I love strava.com 13th novembre 2011
http://www.strava.com/ is one of my favourite websites. It allows me to upload my GPS data from my rides (and runs too, although I haven't run in months) and play aroudn with it, set up segments and compare your performance against others running the same routes. It's great. And it's free. Cracking.
Sunday 13 November 2011
Vai via Berlusconi 13th novembre 2011
Vai via Berlusconi 13th novembre 2011
I thought it would never happen, but it has! Yesterday evening "Il Cavaliere" - "The Knight" Silvio Berlusconi resigned as Prime Minister of Italy. In July, driving through the outskirts of Naples I saw a sheet hung from a tower block saying "Berlusconi Vai Via" which means "Berlusconi go away" reflecting the feeling of the people. However, he hung on and on. Political issues and personal issues never seemed to damage him, the accusations of being mafioso or the numerous gaffes with senior foreign political figures were water off a duck's back. He had numerous votes of confidence and he won them all. And yet, yesterday enough was enough, as the country was hit where it really hurts - it's wallet. A few days ago, with Italy teetering on the brink of following Greece and Spain into financial ruin, Berlusconi offered to resign if his austerity measures were passed. They got through the lower house the other day and got through the upper house yesterday. So, he took his last address in parliament yesterday and left to rapturous cheering from his political mules, and to jeers from the public waiting for him as he took his last drive, inspiring instant street parties.
Speaking of mules though, Lucia Annunziata - the former director of RAI - the Italian media network said "beware the dead donkey! He looks dead and then he kicks you!"
The fear is of "contagion". OK - Greece's economy is FUBARed - everybody knows that, however it is tolerable. If Italy's economy goes down it is a whole different kettle of fish. Italy's economy is massive, the debt is more than three times the debt of Greece, Spain, Portugal and Ireland combined. If Italy goes down, France may follow as they hold a significant portion of Italian debt. The Italian economy is the third largest in the Eurozone. The debt currently stands at 118% GDP. However, drilling down the Italian people are not overtroubled with mortgages and the Italians generally have not massive unstable debts. Part of this is due to the family way of life of the Italians, houses are passed down through families so they do not overburden themselves too much.
A review of Berlusconi's career
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silvio_Berlusconi
Career: Berlusconi is Italy's richest man, owner of RAI media corporation, Inter Milan, so controls a lot of what is written about him. Born in Milan in 1936 he rode the rollercoaster of the times when Italian become a huge superpower moving to the 5th largest economy in the world in the 1980s. At school he wrote essays for classmates, getting paid for it. He played double bass and sung in a band whilst at university and became a singer on a cruise ship after leaving university. He set up a tv station and then started a construction company that had a massive boom creating an area in Milan called Milan Due earning him his first fortune.
Politics: Amazingly he has had a successful political career for 17 years. He started a party called "Forza Italia" - "Go Italy" - named after a Milan football chant in the 1990s and at that time it was a breath of fresh air to have this passionate, character in politics. He has held PM office for the longest period post-war. In fact, since Mussolini's rule was actually a dictatorship, so in fact Berlusconi is the country's longest service democratic PM.
Scandal: He has been subject to 23 judicial investigations, mostly for corruption. He has been accused of having sex with minors, sex with prostitutes, but the worst accusation, from and Italian perspective, was having sex with an under-age Moroccan prostitute - Ruby. Noone seems to be able to tell me if prostitution is legal, but certainly this 17 year old working as a prostitute seemed to really reverberate around the country. His wife filed for divorce after he started surrounding himself with leggy women, even giving some of them positions of seniority in his political party, despite absence of qualifications. In some quarters he is known as "The Sultan" for his behaviour. His "Bunge Bunga" parties/orgies are legendary.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bunga_bunga
And there were recent items - how he boasted of having sex with 8 women in a night and how he was disappointed to turn another 3 away (http://www.newser.com/story/128802/berlusconi-brags-of-8-women-in-a-night.html), and of course, the phrase "e' una culona inchiavibile" which I discussed elsewhere.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/picturegalleries/worldnews/8286270/Silvio-Berlusconis-women.html
The guy is clearly a legend, but hated by women (who he is not sleeping with) and men whom are not financed by him.
The bunga bunga has been translated into a website "bungle bungle" which lists all the gaffes that Berlusconi has made.
http://www.bungle.it/
One that stands out for me is the one that happened whilst he was visiting L'Aquila after the devastating earthquake in 2009. He said that the homeless should view it as a camping trip and enjoy it and he asked the councilor "Can I fondle you?"
And then there are the links with the Mafia. There were payments to Cosa Nostra ("our thing" what the mafiosi call their organisation) that were discovered.
Mangano was hired to run his stables but later was jailed for drug-trafficking and murder. In fact, it is suspected that Berlusconi was a key link between the north and the south - the Mafiosi controlling the mafia-corrupted south, Berlusconi controlling the north and helping unite the two.
In 2009 he was attacked by a man armed with a statue of Milan cathedral. He got him in the face and did some considerable damage. Fairplay to the old boy, despite being bundled into the car by his security and with blood all over his face, and I think a tooth or two missing - he got back out of the car and showed to the public that he was fine.
On top of that, he wears high heels to make himself look taller, has hair transplants, and has had numerous facelifts. Well - the man is 75 after all! And he has a pacemaker.
However, despite all this he is still absolutely loved. The potency of his aura was perhaps unwittingly revealed by the conservative newspaper editor Vittorio Feltri. Speaking on a national TV talk show on Monday, Feltri decried those asking for Berlusconi to step aside. "If you were in England, you wouldn't ask the Queen to step aside, would you?" Feltri burst out angrily. However, yesterday the leader of the democratic party called it "a day of liberation."
Next steps: So - who is next? Unfortunately Italy has a reputation for corrupt PM's even post-war. One had to flee to Tunisia to see out his days, hiding from financial misdoings. High on the agenda is "Super Mario" - Mario Monti. Disappointingly he is similarly old - born in 1943 so 68 years old, but he is a tough and economically wise head. He studied at Yale under Tobin - a leading economics thinker, inventor of the "Robin Hood tax" and has been an EU Commissioner. But it was in his second term at the commission (1999-2004) that he earned the nickname "Super Mario" for the way he took on vested interests. He blocked a merger between General Electric and Honeywell, and battled Germany's powerful regional banks.
I thought it would never happen, but it has! Yesterday evening "Il Cavaliere" - "The Knight" Silvio Berlusconi resigned as Prime Minister of Italy. In July, driving through the outskirts of Naples I saw a sheet hung from a tower block saying "Berlusconi Vai Via" which means "Berlusconi go away" reflecting the feeling of the people. However, he hung on and on. Political issues and personal issues never seemed to damage him, the accusations of being mafioso or the numerous gaffes with senior foreign political figures were water off a duck's back. He had numerous votes of confidence and he won them all. And yet, yesterday enough was enough, as the country was hit where it really hurts - it's wallet. A few days ago, with Italy teetering on the brink of following Greece and Spain into financial ruin, Berlusconi offered to resign if his austerity measures were passed. They got through the lower house the other day and got through the upper house yesterday. So, he took his last address in parliament yesterday and left to rapturous cheering from his political mules, and to jeers from the public waiting for him as he took his last drive, inspiring instant street parties.
Speaking of mules though, Lucia Annunziata - the former director of RAI - the Italian media network said "beware the dead donkey! He looks dead and then he kicks you!"
The fear is of "contagion". OK - Greece's economy is FUBARed - everybody knows that, however it is tolerable. If Italy's economy goes down it is a whole different kettle of fish. Italy's economy is massive, the debt is more than three times the debt of Greece, Spain, Portugal and Ireland combined. If Italy goes down, France may follow as they hold a significant portion of Italian debt. The Italian economy is the third largest in the Eurozone. The debt currently stands at 118% GDP. However, drilling down the Italian people are not overtroubled with mortgages and the Italians generally have not massive unstable debts. Part of this is due to the family way of life of the Italians, houses are passed down through families so they do not overburden themselves too much.
So why is Italy in trouble now? The reason is because its economy is so weak. Italy is plagued by poor regulation, vested business interests, an ageing population, and weak investment, all of which have conspired to limit the country's ability to increase production. The country has averaged an abysmal 0.75% annual economic growth rate over the past 15 years. That is much lower than the rate of interest it pays on its debts. And this creates a risk that the government's debt load could grow more quickly than the Italian economy's capacity to support it. In the past, this risk has not materialised, thanks to Italy's relatively high inflation rate, which has steadily pushed up the government's tax revenues. But now the outlook is much more grim. Like other southern European economies, Italian wage levels rose too quickly during the good years, and left Italy uncompetitive versus Germany and other northern economies within the eurozone. As crazy as this sounds to me - Italian wages are shocking compared to most of the other countries in Europe I am familiar with (UK, Germany, Switzerland), but now they are going to be frozen. Foooook. However, Italy is stuck in a period of low growth and high inflation. However, Italy needs to recover the debts but Italian binds borrowing is now at terrible rates. To borrow money for one year Italy has to pay 6.05% where by contrast Germany must pay only 0.25%. This means that there is a risk of contagion that may spiral downwards. Greece was offered a payout last week, the Greek PM then took the option to a referendum in Greece, which shocked the rest of the Eurozone. This week the Greek PM stood down. However, the upshot is that there is a lot of money being put into stabilising the greek debt, which leaves money short for Italian debt to stabilise.
A review of Berlusconi's career
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silvio_Berlusconi
Career: Berlusconi is Italy's richest man, owner of RAI media corporation, Inter Milan, so controls a lot of what is written about him. Born in Milan in 1936 he rode the rollercoaster of the times when Italian become a huge superpower moving to the 5th largest economy in the world in the 1980s. At school he wrote essays for classmates, getting paid for it. He played double bass and sung in a band whilst at university and became a singer on a cruise ship after leaving university. He set up a tv station and then started a construction company that had a massive boom creating an area in Milan called Milan Due earning him his first fortune.
Politics: Amazingly he has had a successful political career for 17 years. He started a party called "Forza Italia" - "Go Italy" - named after a Milan football chant in the 1990s and at that time it was a breath of fresh air to have this passionate, character in politics. He has held PM office for the longest period post-war. In fact, since Mussolini's rule was actually a dictatorship, so in fact Berlusconi is the country's longest service democratic PM.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bunga_bunga
And there were recent items - how he boasted of having sex with 8 women in a night and how he was disappointed to turn another 3 away (http://www.newser.com/story/128802/berlusconi-brags-of-8-women-in-a-night.html), and of course, the phrase "e' una culona inchiavibile" which I discussed elsewhere.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/picturegalleries/worldnews/8286270/Silvio-Berlusconis-women.html
The guy is clearly a legend, but hated by women (who he is not sleeping with) and men whom are not financed by him.
The bunga bunga has been translated into a website "bungle bungle" which lists all the gaffes that Berlusconi has made.
http://www.bungle.it/
And then there are the links with the Mafia. There were payments to Cosa Nostra ("our thing" what the mafiosi call their organisation) that were discovered.
On top of that, he wears high heels to make himself look taller, has hair transplants, and has had numerous facelifts. Well - the man is 75 after all! And he has a pacemaker.
He also launched an anti-trust case against Microsoft for its bundling of audio and video software. In 2004, the EU fined Microsoft 497m euros (£325m) for what it said was abuse of its dominant marketposition. He is well esteemed throughout and could be the man for the job. He needs to work miracles for the Italian government and people, and also for my job and salary! The austerity package contains the following: An increase in VAT, from 20% to 21%A freeze on public-sector salaries until 2014The retirement age for women in the private sector will gradually rise, from 60 in 2014 until it reaches 65 in 2026, the same age as for menMeasures to fight tax evasion will be strengthened, including a limit of 2,500 euros on cash transactionsThere will be a special tax on the energy sector.
So hopefully none of them will affect me immediately, but I can see a tough few months and years ahead for a lot of people. I hesitate to say it but - Forza Italia!
Saturday 12 November 2011
Brekkie time 12th novembre 2011
I will never get used to Italian breakfasts. It is impossible to find bacon, it just does not seem to exist here. They eat a lot of pig, but most of it is in salami, so the cut of bacon cannot be found. There are some similar cuts that are ready to eat, some pancettas, smoked, but nothing raw. More concerning is the lack of savoury items for breakfast. Italians eat sweet pastries for breakfast, the most common in Siena being "cornetto con crema" - a kind of sweet croissant with a sweet custard filling, usually sugared on the outside. They are actually very nice, but I cannot get used to it. Dawn has embraced it but I stick to fruit, maybe some protein, and have an omlette on the weekends.
All the pasticceries sell these items in the morning. After 12 noon they will have sold out, or not be good to eat any more, they are made fresh and like all bready products in Tuscany seem to go off and hard almost immediately. The pasticceries are very good, and one of the most common chains here is "Sclavi" - complete with a great pictographic representation of Siena, complete with walls, porta romana (the main gate to the south - in the direction of rome, plus the tower in the main square and the tower of the duomo (the cathedral) - very pretty indeed.
However, I did have one this morning - but that was Dawn's fault, and it was only after my omlette with pancetta.
Buon appetito!
Hai vinto!! 12th novembre 2011
Hai vinto!! 12th novembre 2011
Many things remain to be absolutely perplexing and confounding in Italy. Supermarkets are always interesting, food is strange and shopping styles continue to perplex. One of the major supermarkets is the Coop. Of course, pronounced in the local dialect it is more like "ho'p" with a long-sounded "o".
Dawn popped in quickly before work yesterday to buy a couple of items "fare la spesa" before going to fly to LatAm today. She picked up a couple of items and went to the checkout, after paying the checkout girl said to her "hai vinto!" - "you've won" - there was then a huge kerfuffle, the manager was called and an official photographer. She was getting excited and there was a delay of about 40 minutes whilst all the kerfuffle took place. And at the end of it what had she won? A car? A year's shopping? A trolley dash? Sadly, it was none of the above, but a bottle of own-brand extra virgin olive oil - at a value of €5.60 - woo hoo.
Was it really worth it?
Maybe she had won a car or something, and the locals realising that she was a foreigner (staniera) replaced it with a bottle of olive oil. We will never know.
However, we do have a bottle of olive oil and a receipt with "hai vinto" written on it :)
Many things remain to be absolutely perplexing and confounding in Italy. Supermarkets are always interesting, food is strange and shopping styles continue to perplex. One of the major supermarkets is the Coop. Of course, pronounced in the local dialect it is more like "ho'p" with a long-sounded "o".
Dawn popped in quickly before work yesterday to buy a couple of items "fare la spesa" before going to fly to LatAm today. She picked up a couple of items and went to the checkout, after paying the checkout girl said to her "hai vinto!" - "you've won" - there was then a huge kerfuffle, the manager was called and an official photographer. She was getting excited and there was a delay of about 40 minutes whilst all the kerfuffle took place. And at the end of it what had she won? A car? A year's shopping? A trolley dash? Sadly, it was none of the above, but a bottle of own-brand extra virgin olive oil - at a value of €5.60 - woo hoo.
Was it really worth it?
Maybe she had won a car or something, and the locals realising that she was a foreigner (staniera) replaced it with a bottle of olive oil. We will never know.
However, we do have a bottle of olive oil and a receipt with "hai vinto" written on it :)
Accentuate the positive medicate the negative 13th novembre 2011
Accentuate the positive medicate the negative 13th novembre 2011
Whilst I was looking for some stuff about the relocation relocation stuff (see recent post for the fullish very strange and upsetting story) I stumbled across the following wonderful stuff. There is a condition called "Foreign Accent Syndrome" when people have some sort of incident that leaves them with a full-on foreign accent, including one lady who is Scottish and now speaks with an Italian accent. Marvellous.
http://video.au.msn.com/watch/video/foreign-accent-syndrome/xfx1pf3
http://news2.onlinenigeria.com/world/international/112902-scottish-grandmother-debbie-mccann-suffers-stroke-wakes-up-italian-accent.html
Speaking of accents, here is a great instruction on how to ham up an Italian accent. Maybe if I can speak English with an Italian accent I will be able to speak Ihttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTt8XQCiBgY&feature=related
Actually I have become very used to understanding Italians speak English which wasn't so easy at first. Certainly the level of English spoken is nowhere near as good as in France, Germany or Switzerland, and you become very used to hearing it with an accent, and now I can understand it well, whereas when I first moved here I found it hard to understand. Also, with people that I work with who are used to Italian being spoken badly by Americans, English or other foreigners, it is very easy to communicate in two languages, dipping in and out of English and Italian when it seems right. However, when you try to take that approach with the general population with people who cannot or who are not used to speaking English it is very difficult, some of them really do not get my accent frustratingly, and I am told that I have a good accent - well, actually I am told that I have a good Tuscan accent, and certainly use some Tuscan region dialect phrases, deliberately.
There are some key aspects, a lot of them focusing on the pronunciation of the letter "c", per esempio - Coca Cola becomes "coha hola" in a slightly Florentine accent. "Babo" is used a lot for father and although it exists in "Babo Natale" - "Father Christmas" it is not widely used elsewhere. Swear words make an area stand out - "Maremma" - an area of Tuscany that is now very nice, but used to be a malaria-infested swampy place is used as a polite curse, and of course adding in other words to bring out "Maremma Maialla" sounds and feels right. In a similar vein, "Madonnina Zanzarina" hits the spot!
Of course, Eddie Izzard gets it spot on about the Italians
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-PmuHWPZSkY&feature=related
But naturally the Pythons have it the best
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3iAqxNpQ-A&feature=related and interestingly threw in some north-south divide banter to spice it up a little.
However, this comedy sketch is the most spot-on that I have seen for Italian accents, speaking English and doing the hand gestures, and the most annoying thing - Italians clapping in a plane when it lands. Grrr. Awesome.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sD-44Cx1Iaw
And this video also covers the same point and a lot of other strange Italian habits, particularly:
Driving, Parking, Politics, Bureaucracy, Buses, queueing, and many others - very true and well worth a watch!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKC4XGGlnRI&feature=related
But probably the most notably different thing about the language is the "feel" and the hand gestures. You cannot just speak words and expect to be understood, especially with a dodgy english accent. It's not just about rolling your Rs but about really attaching yourself to the language. Without the feel and the swagger and the love of the language, a lot of touching and gesturing, and overemotionalising everything you will simply not be understood. Equally, you don't need to speak much Italian - if you can gesture and emote then the words are of secondary importance. Drama and melodrama are perfetto!
Some great instructions for hand gestures here.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9AZB64fH3Q&feature=related
Gotta love it. Ciao for now.
Whilst I was looking for some stuff about the relocation relocation stuff (see recent post for the fullish very strange and upsetting story) I stumbled across the following wonderful stuff. There is a condition called "Foreign Accent Syndrome" when people have some sort of incident that leaves them with a full-on foreign accent, including one lady who is Scottish and now speaks with an Italian accent. Marvellous.
http://video.au.msn.com/watch/video/foreign-accent-syndrome/xfx1pf3
http://news2.onlinenigeria.com/world/international/112902-scottish-grandmother-debbie-mccann-suffers-stroke-wakes-up-italian-accent.html
Speaking of accents, here is a great instruction on how to ham up an Italian accent. Maybe if I can speak English with an Italian accent I will be able to speak Ihttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTt8XQCiBgY&feature=related
Actually I have become very used to understanding Italians speak English which wasn't so easy at first. Certainly the level of English spoken is nowhere near as good as in France, Germany or Switzerland, and you become very used to hearing it with an accent, and now I can understand it well, whereas when I first moved here I found it hard to understand. Also, with people that I work with who are used to Italian being spoken badly by Americans, English or other foreigners, it is very easy to communicate in two languages, dipping in and out of English and Italian when it seems right. However, when you try to take that approach with the general population with people who cannot or who are not used to speaking English it is very difficult, some of them really do not get my accent frustratingly, and I am told that I have a good accent - well, actually I am told that I have a good Tuscan accent, and certainly use some Tuscan region dialect phrases, deliberately.
There are some key aspects, a lot of them focusing on the pronunciation of the letter "c", per esempio - Coca Cola becomes "coha hola" in a slightly Florentine accent. "Babo" is used a lot for father and although it exists in "Babo Natale" - "Father Christmas" it is not widely used elsewhere. Swear words make an area stand out - "Maremma" - an area of Tuscany that is now very nice, but used to be a malaria-infested swampy place is used as a polite curse, and of course adding in other words to bring out "Maremma Maialla" sounds and feels right. In a similar vein, "Madonnina Zanzarina" hits the spot!
Of course, Eddie Izzard gets it spot on about the Italians
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-PmuHWPZSkY&feature=related
But naturally the Pythons have it the best
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3iAqxNpQ-A&feature=related and interestingly threw in some north-south divide banter to spice it up a little.
However, this comedy sketch is the most spot-on that I have seen for Italian accents, speaking English and doing the hand gestures, and the most annoying thing - Italians clapping in a plane when it lands. Grrr. Awesome.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sD-44Cx1Iaw
And this video also covers the same point and a lot of other strange Italian habits, particularly:
Driving, Parking, Politics, Bureaucracy, Buses, queueing, and many others - very true and well worth a watch!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKC4XGGlnRI&feature=related
But probably the most notably different thing about the language is the "feel" and the hand gestures. You cannot just speak words and expect to be understood, especially with a dodgy english accent. It's not just about rolling your Rs but about really attaching yourself to the language. Without the feel and the swagger and the love of the language, a lot of touching and gesturing, and overemotionalising everything you will simply not be understood. Equally, you don't need to speak much Italian - if you can gesture and emote then the words are of secondary importance. Drama and melodrama are perfetto!
Some great instructions for hand gestures here.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9AZB64fH3Q&feature=related
Friday 11 November 2011
What on earth was I thinking of? 12th novembre 2011
What on earth was I thinking of? 12th novembre 2011
A conversation at work yesterday between myself, a Welsh colleague and an Italian colleague. We tried to explain how we had ended up moving to Italy and what our experiences of Italy were before moving out. At this point I really struggled. The accusation was that all we knew about Italy was football players and apart from that we knew nothing.
We searched for ideas and agreed that it was pretty much only Italian football players and Berlusconi that we knew before moving over. And now, we still only know about football players and Berlusconi.
We thought for a while and we came up with a quite stunning list:
Football players
Nancy Dell'Olio (doesn't really count as she is famous due to being a football manager's wife)
Gio Compare - the comedy opera singer from the Go Compare adverts)
Tutti Frutti - an Italian game show from the 1980s
Joe Dolce - singer of late 1980s comedy song Shaddappa ya face
Gino Ginelli - ice cream brand from the 1980s
And that was it. Nothing else. What a sorry state of affairs that is and I don't know if it is my fault, or the fault of the Brits in general.
So let us consider this fine list in a little more detail.
Nancy Dell'Olio: Strange looking and acting woman, famous for being the ex of Sven Goran Eriksson, ex-England football manager. Recently appeared on Strictly Come Dancing and was seen coming out of a coffin and was paired with Anton Du Beke, a rather unpalatable South African (reminds me of a very famous Spitting Image song http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v439zTOJVho I won't comment further...).
Gio Compare: An advert character for the website Go Compare. Catchy theme song actually made him famous and able to perform and tour, as well as having a series of popular adverts. Of course, he's not actually Italian, but i guess is supposed to look a little like Pavarotti, or a generic Italian opera singer.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvqzx1bA488
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJdjCVhHUog
Tutti Frutti: I believed that this was an Italian game show, I was wrong but kind of right, more to follow. As young kids, well I guess around 14 or so we would go to David's older brother's house to babysit and watch horror movies (at the time I was really into horror books - Steven King, James Herbert etc and we watched a lot of hard horror films - I must say that I couldn't care less now). David's brother had a very nice house, and also had satellite TV in the time when noone had satellite TV. Actually there was one other person who had satellite TV that I knew, I will not name any names, but his father was a modern languages teacher and one time was found watching purn on it, and stated that "he was monitoring it for suitability" - a wonderful riposte! Anyway, whilst not watching horror movies we watched a game show called "Tutti Frutti" - the premise was very odd. Couples would come on and answer some questions, do a striptease(!) and if some questions were answered correctly or the dance was good then some of the, better words fail me so I shall call them dolly birds, would take their tops off. This demands more explanation. Each of the dolly birds represented a particular fruit - strawberry, banana etc, and wore an outfit to resemble that. If they got the points then they would show their breasts. Wow. And you can imagine to young kids this was pretty amazing. There was no internet in those days, so the only time we had seen such things was when we found a magazine in the woods. I never knew how they ended up in woods - but they did! A couple of years later we would develop to watch pretty hardcore films, and some snuff too, of course, going via soft stuff like Young Lady Chatterley. It's all good. Anyway - the premise was, random game show, flash of breast. And that was what I remembered of Italy. I have done a little research and discovered that I have got it completely wrong - the game show was actually German, so I will have to take this off the list! However, it turns out that the German Tutti Frutti was actually based on an earlier Italian game show called "Colpo Grosso" - "Big Score" which had "ragazzae cin cin" which I think translates to "cheers girls". Lovely stuff!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tutti_Frutti_(1990_TV_series)
And the Italian "cin cin" here.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOOCECXSLIY&feature=related
And here an example of the contestants (not the pretty girls) stripping!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYMVn7ENMec
I can't say that Italian TV has really changed that much. There are still lots of strangely attractive and done up women on the TV, and since Berlusconi controls much of it there is no great surprise about that. The TV is still a mystery to me sadly. I watch MTV a lot, as there are a lot of english language programs on there, but generally we do not watch TV but watch movies and series on the PC, and spend a lot of money with Amazon. In fact, I am now used to watching series in one sitting and would find it impossible to wait a week for the next episode!
Joe Dolce: I think I've spoken about this guy before. A late 1980s comedy song called "Shaddap you face" about an Italian boy called Giuseppe song in a comedy Italian accent by an Australian. Disgraceful. Disgraceful yes, but extremely successful, number one in fifteen countries and it remained the best selling Australian song for 31 years!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Dolce
Here is the song:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-BKcKMS748
Gino Ginelli: This was a brand of ice cream from the 1980s. What is it about TV and TV advert nostalgia that brings us all together so much? There are so many "Top 100 ..." programs talking about how great stuff was 10 or 20 years ago. It really goes for TV and TV adverts, and I do fear that after having been here for 2 years I have missed out on a large part of my culture. Although there are people who don not own TVs, but I am definitely never going to be one of them! Some of the Italian jingles and adverts on radio are quite catchy "gli esperti siamo noi" - "we are the experts" an advert for a mobile phone company (http://www.expert-italia.it/) and the catch line for RTL 102.5 which is a radio and music tv show that is always on in the gym (http://www.rtl.it/). Anyway, Gino Ginelli was a make of Italian ice cream from the 1980s. Super catchy tune, but clearly the writers had never been near Italy!
"Italian chic, Italian style, Italian verve, Italian cool. Tutti Frutti oh what a cutie, take a Gino home with you." All sung with a mild and slightly ridiculous Italian accent (not as bad as Joe Dolce though!).
And here is the original advert:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Wu-aNr7v0U
And whilst I think of it - remember the classic cornetto advert from the 1980s?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=biL6zAMkOQs
"Just one cornetto, give eeet to me, delicious ice cream, from Italy" - my next door neighbour, who lived in the UK for two years over 20 years ago, can still sing this word for word. Of course, this is based on a real italian song "o sole mio". Actually it is not strictly Italian, but is originally in Neopolitan dialect
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%27O_Sole_Mio
And then Boddingtons came along and completely made it triple legendary with this advert.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGg4uhGfgB0
"By 'eck luv, it's gorgeous"
And so, where does all this end? Well - what was I thinking? I knew nothing about Italy before I moved over. Nothing at all. It reminds me of an episode of Relocation Relocation (or whatever it was called). A young couple (approximately 31 years old) from somewhere scummy in Scotland had decided one day that they wanted to move to Tuscany. They had no money, barely any jobs, and had never been abroad I think, certainly never to Italy. They went through the whole process, and finally were getting their sht together and almost ready to do it, although there was resistance from their families. There was no final part, but as the credits rolled a voice over came on saying that John had suffered a huge stroke after filming the program and was ill. This was pretty damn shocking.
So, where does that leave us? We're still here, in a country teetering on the brink of collapse, getting paid very little money, in a city where it is impossible to integrate. Really don't know why we're here. The wine is nice but Dawn doesn't really drink, so it is a mystery. Cycling is great for me, but I am working too much to do much and we are both getting fat.
We shall see....
A conversation at work yesterday between myself, a Welsh colleague and an Italian colleague. We tried to explain how we had ended up moving to Italy and what our experiences of Italy were before moving out. At this point I really struggled. The accusation was that all we knew about Italy was football players and apart from that we knew nothing.
We searched for ideas and agreed that it was pretty much only Italian football players and Berlusconi that we knew before moving over. And now, we still only know about football players and Berlusconi.
We thought for a while and we came up with a quite stunning list:
Football players
Nancy Dell'Olio (doesn't really count as she is famous due to being a football manager's wife)
Gio Compare - the comedy opera singer from the Go Compare adverts)
Tutti Frutti - an Italian game show from the 1980s
Joe Dolce - singer of late 1980s comedy song Shaddappa ya face
Gino Ginelli - ice cream brand from the 1980s
And that was it. Nothing else. What a sorry state of affairs that is and I don't know if it is my fault, or the fault of the Brits in general.
So let us consider this fine list in a little more detail.
Nancy Dell'Olio: Strange looking and acting woman, famous for being the ex of Sven Goran Eriksson, ex-England football manager. Recently appeared on Strictly Come Dancing and was seen coming out of a coffin and was paired with Anton Du Beke, a rather unpalatable South African (reminds me of a very famous Spitting Image song http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v439zTOJVho I won't comment further...).
Gio Compare: An advert character for the website Go Compare. Catchy theme song actually made him famous and able to perform and tour, as well as having a series of popular adverts. Of course, he's not actually Italian, but i guess is supposed to look a little like Pavarotti, or a generic Italian opera singer.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvqzx1bA488
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJdjCVhHUog
Tutti Frutti: I believed that this was an Italian game show, I was wrong but kind of right, more to follow. As young kids, well I guess around 14 or so we would go to David's older brother's house to babysit and watch horror movies (at the time I was really into horror books - Steven King, James Herbert etc and we watched a lot of hard horror films - I must say that I couldn't care less now). David's brother had a very nice house, and also had satellite TV in the time when noone had satellite TV. Actually there was one other person who had satellite TV that I knew, I will not name any names, but his father was a modern languages teacher and one time was found watching purn on it, and stated that "he was monitoring it for suitability" - a wonderful riposte! Anyway, whilst not watching horror movies we watched a game show called "Tutti Frutti" - the premise was very odd. Couples would come on and answer some questions, do a striptease(!) and if some questions were answered correctly or the dance was good then some of the, better words fail me so I shall call them dolly birds, would take their tops off. This demands more explanation. Each of the dolly birds represented a particular fruit - strawberry, banana etc, and wore an outfit to resemble that. If they got the points then they would show their breasts. Wow. And you can imagine to young kids this was pretty amazing. There was no internet in those days, so the only time we had seen such things was when we found a magazine in the woods. I never knew how they ended up in woods - but they did! A couple of years later we would develop to watch pretty hardcore films, and some snuff too, of course, going via soft stuff like Young Lady Chatterley. It's all good. Anyway - the premise was, random game show, flash of breast. And that was what I remembered of Italy. I have done a little research and discovered that I have got it completely wrong - the game show was actually German, so I will have to take this off the list! However, it turns out that the German Tutti Frutti was actually based on an earlier Italian game show called "Colpo Grosso" - "Big Score" which had "ragazzae cin cin" which I think translates to "cheers girls". Lovely stuff!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tutti_Frutti_(1990_TV_series)
And the Italian "cin cin" here.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOOCECXSLIY&feature=related
And here an example of the contestants (not the pretty girls) stripping!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYMVn7ENMec
I can't say that Italian TV has really changed that much. There are still lots of strangely attractive and done up women on the TV, and since Berlusconi controls much of it there is no great surprise about that. The TV is still a mystery to me sadly. I watch MTV a lot, as there are a lot of english language programs on there, but generally we do not watch TV but watch movies and series on the PC, and spend a lot of money with Amazon. In fact, I am now used to watching series in one sitting and would find it impossible to wait a week for the next episode!
Joe Dolce: I think I've spoken about this guy before. A late 1980s comedy song called "Shaddap you face" about an Italian boy called Giuseppe song in a comedy Italian accent by an Australian. Disgraceful. Disgraceful yes, but extremely successful, number one in fifteen countries and it remained the best selling Australian song for 31 years!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Dolce
Here is the song:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-BKcKMS748
Gino Ginelli: This was a brand of ice cream from the 1980s. What is it about TV and TV advert nostalgia that brings us all together so much? There are so many "Top 100 ..." programs talking about how great stuff was 10 or 20 years ago. It really goes for TV and TV adverts, and I do fear that after having been here for 2 years I have missed out on a large part of my culture. Although there are people who don not own TVs, but I am definitely never going to be one of them! Some of the Italian jingles and adverts on radio are quite catchy "gli esperti siamo noi" - "we are the experts" an advert for a mobile phone company (http://www.expert-italia.it/) and the catch line for RTL 102.5 which is a radio and music tv show that is always on in the gym (http://www.rtl.it/). Anyway, Gino Ginelli was a make of Italian ice cream from the 1980s. Super catchy tune, but clearly the writers had never been near Italy!
"Italian chic, Italian style, Italian verve, Italian cool. Tutti Frutti oh what a cutie, take a Gino home with you." All sung with a mild and slightly ridiculous Italian accent (not as bad as Joe Dolce though!).
And here is the original advert:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Wu-aNr7v0U
And whilst I think of it - remember the classic cornetto advert from the 1980s?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=biL6zAMkOQs
"Just one cornetto, give eeet to me, delicious ice cream, from Italy" - my next door neighbour, who lived in the UK for two years over 20 years ago, can still sing this word for word. Of course, this is based on a real italian song "o sole mio". Actually it is not strictly Italian, but is originally in Neopolitan dialect
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%27O_Sole_Mio
And then Boddingtons came along and completely made it triple legendary with this advert.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGg4uhGfgB0
"By 'eck luv, it's gorgeous"
And so, where does all this end? Well - what was I thinking? I knew nothing about Italy before I moved over. Nothing at all. It reminds me of an episode of Relocation Relocation (or whatever it was called). A young couple (approximately 31 years old) from somewhere scummy in Scotland had decided one day that they wanted to move to Tuscany. They had no money, barely any jobs, and had never been abroad I think, certainly never to Italy. They went through the whole process, and finally were getting their sht together and almost ready to do it, although there was resistance from their families. There was no final part, but as the credits rolled a voice over came on saying that John had suffered a huge stroke after filming the program and was ill. This was pretty damn shocking.
So, where does that leave us? We're still here, in a country teetering on the brink of collapse, getting paid very little money, in a city where it is impossible to integrate. Really don't know why we're here. The wine is nice but Dawn doesn't really drink, so it is a mystery. Cycling is great for me, but I am working too much to do much and we are both getting fat.
We shall see....
Tuesday 8 November 2011
These Italians are crazy - 8th novembre 2011
These Italians are crazy 8th novembre 2011
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sagra_(festival)
They are always local, village-based, and always based around a type of food - mushrooms, pasta, seasonal vegetables, chestnuts, cheese, olive oil, truffles etc. They are usually used to raise money for a local organisation, sports club or the like, although at this time they can be used just to fund the survival of the village. At this moment in time I would highly recommend that Berlusconi gets on the case and gets some sagras on the go as the country is racking forward and backwards. In fact, my team have even said that they would go out for a drink when Berlusconi resigns - and that really is a blue moon, or even rarer.
You have to love him though:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-15642201
That is when you're not wondering how the Italians still let him get away with it.
e.g.
Scandals over his private life
Mr Berlusconi - caught in a series of scandals over his private life, including his alleged dealings with younger women and prostitutes - has frequently turned to a pithy phrase in an attempt to shrug off the allegations.
For instance, in April 2011, he said: "When asked if they would like to have sex with me, 30% of women said, 'Yes', while the other 70% replied, 'What, again?'"
At the end of the previous year, as allegations swirled about escorts and "Bunga, bunga" parties, the PM deadpanned the line: "I unfortunately have never in my life been to a wild party."
However, the talk of scandal has got under his collar at times.
He told Il Giornale newspaper in an interview on 12 August 2009 that he had nothing to apologise for and no skeletons in his cupboard: "I deserve to be left in peace: enough violations of privacy."
Questioned on the sex allegations in late July, Mr Berlusconi admitted: "I am not a saint, you've all understood that."
In an earlier interview with gossip magazine Chi, Mr Berlusconi denied he pays for sex, adding: "I never understood where the satisfaction is when you're missing the pleasure of conquest."
More bluntly, in November 2010 Mr Berlusconi hit out with the following: "It's better to like beautiful girls than to be gay."
Although I have picked up several Italian habits, this is one of those that is resolutely not being accommodated.
Pasta n out!
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