Tag Archives: Strange things

Learning something every day. But how strange it can be.

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OK this could be a bumper day for posts. Not because I have nothing to do at work but because I have lots of things to say. But, you know how it is, sometimes the posts come and sometimes they stay as draft until, eventually, I take some random quotes from them to make a random post and then delete all the drafts. However, if I do post them, then I’ll ‘space them out’ timewise, so you won’t have to read a load of them all at once :-)

Anyway, on to the post itself.

S tells me that she needs my help because she wants to order something on the internet. She wants some false nails ……………. for her feet!

I am ashamed to say that I guffawed at this. It was a true guffaw not any limp-wristed snigger. I was in shock. I had NO IDEA! Of course, given a little bit of thought, it is obvious. If people can be worried about their appearance so much that they are prepared to have some guy/woman carve out chunks of their face, buttocks, thighs, etc. to have that perfect look or have some strange chemical injected so that they have lips that are more like Bianca Jagger’s than Bianca Jagger had or have a face that, when breaking into a smile, it looks like they have just come from the morgue, then a bit of glue and some plastic crap stuck on the end of your toes seems nothing.

But I really had no idea.

So I googled it. They even sell it on Amazon! I don’t know why but that seems to make it more respectable. Like you were buying it from Boots or Marks and Spencers. To make it even more shocking, you can get them in different varieties – short square, French bare, French sparkle, Lilac, etc.

You learn something every day.

Non-dieting – Day 3

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I’m afraid I had a bit of a setback this morning.

I would like to point out that this had absolutely nothing to do with my new, fictitious and completely made-up wine diet!

It was putting on a shirt. I found that, whereas, only last week no less, this shirt could be worn with the top button done up, now the button barely made it to the hole, let alone, through it! At first I thought that, perhaps, the shirt was riding too high up on my neck. So I made sure it was pulled down properly. Still no good. Trying to stretch the button to go through the hole and not just kiss it didn’t work either. I had a vision of the cotton threads doing their best to become elastic. Anyway, if I had managed to get the button through the hole it would, at some point during the day, have popped off in spectacular style, maybe even hitting someone in the eye, thereby alerting them to the fact that it seems I am getting fatter by the minute!

This was all somewhat of a shock.

So I am wearing a shirt with the top button undone and a tie that is, therefore loose. I feel untidy.

However, this lunchtime, again, I didn’t take any bread (although my hand did reach in for one); I had half the normal amount of pasta; 2 polpette and some spinach. Again, I do not feel as bloated as usual.

Tonight I have a student. He texted me at a quarter to midnight last night to ask if it was OK to come tonight at 7.30. He doesn’t come every week. I didn’t reply; I was almost asleep. I replied this morning. I then get this slightly strange message:

“I’m thinking to a new program of study! Than (sic) I let u know! See u later!”

He certainly likes his exclamation marks!!!! I guess I should talk to him about them :-)

Does that mean that he is coming tonight or not? A new program of study – is that a new thing with me or with someone else? Is it English or some other subject? And he’s going to let me know later today or tonight or sometime in the future? I have no idea what it means. He has only been with me for about 5 lessons so I have no idea how he thinks ….. yet.

Also, tonight, I’m supposed to go round to a friend’s new flat but no time has been set and, to be honest, it might not happen.

I have been promised Mirto. It’s an incentive that works for me. Maybe I should change my diet from a wine-diet to a mirto-diet? Of course, if she does food too or wants to go out for a pizza or something, I can’t really say ‘no’ – that would just be rude but it certainly won’t help me doing up the top button on my shirt, will it?

Mars Bars are Gay! Who knew?????? Please comment, I beg you.

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Apparently, according to A, the only people who eat Mars Bars are women or gay people.

To be honest, when he said it I nearly fell off my chair!

We had texted earlier. I said that it would be fine to go out but I wasn’t going to have any beer and no food. I would just drink wine. I was on a ‘wine diet’. It was a joke but, as with many things, it was lost in translation.

A was in fine form yesterday being more outrageous than normal.

“Dogs are like women”, he says.

“Don’t say that to Fr!”, I cautioned.

But, apparently, he meant that dogs to me were like women to him. I laughed. His view of the world is a strange one.

But the ‘this is what a gay person is like’ thing was a recurring theme during the evening. I forget them all now but they’re not really important in themselves. He likes to have everything pigeonholed. Gays are different to him and, therefore, must be similar to women.

He needs to get out more.

I think he actually said it, more than once, ‘You are like a woman’. Yes, it does irk me a little but he’s A and, for all his faults, I know he has a heart of gold. It’s only his ignorance speaking.

And the fact that he is a stubborn bastard.

I did have a drink in Polpetta with him. Red wine. Pinot Nero. A had some fruit juice (orange, I think) with campari. I had to refrain from pointing out that if someone was looking at us, he would have been gayer than me with that drink.

And he ate. I wasn’t eating but he ate and ate and ate. I did wonder why he wasn’t the size of a house!

I had forgotten my wallet and so we came back to my flat (although I then forgot to give him any money anyway) and I opened a bottle of red wine. And this was when the thing about Mars bars came out. I told him I would blog it as it was, at the same time, outrageous and extremely funny.

And I forget why but we started talking about politics. This is not a good thing and I avoid it like the plague, here. After all, here, they are so right or left and so dogmatic that it is impossible to have any reasoned conversation.

“I’m not ashamed of Berlusconi”, he states. I find it impossible to keep the smile off my lips. He doesn’t like that but it’s either that or starting an argument which will have no end since his views are set and nothing will change it. I do say some things but not nearly enough. Anyway, it’s not my place to criticise his thinking, even if it is closed.

“He came from nothing and is a great entrepreneur”, he says, adding “the right have the right mind”. But, what was noticeable (at least when I thought about it this morning) was that the arguments (as usual when people talk politics) was not really a defence of Berlusconi nor his way of thinking (nor his Bunga Bunga parties) but instead an attack on the left and the magistrates.

“They are rich and live in nice houses (the left)”. I’m sorry but that’s not an argument to say that Buzz is great. Nor does it say that (the left) are not qualified to be speaking for the left.

“The magistrates are out to get him”. That doesn’t mean he has done nothing wrong. Nor does it mean that if he has done something wrong that he, just because he is Prime Minister, should not be held accountable in court. He’s not God however much he and his supporters think he may be.

In the end, I countered, weakly, with the fact that they (politicians) are only interested in what they can get for themselves, their friends and family and don’t care about the likes of us and that they were all corrupt.

“What we should do is exile them all and start again”, I concluded.

I was dissatisfied with my argument but I knew that I should not ‘get involved’ since, as I said before, this was not an argument where reason and logic would play any part. A lot like religion, really. After all, it’s a belief and beliefs have no sway with logic nor reason.

Still, we finished the bottle of wine. Which made me late. However, I think the ‘wine diet’ part is going rather well, don’t you?

However, given that Mars bars (and, in fact, sweet things in general) are, apparently only eaten by gay men and women, I need your help.

This is why I said I would blog about it.

Please let me know if you (being a straight man) or straight men you know (if you are a woman or gay) eat sweet things like Mars bars, chocolate or other such things. A seems to think the answer is no but, being a gay man, he refuses to believe me when I disagree as if, by being gay, it precludes me from knowledge about the world that is not gay or female.

I need to know. He will, in all probability, read this and your comments. Comment immediately ……….. please?

What a load of tripe!

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I’ve never tried it but imagine for a moment that you have taken the foam from a cushion, cut it into small pieces, boiled it for a bit, added some tomato sauce and some beans and maybe a bit of veg and seasoning.

That’s almost the same as eating tripe (the way they did it today in the canteen).

It doesn’t sound really scrumptious, does it?  But, actually, it’s not so bad.  I guess it’s ‘poor man’s food’, really.  But Italians have strange likes, as I have mentioned before.

I thought (but didn’t say) that there is no way it would be offered as a main course in any British canteen, even the ones up North!

Today I did not have a bread roll.  It’s the new regime.  The one that is not a diet but is going back to how I used to eat.  You see, I’m getting fat.

Of course, if I say that to people around me they pooh pooh the idea.  they tell me I’m not fat.  And it’s true, depending on the standard your using to measure it.

However, 3 broken jeans (in the last 2 weeks) testify differently and I would rather go by those than by people’s comments.  Unless, of course, it’s the jeans that have shrunk!

So, I need to lose a little weight.  I was trying to think of things I have been eating differently to, say, 12 months ago.

One thing was eating a bread roll with lunch.  And, then, probably, eating too much lunch altogether.  So I’m cutting down.  Less pasta, less main course and no bread roll.

Then there’s the evening.  recently I’ve got into the habit of having a Mars bar (or 3) with my evening tea.  So that has to stop too.

I will see how it goes.  I may have to give something else up too.  Perhaps beer, for a bit anyway. Drink wine instead, perhaps?

Hmm.  It’s not good.  I don’t ‘do’ dieting – this is my equivalent.  I think it may work although I will probably be out on Wednesday and Thursday for meals and then Saturday we go away for a night (and some eating) and then Monday we go for a meal too.  Thinking about it, maybe, this week I should even skip the pasta at lunch? :-(

Could I possibly tempt you with a banana?

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“Have a banana”. Actually, it was almost a question.

“No thanks, Bampa”, I would reply. Well, normally.

It was a thing he always said. It was after a meal and it was always a banana. I wonder if that’s why I like bananas?

I was reminded of this talking to Al, a colleague.

He said that his parents were at his house doing cleaning and stuff. They hadn’t told him they were going to get there early to do this stuff because he would have said no. And so it led on to the fact that often, when we say no, we mean yes but are just being polite.

Except that when my grandfather said it, I was usually full and could not have eaten a banana. I even wonder why it was always a banana?

I am alive!

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“Do you like it?”, he asked.

“It’s OK. It enables me to stay here”, I replied.

Thinking about it, it’s not really OK at all. But what can I do? He is determined ‘to be a writer’. But I remember, vaguely, some quote from an actor or writer that said, more or less, that they kept on saying that one day they would be a writer or actor until the time came to renew a passport and, since they didn’t have a ‘real’ job, they had to put writer or actor and then realised that there was no ‘big moment’ where they moved from being an aspiring whatever to the real thing.

So, he is, in fact, a writer. A writer of books. Well, one book with another, he hopes, soon. I hope so. I wish it could be the same for me but I am not that skilled in writing that I could ever be a real writer. I’m just a blogger which is not the same thing at all. Anyway, I couldn’t do what he has done/does and my goal is not that defined. I have no goal. ‘Just living’ is the goal. Oh, yes, and eating and drinking and spending time with friends and the dogs and stuff.

Hardly the stuff of dreams.

___________________________________________________________

F is funny. When he meets any one of my friends (or, even in this case, someone I really don’t know), he talks. It’s like he can’t have a silence.

Of course, once he had found something to talk about, he didn’t stop. In this case, once Karl (this is NOT anything to do with the ‘Karl spark’ – it’s his real name and I’ll link to his blogs in due course – since the ‘Karl’ in the ‘Karl spark was, in fact, a guy with a real name beginning with J) had explained his ‘great plan’ (which is not a great plan as such – just an idea that will change as the year progresses), which is to visit as many festivals as possible over the world, F started to come up with all the festivals that Karl absolutely MUST go to. They were all music festivals and included, of course, San Remo.

I’m not actually sure that, even if Karl intends to go to San Remo, it will be quite the same as the festival experience he’s looking for. After all, it’s a little commercial now. I recall the Upton Jazz Festival. The first year that it was staged, the jazz bands played in the many pub gardens that are a feature of Upton upon Severn. Everything was free. The feeling that one got was fantastic, wandering from pub to pub, having a beer, listening to some live band – really ‘chilled out’. The next year, the bands were behind screens and you had to pay and, immediately, it moved from being ‘a night out with friends (even if you didn’t know the people nor the musicians) to being a commercial event. Not the same at all. A little like the Hay Festival or (I imagine) the Edinburgh Festival. Far removed from the original thing.

I think San Remo would be more like going to a book festival. Of course, to F, it is a wonderful thing. We shall watch it again, certainly.

Still, Karl took notes, which was kind of him even if some of them were almost certainly going to be dropped from the list even as he wrote them down.

As I predicted, F didn’t come and stay with me. He is quite strange sometimes.

This morning, I got up just after the alarm. The sambuca, the night before, didn’t seem to have the usual effect, which was good. The lack of enough sleep makes me tired – but it’s not really different from normal.

He said he slept well. I forgot to ask if he had managed to connect to the internet OK after I went to bed. I forgot to tell him to take tram 23 to the middle of town. Mornings are not really my best time.

But, in case you were worried, I am, in fact, alive.

So he wasn’t a crazed axe murderer after all. Nice guy doing this round the world thing. I couldn’t do it – I like my comforts too much, I guess. Still it was interesting and I wished him good luck with it all.

Everyone should do something crazy once in a while, don’t you think?

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You don’t really ‘live’ without experiences. I mean to say, that’s what life is all about. For those of you who have read my blog for long enough, you will know that it was one of the reasons for coming here. To put myself in a strange situation and to ‘see how it went’.

As I’ve mentioned before, all those people who, when we told them we were giving everything up and going to Milan because we quite liked it said things like ‘You are brave’ whilst privately thinking ‘You are crazy’. Some time after we had been here, I came to that conclusion too, in that it really was quite a crazy thing to do but I don’t regret it and I wouldn’t change anything (well, almost).

So, yesterday, when I read that some guy that I don’t know was going to be in Milan for a night and was probably going to have to sleep rough, I suggested that he could sleep on the sofa. It was a simple comment made without any real thought. After all, I’d probably never hear from him.

Until, of course, I did. I read the email. Last night he slept outside. He said that he was still trying to get the chill out of his bones. I can only imagine.

I read the email again. Of course, I could pretend that I hadn’t read the email. I could say that, after all, it wasn’t ‘convenient’ (he had given that option in his email). He offered me a pizza and a beer.

I hesitated. This won’t be ‘convenient’ – I mean, An maybe celebrating as she hopes to sign up for a flat, round the corner from me (she is returning to Milan to work – leaving her husband in London); A has already suggested that we might meet for a beer; and then there is F who, if there is someone else in the flat, probably won’t want to sleep there (because he can be quite strange, sometimes) – and then there would be how to explain this person. It’s not easy. It’s easy for me, of course, but for others, there is the fact that they probably wouldn’t do it and so I would be ‘crazy’.

I mean I don’t actually know him. I’ve read his stuff. He’s quite famous (been on TV and stuff) but only with a bag on his head. I’ve read about his latest ‘escapade’ and, to be honest, like me coming to Milan, he’s quite brave (or crazy). I think he’s dropped using the bag now :-)

But I’ve never met him, haven’t spoken to him and, but for his blog, wouldn’t even know anything about him – and, anyway, his first blog was, in reality, one great big lie to be precise – so who’s to say this latest one isn’t?

But I only hesitate for a few moments. After all, if you don’t actually do things then you can only regret not doing them in the future and you would never know if doing it would have been good or not. Whereas, if you do things then, at least, you have a 50/50 chance it will be good ……. or interesting ……….or exciting …… or amazing, perhaps?

And so I said ‘yes’. Why not? Perhaps he will kill me in my sleep? Perhaps he will be as boring as they come? Or stink? Or, perhaps, he will just be an interesting, nice guy with whom I hit it off?

Who knows but it seems it is set. I await his call.

Now, how do I explain this to F ………….?

More differences in the after-death

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In my last post, I forgot something else that I have just found out!

It seems that, after a certain period of time, the cemeteries dig up the remains of a person and re-bury the bones (or whatever is left) with other members of the family! This saves space, obviously.

I’m almost certain that this does not happen in the UK although I’m hoping someone will tell me if it does.

I am aware that, sometimes, some very old graves, no longer tended and, maybe over 100 years old are, sometimes, ‘recycled’ and the ground used for new graves but not digging up remains of close relatives of people still living!

It is a strange place, Italy :-)

But it led me to think about my Nan. She was very involved in the local life. She was, for quite a while, a councillor on the local council, she was in the WI, she was one of the people, on a rota, for doing the flowers at the church.

The church, a medieval structure, sits on a hill top overlooking the beautiful Herefordshire countryside. To get to it, you used to have to drive through a farmyard (although now there is a ‘ring road’ of sorts to get to it). In the past, the farm was the only building near it although now, possibly because of the ‘ring road’, there are some cottages nearby.

If we were staying with her, we would go to the church on the Saturday with her. She would do the flowers. Whilst she was there, she would also tend three or four graves. The graves were special. Two were for her parents. Her parents died in their early sixties. She was about twenty-one. They both died not long before her marriage – to my grandfather. She didn’t get married in white as a result but, rather, in a red flapper dress with sequins. It wasn’t the ‘done thing’ to marry in white if you were still in mourning for your parents.

One of the other graves was a small grave nearby. It was for a sister that she never knew. From what I understand, this sister was born before her and was either a stillbirth or died within a short time. In any event, her mother was very old (even now it is considered old – in 1908 it must have been very unusual to have a child in your forties) at the time of both births.

My grandparents are both buried in the churchyard although, as is customary these days, they were cremated so are in a small ‘garden’ dedicated to this purpose. When F and I went over last year, I dragged him to the church and showed him the graves of them all – finding the ones of my Nan’s sister and parents was not difficult, having been to them so often in the past.

Of course, they are all overgrown and uncared for now (those old graves), difficult to read. No flowers at them like there used to be when my Nan put fresh flowers every couple of weeks.

Eventually, I suppose, the land will be ‘reclaimed’ for new graves and the stones will be gone. And, anyway, maybe I am the last person to know where they are and any story that is behind them?

I attach a picture of the church (the photograph having been taken, more or less, in the position of the graves I mentioned):

And one that looks similar to (but is not) the area where the graves are located:

In celebration of life

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Now that I have checked (as I needed to know the answer for this post), I have been here for five and a half years, not six as I often tell people.

You’d have thought that, after all these years, there wouldn’t be that anything that would be so unusual or different. But you’d be wrong. There are still things I stumble across that I find interestingly, frustratingly or horrifyingly different.

I’ve always had some sort of fascination with death. It’s the same sort of fascination that I have with overly-large breasts. I don’t want to physically experience it and, yet, there it is, in full view, so to speak.

I thought I would be dead by the time I was 42. This was something I thought of as a kid or teenager. 42 happened to coincide with the year 2000. It was a totally irrational thought, of course, but, nevertheless, I was convinced. It didn’t worry me. It was too far away and, by then, I figured, I would have had quite enough of living.

As you get older, with death no longer creeping but approaching at something closer to the speed of light, one wishes for ‘just a bit more’. I suppose it’s like money really – the more you have the more you want it. However, I am aware that my time on this earth is more limited now than it was 30 years ago when, even if my imminent death (42, remember) was coming, it still seemed ‘a lifetime’ away.

I see Rufus and wonder at how he has lived so long. I see his frail body and picture me in that state. Well, sort of. I am pragmatic in that I have smoked for so long and so heavily that I doubt, very much, if I would get to that state. We shall see. Stranger things happen. Everyone seems to have a story of someone who smoked all their life and still lived to be 95 or something. If we are honest though, these are exceptions. If I am also honest, I always think I shall be one of those exceptions as I’m sure most people do.

So, when F told me that his cousin (or uncle – it’s quite difficult to work out the correct relationship) had dropped dead with a heart attack at the age of 58, I couldn’t help but blurt out that he was just a little older than me. Don’t get me wrong, it doesn’t make me worried. In some way it amazes me that I am still here.

I’m sure I would be exactly the same as Anthony Hopkins in Meet Joe Black. I would be asking Father Time or God or whoever if I couldn’t just have another few years …….. or a year …… or, if I really DO have to go soon, couldn’t it just wait another 6 months? OK then – another month will be fine.

But this wasn’t really what I wanted to talk about. The guy had died. He was close family and, so, F went to the funeral, of course. And, although I was aware of how different things are here, I still find it all quite amazing.

The British have this propensity to party, it seems. Wetting the babies head; the christening; birthday parties; engagement parties; weddings; special anniversaries and, finally, wakes. In each case it gives the opportunity for families to reunite, have some alcohol and, quite possible, do some of that ‘only at weddings’-style dancing – to some of the worst music in the world.

But, mainly, it is a sanctioned ‘getting drunk’ time.

The parties are almost more important than the event itself. Certainly, in the case of a funeral, the party afterwards, to me, is the ‘best bit’. I don’t mean to be disrespectful. Let me explain.

One assumes you go to a funeral because you knew the person. Probably (almost certainly now that they are ‘gone’) you quite liked the person. And the funeral makes you take stock of the way that the person had touched your life: the funny bits, the sad bits and the many other ‘bits in between’. The funeral is your chance to say ‘goodbye’ even if the idea of that is quite preposterous, since ‘they’ can’t hear you. The funeral is really for your sake, not theirs. We all know that and accept that this is true. The funeral is sad and everyone whispers to each other as if, by speaking at a normal level you would wake someone – even the dead.

It’s stressful, particularly if you loved the person; if it was a close relative – an uncle, cousin, parent or, worst of all, your child, however old they may be. There might be some things said at the funeral – some speech by the vicar (who, in all probability never knew the deceased but has taken instruction from the surviving relatives) and or by a relative which may make everything excruciatingly painful – one can’t help but remember the truly dreadful speech given by Lord Althorp at Diana’s funeral – it is, after all, not really the best time for name calling.

Then it’s all over and the coffin has been put in the ground or been silently slid away behind some curtain to be burnt to cinders later. Either way, it’s all over. I always think: ‘Is that it?’.

And then there’s the party. The party, I think is the most important part. There is a release now that it’s all over and done with. It’s final. It’s done. Now you can get back to the business of living – and, in the case of the party, remembering the person – remembering the good times, the funny times, learning about things you didn’t even know about.

They were loved. They were good. You will miss them but they are still there, brought to life again by the stories and the laughter and the general ‘thinking about them’. And, maybe, that’s one of the reasons that my maternal grandfather has never really left me – I didn’t have that experience, that opportunity. To be honest, for the funeral wakes that I’ve been to, you didn’t really want them to end – you didn’t want to forget the person, to let go.

Not so here, it seems. The funeral is, I guess, more or less the same but afterwards, from what I understand, everyone just leaves! For me that would be an awful thing. It’s almost as if you would miss out on understanding them better, on reliving their past through others.

No, it doesn’t matter how much I try and understand, I just don’t get it. The party is the celebration of a life. Without which it is almost disrespectful – as if that person meant nothing.

Of course, having been brought up in the UK and our way being ‘the norm’ perhaps I am being unkind. I don’t mean to be but I hate the idea that if I were to die, there wouldn’t be some sort of knees-up afterwards. I would want people who bothered to come, the chance to enjoy themselves and celebrate my life. For that’s what it is really all about. The celebration of the life of someone who did touch you.

Perhaps your experience is different? But I find that our ways of saying goodbye are fascinating in their differences. Tell me I’m wrong, tell me how it is with you, tell me what you want – even try to help me to understand. I am, really, fascinated by the differences.

I don’t like you, your program or anything you’ve had to say.

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I’m trying to imagine it ……. but I can’t.

Let me give you a scenario. There is a discussion program. Say, a part of Channel 4 news, or Panorama, or Question Time. Many bad things are said about David Cameron (let’s say about his ‘special’ relationship with Rupert Murdoch). There is a Conservative MP on the panel.

Then towards the end of the program, David phones into the program. They put him through, live, on air.

He calls the program vile and despicable. He says that the program is full of lies disguised as the truth. He says of the ladies on the panel that they are only so-called ladies. David gets quite angry.

The presenter say something along the lines of ‘You may be my Prime Minister but enough of the offending by you. You are a boor – rude, uncivilised, etc”. David then demands that the Conservative MP leaves the ‘brothel program’. The MP, quite rightly, doesn’t leave.

Can you imagine? The Prime Minister, bringing himself so low as to call a program whilst it is being transmitted? Being oafish and more like a petulant child, in front of his mother because his brother or sister has just accused them of doing something nasty?

No, of course you can’t. It would mean, after all, the end of any respect for him. I mean, to phone in in the first place? But then to argue with the presenter and basically do some name-calling – unbelievable, right?

Only, as we are in Italy, that is, more or less what happened, except, of course, replace Cameron with Berlusconi. It really would be hilarious if he wasn’t the leader of Italy. The shame of it all. And I would like to apologise if I got the gist of this wrong – but I don’t think I did. Please feel free to comment with any corrections to my understanding.

Update May 2015 – The video I had here is no longer available.