Category Archives: Italy

Overall thoughts on Italy and things we do

Possibilities

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Yes, I want it, of course I want it.

He came up with it.

“I think it’s Paola’s flat,” he said.

I agreed to ask Rita, our “door lady”/concierge, downstairs.

We discussed the cost and we guessed at the “spese” (building expenses). We estimated that the cost would be rather good, actually, and we’d be quite lucky to find somewhere of the same sort of size for that price.

I didn’t even know he was looking but he had found it on the internet. In fact, after we had spent so much time together over Christmas, I’d thought that, maybe, he’d gone off the idea. It seems not.

The cost of moving would be very cheap on the basis that most of my stuff would be moved across the hallway.

Of course, it’s not perfect but it has 2 bedrooms, a small studio, a very large and beautiful lounge/diner. It could work.

We’d both save money on rent and I’d still be in the area that I love.

It’s a real possibility.

Rita said that it hadn’t been “restored” after Paola had done her damage when she left. But, I guess, if they found someone to take it, they would do that quite quickly.

So, let’s see. It would be much more convenient.

And the dogs would be much happier.

It could be really good.

I’m going crackers for Christmas

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Chatting to an American friend (FfI) over coffee, today, she was telling me how she and her boyfriend watch the cooking channel. They like Jamie Oliver but also watch Nigella Lawson.

And she asked me what the silver tubes were. They had been stacked in a pile and looked really nice, apparently.

And it struck me again how, things we take for granted at Christmas are just our things. I mean, Italians, too, have no idea about them.

I had to explain that, these were Christmas Crackers. At each end the silver paper is pinched and that, two people pull the cracker which makes a small explosive crack. Inside the roll is some sort of item (small – like a toy or something), a joke or something on a piece of paper and a folded, paper hat.

The crackers are pulled before the lunch/dinner and then everyone wears the paper hats and tells the (usually stupid) joke.

It’s a British thing. But I got some shipped from Bowie’s in Hay-on-Wye and they look rather good. We’re going to have ours on Boxing Day when we have some Italian friends come over for lunch. Should be good. :-)

And, below, a picture of a Christmas Cracker:

Christmas Cracker

and a typical Christmas paper hat:

christmas_hat

Whatever special or unique things you have at Christmas, I hope you have a good time.

Another thing I did today was make the mincemeat (which for the uninitiated is not meat at all but, rather, a mix of dried fruits, nuts, sweet spices, etc.) so that, tomorrow, I can make mince pies. I know it’s not Italian but you might have it in the USA.

As you were.

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We’re back in business.

The tree is up and decorated. Not the tree I bought. That is on the balcony. It’s a new tree. And now he is happy.

And, so, with the exception of the cleaning, Christmas can commence.

In addition, I am so happy because, unusually, at work, instead of spending the last hour standing around at what is known as (but in reality is nothing like) “THE PARTY”, we shall be going home an hour early. I’ve always hated this so-called party thing. I’m sure that everyone is just waiting for the opportunity to get out of there. Instead we stand around, trying to be pleasant with a glass of prosecco and a piece of cake. Every year, I promise (to myself) to be the second person out of there but never make it. This year, at 3.15, I shall be leaving and going home.

And I might make mince pies :-)

And that will certainly make it the start of Christmas.

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.

I’m iller than you are!

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Of course, there is one downside to being a gay man.

This is that your partner is a man.

Men are notoriously bad when it comes to being ill. Italian men worse (imho).

So, here I am, suffering with “man flu” (i.e. a slight cold) and, instead of being able to really suffer, I find myself in a situation where F is “worse” than me.

I have this cold (as it was formally known before all illnesses had to be “the worst thing that has ever happened to you so far”) and F has stomach ache.

Of course, his is worse than mine.

So, he is at home and I am at work because, of course, if one is to suffer, one has to suffer properley. Suffering properley means that one must “soldier on” making sure that everyone knows that you are being a hero whilst, at the same time, trying to hide it. This doesn’t mean hiding it but rather, being subtle about making sure that your partner (and, in my case, colleagues) know that you are being a hero and passing it off as “nothing really”. By being the hero, in the normal course of events, it would illicit messages of sympathy and care but, in this case, I get nothing because he is feeling worse than me and my Italian colleagues have absolutely no concept of this “soldiering on” thing. Bloody Italians.

Bah, bloody humbug.

Of course, my cold is because I went out on Friday night without a hat or umbrella. And it was raining cold rain. So, Sunday morning I woke up with this bloody thing that I now have

On the bright side, it should mean that it is all cleared up by Friday and that I won’t be coming down with any other lurgy for Christmas.

Still, it’s a bit of a bugger that, on one of the very rare occasions that I AM actually a little ill, I can’t exploit it for all it’s worth!

Transferring the site ….. and other things

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4/12

Well, it was all going rather well in day 2 of the GREAT MOVE.

I found that, on the new hosting company, I can work on it without it being ‘live’ – meaning the existing one can remain in place.

Except ……..

It seems that the SQL database I am using is, in fact, the existing SQL database!

WTF?

But, it seems a slightly bastardised version of the existing SQL database.

Time for a break whilst work takes over.  And then we shall see.

Update 1:  The support team at the new hosting company assure me that I have must have restored it/transferred the data otherwise, what I am experiencing “is not possible”.

However, I think it may have something to do with the fact that I created an alias in order to set up the blog before cutting the old one.

But, and this is where the really worrying bit comes, am I looking at the old database or the new one?  If the new one, how can the data have come across when I haven’t, as yet, tried to restore it?  If the old database, then how am I able to look at it if they are held on different servers?  And, what will happen when I cut off the old one?  Will the old database and the new database disappear?

And, even more worrying is: How safe is the data if it can “suddenly” appear in the “new” database without me having done anything?

Bugger.

Update 2 – 10/12:

We’re almost a week on from the above.  Nothing has changed.  My blog is still being hosted on the other servers.  However, today I found something that said it would be easy, so I updated the nameservers (pointing the blog to the correct, new servers), killed the database, restored the database from a backup and checked it was OK and, finally, transferred all the WP files from the backup I created.

Perfect.

Except, of course, not quite.

Not quite as in it didn’t work.  I checked all the passwords, made small adjustments where I found errors and ……..

Still problems.

Then, I suddenly remembered that, the reason I was going to do this at home, last weekend, was that home was where the full file download was.  Here, the copying of files kept timing out – at home, it was fine (except for 3 files).

So, now I can do nothing, until I get home.

So, given the fact that it was a long weekend you may ask why I didn’t do it.  Well, Friday, I did other things, including booking the meat for Christmas and Boxing Day and wandering around looking for presents.  Actually, having wandered around, I found some things but, in the end, I didn’t want to buy them because, for me, now, Christmas Eve is the time for these things and I really wanted to come back on Christmas Eve and do it.  Nowadays this is part of what makes Christmas great.

I did pop into Euronics to see if they had a turntable (the main present for F) as I couldn’t wait for Christmas Eve for this.  They didn’t but, whilst I was there, I looked at televisions (F wants to get me one for Christmas) and fridges (as mine is very old and, sooner or later, will die.)

Saturday, during the day, was mostly spent searching for, researching about and phoning around for the said turntable.  The one I wanted which was supposed to be ‘arriving soon’ at a very local shop, was, in fact, not arriving, they told me.  It was not arriving because it hadn’t been ordered.  However, I could have a different one for only a couple of hundred Euro extra.  I told them I’d think about it.

Then, on another site, I found one.  Not the one I had been looking for exactly but, whilst researching, it seemed that Technics was the make to go for and this was a Techincs.  I phoned them.  They had 2.  And, yes, they would be open on Sunday.

Sunday morning came and, after breakfast, I went to get it.  Perfect.  Whilst waiting for the bus back to town, I saw that someone had posted some crap post about me being 40% happy and thought, “You know nothing”.

And then I got home.

I had forgotten to put the chair against the power lead to the fridge.

Piero had part-chewed through the wire and, somehow, managed to short it without killing himself.  So, now I had no fridge.  I told F and we ended up at Euronics where, for Christmas he bought me a new fridge (to be delivered on Wednesday) and we (together) bought a new telly, which we took home straight away.

But, obviously, to put it up, we had to clean behind where the telly is.  And, so, in the end, I didn’t sit down at the computer until about 5.30 – which was too late to do the move.

So Sunday, was, in the end, a mixed day – although I would say that I was still more than 40% happy, maybe I wasn’t quite 100%.

So you still have to wait to read this.  I hope that, by tomorrow, all will be, more or less, back to normal.

Update 11/12

So, now it’s back up and running and almost done.

Of course, it didn’t quite go as planned.  I got home and uploaded the files.

Except, some were missing and I had no idea until I uploaded them.

So then I had to bugger about this morning – uploading new WordPress files, uploading the ones from work that I had deleted and then resetting the config again.

I did think it was going to be a real pain but, in fact, once I’d done that, all was OK.  Now to fix the picture at the top and we’re done.

Thank goodness.  And, just in time for Christmas too.

I’ll be along to view your blogs and catch up as soon as I can.

Ciao

Two dreams

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I had two quite strange dreams last night.

The first involved a famous footballer. Not a specific famous footballer, you understand and, yet, I suppose he could have been David Beckham.

Don’t get me wrong, David is quite good looking but not really my type. And it wasn’t really David as this guy had some hair on his chest. How do I know this, well, because he was naked and lying/sitting on the bed, propped up on the pillows.

But this vision was, in fact, a flashback, whilst I was telling someone about it and insisting that ‘nothing happened’ because I really wasn’t interested which, if you’ve heard David speak, you may understand. His manly frame is not upheld with his, frankly, pansy voice.

Even more weirdly, his wife or girlfriend was also there – lying over the corner of the bed (but clothed, obviously)!

The second dream was, indeed, more weird and just a little horrific and I think it was this one that made me wake up.

I would suggest that if you’re a little bit squeamish or don’t eat meat, you stop reading here.

No, honestly, this is going to be terrible for you.

In fact, this will be quite terrible for anyone.

So, stop reading.

Please?

You won’t like it.

Really you won’t.

I didn’t and it was MY dream!

Well, if you’re still reading it then either you’re mad or you don’t care and can watch the most horrible of horrible of movies.

And so,

It starts with me sitting with an animal (like a baby calf or a baby pig) lying with it’s head resting on my lap.

Continue reading →

Christmas is coming …..

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Further to my post about Amazon and my desire NOT to use them, I have to tell you that it’s actually quite difficult. I found a website – The Book Depository – who were independent – until being swallowed by Amazon. I ordered from them anyway. I found Powell’s – but it’s an American site.

It seems that Amazon have got the market pretty well stitched up. I’m still working on it.

But, back to Christmas presents. One thing was bought months ago. Unfortunately, he saw one of them in a shop abroad and said they were not that good. Oh well, it’s bought now.

Then there’s the turntable. This is proving more difficult. I have delved around the Internet and found a couple that are good contenders – but trying to find a shop (any shop) in Milan that might stock anything like them, is proving difficult. I may have found some but I’ll have to go and look. Luckily, they’re quite near my flat.

Then there is the problem of other things. In past years, buying DVDs or books means a trawl through the Amazon site but as I said above, I am making a concerted effort NOT to use them.

Then I shall buy him an Italian version of the movie “Up” – if I can find it. He liked the version I played to him – but it was in English and it would be better for him in Italian.

Other things must be thought of. But it’s difficult when every Saturday is the dreaded painting.

Last Saturday, it was the hall. But, I must admit, it’s looking a lot better. We reorganised the furniture so now it looks (and is) much larger.

He has been saying to people that he is looking forward to Christmas and having a tree and cooking (which he generally doesn’t like) and being with the dogs. Me too. I will buy the tree but, of course, he will decorate :-)

And the flat will be newly painted and very clean, of course.

But, for now, the getting of the presents is the most important thing.

And finding an alternative to Amazon would be good, if anyone has any bright ideas.

Last Thursday – Eating and Drinking – I’m in Italy, so what else would there be :-)

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There’s this wine that we got last year. It’s delicious. I’m no wine expert but this is a smooth, deep-red, full-bodied, tasty wine. It’s called Roverone.

Last Thursday, we went to get more, with friends. The same friends who we were with last year. It’s a vineyard, set in the low hills south of Milan, between Pavia and Lodi. It’s still in Lombardy so it’s Lombardy wine they produce/sell. The vineyard is Nettare dei Santi. We got one bottle of white too, for F. The Roverone will be my wine for Christmas, for sure :-)

After we were there, we went to the same restaurant as last time, the Trattoria Righini, which I have posted about before.

You get served all at the same time, with many, many small courses. Having been there once already, i was much more careful this time – NOT to eat F’s left-overs and NOT to ask for seconds. I succeeded with the first but not always the second. In any event, we got there at 12.30 and left sometime after 4.30!

The food is fresh and they use in-season vegetables. You don’t get a choice of menus – you just decline (or in my case, accept) the dish they are serving you at the time.

In any event, we ate and drank far too much but it was fun and great food and drink and a rather wonderful day all together.

I did go and have a lie-down for an hour when I got home.

Also, I didn’t actually feel like eating anything at all until about yesterday!

p.s. I DID eat, of course, I just didn’t really WANT to eat :-)