Pietro seemed concerned that I would be leaving Milan and, for that matter, Italy.
Where to live?
4
Tag Archives: UK
BBC Advertisements.
As you may know, I use the BBC website to check the news. One of the things that I believe you don’t get in the UK is the adverts.
They don’t really bother me. Some sit on the side advertising computers or cars or whatever. Some, however, are like an advert on TV in that they show just before the video clip you want to watch. It’s not really a problem. Most are for hotel groups or airlines and, to be honest, I take little notice.
Except for the latest one which I find really annoying.
It’s for the film “Revolutionary Road”. This in itself is not annoying. What IS bloody annoying is that, because I am in Italy, it’s in Italian and dubbed movies are never usually so good. So, instead of hearing Leonardo’s or Kate’s voice, I hear some Italian person and the voice is all wrong. Made worse by the fact that I don’t understand it all.
I mean, if I’m looking at the BBC site in English, don’t play adverts in Italian!
Thoughts of Porridge; Polenta – why?; Fairy Cakes
For some strange reason, this morning, I had this desire to have porridge. To be more precise, ReadyBrek which, I know, is not porridge.
Maybe it’s because it is cold.
I don’t even remember if it was a thought this morning or part of a dream during the night.
Funnily enough, we had polenta for lunch today. This has the consistency of porridge with none of the taste. More exactly – no taste. As I said to one of my colleagues, after they had asked me if I had ever cooked polenta at home and I had replied ‘no’ – it has no taste at all so why? It’s one of those foods that is there to fill you up, I guess. Anyway, she could not answer.
On the plus side, Gina (the cook) had make some small fairy cakes (plain and chocolate sponge) and she slipped on of those onto my tray. It’s always the right thing to do to get on with the people who provide food!!!
I was looking for a quotation on hope and trust
Barack Obama. I have noticed that the recurring word used for him is ‘hope’. The other one should be ‘trust’. And he must prove himself to be trustworthy. I just hope that those people who have this hope in him do not find their hope misplaced but I have a feeling that their expectations of him and from him are far greater than can be achieved – by him or anyone else. I hope that I am wrong.
Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.
As my first post of the New Year, I should, perhaps, be wishing all my readers a very Happy New Year.
And, for those of you in the UK, suffering the very low temperatures, I should say that, although our temperatures are around freezing, we have had snow. And snow like I never saw in the UK.
I really should of apologised earlier
Weird thoughts go through my head from time to time. Particularly just before I go to sleep or if I wake too early in the morning and try to get back to sleep.
Last night, at one of these times, I cannot remember which, I suddenly started thinking about “should of”. There, I told you they were weird thoughts!
I don’t even know why it started but I remember, early on, I was thinking about emails at work. Many that we receive (and are sent) are by non-mother-mother-tongue people, of course. But the worst are by people from the UK and one of these, received at work, had “should of” in the text. Sometimes I despair about the level of written English by English-speaking people
Then I started worrying. Yep, worrying. Since I type these entries, normally, quite quickly (they are supposed to be as if I was speaking the words to you) and since we pronounce “should have” as “shood uv”, I can imagine that, at some time, I have typed “should of” whereas I should of typed “should have”. And, of course, the Spelling and Grammar checker would not necessarily have picked up on it (as I have now proved by typing it several times). So my quick read through of the post before actually posting it may not have picked up on it either.
Damn! I really should of apologised earlier. However, if you have read any posts where I have written “should of”, I apologise now. And, if you ever notice it, please let me know as it is too embarrassing to leave it!
And there, I hope, I shall let it rest.
p.s. I deliberately typed “should of” several times here to make the point, so you don’t need to tell me about this post. Thank you.
Gift Wrapping – is not always for gifts!
After a slightly heavy post yesterday I thought it was time to lighten up a bit and also post something about one of the differences between here and there.
I was struck by this, taking Rufus and Dino out for walk yesterday, late afternoon.
There was a smartly dressed couple, obviously on their way to friends or relations for dinner or a party or something. Here it is Santo Stefano day and, similar to the UK, a public holiday except that they do not start their sales (that has a date set by the government sometime later in January) and nearly all the shops are shut (except for the Chinese ones around Paolo Sarpi, much to N&S’s delight).
Anyway, this couple were each carrying, like a tray, a beautifully wrapped parcel, with ribbons, etc. If I didn’t know better, I would have thought it was a present. But I do know better, and they weren’t presents at all.
They would, in fact, be one of two things. Either a tray of hand-made chocolates or a tray of small cakes. We have the gelateria just below us who sell less ice-cream at this time of year (although they still sell some, which amazes me every time I see it) and, so, have gone into the business of turning half their shop into a hand-made chocolate shop, which they make on the premises. Imagine, if you will, Thornton’s (if they still exist in the UK) but these shops are, generally, not a chain and the one below us certainly isn’t.
We went to a party on Christmas Eve (it started at 10 p.m) and when I asked what to bring, I was told some sweets. So I duly went to the gelateria below and chose my tray of chocolates, selecting eight of each type which she carefully arranged in rows on the tray.
Now, cast your mind back to “Love Actually” and, in particular to the scene in Selfridges or wherever with Rowan Atkinson where Alan Rickman is trying to buy a gift for the girl in the office whilst his wife is in the same store and, having selected the gift, wants to just pay for it, whilst RA spends the next 20 minutes gift wrapping it.
That’s, more or less, how it is here. I spent 10 minutes selecting the chocolates and the girl then spent at least 10 minutes gift wrapping it, even putting a small Christmas tree decoration to add the festive touch. They also do that for nearly anything (pens, scarves, etc., etc.), at any time of year, if you tell them that it will be a gift (regalo).
It is one of the nicest touches here but don’t be in a great rush when you are shopping for gifts (or chocolates or small cakes) as it can make the whole process twice as long.
But the finished product, when you hand it over to your host really is so much nicer and so much better than a bag of sweets or a box or whatever as they are always so beautifully done.
If you come to Italy, you should, at some point, buy something and tell them it is for a gift just to get the nice packaging. And be prepared to wait. It’s worth it.
The mysterious case of the disappearing heater; fancy dress parties; Be afraid, be very afraid (the de Menezes travesty of justice)
On Friday, I went into the smoking room to get warm and have a cigarette. Later, just before lunch, I went in again – the heater had gone and the chairs had been rearranged now that there was vacant space! The heat already in the room from the heater kept the room above freezing for the rest of the day, so better than nothing. Several people have said that, in the New Year we shan’t be able to smoke inside the buildings any more. It will be quite funny to see the MD outside lighting up! We shall see. On the plus side, at least it won’t get so cold in my office as she won’t have the window wide open in hers whilst having a cigarette. So there are advantages to everything, I suppose.
Last night was a fancy dress party. It was held in a friend-of-a-friend’s shop in an area of Milan that, they say, is up-and-coming. She sells designer clothes from lesser-known designers from all over the world.
I absolutely HATE fancy dress parties. I never have a clue as to what to go as and am always genuinely shocked at other people’s ingeniousness and how something so simple can look so good.
As we had less than 2 days notice and it was Friday night (so no time to try and do something special on Saturday), V came up with the idea of going as 70s people. My era. Sadly, we had all the necessary items in our wardrobes including, for me, a pair of real platform shoes that I had worn only once before. They had brought them in as new items in the 80s in Schuh, in Birmingham, hoping for some sort of revival, I guess. Well, it never took off but I kept them as I loved them. Boy, they looked good last night but how my calves suffered! Anyway, it was a cool party and we got back about half one in the morning.
Finally, I had written a long post about the jury’s verdict on the de Menezes case but feel it was far better covered over at Stef’s site. If I lived in the UK now I would be very, very afraid. What kind of future is there when you cannot trust the police to be truthful and themselves uphold the law against murder?
Oh, yes, and it hasn’t stopped bloody raining for days!
Even if it’s unlawful it can’t be declared unlawful.
I am no expert but it seems quite incredible that a jury can be instructed that they cannot return a verdict of unlawful killing because
“All interested persons agree that a verdict of unlawful killing could only be left to you if you could be sure that a specific officer had committed a very serious crime – murder or manslaughter.”
And yet, in the case of Kate Peyton (the journalist shot in Somalia), the coroner was able to give a verdict of just that. Surely the coroner didn’t know the ‘specific person’ that had shot Ms Perry?
Please, don’t go to sleep on the floor whilst flying.
Swiss, formerly Swiss Air, is an airline I like to fly with. As I was in charge of the booking of our trip to Wolverhampton, I chose not only Swiss to fly with but also the Novotel in Wolverhampton to stay at.