So you wanna learn English?

Obviously, the marketing bods reckon that zillions of Italians have discovered that their knowledge of my good old mother tongue is not quite up to scratch, which is why, and it happens every year in this period, the TV screens are starting to fill up with adverts trying to persuade you to buy some cd rom/DVD based English course.

They must sell quite a few of these courses, at least they must sell about the first five installments, after which time the long struggling students run out of enthusiasm, get frustrated or just resign themselves the fact that they never will get a good handle on the language, and start collecting firemen of the word figurines (see previous post).

Learning a language is a little like getting fit, stick at it and you will make progress. However, in the same vain, even though you can run 10 kilometres on the running machine, this does not mean that you can do it out on a real hard road, or where there are proper, and not electronic hills. The same goes for a language – you can study for hours, but when someone puts you on the spot, you will find, more often than not, that all your hard work seems to have been futile. There is no easy solution, like losing weight. You need to find a way of using what you know, and this, I know and sympathise greatly with all those struggling to learn my language, is one heck of a difficult thing to do. I am always being asked if I know of places where people can go and meet mother tongue English speakers, but, alas, I do not know of such places and even if I did, I can't imagine it being easy to spark up a conversation.

There is almost a business opportunity here. A sort of club in which English mother tongue speakers are paid to walk around and make conversation. Knowing a good few English teachers, I think I could safely say that the offer of a few pounds and a few free beers would persuade them to go around chatting to all and sundry. Only, if you are someone who wishes to benefit from such an experience, I would recommend getting to the place early in the evening. Later on, the conversation on offer will become distinctly incoherent!

If you really do want to learn English, find a good teacher, attend as many lessons as you possibly can and put yourself in the position of having to speak the language as often as possible. Otherwise, don't waste money on courses.

ASBOs and Baby Gangs

This story makes worrying reading. A 16 year old killer is bad enough, but a 14 year old gunman? What the blazes is going on? How can we let society get to this stage? It's bad news, in every sense.

Now I don't know if the UK is the first country in the world to introduce these Anti-Social Behavior Orders – this would surprise me, but what gets me is that it was necessary to introduce them. Something somewhere is going seriously wrong. It has been going down hill for some time, when I was back in the UK, young offenders were often sent on character reforming adventure holidays and cruises, at the tax payers expense. A nice idea, these young trouble makers often come from unusual families and don't seem to understand the concept of 'having a future'. So, they had a nice holiday, and then went back into the same circumstances as had sparked off their anti-social and criminal tendencies. Guess what? This blighters went and re-offended more often than not. Strange, but most normal people could have reached the same conclusion and thus saved the tax payers lots of dosh which could have been spent on improving communities or something useful. What happened to all the lottery money?

These ASBOs are the latest attempt to shut the door after the horse has bolted. From what I understand these orders are little more than pieces of paper which say that you are not to do naughty things again – or else we'll send you on a four week holiday in the Bahamas, or something like that.

Do kids actually learn anything useful about life in school? Should some people be banned from procreating? Maybe. Suggestions are good, but actions, sane logical ones are what are needed to curb this worrying trend.

Italy is not immune in this respect either, although, so far, the activities of the so called 'baby gangs' (groups of often under teenage kids robbing and mugging) have been relatively limited. For the moment. The Italian government has not yet even considered introducing ASBOs or any such thing, possibly because the family unit is still strong here and kids respect parents. For the moment.

The fact that changes happens slowly in the living museum is sometimes not such a bad thing. Not such a bad thing at all.

Weighty matters

There is this old saying in English 'You are what you eat', well, the Italian equivalent might well be 'You are what you wear', and of course to wear the right gear, you need the right figure. Yes, this beautiful country adores beautiful people and Italians will go to great lengths to develop and maintain their beauty, and keep the kilos at bay.

The wise ones, and Italy does not lack people of this ilk, exercise. This may mean they ski, run, or work out in the local gym. Milan is full of gyms. They cater for all walks of society, so you have everything from places for the body building band, no nonsense gyms for the serious fitness freak, smart trendy gyms for the health conscious young professional and luxury private gyms for Milan's plentiful celebrity population (there are two main TV stations here, and that's only for starters).

Gyms are quite effective ways of keeping that waistline under some control, but I've always found the places to be dull and soulless – plus you have to pay for the pain. Personally, when I am in an exercise phase, I prefer to do something which will allow me to have a change of scene, which is why I like the idea (note the use of ‘like the idea’!) of running and cycling. As with all exercise, you need to keep at it if you want to see and retain its effects. However, judging by the market here, many would like to find a magic way of evaporating their fat away.

The market in Italy caters to these high hopers in various ingenious ways. First off, we have the machines. Often TV advertised, these devices come with exciting sounding names, which shout 'instant weight loss' to those of a lazy disposition (like me), and who find the idea of paying and going to some gym too terrible to contemplate. If the temptation and promise offered by what you could say are odd re-vamped medieval torture contraptions does not convince you to dig out your credit card, then the electronic muscle stimulators may well do. Currently, there is a brand of these miracle gadgets which has been super plugged on the TV. You can't beat these things, you just lie there and twitch those extra kilos off. Well, it must be true coz that is what the ad implies.

Should the thought of twitching those pounds away not capture your imagination, then you could of course opt for the amazing calorie blocking pills. Available either through your local pharmacist (!) or by mail order, these pills enable you to eat as normal but at the same time see those extra kilos cascade away. Amazing! Even more amazing is the fact that this stuff is advertised on TV. I’m not going to say the ads are making fraudulent promises.

For those suffering, alas, from both an excess of weight, and cash, there is the quick way to shed pounds and keep those all important looks. Your favourite plastic surgeon will be more than happy to slice away those intrusive layers of flab for a generous contribution towards the cost of new tyres for his three new Ferraris. Mr B, the top politico in the country has been resorting to the cosmetic scalpel to maintain his youthful good looks. He is by no means alone.

Others, mainly of the fairer sex, often throw good money at the multitude of slimming centres here, which are so pleased to be able to help you reduce the level of your bank account, probably at a faster rate than the reduction in your calorie intake, not to mention, weight.

Those who are unlucky enough not be able to afford the knife, or those who still have some Euros left after having invested in pills, machines or stimulating experiences, can go to see a nutritionist, who will discover what foods do or do not cause your body to expand and who will suggest that some light exercise may also help prevent those love handles.
Very few people, Italian or otherwise, realise that there is just no easy way to watch your weight. Then there are those awful people who are able to eat just whatever they damn well like, do no exercise and never get fat. Like my other half, bless her little cotton socks.

It's amazing what thoughts go through your head when you are battling the bulge.

Losing things

Sometimes losing something makes you feel ever so good. For instance, this blogger has lost 3 kilos since he got back on the 17th of August.

Much maligned members of society

Traffic wardens are about as popular as mouldy mushrooms in the UK, however, one of these loveable individuals writes a mean blog. Worth checking out in my humble op: Walking the Streets.

Open your mind to Open Source

Even though this old world may at times seem to be without hope, there
are certain things which make you think that there may well be hope for
us all. One such thing is the open source software movement. This
veritable army of good souls from all corners of our suffering planet
are trying to do something to bring computing to all, not just those of
us lucky enough to be able to afford a PC. They also make life for those
of us, like me, who cannot afford to shell out for the latest update to
a piece of software which already does far too much anyway, but that we
must have if we want to remain compatible with those around us.

The great thing about open source software is that it allows normal
people to turn their ideas into reality. This means that those in poor
countries can start to better their lives, without having to wait for
the normal wealth overflow effect to finally reach them. This has got
to be a good thing.

Another notable aspect of this free software (you don't have to pay for
it) is that it is often excellent. The open source stuff I use is
simple enough for non-nerds to use, complex enough to keep half-nerds,
like me, very happy and will also keep real nerds happy for hours, not
to mention those who actually know how to program. This stuff almost
bucks the old adage that you cannot be all things to all men.
So, before you waltz on down to your local PC store in search of a new
application have a hunt around the www for an open source equivalent -
you should do a little more research than normal because there will not
be mounds of fancy marketing bumf to read through, however you will find
out what real people think of the stuff and their points of view are
often much more reliable than company spiel.

About the only thing you need to exploit the great open source resource
is a decent connection to the www, but if you are not on a good dsl line
don't give up hope, there is sure to be someone you know who is.

Of course, I mat well be preaching to the converted with this post,
because bloggers are already an example of the increasing computers
literacy which is permeating our world.

For anyone who does not know much about open source, here are some names
for you to search for on Google: Firefox – a browser, Thunderbird – for
email, OpenOffice – a real alternative to Microsoft Office, The Gimp -
good photo editing software, not for the faint hearted!, Mambo – an
interesting content management system for web sites, MySql – a web based
database – complex and comprehensive, Apache – a way of turning your
humble PC into part of the www (but watch out for hackers), ClamWin – an
antivirus (understand what 'on demand scanning' is before playing with
this).

Go to Sourceforge to look for more stuff, but only go for the
'production/stable' stuff, unless you know how to fix a crashed PC!

I may well add a 'donate to' button to this blog, because the open
source movement can and will make a beneficial contribution to society.
And no, I have no vested interest, I'm just one very impressed and
satisfied user. I use all the stuff I listed above, apart from The Gimp,
because I already have photo editing programs.

Plug over.

PS Most open source stuff is available in a variety of different
languages.

A PDA to email to blog post.