Monthly Archives: June 2011

Something more special

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I suppose I should be thinking about it now. Or even trying to write something. You know? Something more profound than the usual drivel.

Some bloke has just written a post celebrating his 100th post. So, I guess for your 1000th you should do something, shouldn’t you? That’s in 42 posts. Well, 41 after this has been posted.

I was going to keep it a secret. At least, keep it a secret until it actually happened. But the celebration of the 100th posts has got me a bit worried. For post 1000 it should be more special. Maybe. Perhaps.

It could, perhaps, also coincide with the 6th anniversary of time that I moved here? Or, if I don’t write enough posts in time, then, perhaps with the 6th anniversary of the start of the blog? The reality is that it will, probably, fall somewhere in between these two dates. A sort of no-man’s-land of a date.

Of course, I could ask you to give me a subject? I’ve never done that before. It could be a useful experiment, if not a daunting one. After all, I’m not really a ‘writer’. Just someone who writes a blog.

Anyway, I’ll give it some thought. Perhaps you could too?

A conundrum

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It’s close to midnight. I hear the dog barking. Not continuously but a couple of barks every five minutes or so. Her shutters are open but, I think, her windows are shut.

She had two dogs. One was very old. About 14, I think. It meant that you had to hold your breath every time you got into the lift if they had been in it. It was truly dreadful and my sense of smell is atrocious! The dog died. It was then that we started exchanging pleasantries. I had asked about the old dog and she told me it had died. So now, when we meet we say hello. She’s about 70 or late 60s at least. She doesn’t walk so brilliantly but she looks healthy enough, if a bit overweight.

Her dogs never make any noise. But the one is dead now. The (living) dog has been barking all evening. It’s not really annoying since it’s not that easy to hear.

I take mine for a walk. I meet P, my neighbour, the one we spent New Year’s Eve with. We talk. It’s quite funny really. She talks in Italian and I talk in English. I understand everything she says and she me. I think it’s more strange that I DO understand everything. In other situations I understand nothing and yet, here she is talking about her work, life in general, the crisis and ……….. the neighbour with the now-barking dog.

She’s worried. The dog never barks (which I confirm). And yet it’s been barking all evening. She’s been to the woman’s flat and rung the bell but there is no one there. Or, rather, no one answers. Or, rather, no one CAN answer. She’s wondering if she could call the Police or something. She (we, together, in our Italian/English mix) decide she will speak to the door lady tomorrow morning.

I go back upstairs and tell F. He becomes worried (Note to self: Do NOT tell him things which he can worry about. Keep it to yourself). I explain that I’m a bit worried. I think of FfC who had some brain attack and was paralysed. She tried to get out of bed and fell on the floor. She was unable to move. She was unable to reach her telephone to call anyone. She stayed like that for three days! Then she was in hospital for about 5 months!!

I tell F about that. (Note to self: Do NOT tell him things that makes him even more worried). He is more worried. We go to bed. I say that P will talk to the door lady tomorrow. We both think ‘But what if she really is ill and doesn’t last until tomorrow?’.

F can’t sleep. He is too worried. I tell him to call the Police. He doesn’t. What if she’s just out late? It’s unusual for her. She’s always home. But you never know.

So, what to do, what to do?

Answers on a postcard or in the comments, please.

Two birds …………… one Sunday

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It’s trashy really.

Just so you understand. I was going to post the one thing and then I remembered the other. And then I thought of ‘killing two birds with one stone’. Even as I thought it I thought how trashy and tasteless it was. Ah well, one can’t be perfect all the time, even if I am bloody close.

So, there I am, Sunday, walking to the car to get it ready for our departure. The sun is hot, especially on my shirt which, in turn touches my T-shirt which, in turn touches my skin which is burnt and, therefore, slightly sore. It comes of going to the beach and staying in the sun for about 3 hours without sun-cream (because F had forgotten to bring any and I’ve never bought any for about 35 years and I find it slightly daunting given that there is factor this and factor that and oil and cream and so much choice that I really don’t know what I want (or need) and, anyway, it’s all in Italian).

So we both got burnt a bit – even if the sun was behind cloud some of the time. So we bought sun-cream that evening – but it was already too late.

So, as I say, I’m walking to the car and on the high wall above the car I see a bird I’ve never seen before (that is, I’ve seen pictures in books, so I knew what it was, I’ve just never seen one in real life, so to speak), half hopping, half flying along the top of the wall, its beak full of something, moving away from me but not so fast as if the nest is very nearby but not wanting me to know where it is.

I’m still a country boy at heart, I guess. I still get pleasure from seeing wild birds and animals. So I introduce you to the Hoopoe:

Hoopoe

That evening we are eating at Liù and in walked some ‘famous’ people. I say famous meaning that F told me they were famous TV stars. Famous meaning they had been on Isola di Famosa which is a lot like I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here – i.e. full of ‘D’-list celebrities who need all the fame they can get to boost a new or failed career. I half-recognised the one. Then he said that the other woman was Victoria. Now Victoria I do know. She’s a London-born TV presenter. She speaks (so I am told) perfect Italian. I thought she had a Mancunian accent but perhaps I am mistaken.

She’s quite funny. I quite like her. And, F then told me that she lives round the corner from me. Who knew? I’m sure, given another few encounters, we would become firm friends ;-)

And so, here she is:

Very or Victor Victoria

The Internet is full of liars and charlatans – just like real life.

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I’m not entirely sure why people are either surprised or, even, angry.

It’s the thing about the Internet. It’s impossible to say if it’s real or not. And so, the Syrian lesbian blogger who turned out to be some American guy living in Scotland and the lesbian blogger who also turned out to be a man are being hounded and made a lot of people angry. But why?

Karl, posing as (or should that be ‘was posing as’?) a very ugly man wrote a blog for 2 years before finally revealing he was, in fact, nothing of the sort. People got angry. People get angry, I think, because they feel they’ve been duped. But they only have themselves to blame. With the ‘Syrian’ blogger, there’s even a woman (in Canada, I think), who thought she was having a relationship with him/her, even if they’d never actually spoken (obviously)!

In a way, I have to admire these people. To create (and, in some cases, go to great lengths to give credibility to) a persona that’s not only not you, but isn’t even your sex and doesn’t have your sexual orientation takes some skill and creativity. They need to be good writers, one would think. But is it any different than, say. JK Rowling creating a whole host of characters for her Harry Potter series?

One could argue, of course, that JK Rowling doesn’t pretend that the characters are real. And yet, in her head, at least whilst she’s writing them, they do have a sort of reality. When they become films, they take on a more substantial reality. OK, so pretending you’re someone in the real world and carrying it on is different – but only slightly. You didn’t have to believe it. In fact, why should you believe anything you read on the Internet?

There are some people who read my blog who I know and have met. Lola, for example, Pietro, a colleague, Karl, the once ugly man or Stef, a good mate are people who know I am a real person. Stef and Pietro knew me ‘before the blog’, Lola and Karl, afterwards. Then there are those (Gail, The Store Manager, Man of Roma and Ruth, the friend of a friend) who don’t actually know me at all. Well, Ruth knows I’m real, I guess. Yet, I have a friendship with these people. I don’t actually know them either. Does that invalidate the friendship? Not really. If, for example, MoR turned out to be a woman living in the USA, would that make our discussions irrelevant? No, not at all. And I trust that these people, when they blog, are telling me the truth. Would it matter if they weren’t? Again, no not really.

There is a woman with whom I am a ‘friend’ on Facebook. Solely for a game that I used to play. She has all sorts of ‘problems’ but I don’t know that it’s all real. Perhaps she is just making it up? She certainly craves attention both in the game and on Facebook. I don’t know if it’s all real or whether it’s just being said for the attention. And I don’t really mind either way.  I take the Internet for what it is.  I believe the people that I read about but I’m not really emotionally involved, I suppose.  How can I be?  I don’t know them.  I can read about things that they do, empathise with them over problems that they may have but deeper than that it’s impossible for me to go.

And, anyway, it’s not like real life didn’t throw up the odd con-man (or woman) or two?  The Internet just makes it easier and, certainly, makes changing sex very easy too (not that that hasn’t been done in real life).

So, whereas I’m not especially impressed by what the two guys have done I’m not really shocked and I’m not outraged.  It’s what you should expect unless you have proof otherwise.

It’s his way of showing me.

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“You go and get them”, he says, “because you’ve got to go and do it when I’m not here”.

I don’t say anything at the time. He makes me laugh. I tell him when I get back, as we’re eating the two sandwiches I’ve just bought. I can do things but he seems to feel that I must be ‘trained’ as to ‘how’ to do things. Of course, he’s just making sure I will be OK. I want to say ‘I’ve been here for 6 years. I think I can get by, now. Otherwise I would have died from starvation!” I don’t, of course. It’s quite sweet, really. Bless him.

It felt more than 2 days and 2 nights.

It felt like a week or something.

He had worked hard on the house. I said all the right things. It’s amazingly light. All walls are white, of course. It’s not perfect in that the sink in the bathroom only has cold water; the toilet doesn’t flush properley but you can’t have everything. There were new toothbrushes, soap for me, food for the dogs and many other things. A new telly was bought, rubbish bins, etc. The dogs love it although they are exhausted within a day.

His friend, R, had cut all the grass so the dogs could use the garden.

He’s happy even if it’s not perfect.

Someone asked him how long we had been together. “Almost 2 years”, he replied. It seems longer than that. Like the weekend.

I was shown our place on the beach. I bookmarked his Mum’s place, the house, the beach and the dog walking area on my navigator, as he needed to be certain I would be OK finding everything. He arranged that, when he’s not able to go, I will be able to meet R, have dinner with his Mum and Dad, etc. He wants to make sure that I’ll be OK. It’s like ordering the sandwiches at the beach. He wants to make sure I will do it.

Of course, that also puts pressure on me. a) to go down and b) to go to his Mum’s, go out with R, etc.

So now I will have to go down, even if he’s not there. But all this is his way of showing that he loves me, I guess.

The clothes maketh the man (so to speak)

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“I’m not racist!”

I’ve heard this often. It goes with the “I’m not a bigot”, “I’m not sexist”, “I’m not something bad”. But it’s not really true for we are all, even if it is only a tiny bit, every one of those things.

Of course, the problem is that we like to pigeon-hole people. We put them into categories in the same way that we put everything into categories. Food we like – food we don’t like; people we like – people we don’t like; books we like – books we don’t like. If I read a bad book, it goes into a category. If it is bad because I didn’t like the story (that’s one category) or bad because the writing was dismal or even atrocious (that would be the Honeymoon-by-Amy-Jenkins category).

What makes us a bad person is that we take some action on the categories or we expect that our version of the items or people in that category is the right and only view. Honeymoon was a terrible book – in my opinion. It may be that some people think it’s great. I wouldn’t buy a book by Amy Jenkins ever again. That doesn’t mean that, since Honeymoon, she hasn’t written some great books. I’ll just never know.

It’s the same with people. I see someone wearing a dirty jacket with layers of other dirty clothes and dragging an over-laden shopping trolley behind him, sporting a thick and out-of-control white beard – I assume he is one of the homeless people wandering around Milan. I could be wrong, of course. Maybe he’s the CEO of one of the fashion businesses here?

I see a lady waiting on the street corner, short (but I mean short, short) mini skirt, fishnet stockings, high heels, tight white top, checking every car as it goes past, occasionally speaking to the driver through the window when one of the cars stops, most probably the driver only asking for directions somewhere – in my head I immediately put her in a category. I know, it’s wrong.

There’s the old woman. Always waiting at the same bus stop. I used to pass her every evening when I used to go to F’s place. She was old. Sixty plus. She had a honey-blonde wig, had her face plastered with make-up, always wore this big fur coat and underneath (‘cos I saw once or twice) a short skirt, skimpy top, etc. It didn’t matter what time I went past, she was always there. Early evening, late evening. It didn’t matter when. Always the same fur coat. Always the same make-up. Always the same bus stop. Always not getting on the bus if the bus happened to be stopping. She went in the same category too. Perhaps she was a cleaning lady? Or maybe a care worker?

I remember when we first came here, years ago. We didn’t understand, coming from the UK, that the shop assistants dressed the same as ordinary people entering the shop – i.e. the customers. In the UK, most shops had the shop assistants wearing the same clothes as each other. Often an actual uniform. It was easy to spot them. To categorise them as ‘someone that can help me should I be in need of help’. Coming here, it was harder. Some woman, once, came up to me as I was waiting for V in a shop, asking me if ‘we had this in a different size or a different colour’ or something. I remember it pleased me at the time, being mistaken for an Italian.

However, just because I do categorise everything doesn’t mean I do anything about it. I even try to be just as nice (and smile at the lady at the bus stop) as I would with anyone else. Why not?

However, some people, I guess don’t think like me. Or don’t try to think like me. Or can’t think like me. If they put people into a category (which we all do) they seem to think that these people ARE in that category. Telling them that they are wrong, just won’t fix the problem in their heads. This article says all of the above but in a much more eloquent way, I think. And, no, I don’t condone rape as I don’t condone anything that hurts someone else. However, telling an assassin not to murder people for money doesn’t stop them doing it, does it?

In spite of the terrible weather ……………..

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Well, this is supposed to be this weekend. The weekend I take us down and admire the hard work by saying something like:

“Wow! It looks totally different”, or

“Thank you so much for doing this for us”, or

“I can see how much you’ve done. I can’t believe you did all this in a week”.

Or, all of the above. Or variations on them, anyway.

The weather is crap. This feels like it’s Wimbledon fortnight in the UK. Every day is rain. sometimes torrential rain. Like yesterday when it absolutely tipped down for a couple of hours and when, on my way home, not far from work, part of the road had errupted in a way not dissimilar to a small volcano just about shut all air traffic in Southern Europe.

And the weather will remain crap, according to the forecast, until Sunday at least. But F is quite determined we should go down. I think it’s mainly for the comments above. Or, maybe, to make sure I’m happy to go down afterwards. Since he’s not a man of words or explanation, I can only guess.

But I do want to go down. I want to see it, I want to see where our beach place is, I want to ensure it will be easy to go to his Mum’s place, etc.

His Mum is, he says, very happy that the place has been done up and we are to go down often. She was always unhappy about the place being left ‘to rot’, I know that. The by-product of us going down is that she will, of course, see her son more.

All round a good thing.

One just hopes that the weather forecast is wrong and the good weather starts on Saturday instead.

If you can’t text then don’t text.

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I don’t like people who insist on talking through a film, even if they are my friends outside the film.

I hate it when people have their mobile phone on in a film.

I hate it just as much when people use their phone at all in the cinema, even if it is in ‘silent’ mode – the illumination of the phone is too bright and distracts me. After all, I’ve paid good money to be there and I want it to be quiet AND dark.

So I would, definitely, frequent this cinema, if I lived anywhere near it.

Good for them.

Can’t see it happening here, though.

Eat dirt and die. Except it’s not true and I didn’t (die, that is).

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My parents found out, eventually. Well, I’m not sure they found out the whole truth. The problem was that I found it so tasty and apetising that I thought my sister may quite like it. So I fed her some. But I guess she was a bit messy and left bits around her mouth and in the pram.

I don’t think they ever found out that I used to eat it regularly. And, to be frank, I don’t think I would ever have admitted it (online or anywhere else, for that matter) were it not for this little piece.

Of course, it’s in the Daily Mail, not a renowned source for little things called ‘facts’ so it could be completely made up but I like that it’s ‘out there’ now. Perhaps the other people like me, wracked with a sense of guilt of carefully selecting lumps of earth from the garden before popping it in your mouth and eating it, can now ‘come out’ in the open without fear of recrimination?

And, trust me, I did carefully select these pieces. I can’t remember the taste but I do remember that it was rather good although I didn’t like the gritty bits so much. Also the texture as you ate it.

I think I ate it from about the age of 2 until I was about 6 or so.

Anyway, I didn’t die, obviously and, according to the report, it might have done me the power of good.

Mud pie for dinner, anyone?

Anyone?

Dinner with B

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There’s just never enough time.

Or, at least, that’s how it seems. It’s how it seems with some people, anyway.

And then, I talk too much. And too fast. Like there’s not enough time to get everything in. Which there isn’t.

The talking too much is not entirely my fault. B seems to bring that out in me. How different I am with different people!

The Orange Pasta was scrummy too.

Or, maybe that should read Pasta with orange otherwise it makes it sound as if the pasta were the colour of orange (which it was, sort of, but it’s not really the point).

And I never, ever say ‘thank you’ properly. I never seem to with B.

Actually, I was thinking, she would be a reason that I would live in Rome.

Some people you just love to bits for no obvious reason, if you see what I mean.