Still in the fire / 20th agosto 2011

Wow, it's hot. It's been 35C or more here every day and the heat shows no signs of abating. The apartment is not so good at dealing with the heat, the walls aren't very thick, the shutters are not total blackout, and this means that the place is constantly hot. It rarely drops much below 30C in the house, there is no aircon and fans create very little movement.


I am doing a lot of soul searching about life in Italy at the minute, what is good and what seems odd. This morning, well morningish, still feeling unwell I didn't leave the house until just after noon, to go shopping. When I got to the edge of town shopping areas the place was deserted. This is very common in Italy on Saturday. Shops open from about 09:30 till 01:30, then they close until 17:00 and are open again until about 19:30. Often on Saturdays you can see bemused tourists wandering around looking for something to do. Sundays are shut down often, until Sunday early evening where everything opens for the passeggiata - the family stroll around town. Another shocking thing is when shops close for the August holidays. Feragosto is a public holiday in Italy - 15th August. This is a bad time to be in Italy, all of Italy seems to go on holiday around this time. And when shop owners go on holiday - they don't arrange coverage during one of busiest times of the years, oh no, they just put up a notice saying that they're on holiday for 2 weeks and are closed!

Well, this is something that would not be tolerated in the UK, in the UK every little drop of commercialisation would be dragged out of every little chance. Italy does not embrace this. Shops would be open at all times in all hours, no time set aside for family eating, no time for an annual holiday for everyone. Again, I find it fascinating that such a little thing makes such a big difference. It really is a much nicer way of life, especially if you have a family, but extremely frustrating if you are used to getting what you want when you want. Again, it is the Italian approach of being very happy with what is good and then sticking to that, religiously, dogmatically, without deviation. There are a number of perplexing things that I have encountered, for many of them I now have the answer, the reason as to why, but yet, I fail to understand why they are that way, even if the purpose remains clear to me. Again - is it just the perplexity of the way of life of the latinos being so completely different, that if you have not been fully ingratiated into it since you were born then you won't get it. Or is it the slightly stiff and stuffy arrogance of the Italians and the complete inflexibility and lack of understanding about how the world is changing? The Italian national debt is swept under the carpet and is actually triple that of Greece, Spain and Ireland, the countries that are causing such shell shock in Europe and knock on effects globally. Berlusconi is a fool and leads the derision of other nations, meanwhile the a@se is falling out of the economy.

Of course, I do have this doubt. Is a country like the UK where everything is so open and dynamic and changing and thrusting the right way to move? The UK is no longer a force in agriculture or manufacturing but mainly through financial markets, and we have seen how unstable that is in recent years. The state of play in the UK is fooked - family life is dead, tv internet jobs all terrible, look at the riots, look at the open failure of multikulti, however Italy has a great family life, great culture, strong links with the past, but an economy that is weak.

Where is the answer people? I am looking for it here but I have yet to find it!

Meanwhile, it is probably time to reveal this photo. Dawn has a haridresser somewhere about 40km from here, a transexual from the USA recommended him to her. One Saturday I got roped in to going along too and getting my hair done. I had been pretty unsuccessful before with getting what I wanted from an Italian haircut so I thought I couldn't lose. So in I go, get a good hair wash and a face rub, and then got about 5 mins of hardly any haircutting at all. Dawn is en route to a 2 hour headfest and I am done in about 20 min. So then they ask if I want it finishing. So yes, I requested a happy finish and they did the following to me. And made me pay for it. Really not me, and in the end I got a proper shaved haircut about a week later. And now I have finally resigned and am back to cutting my hair myself!