More childish names 11th ottobre 2011

Continuing again with the theme of amusing names in Italian, we have today's offering which is a nice schlop of salami called "cocchi". I thank you.
Actually, I thank one of my team. She is from Parma and she has just returned from her home town complete with some lovely fresh parmesan and some of this rather splendid salami. It is really rather good. I think it is the time of year that the parmesan comes fresh out of the presses. Last year she got some of the excess cheese that did not make it into the press. This is a rather light cheese, more like a mild to medium cheddar and really was rather splendid, better than the parmesan. However, the parmesan has lasted well, very well, in fact - I have just donated the remnants to Stuart and this is a year old, not gone off and probably just starting to mature nicely. However, the new stuff is great.
One funny thing that we get here are green satsumas. I think they have a specific name but I do not know it. They are perfectly green on the outside and normal and orange on the inside. Only seem to be available this time of year and are rather nice.

Shops in Siena are disappointing, with very little variety. We have supermarkets Coop, Pam and Conad. They all sell all the usual foods, and at a surprisingly high price. However, there is also a chain of a supermarket called "Penny Market" - this is a great supermarket that is in the style of Lidl, right down to the german lager. Prices are great and there are some really non-Italian foods in there. However, recently I bought in there a "kebab pizza" - couldn't resist it. It was ok, but not great, but anyway makes a wonderful change from the usual italian stuff, which although very nice, you do miss the variety.

And finally from the classy end of Siena we have an outdoor very European public toilet - this one amusingly enscribed with the phrase "il cesso piu' bello di Siena" - "the most beautiful toilet in Siena"!

Over n out.

Footy - Italian Style - Novembre 6th 2011

Footy - Italian Style

Calcio - aka footy style. Last year I went to a footy match here with a couple of colleagues and enjoyed it. Siena AC is really a village club. Tiny little stadium (c. 20k people) right in the middle of town. The adverts are so village - all local adverts for local people and local bakeries and tyre shops. Except for one notable exception - an advert for Playboy stating "always with you" - classic - gotta love the italians for that, super tight and upright but no shame about having porn adverts in their footy club, in fact, there are some adverts fro real porn stars on billboards here - replete with norks n all.

Last season Siena were in Serie B. They got promoted and are now in Serie A. This has prompted me to buy a season ticket - abbonamento - and at €180 who can go wrong.

Have seen a few games so far, not spectacular and in fact the players don't seem very talented, and pretty lazy. Saw Juve at the beginning of the season which was a dire 1-0 loss - thought it was going to be a bad season, however, Juve are now flying high on top of the Serie A and it seems that Siena were just reeled in that day. In fact, since then they have done well and have sneaked into the top half of the league into 9th place. They are even getting a little press coverage after getting nothing at the beginning of the year.

Of course, like anything else in Siena they would be stuffed without the bank Monte dei Paschi propping them up - but then that goes the same for anything in Siena.

In fact, last weekend Siena won 4-1 - we savoured that as I am sure it will be rare - Italians being the specialists of 1-0 football after all.

Also, it is still freaking hot. In the afternoon sun it is down to t-shirt weather again, despite being very cold in the mornings and evenings. Unfortunately the Irish Pub is closed prior to match, but there are bars to have a beer after.

Another fun thing is the arrival of the scooters - when the game is on, the square by the side of the footy ground gets with 1000s of scooters as in the photo.

However, the most amusing thing was a stand off between Siena and Cesena two weeks ago. A handful of Siena fans - maybe 30 stood at one end of a street and maybe 15 Cesena fans at the other end. There was no fear - the Siena lads looked about as hard as my gran, and with wobbly fatness which is unusual for Italians who are normally very slender indeed.

Could be a great season - over n out.

Stinco 10th ottober 2011

Back to the childish names for Italian things section - today we have "stinco" - mmm a fine cut of stinco, mmm a fine slice of stinco. Yum yum,

Actually, I purchased before I knew what it was, and only because of the funny name. Indeed, I ate it before I knew what the name meant too! Actually it means "shin" and it is partiallywas partially cooked, and with a load of veggies roasted it was tremendous.

I had not this word before, but it reminded me if a funny time I had recently (why am I getting a flashback to an Escort letters page here??). Living in Siena you get used to being surrounded by tourists. Siena has plenty: German, American, Dutch, French, occasionally English (strange that there are not so many Brits in Siena - compare to when I was in Venice recently when all I heard was English accents). I was out walking with Martin when he came to stay and an annoyed German father came past us dragging a young child along with him. The child had his shorts down round his knees and his hand almost fist deep up his behind. The father said "ohne schtinken" and that has kept me in private giggles ever since. The poor child clearly was touching cloth, well the turtles head was out and was physically trying to return the pesky brown trout back to where it came from, whilst being dragged along by his father doing the classic "I need a poo" walk. Thank you tourists.

Shockingly open venerdi 7th ottobre 2011

It has been the case of the century - Amanda Knox and some other people (I am being deliberately bathetic here) have spent 4 years in jail for a crime they did not commit. Or did they?

4 years ago, a young British student was murdered in Perugia, a town in Umbria, about a couple of hours south east of Siena. Her throat was cut after a night out. Several people were accused, including Amanda Knox who become a media sensation, due to the fact that she was young, attractive, american, and had what the british and american press love to work with - a saucy past, very much into sex games, and also had a great moniker "Foxy Knoxy".

Some years ago, three people were found guilty of the murder - Foxy Knoxy, her Italian boyfriend and another fella. There has been a review and and after a very protracted court case in Perugia, Foxy Knoxy, I will call her Amanda (and her boyf, well, ex-boyf), has been released.

The statement read by the judge was "Non hanno commesso il fatto" - "they have not done the thing". The DNA evidence on the knife used to kill the poor girl was proven to be of such poor quality that it should not have been sufficient to prove guilt.

This leaves of course a very unfortunate situation for the parents and family of Meredith Kircher - the girl who was killed - who still have no answer as to what happened (of course, ignoring the fact that Rudy Guede is still incarcerated for the crime). "Vogliamo la verita' su Meredith lotteremo ancora per avere giustizia" - "we want the truth on Meredith we will fight on to have justice". "Movente troppo fragile ed errori sul DNA cosi' sono crollate le prove dell'accusa" - "Motive too weak and errors in DNA evidence caused the collapse of the case against the accused".

Despite all this, the Italians are not happy. In fact, in the same headline which stated that they did not commit the crime, the second part read "Fischi e urla in piazza: vergogna" - "whistles and yells in the town square: shame". The Italians are not happy, and apparently did not take Amanda to heart the same way that the british and american press did. Her final plea in Italian, was well scripted and very well said, with a good accent - as you'd expect after living in an Italian prison for 4 years (at this point I am fighting extremely hard to avoid trite references to my job as being in an Italian prison - anyway - at least she can now speak Italian and will make some money out of her experiences!). But no - the Italians seem to not like her. Mind you, Italians don't really like Americans at the best of time, from what I've seen. In fact, a few months ago we were at a friend's (British) place for a barbeque. Later in the afternoon one of the Italian's had to go and pick up her mum from somewhere and brought her along to the party. She was a real character - so much fun, full of beans and life. Absolute Italian through and through, probably very typical Tuscan - poor, but heart of gold, and of course, does not speak a single word of English. Interestingly enough, as she was introduced to all the people at the party - British, Aussie, German, USA. She politely said hello to all of us but when she was introduced to Dawn - the only American - she smiled and rolled her fingers in the Italian symbol for money. This was absolutely shocking and really tells you a lot about how normal Italians and certainly Italians who live in tourist areas, think of the yanks.

However, the most shocking piece of this, in my mind, came out yesterday. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/italy/8809514/Amanda-Knox-judge-She-may-know-the-real-truth.html

The judge of the case has come out and said he thought that Amanda Knox could know who the real killer is. In fact, "the judge stressed in a television interview in Italy last night that the verdict handed down by the appeal court was a reflection of the “the truth that was created in the trial.” “But the real truth could be different,” he said, adding: “They (Miss Knox and co-accused Raffaele Sollecito) could also be responsible, but the proof isn’t there.”"

This has left me frankly speechless, it is in complete opposition to the statement at the conclusion of the trial, and the ability for a judge to come and say this I find disgusting. Is this a reflection of the pointless respect to authority in Italy? Berlusconi is a jerk, but noone does anything about it, because he has power. Working with Italians, there is pointless amount of "respect" to people who are older, or at a higher level in the work organisation is frankly disgusting, as well as being extremely annoying. Whilst I appreciate the respect in society, at work it makes certain things absolutely impossible. Of course, when you buck the trend and start swearing and shouting at Italians who are senior to you it gets quite funny. Managed to make someone cry yesterday in the office with this behaviour, which I was pleased with, because you have to stop Italians thinking like Italians to get any work done.

Back to Foxy Knoxy - she said that she struggled to speak in English when she got back to america, and if you look at her hand gestures in the picture that I've attached, she has clearly really picked up the Italian way of speaking and expressing herself. I hope that she hasn't gone too far, as it can be hard to express yourself in English after picking up all these Italian memes and hand gestures. I do wonder if some of the deference that they have to authority is related to the language and the body language - you can learn so much from just watching any group of Italians chatting to each other animatedly. There is no need to actually speak any Italian - observing hand gestures without speaking any English you can follow any conversation. Come se dice in Italiano? Non lo so, ma in francese e cosi' - "Vive la difference!"

There is lot of volatility in the system sabato 8 ottobre

There is a lot of volatility in the system

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-15222803

Italian debt has been downgraded. Again. For the second time this week. What does this mean? Is the GBP the best place to put money? Or should it be in Swiss Francs which seems to be going up and up? Or even gold which retains money through the toughest of times? From what I have read the debt of Italy is triple the combined debt of Greece, Spain and Ireland. Now that is terrifying. Not least the terror comes from a lack of realisation about this. OK so it is reported in the papers but nothing seems to change, and how Berlusconi has stayed in post is just simply unfathomable. At least Italy has a very strong tourist industry and food industry, which allows it to survive better than Greece. But where does this leave me? I work for a Swiss company but am employed under an Italian contract. Italian salaries are an absolute farce, the pay is incredibly low and the tax is very high. In fact, at current situation we would be better off moving to the USA and one of us stopping work!!! However, I am lucky that I am employed on what is essentially a foreigner's contract so relatively I am doing very well - I really have no idea how the Italians at non-executive level do well enough to afford food, let alone buy a house. In fact, a lot of houses are handed down through families in SIena, partly fuelled by the ridiculous prices - it's nigh on impossible to buy a 2-bed apartment for under 550k EUR, and also influenced by the low birth rate - Italy's birth rate is the lowest in Europe at 1.4 per capita.

So where does this leave me? I feel overworked, underpaid, underappreciated, but I do have a job and live in a beautiful area of the world. I have to remind myself of this a lot a lot a lot a lot. At this moment, there is volatility in the company - head count is very very tight, and budget restrictions are, well, strict, restricting, restrictive, dictatorial. This comes down to me as being extremely frustrating trying to get things to work and make ends meet, whilst trying to keep the pipeline going. As much as I would like this not to affect me, it does. I spend far too much time in the office and this affects me. The volatility I feel at work and the volatility and frustration that one finds when living as an alien means that me life is volatile. Once again, I have to remind myself of the good stuff.

Now where is that good stuff? Wine is good and cheap. Ambiance is good (when outside the office). Food is great, if overpriced. People are very pleasant - if difficult to get to know them beneath the veneer. And it's safe. Volatility is also present in equal measure in the UK and the USA, and looking back, although the grass is greener, its pretty green over here too. So for now, we stay put.

Stay sane inside insanity.

L'Eroica crazy bikes 27th settembre 2011

On Sunday I will compete in L'Eroica - The Heroic. This is a bike race through the Tuscan chianti countryside on the Strade Bianche - the white gravelled roads. To make it Heroic it is 205 km, extremely hilly, extremely gravelly/rocky and to cap it all off you have to complete the race on a bike from before 1987. It is a beast of a ride - if you are able to complete it in under 12 hours you get a special prize of booze and food.

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

Not only does it go up and down, but the ups and the downs on gravel are pretty dangerous, roads are not closed and of course it is just tough on the hands, bike and back. The bikes have to have shifters on the downtubes, no integrated brake or gear cables, old style toe clips, and no quick release. The bike has been a pain in the rs to set up. Eventually after truing the back wheel for ever I gave up and brought a new back wheel. This was after 4 exploded inners. Have bought some Vittoria green tyres at over €60 each, and changed the rear cassette to take it from a 23 tooth to a 28 tooth. Without that change I would not have been able to get off my own road. Wheels are now loose again and need truing. The brakes are terrible, and the stem feels like it is shaking itself apart. In fact, going over the gravel between the shaking of the gravel and the terrible braking it is quite a workout. Today I took the wheels of steel down the sprint hill here where I can get some great speed up - I've managed 48 mph before. Today I just did not trust the bike enough so slowed down at only 36 mph, and the bike went into the wobbles as the front brakes are a lot more effective than the rear. Nope - no trust. In fact, I daren't go on one of my proper bikes else I will lose all the limited trust that I have!

Training is going ok, but can always be better. I've not been well, in fact I've had some sort of low level virus for about 5 weeks now which means I cannot do any training. Schweet. Here are some data from a ride on Sunday with a friend from work. Slow and steady will be the plan on Sunday coming. Of course, this being Italy the most important thing is the feast the night before the race, rather than the race, sorry, course, itself.

http://app.strava.com/rides/1750445

Great video about it here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KcTV9FBHOlM

The bike came courtesy of Stuart and freecycke. A classic Peugeot Esprit from 1984. Unfortunately it's a crock of the proverbial


http://www.gustocycling.com/leroica.html

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!