Random stuff 4th maggio 2012

Random stuff 4th maggio 2012

Just a few fun bits and bobs during some routine filing.

Mr Hedgehog!

Sal's picture ready for her C2C training

Italy at night

London at night

 Pendleton crash

 Lovely bubbly

And good to see the government taking the austerity measures in the right frame of mind.

Back in Italy there have been some terrible announcements in the papers surrounding the number of small businessmen (small businesses, not small men) who have committed suicide this year, citing monetary problems as the reason. It appears that system cash flow is starting to crawl, cash is key, and without movement everything grinds to a halt. The latest issue was this weekend when a disgruntled businessman walked into a tax office and took some hostages. Terrible state of affairs.

http://www.lifeinitaly.com/news/en/152188

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/italy/9236231/Italian-businessman-becomes-countrys-25th-austerity-suicide-of-the-year.html

And this comes at a time when the austerity measures are starting to bite, and Mario Monti is reinforcing the un-Italian idea that everyone will have a job for life.

"Italy's prime minister Mario Monti told the late-night TV programme Matrix a few weeks ago that, in the future,permanent jobs will no longer exist in Italy. Young Italians should get used to the idea. After all, he added, permanent jobs were boring and led to a "monotonous" life. It was probably meant to be nothing more than a quip, but it ended up sparking a fierce debate.

A few days later, the interior minister, Anna Maria Cancellieri, said that Italians struggled to find a job because they were "mummy's boys" who rejected job offersfar from home. In a country where 31.1% of people aged between 15 and 24 are unemployed, those statements couldn't pass unnoticed."

This may sound like a cliche, but in my limited experience it does seem to be true. I know people who don't eat out because their mother's cooking is the best in the world so why would they want to eat out. And these are people in their 30s, and 40s! Of course, Italians get paid extremely little, so it could be something there too, especially in Siena where the cost of living is so high, and the jobs are few so the wages don't need to be so high. However, the key message is that we are in for a tough couple of years.

In other areas, Monti has taken the brave move of removing a bid for the 2020 Olympics which in my mind is definitely the correct thing to do.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-17030257

http://m.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/mar/13/italy-labour-market-mario-monti-reform?cat=commentisfree&type=article

A strange article I noticed recently was about three Italian brothers who had heart attacks on the same day, with only one surviving. Shocking.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/italy/8923262/Two-Italian-brothers-die-from-heart-attack-and-third-survives.html

It has been a strange year in Italy with some very strange stories. One featured the killing of some Senegalese traders in Florence - normally a relatively safe place, and another covered several instances when ancient monuments wertrevie attached, including the trevi fountain and the colosseum. Disgraceful.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-16166243#

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-14782948

An excellent guide here for the names of different medicines in Italy, which at times can be extremely confusing. Especially for a brit who is very used to going into ANY shop, supermarket, petrol station, corner shop and picking up pharmaceuticals, as in Italy they are only available in a pharmacy.

http://unamericanaaroma.com/2012/02/18/10-otc-pharmacymedicine-equivalents-in-italy/

Tackling the farmacia in Italy can be a challenge when you’re visiting, because besides the fact that probably most or all of the brand names of the OTC drugs are different than your brand names from back home, another hurdle is that even the OTC meds are kept behind the counter. That means that if your pharmacist doesn’t speak a word of English, it can be a challenge to get what you need. ù

I remember an embarrassing scene I had 10 years ago when I had first arrived in Italy. I desperately needed Band-Aids because I had a major shaving blunder on both ankles and the bleeding wouldn’t stop. I walk into the pharmacy and there’s a gaggle of old ladies discussing their health issues in frenetic Italian with the pharmacist. I was in little homey San Lorenzo and there wasn’t another tourist in sight. When I came in it was like Moses parting the waters. Everyone turned to look and there I was, in the spotlight. Geez. Of course Bandaids weren’t easily on display, or in supermarkets like they are now, so I had to start in my super broken Italian. First I try explaining that I got a cut. Puzzled looks, all around. Now the old ladies are really into it. I’m sure they were thinking in their heads whatever the elderly Italian lady version of WTF is. Anyhow, after a lot of hemming and hawing (yes, I actually hawed, more than once), the pharmacist looks at me and literally a light bulb goes off over his head. I swear, I saw it. And he goes:

“OOOOHHHHH!!! You mean you wanta Band-aida?”

Uh, yeah. Guess I could have saved myself some time. It was this big procedure, taking the box of bandaids out of their special drawer behind the counter, carefully wrapping them up in tissue paper, carefully scotch-taping the whole confection shut. Gee whiz man, you would have thought I was buying an elaborate gift.

So, let me spare you the drama and therapy-inducing experience described above. Here, I give you, my top 10 OTC drug equivalents in Italian pharmacies.

1) Ibuprofen (Advil) = Moment. Sold in boxes of 200mg caplets. You don’t have to specify the dosage because 200mg is the standard. Then there are Moment’s brothers and sisters: Moment Act (400 mg), Momendol (220 mg) which I think they market for backaches and menstrual cramps, and the pink Moment which you can ask for “bustine” if you prefer a powder that dissolves in water.

2) Acetaminophen/Paracetamol (Tylenol/Panadol/Calpol) = Efferalgan(eff-air-AHLL-gahn) or Tachipirina (tahky-pier-EE-nah) Efferalgan is a tablet that dissolves in water and you drink it. Tachipirina is a caplet, or, for babies, you can get suppositories, called “supposte.” (soo-POH-stay)

3) Antihistamine (Pseudoephedrine) = Reactine (ray-AK-teen)

There’s also Fexofenadine (Allegra) = Telfast and Cetirizine (Zyrtec) which also goes by Zyrtec in Italy.

4) Heartburn/nausea medicine. Italians don’t really say “heartburn” they say “bruciore di stomaco” (stomach burn). They use the Alka Seltzer equivalent (Sodium bicarbonate and citric acid) called Citrosodina which is a powder that dissolves in water, or you can have a chewable (masticabile = mah-stee-CAH-bee-lay). There’s also a product in grocery stores that’s basically the equivalent of baking soda, but it becomes a fizzy drink like Alka Seltzer, called Brioschi (bree-OH-skee).

There’s also Maalox, and there’s something that lots of Italians have told me they swear by, called Geffer, which I’ve never heard of in the States, called Reglan (active ingredient metoclopramide). Trust me, if you feel nauseous and have to puke, Geffer will get it done.

5) Diarrea medicine (loperamide). Easy, it’s called Immodium here too.

6) Cough syrup. Dextromethorphan (Robitussin DM) = Bisolvon.

7) Sore throat. Lozenges = Benegol Spray or gargle = Tantum Verde

8) Condoms are called preservativi. They are often also sold in machines outside of pharmacies. And often now condoms are on display on the counter so you don’t have to ask for them.

9) Sleeping aids. Melatonin = melatonina. Valerian = valeriana. The equivalent of the famous Tylenol PM would be “Aliserin” but it requires a prescription here.

10) Vomiting and rehydrating solution. This is particularly important if you are traveling with a child who gets ill. It’s awful having to wonder what the heck the locals might call “Pedialyte.” Here in Italy they sell little juice boxes in the pharmacies of a liquid called “Dicodral” and that’s the equivalent of Pedialyte, and it’s orange flavored. And my children’s pharmacist always tells me to give the kiddos “Biochetasi” for nausea and “Tiorfix” for diarrea, both are OTC medicines. For adults to stop vomiting there’s a syrup called Plasil.

Hope you don’t need any of these, but if you do, hope this list helps!

If you find yourself with a medicine in Italy and you don’t know what the brand name equivalent is, you can look it up here:

International Drug Name Database

Stupid freaking Benetton as ever doing their stupid adverts. I have refused to go into a Benetton shop since I saw their adverts in the late 80s/early 90s, although this one was funny as it falls into the category in my mind of "anything that annoys the Vatican must be good". The add featured the Pope kissing an Imam.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-15778377