It’s nice when, after a long period of estrangement, you find an ‘old friend’ has resurfaced.
And so it is in both the real world and the virtual world
An Old Friend is back.
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Category Archives: Friends and Inimies
Italian or British? Who is which?
“Have you two had a fight?”
I explained that no, as yet, we’ve never really had a fight (apart from last summer, at the start of our holidays). I explain that he’s just stressed.
We had been there a little while, waiting for him. He had had to wait for his washing machine to finish. It leaks from a hose somewhere and so he has to stay to mop up from time to time. So, it was almost 9.30 before he arrived. And, when he arrived, he was on the phone and seemed angry and didn’t say anything to me and so they thought that we had fought.
But I know him well enough now and know he is not pissed with me. When he comes back to the table he tells me who was on the phone. They were talking about the funeral in the UK that will be held next Friday. He tells me he is not going to go. I have mixed feelings about this and none of them selfish. On the one hand, he should go as I think he may regret it later. This was, at least for 11 years, his father-in-law. On the other hand, he is so busy right now, that even a two-day trip to the UK will throw everything into disarray for him.
He tells me it is because S would feel like he would have to look after F and S will be busy himself, given that it’s his father’s funeral and so he will be unable to look after F as he would like. But it is more complicated than that.
Next week he has several places to go and one is Venice, so a night away. The following week is a full week in Germany. So a trip in the middle of this to the UK would just add to his feeling of stress.
In the lift, on the way back to my flat, he informs me that he is working both on Saturday and Sunday.
I say how sorry I am. Again, there is nothing selfish in this. I am sorry for him. He really needs the rest.
During the meal, last night, for some reason I now forget, it came up about the end of him and S. Apparently it was not a good ending. And it went on for some time. It’s part of the reason that he doesn’t want to ‘go there’ again. And I do ‘get it’ even if I don’t agree with it. And I don’t. But it explains some more things. It explains the way he is.
At one point he tells the colleague we are with that he keeps home and work seperate. He doesn’t talk to me about his work – good or bad. He doesn’t take his personal life into work, he says. Although, of course, he does, he just doesn’t realise it.
But I thought about him and how stressed and uptight he gets about things.
I thought, “but this isn’t what I expected from an Italian.
An Italian should be more relaxed and easy-going. An Italian shouldn’t get this uptight”.
And I wondered if, in fact, this uptightedness was more of a universal thing and not just confined to the British. Or if, with me being more laid back than he is, we hadn’t, somehow, got trapped in the wrong country when we were born. Is he Italian or British? I mean to say, is he more British than Italian? Am I more Italian than British?
As one could say he was a little more anally retentive than your average Italian (unless they are all like this and I just didn’t realise). But, perhaps, the British shouldn’t be portrayed as they are?
He says that “the problem with English people is that they don’t tell you the truth”. I am included in this. It’s not that we lie, it’s just that we don’t say it like it is and nor do we give our true feelings.
I think we call them white lies. These aren’t true lies, of course. These are things said so that you don’t hurt people’s feelings. Like – “you look lovely in that dress”, etc.
Perhaps they don’t have them in Italy? White lies, that is.
Do they?
Inevitable but, still ………..
“I didn’t know you had a blog”
Well, that’s not entirely true.
“I wouldn’t read it anyway”. I know that.
But now I feel I must, at least, show him. But, I am a procrastinator and so I procrastinate. It was Thursday and we are now on Saturday. It was over a beer with An and him. I mentioned it in passing. After all, it’s not a secret, as such. Not really.
The problem is not that I don’t want him to see it. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. I would prefer that he knows it is there, even if he doesn’t read it. I would prefer that he has seen it, even if he chooses not to read it but I wouldn’t mind him reading it. Well, not really. I think. Maybe.
No, the problem is that I must explain. After all, these things I write are not always, shall we say, exactly as other people see it. They are, in fact, what goes on in my head and what goes on in my head is more like a parallel universe – almost the same but with subtle (or even not so subtle) differences.
And, of course, he is there. In every post – even if not mentioned. He is there because, well, he is the most important person in my life and so ‘invades’ each post because he is always in my thinking, in my head. And, since this blog is about what’s in my head, he must be there.
I wouldn’t want him to read something and misinterpret or be upset by something. After all, very few of my readers actually know him. He is just ‘F’, some guy. He doesn’t have a face or a personality – except the personality I have given him. The personality I have given him is the one I see and the personality I write down is the one I have in my head. I’m sure he would disagree about some of it, would say ‘but I’m not like that’ and he would be right, I suppose. He isn’t like that – except, actually, in my head that’s exactly what he is like. And that’s quite difficult to explain. It becomes more difficult when we talk in a language that one of us doesn’t fully understand – even if his English is very, very good.
Most people who know me well have not reacted to the blog very positively. One person explained it as like ‘reading my personal diary’ – a little like snooping in my head. It’s OK for me but not for them. Like when someone dies – it’s those that are left behind (which is a strange statement in itself, I always think, as if they have raced ahead somewhere and not waited for all the others to catch up) that really suffer. The person who’s dead does not suffer at all. Then there are those who have searched and searched for mentions of themselves. Looking for how I really feel about them. But how I feel about them doesn’t really feature since the blog is about a moment and, worse, a moment that has a basis in real life but is still in my head. Which is a different thing.
Yes, it’s a different thing entirely.
But I should show him.
He has had plenty of chance to look. It is easy for him to find. I leave my computer on when I go to work. He uses it to play ‘the game’ (as we call it) on Facebook. But he only has to click on the tab to see it.
Still, I would be more ‘comfortable’ if he had seen it.
After I explain it – or try to explain it.
Just in case.
Yes, I should show him.
Maybe today?
Or tomorrow?
Soon.
Disastro!
OK, so maybe that’s a slight exaggeration.
Last night I saw that my phone was very low on charge. However, this was after we had been to Polpetta (F, An and I) and so I could not stay up long for it to charge. I charged it a bit and it ‘said’ there were two bars of charge. It’s enough.
Except, obviously, it lied. It was not on two bars. During the night it ran out of battery and switched itself off.
This morning, after a rather good night’s sleep, I opened my eyes to see the time was eight minutes past seven.
“Shit!”, I jumped out of bed. The dogs had a short walk. I still had a coffee (as without that I cannot survive), a shower but no shave and rushed out almost an hour late starting to work.
The traffic was terrible.
That’s because there had been a bad accident. Today! The day I am late! I suddenly start driving like an Italian, crossing a dual carriageway exactly as they do! Sometimes I scare myself. I mutter to myself (really I did this), “When in Italy …….”.
Then there were stupid drivers. Then there was a truck blocking the road. It took me an hour to get to work and so I arrived at 9. Grrrr.
Also, I have to admit to you, dear reader that I have, again, fallen off the wagon just a little bit. The night before last I ate two Mars bars. Last night I had two beers.
On the bright side, I have not had a bread roll since I went on the non-diet 
Other bright sides: I had almost an hour and a half’s extra sleep; it is Friday; the weather is warmer (or, rather not so cold); tonight I go out with A to Polpetta (he may not talk to me because of the last time) and then we join F and An to go to the Taverna della Lamparo; on Sunday, we shall go for breakfast with An and then, later, for lunch at the Alle Colline Senesi with her. (All links are on the side)
And, Saturday night is the final of the Festival of San Remo, which is televised and which we MUST watch. Well, F MUST watch it and so, we will.
And you? What fun things will you be doing over the weekend?
No Diet – Day four and other things.
Well, that was all rather lovely.
But first I must thank all of you for kindly answering my call after I shamelessly prostituted myself for comments. I no longer feel quite so gay knowing that straight men like Mars bars too :-D.
On to last night. B was up in Milan and so we went to Sento as I predicted and wanted. It has been so long since I had sushi and it was divine. Even now I can picture the boat of bright red, pale pink and white fish laid on that particularly nice bit of sushi rice.
And I had the grilled beef. The wine was lovely – dry, crisp, white wine. Sake to finish. Sparkling water and sparkling company. B did seem so well and I was so happy to see her. We even made tentative plans to all go up to Pallanza for the weekend of Easter. Yay! Since last night I have checked with F who is also keen on this idea as long as it includes the bambini, of course and the opportunity to play cards.
Of course, as last night was all Japanese food, none of it is fattening in any way and so I already feel slimmer 
We talked and talked. Actually, as is usual with B, it felt that I did most of the talking …… again. She also came up, beforehand, to see the dogs, especially Rufus who has always been her favourite.
We also talked a little about V and I explained about the defriending on Facebook and so on. I explained that I was disappointed, which is true ……… now. I admitted to being a bit angry at first. After so long together, how DARE he just cut me off! But now I am just very disappointed.
And she talked about how she searched for her old boyfriends again – after all, if you were with someone for however long, they meant something, they had something that was attractive and one should never let that just disappear. And I’m with her on that. Perhaps I should make a little more of an effort to get in touch with M?
So, I just broke off to do just that!
And, for reasons that escape me (although it may have been seeing B last night or knowing that we’re going away this weekend or the fact that it’s Valentine’s Day on Monday), I feel incredibly happy. Which is in direct contrast to last week!
And so, I wish you all a very good weekend too. I hope you’re doing something special too
Evening of Day three and start of Day four – a little set back or two.
Well, depending on how you look at it, it’s all going rather well or it’s a complete disaster!
Like the button of yesterday, today has had it’s broken thing too. However, I only noticed once I got to work. Actually I only noticed after I had dropped the car off and was walking to work.
The car is being cleaned. This weekend we go for a night away using the Smart Box present that F got for his birthday last year. We have to use it now because it expires at the end of this month! And so we shall need to use the car. Since the car has not been cleaned since about last September and, knowing F’s slight obsession with cleanliness, I thought it better to get it cleaned
And as I’m walking from the garage to work, something doesn’t feel quite right. It is, in fact, my shoe. The sole is coming apart from the uppers. These were €30 shoes that I bought about 18 months ago. I’ve been, sort of, meaning to throw them out for a month or so but being a stingy bastard, kept wearing them. Tonight, they will be thrown away. Today they have to survive. I will try not to walk too much.
Of course, I don’t think that the shoes are really like the button of yesterday. It is not caused by my fatness – unless my whole body is becoming bloated and I have some dread disease! But, I think not.
And, to add to this, last night was a bit of a set back too. I didn’t do the ‘wine diet’ last night. F joined us in Polpetta (again!) and he wanted beer. So, I thought, OK it’s only 1 night – for this one night I change to a ‘beer diet’ – except a ‘beer diet’ WILL make you fat – so I think I will drop it tonight. Oh, yes. I also had a very tiny piece of hard cheese, a couple of pieces of salami and, unfortunately because it was really nice, a couple of small pieces of bread with some very nice ricotta. So I suppose it was more than a little set back. More of a mountain of a set back. But, as I say, it was only one night.
Tonight it will be back to the ‘wine diet’.
Oh yes, and hopefully, some sushi.
But sushi isn’t fattening and you can eat as much as you like too!
It depends on B but I’m secretly hoping that she is up for the sushi.
So it will be white wine (which, to be frank, is even less fattening than red wine) and sushi. And maybe that nice manzo that they do. It’s only a small dish so that’s not really fattening either. And they don’t do bread at sushi restaurants so it will be fine.
I confess that I lied a bit at the beginning of this post. The bit about it going rather well. Quite obviously, it’s not but, luckily, I’m not overly worried. I mean, you can’t just change these things overnight, can you? On the bright side – it has been four days since I had a Mars bar. Perhaps I will turn straight!
Non-dieting – Day 3
I’m afraid I had a bit of a setback this morning.
I would like to point out that this had absolutely nothing to do with my new, fictitious and completely made-up wine diet!
It was putting on a shirt. I found that, whereas, only last week no less, this shirt could be worn with the top button done up, now the button barely made it to the hole, let alone, through it! At first I thought that, perhaps, the shirt was riding too high up on my neck. So I made sure it was pulled down properly. Still no good. Trying to stretch the button to go through the hole and not just kiss it didn’t work either. I had a vision of the cotton threads doing their best to become elastic. Anyway, if I had managed to get the button through the hole it would, at some point during the day, have popped off in spectacular style, maybe even hitting someone in the eye, thereby alerting them to the fact that it seems I am getting fatter by the minute!
This was all somewhat of a shock.
So I am wearing a shirt with the top button undone and a tie that is, therefore loose. I feel untidy.
However, this lunchtime, again, I didn’t take any bread (although my hand did reach in for one); I had half the normal amount of pasta; 2 polpette and some spinach. Again, I do not feel as bloated as usual.
Tonight I have a student. He texted me at a quarter to midnight last night to ask if it was OK to come tonight at 7.30. He doesn’t come every week. I didn’t reply; I was almost asleep. I replied this morning. I then get this slightly strange message:
“I’m thinking to a new program of study! Than (sic) I let u know! See u later!”
He certainly likes his exclamation marks!!!! I guess I should talk to him about them
Does that mean that he is coming tonight or not? A new program of study – is that a new thing with me or with someone else? Is it English or some other subject? And he’s going to let me know later today or tonight or sometime in the future? I have no idea what it means. He has only been with me for about 5 lessons so I have no idea how he thinks ….. yet.
Also, tonight, I’m supposed to go round to a friend’s new flat but no time has been set and, to be honest, it might not happen.
I have been promised Mirto. It’s an incentive that works for me. Maybe I should change my diet from a wine-diet to a mirto-diet? Of course, if she does food too or wants to go out for a pizza or something, I can’t really say ‘no’ – that would just be rude but it certainly won’t help me doing up the top button on my shirt, will it?
Mars Bars are Gay! Who knew?????? Please comment, I beg you.
Apparently, according to A, the only people who eat Mars Bars are women or gay people.
To be honest, when he said it I nearly fell off my chair!
We had texted earlier. I said that it would be fine to go out but I wasn’t going to have any beer and no food. I would just drink wine. I was on a ‘wine diet’. It was a joke but, as with many things, it was lost in translation.
A was in fine form yesterday being more outrageous than normal.
“Dogs are like women”, he says.
“Don’t say that to Fr!”, I cautioned.
But, apparently, he meant that dogs to me were like women to him. I laughed. His view of the world is a strange one.
But the ‘this is what a gay person is like’ thing was a recurring theme during the evening. I forget them all now but they’re not really important in themselves. He likes to have everything pigeonholed. Gays are different to him and, therefore, must be similar to women.
He needs to get out more.
I think he actually said it, more than once, ‘You are like a woman’. Yes, it does irk me a little but he’s A and, for all his faults, I know he has a heart of gold. It’s only his ignorance speaking.
And the fact that he is a stubborn bastard.
I did have a drink in Polpetta with him. Red wine. Pinot Nero. A had some fruit juice (orange, I think) with campari. I had to refrain from pointing out that if someone was looking at us, he would have been gayer than me with that drink.
And he ate. I wasn’t eating but he ate and ate and ate. I did wonder why he wasn’t the size of a house!
I had forgotten my wallet and so we came back to my flat (although I then forgot to give him any money anyway) and I opened a bottle of red wine. And this was when the thing about Mars bars came out. I told him I would blog it as it was, at the same time, outrageous and extremely funny.
And I forget why but we started talking about politics. This is not a good thing and I avoid it like the plague, here. After all, here, they are so right or left and so dogmatic that it is impossible to have any reasoned conversation.
“I’m not ashamed of Berlusconi”, he states. I find it impossible to keep the smile off my lips. He doesn’t like that but it’s either that or starting an argument which will have no end since his views are set and nothing will change it. I do say some things but not nearly enough. Anyway, it’s not my place to criticise his thinking, even if it is closed.
“He came from nothing and is a great entrepreneur”, he says, adding “the right have the right mind”. But, what was noticeable (at least when I thought about it this morning) was that the arguments (as usual when people talk politics) was not really a defence of Berlusconi nor his way of thinking (nor his Bunga Bunga parties) but instead an attack on the left and the magistrates.
“They are rich and live in nice houses (the left)”. I’m sorry but that’s not an argument to say that Buzz is great. Nor does it say that (the left) are not qualified to be speaking for the left.
“The magistrates are out to get him”. That doesn’t mean he has done nothing wrong. Nor does it mean that if he has done something wrong that he, just because he is Prime Minister, should not be held accountable in court. He’s not God however much he and his supporters think he may be.
In the end, I countered, weakly, with the fact that they (politicians) are only interested in what they can get for themselves, their friends and family and don’t care about the likes of us and that they were all corrupt.
“What we should do is exile them all and start again”, I concluded.
I was dissatisfied with my argument but I knew that I should not ‘get involved’ since, as I said before, this was not an argument where reason and logic would play any part. A lot like religion, really. After all, it’s a belief and beliefs have no sway with logic nor reason.
Still, we finished the bottle of wine. Which made me late. However, I think the ‘wine diet’ part is going rather well, don’t you?
However, given that Mars bars (and, in fact, sweet things in general) are, apparently only eaten by gay men and women, I need your help.
This is why I said I would blog about it.
Please let me know if you (being a straight man) or straight men you know (if you are a woman or gay) eat sweet things like Mars bars, chocolate or other such things. A seems to think the answer is no but, being a gay man, he refuses to believe me when I disagree as if, by being gay, it precludes me from knowledge about the world that is not gay or female.
I need to know. He will, in all probability, read this and your comments. Comment immediately ……….. please?
Weather, washing, whinging
“It was too hot”.
This was in reply to my “It was lovely weather but still too cold”.
Don’t ever think that as British, we hold the monopoly on complaining about the weather. We just have ‘more’ of it. Here, the weather is never right. It’s always too cold or too hot or too rainy or too much snow (well, this time last year, anyway). The only thing it rarely is (and so rarely complained about), is too windy.
I have a sneaking suspicion that every country is, more or less, the same.
When I replied that we still had to wear coats, the original quote was qualified with “Yes but it’s too hot for February”. There’s just no pleasing people.
And it was a rather splendid weekend (apart from the coats thing). The sun shone and it was almost too warm (outside my flat anyway) for a hat. Almost but not quite. If I was a truly British person I would, given the weather, have been out in shorts and a T-shirt!
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It seems that my washing machine has all but had it. It doesn’t always spin. And, anyway, when it does spin it sounds like I also put a load of boulders in with the wash. It’s so loud that I am unable to hear anyone on the phone unless I move to the bedroom.
So I went to have a look for some over the weekend.
I was expecting to pay between €200 and €300 so I was a bit shocked when there really wasn’t anything below €400. Damn! But I AM NOT going back to hand washing and so, this week, I must just bite the bullet and get one. I don’t really want a crap one so you have to pay more than €400 but I could do without it right now. Damn again! And then, this year or next year I suppose, will be a fridge.
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I feel better than I felt on Saturday.
Just thought you should know.
Perhaps I should apologise to A for being a miserable bastard when we went out on Friday night? We went to K2. I think I should revise my feelings about K2 as it really was quite good.
I am alive!
“Do you like it?”, he asked.
“It’s OK. It enables me to stay here”, I replied.
Thinking about it, it’s not really OK at all. But what can I do? He is determined ‘to be a writer’. But I remember, vaguely, some quote from an actor or writer that said, more or less, that they kept on saying that one day they would be a writer or actor until the time came to renew a passport and, since they didn’t have a ‘real’ job, they had to put writer or actor and then realised that there was no ‘big moment’ where they moved from being an aspiring whatever to the real thing.
So, he is, in fact, a writer. A writer of books. Well, one book with another, he hopes, soon. I hope so. I wish it could be the same for me but I am not that skilled in writing that I could ever be a real writer. I’m just a blogger which is not the same thing at all. Anyway, I couldn’t do what he has done/does and my goal is not that defined. I have no goal. ‘Just living’ is the goal. Oh, yes, and eating and drinking and spending time with friends and the dogs and stuff.
Hardly the stuff of dreams.
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F is funny. When he meets any one of my friends (or, even in this case, someone I really don’t know), he talks. It’s like he can’t have a silence.
Of course, once he had found something to talk about, he didn’t stop. In this case, once Karl (this is NOT anything to do with the ‘Karl spark’ – it’s his real name and I’ll link to his blogs in due course – since the ‘Karl’ in the ‘Karl spark was, in fact, a guy with a real name beginning with J) had explained his ‘great plan’ (which is not a great plan as such – just an idea that will change as the year progresses), which is to visit as many festivals as possible over the world, F started to come up with all the festivals that Karl absolutely MUST go to. They were all music festivals and included, of course, San Remo.
I’m not actually sure that, even if Karl intends to go to San Remo, it will be quite the same as the festival experience he’s looking for. After all, it’s a little commercial now. I recall the Upton Jazz Festival. The first year that it was staged, the jazz bands played in the many pub gardens that are a feature of Upton upon Severn. Everything was free. The feeling that one got was fantastic, wandering from pub to pub, having a beer, listening to some live band – really ‘chilled out’. The next year, the bands were behind screens and you had to pay and, immediately, it moved from being ‘a night out with friends (even if you didn’t know the people nor the musicians) to being a commercial event. Not the same at all. A little like the Hay Festival or (I imagine) the Edinburgh Festival. Far removed from the original thing.
I think San Remo would be more like going to a book festival. Of course, to F, it is a wonderful thing. We shall watch it again, certainly.
Still, Karl took notes, which was kind of him even if some of them were almost certainly going to be dropped from the list even as he wrote them down.
As I predicted, F didn’t come and stay with me. He is quite strange sometimes.
This morning, I got up just after the alarm. The sambuca, the night before, didn’t seem to have the usual effect, which was good. The lack of enough sleep makes me tired – but it’s not really different from normal.
He said he slept well. I forgot to ask if he had managed to connect to the internet OK after I went to bed. I forgot to tell him to take tram 23 to the middle of town. Mornings are not really my best time.
But, in case you were worried, I am, in fact, alive.
So he wasn’t a crazed axe murderer after all. Nice guy doing this round the world thing. I couldn’t do it – I like my comforts too much, I guess. Still it was interesting and I wished him good luck with it all.