Segovia is hot now

The second day. I must remember to tell the story of the late night dinner with the Mayor and the Chief of Police.

In the meantime, lunch with Valeria (an Italian working in Madrid but temporarily helping at the Festival) answered my question about twins.

The reason that the Italians treat the first twin who comes out as the youngest is because it was (obviously) the second one created! All makes sense now, doesn’t it?

The funny thing was that they assumed that this was the same rule all over the world! But then, I thought our ‘rule’ was the same. It’s a strange world.

She also added that it quite annoys her when people say something like ‘What’s it like to be a twin?’ How would she know what it’s like NOT to be one. It’s just one of those stupid questions people ask.

Here it was bloody freezing last night and this morning but quite warm now as the sun has been shining all day. The Spanish seem to take even longer over buying tickets than most people. It seems the event number and the number of tickets required is just too simple and there needs to be a half-hour conversation about it. Unfortunately, all in Spanish, so most of it goes completely over my head.

We are reckoning this afternoon may go a bit mental as people finish for the weekend in Madrid and come over to the Festival. Should make it fun.

Very nice place for a Festival, though.

In Conversation with Christopher Hitchens

Mantova, Festivaletteratura.- The last Sunday.

Peter Florence (Hay Festival) was there and we spent some pleasant hours with him on Friday and Saturday. He was doing a couple of the events, interviewing some people. But, from the moment that I looked at the site, Christopher Hitchens was the one event that I was not going to miss. It was just after lunch on the final day. Peter was going to be interviewing him (rather him than me). We hadn’t seen Peter since late on Saturday night (after my experience of playing chess with Boris). We got up late, wandered around town for a bit and, as we were travelling back to Milan later, decided that a proper lunch would be a good thing. We went to Griffone Bianco, our favourite restaurant in Mantova

Obviously it was busy – very busy. However, this year, M had bought us (with L from Hay and Juan Hose from Spain) a meal there on the Thursday night and when she was paying I went up to remonstrate with her about her paying the bill and was introduced to the guy behind the desk, who runs the place, and she was telling me they were great friends.

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How to ‘buy’ a free car in Italy

How to buy a free car

Don’t. Go to the UK. Buy a car over there. Tax and insure it. Spend 2 days driving it over here. Job done and everybody happy.

Alternatively, get a bicycle or use public transport.

Whatever you do, DO NOT TRY TO BUY A CAR HERE, unless you have full residency status, in which case it’s fine. Also, even if the car is free, it will cost you just to transfer title (between €330 and €680). Yep, Italy is a great country, but I’m amazed that most Italians haven’t emigrated to somewhere where life and, in particular, bureaucracy, is much easier – like the UK, for instance.

So, a friend of a friend is emigrating to Canada. If she does not get rid of her car by 10th July, she will have to pay a whole year’s insurance of €400. As she knows the difficulties here, she is prepared to let it go for free. And I have the chance to have it. Just a couple of small problems.

I can’t legally own it without having Residency here. It will take much longer than a couple of weeks to do this, even if I can, which I somehow doubt. And I need to have the car as mine has many, many things wrong with it and, surely, it is only a matter of time before it fails.

In addition, the owner has mislaid, or never had, one of the two documents that she needs for the car. To get a replacement can take 90 days! And cost €200! And she will be gone within 90 days!! And post, here, is difficult to have re-directed (I’m almost certain that you need to prove that you live at the new address before the Post Italiane will permit the post to be re-directed).

Maybe I should just give up?

A Grand Day Out

In the UK, if someone suggests a trip out, where you were going to travel for two hours to get there and two to get back, you would tend to make a day of it. So, for instance, when we lived in Herefordshire and you decided to go to, let’s say Aberystwyth, you would set of at, say, 10 a.m., reach Aberystwyth, have lunch, enjoy the afternoon having a walk around and set off home at 6 or 7 p.m.

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A heavy weekend; too much to drink; too tired; SLTG

This was started on Monday, but I never finished it, I’m afraid. So:

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The sun went green in Milan

Today, in Milan, the sun turned green!  Yes, that’s right, it was only a slight hue of green, but green it was.  It was very strange walking around in this slightly green light.  It seemed to make the leaves on the trees (yes we have a lot of them in Milan although how they survive in the pollution beats me) much greener than normal.  Walking around, people were just staring up towards the sun or there with their hands in front of them, examining them, as if they had some dread disease.  It was quite freaky, just like some sort of Science Fiction film.  Except that we were here and it wasn’t some film set.

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Changing the air: no plants in the bedroom: soap on the plates

I have mentioned before about the Italians need to ‘change the air’.  This is a requirement from birth, I think.  Si, bless her, no longer opens the window first thing in the morning, in the office, because I am there.  She used to come in, open the window, go and have a coffee, and then come back and close it.  I only learnt this fact this week.

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You can’t call it procrastination.

No one makes any bloody decisions around here!

Everything is talked about – endlessly.  V is currently very frustrated by the fact that he can sit in a meeting (or many meetings) where people can say ‘yes, I agree with that action, in principle’ but nobody actually says ‘yes, I agree.  Do it’.

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