Damn! I missed it.

By the time I remembered it was already 11.44.

Not that anything happened at 11.11. Still, it would have been nice to have noticed. Kind of.

This morning was much colder. There was a mist hanging over Milan as I took the dogs out this morning. It was almost as if Milan was asleep. We ‘owned’ the city – or, at least, the parts where we walked. We don’t see many people – if any at all – at that time in the morning.

And, although I hate the cold, when it’s misty or foggy or, even, snowing, it has a beauty about it that I can’t explain. Of course, the beauty is there only because I know that I’ll soon be in the house again; in the warmth. It wouldn’t be beautiful at all if I didn’t have that to look forward to.

It’s not freezing yet – that is to come. But it’s quite close.

Berlusconi is supposed to be resigning today. To make way for a technical government. Maybe, perhaps. Will that make everyone happy? I doubt it. Italy have had technical governments before now. The EU think they have what they want. They think that they can make Italy more ‘European’ but they’ll never be able to get Italy to lose its uniqueness – its underworld, its ‘in nero’, its patronage. It’s a daily thing here. It invades every day, every aspect of ordinary life. There are things I accept here that I would never accept in the UK. You can try to fight it all you like but it is (in my opinion) unlikely to change or be changed. If it were a minority of people who accept it like this then there would be a chance to change – but with the majority accepting it all – you can’t change that.

You could say it was education. But you can educate all you like – if the wheels work better with a little oil, taking the oil away won’t make it stop – you just find some more oil.

And, anyway, from a few days ago when everyone thought they knew what they wanted we are in now where the things that people want are different than before and different for different people. And, anyway again, the problem is really so deep-seated that we have to crush everything and start from scratch. And no one will want to do that because it’s too scary; because we don’t know what will come in it’s place.

A bit like removing Berlusconi, really.

You replace one lot of shysters for another lot. It’s all the same. Nothing really changes. The mist still hangs over Milan; the dogs still need walking; the sun still shines …. or doesn’t – over which we have no real control.

At the end of it all, everyone wants something to change as long as it doesn’t mean they end up with nothing. But, not everyone can have more. For some to have more, others must have less.

From what I read, Obama has been giving a good talking to to the European leaders, telling them to get it sorted. This is from the leader of the nation that has actually caused this in the first place by allowing its people to run up huge debts that they cannot repay whilst they are chasing the ‘American dream’. More of an ‘American nightmare’ really.

But now I’m joining in with the finger pointing, which is what is happening right now. Articles about how it’s this country’s fault. Or that country. When, in reality it’s none of them individually but, rather, all of them. And the banks. And the greed. And the consumer society that says ‘MUST HAVE’ to every new thing whereas it should be ‘would like to have’. ‘Must have’ is for food. And shelter.

But all this crap that is happening now was perfectly predicted in The Sword of Achilles. Not the crisis, as such, but the changes. The changes necessary.

Just how long will it be and what will it take for people to say ‘basta’ (enough)?

Like the mist over Milan, it seems that most people have their heads in the fog and some are completely lost.