mercoledi 13th ottobre 2010 Beijing

Well, just now I am not in Planet Italia, but in Beijing.
I nearly didn't make it - a general strike in France, and my flight being on Air France via Paris CdeG, meant that about 50% of flights were canned, but luckily mine were ok. I got trapped in Paris a couple of years ago, and I have no intention of repeating that awful evening - vive le difference.

An ok flight, where I managed to watch two terrible terrible new release films: the first was "Grown Ups" with Adam Sandler and others - some funny slapstick bits, but a general sickly sweet awful taste in the mouth type experience. This was then followed up by "Get him to the Greek" with Russel Brand. I am embarassed to say that I enjoyed the music, including songs by Brand, and again some funny slapstick, but some awful sickly sweet rubbish thrown in. It was a pleasure to get to sleep after all that.

In China, the company car service picked me up in a Buick - a Buick!! Where am I?? The drive to the hotel was marked by two possibly related, possibly unrelated things. The shades of green on the trees. The green was very odd and I could not understand why. It was as if my head could not process that colour of green - it was too olive to recognise. I think that green is a vastly underrated colour and has such an enormous variety of shades that it really needs further description. There is a green hill far away, well not really, but on the main road from Siena to Florence there is a hill which for a couple of weeks this year had such an intense colour of green that it made me want to cry. It only lasted for a couple of weeks, and as all hills in Tuscany seems to vary week to week, from verdant burning green, to mud brown, to sun stained yellow. Anyway, I could not focus on this particular green. I wondered if there was some remnant synesthaesia interrupting my brain working on it - green is the only colour that I have found affected, but I think the real answer is that there is the elephant in the room in Beijing - the smog. I have been told from several reliable sources that it must not be talked about to the Chinese as they do not believe it exists, but there was a low haze here all day, and a lot of the cars seem to be coated in a light sandy coating. To be expected really for a crazy city with 22 million people.

My hotel is in the financial district and is next to Beijing World Trade Centre. I don't know how tall this building is, but it hurts my neck to look up at it, even from half a block away. There are some incredible buildings here.

I had a traditional chinese meal with the team, complete with novelty serving waitresses with comedy hats and dress, then worked in the hotel room (internet regulations point out that certain websites are not allowed - notably Facebook!), prior to a guided tour round some sights in Beijing including Tianamen Square, Opera House, but my favourite bit was the kites being flown by the locals. Enormous enormous kites, controlled by two men with winches, must be at least 15 metres long, with LED lights blinking on them. With 10 or so high in the air above one of the parks it looks very odd - like UFOs or dragons have come back!

I ate a skewer from a street vendor containing something very similar to toffee apples, although they were some sort of very stoney cherries instead. Very nice, but a bit oversweet.

So far am very impressed by China. Very ordered and clean, coupled with nicely maintained historic parts. The facade, if it is just a facade, works on me. Also learnt that two lions guard a lot of doors in China to give luck - usually one female and one male. For lunch we were served crysanthemum tea - I've had it before from Chinatown UK and it was terrible. Here it was pleasant, but you could quickly have too much of it!!

Sleep is now required. Ciao for now.

Venerdi 27th agosto 2010 Abroad

Talking about travel today. Work has been intense, lots of travel, and lots more to come. So far in the past couple of months I have been to the Ireland, Philippines and USA, and in the next 6 weeks I have Germany, Singapore, China and the Philippines again. I offered for one of my team to do some of these trips, but my team actually do real work, rather than just process improvement and line management or whatever it is I'm supposed to do ;) I enojy the travel side of things, but it really is a little too much just now on top of things.

I have attached some pictures that I took in Boston, (the USA one) and a couple from the crazy town of Manila in the Philippines. Manila people are lovely but the town is a huge mega metropolis, up to about 20 million people, and it is really not that great. Apparently the rest of the Philippines is lovely, but I cannot recommend Manila. Strangely, where we were staying in the centre of Manila was very very western. I guess that applies to the whole of the Philippines - very eastern, but all speaking English, well American English, if such a thing exists. Anyway, deep in the heart of Manila there we had: Marks & Spencers, Debenhams, Kenny Rogers Roasting Chicken, McDonalds, Burger King, etc etc. Actually, at the end of the week I found an Irish pub, well, actually I walked far and wide to find it, and was delighted when I had done so! Strange city, beautiful buildings right next door to slums.

Whilst I was there I took a tae kwon do lesson at the Gold's Gym from a girl who had competed at sparring in the world champs. Made me realise how much I missed martial arts and how much I haev slipped in the last 4 months.

In the US it was great to get some things, everything was so so cheap. Things in the UK are pretty cheap compared to here, and things in the US are cheap compared to the UK, so it was pretty good to stock up.

Pictures include: Dawn's old flat in the US, a colleague's floating home on Boston docks, a great tramp in Boston, a great t-shirt in the US, a massage advert in Manila (I don't know if the massage was kitchy-cheesey or if cheese was involved, scary, but I'm sure you could've got anything you asked for!), a Jeepney in Manila (the super cheap taxi buses), some slums and the Irish bar :)

Ciao ciao.

martedi 17th agosto 2010, Palio

Today I shall be talking about the Palio.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palio_di_Siena

Yesterday was the Palio, so that meant a day off - hooray! The Palio is an ancient horse race around the central square (Piazza il palio) in Siena, contested by 10 horses, occuring twice a year. It is THE thing that Siena is famous for, and has been contested, albeit in various guises, for 600 years or so. Oh, and it appeared at the beginning of the last James Bond movie.

The city is divided into 17 contrade (districts) each with a different flag, colour scheme, animal. The Sienese are incredibly passionate about their contrade and the warring factions between different contrade are very strong. Fighting is common, and a pair of contrade, usually geographically next to each other, will have a particularly strong hatred of each other. One fun thing about the palio is that it is not in any way artificial, unlike other historical things I have seen e.g. trouping the colour yadda yadda yadda. The people of Siena live it and breathe it. It is totally important to them and really drives the whole city forward. Practice fo the drumming and marching and raising of the money for bribery (see below) happens all year round. Tears and excitement and anger during the palio are real.


The term "palio" means flag or cloth - and this is the prize of the Palio - a commissioned and bautifully tapestered cloth, one made for each time the palio runs, which is 2nd July and 16th August every year.

The palio of yesterday was expected to be a tragedy, since that all the four contrade which have green in their colours were running - and so it turned out to be. On Sunday night there was a dinner for a particular contrada which had a tragedy. The contrada dinners are famous - long rows of tables set out in the streets in that particular contrada with lots of people feasting and celebrating around palio time. For one of the contrada, a french envoy, or visiting dignitary, aged 77, was hit by some masonary which fell from a bank in Piazza Tolomei, killing him. Then one of the horses got injured before the race and did not run. Then during the marches and processions which happen before the palio is run, which includes drumming, war songs, trumpeting, flag waving, there is a point where all the contrade flag bearers line up and see who can throw their flags the highest. Well, one went awry, and it was the one from the contrada who had killed the french dignitary, and hit someone in the crowd and injured them.

The race itself was good but no great excitement - tartuca (tortoise) set off into the lead, followed hotly by istrice (porcupine), the rest merely also rans. Tartuca held the lead until the end.

There are some interesting Italian observances during the palio which I shall highlight - at the end of the palio, there had been during the lining up of the horses some fighting between the jockeys of two of the contrade that have a history of being big enemies. At the end of the palio there was a lot of posturing and shirt-taking off-ing from the guys from the two contrade, but typically, nothing kicked off - just when everyone was looking forward to a good fight! At the beginning of the race, they have to line all the horses up in the correct order. These horses tend to be juiced up, like the jockeys, and they are ridden bareback. This means that it can be difficult to line them all up. This is further complicated by of the ten of them racing, 9 of them lining up, and the tenth hanging back. The race will not start until both the 9 are in line, in the right order and the 10th jockey decides it's time to go. This means that the 10th jockey controls the race. This means that during the lining up for the race, the jockeys try to bribe the tenth jockey into not going until they are in the best position. The contrade raise money all year to have a big enough bribe to that tenth jocky. So, classic Italian society. This also means that it takes approximately half an hour, of jockeying for position (pun intentional) until the race actually starts.

Access to the best points in the race requires you to be there hours and hours beforehand, however, we turned up about 2 hours beforehand and joined the crazy rush and throng of people trying to get into the square before the final gate into the square closed. This time it was myself, Dawn and my parents and thankfully it wasn't too hot, maybe 28C, so it wasn't too sweaty and smelly in the very intimate crowd. Italians have a different approach to public space, and also rather than asking to be excused if looking for something in the supermarket for example, just push through and get it. This isn't rude, it's just the way it is in Italy. However, it takes a while to get the hang of this not being rude, and some took some time to get it.

The palio is free, unless you go for one of the seats around the edges or one of the windows in the buildings on the square. Also, there are some stalls in the square which sell cheap water and drinks and snakcs - which is amazing, from my experience of venues in the UK, or anywhere. Well done Italy.

After the palio, and after the fighting, I mean juvenile posturing, had finished we decided to grab a slice of pizza (absolutely friggin huge!) and watch the people making their way off. We sat on some of the seats that would have cost €400 a ew minutes earlier and watcehd the people buzz around. The Italians managed to completely clean the square of debris and rubbish within about thirty minutes - an amazing and gargantuan, and highly efficient effort which I thought was incredible.

And there exists the dichotomy of Italian life, crazy manic and disorgnaized, coupled with passion, appropriateness and efficiency.

Ciao ciao.

JJ

Sabato 1st maggio

Today I shall mostly be talking about animals. Today, venerdi as I start writing this, it is another scorcher. It has been about 25C for the past two days, making up for Tuesday which had a tropical rain and thunder storm with the loudest thunder I have ever heard, the previous record being London in the summer of '96. That time I recorded some of the lightning on my phone to record into a song - this has yet to happen! It was a stinking hot summer in London that year, hotter than I had ever witnessed before and as I walked home from the train to Isleworth with the torrential rain running over the top of my shoes at times, I ended up getting straight in the shower when I got home,in suit and shoes!
So - animals. It has got hotter and suddenly the insects are out in force. We can close the shutters down, well not shutters, but sort of insect screens. This is essential, it never really got cold enough over winter to kill off all the bugs. All the way through winter I kept seeing flies, wasps, bees, all sorts of fun things, that normally a good winter in the UK would decimate.
OK, its been a few days now, and the weather has gone pants again. It's rained the last few days, although today has been nice. It will rain again for the next week, and I just heard that there are some more airport closures in Spain, so maybe the clouds are blowing the wrong way?
The good training weeks have continued, and I have been cycling in, approximately 3 times a week, except for this week with all the rain. Anyway, one time I was just approaching the house, and did my usual stretch, cycling along, arms spread wide, when I felt the biggest big fly into my left hand. It's has now made me a little scared of cycling with my hands spread, and I must try to keep my mouth shut.
On good news, I am cycling to work, and have hit a new record speed - 45.9 mph, in a 50 km/h zone. Heh heh. Actually there are other places I could go quicker, but that is the only place that has good tarmac on the downhills.
Last weekend I went cycling with a friend from work, an aussie, Cambridge Blue, he took it easy on me, but it was nice to cycle from his end of town (he lives almost diametrically opposite to us on the other side of Siena) and thankfully that side it is much much flatter. On my ride to work it takes 3 minutes until I have already hit 30 mph downhill and then have hit an uphill where I am in the lowest cog, and out of the saddle and almost ready to quit. Anyway, we had a good 2 hour spin in the sun, 30 miles, undulating hills, complete with a stop at a cafè bar.
On that evening, whilst driving back from the sea, we ran into something just down our road. It was a porcupine (istrice)!!! I was so excited I screeched the car to a halt, and jumped out and went running after it. It pricked it's spines up and ran away into the long grass. When I got back to the car Dawn told me that they shoot their spines out of their back when they are attacked. These are long, and barbed and are a nightmare to remove. Thankfully I didn't get shot. The time was about 9:30 pm.
Anyway, last night I was driving a little further down the road, at about 11:30 pm and two porcupines walked in front of me in the road, I had to swerve to avoid them! They were much bigger, maybe the one the week before had been a youngster. Anyway, I put the car into reverse and went chasing them off. I saw them running away, well it wasn't running, it was bounding, or hopping. Great fun. They scrambled up a bank and were off. It was too wet for me to look for spines.
They were actually very close to where, last week, straight after breaking my porcupine duck, we then nearly ran over a wild boar (cinghiale)! Double whammy. Wow. The cinghiale was black, like satan's guardian. Apparently you can hit them with the car and the car comes off far worse. The cinghiale idly climbed up a steep bank and was off.
Mind you, they taste good.
On the same road, whilst riding home, I saw a deer dart in front of me, and then also recently, a deer came out whilst I was driving home and just stood and stared, until I beeped my horn and it ran off.
And again, near there, whilst riding home, I saw a bat (pipistrelli), that was just at eye level, flying along at the same pace I was cycling, and I could see his little face smiling at me.
That's all the excitement I can take for one day. Ciao ciao.

domenica 25th aprile

For me a quiet weekend after a very busy week. Work has been hard as ever and I am pleased to say that I have made it to the gym every morning, but that has taken a toll on me too. So, Saturday was a sleepy day and today will be some ergoing and some gaming with Rob. Dawn is going off to explore into the country somewhere.

At work, we have had some security issues over the past few months. We share our building with the gym, and we have had some attempted access to our PCs over night. To address this we are setting a honey trap with a sneaky surveillance camera hidden inside a fire alarm - it is very cunning, however, it has taken about 4 weeks for this to happen as we had to get approval from the unions. Ah fun and games.

Speaking of security, I am having another battle with them :) it is a privilege, only for senior company members, to be able to bring a car onto campus which I am pleased to say that I can do. My bike however - this is above and beyond their ken, and my bike has to stay on the horrible bike shed, mainly for Vespas, on the edge of campus, and then I have to totter across campus on my cleats, up and down the hills, like a fool. Because bikes are far more dangerous than cars huh? I'm getting over it now, but at first this really annoyed me - classic Planet Italia.

Of course, as I have always said, some things are fantastic. A few weeks ago we had an issue with our car, the one we own, when the tyre kept getting flat. Anyway, one time it got flat on campus, Dawn tried to drive it to the garage but on the drive through campus it got really flat and she had to stop and called me to come and put the rubbish temporary one on. Before I managed to get their some workmen had spotted her as a damsel in distress and from nowhere a fork lift appeared and they lifted up the whole car to change the tyre - simple, rustic and effect - classic Toscana!

This Thursday we went to dinner for some American friends who are returning to the states. We went to an amazing place about 25 km away from here in Panzano in Chianti. The place is called "Antica Macelleria Cecchini" and is famous for bringing back Bistecca al Fiorentina a few years ago. Essentially it is a famous butchers with a restaurant attached. We had a set menu of 8 courses, with lots of barely cooked beef, and fresh bread, some vegetables, and then a pudding, all including table wine and finished off with coffee (not for me) and Military Grappa of 5 different flavours!! Imagine petrol, with a bit of fruit in, or not, for the plain grappa and you're about there. Agressive. Anyway, 8 courses, all lovely, and all for only €30 per head. Amazing.

http://www.dariocecchini.com/

The only drawback was the car pool. We went with some friends and Dawn didn't handle the windy roads very well and ended up feeling sick before the meal and then having to stop the car and be proper sick on the way home. Poor Dawn!

On Friday evening we went to Italian friends for dinner and we made Italian pizza from scratch, including rolling out the dough and firng the dough and choosing the toppings. Interestingly, Italians have white pizza and red pizza - white pizza is simply without pomodoro (tomato) and is good as you can taste the ingredients much better. The fresh cheeses that go on the pizza are amazing, not just mozzarella , but something else which is stringy and melts on the pizza. Anyway, it was fantastic, and accompanied by Sardinian beer and followed up by Senese sweet wine. Splendid.

Today is London Marathon day - ha, losers. Good luck Stuart and Suzy!

Photos today include sunset from our window, my vogatore (rowing machine) on our patio, fish finger sandwiches and Turbo Guinness at Tannaz and Simon's, Sola's birthday, a beautiful view of the snow tipped alps from the plane, a beautiful house somewhere (I can't remember where!) and Lisa and Gareth with the twins. And a picture of the crazy butcher from Panzano in Chianti.

Ciao for now.

mercoledi 21st aprile 2010

On Sunday, I was outside on my ergo. Which I realise that since I haven't blogged for ages that I haven't discussed. So yes, rowing machines do not seem to exist here in gyms (palestra) - despite me thinking it was an integral part of every gym around the world - not so here in Siena. I looked in all the gyms I could find and eventually gave up. So I committed to the idea of buying one, but that also was very difficult. I was thinking about buying one in the UK (2nd hand approx 600 GBP) and getting my parents to drive over with it - they have talked about driving down some time. But my need was/is as great as my wait, so with the help of an Italian colleague I tackled eBay. Again, it is subtely different. And subtle in ways that I don't understand. There do seem to be some traditional auctions, and some sort of fixed price sales, but I don't get it. Eventually we found a Concept II Rowing Machine (vogatore), for sale in Bologna (aprox 2 hours away) for 350 EUR - bargain. My friend rang him up and he said that it was about 5 years old but had only been used three times, the screen was not working - but due to batteries only, and that 350 EUR was the final price - I snapped it up!

So, returning from a weekend in the UK, of karate and sparring (back in Hitchin club - wonderful to be back in the Hitchin club and I felt sooo comfortable - it felt "right" if you know what I mean), two fry ups :), hair cut (I'm still not brave enough to risk an Italian hair cut - I'm sure it would involve glitter or grease, or probably both), a 30th birthday in the O2 which was great and involved drinking and eating my body weight in meat at a Brazilian BarBQ, and fighting and passing my combat course, despite getting thoroughly beaten with proper bruising and cuts, and fish finger sandwiches and TurboGuiness - which T-bone actually liked! and then getting up super early to catch the stupid early flight (up at 3:30 am!) I arrived in Italy on Easter Monday and Dawn came to pick me up at a half way point for us to drive to Bologna to pick up the ergo. However, the Easter Monday traffic was mental, poor Dawn it had taken her 3.5 hours to do about 70km to get to me, I was super tired and eventually we got to Bologna. I managed to find the guy, who spoke no English at all (how very dare he!?) and it was indeed practically unused, I took along batteries and the display worked fine, and 350 EUR was the price. Absolute bargain. Drove back, a little quicker but still not great.

I digress, Sunday I was on my ergo. On the terrace. About 6pm, in the sun, when our neighbour Giuseppe came for a chat. It was "cold" for him! I was walking around in my lycra - hotter than hot - at 6pm. He took me around the garden, around the onions and chillis, and potatoes and herbs and bean and everything (it's quite large) and he explained how the ground was cold and all his plants were at least 6 weeks behind where they would normally be. "It is strange" (e strano) he said. He has never witnessed weather like it - he is an outdoors worker so I know he has an affinity for the weather, but it looked and felt great to me!

Also, he showed some damage wear the cinghiale - wild boar, had got into the garden and eaten a few things and smashed down the fence. I would love to see one and maybe eat it like Obelix on a big wooden plate :) Giuseppe keeps giving us stuff from his garden - cabbage, garlic - all wonderfully delicious!

Last Friday Isma came around and we continued our playing, we have selected some songs - some Italian and some International and it is great fun - really enjoying it. Finding it hard to understand the Italian music reading though - instead of A, Bm, C# etc they have Do, Re, Mi- - e strano!
I have attached the pictures from the visit to the oldest bank in the world - Monte dei Paschi di Siena. Talked about it last time.