Tag Archives: Blogging

Wonderful time and fantastic surprises.

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Well, I suppose I’d better start by wishing my faithful readers a glorious and happy 2012. And to say sorry for not posting over the festive period.

Christmas was, as expected, wonderful, even if I did wake on Christmas morning with what seemed like ‘flu. I ignored it. I felt much better by Wednesday.

So the highlights were:

The best present I got from F was not the vaporetto (steam cleaner) that F was so delighted with giving me but the snow globe with the pictures of the dogs inside. Don’t get me wrong, the vaporetto is wonderful but I think that if I tell you that F’s excited question (as if a small boy with a new toy) later on Christmas Day of ‘Shall we use the vaporetto now?’ you will agree that nothing more needs to be said.

V’s Dad phoned me on Christmas Day. It was such a nice surprise and I was speechless. They never phone. They hardly ever phoned when V and I were together and so it was such a wonderful ‘present’. His Mum phoned on New Year’s Day to wish me Happy New Year. So nice of them.

On Christmas Day we cooked together most of the morning and ate together most of the afternoon. I couldn’t have wished for anything better (well, I suppose I could have wished for no ‘flu – but I’m not complaining). We opened presents, we had fun.

Of course, not everything was perfect over the period. I learnt that he really doesn’t have patience and also that he really doesn’t like the fact that I won’t argue with him – but really! A light in the bathroom, overcooked lentils, not being able to fit the roasting net over the cotechino, not being perfectly ready in time for our New Year’s Eve guests – none of these things are actually important things. Well, not to me, anyway. The light in the bathroom deserves it’s own post. Oh yes, and in addition to the lack of patience and me not arguing, one could add that he doesn’t listen to me – but then, that’s not really new :-)

I know that, for a lot of people, they are glad to see the back of 2011 but not me. It was a wonderful year and one of the happiest I’ve ever had. I hope that 2012 will be the same both for me and for all you out there.

A day of mourning

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I’m in mourning today.

Blogprolific has died :'(

It’s a very sad day. I have followed Lola through her many blogs and guises but it’s sad that (at least for the moment), we shan’t be able to read her stuff.

I only hope she’s not gone for too long ……….

Stepping back in time………….

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You’ve seen the films. Usually American, depicting the High School Prom. The dancing, the essential glitter ball, the live band. Particularly from the 50s or 60s.

The strings of lights from the roof. Maybe, if it’s a dedicated ballroom, it has mirrors round every wall. If it does a dinner dance, the tables are arranged, length outwards from the longest two walls, leaving the central part as the dance floor.

You sit at the tables. Maybe you drink some wine. You have the first course and the band starts playing. Between courses, rather than going out for a cigarette, people start dancing. The cha-cha-cha, waltz, tango, etc., etc.

In those days, this WAS the Saturday night out. Couples went to enjoy time with their friends, eat and dance. All for a very reasonable price.

_______________________________________________________________________________

We have the address. An’s birthday was that day. She had been persuaded by her colleague (whose birthday it was last week), known to us as the Lesbico since she is lesbian, to join her birthday party.

An had an address. It was a street I have walked down so many times and yet, I could not remember any restaurant being there. We met up at An’s flat for a glass of prosecco and walked, together, to the place.

‘It’s a bit trashy but it should be super fun’, she told us. ‘The food is super good’, she added.

It was next door to the police station. ‘It can’t be here’, she said when we got to 2A. ‘But this is 2A’, I said remembering that there was a place offering dancing lessons. Yes, it was here alright. We walk down the steps, following the signs for the entrance.

We walk down some underground corridors. Quite wide, lined with that pale, fake-wood boarding. It was very well lit but strange. We turned left and then right and then left again, going through several sets of doors that had been opened.

We arrived at a bar. It had a few people sitting around. There were no windows but still very bright. But the ‘entrance’ was through the bar. I wondered what type of restaurant this could be.

We walked up a few steps.

We were on a fairly narrow balcony. The balcony had a railing over which was a …. ballroom. You could check your coats in for 50 cents. We walked along the balcony and down some stairs. It felt like we were a long way below ground – but that was probably not the case.

The room was a big rectangle. Round three sides were mirrors so the place did not have a claustrophobic atmosphere. What looked like trestle tables (but with table cloths so I couldn’t say they were) to seat 10 people (or 12 if there were people sitting at the heads of the tables) were arranged along the long-side walls, lengthways out from the wall. This still left a huge area in the centre. They had a small table in the centre on which there was a selection of salumi and some parmesan and a couple of buckets holding ice and wine. And plastic cups!

It struck me that this was similar to the Feste delle Unita things I’ve been to in those country places. This was not something I ever expected to find in the centre of Milan. It was like it was a volunteer thing and yet it most certainly wasn’t.

We all sat down at our tables. M (The Lesbico) had done the seating arangements for the five tables we had. All An’s friends were on one table with a couple of M’s friends to fill the table up – but, very kindly, M had arranged that these people spoke English. However, some of them had cancelled. It looked like there were the 5 of us plus another couple meaning there were four empty places. But these were filled later when people turned up to M’s party who weren’t on the list!

The other thing was that M had told all her friends that the women should wear dresses and the men, DJs. An had only found out that morning. M, we learnt, had also sent out special invitations.

There were probably towards 250 people all told. In the end we learnt that there were at least 3 birthday parties being hosted plus, along the one wall, people who really knew the ropes and seemed to come there often (I’ll explain later).

Just after we sat down, the band were introduced and started playing. They were a good band. Not a group to go and see in concert but tight and well-rehearsed.

There were bottles of wine and water on the tables. They started to deliver the antipasto which was a kind of vegetable lasagne. Not bad. Whilst we were eating that, they cleared the table from the centre. Then people started to get up and dance.

The staff were efficient. After the antipasto was risotto. It was OK (me, not being a big fan of risotto) but a lot of people didn’t really like it. Finally the main course, which was a veal casserole with polenta.

As it was An’s birthday, she had bought a strawberry gateau and that was our sweet.

And, for entertainment there was, of course, the dancing. We were struck by how good some of the dancing was. As we discussed, soon this type of thing will die out since most people of my age and younger don’t know how to do this type of dancing. I have tried (and I’m sure I’ve blogged about it) but failed miserably. My feet just don’t seem to be able to function for this type of thing.

F did get up and dance with this rather strange looking woman – short, no neck, a smile as wide as her head, short, black dress and white pearls (or beads, anyway). She knew all the ‘formation’ dancing that went on and was on a table on the opposite side of the wall to us – which I think was ‘the wall for the regulars’. Fabulous! In fact, she only smiled when she danced with F.

We met a couple on our table who were going to get married next year, although they seemed to have a definite disagreement going on about the honeymoon.

Oh, yes, and there was a tombola (that’s the English tombola not the Italian one). In fact, the woman due to get married (who was Irish but has lived here since the late 90s) won the second price – and overnight bag!

The whole thing (without the tombola tickets) cost us €20 each and it was a great night – so much fun.

I think it wasn’t so much ‘trashy’ as ‘old fashioned’ but so weird to find in the heart of Milan. However, if you have a party to organise, it’s a fabulous idea. I would definitely consider it as it is really a hidden gem.

If you wanted to know, it’s called the Sala Venezia and is at Porta Venezia. The link I’ve put is to a blog that gives more details (in Italian).

Sending something by email – you might as well whisper in the wind.

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Blogging in Italy is different. Or, rather, Italians blogging in Italy have to be more careful.

If the government have their way, they will have to be even more careful in future.

The government, here, having been trying, for some time now, to curb what they see as the excesses of the blogging world. Particularly when it comes to criticising or revealing embarrassing details about our beloved leader, Buzz Lightyear (Berlusconi).

Ideally, of course, he would like anything said about him to have passed through someone who can edit it properly. And, whilst with most of the media, this can be done easily (as he either owns the company or, as the Prime Minister, is responsible for it), the blogging world is a bit different.

I think (and I’m sure I’ll be corrected if I’m wrong), LA7 (a TV station) is also quite independent. I remember watching a debate on TV which was heavily critical of Buzz and he was obviously watching too because he phoned in to have a bit of a rant.

The trouble with bloggers is that they can say something and he doesn’t get the chance to phone in to say they are wrong. Instead, in a bill going through parliament, he wants to make it obligatory that the person who is defamed or whatever, gets the right to reply. If not, then the blogger is fined.

The Guardian’s take on it is here.

However, the really shocking thing is hidden away in the last paragraph and, to me, shows why Italy always seems to be a little bit behind the rest of the world when it comes to embracing the new world of technology fully.

Legally, “email has no validity”.

Let’s just put that again:

“email has no validity”

WHAT?

I remember when I first came here (and I’m talking 6 years ago – not 100), I was amused by the fact that, when someone sent an email, they would follow that up with a telephone call to ‘check that the person had received it’. How quaint and old-fashioned, I thought.

Mail, of the old kind, is fine. In fact, everything is done via mail. And, of course, if email has no validity, it has to be this way. But the fact that it is inadmissible in a court of law scares me quite a lot.

After all the ‘E’ of email stands for electronic. If mail is acceptable then an electronic version of it should be the same. Shouldn’t it? Yes, it damned well should!

However, since my email address is a .co.uk address and in the UK that IS admissible and Italy is in the EU and so is the UK, I wonder how that would be viewed?

Maybe I’ll find out one day.

Not now though. I’m still in a state of shock.

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!

The 1000th Post

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It’s a lot, really. OK, so some of my previously published posts haven’t been earth shattering but it doesn’t really matter. I got to 1000.

I wanted to do something a bit special for this post. Gail suggested I talk about God. No one else suggested anything.

So, let’s talk about God or, rather, let me talk about God.

The first thing that comes to mind is, why?

I mean, why did we make up God. Of course, there are stories in the Bible about people having a direct relationship with God. If they said such a thing now, we would lock them away.

I believe it’s our need for two things. 1. We need some way of explaining the inexplicable and 2. We need someone to blame/call on when things go bad. We need that feeling that there’s someone more powerful than us who can help us or whose fault it is.

That’s it.

Now, we need a name for him/her. Let’s call him/her God. For that matter, why should it be a him or a her? Why not an ‘it’? Well, we don’t know how to depict an ‘it’. In the olden times, before God became God, humans worshipped gods. The gods could be trees or animals – the things around. When we became sophisticated we made God in our image and someone wrote a book about him where we were the image of him. That was very convenient. It makes us more special than anything else. But he may not be a he or a she or, even, an it. Maybe God, should such a being exist, is nothing comprehensible to us but if that were to be so then he would be too difficult to handle.

So we made him like us. And then, until recently, we made him a him. Now we say he could be a her.

It’s a bit like death. We make up stuff about a heaven and, just so we make sure that all the nasty people we don’t like can’t be with us in this heaven (‘cos they don’t deserve it), we make a hell too. And whilst we’re at it we’ll have a bad guy against God because, well, all the best stories have a good and a bad guy. Let’s call him Satan or the Devil.

And now we have a reason why everyone can’t be nice and perfect. ‘Cos they got in with Satan. So, although we have already given God all powers – we create someone who also has a (nearly) matching power.

The logic problem with that is that, if God is all-powerful, then there can’t be a Satan, can there?

I could stop there, I suppose. Because the problem with all this is that, if you get rid of Satan because of his impossibility to exist (God being all-powerful and all that), then what about the bad people? I mean, if God made us in his (very convenient) image and Satan doesn’t exist, then why the bad people? Or are we saying God can be good AND bad?

Of course, if God is both good and bad and he made us in his image, then we, too, would be good and bad. And that’s not good, is it? Since that gives him ‘whims’ since being bad is not a Christian thing to be.

So, I guess I’m saying we’re stuffed. Since there can’t be a Satan and, since, without Satan, that would make God both good and bad, then all the stuff in the Bible that there is like ‘turn the other cheek’ and ‘love your enemies’ is flawed. And if that bit is flawed and if Satan doesn’t exist then, to be honest, neither does God.

But if God doesn’t exist then neither does heaven. And if heaven doesn’t exist then that’s just too scary because what happens to you when you die? Other than you die, of course. What I meant was, what’s the point?

And the point is not 42.

But, of course, if there is no God, then there isn’t necessarily any point. Why does there have to be a point? Why isn’t there just life? Because we are always striving for something. A goal. If your goal is to get to heaven to be with God, then there is a reason for life and a reason to be good (or try to be). We can’t be ‘goal-less’, can we? Or, can we?

I mean to say, why should we have a goal, even just the one? What if we live everyday like it will be our last day? What if the ‘heaven’ that everyone wants to get to is really just a thought – I mean, a thought by others? What if heaven is really that we shall be remembered?

I.e. heaven is not a ‘place’ (was it ever?), but a memory, by others.

When you’re dead, then you’re dead. Why do we want to live forever? We don’t think that animals do (well, generally, we don’t think that animals do). We think that, when they’re dead, they’re dead. We even eat some of them (or, rather, a lot of them). There are even (or maybe that’s ‘were’?) tribes of cannibals. So, even we are eaten. And then? When there’s nothing left?

We talk about soul. As if it’s real. We even describe it as not being able to be seen. Like the Holy Ghost. It’s the get-out clause of all time. Something that exists but doesn’t.

We laugh at those people who believed in gods. We think they are slightly crazy. But, surely, they are no crazier than us? They believed in things they could not see; tried to make images of these things they couldn’t see – images that were like themselves or things around them; there were gods that couldn’t be seen.

We have a need to have these things that are higher than us, more supreme. We make up stories to ‘fit’ the things that happen, the things that exist.

We do it, too, with science. We ‘prove’ things. We look in incredible detail. We theorise about how it all started. Is this any better? The bible, one great fairy tale, was written to explain about God and the things that had happened. Are science books that different? If we, as a race of beings, survive for another couple of thousand years, are our ancestors going to look back and laugh at our beliefs (both of God and in science), since they have found a better story around which to fit everything?

Don’t get me wrong. I call on ‘him’ in times of strife or worry. I have my beliefs. I have the things that I believe in. They are the things that I’ve picked up over the years that suit me. They are the things that make sense to me. Even if some of them are as stupid as believing in astrology. I pick and choose the things I believe in. I don’t quite ‘fit in’ to the single belief. That’s OK. Why not? I’m making my own bible. It does for me.

Do I believe in heaven, even if I have some belief in God? No, that’s where I can’t go. I want to make an impact on this world in the (vain?) hope that there will be people who remember me. That is my heaven. I try to be nice, not because I am a Christian but because I feel more comfortable living like that.

I try to do what my Grandfather said. I am trying to be content. It works for me.

Unusually for me, I have decided I might edit this post after the event. So I may do that. Just so you know.

My head, my face and what actually comes out of my mouth.

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It is 7.30 a.m. The sign reads 25°C.

I like it a lot although it is pretty humid, especially last night.

And, about last night. We went for a beer, just the two of us. We were chatting and P, my next-door neighbour came into Polpetta. We were chatting. She’s giving up her flat. Her lease runs out and they are increasing the rent – considerably. It’s too much for just one person and times is hard, especially in her line of work. And, so, she’s moving out of Milan, in November. It’s a shame as she is the only one in the building that I speak to.

F asked her about her rent. She does have a really good deal now, for sure. F and I talked about the flat below mine. I have asked about the cost of that flat. They will let me know in September. Then he asked about checking out the one with the terrace that is opposite the courtyard from mine.

And then he said (again) about how he couldn’t live with anyone again. The reason is: what happens when we split up?

I don’t say anything stupid like ‘Well, that’s not going to happen’. That would provoke the response of ‘You never know. Nothing lasts forever’. Instead I say, ‘Yes, I understand what you mean’.

And, I’m not really sure how this happened, but then he said, within the next 10 minutes that, perhaps we could live together and ‘would I want that?’.

My face stays flat. Without emotion. In my head I am screaming that yes, of course that’s what I want. My face says nothing and my mouth says, ‘Well, at least I wouldn’t have to worry about a cleaner’ and then I laugh.

It’s almost as if, if I don’t say what I really want, that’s what I get from him. It’s different to any other relationship I’ve had before.

And now, because I received the anonymous email and then made an unexpected post, last night, I’ve reached post 999.

As I’ve mentioned, I’ve written post 1000. I’ll set it to publish whilst I’m away. It gives you, my dear reader, something to look forward to. I hope it doesn’t disappoint and hopefully, the guy won’t manage to get my blog taken down in the meantime but I have backups and, if it does go, it should be back within a couple of days after I come back from my holiday.

Enjoy. E buona vacanza

It’s a drag

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There are so many things to do.

Instead, I am at work, doing nothing of importance since most people are on holiday or we are waiting for some answers (which never seem to come).

And, so, I sit here, waiting for the time to go. To go and do some useful things.

I have a couple of things to iron. And I really should pack (and NOT leave it until the last minute – like tomorrow night at about 8 p.m.) and get stuff ready for the dogs and things like that.

I have one telephone lesson tonight – but that’s only about half an hour.

And, again, I feel like I can’t hurry this along enough.

This blog will be slightly closed for a couple of weeks since I am not taking a computer and do not intend to go to an Internet café. Obviously, I will be writing stuff – in long hand – like the olden days – and then some of them may be transferred here as posts when I’m back.

If you’re going away, then have a good holiday. If not then have a good fortnight.

p.s. there won’t be enough posts to post my 1000th post before I go and so it will wait until I get back although I have written it already.

p.p.s. I suppose I might come back to a land of disarray, if Italy gets dragged into the same boat as Portugal, Greece and Ireland.

p.p.p.s I see that our marvelous British tabloid papers are getting all excited about the thought of the MPs debating capital punishment because it’s ‘what the people want’. I’d just like to say that when there was a lot of rumpus about paedophilia, a paediatrician’s house got attacked by a mob of upstanding British subjects. Apparently that’s what ‘the people’ wanted. Just ‘cos they want something doesn’t make it right. People! Bloody dangerous, if you ask me, especially when their thoughts are stoked by the tabloid press.

Just in case ………..

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Well, my blog does seem to be ‘up’ more often than it’s ‘down’ which is a great improvement, I’m sure you’ll agree.

However, slightly worrying is that the hosting company’s forum/website has been down since yesterday afternoon! Generally, this is NOT a good sign. So, I am backing-up at least once per day in the hope that, if I DO have to move it all again, I won’t be caught with my pants down.

We shall see. But, just in case it completely disappears for a day or two, you will, at least, know why.

In the meantime, the weather is wonderful. T-shirts and sandals all the time – even walking the dogs at half past midnight!

Most people, of course, complain it’s too hot and it’s so difficult to explain that, in the past, with my feet that feel the slightest cold (and always have although I’m certain the smoking doesn’t help it), being able to walk in sandals at gone midnight is truly fantastic …… for me.

The dogs are finding it a bit warm, however. Still, it breaks tonight/tomorrow, getting back to a manageable 25° or so (that’s degrees C for my American visitors).

Have a nice weekend, everyone.