A quick overview – Gay, immigrant, drunk, nail-biting, Tibetan Taxi Driver

I must apologise for my lack of posts this month. There have been many times that I’ve started to write something, been distracted or ran out of gas halfway through and they just never get finished.

I have wanted to say things about the events in Tibet; gay people; drink/driving; immigrants; and many other things but they just haven’t made it to the blog.

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Gianna Nannini

Gianna Nannini or, as I thought for ages, Gian Annanini (although why some woman would have a blokes name, God only knows), was truly fantastic. Her name is pronounced Janananini as there is no gap when you say it.

This is helped, no doubt, by the fact that the last concert (and first here, in Italy) that I went to was…wait for it…Robbie Williams!

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The Dorian Gray of dogs

(Picture is not Rufus but is a random image from Google Images when I type the title in and did a search).

We’re walking through the park. Just a normal Saturday. Rufus, as he does from time to time, finds a shrub (he has certain ones on our usual walk) that he rubs against as if he’s grooming himself (maybe he is – but it’s much better than rolling on the ground in shit, which has been known and is not, as I’m sure you can imagine, very pleasant).

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The hidden side of me

I’m just an ordinary, simple kind of bloke.  I like food, beer and wine, the sun, relaxing, reading, watching a good film, having good times and conversations with friends, etc.

I don’t like football, ignorant and bigoted people, bad food, driving, smelly people, etc.

I don’t have hidden depths.  Scratch the surface and there’s just more surface, nothing else.

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The Great Panecone and Full-English Breakfast

The café is almost like a bar in a pub. An old-fashioned bar. The fixed, wooden bench with the high back hugs the wall all the way around. The ‘bar’ is wooden too. Nice, old wood. The tables are large and rectangular and, would you believe it, wooden. The floor is wooden without carpet. It’s all well scrubbed – spotlessly clean.

The feeling is warm. The sun shines in through the windows and it is bright inside, in spite of all that wood. The espresso machine, behind the bar, gives a delicious smell to the whole place. The staff are, in the main, dressed in white.

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