Monthly Archives: September 2011

Mantova Festivaletturatura

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Mostly written on 9th September.

Mantova! I’m so happy to be back here.

Everyone says I look so happy. This is true – and not only for being back this year. Even last night, B said that I looked happy. It’s how life should be.

I’m sitting at Grifone Bianco, having lunch. The antipasto was a rather tasty Leek and Cheese Pie.

My Italian is still not that good and sometimes I confuse things. I thought I had chosen a veal pie for my secondo. What came was three, rather large balls of veal tartare. Luckily, I eat everything so it doesn’t phase me – other than it was slightly unexpected. It was, in fact, the most fantastic tartare I’ve ever had. After the meal was over (I was the last diner to leave), the woman behind the counter said that she was sorry she hadn’t recognised me before. It was nice that she had recognised me at all – it being a couple of years since I had last been there!

I only wish that F could be here with me. It’s warm and muggy; the sun hidden behind clouds – moisture hangs heavily in the air.

I got here much later than I had planned. I forgot to set the alarm and so we woke up at 9. 9, I tell you! I didn’t wake up that late when we were on holiday! I guess I needed the sleep. I guess that even more because I have developed a sty – and I’ve always believed they were a result of a lack of sleep. Or, maybe, that’s an old wives’ tale from my mother or grandmother. I don’t know any more. It’s what I believe anyway and so that makes it true, even if it isn’t.

I was asked about V both last night and when I arrived here. It’s to be expected, I suppose.

I’m ashamed to say that, last night, at least, I told all that I had heard. I gossiped with gusto. It was the first person I had done this with. It was the first person who I had seen since I had heard the gossip and who had known us as a couple.

I wanted to stop but I couldn’t. Today, on the other hand, I kept it simple and kept most of the information to myself. It’s better like that.

I asked about editing. I would give up my job and my English teaching if I could earn enough with that. Maybe this was the job I was actually destined for?

Anyway, it’s something I can do even if we move to the other side of the world – but that’s a different post. I’m afraid I don’t tell you everything, especially if it’s only an idea and more especially if it’s not even my idea but one that’s reliant on other people who I don’t really know very well – actually almost not at all!

It’s a late lunch I’m having, having only got here, to Mantova, at 1.30 and to the restaurant at about 2.30.

After lunch, I wander a bit. Mantova is one of those places that you really should visit. It’s a pretty town, surrounded by lakes. The problem with the lakes is that, when it’s really hot like this, it’s also humid – more, even, than Milan.

I go to a talk with Tim Parks, a writer who has lived in Italy (somewhere in or close to Milan, from what I understand) since the early eighties. He speaks Italian very well. I understand a lot. I even understand some of his jokes. This is good, really. It’s during his event that I realise that Mantova is more humid than Milan. He seems a funny guy and enjoys his time on stage. I leave when the questions from the audience start as I have to get back.

I take my leave of the staff. I wish I were able to stay. Maybe I can organise it for next year as this one has been too hectic.

But I’m so happy that I came. If you get the chance you should go to the Festivaletteratura. The atmosphere is great and the weather is (usually) very good. For me it’s another of those things that extends the summer.

To next year! And thanks to M and S and all the other staff who always make me feel so welcome.

Fine, thanks. No fine, thanks. When is it right to fight the rules by disobeying them?

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I’m being a bit crap at the moment.

Sorry.

I have started to update the links on the right. If yours hasn’t appeared yet, it is on it’s way, I promise. But, probably, not until next week.

In the meantime, let’s talk about rules and laws.

I mean, is it OK to break them? Sometimes, if these rules or laws had not been broken by a significant number of people, the law or rule would not have been changed or abolished. But which rules are OK to break and which not? Who should decide which are irrelevant rules and which are not?

There are things that are obvious (although sometimes less obvious here). For example, driving the wrong way down a one-way street. Here, I see bicycles regularly being ridden the wrong way. And the cyclists seem most put out that you, a car, driving the right way down the street seem to think that the cyclists are in the wrong.

I’ve even seen (as I may have mentioned before) cars driven the wrong way. OK so this was at 5.50 in the morning and there’s hardly any traffic – but ….. still …….

I’ve seen a car driven down the tram tracks (which must have done some damage to the car, I would think) where there is no road but it’s similar to a train track (without the sleepers).

I would guess there is some law against these things but the question is, is it OK to break this law?

Cyclists, here, regularly ride on the pavement. In the UK they would almost certainly be caught (I think) but here it’s almost the norm. Perhaps there is no rule or law against it.

Then there’s turning left or right at some traffic lights when there are signs that say you are prohibited from doing so. If I’m behind one of these people, I become ‘all Italian’ and blow my horn like crazy. But, if ‘everyone does it’, surely that almost makes the rule illogical and, almost, unenforceable? So, should that particular rule be relaxed or abolished?

Then there’s parking. They have gone a bit mad with the blue paint in my area – meaning that we should pay for parking (blue boxes are metered parking; yellow boxes are resident permit holders only).

Just after someone had made a ‘prohibited’ left turn and was roundly slagged off by the person who was driving me, it came to light that this person parks in ‘resident only’ areas because ‘I object to paying for parking’. And so, it made the rule regarding parking invalid. Apparently.

I tried to point out that the guy turning left was, in effect, only ignoring another of the rules regarding driving and parking and I was told that it was a different thing.

Ah, yes, of course it was.

The breaking of a rule prohibiting you from turning left is, quite obviously, something for which there should have been a policeman at that particular moment whereas, stopping a resident with a valid parking permit the chance to park outside their home is something that should be tolerated. Ha!

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not perfect. I’m sure I do things that aren’t ‘quite right’ but I can hardly criticise those who turn left when they shouldn’t and in the same breath say that, as I have decided parking in a resident-only parking bay without having a valid permit is perfectly OK, I am not guilty of the same type of fault.

I realise there are ‘degrees’ of breaking the rules and, maybe, illegal parking is not quite as bad as turning left when you shouldn’t. But I’m not sure that I actually have the right to say that it’s OK to do.

Rules are rules. And they are there to make life (society’s life as a whole) more comfortable. With regard to road use (or pavement use, for that matter) I have found that Italians are a tad selfish and I am coming to the opinion that, if you can’t beat them, join them. But it makes me uncomfortable in my English way.

Still, rules are rules and breaking of them can (and should?) have consequences. It’s just that there’s a mentality that says – if I don’t agree with the rule or it doesn’t suit my purpose, then it’s OK the break this one.

In the end, we came out of the restaurant and there was no fine on the car for parking in a place that was not supposed to be parked in.

What do you think? Can we break the rules that we don’t agree with? Or should we abide by all rules and laws?

Koolserve – erm, not really cool (or kool) at all!

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Sorry about that.

I’ve been away for a few days or, rather, the blog has been unavailable (to you and me) for the last couple of days and, as you can see, I’m back ……. sort of.

I’m afraid I’m missing a couple of comments. I’m sorry about that but the site went down before I could take a backup.

So, apologies to Cecilieaux and Lola for the comments that have disappeared but, at the moment, I have no way to get them back.

I have, of course, had to move to a different hosting company. It’s the problem with having to have free hosting. The last were, as you probably know, a bit hit and miss anyway. They seemed to get better once they had advertisements but over last weekend it spent most of the time down. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your point of view), I was away and could do nothing. By Sunday night it was back up and I had no way of knowing that it would be down (and stay down) by Monday morning.

Such is life.

Still, I have all my posts back and most comments, which is not so bad.

However, for those of you considering a free hosting company, I would suggest you avoid anything set up by Raymond. Koolserve.com promised the world – i.e. free hosting for ever – and then I saw this:

Look what I found on FreeWebSpace.net:

Quote From Raymond:

Quote
KoolServe.com

Kool Serve is a free hosting site launched in March 2011. Users are signup for free cPanel web hosting accounts and we generate revenue from users who purchase upgrades and from adverts placed on their sites among many other sources.

Kool Serve has done well in terms of traffic ( Alexa rank 27,059 ) and revenue. There is no cost in promotion. We have used the following free sources for traffic:

1. Free Hosting Directories

2. General word-of-mouth

3. Forum Threads

4. YouTube videos/FaceBook/Twitter/Blogs and more

We now have close to 10000 users and a very knowledgeable volunteer support team to assist in all manners of web hosting.

The domains ( koolserve.com and koolserve.net ), the support forum ( IPB software ), and iPanel are hosted on a personal server of mine.

The costs to maintain Kool Serve are:

Server Cost:

Free server : $215.00 /month
Paid Server: $8 0.99 /month

Software:

iPanel: $9.99 /month
Zamfoo: $7.95 /month

Monthly revenue:

$850+
The main source of revenue comes from upgrades to paid from free, ads on free users sites, and ads on the support forum.

Will sell for $5,000
Contact me at raymond@urhostz.com

Thread: http://www.freewebsp…iques-per-Month

Feh, he did the same with ************com, and if anyone has noticed, he runs more than 1 host, like ***********.com, no different then here really, but NEWER. Which means no ads on pages still, and no paid, which I’m sure will come soon… ugh… and then be sold to possibly someone who has no idea what their doing and the host will be GONE, including all your sites and everything else. So good luck to all the users, you’ll need it!

So much for the promises! I nearly thought of going for their pay-for servers. Thank goodness I didn’t.

In my hunt for a new free hosting company, I found he also ran infiniteserve (I now always check the forum for how many times, recently, the servers seem to be down) and, of course, urhostz.com.

I did sign up for one hosting company OpenHost.org. However, once I had signed up, I saw the nameservers were Koolserve :-D, so I dropped them immediately.

I ended up with FreeHostingCloud. They seem quite good and the service seems up most of the time.

Now I shall always look at the forums for mention of Raymond (or Vlad, Justin, Dennis, etc.) and avoid those places like the plague.

Still, as I said at the start, I’m back and can put Raymond and his croney’s to the back of my mind, for now.

p.s. I shall be working to get all the links back asap – not least because I use them to visit your blogs!

Is that it?

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Is that it?

The first day of September. Not, officially, the first day of autumn – but it might as well be. Thunderstorms and showers – oh, yes, and a bit of sun. It’s still warm though, which is nice. I mean, warm enough to still be wearing sandals and a T-shirt (although, as I write this I am not wearing those things – but I was at 6 a.m. this morning).

And I’m sure that it’s not it, really. I’m sure we shall have some really nice warm days during September and, if we’re lucky, through to October too!

I went out for a drink last night with An, F’s friend. On waking this morning I got the usual after-a-night-drinking-and-having-too-many-and-not-keeping-my-mouth-shut thoughts. I.e. I said too much about F and stuff. I shouldn’t. But it’s ages since I’ve been able to ‘chat’ with someone. Especially a woman and so I kind of ‘let go’. Damn. Oh well, I’ll get over it.

F is away. I join him tonight. Me and the dogs. The weather will be better apart from, maybe, Sunday. But it’s OK anyway.