Author Archives: Andy

Once upon a time, according to the Daily Mail ………..

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I don’t know about the UK TV but it was all over everywhere, here, last night.

The aquittal of murder of Knox and Sollecito. I could talk about how it was the right decision, given the atrocious evidence or the wrong decision, given that Amanda admitted being there and then changed her mind.

But I won’t since it is being written about ad infinitum.

And, in any case, I only get to know about the evidence that the papers wish to tell me about. And, so, I can’t really make a judgement on that.

I will say, though, that Rudi did a runner, whereas Knox and Sollecito did not. Rudi makes more sense than the other two. Especially Knox for, if I had done it, I would have been on a plane to the States before the body had even been found.

And, perhaps there was a really good reason why the mobile phones that were discarded had no DNA. And, anyway, what Italian leaves their mobile phones at home when they go away or, even, out to the supermarket?

No, it’s all very strange and impossible for me to say if the verdict was right or not but that is not the point of this post.

The Daily Mail Online, of course, wanted (as they all did, I’m sure) to be first with the reactions and quotations after the verdict. So, as with obituaries, they must have written it in advance and, since they didn’t know the verdict in advance, one has to write two versions – 1 for guilty and 1 for aquittal.

Fair enough. At the end of it, you have to do this and just fill in the odd blank at the time.

The Daily Mail said, in their online version that when Amanda realised what the judge had said she “sank into her chair sobbing uncontrollably”.

Apparently they quoted the prosecutors as saying that ‘justice had been done’ (as an actual quote).

Both Knox and Sollecito said they would appeal.

Confused? Well, yes, that’s understandable.

There’s a picture on the page explaining how Knox’s parents were ‘distraught after the verdict was read out in court’.

Apparently, according to the Daily Mail, ‘both [Knox and Sollecito] will be put on suicide watch’ and that this was ‘normal practice’.

Of course, the whole thing was a terrible mistake. The headline read: Guilty: Amanda Knox looks stunned as appeal against murder conviction is rejected.

Whoops! Someone may get fired over this. You had, even without any thinking, a 50/50 chance of getting it right but it seems the wrong one was put up.

OK, so everyone can make a mistake and the idea that most of the article wouldn’t have been written before the verdict is laughable – of course they wrote two and I don’t have a problem with that.

However, what I DO have a problem with is the direct quotations littering the article. Some even inside inverted commas – which means they are supposed to be the actual words said. This was, quite obviously, not true. It was impossible. The prosecutors were NOT happy and DID NOT say that ‘justice had been done’.

And this, I have a problem with. Not that I ever thought the Daily Mail told the truth but, to have quoted someone without them ever saying the words leads me to wonder if any of the quotations they use are factual and have actually been said. Or if any of their stories are other than complete fairytales.

In fact, perhaps it is better to preface each Daily Mail story with:

Once upon a time, according to the Daily Mail ………..

Something wrong? Or just my imagination?

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There’s something wrong.

Well, maybe not wrong, exactly, just not quite right.

Or maybe it’s not that at all. But it certainly feels like that.

I can’t exactly put my finger on it. It’s not that anyone has said anything in particular or done anything particularly unusual but it certainly feels like something has/will happen. Soon.

Perhaps it’s the crisis? Perhaps, finally, it is having an effect?

And, apart from A, outside of work, there seems a slight change. We were discussing it last night, over dinner with An. People seem more worried about the future. None of us have children and, so, it is different, I guess. The restaurants still seem quite full, though. As I rarely go shopping (except to the supermarket), I can’t really say about the high street.

Yes, I think if I had children, I may feel differently but, as I said to An, you can’t really do anything about it so don’t worry too much. After all, if the world collapses (economically), everyone (except the very rich, maybe) will be in the same boat (or sinking ship).

So, back where we were. It all feels different. A concentration on petty (or seemingly petty) things. A tit-for-tat thing going on between management and workers. New work seems to be coming our way but is it quickly enough?

Or, of course, it’s all in my imagination.

Books that should never have been written and films that should never have been made.

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Of course, it’s all a matter of personal taste.

But, you know, there’s some things that just should never have happened.

There was a book I read once, a long time ago. It was about a teenage boy who ‘kidnapped’ his babysitter and everything just got a ‘bit out of hand’. I don’t remember the title. I do remember that I truly hated it. Not because it wasn’t well-written (although I can’t remember if it was or wasn’t) and not because the book was horrific or anything – although it was.

No, the problem was that the things depicted in the book were such that, if you had imagined them in the first place, in my opinion, you had problems and should see someone to get them fixed.

Recently there was something in the newspapers about Human Caterpillar 2 (which, from what I understand, has now been banned in the UK). So I found a copy of Human Caterpillar (the first version – which the protagonist watched in the second version). I’m afraid, not only could I not watch it all the way through, but I had to skip through it, using fast forward most of the time.

Not only was it boring and (to me, remember) utterly stupid and pointless but it was also the product of a very sick mind. I don’t know that I could have acted in it (although, on second thoughts, no one has offered me money to act – so maybe I would for the right incentive – after all, it wasn’t actually real, was it?) At the end of it all, it wasn’t a good film but the story did not need to be filmed at all. In fact, should not be filmed at all.

Anyway, having seen HC (the first version), even in FF mode, I’m certainly NOT going to be going out to find a copy of HC2.

And where is this going, you are (maybe) saying to yourself?

Well, over our holidays it’s been mentioned during conversations with others how much F likes going to cinema and how we never do. Apparently this is because I don’t understand Italian and so we don’t go. I pointed out that I have no problem going and, in fact, would enjoy the experience, particularly if I have looked the film up online first so have a basic understanding (and, maybe, have seen some clips in English).

F is a BIG fan of the director Almodovar and so it was that, on Saturday night last, we went to see this:

Now, I looked at the trailer (as above), I read what synopsis I could find (and because no one would give the plot away, finding the actual important bits was difficult – but I found them) and looked at the book it was based on (online, of course).

I knew it would be a ‘difficult’ film and not only because it would all be in Italian!

I sat through it all. I’d paid for it, so of course I did.

I tried to enjoy the “beauty” of the filming but I was struck, overall, by the same feelings as reading that book and watching that other film.

Why?

I mean ‘Why make it’?

What made him think that this was either believable or good? I wasn’t shocked (although maybe that was because I knew the story beforehand), nor frightened, nor, even, disgusted. I was more than disgusted. It wasn’t a horrible film because it was gory. It wasn’t even a horrible film because of the story, as such. Whereas, for most of the film I kind of understood what was going on – I mean I could follow the idea of the film, even if I didn’t think it was an amazing story, in the last few scenes the whole thing became preposterous. I’d patiently waited for the big twist to happen and then, when it did, I felt that I’d been cheated by an atrocious (and sick and unbelievable) plot.

I don’t dislike Almodovar but I left the cinema wondering why he had made it. Worse still (if it is true), F said that he had wanted to make this for years!

Put it this way, not only will I not be buying it on DVD, I won’t be watching it ever again.

Sending something by email – you might as well whisper in the wind.

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Blogging in Italy is different. Or, rather, Italians blogging in Italy have to be more careful.

If the government have their way, they will have to be even more careful in future.

The government, here, having been trying, for some time now, to curb what they see as the excesses of the blogging world. Particularly when it comes to criticising or revealing embarrassing details about our beloved leader, Buzz Lightyear (Berlusconi).

Ideally, of course, he would like anything said about him to have passed through someone who can edit it properly. And, whilst with most of the media, this can be done easily (as he either owns the company or, as the Prime Minister, is responsible for it), the blogging world is a bit different.

I think (and I’m sure I’ll be corrected if I’m wrong), LA7 (a TV station) is also quite independent. I remember watching a debate on TV which was heavily critical of Buzz and he was obviously watching too because he phoned in to have a bit of a rant.

The trouble with bloggers is that they can say something and he doesn’t get the chance to phone in to say they are wrong. Instead, in a bill going through parliament, he wants to make it obligatory that the person who is defamed or whatever, gets the right to reply. If not, then the blogger is fined.

The Guardian’s take on it is here.

However, the really shocking thing is hidden away in the last paragraph and, to me, shows why Italy always seems to be a little bit behind the rest of the world when it comes to embracing the new world of technology fully.

Legally, “email has no validity”.

Let’s just put that again:

“email has no validity”

WHAT?

I remember when I first came here (and I’m talking 6 years ago – not 100), I was amused by the fact that, when someone sent an email, they would follow that up with a telephone call to ‘check that the person had received it’. How quaint and old-fashioned, I thought.

Mail, of the old kind, is fine. In fact, everything is done via mail. And, of course, if email has no validity, it has to be this way. But the fact that it is inadmissible in a court of law scares me quite a lot.

After all the ‘E’ of email stands for electronic. If mail is acceptable then an electronic version of it should be the same. Shouldn’t it? Yes, it damned well should!

However, since my email address is a .co.uk address and in the UK that IS admissible and Italy is in the EU and so is the UK, I wonder how that would be viewed?

Maybe I’ll find out one day.

Not now though. I’m still in a state of shock.

Cornish pasties or sausages?

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It was like Cornish pasties. Or sausage rolls. They’d been overcooked. They had too much fat. You know? The ones with that fatty pastry – the sort you get from Greggs. The smell is at once disgusting and appetising – but, maybe not at half past eleven at night. Not when you didn’t cook them. Not when the smell fills your bedroom like someone had been cooking them in that room. Not when it wakes you up.

But let’s go back a bit.

F is in Germany. I took him to the airport on Monday morning. I don’t mind doing that but it does mean getting up a little earlier. Therefore, Monday, I was tired. I also had clients in at work.

After my lesson, I spoke to F by phone. Then I took the dogs out for their walk. It was 9.30. By 10, I was in bed. Since I had been so tired all day and evening, I thought sleep would come immediately. But the bastard ran away and wouldn’t come back.

Added to which, my hips hurt like hell. They normally hurt if I have been wearing particularly tight jeans. Now that I am the size of a small elephant, all my jeans are that little bit tighter.

So, what with the pain and the not wanting to sleep, I couldn’t. And my teeth hurt a bit because I have been clenching and grinding them again.

Eventually, I got up and took some nurofen. Eventually, I guess, I fell asleep.

The smell filled the bedroom. As it is, again, quite warm, all windows are open. The smell was coming from one of the other flats – also with it’s windows open. The smell seemed to get stronger. I got up. The smell was throughout the flat. I hated it. It won’t let me sleep but what can I do?

I walk around spraying airfreshner in every room. This almost masks the smell but not quite. I look out of my window – as if I can tell where the smell was coming from (which was a stupid idea); as if, having worked out where the smell was coming from, I could do anything about it (I wouldn’t).

I like living in a flat. I miss having a garden but am grateful for not having a garden and having to spend every weekend keeping it from becoming an unruly jungle. All things have good and bad points.

I hate that I am too close to people. I hate when I don’t like their cooking.

I don’t like this cooking.

I go back to bed, smelling the smell and hating it. I guess I must have dropped off to sleep again.

At 5.40 in the morning I could not smell it.

But, maybe, I was used to it?

Look what they’ve done to my cigs, ma!

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Funnily enough, I had thought of writing a post about this last week or the week before.

You see, a week or two ago, I noticed there seemed something strange about my cigarettes. No longer, if I left them in the ashtray, did the cremated corpse of the cigarette with the shape perfectly preserved serve to remind me that, really, I should have put it out or not bothered to light it up in the first place. At which point, I would immediately light up another one, of course.

No, now it went out. This was good and bad. Good in as much as I didn’t waste a whole cigarette for, once relit, it was fine. It was bad in that I was concerned they had, somehow, changed the composition and wondered if they were going to be bad for me. Of course, that’s a relative statement since they are bad for me. I meant, they had put something in that made them more dangerous.

I meant to ask F if his were the same. But I didn’t.

I meant to mention it to others but, to be honest, forgot about it. I thought, maybe, it was just that one batch until …….

Well, until I saw this from the BBC.

So now you know. No longer will I waste about 10% of my cigarettes but, thanks to some new law, I will just have to relight them. So a good thing after all :-) (depending on your point of view, of course).

And, I don’t know why I thought of Melanie’s song as the title (more or less) but she is one of my favourites and so here it is:

I become more Italian; I am using all aces.

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He comes back today. Well, tonight, really. For 3 days and 2 nights. Of course, it has to be enough. Then it will be the following Saturday night before I see him.

The last I saw him was last Friday night. Well, that’s not entirely true. He flew to London early last Saturday morning. I got up with him and the dogs and I went down to Carrara.

On Tuesday night he came back from London and the flight was due to land about 11 p.m. The next morning he was flying to Spain (where he is now). I knew I would not see him for a whole 7 days since he was getting in so late and would need to do stuff before leaving in the morning. I really wanted to see him so I suggested I might come to the airport anyway.

And he almost asked me to bring the dogs. So I did. We went to the airport to meet him. I couldn’t wait inside the airport now that Rufus can’t control his bladder so well. Not only is it (slightly) embarrassing, it’s a problem to clean it up. The little sacks don’t pick up piss. For that you need mops and things and I can’t really carry those around with me, now, can I?

So I brought the dogs anyway. We drove to the airport. I found a place to park. You are supposed to pay for this (it was meter parking). It was 10.30 at night. I became very Italian. I didn’t pay. We waited outside the exit and he arrived about 11.30.

Both dogs were so excited to see him. He fussed them for a bit and then we walked to the car. I didn’t have a ticket for having not paid, reinforcing my idea of being Italian in this instance (and ensuring I am more likely to do it again, of course). Then I drove him to his home. He had suggested that we sleep over at his. I said that I would the dogs at home. He said that it would be better if I didn’t come as he had to do washing and repack and, anyway, wouldn’t get to sleep quickly. So I went to my home.

Tonight I shall go and pick him up from the airport. He has to work on Saturday morning. I have doubts that he will want to come to my home so I won’t take the dogs tonight. It gives him added incentive to come to mine. Is that wrong?

Yes, it’s wrong but don’t we all use what we can? If he doesn’t come then that’s OK. I can’t say I blame him. But, still, I want him to come to mine. Even if, as a result of the last few days, I will, almost certainly, be asleep within seconds and won’t want to be waking up at 7 or 8 when he will need to get up.

To be honest, it doesn’t really matter. Tomorrow afternoon I will see him. Tomorrow night and Sunday I will see him. It’s the best that can be done so it will have to do.

Love it or leave it

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I’m not sure what the film/Documentary will really be like but I do want to see it.

Italy – a place stacked full of contradictions.

It’s true – either love it and shut the fuck up or leave it and don’t be looking back.

Some of my students are learning English for the sole purpose of ‘getting out’. London’s (and New York’s) streets are, in their eyes, paved with gold. It’s almost as if they think these places are some sort of heaven.

To be honest, I have been having a bit of a beef with J, an American friend who is currently living in Bologna. She has issues with the promises made to her which have turned out to be a bit empty.

“It wouldn’t happen in the States”, she says.

“Nor in the UK”, I add. “Siamo in Italia”.

A thinks that my “Siamo in Italia” is some sort of judgement on Italy. Well, in one way he’s right. In another way (and the way it is intended) it’s not. My “Siamo in Italia” is a way of saying “shut the fuck up”.

There are many things ‘wrong’ with this country. However, in its defence, there are many things wrong with every country. Just different things, maybe. And some of the same things. It’s like when software programmers say ‘features’ instead of ‘bugs’. It’s life.

If the things wrong with this country were not these things then it wouldn’t be the country it was. With such beauty next to such ugliness; such ignorance next to such flair.

It’s a country of paradoxes. It is what it is. Moreover, it is a different ‘is’ for different people.

It’s a land of dreams and beauty and a land of ugliness and hopelessness – of contrasts and uniformity – but it’s up to you to make it what you want. The rules, after all, are made to be bent.

And, whilst talking with A, last night, I realised that now I’ve fulfilled my ambition to live here, I don’t need to do it any more. A bit like running a company (although that wasn’t really something I went looking for, in the first place).

Anyway, here’s the trailer for the documentary/film. Enjoy:

It’s never easy. It never was.

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The video below gives you some idea of what it’s like to ‘come out’. At one point towards the end he says that it had taken him four hours to make the call.

And you don’t do it once – but every time you ‘come out’ to someone. OK, so it gets easier over time but, unless you’ve done it, I don’t think you can ever realise how hard it is.