Author Archives: Andy

I guess I have no choice now….

Posted on by
Reply

So this is day four or five of not being able to access either my web pages nor this administration tool for my blog. At least, not properly.

So, I guess it’s the time to move. I did everything the guy said and gave him my IP address (for work) and then …… nothing. It’s still the same. What worries me as well is, if I can’t get to it then, possibly, nor can anyone else (or, rather, less people than should be able to access it) and I can see by the number of visitors I’ve been getting in the last few days which has reduced considerably.

And so, ho hum, here we go again :-(

It will probably take most of today and the switch will happen tonight or tomorrow. I might be offline for a bit but, one hopes, it should be better than ever before!

Wish me luck.

UPDATE: This is not going very well :-(

Some things

Posted on by
Reply

Well, I can’t put Tags onto posts.

And if I empty the spam I have to log in again.

It’s just annoying. But at least it seems I can post things. Don’t know about accepting comments or replying to them yet as none of you have made any. But I guess I’ll find out.

I have looked into alternative hosters and, unless it’s fixed by tomorrow, I shall be going down that route, I expect.

Which is a shame – but it only really works if you can publish your website and then actually retrieve the website and write new posts!

I seem to be getting busier with the old English teaching lark. And, to be honest, I WANT MY LIFE BACK! I had forgotten how much work it actually takes. A says that I do too much for it. V used to say the same. I can’t do it differently though. I’ve also looked at doing the three kids and decided that I could do it – but I have put forward a price that is a little high. If they don’t want me to do it then that’s fine – after all, teaching kids will be much more work.

Anyway, enough of all this. No time, no time.

To get you a bit more up to date:-

I’ve got the Christmas Stamps! Yay! Now all I have to do is write the cards :-)

Rufus seems a lot better – since Monday, which is good.

F is working from tomorrow through to next Monday and, therefore will be away.

This means that I will have to go to my first-ever Thanksgiving Dinner alone (Friday night) :-(

It means that we might not go to the concert that he booked for Saturday night.

It means that I have invited A (and F) for Sunday Lunch (Roast Beef, Yorkshire Puddings, Stilton Cheese and a very nice bottle of port direct from Portugal) – there being far too much stuff that F doesn’t like in all that.

It means I will miss him :-(

It means I will get some sleep :-)

It means I can write the Christmas Cards :-|

In other news, South Korea and North Korea might be on the brink of war. Some miners died in a mine in New Zealand. The students are revolting (they should wash more hehehehe). Britain is to recognise my birthday by making the day a Bank Holiday.

Apparently there are also some other things happening on that day too, which I’m sure is pure coincidence. Checking, actually nothing much (apart from my birthday and the death of St Catherine of Siena) is going on. Oh, except there may be a wedding. Well, in fact, there may be quite a few. In the UK, I mean. Some woman called Kate and a bloke called Bill. Don’t know if I’m invited yet ‘cos they’ve only just announced it. Can’t go anyway, it will be me and F going to Giacomo, I very much hope. So, just in case you should read this, Bill (You don’t mind if I call you Bill, do you? Only William seems so, well, formal.), I’m really sorry we can’t be there. Anyway, the weather in the UK then is always a bit touch and go, especially on that day. You know, it could be raining, likely as not. Here it should be considerably warmer and sunny (I hope).

More stuff to follow (but maybe tomorrow if it’s all working properly)

Another joke!

Posted on by
Reply

Well, I’m back …… sort of. I’ll explain more in a moment.

This morning, for the second time since I’ve been here, I understood a joke on the radio. And by understand, I mean completely understood :-)

It’s not really much of a joke but that’s not the point really. It goes like this:

A dog is ‘home alone’ in the house and the telephone rings. The dog answers the telephone.

“Bau”, he says (bau being the Italian equivalent of woof).

“What?”, the caller replies.

“Bau”

“What? Pronto?”

“Bau”

“What?”

“B as in Bari, A as in Ancona, U as in Udine”, the dog says (To determine letters as you spell them, Italians use cities).

Anyway, I thought it was quite amusing but I was more interested that I could understand a phone-in listener telling a joke. I’m not sure if I translated it or not!

Anyway, the reason for no posts is that the hosters I use had a hacker attack. As a result, they have blocked the IP address (from work). This means I can’t really do much. I’m now using a proxy but it’s not very good. They have said that they will add the IP as an exception – but, unfortunately, I can’t tell them what it is until tonight – I don’t have any access to them or their servers.

I’ve found a way round it ……. but it’s not ideal as it keeps logging me out!

Be back properly very soon (I hope). I have a lot to write about including the fact that, finally, it seems, the UK is recognising my birthday and they are going to make it a Bank Holiday :-)

Speak later!

Insolvable – Buzz Berlusconi

Posted on by
Reply

Buzz Lightyear. He believed that he was invincible and was there to save the world.

So, too, with Berlusconi. (Aren’t they so similar?)

This latest news seems to affirm that Mr B and the Italian Mafia (in this case the actual Mafia from Sicily, rather than the Camorra or the Ndrangheta) were closely linked. I would be surprised if anyone thought this was surprising.

There’s a problem here. The Mafia (in all their forms) are powerful and have their fingers in many pies – illegal and legal. The latest thing, recently, is Roberto Saviano’s assertion (apparently because I was told by a colleague) that the Mafia own a lot of restaurants in the north of Italy. Again, not really a surprise. I would think it would be almost impossible to be completely shielded from them. Sure, they may arrest, from time to time, some top leader (as they have a couple of days ago – the guy living, it seemed, an almost normal life in his home town – for 14 years or something like that, without being caught!) but one man is not the whole organisation. Mr B is one, I suspect, of many, many people who have no choice but to pay off the Mafia to get things done; to build things they want; to ensure that their business interests are safe. The Mafia are in every walk of life here. Like you cannot separate the Church and State here, you can’t separate the Mafia from Italy nor the life nor the people here.

And there’s the rub. Is there anyone in power who isn’t or hasn’t given money, even if inadvertently, to the Mafia? Probably not. And, then there’s the ‘in nero’ thing that, I would think, all Italians do at some time or another. It’s almost a way of life, much more so than in the UK.

How can you ever get rid of an organisation that has its grip on Italian life and whose tendrils stretch everywhere?

The only Italian that I know here who regularly insists on having a proper receipt for e.g. a restaurant bill, is A. But he’s one in a million, I think. And, if you pay cash, without a receipt so that you get quite a good discount, how do you know that the money you are paying them isn’t, in some way, helping to launder Mafia cash through the system? Of course, you don’t. And how do you stop it anyway if it is so much part of the Italian way to be? In the UK, I never knew of a restaurant that would routinely offer a discount to it’s regular and trusted clientèle. Here it seems to be the norm – no questions asked – as long as you don’t need a receipt, of course. Happiness all round, it would seem.

Perhaps it happens in the UK too? I don’t really know. And, since, anyway, getting something cheaper and avoiding paying the government anything by way of the transaction tax is something that, even in the UK, is ideal, no one can say their hands are clean, I guess. And even A won’t be whiter than white, I suspect.

And the solution? Whatever solution is thought up, it has to rely on 90% of the people abiding by whatever rules apply. And I don’t think that’s ever going to happen here any time soon. And so the solution is that there is no solution. However depressing that may seem, if one accepts that, then one can concentrate on the things that are solvable. Insolvable things don’t mean that you can’t try and exercise some control – just don’t think they are solvable.

In which my brain decides it wants to emigrate

Posted on by
4

I have no problem when I wake up with one of those headaches after a night spent sharing a bottle of that terrible poison (Sambucca) with someone.  You know?  The one where there’s that pain in the side of your head where your brain is trying to emigrate to somewhere with better climes; where your brain seems to have decided it has outgrown your head; where, in addition to the pain, it seems that everything is ever-so-slightly fuzzy, unfocused and unreal.

Now, I’m not one for illnesses, in any form.  Not mine nor anyone else’s (although I can immediately think of some very noteworthy exceptions to this general rule).  Certainly, if someone has a headache, please don’t tell me about it.  If I have one, it is either because of the poison or it just annoys me and I force it to go away.

But, these last couple of weeks, nearly every morning, I have woken with this headache, this poison-inspired-like headache.  And it is very annoying.

I really wouldn’t mind if I had had a ‘good’ night the night before – but, as an example, the only drink I had yesterday was coffee until about 4 p.m. and then several mugs of tea – as normal.  I didn’t get to bed early – but neither was it later than normal.  I slept fairly well – neither particularly good, nor particularly bad.  Obviously, it wasn’t long enough but ……. on waking this morning I was disappointed that I hadn’t been drinking last night.  At least, then, I could have said, “Ah well but it was worth it!”

Another half-written post….(subtitle: annoyed by being annoyed by something that I really shouldn’t be annoyed about)

Posted on by
4

I promised, a couple of weeks ago, as I was deleting the many, many ‘draft’ (for ‘draft’ read unfinished, ill-thought-out, forgotten posts that never made it to the post button) that I would be better in future.  I would NOT keep starting to write about something that I had a feeling about, was angry about, was confused about or just thought was funny ………………….. and then just stop.

But it doesn’t work, really.

And, so, already, the unfinished draft posts are back and they are annoying me.

If you think this has no relevance to this post, think again.

This is another of these posts and the bit of rubbish above is just by way of explanation as to why this post will, in all probability, stay as another draft post.  Waiting to be finished until, one day, whilst doing a ‘clean up’ of the blog, I will carefully cut this paragraph and paste it into a rambling post full of bits that have never been published – because I think this bit is really good and explains why the whole post is full of disconnected single paragraphs.

So, I digress.

I wonder, in fact, if it’s supposed to be like this.  V is annoying me.  He’s annoying me by not having got in touch with me nor wanting anything.  He’s annoying me in my head.  and it’s even more annoying that I’m even thinking about him!

I keep saying ‘I’m not bothered’, to myself.  And that is true but it’s the truth of it that is annoying.  I really am not bothered.  But I do wish that he hadn’t originally treated it like he was bothered when, quite clearly, he isn’t.

I had hopes, at the beginning.  I hoped that we were old enough and grown-up enough that we could transcend the hurt feelings and the crapness of it all to make it through to another place that meant we could be friends.

But it just ain’t happening.

And, that annoys me.  But the problem is that, after so many broken promises (the ones after we split, I mean), I just gave up trying.  And, it seems, that’s OK by him.  And that pisses me off.  I know that there are other people who, over the last couple of years or so, have been caught up by him and then discarded, seemingly for no reason (although, trust me, there’s always a reason) and I wonder, sometimes, if I should get in touch with them.  Except, what would be the point, what good purpose could it possibly serve?

So, I won’t.  Probably.  They will find me if they want.

It annoys me that he’s not in touch with me.  It annoys me more that he has, in all probability, sold many of the things that we bought ‘together’ – though, in actual fact, we didn’t buy them together.  And, if he did buy any of them it was only because I bought almost everything else at the time – like food, fuel, paid the bills, etc.  Really, of course, I should never have just him get away with it – when we split – but it seemed like a good idea at the time and, in particular, as I was thinking of our long-term friendship, which has, obviously now, gone to pot.

I have conversations with him (in my head, as usual) except that nowadays, they’re not really full conversations – more like thoughts of conversations.  I don’t actually have sentences that go with the thoughts.  Either from him nor me.  And now, anyway, I know enough that the conversations will just never happen and, so, I stop them early.  And I find that annoying too.

We are, very nearly, at the end of it all – with no need for any ties.  Providing, of course, that I ignore the completion of the Final Question, the sofa cushions, his family and, generally ignore most people that he has any dealings with (which, with a few small exceptions, is not at all difficult).

Here I am, mentally, if not physically, slapping my hands together in the ‘all over and done with’ manner.

“The cushions are here for you to pick up”, she wrote.  My response was “I had given up on them, to be honest”.  Which is true.  I suggested that I might go over to get them in the next couple of weeks.  Which I might do.  And then she said that she got home about 9.30 and I thought that at that time I’m not sure I want to be schlepping half way over town to get them.  But that’s just stupid, I guess.  I should go and get them.  Probably.  But 9.30 is such a pain-in-the-arse time.  Maybe it would be better on a Saturday or Sunday.  Yes.  Probably.  Maybe this weekend.  Or next.  Or sometime later.  If I go and get them at least there would be even less reason to be in contact.  Which will be better.  Probably.

And, so, in summary, I am annoyed by being annoyed by something that I really shouldn’t be annoyed about.

And, yes, I will bloody well post it after all ……….

And, in the meantime ……..

Posted on by
4

……. I heard this on the radio for the first time, last night, driving home and I LOVE IT!  So I thought you might enjoy it too :-)

And, I love the lyrics too, especially this bit –

‘Cause I would walk a million miles for you, just to visit you, baby
And I’ll show you a trillion stars, the Moon is ours

Darlin’, I, I’m everlasting
I’m a sure thing
I’m the master
Giving you real, real, real love
And it’s yours for the asking
I put everything after
Giving you real, real, real love

I guess I’m a bit of a softy, really :-)

Progress. It has some advantages but not for everything.

Posted on by
9

For those of you who follow my blog, you may remember how pleased I was to find this flat.

It was on the street that I loved from the first time I saw it.  It was, in fact, the perfect street.  The flat was just right for me.  It was, in fact, the perfect flat.  And, so, this was the-perfect-flat-on-the-perfect-street – as far as I was concerned.

The street has many beautiful buildings.  It is a joy to walk down (as I do every morning when I take the dogs out) and there are many small shops and restaurants.  It gives a ‘village’ feel, even though we are no more than 10 minutes from one of the busiest and main shopping streets in Milan.  It is a haven from the normal hustle and bustle of the city.

We have everything we need here and I would hardly need to go anywhere else.  Our favourite pizza restaurant is just on the corner up the street.  There’s an Indian too, although I haven’t been there for ages.  There’s a small version of one of the supermarket chains, some cafés, a chemist, the place where I just had some pictures repaired, the vets are just off the street.  Yes.  All-in-all, it is the perfect street.

And the flat is wonderful.  It is old (1920s or 30s) – a little Art Nouveau with very high ceilings (that I cannot reach, even with my step ladders), there are nooks and crannies, a built-in cupboard in the kitchen (that was, probably, an old larder) – the flat has been divided up from a bigger flat, making it more interesting.  The rooms are large (for the city of Milan) and, even with my large English furniture, it is not too claustrophobic.

It took me a while to learn how to shut the windows properly.  They have an ornate handle.

To close them properly, you must first pull the handle away from the door.  It has a strange joint inside.

Then you close the door with the handle still out towards you.  Then push the handle closed but at 90° to the down-frame.

Then you bring the handle down to make it flush with the frame.

At this point the window is secure.

The one problem with these windows are that, because they are old, they are a bit draughty.  They are not really secure, either, to be honest.  It wouldn’t really take much to break in.

Also, the front door is not one door but two.  The left side (as you look at the picture) opens normally.  The right side has a bar keeping it firm and closed and you take the bar out to open both of them (when you are taking stuff out or having stuff delivered).

But, soon, all this is to change.  Some guys came in to measure all the windows and doors.  Apparently, the building administrators (landlords) are replacing all of them.

I know what this means.  We shall have modern double (or triple?) glazed windows.  Probably ones that open outwards from the top as well as open fully as normal.  They will be wonderfully good at keeping the noise out (when closed) and there won’t be any more draughts.  They will be much more secure.

In addition, the front door is to be replaced.  It will be replaced by a single door.  This door will be much more secure and will probably have a spy hole to see people when they come before you have to open the door.  The lock will be on of those that is securing not only the opening but also the top and bottom making it almost impossible to break in.  And, again, there will be no draughts.

This is great, except for one thing.  It will take a little away from the flat.  It won’t really be ‘in keeping’ with the style.  I am a little sad that they will be going even if I know that the result will be a warmer (and you know how I like it hot) and certainly more secure.

Hence the fact that I have taken photographs.  I love the handles and the way that they work and for all that the new ones will be easier and more efficient, it seems a shame that these ingenious pieces of engineering and aesthetically attractive handles will be replaced by fairly boring white plastic handles.

Ah, well, it is progress, I suppose.

Oh, yes, and the shutters are being replaced too.  You can see the style of shutters in the flats opposite mine in the following picture.  Maybe we shall get ones that close from the top – a single shutter – rather than these that close together.  Again, more secure – but it’s still a shame, in a way.

Rufus – a real old-gentleman dog.

Posted on by
4

It’s back, in a way, to the way it was less than three years ago.  Or, to be more accurate, about 15 years ago, I suppose.

He ‘lags’.  He has more problem keeping up.  Until the last couple of days, he had, for the last few months, been walking at my side – and not because I was getting him to walk to heel – just because he was doing it.  He seems to feel the pull of the lead more.  His sight is not so good any more.  If he’s by my side, I suppose, then he feels safer.  Maybe?

But these last few days, he has been lagging a bit.  Walking behind me.  And he’s a bit more wobbly.

Now, when you stroke his back, you feel the backbone.  As if there were no flesh.  As if he were already a skeleton.  His hindquarters have lost all fat and, it seems, most flesh.  Bless him.  His pupils now seem completely black.  It’s sad but it’s life.

As I say to people, if you can’t do this bit then you shouldn’t have a dog in the first place.  Yes, this is not easy but I try to make his life as comfortable as I can.  I need to take him out more often now, though, starting next week.  It will make it all easier for him.

It’s like having a puppy again.  You start off like this and end up like this.

But he’s still walking OK (most of the time).  He does have a bit of a problem cocking his leg now and tends to ‘lean’ onto the thing he is pissing against.  He really doesn’t have the strength any more.

But, he doesn’t seem in pain.  He’s just like an old gentleman, really.  Slower, weaker but with the same character.  He’s been a good dog and trustworthy and well-behaved.  He deserves my attention and love at this, probably his most difficult time.  And he shall have it, for as long as he needs it.