Category Archives: General Rambling

For posts that just go on and on and on and on and ……

Tourists – always watch what you’re doing but if you pay over the odds – walk away and enjoy your stay

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I suspect that we’ve all been there.

You’re abroad and not paying quite as much attention as you should. After all, you’re on holiday and relaxed (one would hope). You go to a restaurant, sit outside and order something – say, lobster. You enjoy it as it’s really fresh. One of your party doesn’t like it and spits out the piece they are eating but the rest of you finish everything.

Then the bill comes and you find that you’ve been stuffed for a couple of hundred pounds.

This was not helped by the fact that one of your party had been to this country and had already warned that, before asking for something, agree the price – especially for fish at restaurants. Of course, that made it quite funny, in spite of the shock of the bill.

That was a true story from some years ago when we were on holiday in Turkey. G went there quite often for work, so we relied on him to tell us how to go about things – but the thought of lobster made us forget everything. We reckoned that the piece that V spat out was worth about £8!

What we didn’t do was to complain about it. After all it was our fault. We should have known better but, what the hell, we were on holiday and these things happen.

In Italy, of course, one has to be careful about “hidden” charges. These charges aren’t, generally, hidden, of course, but displayed (although you may have to know a little Italian).

If you go to a bar, for example, have a cup of coffee for about €1 – IF you stand at the bar.

Go and sit down outside the bar and get the waiter to come and serve you and you’ll pay more. It could be as much as €4 for the same cup of coffee! It’s the Italian way. Everyone knows that.

Go to a restaurant and there is, invariably, a cover charge. This will cover the bread sticks and bread and the service (although you can tip up to about €5 if the service is REALLY good). The cover charge (coperto) WILL be somewhere on the menu but isn’t always easy to spot. It varies quite a lot but is usually something like €4 per person.

Go to an ice-cream shop and there is a dazzling array of options …….. and prices. Usually, for a small cup or cone with one small scoop of delicious (or, rather, usually delicious) ice-cream.

Of course, you can go for bigger ice-creams with, usually, up to three scoops. Of course, for this you certainly won’t be paying a few Euro. But you will have, in your hand, something that is almost a meal in itself.

So this is really quite annoying. I mean, there you are in one of the tourist hot-spots in a capital city and you go into the ice-cream shop. You see the prices start from a few Euro so you have the ultra-large cone with three scoops and think that that will cost you 3 times (say) €3. But, of course, each scoop of ice-cream will be double the size of the small scoop and the ice-cream will be hanging well over the sides of the cone. It’ll probably take about 15 minutes to eat it and you’ll feel quite full afterwards.

So, stop complaining. The prices will have been on the board in the shop – it’s just that you were being a tourist and forgot to check properly. Have a laugh about how you should have checked it better and move right along to enjoy your holiday.

So, stupid people. Not for missing that price nor paying so much – but for complaining about it afterwards to the British press.

It’s good to be back.

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Maybe, just maybe, it’s over …….. for now.

Which means that I can get back on track. It’s been over a month and it’s been tiring, to be honest. Still, it seems that this part may be done apart from one, smallish thing.

In the meantime, I’ve missed being able to comment on horsemeat, comedians in elections, UK elections, etc.

So, starting tomorrow, or maybe Tuesday, I’ll get back to writing a post or two.

It’s good to be back.

The wolves are in charge, it seems

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Finally, it seems, people are starting to wake up.

I have done several posts in the past giving my view that, if you want to really protect your sheep from the foxes, you don’t put the foxes in charge of looking after the sheep.

Nor do you put some sheep in charge. They are, after all, frightened of the foxes.

And, yet …….

And yet, that is exactly what we have done.

The steps go like this:

1. Liberalise everything so you cannot check what the banks are up to.
2. The banks learn how to make more money by “playing” the systems (see recent news about LIBOR manipulation).
3. Everything goes tits up.
4. Blame the sheep for using the fields that the banks have lent them.
5. The sheep in charge, being frightened of the banks (wolves) ask what they can do to fix the situation.
6. The wolves reply that, since the sheep were to blame in the first place and, unless you want to lose the fields, you need to cough up some dosh.
7. Even better was when the wolves managed to get one of their own (e.g. Monti – an ex-Goldman Sachs player) in a position of power.
8. All head sheep say we need austerity, having been told that by the wolves.
9. Austerity means the sheep don’t get fat and so can’t be sold at market. No money coming in.
10. The wolves are laughing all the way to the bank.

Sooner or later this nonsense will stop.

In the meantime, gives a much more business-like take on what I’ve said above.

Thanks to Alex from Italy Chronicles for the heads-up.

Do you want your kids to be gay?

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David Davies, some homophobic Conservative MP (well, MP for Monmouth, actually) has suggested that

“most parents would prefer their children not to be gay”

As a result, there has been all sorts of articles and people attacking him.

Sorry, but, as a gay man, I agree.  Why would anyone WANT their child to be born to be discriminated against?  I mean to say, if they are gay is one thing but you wouldn’t actually want it – in the same way that you wouldn’t WANT your child to be blind or deaf from birth.

Of course, in reality, it’s a sad reflection on society as a whole but, unusually (and probably a first), I agree with him.  I’ve seen too many gay people who are unhappy with how they are – not because they are gay, per se, but because they have found it difficult to ‘fit into’ a world full of gay-bashers, gay-haters and a general feeling of being unwanted.

The fact that he’s said this, of course, should mean that he backs the gay marriage thing – if only to make this preference disappear (or, at least, be reduced).  Sadly, he doesn’t heed his own words and, instead of a reflection of (a bad) society he treats it as a good reason to oppose gay marriage.  MPs should be about making society better not trying to make it worse.

Oh ….. wait …. stupid me.  MPs have never really been about that, have they?

Meanwhile, the will we/won’t we debate about gay marriage rumbles on …….. and on ……

It’s worse than pulling teeth.

Killing children cannot be justified.

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Imagine, if you will, that I am walking along the road when a child throws a very large firework at me.

It misses but explodes nearby.

Would it be right to go over to that child and punch him so hard that he falls to the road, banging his head and dying as a result?

If you would answer ‘yes’, then read no further.

So, imagine this, then.

A man, pushing his child in a pushchair, throws a rock in the air. It comes crashing onto the windscreen of my car as I’m driving, narrowly missing me but making me swerve and smash the car into a wall. The car is a write-off but, apart from some bruises, I am OK.

I get out of the car.

Should I, at this point, take out the iron bar from my car and walk over to the man and hit him on the head several times until he is dead?

As a consequence of this, by the way, the bar accidently falls on the child in the pushchair, caving in his/her head and killing him/her instantly.

Am I right to do this? Again, if you answered “yes”, please don’t bother to read any further.

If, however, you answered “no”, then you may understand my feeling when an Israeli man, who has proven to be an arrogant misogynist, sent an email to a female I know, saying that they should think themselves lucky because “on the bright side – no one is firing rockets on you – now you see how life are pretty good”.

I so wanted to be able to reply that, unfortunately, there were children in Gaza where the rockets were killing them. I wanted to say that, as far as I am aware, no one has died in Israel in the last few days – but a number of children have been killed in Gaza.

It makes my blood boil.

I’m sorry but I don’t believe you can EVER justify any act where a child is killed – especially when the act that killed them was, in any way, an act of revenge.

A no-painting Saturday

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There was no painting because, until Saturday evening, there was no F, being as he was in Germany.

I went to pick him up from the airport, with the dogs. Piero was sick on the way back. It was unexpected because, after the first couple of times, he was fine going to and from Carrara. Ah well, poor thing, I shall have to remember that he’s still a little bit dodgy when it comes to car travel.

However, they were very pleased to see him, as was I.

And, although nothing particular got done over the weekend, I quite enjoyed it and felt quite happy this morning.

Work soon changed that, even if I was busy this morning.

This weekend, apparently, will be the lounge.

Expat? Immigrant?

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There was a tweet, recently, relating to an old Guardian piece about the fact that an Indian guys didn’t feel he could be considered an expat.

Of course, it depends on your audience.

If, as an immigrant to Italy, I wrote a piece in an Italian newspaper, I could hardly call myself an expat since a) I am NOT Italian and b) I have not moved out of Italy.

For me it’s a matter of simplicity. Here, I am an immigrant – unless and except when I am talking to other English/American/Canadians here. When I talk to them I am an expat. They are expats too.

However, when I’m with Italians, as, in fact, I have done in the past, I point out that I, too, am an immigrant.

This is usually when they are complaining about the numbers of immigrants here.

It’s interesting that when I point out that I am also an immigrant, they usually respond with something like “Ah, but you’re different.”

What they mean, of course, is that, even if I can’t speak the language (whereas many immigrants can); even if I look different from the majority of Italians (with my blue eyes); even if I act differently (like being more courteous), I am OK because I am white and English and their friend.

As opposed to black or brown, non-European and selling roses or trinkets or working in a kitchen in a restaurant.

But I am mindful that I remain and will always be, an immigrant here.

I am from one of the current EU countries and so I have some “right” to be here – but, I guess, I could also be shipped back to the UK should the authorities deem it necessary.

Here, I have no roots; no “original” place to go to. And so it was true of the Indian writing the Guardian article. So, speaking to a British audience, he was always going to be an immigrant and not an expat.

I don’t think it’s that difficult an idea to grasp?

The IMF – just a bunch of know-nothing bankers

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Austerity. You must do this to protect the future and get yourself out of the sh1t.

Oh sh1t. Well, we thought it would be OK but now we see that, in fact, Growth is important. Except for some of the poorer countries. For them it’s still all about austerity.

No, wait a minute. It’s Europe’s fault. They should help the poorer countries.

Austerity. Growth.

Whoops! We were slightly wrong.

_______________________________________________________________________________________

Once upon a time, I thought that people who had the necessary training and qualifications were to be respected. After all, they know what they’re talking about.

Now, maybe because I am much older, I know that this is an utter load of bollocks.

Most people, even those supposedly in charge and who should know what they are doing or saying, don’t.

And, this article sums that all up quite nicely.

To save you the bother of reading it, here are some really ‘choice’ bits:

Christine Lagarde warned that only with greater co-operation and courage could governments hope to prevent a repeat of the financial crisis.

She is the head of the IMF. so she must know what to do, right?

Apparently.

Lagarde said banking regulators had told her that reforms of the financial system were incomplete and in many cases banks were as unsafe as before the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008.

So, the regulators of the banks (who are ex-bankers) have told her (the head of the ‘International Bank’) that the banks are unsafe, still, after one of the banks (in the USA) was ‘allowed’ to go bust because the regulators had failed to ensure it was safe.

Europe has come under fire for its failure to end the debt crisis

Because, of course, everyone else has been really brilliant and solved their crisis.

Lagarde said: “We expect action and we expect courageous and co-operative action on the part of our members.”

Ha! So what action do they expect to see?

The IMF has expressed frustration with Europe’s piecemeal response to its debt crisis and warned that a recent respite in borrowing costs for debt-laden countries such as Spain may prove short-lived unless eurozone leaders come up with a comprehensive and credible plan.

Now, to remind ourselves, the IMF said, at the beginning of the crisis, that we should immediately impose austerity and cut borrowing. But, it seems they made a bit of mistake in their calculations:

[The IMF] admitted in its World Economic Outlook report that officials underestimated the effects of austerity measures on economic growth.

The report found that previous estimates that for every £1 of spending cuts the economy shrank by 50p were wrong and the economy shrank by around £1.30 instead.

The IMF was a strong supporter of austerity measures adopted by Western countries, including the UK, in the aftermath of the financial crisis.

As a result:

Most countries that adopted austerity programmes have missed their deficit reduction targets after a sharp slowdown in economic growth hit tax revenues and private sector activity.

So, let’s just get this right – they thought that austerity was good because we would cut debt but they forgot to factor in the fact that, as soon as we have austerity, people stop buying (and borrowing) and so the effect on the economy was a LOT worse than they expected.

I’m sure the head of the IMF will make a full and swift apology and shut her mouth in future.

The IMF has U-turned in recent months and urged government to allow their austerity reforms to be planned over a longer period to lessen the impact on growth.

But I see no apology. Nor do I see everyone ignoring her and the rest of the IMF – which is what they should be doing and should have done.

A three-year-old child would have a better grasp of the situation than they had and, not only do they earn vast sums, tax free (WTF?) but, with their qualifications and experience, they should be able to do much, much better.

Of course, what should be done is to scrap the model we have now – where debt is seen as an asset rather than a liability and the banks should be under control and should be stopped from gambling, which is what they do and which is what led us to this, now.

In fact, now, every time I see something that the IMF head has said, it just makes my blood boil.

It’s outrageous and, should I ever meet her, I just want to tell her to fuck right off.