Victory, finally!

For the first time in history, Italy has won a world championship medal in the 100 metres freestyle. Three cheers to Filippo Magnini ("er Magna")!

Alles verboten? steigen Sie aus!

Now here's an interesting piece of news from the most entertaining source of information north of the Alps: the Bild, by far and large Germany's largest newspaper in terms of circulation (it must also have the crappiest web site in the country, by the way - it looks awful in my Opera 7.54).

Oh, poor things, you Germans! you complain that we "spaghetti-eating Italians" forbid you to burp your lousy beers out in our beaches and go topless while we in your country cannot even visit a church without asking for a mortgage extension? you complain that you don't feel free anymore in Italy while we go mad trying to find a parking place in Baden Baden? (after penetrating three badly signposted pedestrians area I eventually did, for 15 euros a day!)

I have a solution for you: go to Benidorm. Get the hell out of here, and free up some parking space from your ugly Mercedeses for the benefit of those who actually accept our rules. If you're not happy with the way the Spaniards treat you, there's always Egypt (which will surely turn cheaper any moment now) or Dubai.

In any case, steigen Sie aus, bitte! We don't really need Bild readers down here. Long live Frankfurter Allgemeine!

American muslims issue Fatwa against terrorism

About bloody time: a Fatwa against terrorists!

Now when are the Italian muslims going to follow course? are they ever? if not, we must assume that they repute that terrorism is perfectly justified by Islam (which is far from true) and that they silently endorse terrorist attacks. Since silence is consent, we should expel them and return them to their havens of prosperity: Tunisia, Morocco, Albania and Algeria for a start, then I'm sure that Saudi Arabia and Iraq will be happy to take some of them, and Pakistan is always in lack of workforce.

Notice that I'm not against Muslims in Italy, I'm actually welcoming those that come here to work hard and respect our culture (while keeping their religion and habits as long as they don't break our laws, granted). I'm only against those Imams, and there's plenty, that live in here, drive large cars and get nice government subsidies while silently tolerating (in the best case) terrorists. We know for sure that some of the Iraqi terrorists came from Italy. Can we do something about it please?

And by the way why do I have to read this in a Saudi paper? why no news on it on main Italian papers? Corriere, Repubblica, hello? anybody out there?

Illuminating the masses

That piece of a German genius that our cardinals elected as a Pope to replace good old Karol has once again liberated words that illuminate the masses.

I quote him on the recent terrorist attacks: "the recent attacks are not targeted against Christians".

Now I have to go to the window and shout out the bad words that are accumulating in my mouth. I'm in Kuwait right now, so the chance that someone understands Italian cursing is very slim...

Ok, I'm back. I just hope the Pope has been on holiday and his old brain has relaxed a bit too much. This is too bad since he had done quite well at the job of staying quiet when necessary, and saying fairly reasonable things so fa.

His Holy Excellence, I know that you're not reading my blog, but if you happen to bump here, can you explain me what the fuck this phrase means? The criminals who are bombing our underground and threatening the churches of Rome are the same that are shedding blood every day in Baghdad. Isn't that crystal clear to everyone down to the last monkey in this planet?

What do you mean by saying christians are not the target? do you mean that next time terrorists will screen people according to their religion on entering a potential bomb attack target, just like in Saudi mosques?

Isn't it plain clear that they are just trying to frighten the hell out of the (stupid) masses so that we'll leave Iraq and they can start a civil war in there?

What does all this have to do with Christians?

I'm amazed.

On vandals and spare parts

The world is going bollocks.

No, I'm not referring to terrorist attacks, but to much less important, if significant, things. Some vandals toured the street where I live in Rome, in a nice and quiet residential area, and the result was two flat tyres in a car, a few more cars (including mine) suffering different sorts of scratching and deformations and my lovely little Suzuki motorbike with a damaged piece: the spark plug cover, which will cost me 166 euros to change thanks to Suzuki's spare part shipping policy.

The policy is quite difficult to explain, but goes more or less like: we know you have an old bike and that spare parts are hard to get in the second-hand market, so we will rip you off by forcing you to buy things you don't need and justify it by means of logistical efficiency excuses.

In a nutshell, I really hope that the bastards who raided the street and did all this useless damage will suffer from a couple of weeks' dissentery attack, and that their mums will suddenly divorce their dads leaving them with pizzeria food for the rest of their lives.

And I do hope that Suzuki will revise their spare parts shipping policy, because they're losing loyal customers with this game.

Priest denies burial mass to cohabiting woman

Time for a bit of good healthy anti-clerical material.

It is today's news that a priest refused to celebrate a burial mass to a woman from Calabria (that's the tip of Italy's toe) because she has been a sinner.

And what was the sin? you guessed it: she was co-habiting with her partner, without getting married with him. The reason for the cohabitation is that he didn't want to get divorced from his former wife.

You can read the whole story in Italian here: http://www.repubblica.it/2005/g/sezioni/cronaca/parroco/parroco/parroco.html

My first reaction was that of outrage and disappointment for this insane behaviour on the Church side.

But then I counted till three (which was enough) and realized that the Catholic Church is slowly digging its own grave by decreeing its irrelevance in daily affairs.

Frankly: who the hell cares about the mass? certainly not the poor dead woman, and certainly not her man, who as a co-habiting partner is a sinner himself. Certainly not me, and hopefully none of their relations either.

And by the way, who the hell cares about the Church anymore? how many youngsters follow its rules and stay virgin until the wedding and use no contraceptives in the whole of their life? how many Italians go to Church every Sunday and never wish to have other people's things and women?

Welcome back to the Inquisition.

They got her

In memory of Benedetta Ciaccia, innocent Roman victim of the terrorist attacks in London, this blog will be silent tomorrow.

Graffiti painters forced to clean up!

I read this piece of news yesterday in the local paper, but can't find any web links to it. Anyway, two French youngsters (those French, always bothering the rest of the world :o) were caught painting some graffiti in the EUR area of Rome by a few nightguards.

Dirtying buildings with graffiti is a breach to the Italian law, and bears a jail sentence of up to a year. Well, these guys were taken to the mayor's roomand reproached for what they had done by the man himself! moreover, they were proposed to clean the buildings they had written on in exchange for a cancellation of the police report (which meant no trial would happen).

They accepted, and could be seen today cleaning walls in EUR.

Way to go mr. Veltroni! those who dirty should be forced to clean up!

Driving habits

A reader commented on our crazy and lunatic driving habits. I will go so far as to disagree.

Actually I'll go even further: I hereby claim that Italy (and especially Rome) has the most civilized driving habits on Earth.

Before you start storming with angry replies, hear this: among the large countries, Italy has the highest car density in the world. If you put all the cars in Rome on the street at the same time, they would not fit. Yet, you see so few accidents, and most of those are due to scooters, careless pedestrians and bad road condition.

So you'll want to know how to drive in Rome. Here's some basic rules.


1) Don't be stressed by vehicles of lower size, they'll take care of themselves.

2) As a pedestrian, find the nearest zebras, then start crossing with moderate and constant speed, always looking to the forthcoming driver (there'll be one). Don't wait for drivers to stop, force them to, and never panic: they will.

3) The most dangerous things on the road are scooters. The larger these are, the more treacherous they are, since their drivers tend to consider them as bicycles, but they have the size of a small car.

4) The second most dangerous things are Smart cars (those ugly two-seaters made by Mercedes and Swatch, which tend to be driven by bimbos and teenagers with more gel on the head than brain inside).

5) The third most dangerous things are pedestrians who don't follow my advice n.2 and do one of the following: suddenly start crossing very fast, then stop two metres away from the pavement; start crossing then back off; start crossing slowly without looking; then start running when they see a car approaching; start crossing outside the zebras (they are indeed very important); start crossing, then answer the mobile phone or (even worse) start texting their friends.

6) When negotiating a crossing that looks too messy (such as the one between Via di Decima and Via Colombo, a real masterpiece of demential engineering), go slowly forward and be prapared to brake suddenly in case your neighbours happen to have a different opinions over priorities.

I'll come back with more. Comments please!

Suspending Schengen?

In the wake of the London bombings, France has decided to suspend the Schengen agreement, which allows free circulation of goods and people among a certain set of European countries. See http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4680163.stm for details.

Almost all other EU countries, including Italy, have re-inforced border checks.

I can't comment on what France did - they must have had their reasons. I can however comment on what Italy's interior minister, Beppe Pisanu, just said to the media that Italy thinks that we do not need to suspend the Schengen treaty (although we will re-inforce the borders). See http://www.agi.it/english/news.pl?doc=200507131641-1189-RT1-CRO-0-NF82&page=0&id=agionline-eng.italyonline for the official announcement.

Well done, Minister! No need to shut Italy's doors, let's instead fight the terrorism forces from within (there's many of them, as the first jail sentences for terrorism that coincidentally came out today proved).

Starting to blog

It's now been over a year in Italy again, after leaving the country in early 1997 and making a comeback in May 2004.

Those who can search the web a bit will find out that I have been in Finland for most of that time.

Going there was quite a cultural shock, but coming back to Italy is (or at least was supposed to) be even more of a shock.

Now that I have re-adapted, I live like a northerner but like the south. As one of my best friends once wrote, I'm an impressive hybrid.

This blog will report on things I see. Through my northerner's eyes, or through my Italian heart. Depending on the situation.

I will welcome all comments.