Is the writing on the wall? 3rd luglio 2011

Is the writing on the wall? 3rd luglio 2011

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/silvio-berlusconi/8546227/Silvio-Berlusconis-party-loses-key-Milan-election.html

Famous last words? Not tempting fate? Do not wish for what could come true? All this things bounce off dear Silvio like lightly bouncing things. This week the centre right coalition lost two key seats in the local elections - Silvio's heartland of Milano and also Napoli. Disaster you might think, that would kick most democratic PMs out of their seats, but Silvio it would seem. He has two year left to go and imagine that despite everything he will stay in until the end. Gotta admire his balls.

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

Yesterday it was the national day. This year it is the 150th anniversary of the founding of Italy, well the Italian Republic. The unification of 20-something independent states, speaheaded largely by Giuseppe Garibaldi.

The anniversary was celebrated on March 17th 2011, so the national day seemed to be rather understated. A bit of rain, a small wind orchesstra performing in Piazza Salimbelli, playing some classical music, followed by the national anthem, but generally rather understated.

Italians are passionate people: passion about food, family, football (always things with F??), but are rather reserved about national identity. The north hates the south and has much greater rivalry than what I've seen anywhere else. Not only does the north hate the south, but the regional rivalries are just surprisingly huge. I'm not talking about Derby v Leicester, or Yorkshire v Lancashire, but it permeates every village, every city and every region. Recently we bought the Jamie Oliver DVD when he toured Italy, and the associated book.

I found the series amazing, very watchable (and shorter than Into the Wild in a previous post) and really very truthful about the differences between the regions of Italy. He said and he found that no matter how amazing the food was that he made in one town, he only had to go a few miles down the road and make the same dish and the Italians would hate it because it was different to the way it was made their and most importantly, different from how "nonna" - grandmother - would make it. In fact, in one shot he is making some roast meat and the nonna smells it and says "E puzzo!" - "it stinks!" - classic italian behaviour. They love their region, but as a nation they are not quite there yet. The south hate the north for having all the money, the north think the south waste all the money given to them and the Sud-Tyroleans wish they were not part of Italy.

Is the writing on the wall? For Berlusconi, it is on the wall, but the wall is high and the writing is small compared to the power he has at his fingertips so it will take a while. For me - who knows?

Ciao for now!

Giro di Picilia maggio 2011 - preparation

Image 1: Picture of Sicily with Etna erupting

Giro di Picilia - The Preparation

When myself and Stuart did the last tour (coast to coast of Italy, October 2010),

Map of coast to coast route 2010

incidentally our first ever cycle tour, we did a LOT of prep. We were overprepped if anything. This time things turned out very differently. Ideas started quickly after the last tour and we very quickly thought that the time and the place were perfect. Sicily, just a skip and a hop north of Africa so it should be pretty comfortably warm in early May, a time that fitted well with Stuart's Ironman training and my work schedule. Sicily is a big place, so a complete tour around was impossible so we decided that we would link up some interesting towns with the fury of Mount Etna - both of us decided that we didn't want a pootle around a place, but we really wanted to achieve something. The last tour had a been a coast to coast over a mountain range, a clear and achievable, albeit tough objective. This time the focus was Mount Etna.


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

Europe's tallest active volcano, a beast of a sight, and also featured in this year's Giro d'Italia, for the first time in 20 or so years. An absolute beast and was one of our must sees. In fact, it had erupted in January and also erupted one week after we were there and almost caused the Giro d'Italia not to go there - maybe it was the weight of my @ss being stuck in those light volcanic pumice rocks!

This time we would be three, Martin would be joining us for his first cycle tour. We had several main items to prepare:
1) Flights
2) Route
3) Accommodation
4) Kit list

Flights

Flights were fairly simple in the end. The capital of Sicily is Palermo, and is a big city, something like the 5th biggest city in Italy. Ryan air flies there very often and it turned out to be convenient to get there both from Italy and from the UK. The times didn't quite work out, so I would be flying in the day before, to scope out the area, and leaving a day later. This made sense to us so that I could use a bit of parlo italiano to check out the lie of the land. There is a special code for flying with bikes - oversized sports kit - it costs about 60 GBP each direction and is essentially weightless although for bikes it should be less than 25kg, and the bike container should contain only a bike - however, I have not seen this be checked.

The route

The route turned out to be difficult. Sicily is a big place, and the sights are spread out. I had heard that Taormina was great, we definitely wanted to Etna, and also that Cefalu was great, so we decided to do some train work on day 1 and then cycle back to Palermo. Last time we had cycled first and then caught the train back and it a was a bit of a faff, so we thought it would be better to reverse it, that is train at the beginning and then cycle back to the airport under our own steam. Trains in Sicily are TERRIBLE! In Italy they are generally very good, very cheap and very reliable, if a little old. However, in Sicily, being a very hilly island there are few routes and this made our selections possible. We spent a lot of time trying to find the right route but eventually we decided on the following:
Fly to Palermo

Train to Capo D'Orlando

Cycle to foothills of Etna

Cycle to top of Etna and on to Taromina

Cycle to north coast

Cycle to Cefalu

Spend a day on the beach

Cycle to airpot

This would work out to be about 5 days of cycling and would take up about 7 or 8 days, about perfect for the three of us. Unfortunately we would miss exciting places like Catania, Syracusa, Agrigento, the whole of the East Coast, and of course we were missing the port town of Messina (flattened by an earthquake at some point) - but all three of us were comfortable with this. Again, Stuart would print the maps off and laminate some of them. The time before he made laminated maps with route instructions for each 10 mile part using mapmyride.com however this time there was very little information on Sicily so very little route information. In the end, I bought a road map in Sicily which saved our bacon later down the road!

Accommodation

We are credit card tourists. That means we do not carry tents, just the very lightest of packs, complete with a credit card so that we can stay at B&Bs and hotels. This is the way that I like to do it, although it can be a little expensive in certain places. However, in Sicily there are not a great deal of places on the internet, except for Taormina, so it was very difficult to book places before we arrived. However, I did book and our route was covered, and only one asked for a deposit so all was good. I was expecting the conversations with the Sicilians on the telephone to be difficult but actually they Italian they spoke was very intelligible to my pigeon Italian so it was all good.

Kit list

Last time Stuart had laughed and laughed at the difference between our packs.

I had taken my old commute to work pack, which had space for a laptop to be placed on top i.e. it was huge. I am not know as a light packer. I cannot go for a day work trip without a checked bag and another bag - it's just the way I am, so last time I took lots of additional stuff that I just did not need or use, including extra tops, extra shorts, and of course the famous 0.5kg pack of prunes which we ate about 8 of that I lugged over 100s of miles and thousands of metres of altitude that I threw away at the end. Not only was it freakin huge, it also took ages to take on and off, whilst Stuart's unclipped. Also, since I had such a big bag and Stuart only had a tiny one - whenever there was anything additional to carry it went into my pack by default. Schweeeeet. So, this time, determined to be light I purchased a very small bag, with a small lightweight seatpost-mounted glide track, and two fold down portions. This was the big challenge for me, that I did slightly offset by using a triangle frame bag and a seat post bag too. Stuart was happy with and thus sticking with his last bag, slightly larger than mine without drop downs, and Martin being a newbie had to get something new and he chose a slightly larger version of mine. Interestingly - although they are from the same manufacturer and look very similar, Martin and mine's bags are not compatible due to the difference in the sliding racks they are on.

We spent a lot of time debating about the kit list, ensuring that we had enough stuff, and splitting certain things between us that we only needed one or two off, such as spares for repairs. We had many emails back and forth and a couple of telephone conferences to sort out the final details. One of the funniest moments in the prep was the genius comment by Martin on Stuart's request for a shower cap to wear under helmet if it was raining - the comment was "not needed - I don't mind wet hair" which nearly killed me and still makes me laugh!

Here is the final kit list:

The beautiful game lunedì 29th maggio 2011

Wonderful comment from Boris Johnson in the newspaper today, talking about the "beautiful game" (what sh1t) and how we in England are much better suited to playing rugby than football.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/borisjohnson/8545406/Champions-League-final-The-beautiful-game-is-not-for-us-after-all-anyone-for-rugby.html

Of course, because Boris wrote it, it gets lambasted, and the fools that play football cannot suffer a mite of criticism, but I loved it. In a nutshell, football is for pansies, rugby is for real men and vents frustrations. Classic Boris.

On the other hand, it did get me thinking about Italian life, sporting life and all it throws up. The Italians are mad keen on football, at the cost of almost all else, except maybe for a little basketball. They are notorious talkers, promoters, and I can see why they love the beautiful game - why do anything when you can just talk about it instead? Maybe I am a little strange, I am uncompromising, forthright and direct, to the cost of myself and friends, and I know this. However, I think it is an English trait to get to the point quickly, and now I see how it contrasts with the Italian approach, I will give an example. English estate agent, once they get their hands on you, they never let go, let a dog with a freshly hewn hunk of meat they get their teeth in and fight to the death. Italian estate agents on the other hand are completely different. They will not take you to see a house on a first visit, but rather will take some time to chat with and establish a relationship prior to even thinking of showing you some of the properties that they might have. They are relationship driven and this counts much above the point of actually making some money. Possibly a freak incident, but a colleague recently bought a house. In the operation of the sale, he managed to annoy the owner of the 2nd semi-detached house, and has now purchased a €450k house, which he will never move into, due to the death threats he has received. This is clearly an extreme case, most of the house acquisitions I know of are just protracted and long, but they have some good parts.

My conclusion is thus: you can hype and overhype the differences between Italian and English living. Some bits are good, some bits are bad - in the end it's just different. Certainly the grass is always greener, but which shade of green is really better to you?

PMN: I haven't come to my conclusion yet...

PPS: Barcelona were much better than Man U

Silvio Lechkov lunedì 30th maggio 2011

Silvio Berlusconi lunedì 30th maggio 2011

I had a dream last night about Silvio Berlusconi, the PM of Italy. I do not remember any of the details, other than he was in a front room, possibly of our house, possibly of another house and we were watching the TV. I have no idea why I dreamt of him, what he was doing in the dream, or why, all I remember was him being kind of ok.

This is timely. Today there are a number of votes in Italy, featuring hung decisions from previous votes, and he h as declared that especially in Milan, today is a referendum upon himself.

It is incredible to imagine how this person became PM, and how he manages to hang on to that title. Certainly he is a driven man, a successful businessman, seemingly with the ability to keep his businesses successful in that uniquely Italian way, namely paying lots of cash in brown envelopes to the right people. Currently he owns a consotrium which includes the three major TV channels in Italy (Rai Uno, Rai Due and Rai Tre) and the football club AC Milan. Powerful yes, but how does he stay there, especially when you see the recent activities in French government, UK government and the DSK affair in the IMF. One thing that amazed me was the way that the reporting of the Ruby-gate occurs. It is not the fact that he was dating/cavorting/entertaining a prostiture that was the problem, but the fact that she was underage - and still I am not sure what this underage really means - if this is underage for the age of consent or underage for prostitution. As I mentioned in a previous blog, prostitution here is, well if not illegal, kind of condoned within certain boundaries and criteria.

He has served three terms of PM, allegedly is known on the circuit as being a buffoon, employs attractive women for his staff, with that being the sole criterion for selection, and is lambasted throughout most of Europe, but yet remains as PM. He is being indicted, and has lost the power to not have criminal cases brought against him, but still is in power, and only may be ousted at this round of voting. Countless reports in the papers speak highly of him.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-11981754

He is 75 years old and still going strong, despite having a pacemaker fitted a few years ago. And then of course there was the attack by the irate Italian wielding a statue of Milan cathedral a few years ago. Again, he came out of that smelling of roses after he stepped out of his car after the attack to wave to the crowd indicating that he was not badly hurt, despite losing two teeth and getting a broken nose!

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34404732/ns/world_news-europe/t/berlusconi-bloodied-hurled-statuette/

And finally, there is the notorious parties he held, shipping in attractive ladies to entertain his friends. Known as "bunga bunga" parties they are legendary and the phrase is now global - Berlusconi himself joked that he had patented the word. There are many suggested explanations, including the current favourite below:

Two of Mr Berlusconi's political opponents are captured by an African tribe. They are asked whether they would prefer to die or undergo bunga bunga. The first one opts for bunga bunga, and is immediately subjected to a sexual assault by members of the tribe. The second one, who now grasps what "bunga bunga" means, says he would prefer to die. To which the chief of the tribe replies: "Okay, you will die - but before you will have bunga bunga."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-12325796

So for now, Berlusconi lives on in "Bunga Bunga City" - the La La Land in which Berlusconi not just survives, but thrives and takes on the world, one toooty at a time. But for how much longer? Today the vote happens, and despite the remarkable statements he makes, e.g. that Milan will become a GypsyTown" if he leaves,



http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-13507941

the positive votes he gets such as the actress who says he helped her find god - always very useful a in strongly religious country.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/silvio-berlusconi/8543741/Actress-claims-Silvio-Berlusconi-helped-her-find-God.html

Alora, oggi si vedrà - we shall see!

Strade Curiose domenica 29th maggio 2011

Strada curiose Strange roads

Beautiful day today - summer is here, it gets up to about 28C every day and I've just done a nice ride on the wheels of steel - 42 miles through the hills of chianti, through Castellina in Chianti and Radda in Chianti. It's pretty hilly round here, in fact within half a mile of our house I have already done over 30 miles an hour and then gone up a 20+% incline which puts my heart near it's max. The ride took just over 3 hours - indicative of how hilly it is around here. The scenery is beautiful and there are exciting little things on the streets at all times. When I moved here I quickly learnt to keep my mouth shut whilst I'm cycling else I get a bonus aerial protein snack. Lizards are constantly running and disappearing into the hedgerows, hooded crows roam the fields and the view from up at Radda, at about 800m altitude is stunning.

http://www.chiantistorico.com/

One famous part of the roads in this region are the strade bianche - the white roads. These are rural unpaved roads, covered in white rubble. They add some great character to the region and also are the location of a famous cycling race - the Strade Bianche

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

Annoyingly we found out yesterday that this race actually goes past our house! This year we were up north in the dolomites skiing whilst this was on. Today I went on a little section of the strade bianche and it was a nightmare. The gradient was about 25% and the rubble means that you lose grip. Anyway, in October I will be racing in L'Eroica

http://www.eroica-ciclismo.it/italiano/home.asp

which is the race on the strade bianche - 175km on the strade bianche, and to make it worse and to earn the name L'Eroica (The Heroic) you have to do it on a pre-1983 bike. Stuart has found me one in the UK on freecycle and it should be with me soon. So, this race is long, its on terrible roads, and you have to do it on an old steel bike. Grrr!

Yesterday we were looking at some houses to buy, we drove to Rapale (which we give an amusing homophone name) and we were again struck by the number of street prostitutes. Rapale is way way out in the countryside

http://www.rapale.com/

And yet, out there, there are lots and lots of prostitutes. Unlike prostitutes in the UK, in Tuscany they seem to just hang out in the countryside, actually not just in Tuscany as we saw some in Sicily too. Anyway, they sit around in small groups, 2 or 3 people, and they are all africans. Very strange that they are not in cities. Strange strange roads.

Pasta is required for tackling these roads. Am just tucking into a nice simple pasta dish, with oil, salt, pepper, lemon juice plus a little tuna and sweetcorn. Simple and nice - good idea Dawn. A much better idea than buying the film "Into the wild" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Into_the_wild which I paid for, and was 2h20m of tripe. Based on a real story, about some 24 year old fool who decides he wants to go native for a couple of years, goes to Alaska without knowing much about survival and dies. Surprise surprise. I was worried when Dawn showed it to me as the review "Mesmerising and unforgettable" came from the Daily Star!! Don't watch it!!

On Friday I went to the pub. There's only one pub in Siena, and it's the Irish pub. It's good, serves beer, you can sit outside, shoot the breeze and watch the world go by. I don't go to the pub very often, and don't go into Siena very much, this is a shame. So much of a shame that I initiated some monthly "Discussion Groups" i.e. a payday playday when we can all go to the pub. Anyway, most bars, if such things exist, will serve snacks between 5-8, so a sort of plates of pasta, rice, chips n dips, sun dried tomatoes and olives. In the Irish pub it's pretty good - but it lured me into the delusion that I had eaten. The outcome of this was that I was steaming drunk and tried to leave Siena quite late, maybe 2 am. Anyway, I could not find a raxitaxi - nightmare, I was wandering around (not in the Dutch sense) trying to find a taxi and somehow, I don't really remember how or where it was, as I mentioned I was pretty sloshed, I found a car. He was quite chatty, seemed to know where I lived, although by that time in the morning my Italiano had deserted me so I couldn't be sure. Anyway, got back home and asked him how much, and he said nothing. This confused me and it was only at this point that I realised it wasn't a taxi but just some guy who kindly gave me a lift home. Dawn said that maybe he was cruising for some man loving, but he certainly didn't let on. We had a little battle over 20 bucks, and eventually I lobbed it in the car and legged it. So, it seems that he was just a nice guy who was there and just gave me a lift home. I was in the UK last week, and I am amazed, certainly in Tuscany about how nice everyone is in comparison to the UK. Anyhow, it was strange, strange strange roads.

Ciao for now

Dr Hammers 26th maggio 2011

Dr Hammers

Yesterday we went to visit "Dr Hammers". That's not his real name, but it was always be his name according to me.

Some history. Dawn has been suffering from a bad back for a long time, aggravated by a half marathon over 6 months ago. Not only a nightmare for her, not being able to do anything physical or sleep, also a nightmare for me, for the latter reason.

She tried physio and various strange and expensive Italian doctors. Italian doctors are a little strange, and there is always a surprise as to whether you will be seen and what sort of treatment you get. We should be thankful - someone I know who recently moved to another city in Italy from England, who has a profoundly disabled son, was refused treatment at a hospital due to a problem with documentation. Thankfully, our company has looked after us well and all our docs are in a line (quack quack), or should that be tutti nostre anatre sono nella linea? WHo knows! Anyway, sometimes doctors are dismissive and sometimes incredibly over zealous. Sometimes they are cheap or free and other times they are extremely expensive. In summary Dawn had been going to an Italian physio with limited success and attending our dear chiropracter Dr Beneski in Boston, USA whenever she went on a business trip for some temporary relief (we could not trust a chiropracter in Italy).

One evening I had arranged a soiree in the Irish Pub (where else?) and Dawn had gotten chatting to some random Dutch guy - Dr Hammers. His name is Dr Hammers but is something very Dutch, Raimund van der Orangechboom or some such :), also probably a very distant relative of mine. Anyway, Dr Hammers is a Dr of some strange wacky chiro/physio thing, where he does realignment using what I can only describe as hammers. Yes - he takes rubber mallets and hammers your spine, neck, sacrum, pelvis, knee into the right alignment. And sells you some super strength vitamins and volcanic ashes to negate acids at the same time. Scary - yes! Effective - double yes!! Dawn had instant almost total cure, and it really helped me with my knee when I thought I would not be able to go on my much planned cycle tour of Sicily.

In fact, one problem that he says he has, is that as well as not being liked by the rest of the medical community, because he cures most people very quickly it's not a very good business as opposed to other chiropracters and physios who work on repeat business.

Anyway, he's great, quirkily Italian (for a Dutch man) and pretty cheap. And he lives in a great place (Murlo, just south of Siena and site of many an Etruscan thing or two http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murlo). In fact the drive is splendid - the hills roll and this time of year, it is once again tear-jerkingly green, the sort of green that builds and builds and overwhelms you, although I do wonder sometimes if that is a little vestigial synaesthesia (naturally, I will say no more, thank you Monty Python). Wish I'd have had my camera with me yesterday as soon the sun will come (it's over 30C here at the mo) and the land will become brown and crispy.

Ciao for now.

Dodici bottiglie 25th maggio 2011

In the end I bought 12 bottles of the Nero D'Avola as in a case it was easier to carry from the supermarket!!