allowed to push the trolley for those 20 metres. Furthermore, if I went outside to see if the driver was waiting, I wouldn't be allowed back in. One kind porter, sensing our frustration, transferred our cases to his trolley and pushed them outside.

No driver.

So we got in the first taxi and headed into Kingston.

The hotel offered us a crappy room, despite assurance from the office that they had arranged everything as we needed. So we were transferred to a ground floor room by the pool. That was a mistake when the waters began to rise ...

The four of us were sharing a room, two per bed. At 4:30 a.m. my daughter slid out of bed and said she was going to look out the window. I grunted. "Mama, there's water on the floor."

Oh no, I thought, more pee. But when I stood up myself, I realized that there was much much more water on the floor - it was actually flowing from the door and had already covered half the room. I ran to the window and looked out into the blackness. Through the wind and rain lashing the window, I could see the pool area was completely submerged under dark waters.

got to go ... moving out again tomorrow and don't know when I'll be able to get online again ...

If you go down to Spanish Town

2005-11-01T22:17:00.000-05:00

Missed my first blogiversary. Never mind. Way too busy with getting the house ready, transfering the utilities, buying a car, buying a stove, washer and dryer, juggling finances across four countries ... good news is that we may have our stuff through customs by the weekend and we won't need to sleep on the floor (the hotel bills are astronomical).

I'll write another time about the rest of our trip over and the flood in our first hotel. More on my mind at present is the security situation here. It's much worse than we'd anticipated, despite our research before coming.

We had a security briefing shortly after we arrived and were given a very grim picture. In retrospect, I think it was a little over the top, describing the worst possible scenarios each time. Immediately afterwards, however, we felt very depressed, imagining that life was going to be a quick dash from office to car, avoiding all possible human contact, then another sprint from the car to the house in a gated, guarded compound, running with a panic button in hand, which, when activated, calls an rapid armed response unit to your side.

We were also warned where not to go under any circumstances: downtown (south Kingston), west Kingston, and the main road running through east Kingston, which is apparently host to two rival gangs living on opposite sides of the road. "They get up in the morning and start shooting across the street."

Uptown (north Kingston) is the most prosperous and safe area, although we were warned of the serial killer still at large. The security officer then paused and laughed: "Did I say serial killer? I meant serial rapist! Ha-ha-ha!"

Despite these warnings, I have to say I haven't felt too threatened or too isolated from life in Kingston. I have a trio of taximen that are reliable, I stick to main thoroughfares and curb my natural tendency to explore sidestreets, I carry only the cash I need and spread it between various pockets and moneybelt, and I try to look as if I know where I'm going and why, although it's not always easy to pull it off.

While I'm all right, many other Kingstonians have been having a rough rough time. In the short time since we've been here, some exceptionally horrific crimes have occurred, including the arson attack on a family house that killed a ten-year-old girl. The arsonists stood by and shot at anyone who tried to save the people trapped inside. It was a revenge killing. In another case, three women were kidnapped from a bar, then brutally raped and murdered. No motive known. In a third high profile case, two novice priests working with Richard HoLung, the Mother Theresa figure of the Kingston slums, were shot dead by a single bullet while they were washing up in the kitchen. No motive known.

There have been many other less spectacular murders since we've been here.

The largest outburst of violence occurred yesterday, following the killing by police of Jamaica's most wanted man. He had avoided capture for ten years, allegedly with the connivence of local politicians, while at the same time leading the most active criminal gang in Spanish Town, the former country capital, just west of Kingston. The gang, the Clansmen, sought to revenge their leader's killing by burning a police station, shooting at any police in the area, and finally taking control of the streets, burning vehicles and setting up barricades.

It was confusing to me at what point the pure criminal element ended and other citizens began. The streets were full of political party supporters (PNP) and other "concerned" citizens protesting police brutality. One report claimed the Clansmen had ordered residents onto the streets at gunpoint in order to swell numbers protesting.

There is something very very rotten in the state of Jamaica when the politicians recruit gangsters to muscle up block votes and when every small business is bled dry by extortionists.

I was going to add Desmond Dekker's song "007/Shanty Town" with this post, but it seems dangerously naive in the light of current events:

dem a loot, dem a shoot, dem a wail     ( a shanty town )
dem a loot, dem a shoot, dem a wail     ( a shanty town )
an' rudeboys out on probation           ( a shanty town )
an' rudeboy bomb up de town             ( a shanty town )

I'll fill you in on some of the intricacies of Jamaican politricks very soon.

In the meantime, here's a photo of my favourite billboard in town.

Too late, Big G!

Schiphol

2005-10-26T23:27:00.000-05:00

We arrived at sunrise in a two-car convoy from the northern provinces. Laden with a multitude of luggage, we bore down on terminal two and yea there we wept when we saw the mighty snaking queue at British Airways. And so it was that fellow traveller smote fellow traveller and appendages were crushed under juggernaut trolleys. Yea verily it was the final call.

Well, you get the picture. Two hundred school-term discount seniors flying back to the UK after a debauched weekend in Amsterdam ("mayonnaise with chips! I ask you!!"). The disgruntled muttering was quite audible, but not loud enough to be taken seriously, as the BA staff shunted through late arrivals for flights leaving in 15 minutes.

BA should run a new marketing campaign: hey fluffy girl and stoner dude! Check in one hour before departure?! Yeah riiight! Party hearty, crash and burn! When you finally drag your ass off the floor and stagger into the airport, we'll be there to push you to the front of the queue like you're pimp royale. BA: doesn't have to mean bugger all.

However, Mr B hadn't forgotten his ninja queue-jump technique from living in Rome for three years. After carefully observing the atypical fluid dynamics of the single snake queue, he noticed the feed-in current petered out by the fourth counter. So we simply circumvented the whole shebang and walked straight up to the furthest desk. We'd carefully weighed each of our TEN pieces of luggage, so smiled smugly when the total came out at only two kilos over. Too bad it wasn't Ryanair and their sneaky 15 kg limit. Revenge would have been sweet.

Next instalment: sick bags over Montego Bay (sorry)

Wilma welcome yu wit a splash

2005-10-26T13:10:00.000-05:00

Just checking in briefly. Gotta dash and see more houses for rent. Kids' first day at school, first time in uniform. Mighty cute.

Been stranded at the airport, flooded out of our hotel, bamboozled by real estate agents, but tings are lookin better already.

It's stopped raining.

More later ...

We zijn d'r bijna, we zijn d'r bijna

2005-10-11T16:13:00.000-05:00

Maar nog niet helemaal!

Altogether now ...

It's a Dutch thing.

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The clock's ticking, in three days we'll be flying off to Funky Kingston.

Oh, but we haven't got any tickets.

It was hard enough getting a booking through the office in Jamaica. Frantic emails shot across the Atlantic:

"A BA traveller class counts as an economy seat!"
"You want us to do a stopover in New York? We have to go from JFK to Newark in the middle of the night?!"
"My sista can get you seats in the bulkhead if you fly Air Jamaica."

Guess who we're flying with.

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The time in the Netherlands has gone very fast. The weather has been uncannily glorious, with hot, sunny days and cerulean autumn skies.

One of my biggest regrets is that I didn't attend the major social event of the season.

The slogan for this year's conference was "Continuing the success of Potato 2000".

I have a proposal for the slogan in 2010. It needs a little more research, which will be reflected in my fee ...

I've drafted a stack of insightful and witty posts over the last weeks, but what with one thing and another and another and another, did I mention I was outside IKEA when they opened the doors this morning. So you'll forgive me, I'm sure, if I've been a tad tardy. Just be patient and check in again soon once I'm settled in Jamaica. I will even satisfy the request for more great b&w photos from Italy. Soon come!

Tot ziens, amigos!

Not quite a Jaguar

2005-09-22T01:03:00.000-05:00

Listen loud while you read ...

On the road again, to Schiphol to pick up Mr B. from Paris.

After accelerating to 130 km/hr, I noticed that the car didn't slow when I eased off the gas.

I braked slightly and tried again.

It was barely noticeable since I was going flat out, but still, I felt anxious. Then I chided myself for being silly, as if denying it would make the problem go away.

Shortly after, I saw a service station up ahead and pulled off the highway in neutral. As I began to slow, the noise of the engine became more audible. I realized with horror that it was still revving at top speed. I parked quickly and turned off the engine. ... The revs slowed until the engine was hiccuping and shuddering. But it didn't stop! I took the key out completely. It kept going! Aaagh! It's a ghost car! It's possessed!!

I jumped out in case it was going to explode. But it simply shuddered and shook a final time and stalled.

Jeezus!

What now? It was 106 km to Schiphol, I had a full tank of petrol, a half-loaded cellphone, it was getting dark and yes, I was wearing sunglasses.

I hit the cellphone. First the Dutch highway help-thing department. Goede middag, mevrouw. What? You have a car with Italian plates? You have to call the Italian highway help.

Buona sera, signora. What? You have Italian insurance? Call them *click*.

Okey-dokey. Got Aldo on the line at the insurance company in Milan.

Ciao! What? You are British, you have a Dutch car with plates converted to Italian ones ... and a French driver's licence?! ... ... It's hokay for me!

Just before my cellphone battery died, we concluded that the insurer's Amsterdam office would send out a tow truck. My car would be towed to a local lockup, then after the weekend, towed to the nearest Nissan garage.

Pfff. What a hassle.

Maybe, I thought, maybe if I keep a steady high speed without changing gear, then I could drive myself back home...

I set off at low speed with a banshee under the bonnet. I flipped on my emergency lights but that only encouraged people to honk their horns.

(What is that about?)

I turned off the flashing lights, doubled back and headed home.

It was very unnerving, driving with no feet on the pedals. The engine accelerated by itself up to its maximum revs, which was fine when there was no one in front of me. Otherwise I had to brake softly in order to rein in the screaming revs.

It was inevitable that the Ketelbrug (lifting bridge) would be up, so that I had to sit in the waiting line of cars, pretending that I was on the starting grid for a Grand Prix and ignoring the stares.

An hour later, I cruised into the residential area, sounding like a boy racer looking to burn someone off on a Saturday night road race.

I pulled up in front of the house and switched off the engine. The ba-DAM ba-DAM ba-DAM of the dying engine sounded like hardcore techno and the kids ran out in their pyjamas and started dancing in the headlights.

Yayyy! We've got a dancing car! they screamed with delight.

Postscript

When I took the car to the garage the following week, it was fixed in 30 minutes and cost 40 euros.

I swear ... this car has a Teflon cost-resistant coating. We've spent almost nothing on it, almost begging the mechanic to do more checkups. Thirteen years old, 250 000 km on the clock and ready to rumble!

I almost thought about shipping it to Jamaica, but the local mechanic has offered to buy it for 250 euros. Deal!

You say black I say white

2005-09-20T02:00:00.000-05:00

Photo taken in July this year during one of our best day trips in Abruzzo. Civitella del Tronto boasts the narrowest street in Italy, about 60 cm wide, and a spectacular fortress, scene of the final showdown in 1861 between the Bourbon forces and those of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, led by Vittorio Emanuele I. The victory of the southerners led to the formation of contemporary Italy.

Got some more photos from the village, but don't want to spoil you by showing them in one go.

(Read: I don't know where they are and if I do I can't be bothered to wait for my old notebook to grind through Photoshop, taking around 60 seconds per action.)

Late night reading

2005-09-16T03:55:00.000-05:00

Late at night, when everybody else is asleep, I reach under the bed and get out my favourite porn reading: The Rough Guide to Jamaica. Check out this extract:

A mile or so past Chukka Cove, a tiny paved road cuts inland towards Cranbrook Flower Forest, an exquisitely landscaped, 130-acre nature park with several grassy lawns, a fishing pond, a family of resident peacocks and a swift-running river with plenty of marvellous swimming spots. Run by a friendly Jamaican family who wanted to create a space where visitors and local people could retreat from the urban clamour, Cranbrook is an overwhelmingly peaceful spot (ooh). You can bring your own food and drink, or buy it from the tuck shop, housed in a pretty cut-stone building that was originally an outbuilding of the sugar estate which flourished here. To the right of the tuck shop is the fishing pond, a flower-wreathed man-made pool that's well stocked with tilapia (aaah). Caught with the aid of a customized bamboo pole, it costs US$5 to have your fish scaled, seasoned, roasted and served with roast yam or rice and peas, etc. (oh yeah). The stretch of river next to the pond has several shallow pools ideal for splashing children. Beyond the pond is the largest of the lawns, and, to the left, a series of mesh-covered walkways sheltering a staggering variety of orchids and anthuriums (don't stop!). Strategically-placed steps lead down to deeper pools, where the river gushes up from the rocks. Overhung with lush greenery, the deep turquoise water is cool, refreshing and absolutely clean, having been freshly filtered through the limestone (yes! yes! yeeeeesssss!!).

Ahem.

Other reading, from the Jamaica Observer, is less enchanting:

Four people were shot dead by gunmen in Kingston, yesterday.

One of the dead men has been identified as Roy Burgher, 68, who the police said was shot inside a bar he operated at 63 Mountain View Avenue, the community where one man was killed during Tuesday's protests by the Opposition Jamaica Labour Party.

According to the police, a group of gunmen assault rifles and semi-automatic handguns, invaded 63 Mountain View Avenue, an impoverished community, and shot Burgher while he ate lunch at about 11.30 am yesterday.

Burgher's daughter, wife and neighbours were all shocked by the brutal nature in which the elderly man was killed.
"What a set a brute them wicked," one woman said as tears streaked down her cheeks.

A large pool of blood marked the spot where Burgher fell. He was shot in the head and the abdomen and died on the spot. A piece of food he had been chewing at the time, was still affixed between his lips when workers from the Maddens Funeral Home removed his body. Blood soaked his whitened hair.

"See the food all still inna him mouth, them boy deh wicked and no have no soul," another onlooker said.

*Gulp*

Of all the gym joints (part 2)

2005-09-13T02:32:00.000-05:00

While you're reading ...

Shortly after arriving in the Netherlands, I signed up at the local gym, determined to get my ass in shape for this year's Bubbling Championships in Jamaica.

By a double coincidental quirk, the first time I went, I found that my "personal trainer" had the same name as the one in Rome, and, to my horror, they were playing the same song as in Abidjan (read Of all the gym joints [part 1]).

I always take my mp3 player now.

My co-sweaters are very different from previous experiences. I usually go straight after dropping the kids off at school, so perhaps that's why there are no people of working age at the gym. Seniors hobble between the machines leaning on Zimmer frames, the men still wearing their Sunday best clothes - the only concession to sportiness is that they take off their tie. They treat the gym like a social club, gossiping about their children and the state of the world. It's better than hanging around the post office waiting for a chat.

Sometimes I think I must be in the injury hour special, as the gym fills with wheelchairs and crutches. Yesterday there was a guy with both arms amputated just below the elbow and a huge skin graft scar on his leg. He had some trouble shifting the pin in one of the machines, so I leaned over and asked if it was OK.

"Fine!", he replied cheerfully. "It's just a bit unhandy (onhandig)."

Wiseguy.

Old habits

2005-09-02T16:12:00.000-05:00

The day after driving across Europe in 18 hours, I got on my bike for a ride in the woods. I kept glancing up to check the rear view mirror.

A few days later, I felt really pleased with myself when I managed to park my bike in a shady spot - that could be a make-or-break moment in the day when I lived in Rome.

Another Roman hangover came when I gave my mother-in-law a white knuckle moment as I executed a nifty left turn across oncoming traffic to nab a parking place.

"We don't do that in the Netherlands!" she shrieked.

I´m also a little tongue-tied, beginning sentences with allora, and concluding every exchange with, perfetto! err ... perfekt ... err ... Prima!

Now after three weeks in the Netherlands, I'm so used to cycling that I always think about tucking my trouser in my sock before I get in the car.

This post's listening pleasure is brought to you by the Jongo Trio and their 1972 version of Água da Março.

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Some might feel the cuica is overdone, but I don't care. I want one for christmas.

Still, I'd settle for the cowbell, or even the triangle in Tito Puente's band.

I once asked my mother why she hadn't married a Brazilian percussionist. She said there weren't many around in Glasgow in the 1950s.

Tech note: My first upload of this track failed because of the non-English characters (accent and cedilla). Can only use standard English characters.

Never mind the royalties

2005-09-01T16:14:00.000-05:00

... feel the bandwidth.

Late night browsing brought me to castpost.

Let's see what this does for sharing good music.

Powered by Castpost

Ooh, it works!

Stay tuned for some rare grooves from Brazil ...

Where there's muck

2005-08-31T07:43:00.000-05:00

Out cycling this morning, I passed a field being ripped up. Walking a few metres behind the earthmover (It's Scoop, mama!) was a man with a metal detector and a spade.

"Dude! WTF!!" I shouted, but he was too busy to look up.

I can't imagine what he hoped to find. Since the land has been reclaimed from the sea, it's only been used for cow pasture.

Bah! Two metres of compacted dung.

Beep! Beep! Beep! My god, he's found something! ...

Just kidding.

In Rome, developers were reluctant to dig in many places for fear of hitting a buried ruin. Once that happened, the ground would be seized and cordoned off by the Ministry of Monuments.

" 'old yer 'orses, Marco. You've only gone and uncovered the almost pristine remnants of a paleochristian oratory, ain'tcha, you dipstick!"

I've freely translated from Romanesco, the local dialect. Although it may not be long before Roman builders do talk like this. The spread of Estuary English seems relentless - it's already reached Friesland where my Dutch mother-in-law talks like one of the Slaters (she's a devoted Eastenders viewer).

And she has a sense of humour ...

Grazie Madonna

2005-08-29T14:29:00.000-05:00

Those whose prayers have been answered (see previous post), can show their gratitude at this ad hoc shrine in via Trastevere. The slot at the bottom of the wall for donations for "bread for the orphans" has been crowded out by a hundred or so plaques dedicated to the madonna. The oldest plaques are closest to the shrine and date from the early 1950s. The more recent ones spread over the wall on either side.

The shrine is opposite the Ministry of Education, so perhaps the plaques are from grateful students who have just passed exams successfully.

I like the mix of pompous engraving in marble contrasting with the magic marker on a simple bathroom tile. The grouting is uniformly shoddy, however. Probably due to the fact that they were stuck on hurriedly under cover of darkness.

Tech note: I wanted to do a rollover with the original photo, but couldn't get it to work either with java or css. I don't have Dreamweaver here in the Netherlands, either. Maybe I'll try later with ImageReady that was bundled with Photoshop and not yet used. Any ideas?

Please please me

2005-08-17T14:28:00.000-05:00

This statue is in Santa Maria in Trastevere. The hundreds of slips of paper are requests for saintly intervention. Note how the more enterprising supplicants avoided getting their requests lost in the mess at his feet and stuck Post-its on his cassock.

Although I forgot to note the name of the saint, it is almost certainly Saint Anthony. Apparently he is the Patron Saint of Finance and can help you sell your house quickly. You should bury a small statue of him upside down facing your house.

I'm serious! People believe this stuff to work. Before I lived in Rome, I never knew Catholicism was such a fun religion. I mean I only knew the kind of Irish Catholicism of repression and misery (I think the rain had a lot to do with it). The real Roman version is so much more ~~freaky~~ fun. The things they come up with ... you'd think they were ...
a) crazy
b) on acid
c) completely out of touch with reality.

Back to my photo. I like how it's slightly over exposed so that the candles at his feet threaten to turn it into an auto de fe.

SPQR

2005-08-17T14:13:00.000-05:00

I always reckoned that if you were going to be a bum, there are worse places to choose than Rome.

I took this photo in Piazza Santa Maria in Trastevere. The coat of arms of the city of Rome forms part of the fountain sculpture. The letters SPQR stand for Senatus Populusque Romanus (the Senate and the people of Rome) and were emblazoned on the standards of the Roman armies two thousand years ago. They can still be found throughout Rome, from city council buildings to manhole covers.

I always preferred Obelix's version of the meaning: Sono pazzi questi Romani (These Romans are crazy!).

Last exit for Italy

2005-08-11T16:53:00.000-05:00

Someone once wrote that war was composed of long periods of utter boredom punctuated by moments of sheer terror. That pretty much sums up my trip north from Rome to Friesland. The moments of terror came when an overloaded and swaying lorry suddenly swung out in front of me to overtake another slow-moving lorry. I can sympathize with the lorry drivers, however. I’d go stir crazy if I had to sit behind another lorry for hours at a time.

I hadn’t imagined my trip would be so boring. I had images of road trippin’ with Neal Cassady, Bird blasting from the dashboard. I guess the main reason was that I was doing it alone.

So by the time I’d hit Umbria, I was already yawning and wishing I was anywhere else but there.

Tuscany … ahhh, what can I say about dear Tuscany that hasn’t already been said? How about BORING BORING VERY VERY BORING. Florence? Ugly sprawl of warehouses and 70s apartment blocks.

I thought as a symbol of my blasé-ness and of the tedium of the scenery, I’d photograph road signs of the illustrious places I passed by. However, I was too bored for even that, so there are big gaps between Florence and Germany.

I used to drive quite tensed on highways, never moving my head, gripping the wheel with both hands, in the textbook 10 to 2 position. Although in central Rome I drove with one hand always on the gear stick, ready to flick gears and zip into a crack in the gridlock. Roman drivers abhor free space in traffic.

Not long into this trip, I was slumped back, my right arm stretched across the back of the passenger seat and steering with two fingers and thumb loosely hooked round the wheel. My left foot was completely redundant, since I hardly ever needed to change gear. And not a single traffic light for most of the 1700 km.

I was happy to note that Padre Pio was still beating off the soft porn on Italian lorries (read previous post on Pio).
Just after Florence, I got caught in a torrential downpour and could barely see where I was going. Hell, I’ve driven in worse in West Africa. It’s best not to pull over in case you get washed away – just slow down and follow the white centre line.

Shortly after that, I was brought to a standstill for two and a half hours when a lorry carrying pallets overturned and caught fire. Commendable blitz spirit was shown by all. I finished the last of my water and wondered where I could pee.

I didn’t have a map with me, and as the night was drawing in, I wanted to see how far I’d got. At a Modena service station (Tip: the best balsamic vinegar is from Modena), the only maps available were of Milan and Parma, the two nearest towns. Further proof that Italians don’t travel far. Unlike the Dutch, who formed a constant stream of caravans and campers heading north.

I spent the night just south of Milan, having done less than 500 km. The next day I did 1200 km, crossing four countries.

In Germany, I passed the time by playing word games with licence plates. German plates are the most generatively heuristic. Favourites were BOT FK 26 and FFS GO 54.

Thinking ahead to the end of the trip, I imagine I’ll have to be levered out of my seat with a pole, I feel bloated and pasty. The long-distance driving diet is very poor in protein and fibre and high in those hard-to-cut-out carbs, while the sugars are off the charts.

As I neared the Dutch border, I smiled to see the Dutch drivers enjoy their last burst of speed (200 km/hr) on the autobahn before going back home at half the speed.

I was struck too by the brilliant colours of the fields, proving that the grass really is greener on the other side of the border, the result, no doubt, of the liquid manure that Dutch farmers are so partial to.

The stench acts has the same effect as smelling salts and keeps me alert for the final two hours.

I use the image of a very top-heavy woman as a mnemonic for the last three highways to take: 50-28-32, until my headlights hit the sign in full beam:

Wolkom yn Fryslân

Ciao Roma ciao!

2005-08-03T02:28:00.000-05:00

Una mattina, mi sono alzato
O Roma ciao Roma ciao Roma ciao ciao ciao
Una mattina mi sono alzato
e ho trovato l'invasor

I passed out around midnight and was only woken at eight by the movers banging on the door and the loud crashes of thunder.

I flung open the shutters and was knocked back by the force of the wind and the wave upon wave of torrential rain!

Sod's Law, of course. Not a drop for months, blistering heat while packing, then a storm on the morning we ship out.

(he-he)

Still not sure if I'm going today (see below), or which organization is paying for the shipping. If any.

Details, details.

If I do get out of here by 2 pm, then I'll try to reach my cousin in Switzerland and stopover with her tonight. Otherwise ...

I may be some time.

Yackety yak

2005-08-02T16:10:00.000-05:00

Honey, can youse take out the trash?

I even sorted my crap: plastic with plastic, paper with paper, oozing sticky fluids with noxious defrosting fish.

Three carloads up and down the drive and it was done.

A little bit of Al Green, then I'm done too.

Stand not upon the order of your going

2005-08-02T10:29:00.000-05:00

But go already!

Yeah, yeah, I'm not gone yet. Like Peter Seller's Indian trumpet player, I keep popping up when I should lie down and keep quiet. I'm waiting for the authorization from Paris that we can ship our stuff. Apparently, it takes several days to fax the form from one department to the other, even though they all work in the same building. Something to do with relativity and the position of Uranus, apparently.

Amid 150 boxes, I've kept one pc connected and can enjoy browsing and listening to my favourite radio station in the world. Fridge has gone, so the beers are soaking in the bath; still got a cooker, but no pans or plates. No problemo. I'm gonna load the car with the 25-odd boxes of trash and drive 20 metres to the bins. Hey, it makes sense. They're really heavy boxes, and it's really hot.

More tootling later ... nothing else to do but wait ...

Andiamo!

2005-08-01T06:19:00.000-05:00

The packers arrived at 8:00 and I had to tell them to wait. We still had no quote for the shipment and therefore had no idea of the cost. Imagine ... we write them a blank cheque, they take all our stuff and hold it as ransom until we pay whatever they ask!

The quote arrived just before noon, but I had already let the packers start, after a tense moment with their boss on the phone. He said it was a done deal ("I promise, I promise!"), which was enough for the moment.

They're now working extremely fast and I'm having a hard time keeping up with them ... defrosting the freezer, washing last dishes and clothes, separating toys and other stuff going to the Netherlands, the rest to Kingston.

I still plan to drive north on Wednesday morning, 1688 km, according to my Michelin online route planner - a brilliant service, btw.

Wish me luck!

Virtual yard sale

2005-07-29T18:02:00.000-05:00

Extract from an ever-growing list of binnable items.

# 2 buggies (prams/strollers/whatever), one very ~~soiled~~ stained (ice cream, Giolitti's)
# 2 single mattresses, one slightly stained (coffee?)
# 3 giant inflatables (orca, turtle and mutant dragonfly), suspected slow punctures
# Comprehensive software collection (statistics, Web design and games) for Win95
# 1 truckload of Kinder egg toys, with instructions

... to be continued

Heath Robinson was a communist

2005-07-28T15:51:00.000-05:00

Out for a stroll in San Saba yesterday morning, I found this cunning contraption rigged up at the local section of the Communist Party. No automatic irrigation system with electronic water timers, micro jets and mini sprinklers ... just an old plastic bottle and some wire.

The comrades are obviously absent, attending the annual 30-day Balnearic Exposition on Anti-Capitalist Hegemony (B.E.A.C.H), courageously dealing with Collective Analyses of Radical Dialectics (C.A.R.D.S).

Economic crisis? I'll raise you ten.

All work and no play ... Yalla!!!

2005-07-26T05:53:00.000-05:00

A welcome break from the stresses of moving came on Sunday evening with our annual pilgrimage to listen to one of the greatest voices in the world, Khaled. I bought his first album released in the UK, Hada Raykoum, in 1985 and have been a devotee ever since. Now aged 45, Khaled's voice is better than ever, and he enjoys showing off his skills. Searing emotion or dirty grooving, impeccable timing and a band that swings as tight as the JBs at their best.

Shukran, Khaled!

Night and Day

2005-07-22T18:35:00.000-05:00

I don't know how we keep going.

It's 1:30 and I'm still up. After a day that started early with taking the car to the garage for a patch up in case we decide to drive from Rome to the Netherlands when we leave (Yes, we are still going to Jamaica, but a short spell is planned in NL for Mr B. to finish the Phucking Doctorate).

Then neighbourhood shopping at the greengrocer's, two different delis (one has good prosciutto, the other good pizza), the pharmacy, the optician's and the café for ice cream and coffee. Then a painful visit to the doctor and a long limp home, followed by full-on Barbie vs Batman playtime to keep both kids happy. Once they were in bed, I spent four hours getting our admin sorted.

I'm not recounting this for sympathy, mind. That's just the way it is right now.

Plus the fact that the night air at 1:30 a.m. is the best you can get.

Here are two photos taken from our rooftop last night and this afternoon.

La bella figura

2005-07-20T17:52:00.000-05:00

Her throng of devotees will recognize that this one could only be for Vit.

(I think she already sneaked in to this blog earlier in the third photie)

What do you think, Vit? Can Portugal beat the full makeup, jewellery and hairdo of Italy's finest in the water?

BTW, this lake provides the drinking water for Rome ... which I am very shortly leaving ...

Real e fun attire

2005-07-18T17:22:00.000-05:00

This one's for Zinnia.

Driving into a one-street village on the Abruzzo coast last week, we slowed down as a procession headed towards us, led by a stout women bearing a tall crucifix in front of her, accompanied by two children. Behind them came a hearse and following on foot were the family members. The widow was there, shrouded in black, accompanied by her son walking with folded arms, looking either stoic or bored, and wearing huge fly-eye sunglasses.

He was dressed in black jeans and a black t-shirt ... with large silver sequined letters ...

I yelped with delight and grabbed Mr B's arm and shouted, "LOOK AT THAT!"

The young man unfolded his arms ...

I hope our hoots of laughter didn't spoil the moment ... too much.

Let a thousand fountains spray

2005-07-15T09:42:00.000-05:00

One of the best day trips out of Rome is to Tivoli, perched on a steep hillside to the east of the capital. Once in Tivoli, the place to go is Villa d'Este, home to various cardinals and Franz Liszt, lucky bleeders one and all. The gardens boast of containing one thousand fountains, but you'll forget about counting once you start visiting this giardino delle meraviglie.

Following standard practice in Italy, there are no signs or any information that might prove useful in telling you about what you are looking at, e.g. Ruined rubble, possibly old. The statue below is probably of Artemis, and those "nodes" are either multiple breasts or bulls' testes, according to differing traditions.

(Hmm, curious to see if I get any referrals via "bulls' testes".)

Final pic is an upside-down reflection of the villa in one of the large fishponds. I title it,

Portrait of the artist of the floating world

Back in black

2005-07-14T15:19:00.000-05:00

I been too long
I'm glad to be back

The hiatus was due to a sudden and heavy load of work right at the end of my contract. Even though my contract is not being renewed, as a good girl guide, I felt duty-bound to go the extra mile and give it all I ~~got~~ had - which in the end turned out not to be very much anyway. I went through my final three articles, checking the proofreader's comments, accepting anything minor without reading and erasing anything more taxing, such as the many frustrated queries of Is it Lempira or Lempira Sur Department? or Why second-level bullets?? or meaning???

You'd've done the same, right?

Now I'm no longer employed in-house, I can remove the antidooce disclaimer in the sidebar. I sure felt protected by its presence as I worked for hours and hours on blogging on company time and on company computers. So sue me, nyah-nyah-nya-nyaa-nyaa!

Ahem ...

Once freed from the shackles of my work, Mr B and I spontaneously decided we needed a holiday and took off two days later with the kids to the other side of Italy for a ten-day break. Ahhh ... I won't bore you or make you jealous, suffice it to say that it was bloody fantastic and utterly excellent in almost every way.

Back in hot and dirty Rome, we're making the most of our free time and having more utterly fantastic and bloody excellent times, one of which was the concert by Amadou and Mariam at Villa Ada on Tuesday night. They played almost exclusively songs from their latest album, which made for great dancing, but was a slight disappointment for fans of their earlier stuff, such as Pauvre type or Je pense à toi. We played their songs at our wedding ceremony *sniff*

I videoed some of the best bits of the concert, holding the camcorder above the leaping crowd until my arm got too tired and the picture started wobbling.

Never mind. It'll all come out in the editing ...

With all the will in the world

2005-06-20T09:35:00.000-05:00

Death is stalking me.

Out for a Sunday morning stroll in March and a marathon runner keels over in front of me.

Last Sunday I'd just slathered the kids with factor 40 when a helicopter drops out of the sky and lands on the beach.

A 47-year-old man had had a heart attack. A doctor and two nurses who were also on the beach immediately attended to him, but he died 30 minutes later. The story made the news (in Italian) because of the late arrival of the ambulance. The events are pretty inconsistent, however, for example, a number of tourists complained to the police that the ambulance took almost an hour to arrive, while another report claimed the ambulance was only called 40 minutes after the man had collapsed (after he was dead?) and that the beach road was blocked by tourist traffic. That would certainly explain the dramatic arrival of the helicopter and police patrol boat. Hundreds of people sprinted along the beach to gawp. Ghouls or just Baywatch fans?

Another Colosseo

2005-06-20T04:01:00.000-05:00

A magnificent Roman monument, although you probably won't find it in any guidebooks to Rome. It's part of the abandoned gas works in the Ostiense neighbourhood near where I live. Other strange towers spiral up from the undergrowth and rusting gantries jut out over the sleepy green Tiber.

The whole area contains a number of relics from recent times: Mattatoio slaughterhouse in Testaccio, the general market, the Italgas complex and Montemartini power station, all in Ostiense, and all of them worth preserving, as much as more famous monuments in the Centro storico (historical centre). Big plans are underway ...

The slaughterhouse has already been converted into a mediatheque, which sadly only really comes to life with festivals in summer. The Montemartini power station has had a more successful makeover, converted into a museum to house the overflow from the Capitoline Museums in the city centre.

Its particularity, of course, is the juxtaposition of sculpture and machinery, for unlike the Tate Modern in London, all the power generating equipment has been left in place.

Girl-on-girl housework

2005-06-15T03:22:00.000-05:00

There's an ad campaign in Italy at the moment for endermology treatment that looks as if you iron away your cellulite.

I like the picture because I can imagine it embodies a doubly erotic fantasy for many men.

I love the levitating table, but close up, the endermologicky machine looks scary.

Exterminate! Exterminate!

Culture of death, whatever

2005-06-13T08:32:00.000-05:00

The polls closed half an hour ago. Read here on what Italians were (not) voting about.

It's sad to think that such important questions were dependent on the weather - if it had rained, then more people may have voted rather than gone to the beach, just as they do every single Sunday for four months every year. There were even rumours that priests were offering free trips to the coast after Sunday mass.

(Ok, I just made it up, but I'm sure the Pope would have offered to drive if the bus was big enough to spoil the vote.)

As of last night, the turnout figure was only 18.7 percent. Even with the extra few hours today, it's unlikely that the quorum (50 percent) necessary to modify the law will be reached.

So Italy will maintain one of the most rigid laws on human fertilization, one in which

only stable, sterile, heterosexual couples of child-bearing age can have in vitro treatment, and then only by using their own eggs and sperm. The screening of embryos for genetic defects is forbidden. Just three eggs can be gathered and fertilised. The prospective mother is forbidden to refuse implantation of the fertilised eggs. And all three must be implanted simultaneously.

Source: John Hooper, The Guardian

Can science offer some refuge from the moral simplifications of Church and the State? On one hand, we get Nobel prizewinners Renato Dulbecco and Rita Levi Montalcini explaining the importance of stem cell research and its tremendous potential for understanding and eventually curing genetic illnesses. On the other side, we have Bruno Dalla Piccola, Professor of Genetics at Sapienza University here in Rome, who recommends continuing the ban on further work, arguing that,

In years of research, embryo stem cells have not yielded
any results applicable to the cure of human diseases.

Fancy, I didn't know there was a time limit on research.

Sorry, Leonardo, but that helicopter will never get off
the ground, after all, if God had meant us to fly ...

Not to cast aspersions on Professor Piccola's qualifications, but Sapienza University most often makes the news these days for degrees-for-sale scandals.

Tip: avoid visiting an Italian dentist from the Sapienza class of '04.

(For more on the sorry state of Italian universities, read here ...)

The other question that Italians have been asked to consider is the repeal of the law that allows an embryo full legal rights, from the moment of conception ...

Thin ... Edge ... Wedge ...

Join the dots.

The culture of death. We were all embryos once. Say yes to life. And could you put some more cream on my back while you're at it?

Karmacoma

2005-06-06T16:28:00.000-05:00

I used to think the lyric from Massive Attack's Karmacoma was

D'ye make it in Roma?

That seemed right when we were planning on moving to Rome three years ago.

Looking at online lyrics doesn't clear up the confusion, e.g.

Jamaica an' Roma

Given Tricky's trippy texts, I'd go for

Jamaican aroma

However, since Mr B's been offered jobs both here and in Kingston, the lyric in my head is

Karmacoma
Jamaica or Roma?
Karmacoma
Jamaica or Roma?

Input appreciated ...

Seven million in movement

2005-06-02T02:32:00.000-05:00

Today is a national holiday in Italy. The streets are empty and offices and shops are closed. Peace reigns in the city.

Except in my street, which is full of soldiers in ceremonial dress.
Except in my office, which is business as usual.
Except there are two helicopters circling overhead, filming the military parade, which is coordinated by a man with big feathers in his helmet and screaming into an even bigger megaphone.

On the other hand, I could be stuck in monster traffic jams as seven million Italians hit the roads, making a holiday "bridge" from today over to the weekend. According to reports, one million of the holidaymakers are mothers and children leaving on a holiday that could last all summer!

Giscard should have put that in the European Constitution and no one would be crying now.

References
7 milioni Italiani in movimento
«Les Français voteront oui» (Giscard d'Estaing)
EU Rejects Constitution, Constitution Rejects Europe (satire)

Yes we have no buses

2005-06-01T15:23:00.000-05:00

As Roman Wanderer mentioned recently, Rome's public transport network has ~~shot~~ trundled into the 21st century with its new electronic bus-stops that give you second-by-second updated timetables, aided by GPS satellite tracking.

Example: Today strike. Next bus in 7.5 hours.

I caught this scab in flagrante delicto. Note the apposite name for the Rome public transport authority: ATAC.

What caught my attention more was the ad on the back of the bus. It's pretty ... revealing.

I've masked the name of the product, but see if you can guess what it is for.

At the lake

2005-05-31T02:33:00.000-05:00

"Is it summer today?"
"Can we go swimming today?"
"I want to go to the beach!"

Until last weekend, our kids had had to make do with hosing each other down on the balcony when they got too hot. But there was no denying it last week that summer was finally here.

And when Rome gets hot, Romans go to the beach. All three million of them. At the same time. On the same road. Need I say more?

When we first visited Italy three years ago, we stayed by chance at Lake Bracciano, an hour's drive north of Rome. Since then it has become our favourite summer destination. It's never busy. The water is clean (it supplies drinking water to Rome). There are no motor boats allowed on the water, so it's always very quiet. The surrounding countryside is stunningly beautiful. There is also one of my favourite restaurants just by the beach, La Vela, which serves fresh fish from the lake and seafood from the coast, 30 minutes away.

Our kids play in the water the whole day.

This will give you some idea of what I'm talking about - Lake Bracciano panorama

U Ria

2005-05-30T04:16:00.000-05:00

Today's post is in Preston.

Soft bottom trawling

2005-05-25T04:51:00.000-05:00

Editing technical documents occasionally (very occasionally) produces some chuckles, especially if you have a sense of humour in arrested development:

Instrumentation for bottom characterization
Grabs and cores provide quantitative samples, but are not suitable for patchy distributed fauna of low abundance. Cameras are the only sampling method used on rough bottoms.

Section 3 promises an exposure of

Otter trawling on hard bottom habitats with erect structures

Can't wait for the search engines to pick up on that one.

Volpetti's

2005-05-24T14:44:00.000-05:00

When you first enter the shop, the smell of cheese and ham is overpowering.

Volpetti's: probably the best deli in Rome; definitely one of the main reasons we're still here, particularly since it's only a ten-minute walk from our house. We eat at their self-service restaurant, Volpetti più, at least once a week. So after almost three years we get great service to go with the great food - exchange of pleasantries, extra goodies for the kids, gluten-free meal for my son, lasagne hot from the oven and a complimentary glass of bardolino.

A final point in its favour is that it opens at 5:30, which suits our northern European routine of eating before 9:00. (Our kids are in bed when most Italian kids are eating dinner.)

For such extraordinary food, the restaurant is surprisingly unpretentious: self-service, plastic cloths on the tables and cheap metal chairs. The crowd is unpretentious too, mainly locals from the neighbourhood, Testaccio, a traditional working-class area built around the defunct city slaughterhouse, converted into a mediateque.

Testaccio is one of my favourite quarters of Rome. Its market is as colourful as the more famous one at Campo di Fiori, but the prices are lower. One of the stalls sells only tomatoes - 42 different varieties.

When the slaughterhouse was the main employer in the neighbourhood, the workers were given the cheap cuts as a perk of the job. This is why many of the restaurants boast of their ... tripe specialities.

After a dinner of sweetbread, you can go round Monte Testaccio to one of the many clubs built into the base of the hill, which is itself made entirely from pottery shards.

"Toto, I've a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore."

You better believe it, baby.

Coblogsitting

2005-05-23T03:39:00.000-05:00

I'm co-blogsitting for Tim while he's on holiday, so today's post is here.

Coblogsitting - I'm going to add that to Neolang.

Zap mama

2005-05-20T02:15:00.000-05:00

It probably started in the playground. My daughter picked up that there were "cartoons on the television at six o'clock". We have a TV but only use it to watch tapes and DVDs. When her brother joined in the chant, "cartoons at six o'clock! Cartoons at six o'clock!" and they both started hanging on my legs like limpets, I gave in and got the cable for the aerial connection.

We've done this before: got excited that we might see something new only to be frustrated after ten minutes of zapping without finding anything of the slightest interest. The picture quality is crap too - only about five of the 30-odd channels are clear enough to watch without squinting through the snow.

Now it's well known that Italian television is really bad, with Z-list Italian celebs singing karaoke while busty showgirls pout and twirl. You know that and you don't need to see it again.

No, you don't.
(And if you came here after googling "busty+showgirls", you should look elsewhere.)

What you need to see is the really really bad stuff. So sit back and relax ...

... with the carpet channel.

I love the way the camera pans ever so slowly across the casually strewn carpets, before gently zooming in to show the tassle details or a delicate bounding goat motif. You have to turn the sound down, though, because Carpet Man never stops talking. Actually, there is a voice off screen that leads him on when he seems to be losing the thread: "So this one also has a super 50 plus 10 percent discount, is that right?" "Yes! Yes!" replies the Carpet Man with renewed vigour.

Of course, if you watch long enough, your critical faculties may become so numbed that you might want to buy a carpet.

ZAP!!!

No fear of a compulsive purchase here ...

The new and exciting feature of the Fun Stepper is its unique oblique foot-and-ankle double workout! Which is good ... because ... my ankles are fat?

Note that your legs also have a better tan with the super Fun Stepper.

ZAP!!!

Art! It's hideous but there's a 40 percent discount!!

ZAP!!!

Laura holds the future in her tarot cards. Calls cost € 1.86 per minute only. Maximum forty minutes (€74.40 ! [convert]).

One thing you can be sure about is that Laura will deal out those cards niiice and sloooww.

"I see you will have some significant expenses in the near future ... O Dio! Is that forty minutes already?"

ZAP!!!

AAAAAAGGHHHH!!!
.
.
.
.
.
Meanwhile, out on the balcony ...

I feel like I win when I lose

2005-05-17T04:42:00.000-05:00

If you want to get ahead, grrrls, get thee to Sweden.

Surprised? You shouldn't be. The World Economic Forum's Report on Women's Empowerment, published today, makes for predictable reading overall: Nordic countries in the top five places, Islamic countries at the bottom. There are some surprises in the details, however, such as the Netherlands at #42 (out of 58) position for educational attainment; the United States at #46 for economic opportunity; and Italy's overall #45 position - behind Zimbabwe and well behind Bangladesh. Mamma mia!

These web graphics of the top and bottom positions are good illustrations of the place of women in the respective countries.

So perhaps it's time to brush up your Swedish ...

Jo, jo, vid Waterloo Napoleon fick ge sej
men, Men, sitt öde kan man
möta p s mnga skilda sätt
själv känner jag, sen jag mött dej
historien upprepar sej.

Then again ...

They're a funny old bunch, the Swedes - no BS or mind games, which carries over to raising their kids. I recently told a Swedish friend, Greta, about my daughter's losing her first tooth and the 100 moneys (eurocents) left by the fairy. Greta had always told her daughters that there was no Santa Claus, no tooth fairy, that it was all mum and dad so don't have any illusions, kids. (I confess I felt a lump in my throat.) This had been fine with her first daughter, but the second, going to international school, insisted that the tooth fairy come for her first tooth. When the moment came, her parents forgot to do the deed and were woken the next morning with a wailing child: "the fairy forgot to take my tooth! And I didn't get any money!"

While the father distracted her, the mother quickly made the switch and said, "why don't you look again?" Hmmm. The girl was temporarily mollified but the fairy business was beginning to look a little unreliable. She frowned and said, "I want my tooth back. You kept Freya's (her sister) first tooth and I want mine. I want the fairy to bring it back!"

So while the girl was at school, the father was supposed to get her tooth from the memory box where they had kept both girls' first teeth. Of course, he took one of the older sister's teeth by mistake, a huge molar with a hole in it. When the younger one came home and found it under her pillow, she screamed, "The fairy's brought the wrong tooth back! Where's MY tooth?!"

Since then, the tooth fairy has been dismissed from the household because of gross incompetence and has never been mentioned again.

Bad Friday

2005-05-13T16:10:00.000-05:00

I passed a woman in the street this evening. She was quite heavily built, in her 40s, wearing a shapeless skirt and flowery blouse with a crumpled collar. She had put down her bulging bags of shopping and was leaning wearily against a wall, with an air of complete dejection, her face hidden in the crook of her arm. I overhead her talking on the phone.

No, I can't.
...
I just can't!!
...
I'm covered in chocolate and stuff!

I turned back and stared.

She wasn't.

One step forward

2005-05-12T14:45:00.000-05:00

Read the following extract from an impassioned speech by Stephen Lewis, UN Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa:

Just a few weeks ago, I was in Zambia, visiting a district well outside of Lusaka. We were taken to a rural village to see an "income generating project" run by a group of Women Living With AIDS. They were gathered under a large banner proclaiming their identity, some fifteen or twenty women, all living with the virus, all looking after orphans. They were standing proudly beside the income generating project … a bountiful cabbage patch. After they had spoken volubly and eloquently about their needs and the needs of their children (as always, hunger led the litany), I asked about the cabbages. I assumed it supplemented their diet? Yes, they chorused. And you sell the surplus at market? An energetic nodding of heads. And I take it you make a profit? Yes again. What do you do with the profit? And this time there was an almost quizzical response as if to say what kind of ridiculous question is that … surely you knew the answer before you asked: "We buy coffins of course; we never have enough coffins".

Click here for the full speech.
The Stephen Lewis Foundation is here.

It makes me wanna holler sometimes,
The way they do you wrong.
Makes me wanna holler sometimes,
And throw up both my hands ...
- Gil Scott Heron

Photo source

4 mega bint - working group

2005-05-10T04:12:00.000-05:00

Below is a summary of the main points raised at the abovementioned meeting.

Attendance:
P. Collina (Chair)
E. Corini
G. Buffon
C. Vieri
F. Totti
M. D'Agata (rapporteur)

1. Regarding reactions and results of the recent Telecom Italia campaign, Mr Collina reported that sales of cable had experienced a positive boost but that actual new subscriptions to Telecom's Internet service had been disappointing. The Chair stressed that future copy should be more on-message but with out-of-the-box thinking.

2. Mr Buffon noted that Libero had requested a new novel and innovative proposal for its 4 megabit flat-rate ADSL service.

3. Mr Corini suggested 10-foot-high blocks spelling out "4 mega". It was noted that one couldn't get much more bloody on-message than that.

4. Mr Vieri proposed that a tall, bleached-blond model in a skimpy silver-lamé dress and stilettos, her hand casually pulling up the skirt

5. The working group applauded and adjourned for lunch.

6. Mr Totti added a pear.

XS XL

2005-05-09T02:51:00.000-05:00

Having cleared out my wardrobe of winter clothes, there were gaping spaces just crying out to be filled, so we went shopping. Here's what I picked up.

In Benetton, I had to wait for 90 minutes to pay for a summer dress for my daughter. There was no queue, but there was no one to take my money either. All five staff were grouped round a table, refolding T-shirts angrily and giving smouldering scowls at anyone who came within range. I caught a glimpse of a woman waiting outside the changing rooms. She had a classic look, that of a homely witch, with a huge barrel-shaped body, hairy wart on her chin and electro-shocked black hair. She looked like Hazel Witch without the hat. Moments later, her daughter (about ten years old) came out wearing a cute white cotton blouse. She looked EXACTLY like her mother! She spun round in front of the full-length mirror admiring herself. Her mother laughed happily and shouted over to one of the sales women, "Are you sure that's an XL??"

In Coin department store, there was a queue for the swimsuit changing rooms. I'm absolutely not fattist but I sometimes think there should be a professional mother-type outside the changing rooms vetting what goes in with whom. She could just roll her eyes or purse her lips. In the absence of such a mute arbiter, I watched a well-built girl come out and give a twirl in a skin-tight top - it looked like a sausage liner round her waist and showed a suspension bridge bra strap across her back. Her boyfriend's eyes also bulged when she said, "You know what? I think I need the XS."

As more girlfriends squeezed into the changing rooms and the queue got no shorter, I snuck across to the children's section changing rooms. As part of our cunning plan, Mr B grabbed a couple of kid's dungarees and stood guard nonchalantly outside.

On leaving Coin, I noticed their department guide* on the wall:

Uomo
Donna
Accessori
Coinbambini
Futility
Futility Office

Futility Office. I LIKE it - honest and direct.

* I was going to call it a drop-down menu.
And sometimes when I'm scanning a text on paper, I mentally think of doing CTRL-F.

All's well, now eat up

2005-05-05T03:03:00.000-05:00

Little Maria Francesca (5 years old) can once again hug her dog Ribbon, whose disappearance yesterday had made her stop eating for days. "I'm so happy," said the girl, "now I will never leave my 'little brother' again. I thought I had lost him forever." The dog was found at Tiburtina Station thanks to the mobilization of the City Hall Office of Animal Rights and a joint police sting operation. It had been taken by a Rom tramp.

Your comments:
Stop eating for days?? Gimme a break! She missed one meal, and that was because she didn't like it. She never eats any vegetables. I try my best! I'm not a bad mother!!
- anonymous

That crazy lady gave me 20 Euros to take the dog but I didn't know how to make it sleep with the fishes. Can I go now?
- anonymous Rom

News in brief

2005-05-04T03:07:00.000-05:00

From today's Metro paper

DOG
She hasn't eaten for 24 hours since her beloved dog, "Ribbon", disappeared in front of Manin school in Esquilino. Bereft of hope, the mother of the 5-year-old bimba has offered a 500 euro reward for finding the dog.

Mother locked up by grown son
After the umpteenth argument in months, a Spinaceto man locked his 75-year-old mother in her bedroom. She managed to escape out the window and got help. The Carabinieri arrested her 45-year-old son, who had destroyed walls and furniture in the apartment.

As the man was dragged away in cuffs, I heard him sob, "I know she sold my dog ... Ribbon, where are yoouu?"

Barf out!

2005-04-29T04:39:00.000-05:00

If you're in Birmingham, UK, this Sunday, why not try ... competitive eating?

Gag me with a spoon!

Check out the "Bib sheet" of champion speed eater Sonya Thomas.

"I can eat anything I want and never seem to gain a pound!" she giggles.

Word of the day: bulimia

!@#$%^&*()_+

I had an orgiastic 36 hours in Paris last weekend and spent much of the time enjoying sloooww eating, at Le Connetable, Montparnasse 1900 and the Taghit, in my old stomping ground.

More frenzied was our stop at FNAC, grabbing hard-to-P2P CDs with both hands
Kirikou et la sorcière

Dimanche à Bamako

Maiorais

Cru

Calypso @ Dirty Jim's

60 years since the fall of Salò

2005-04-28T04:25:00.000-05:00

The roads round the office are closed today and tomorrow while soldiers square-bash in the sports ground next door. Piano! Piano!! (Softly! Softly!!) screams the drill master through his megaphone, while the incessant thump of the drums bounces off our walls. All this in preparation for the Festa dell'Esercito Italiano (Celebration of the Italian Army) next week.

The sound of things martial reminded me that 60 years ago today, Mussolini met his end and was then strung up like a chicken in Piazzale Loreto, Milan, on the same spot where 15 partisans had been executed two years earlier.

The infamous photo is attributed to the father of former Benetton enfant provocateur, Oliviero Toscani.

For a superb personal account of the times, read A Childhood in Nazi-Occupied Italy.

On a lighter note, it feels like summer is well on its way with glorious cerulean skies and the first sightings of sunblistered tourists.

Bye-bye I'm back

2005-04-21T09:24:00.000-05:00

In many languages, the same word can be used to say hello and goodbye (aloha, salut, shalom or dag, for example). In Italian, ciao has a similar double-ended function. Curiously, the word originates from Venetian and used to form part of the longer expression, "I am your slave". These days, it is the easiest word that everyone knows, and every phone call seems to end the same way:

Ciao-ciao ciao
Si mamma ciao
Si ciao
Ciao

After his recent drubbing at the polls, Italian prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, resigned yesterday ... and immediately began the horse-trading negotiations with his coalition partners to form a new government. Confused? Don't worry, it's normal. By national law, the government must fall before any reshuffle can take place. This is one of the reasons why there have been 59 governments since the Second World War and why this Mr B's coalition is the longest in power since Mussolini.

Continuing the theme of repetition, I have a funny anecdote for you.

My parents lost 150 Euros to a pair of confidence tricksters two days ago in the park behind the Colosseum. One little old guy came up to them with a big map and mumbled a question about getting to Castel Sant'Angelo. Immediately after, a second, burlier man approached and flashed his "police badge".

"Don't listen to this man," the policeman warned my parents, "He's a crook".

The "policeman" demanded the first man's ID and checked his wallet before shooing him away. He then asked for my parents' ID and wallet (?), checked them briefly and handed them back. It only took a second and my father swore he was watching him carefully, but after they went on their way, they double-checked their money and saw 150 Euros had gone.

So far, not funny at all.

The following day, my parents were waiting for me near our house when lo and behold the same little old man approached them with his big map. As the accomplice approached, my father shouted, "Oi!! I want my 150 Euros back!" The con men suddenly remembered ("Merda!!!") and ran off.

We imagined other ways it could have ended, but this was perhaps the simplest and the funniest.

Lest we forget

2005-04-20T05:02:00.000-05:00

Cartoon by the ever-sharp Zapiro, originally published in the Sowetan (Web site inexplicably suspended at time of posting).

At night all cats are black

2005-04-20T02:56:00.000-05:00

The sound of the bell last night found me on my hands and knees with Mr B in the kitchen, mopping up the water pouring out of the dishwasher. Bathos is the word here, I think.

Apparently, the television pictures around the world showed the smoke for ten minutes without comment - against the gloaming sky, the colour was unclear: CNN called it black, while ANSA, the Italian news agency, called it white. People in St Peter's Square alternately cheered and stood silently in confusion. The bell ringing was one of JPII's posthumous wishes, to resolve this ambiguity. When habemus papum was announced an hour later, the response was also ambiguous, a mix of joy and disappointment, even anger. Although he wasn't a favourite at the bookies, his recent high profile speeches might have tipped us off, for example, his repetition of the the words, "Follow me" at JPII's funeral. His pre-conclave sermon about the "dictatorship of relativism" was also a reminder of why one of his nicknames is "The Enforcer". Who knows what went on in the Sistine Chapel.

The best I've heard this morning is that he's a transitional Pope, that the next one will be a non-European. It sounds like me talking to my kids: "I promise you can wear your summer dress soon". Of course, the likelihood of hot weather in Rome is pretty certain and pretty soon. I can't say the same for the next Pope.

Does the Pope shit in the woods?

You bet.

Place your bets @ popebetting.com

2005-04-19T03:47:00.000-05:00

The odds-on favourite for a papacy prophecy double: Francis Arinze (Nigeria) will choose the name Benedict. For a long shot, try Cardinal Polycarp Pengo will choose the name D'Wayne, oh not on the list. Damian, then, at 100-1.

Hold on! Haven't any of the Cardinals seen The Omen??!

Of course, as Paddy Power points out,

According to prophecies, we are in the days of the end of the Papacy and the Catholic Church.

In which case, all bets will be declared null and void, they should add.

While the Cardinals discuss the role of the Church in a material world with its "dictatorship of relativism" (Ratzinger), you can pass the time with this:

Sexy :: Saintly

2005-04-14T08:13:00.000-05:00

I didn't manage to get a photo of these two posters side-by-side in our street before they peeled off and fell to the ground in a soggy mush.

It was quite a striking juxtaposition.

Still, by the "miracle" of Photoshop ...

Thank goodness they never met wearing the same outfit.

FYI the original and far more impressive photo of the Pope, by AFP photographer Gabriel Bouys, can be found here, with the story behind the image.

Is it over?

2005-04-14T03:52:00.000-05:00

busy busy busy! no time to post ...

The rumourmongers and naysayers (moi?) were proved wrong last Friday when Rome did not crumble and disappear under the crush of four million pilgrims for the Pope's funeral. It helped that there were far fewer visitors than predicted (less than two million, certainly). I live just down from Circo Massimo, which had been kitted out as a campsite with a giant videoscreen, and barely noticed any change from usual. I passed a dozen Poles by the Metro and the traffic was slightly lighter (despite a TOTAL BAN on vehicles in the area!). Heh, everyone wants inflated figures in this instance - the Vatican (See! We are still relevant!) and the media (a neverending human tide of the faithful swamps news channels - "Whose turn is it for the Rome junket?").

As an eyewitness, I estimate there were only a few thousand at Circo Massimo, and most of them were Papaboys.

I found the ceremony itself quite dignified although I cringed at Cardinal Ratzinger's cheesy theatrics, pointing to the window from where the Pope used to give his blessing,

We can be sure that our beloved Pope is standing today at the window of the Father's house, that he sees us and blesses us.

Perhaps, strike that, I know I'm a cynic in these matters, but it was cheesy because it was artificial. It looked as if he was reading someone else's words and only remembered to raise his hand to point when he saw it written in the script.

Kudos maximus (ahem) to the Civil Protection agency. They managed the crowds superbly and gave lie to the oxymoron Italian organization.

One of their novel ideas was to send text messages to every mobile phone, warning them not to go near the Vatican (see previous post). The day after the funeral, I overheard a Roman grumbling that it had been a cunning plan to allow the Poles to get the best places. (Mamma mia!)

The crowds at the Vatican were certainly not all Polish, given the number of huge banners demanding Santo subito! (immediate sainthood) for the Pope. I had already anticipated a rash of miracles attributed to JPII within a few days, but apparently they had already started being reported before he died.

Father Maksymilian knew a woman in Ukraine with a battered television set which hadn't worked for two years. When the Pope visited the country, she was desperate to witness it on television, but was too scared to ask her Russian Orthodox neighbours to let her watch their set - religious rivalries run deep in Ukraine. Suddenly, just as the Pope was arriving in the country, her broken-down TV whirred into life. It continued to work for his entire stay, then died again. "Really, the set was garbage," says Father Maksymilian, concluding his case.
- The Guardian

Whirred into life? Perhaps she had just forgotten to wind it up.

We've got red states too

2005-04-07T16:37:00.001-05:00

Overheard while waiting in the queue to see the Pope lying in state:

Bush: Hey Silvio, way to go! You got red states just like me back home!

Berlusconi: *cough* Idiot! *cough*

Read Reuters' report.

Lock down

2005-04-07T02:44:00.000-05:00

While millions are heading towards Rome, many Romans are heading out before the city is locked down tomorrow with the closure of both airports and many major roads out of town. Judging by the ease with which I managed to find a parking space this morning, many have already left. In our office, tomorrow has been declared a "non-working day", which seems like grudging euphemism for a day off. It's our daughter's sixth birthday, so we're ecstatic to be able to spend the whole day with her. We moved her party from Friday to Saturday because of the anticipated chaos.

Other signs of impending social collapse include the convoy of Red Cross ambulances from Palermo that I got stuck in this morning. I felt like I'd cut into a funeral cortège - that's a big no-no, isn't it?

The night was filled with wailing sirens ripping through the darkness at high speed. The single sirens were ambulances; the multiple ones were convoys bringing the 200 "big", as the local press calls them, to the Vatican, i.e. Bush and Co.

There is a constant stream of stories coming out about the faint rate in the queues, or how long people have been waiting with small children.

"These people are a living witness to the theology of sacrifice," he said. "They are showing John Paul with their bodies that they understood."

Rev. Jonathan Morris, an American priest working in Rome

The doors to the Basilica were closed at 22:00 last night.

I've also been receiving mysterious sms (text messages) from "Protezione civile" warning me about what clothing to wear during the day and at night. The latest message says the centre is closed to all traffic, that St Peter's Piazza is full and that there are giant screens in other piazzas and in Tor Vergata. Somehow I don't think the two million Poles will be content with watching a video screen at a university campus in a godforsaken suburb stuck outside the city limits.

Another mystery is the reported jump in Lotto ticket sales, up 20% in Naples. Whenever there is a significant event, people get twitchy about the twilight zone, or in this case, that great Italian tradition of getting money without having to work for it. The numbers they're playing? 21-37-48

Can you guess what they represent?

Cover up or rip off?

2005-04-06T04:44:00.000-05:00

I was out early on Sunday morning to buy cornetti at the corner café. I noticed a new wall of posters by the tramlines. I didn't recognize the huge close up of an old man.

I first thought it was the Pope, but when I saw the name and logo in the corner (Executive Committee of the Democratic Left), I dismissed the idea and guessed it must be some union leader or anti-fascist partisan.

Shortly after I realized that my first intuition had been correct. Why had I hesitated? First because it is such an unusual photo of the Pope - just the gentle face of an old man, without any indication of office or any religious symbols. Second, because I didn't imagine the Left putting up such an image, the first "street" acknowledgement of the Pope's death.

During the following night, every single poster was vandalized. Most had a white band stuck on the bottom, to cover the association with the Left; others had the offending corner crudely ripped off. What organization! Who could have done it? Radical leftists disgusted by their Executive? Officials enforcing an obscure law on exploiting religion on election day? (Sunday was the regional election.) Or anti-leftists who were outraged that the first ones to pay tribute to the Pope were non-believers?

Whatever the case, the following days have seen a profusion of new posters, each outdoing the other in images of piety and devotion, for example, the Pope at prayer beneath a glowing Christ raising three fingers or as a shrunken figure in his huge golden pontifical robes.

Bad timing

2005-04-06T04:01:00.000-05:00

I can imagine the frustration among the editors of tabloid magazines such as Chi and Gente (read Hello! and People): the Pope, Prince Rainier of Monaco and Saul Bellow all dead the same week.

Look out for the full-page blurry photo op of the Nobel laureate in next week's issue.

An unfortunate juxtaposition

2005-04-05T04:23:00.000-05:00

On the way to work yesterday, I picked up one of the free "newspapers" that are the main source of written information for most commuters. The paper, Leggo, was once recommended to me as being the most newsworthy of the freebies.

Here's the breakdown of yesterday's paper: ten of the 24 pages are ads; four pages are about the Pope; one page of "news" (e.g. Stoccardo man dismembered by samurai sword); three pages of Entertainment & Society; one of games and horoscopes; four pages of sports; and one of TV schedules.

Italians are not great readers.

In response, I've heard Italians say, "The British read so much, they sometimes forget to wash."

My coworker, R2OB1, just reminded me how difficult it is to find current Italian literature. One of the first books she read in Italian was presented as a Bridget Jones-type novel and came with a bookmark from Nescafé. Every few pages, the characters would stop for a ... Nescafé, and all the places they went to in Milan were marked on a fold-out map at the end of the book: "Where to find Nescafé in Milan".

In all fairness to Italy, however, reading stats are pretty grim for other countries too (US, UK and Italy). By coincidence, the European regional meeting on literacy ends today (link).

What got me started on this post were two bizarre examples of English from the free paper yesterday. The first was the headline,

Mega camping per i Papa Boys

about hosting the anticipated masses of youth (boys only?) heading for Rome this week. The odd choice of words would set off alarm bells in English-speaking countries.

The other bizarre example was this unfortunate juxtaposition of words and image.

The eyes have it

2005-04-05T03:56:00.000-05:00

Italian regional election results

** Lazio (my region): Francesco Storace (centre right) 47,4%, Piero Marrazzo (centre left) 50,7% (Reuters)

For my regular reader(s), Storace was eligible candidate #1 and Marrazzo was #2 in my image election.

(Country voting graphic to follow)

I had a dream

2005-04-04T04:20:00.000-05:00

Last night I had one of those long, extraordinarily vivid dreams, where I can go off on tangents within the dream (the fabric of her robes and how she addressed the Ambassador), but I can always return to the strong central narrative. As often happens, the details began to fade as soon as I awoke.

However, I can remember the main idea. The new Pope was a woman. She was of French nationality but of north African origin. Her election was unchallenged and popular with non-Catholics. In her first speech, to dignitaries, she singled out the (also female) Ambassador of a communist or non-Catholic African country (the details blur here). I enjoyed the dream a lot. It was only when I woke up that I remembered she couldn't be elected because there aren't any female cardinals. Oh wait, there aren't any female priests either. Duh.

It reminded me of a joke, originally about Jesse Jackson.

An African nun praying.

- Oh Lord, how long before we have an African Pope?
-Not in your lifetime, replies God.
-And how long before we have a female Pope?
-Not in my lifetime.

Mush to mush

2005-04-04T02:41:00.000-05:00

The final post about election posters. Previous posts:

I'm a patriot, you're a nationalist, he's a terrorist ...

Tits 'n' bums, kids 'n' mums

Mug shots
No pictures please

As I had predicted, the posters were stuck on top of each other, dozens of them, and the edges started to peel. They then fell to the ground in a crumpled mess and turned to mush in the rain.

No pictures please

2005-03-31T02:17:00.000-05:00

The fourth of five posts about Italian election posters. One more tomorrow, then I swear I'll stop boring you with pictures of Italian wannabe politicos and start boring you with [insert wry self-deprecation which commenters will contradict in a spontaneous outpouring of admiration for my wit and insight].

In a desperate attempt at novelty among all the headshots of middle-aged men grinning inanely for your vote, there is now the anti-image candidate who only shows the back of his head.
Meet Gerri.
I don't know why, but I suspect he isn't wearing any shoes with that pin-striped suit.

According to Italian law, as of one month before the election date, posters can only be of a certain maximum size. Any larger posters still remaining after this date are unceremoniously covered up.

Isn't this a great country?

There hasn't been the same rash of red noses that hit most of the political posters last year.

I hope you've been taking notes
After all my babble about these posters, I leave the final candidate's picture to you. Discuss.

Via Crucis

2005-03-30T04:29:00.000-05:00

Talking of creepy images (see yesterday), here's a few from the "Way of the Cross" ceremony at the Colosseum last Friday night.

Glow in the dark priests
I had to attach my special "Righteous light" filter to get this effect.

Creepy people
A group of tiny Paraguayan hitmen from Opus Dei performing an initiation rite.
The main event inside the Colosseum
Broadcast on giant video screens to us plebs outside the Colosseum.

The burning cross
Not at all disturbing? Maybe it's just my own hangup with flaming torch parades (Nuremburg!) , hooded cloaks and burning crosses (KKK!).

The Pope watching TV
Only backshots, to hide the breathing tube inserted in his recent tracheotomy operation.

He looked very lonely.

Mug shots

2005-03-29T03:22:00.000-05:00

The mug shots of the hopeful candidates at the regional elections stare out from every wall. You can imagine how often they must have practised the look in front of the bathroom mirror or with their Image Mentor: the look that shows compassionate strength, humble success and honest cunning. A man for all seasons, never mind the oxymorons and newspeak.

Looking at these heads, I was reminded by Cesare Lombroso's work on associating appearance and immoral or criminal behaviour (see two excellent articles here and here). It may be pseudoscience ... but look at this creepy guy!

Wasn't that once Michael Jackson's nose? And what about the lip gloss and glow-in-the-dark teeth? In later posters and on his website, his Image Mentor has clearly photoshopped his skin tones to try and make the living dead pallor less obvious.

Also on his website is a handy animation on how to vote.

An even more hilarious candidate website is here. What the hell does she think she's doing? Modelling for an 80s retro show? What does that oh-so-casual hand to her face signify? "Gosh, Mr Deputy Regional Oversights Auditor, have you been working out?" Maybe she's hiding a growth.

Her mission statement reads like a speech by a beauty queen ... I want to take part in the prevention of the AIDS, the fight against hunger and the diseases that decimate thousands of children and improve the lives of the old, disabled, poor and sick. ("Shouldn't we mention the puppies?")

In the selfless spirit of improving the quality of our representatives, I include the following checklist from Lombroso ... to help you eliminate the degenerates and feeble-minded from the list of candidates.

Unusually short or tall height
Small head, but large face
Small and sloping forehead
Receding hairline
Wrinkles on forehead and face
Large sinus cavities or bumpy face
Large, protruding ears
Bumps on head, particularly the Destructiveness Centre above left ear
Protuberances (bumps) on head, in back of head and around ear
High cheek bones
Bushy eyebrows, tending to meet across nose
Large eyesockets, but deepset eyes
Beaked nose (up or down) or flat nose
Strong jawline
Fleshy lips, but thin upper lip
Mighty incisors, abnormal teeth
Small or weak chin
Thin neck
Sloping shoulders, but large chest
Long arms
Pointy or snubbed fingers or toes
Tattoos on body

Put the two leading candidates to the test. It's a little tricky because you can't feel the bumps or see the tattoos of a naked woman mudwrestling a dragon, but give it a go. Based on the image they choose to present, who would you vote for?

---------------------------------------------------
Previous posts on election posters:
I'm a patriot, you're a nationalist, he's a terrorist ...
Tits 'n' bums, kids 'n' mums

The meaning of life

2005-03-24T07:33:00.000-05:00

A Reuter's report of yesterday:

Feel like a cup of tea, but don't have the time to brew one up? Pop a "tea pill" instead.

Why would I do that? Isn't the whole point about tea that you actually take the time to make it then blow and sip it slowly, sit back and relax for ten minutes?

The inventors say the pill "peps you up just like a traditional cuppa."

Hey, if you want to get pepped and can't wait for the kettle to boil, try crystal meth.

Me, I'm stickin' with tea, old school.

- Disgruntled b.o.f., Rome

At least it's not rinderpest

2005-03-21T03:41:00.000-05:00

I've been ill for the last ten days. I should have recognized the warning sign when I lost my voice two weeks ago. Still I soldiered on for five more days until I got a fever which sent me thrashing around in bed, delirious and raving for what seemed like several days, but in fact it was only four hours. After that, I had a gamut of influenza-like symptoms, including queasiness, aching bones, scratchy throat and generally feeling quite crapulous. The kids had a milder version and were back at school by Thursday. I stayed home the whole week, although I did sneak out to the Escher exhibition on Friday.

(Tip to visitors: the Capitoline Museum has a great cafe with a fantastic view from the terrace.)

I've since been told that I had una cattiva influenza (definition: a bad, naughty or wicked 'flu) and that half our service had been off last week. I checked out the range of this naughty naughty 'flu and found that I got mine just after it peaked in Italy. You can check out the rest of Europe or the US. It's reassuring to know you're not suffering alone.

Since we're on the subject, I can report that I have bought the T-shirt I mentioned previously, together with a new addition to the collection.

They're great quality cotton, cost €15 a pop and will certainly stand out from the other slogans doing the rounds this month. It's a serious business, too. Rinderpest never makes it into the headlines but is one of the reasons for the lack of economic development in affected areas. Imagine your enterprise wiped out by disease. All you know is that business and you have to start from scratch with no capital reserve or possibility of low-interest loans. It's not a question of bad management or corruption, just entrepreneurs trying to follow best economic practice. They don't need Paul Wolfowitz to tell them how to manage their herds [/rant].

We're on the case.

I'm just waiting for the African Animal Trypanosomiasis edition to come out to complete this season's collection.

Oh no ... I've won!

2005-03-16T14:53:00.000-05:00

The BBC ran a competition last month as part of the London African Music Festival. The prize was a pair of tickets for the concert of your choice and when I saw that the legendary Malian guitarist, Boubacar Traoré, was playing, I entered the competition, not thinking about the practicality of getting there from Rome. The BBC e-mailed me last Friday to tell me I'd won. Damn! I couldn't find a cheap flight (when can you?) for less than €180. More than I can afford for a concert - even a free one, I wrote back.

No. There's no happy ending. I've passed the tickets on to my sister.

*sniff*

To find out more about this wonderful musician, see here - be sure to check out the photos of him as the man who introduced the twist into West Africa. The trailer is also worth seeing. If you want to hear a truly original artist and get hit with some desert soul in your home, buy his CDs.

The only consolation is that Bamako is still on my list of possible future posts, working on an ilitaracy illetteracy whatever programme for UNESCO. The Beirut job was cancelled (oh ... dear), but Noumea and Kingston are still looking good. Go Noumea!

Look at me! I'm alive!

2005-03-13T17:36:00.000-05:00

Today was the Rome Marathon, 10,000 people puffing and panting past my house ... three times as the course design would have it, at 2 kms, 35 kms and 40 kms. The start and finish is on the Fori Imperiali, next to the Colosseum. Our preparation for the event is limited to moving our car off the street the night before and being dressed and outside before the best runners have finished.

Marathon runners are not attractive to look at. Many of them look extremely unhealthy, with shrunken heads and scrawny limbs - and those are the serious runners. Oh the suffering they put themselves through, and for what? They seem to be running to prove to themselves that they are alive. I can think of better, more enjoyable ways of feeling alive, with much less risk of damaging your knees.

Just as we left the house, we saw the inflatable arch marking the 40 km mark beginning to collapse.

Two men were valiantly trying to keep it up with brooms (il genio italiano) but to no avail. The marathon quickly turned into an obstacle course as runners tried to climb over the arch, then were shepherded round to a mini-arch which then also collapsed on their heads, despite a return of the broom engineer.

Immediately after, we heard cries of Medico! and saw a man collapse by the road.

Various medical teams arrived within minutes and tried electrical defibrillation, then intubated him and put in an IV drip.

After that they continued pumping his heart for so long that I can't imagine he pulled through.

***update 16 Mar 2005***
He didn't.

Dove trovo il tasto "any"?

2005-03-10T04:05:00.000-05:00

The World Economic forum has just published its Global Information Technology Report 2004-2005 which assesses "the state of the networked readiness of 104 economies". Top of the charts is Singapore, where half the population is selling duty-free hi-tech stuff to the other half, and Iceland, where all six people know how to use a computer to check the weather forecast ("Oh no. Snow again."). Italy boasts the seventh largest economy in the world, yet in the Technology Report it is ranked 45, down from 28th place last year. Where's the money coming from? How many shoes can people buy? (This is a rhetorical question.) I reckon there's some fine Parmalat book-cooking going on.

The reality is that Italy is not very well connected. Given the choice, most Italians would prefer a new telefonino to chat to their girlfriends rather than a computer to surf the interweb. I'll give you two true stories, but you mustn't pass them on to the World Economic Forum or else Italy will be below Botswana next year.

Last year, I worked in a French Catholic school in Rome, run by Dominican nuns. The office had two secretaries, one who worked in the mornings only and the other who worked the afternoons. On the office computer were two files, yes, only two. One file belonged to the morning secretary, the other to the afternoon one. When I asked one of the secretaries to print off a copy of my contract, she opened her file and scrolled down ... down ... down ... to where she had added my contract. All her documents were in a single Word file.

The second story is also Catholic-related (hmm, Vatican City is not in the Report) and comes from the office of a cardinal. He was well past normal retirement age and had devoted his life to the Church, sacrificing the pleasures of cooking, cleaning and washing his clothes, which was all done by devoted nuns. He kept up a vast correspondence across the world but never wrote a letter himself, preferring to dictate to his secretary. The secretary had a computer but used it like a typewriter, hitting Enter at the end of each line. I once watched her work. She typed the letter, printed it out, filed the paper copy in one of the numerous filing cabinets, then deleted the text from the computer file. Gospel truth!

Et plus ça change ...

Techie: It's the latest generation of computers: 16 colours, with a fixed drive and mouse.
King's adviser: You should wait a bit. In 6 months it'll be half the price.

Little Odessa

2005-03-09T04:19:00.000-05:00

Rome is not as cosmopolitan a city as London or Paris, and almost the only obviously non-Italians in public view are windscreen cleaners, newspaper sellers and informal Prada sales reps, ever ready to scoop up their street wares in a sheet and leg it when the lookout signals police approaching. Yet Italy is the main gateway for European immigration: most move on further north, but many stay and take up the low-profile, low-status work most Italians would prefer not to do - cleaning, pumping gas and looking after their elderly parents, for example.

On Sundays, however, the parks and open spaces of Rome that tourists don't visit, fill with immigrant groups, each national or ethnic group claiming its own territory to recreate something of the homeland for an afternoon. Walk around the Termini station district and you will first pass a group of Moroccans, then Albanians, Senegalese, Peruvian, Filipinos, and so on - round the world in an hour or two.

[Eastern Europeans probably make up the largest immigrant group in Italy, particularly Albanians and Romanians. There is a particular antipathy among Italians towards Slavs - geographical proximity breeds contempt, perhaps. My friend Petar was once introduced by his Italian neighbours to another Italian couple thus: "He's Croat ... but it's OK because his wife is British." This was said without any hint of irony. Such prejudice is commonplace and banal.]

My own neighbourhood is host to the Ukrainian community of Rome. There is no particular reason why they meet here, but the force of their Sunday presence has begun to take more permanent status as phone centres open on Via Ostiense, advertising the lowest call rates to Ukraine. A Ukrainian couple has bought the café by the bus station at Piramide. When I went to pick up my sister last Friday at 5 a.m., it was already (still?) open, a warm glow in the dark, blasting out songs from the homeland for the early shift workers.

In the supermarket at Ostiense station, the manager has expanded his market niche from selling cheap beer to the drunks in the station carpark, to stocking Ukrainian speciality products, putting up signs in the supermarket in both Ukrainian and Italian. It's the only supermarket open on Sunday morning and is chocka with people getting last minute items for their Sunday picnic in the park. Most of the men just buy beer, Italian beer rather than the more expensive Baltika imports. The atmosphere is happy and relaxed in the anticipation of free time with friends (very different from Vit's experience in Portugal).

When the shopping's done, they move on to the park opposite our house, and spread their picnics out on the benches. They stand in small groups, talking, eating and drinking for hours, occasionally breaking off to form impromptu choirs singing traditional folk songs and hymns. You can also get a haircut from one of the open-air hairdressers who has set up shop on a stone bench.

Towards the end of the afternoon, the alchohol begins to take its effect as mothers turn teary at the thought of their families back home, while young people turn up their car stereos and dance in the Post Office carpark to that Кгаzў Яосk 'л' Яоll мцzўkа.

International Women's Day

2005-03-08T03:12:00.000-05:00

“There is no tool for development more effective
than the empowerment of women”

Kofi Annan

Here are some of the issues the UN is dealing with:

Women and health – Often women have different and unequal access to and use of basic health resources, including primary health services for the prevention and treatment of childhood diseases, malnutrition, anaemia and health care during and after pregnancy.

Women in armed conflict – While entire communities suffer the consequences of armed conflict, women and girls are particularly affected because of their status in society and their gender.

Women and poverty – More than 1 billion people in the world today, the great majority of whom are women, live in conditions of extreme poverty, mostly in developing countries.

Violence against women – Women's lives continue to be endangered by violence that is directed at them simply because they are women. Violence against women knows no class, race, or age. It exists across all socio-economic groups and it is a daily phenomenon in the lives of women throughout the world.

Refugee women – Refugee women face ongoing violations of their human rights. Often, they are subject to unequal access to food, water, shelter and essential health care.

Trafficking of women – In countries all around the world, women and girls, desperate for economic opportunity, and seeking to follow their dreams of a better life, are lured from home by promises of jobs and security. However, they often find themselves trapped in a nightmare, forced into prostitution, imprisoned by employers, mistreated and sexually abused.

..................
Of course, it could all just be lies and propaganda (OMG!).

Still, it's good to know that help is just round the bend.

That's so thoughtful. Because it's all about helping people help themselves, right? To be free from violence, free from the fear of dying when giving birth, free to earn a fair wage to support your family. Thanks Uncle Sam!

All together!

There's a choice we're making
We're saving our own lives
It's true we'll make a better day
Just you and me

(I can't believe I quoted that, but admit it, you recognize the words.)

Comment if you knew it was International Women's Day
(read more about it ...)

eugh

2005-03-07T16:33:00.000-05:00

It's 10:30 and I'm going to bed already. I've got laryngitis and have been whispering all day. Everyone thinks it's hilarious. Before our editorial meeting this morning, I scribbled on 2 pieces of paper with a pink day-glo marker. The first said

I've lost my voice

and the second said,

Stop laughing!

They shoot heroes, don't they?

2005-03-07T03:33:00.000-05:00

Yesterday was the third car-free Sunday in Rome this year. Since we couldn't get out of town, we decided to go for a walk in the historic centre. We ended at the Vittorio Emmanuele Monument, otherwise known as the white typewriter. Although the kids had been complaining of tired legs, they insisted they wanted to climb up the steps.

As we got closer we saw that there were barriers at the entrance forming an orderly channel for the stream of people trying to get inside. There were dozens of police and vigili watching over the procession up the steps.

At the first level is the tomb to the unknown soldier, which held the attention of most of the foreign tourists; the Italians, however, headed higher up to the left, massing at the entrance to a makeshift chapel where the body of security agent, Nicola Calipari, was lying in state.
Only minutes after successfully negotiating the release of Italian hostage, Giuliana Sgrena, Calipari died while shielding Sgrena from "friendly fire" on the way to the airport. Said Sgrena,

The most difficult moment was when I saw
the person who had saved me
die in my arms.

Love rules without rules

2005-03-04T09:58:00.000-05:00

Italy! Land of creative design! Land of lurv!

Here's a card produced by Cecami, a renowned card company in Milan. I first thought it was a scissors-and-paste job by an eight-year-old girl for her parents, but no, it was a professionally made, commercially sold card. Can you imagine who would have bought it?

Well, as they say in Italy, "A woman who loves to be at the window is like a bunch of grapes on the wayside".

I have no idea what that means.

Leave the gun. Take the wasabi.

2005-03-03T08:27:00.000-05:00

>
>
>
>
>
T minus 30

I hadn't planned it this way, it's just that I had a sushi craving and then I started smearing on the wasabi and it came to me - a pre-emptive attack! If I've got to suffer jaw ache trying to hold my mouth open wider than it was ever intended, listen to that whining high-pitched drill, feel the grinding vibrations in my skull, smell the friction burns, almost choke on the water spray and my own blood, all while staring up into his nose?? Well he's going to need a face mask, 'cos when he gets a whiff of my wasabi, pickled ginger breath, he's going to speed up the operation a bit.

Fisherman's Friend, anyone?

Update: someone'd tipped him off. He already had the mask on when I arrived.

*aïe! aïe! aïe!*

A good job

2005-03-02T07:33:00.000-05:00

When my Scottish grandparents used to talk about their friends' offspring, they would say things like, "Aye, ye remember Sandy McDuffus' lassie, Moira, aye, she got a good job at the post office, y'know."

A good job at the post office. For my grandparents, who grew up in Glasgow between the wars, any job in an office was "a good job".

I was reminded of how relative job values are by the Bosnian woman who sits in the street all day near our office, with a sign and a bowl for money. Every day as I pass, she smiles and says, "Buon lavoro".

"Buon ... giorno", I reply.

It was 0° C when I took this picture at 08:30 this morning.

The other day, a friend of mine, Suzie, chatted to her in Croat. She had lost everything during the war and brought her family to Italy to seek a better life.

The woman asked Suzie what she was doing in Rome. "My husband works over there," she said, pointing over to the left. "Ohhhh, he works at the petrol station!" replied the woman, obviously impressed.

Suzie didn't have the heart to say that no, in fact he worked for the United Nations in the building just behind.

.
.
.
.
.
A good job at the petrol station.

Italy's finest

2005-03-01T00:08:00.000-05:00

Carabinieri are regularly voted to be the sexiest professionals in Italy, which compensates for their traditional image of being the stupidest professionals in the country. I’ve dealt with them only twice in two years, the first when I had to make a declaration saying I’d lost my building pass for work (turned up in my bag a few days later). The carabiniere on duty could type very well with two fingers and the foreign passport didn’t faze him. He rubbed the pages, wiggled the hologram under the desklamp, photocopied the relevant pages, input the data, wrote it all out again by hand, all so smoothly that I was in and out in little over an hour.

The second encounter was when I was driving back from the school run, 200 metres from home, in a borrowed car for which I had no papers and without my driver’s licence. I had a premonition that they would pull me over for a spot check. It was destiny. The tallest officer saluted me and asked for my papers. I started jabbering (Io ... inglese ... molto stupido) in such an obviously and genuinely pathetic way that he let me off. Woo-hoo!

It’s actually quite rare to see carabinieri doing roadside checks; that’s mainly done by the infamous tax brigade. I have only heard stories of their awesome powers, how they can rip your car apart, empty all the contents on the street and demand to see receipts for every item. In our car there are two sets of armbands still inflated from summer, a spiderman ball, a grubby cloth for wiping the windows, sweetie wrappers, A-to-Zeds for Rome and Amsterdam, and and 3,000 E’s in the bodywork. (Well, I had to make it a bit interesting.) No receipts for any of it. Obviously we’re undermining confidence in the rigour and probity of the Italian tax system (*stifled snigger*) by not being able to prove we paid VAT on the grubby cloth. Maybe I’ll never get pulled over by them, not until I really have the E-shipment of course.

This post was triggered by a series of sirens that seemed to be close enough to drive through the kitchen. It made me think of how a carabiniere starts the day. Step into the car, adjust the mirrors so you can check your hair and three-quarter profile at any moment. Place your hat on the mini hat rack, bizarrely called a handbrake. Put on the siren and the flashing lights and off you speed to the tabacchi for coffee and doughnuts! Ciao Mario!

As part of a recent efficiency initiative, our local boys in blue now skip going to the police station and head straight for the cafe for their morning briefing. Mouse-over the photo to eavesdrop ...

Not the Village People

2005-02-28T04:18:00.000-05:00

Despite some imaginative suggestions to my "What's wrong here?" teaser, no one correctly identified the odd thing out.

It was of course the PlayMobil Spirit of Fascism, lurking around the National Alliance election posters. The National Alliance, as I explained previously, are post-fascists, not to be confused with neo-fascists, pro-fascists or the ex-fascists that founded the party after world war two.

Think I'm making this stuff up?

Last month, after scoring a goal, Lazio football club captain, Paolo di Canio flashed an unmistakable fascist salute to his adoring fans. They responded with cheers. Di Canio tried to shrug off the gesture, stating that it had no political significance. This from a man who has "Dux", a reference to fascist dictator Benito Mussolini, tattooed on his arm. As a youth, Di Canio ran with an extreme right-wing fan group and in his autobiography, he states that he was "fascinated" by Il Duce, claiming that he was "basically a very principled, ethical individual" who was "deeply misunderstood".

Alessandra Mussolini, the granddaughter of Benito Mussolini and herself the founder of a far-right party and a Member of the European Parliament, attended the match and applauded loudly. "What a delightful Roman salute!" she exclaimed. "I was deeply moved. I will write him a thank-you note." Lazio was, after all, her grandfather's beloved soccer club and he often attended their games. Even now -- 60 years later -- the team maintains something of a fascist aura.

Alessandra Mussolini quit the National Alliance (AN) in 2003 to found her own party, "Freedom for Action", disgusted by AN leader Gianfranco Fini's apology to Israel for the treatment of Jews under fascism in Italy. Just in case you might think that, compared to the lunatic fringe of Italian politics, Fini & Co are not all that bad, note that Francesco Storace, National Alliance member, currently contesting the Presidency of Lazio Region, came out in support of Mussolini, asserting that Fini's comments in Israel were akin to the Pope addressing his followers and announcing that there is no God. Storace is estimated to be spending €5 million on the current campaign, which might explain why all the election posters that I described previously belong to Storace's group.

Fini? Ce n'est qu'un début ! Muahahaha !

Rumble in the Aventine II

2005-02-26T15:15:00.000-05:00

Three months ago, I reported how my well-to-do neighbours were up in arms over the planned redevelopment of the main street. Since then, the protests have faded away, with the only reminder of how close we came to revolution being the poster for the Residents' Association Meeting in the pharmacy window.

Unfortunately, at the same time as the protests died down, so did work on the development, with the trenches dug in early December still open to the elements.

On the left, the trenches on 6 December 2004.

On the right, the same trenches on 25 February 2005.

Last Friday, however, the street was a hive of activity, with dozens of men in orange worksuits working furiously, under the frowning eye of the architect. He walked up and down the street, puffing on his cigarette, while each group of workers made like a tableau of dedicated artisans - this one turning over the cement, the next standing ready to add more water from a hose, the third levelling the ground with a plank of wood. I was impressed and took a photo of the scene. Can you spot anything strange?

Answer on Monday!

Save the planet - shit in the woods

2005-02-25T09:16:00.000-05:00

I'm often asked, "Ria, how can I help the United Nations Framework Conventions on Climate Change and Biological Diversity?"

Well now there's a simple solution.

Enviro-roll: toilet paper impregnated with native seed

But hey, don't take my word for it, read more here.

The paper acts as a water/nutrient retentative agent, once used there is no need for other fertilizers etc...

Whoever said environmentalists had no sense of humour?

The Cabinet of Doctor Ceysar

2005-02-25T06:00:00.000-05:00

Just back from the dentist's.

Mr B. had warned me that Dr Ceysar did not have much a bedside manner, which was fine by me since I never really enjoyed chatting to the dentist with an anaesthetized jaw.

- So did you have a good holiday?

- ggshugnbr bevvfrna shuhptuh

- Yes, I'm sure it must be lovely at this time of year.

Instead I got

- Pain where?

- Ah! (sounding pleasantly surprised)

- Have you ever had root canal work on this tooth?

He's booked me for a triple session next Thursday.

Milk

2005-02-24T06:28:00.000-05:00

“Nobody,”
She whimpered,
“Could call me
A fussy girl;
I only want
A little bit
Of muesli
And some milk!”*

*Apologies to A.A. Milne.

Yes, just some milk from a carton. Without first having to shred the paper off layer by layer, saw through the seal with a serrated knife, tilt the carton sideways to avoid an uncontrollable splash and then dribble more drops over my hands when I try to close the now ripped and jagged spout.

Man on the moon, human genome, inter-super highway netweb … and I can’t just pour some milk on my muesli? Who’s responsible? Step forward Ruben Rausing, founder of Tetrapak, the most profitable Swedish company after ABBA. Tetrapak’s products are everywhere in Europe (and in North America?) and come with an impressive variety of openings. To find out more about how to open my morning milk carton, I visited the company website and compiled this list of their openings:

Straw hole

Perforation TB

FlexiCap TB

DIMC ScrewCap

PullTab

StreamCap

Easy Opening

FlexiCap

ReCap3

SlimCap

Neck24

FlipCap Barrier

TwistCap Barrier

DeltaCap

FlipClip

Go on. Guess which one I’m looking for.
.
.
.
.
.

Of course, it’s the Easy Opening.

“Need we say more about this classic? Just split the top side seal and it folds back without fuss. Its perfect functionality has been proven billions of times.”

Just?

Without fuss?

Perfect functionality?

Prove it, baby, one more time!

[Quick fade to Stephan Eicher]

Et elle prend son café en riant
Et me regarde à peine
Plus rien ne la surprend sur la nature humaine
C'est pourquoi elle voudrait enfin si je le permets
Déjeuner en paix, déjeuner en paix

Tits 'n' bums, kids 'n' mums

2005-02-23T03:51:00.000-05:00

The city council has put up extra billboards to host the thousands of posters for the forthcoming regional elections. The regular billboards are overloaded with dozens of posters stuck on top of each other by the busy glue boys working under cover of darkness. In their hyperactive haste they seem to drip as much glue on the ground as they do on the board, judging by our sticky tiptoeing to the car each morning. By election time there may be as many as fifty posters on a single board, the edges curling up and creating a confusing collage of political messages. Eventually the heavy mass falls to the ground, lies in the rain for a couple of days and dissolves in a glutinous mush.

But we're not there yet.

Most of the election posters are head shots of the candidate. Occasionally the communists will put up one with text only, shunning idolatry for the purity of the true word - as if anyone can read a paragraph of text from a speeding car. From the driver's seat of my own speeding car, I carried out an extensive survey of the image of women in the posters lining the route to school. It may not bear up to scientific scrutiny, but so what? - it was raining heavily and my son kept wanting me to turn round and admire his glow-in-the-dark shoes.

This is what I saw:

Election poster #1
Big-haired brunette beauty, bare shoulders, beaming smile, her arms protectively around a little boy

Election poster #2
Small child with his head against a naked pregnant belly. Woman's head and legs cut off. (Reminds me of the tits 'n' bums photos in porno mags, and of the Meat Manual that we produced recently.)

Election poster #3
Young mother standing side-by-side with man and two small children

Election poster #4
Girl, aged about 9, backpack on, heading for school

Election poster #5
Beautiful blond woman, head thrown back, laughing loudly on the phone

Election poster #6
Middle-aged woman in hospital scrubs, smiling softly

Message to the female voter:
Get a basic education
Gossip & flirt
Get pregnant
Look after your kids
Stand by your man
Take care of sick people.

. . .

Is that all there is?

How does the commercial world present women on my drive from school to work?

Ad #1
Intimissimi, with their new winter range of push-up lingerie for teenage girls

Ad #2
Honda's new scooter, with a perfectly sculpted woman's face in deep shadow, bee-stung lips and a wide-eyed side glance at the shiny SH125i. Look at mi is the caption, in English.

Ad #3
Casaidea, the interior design exhibition, showing a zany mussy-haired woman with an apple on her head

Ad #4
Telecom Italia, promoting a double-speed ADSL connection by using the obvious image of a gawping raven-haired beauty lying naked with phone cable wrapped round her breasts and hips. Double-speed ADSL :: near-naked woman. Gosh, the copywriter really pushed the envelope on that one.

My caption: "Find the jack, Jack". I should get paid for that, don't you think?

What message do you get from these ads?

5 a.m. Sunday morning

2005-02-20T16:08:00.000-05:00

05:00
I had recklessly offered to drive my sister-in-law to the airport for her early morning flight back to the Netherlands. The offer was made in the memory of a similar airport run last June through empty streets in the first rays of dawn’s soft light with mist rising from the fields. This time it was dark, wet and cold and the surprisingly heavy traffic was unforgiving as we tried to cross the road to my car. We sped off to Circus Maximus and turned right along the Baths of Caracalla. There was no trace of the massive soundstage that had hosted a concert just hours previously for the latest Italian hostage in Iraq, part of a big demonstration organized by the Communist Party. Later this morning I watched a drive-by of a dozen buses stuffed with flag-waving, chanting communists, each bus followed by an equally stuffed, but silent and morose bus full of riot police. Disregarding the politics, if you want to get out a bit, practise your Italian and meet new people, then join the Communists. They hold marches, concerts and meetings every month. I almost feel sorry for the lonely Christian Democrats stuck at home watching the telly.

Avanti!

I chose to take the most scenic and historically interesting route to the airport - the via Appia Antica. With no traffic lights for most of the way, it’s also the fastest route at this time of day. It’s closed to traffic on Sundays, but we were four hours clear of the closure time and so zipped straight down the Via di Porta San Sebastiano. Behind the 10-metre high walls are very private villas set in parkland. We went to a birthday party at one of them last year and got lost trying to find the way out of the estate.

There are also no pavements from here on, so it was just as well there were no pilgrims strolling around at this early hour. First, under the Druso Arch, which was part of the Antoniniana aqueduct that brought water to Emperor Caracalla’s Baths; then under the massive Porta di San Sebastiano, one of the most impressive parts of the Aurelian wall around the city. A four-storey fortress built in the 12th century, with battlements on the twin towers and a portcullis in the centre that can be lowered to protect the city from invaders - these days that means Lazio football club supporters. Large sections of the wall here seem to be permanently scaffolded for restoration work. Some years ago, part of the scaffolding was taken down and the wall immediately began to crumble … so up went the scaffolding again.

We bounce on to the Appia Antica proper. It was built 2,317 years ago … and they still haven’t fixed the potholes.

We zipped past the spot where Jesus appeared to Saint Peter who was fleeing Nero’s persecutions of Christians in Rome. Peter asked Domine, quo vadis? (Lord, whither goest Thou?) – To Rome to be crucified again, came the reply. Peter took this as a rebuke and so returned to the city and his own martyrdom.

On down past the back entrance to the Catacombs of San Callixtus, a mile-long road through quiet fields and open sky where you can easily forget you are in a major capital city.

The Appia Antica then sweeps up on humming cobbles into darkness, growing ever narrower, with high walls on either side. Built to fit five Roman soldiers marching abreast or two carriages to pass each other, it can lead to strife when two modern-day Romans try to squeeze past in their SUVs. “I paid €50,000 extra for a gold-knobbed gear stick so I’m not backing down!” “Well my family hasn’t said sorry for over 400 years, so back it up buddy!”

Cocooned in the darkness I forgot it was in fact a two-way street until I saw the oncoming headlights. Fortunately it was only a Smart. Smart car, stupid driver, is how it goes. They drive as if it is a scooter – no space is too small to squeeze into, no way you cannot be first in line at the traffic lights.

We’re forced off the Appia Antica around the point where the tombs of the Roman nobility line the roadsides and the cobbled surface gives way to the huge blocks of volcanic stones, still grooved in places with chariot tracks. This was also where 6,000 rebellious slaves captured in the final battle of the Spartacus revolt were crucified along the roadside in 71 CE. Unlike in the film, Kirk Douglas missed being crucified as he was apparently killed in the battle and his body was never found, leading to rumours that he might someday return. Unfortunately, he did.

In complete darkness and open countryside now, on via Pignatelli, a fast run all the way to the via Appia Nuova, a road as charmless and uninteresting as the Antica is picturesque and fascinating. The first red light since the city wall seems to be an option only as we stop while two other cars shoot straight through. The only redeeming feature of this last stretch to the airport is the big white sign by the roadside:

KILLJOY

Disco Pub

In spite of its name, it seems to be quite a happening place.

Shortly after, the blinding police searchlight marked the entrance to the airport, with armed soldiers patrolling the arrival and departures areas. Inside it was as busy as this little airport ever gets, with four flights leaving before 7 a.m. on a Sunday morning. That’s why they’re so cheap, of course.

I turned Roots Manuva up loud on the way back and couldn’t hear the engine protesting as I sped along thinking I was in 4th gear when in fact I was in 2nd. Round trip in 60 minutes. My stomach was growling so I had an early breakfast at the Caffè del Parco opposite my house. As I stepped into the little oasis of light and warmth I was greeted by three welcoming Buon giornos – ahhh Italy, land of overstaffing and unpredictable opening hours, I love you.

Ria Bacon is unwell

2005-02-18T14:47:00.000-05:00

I’m indisposed
I’m out of sorts
I’m laid up, feeling peaky
I feel run down, below par
Laid low, down with a wog

Feeling crook and poorly
A bit seedy and woozy
Moby Dick, currant cakey
I’m wobbly but running a temperature
As sick as a dog but not as a parrot

Ain't got the trots or the runs
Me Bali belly's holding steady
Not green but off-colour
No Wallace & Grommit, just iffy
Ain't been talking to God on the porcelain telephone …

Still ...

"Je suis maladeuh! Complèteuhment maladeuh!"

- Serge Lama

Fresh outbreak of foot-in-mouth disease

2005-02-17T04:54:00.000-05:00

It is rare to meet someone who admits to having voted for Italian Prime Minister Berlusconi - it's like telling the psychiatrist, "A friend of mine has been feeling depressed lately and I, er she ...". So the best you get are explanations by proxy, such as, "A lot of people figured that since he was such a successful entrepreneur, he could use his Midas touch for the whole country." Berlusconi also knows how to feed the Italian desire to present la bella figura to the world, saying, "I like to see myself young, and it's a form of respect towards others". The Prime Minister disappeared from view last summer while recuperating from his lifting and hair implant treatment. He emerged, chrysalis-like, smooth and shiny to boast that he felt 20 years younger. You're only as old as the woman you feel, would have been a classic quip in the style of Il Cavaliere, but I don't think it translates well. Nevertheless it is the truth. He's proved his virility with 3 children by his second, younger model, wife, and has avoided being seen with his grown-up children from his first marriage.

What always stuck in my memory from the Midas story was that the proud king was condemned to live forever - he just got older and older, more and more shrivelled until he ended up like a grasshopper. How many lifts can you have before it snaps?

Oh, but he's so charming. When asked about his latest cosmetic surgery (he's a recidivist here too), he reminded the press conference how important it was to look good on television and finished his briefing with a wink at a female journalist and the promise, "I can give you some addresses ..."

Other outbreaks of foot-in-mouth disease, strain B:

Investment advice at the New York Stock Exchange
"Italy is now a great country to invest in ... today we have fewer communists ... Another reason to invest in italy is that we have beautiful secretaries... superb girls."

On his conflict of interest as prime minister and one of Italy's biggest tycoons, with major media holdings
"If I, taking care of everyone's interests, also take care of my own, you can't talk about a conflict of interest."

On Mussolini
"Mussolini never killed anyone. Mussolini used to send people on vacation in internal exile."

*gulp*

Be informed that this disease is highly contagious. The feeble-minded are most at risk, such as the leaders of The Northern League, which has remodelled Italy into 14 independent states, with their own, The Republic of Padania, preserving such ancient Celtic traditions as hunting, drinking and shooting immigrants.

Now wake up.

The Northern League is a key member of Berlusconi's coalition government, together with the "post-fascists" (sic) I mentioned previously. The Minister of Justice is theirs, as is the most incongruously-titled Minister of Reform and Devolution (very sic), Roberto Calderoli. There is an online prize named after him (in Italian), awarded to victims of foot-in-mouth disease. The inspiration for the prize was Calderoli's suggestion that for each day Italian hostages were held in Iraq, "1 000 Islamists from so-called gangster states will be rounded up and shipped home."

As for incoming immigrants, crossing the Mediterranean in often unseaworthy boats, Calderoli demanded that the Italian Navy should not aid sinking ships but "repel" them. The ships, he said, did not only carry helpless children, but people who would "plunder the cities, deal in drugs on the streets, traffic in prostitutes [...]".

So there's the checklist for the 1 000 repatriates per day.

Advanced foot-in-mouth disease severs the connection between the victim and the world of rational thinking. Life's complexities fade away as the sufferer veers towards megalomania and the belief that the world would be a better place under his benevolent dictatorship. Nonconformism gets short shrift. Sinking ships are cast adrift.

Calderoli imagined himself in a spaghetti Western last November when he sparked a manhunt after offering € 25 000 for the capture of a murderer. When he was told bounty hunting was probably illegal, he backed down regretfully.

I would have preferred something like "dead of alive", but they told me the law wouldn't allow it.

In Calderoli's world, the law would be privatized and the rich and virtuous would be free from crime.

His attitude towards penal reform is equally blunt:

Once upon a time one spoke of chemical castration, but personally I tend more toward simpler methods: scissors, and ones that are not necessarily sterilized.

His cross-cultural sensitivity is unveiled:

If someone comes from the jungle and is used to going around dressed like Tarzan, they can do it there, but not here.

And most recently, he railed against the verdict allowing a gay Senegalese asylum seeker refuge in Italy. The court decided that the man faced persecution and prison if he was sent back to Senegal and was therefore entitled to protection of his human rights. And yea verily there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth by Calderoli who saith unto thee:

Poor justice! Poor Italy! Once celebrated as a land of saints, of poets and explorers, is today a land of terrorists and illegal queers!

On that last point, my only question is - how could they tell? Most Italian men live with their mothers until their mid-30s, they love tight clothes and shopping for shoes, and are quite open about waxing their eyebrows.

We therefore call upon Minister Calderoli to draw up a new checklist to help us identify all the deviants among us.

The customer (with a shotgun) is king

2005-02-16T03:16:00.000-05:00

Antoinette is smoking again.

She works in the next office but the walls here are so porous that the smoke just leaks through. Our building was once Mussolini's Ministry of African Affairs, a rather grandiose affair since his attempt to emulate other European colonial powers was limited to Abyssinia and Libya. The large offices of the colonial administrators have long since been divided into smaller units, almost all identical. Almost. It's the details that reveal your rank. Short-term consultants don't bother investing in decoration; at level 5 you can have carpet on the floor, but there must be a 2 cm gap at the edge by the wall -- wall-to-wall carpeting is reserved for directors only.

Smoking in the office has been banned for quite a few years - it still goes on behind locked doors with windows open and air freshener to hand (hey that was me when I was ... 15). The law was recently toughened to ban smoking in bars and restaurants, causing surprise and confusion - that it should be applied at all and that it should be applied so quickly, unlike other legal processes. The first fine was issued in Naples, one minute after the official introduction of the law. It was also in crime-ridden Naples, however, that the chair of the traders' association worried that asking a criminal to put out a cigarette "is no easy matter. I'm not risking getting kneecapped". Yeah, that could be a demotivating factor.

Antoinette has now finished smoking. I know because the gagging odour of Wild Rose air freshener is now seeping through the walls.

Benvenuto amore

2005-02-14T08:25:00.000-05:00

Stuffed among the bills in my mailbox was the latest copy of Love News, full of illegible, eligibible ... oh bugger it! ... desperate career women and randy widowers. There!

The editorial of Love News thoughtfully echoes the inscription on Marx's tomb with the headline, Lovers of the world unite! You have nothing to lose except your pride, it didn't add. The editorial laments the loss of the romance of yore, that today has become merely a pretext for business (true).

And 100 years from now? Will we send flowers by spaceship? Will we use holograms to send greetings? Will we have created a machine that can kiss our lover light years away? Well then ... lovers of the world, UNITE! Don't let your sentiments be beaten down by supertechnology ... are they not better than chocolates?

Err, the last bit is lost in translation, I think.

I had been hoping that the ads would be suitably cringeworthy and amusingly exaggerated but I get the impression that the agency has rewritten them as they are very bland and standardized.
Thanks to the joys of automatic translation, however, we can still get a cheap laugh.

I feel my large house therefore and empty and this feeds in me desire of one similar. I am a 75-year-old widower, I have large sons and arranges, I would want to find one to you good mrs., serious cake and for living with the days of our life.*

Ahh, bless...

Next!

Graduated in Jurisprudence, I carry out the profession of Lawyer near one company be them, 44 years nubile. I would want to meet a sincere, cultured man, celibate, I am catholic and I would want to finally marry in church and possession of the sons.**

One important point to note before dating an Italian: the women are usually not nubile and the men are never celibate. Both words simply mean single.

*Sento la mia casa così grande e vuota e questo alimenta in me il desiderio di una compagna. Sono un 75enne vedovo, ho figli grandi e sistemati, vorrei trovare una brava signora, dolce e seria per vivere insieme i giorni della nostra vita.

**Laureata in Giurisprudenza, svolgo la professione di Legale presso una azienda statale, 44 anni nubile. Vorrei incontrare un uomo sincero, colto, celibe, sono cattolica e vorrei sposarmi in chiesa ed avere finalmente dei figli.

Motorcyclist against a pole, torn to pieces body

2005-02-14T08:07:00.000-05:00

When I arrived at work on Friday, many people were complaining about the traffic being backed up all around Cristoforo Colombo, the main expressway into the southern part of Rome. For a fraction of a second I thought that maybe it was my fault, that the runaway car had caused a fatal accident, but then it would have had to have rolled up a 50-metre off-ramp onto Cristoforo Colombo. Phew. Not MY fault then.

I checked the news for the incident, but despite the gruesomeness of the reporting, it is too much of a recurrent event here in Rome for it to have made more than one online report. I used an automatic translation to preserve the "lacerated" tone of the report.

Motorcyclist against a pole, torn to pieces body
The impact has been therefore devastating that has quite torn to pieces the body of Giuseppe Z., 33 years, after the crash against the pole. The motion of Giuseppe, for causes still to assess, is escaped to its control and is ended against a pole of the light. The body of leading has been bounced and torn to pieces from the collision [...] Also for the difficulty of the reliefs and the complexity of the removal of the corpse the traffic is remained blocked until to the 10 in all the zone between Marconi tree-lined avenue.

I confess I was still relieved to see no mention of a silver Nissan Micra.

Mea culpa (heehee)

2005-02-11T17:20:00.000-05:00

This morning I was trying to manoeuvre out of my parking spot. I backed up and immediately nudged the car behind. Oops never mind. So I clenched my jaw and strained to get full lock without power steering and edged forward. Ker-bump. The car behind had rear-ended me. I aimed my hardest Paddington hard stare at my aggressor only to realize that the car was empty. Gingerly I reversed back, nudging the little silver Micra back a few feet, then edged out into the stream of rush hour traffic. And to my astonishment, the Micra rolled up behind me! I accelerated slightly and let another car get in between us. The traffic was moving slowly and on the uneven cobbles, the runaway car didn't gain much momentum. I followed it in my rear-view mirror, unable to contain my laughter and yet also feeling I was somehow at fault. Still it seemed so comical, like a silent movie with Buster Keaton. Instead of heading right to school, I went round the Piramide one more time just to catch a further glimpse of the runaway car's progress. It had rolled almost two hundred metres and had come to a stop in the middle of a three-way junction. A line of cars was forming behind it and I could see the occupants beginning to gesticulate their fury. Too bad I couldn't see their faces when they tried to remonstrate with the absent Micra driver.

Made my day.

The car rolled from the tree-lined boulevard at the top (north), southwest to where the top of the pyramid is.

I'm a patriot, you're a nationalist, he's a terrorist ...

2005-02-10T08:29:00.000-05:00

Driving back from the school run, back into the centre of Rome and thus at crawling speed, I get a chance to look around at the billboards lining the roadside. With regional elections due on April 3 and 4, the posters of busty pouting women squirming over now 0.25% lower interest rates have been replaced by campaign posters. The first to catch my attention was unattributed to any political party as far as I could see and contained only the crest of Lazio Region. Two bare arms, one male, one female, were raised with hands clasped together holding an Italian flag. The slogan was "Cresce l'orgoglio di essere Italiani" (The pride of being Italian is growing). I googled the expression in quote marks and got three hits. The first was in a speech by the President of the Republic, Ciampi, in 2002; the second was an ironic (sexually explicit) photo illustration; and the third was a description of visiting an exhibition in Rome on anti-semitism.

By far the greatest number of posters belong to Alleanza Nazionale, a key party in the current coalition government, whose leader, Gianfranco Fini, is the Italian foreign minister. The recurrent theme of the posters is nationalist of course, but with degrees of difference. One slogan might champion the value of hard work, another the value of the family. One echoes the slogan above: In the past there were only a few of us. Now the majority are proud of being Italian. The party's main slogan is more succinct: One single concern: the Italians (Un solo interesse: gli Italiani).

Yet for many Americans, the idea of being proud of your country is as normal as apple pie. It doesn't take long to find American blogs with banners and buttons celebrating the blogger's patriotism. And there's the difference: patriotism, not nationalism. It's as if the concept conjugates irregularly: I'm a patriot, you're a nationalist, he's a terrorist bent on rooting out foreign influence in his country. For many Europeans, the idea of swearing allegiance to the national flag smacks of the worst totalitarian regimes the continent experienced last century. Saluting the flag is a purely military ritual. This is a feeling that is particularly common in England, I think. Morrissey sang recently,

I've been dreaming of a time when
To be English
Is not to be baneful
To be standing by the flag
Not feeling shameful
Racist or partial

-Irish Blood, English Heart*

Now take my own case: born to Scottish parents but raised in England. Lived in France, married a Dutch national. Now in Italy. I cheer Scotland against England, but England against Australia, and France against the Netherlands. Norman Tebbitt, Thatcher's chief kneecapper, suggested testing citizenship among British-Pakistanis and British-Indians by seeing which cricket team they cheer for. Similarly, French National Front leader, Le Pen claimed the French national football team was not really French when "most of the players can't or don't want to sing the Marseillaise". Fortunately, the "foreign French" team won the world cup and Zidane became the most popular man in the country. Le Pen is a mere detail in history, to paraphrase his own idiocy.

Back to present-day Italy and Alleanza Nazionale (AN), a party born of the Italian Social Movement (MSI) formed after the second world war and composed of ex-fascists. The posters today still have the MSI letters and symbol of tri-colour flame (always a suspiciously fascist icon - the eternal flame, etc.). Yet AN's leader has managed to heave the party into the mainstream, even veering towards traditionally more leftwing territory. Last year, for example, Fini shocked many of the old guard by calling for recent immigrants to be given the vote in Italy. Even more recently, he called on his supporters to reject racism and xenophobia. This must be confusing for the party members. I mean, why would you vote for a party with fascist origins if you weren't racist and xenophobic?

Fini promises more policy changes in the future but for now I'll continue decoding the billboards. And for me, when a politician starts praising the glories of hard work and motherhood, I reach for my revolver, metaphorically speaking, that is.

*I'm not a big Morrissey fan, but as a northener I'll always admire his managing to mention Humberside in a song.

Playing with sweetness

2005-02-09T05:52:00.000-05:00

Interview With Franco Di Mare of RAI Channel One TV of Italy
Secretary Condoleezza Rice
Rome, Italy
February 8, 2005

QUESTION: [beginning of live interview, speaking in Italian]
QUESTION: [in English] Welcome to Italy, Madam Secretary. I wonder if your enemies know about the meaning of your name?
SECRETARY RICE: Oh no, they certainly don't and you won't tell them, will you? [Laughter]
QUESTION: No, no, I won't tell them [laughter].

Then I will. Her music teacher mother invented the name from the Italian con dolcezza, meaning to play with sweetness. How ... ironic. Con bocca chiusa (with closed mouth) would be more appropriate, given the ever-widening gulf between her puff and reality.