Town or country?

August 28, 2005 · Filed Under Me, Milan · Comment

I grew up in the middle of nowhere. My parents liked to live well off
the beaten track. As a result of this both my brother and myself find
living in silent virtually peopleless areas to be almost a necessity.
You may well be asking yourself , 'well, why the heck does this idiot
live in the middle of a big city?'. A good question and my answer would
be that I like to try new things, I hate travelling and I can find more
work in a city. Plus my other half finds the emptiness of the
countryside disconcerting - she finds noise and confusion comforting,
within limits.

Recently, I've been longing for the tranquillity of leafy greenness and
have been trying to identify what exactly bugs me about the city. One
thing I've come up with is the lack of change that there is in a city.
Winter, summer, spring or autumn all look the same. Out in the sticks,
(nella mezza di niente) the different seasons give the same panoramas
different dimensions. The colours range from dark green to bright
yellow, giving every feature of the environment a differing aspect. This
does not really occur in a city.

I used to live quite close to some pretty countryside in the UK and
there were places where I would go and just sit and admire the view.
There is nowhere here in Milan that really keeps me coming back in this
way.

However, having said the above, I now need to consider my son's future
and that if I were him, I would prefer to live in an area where I could
find and stay in contact with friends. With this in mind, I think I'm
going to start becoming subtly enthusiastic for a small but quite well
known town which goes by the name of Monza, in the hope that I may be
able to persuade my other half into a compromise, although, it should be
pointed out that apart from the better air, lower ambient noise level,
you can get a much better size of appartment out there. The whole idea
seems to have many more advantages than disadvantages. We shall see.

Share:

Tags:

First real post from my PDA

August 28, 2005 · Filed Under Technology and Gadgets · Comment

Yep, that's right, I've written, or rather, tapped this entry out on my
horribly geeky personal digital assistant. It's actually proving to be
quite a benefit in unexpected ways. For example, my other half moans
when I despair of the TV and plug myself into the www. Now though, I
can stay on the sofa next to my better half, connect wirelessly to the
Internet and everyone is happy. OK, this may seem to be a rather pricey
way of keeping a relationship on the straight and narrow, but anything
which helps deal with the stresses and strains of city life and
parenthood has to be worth its weight in gold - well almost.

I shall apologise in advance for any spelling errors or otherwise which
may creep into my posts via PDA. I shall blame them on the tiny wee
screen.

I do rather like this digital lifestyle, though.

Share:

Tags: computer, Dell Axim, pocket pc, technology

Nothing ever changes

August 28, 2005 · Filed Under Thoughts · Comment

While in the UK I picked up a book lying around my parents house. It was a book called 'The Guinness book of Flying Blunders' and it has made fascinating reading. However, what made the most impression on me was how the politicians of the period seemed to be about as competent as those of today, in other words not very good at their jobs. OK, in peacetime (almost) blunders do not generally lead to deaths, but in wartime the level of poor organisation and insane decision making literally cost lives. 'Hindsight' (il senno di poi), I hear you utter - with it mistakes are that much easier to identify and criticise. True, would be my reply, but, I would add, 'How about learning from one's mistakes?'.

The human race is not that good at learning from past errors, (I'm not too hot at this either, I suppose) and this surprises me, especially seeing as we make our kids study history at school. We pump their little heads full of often quite useless facts about big battles and important Queens, but, we do not tell them how these significant events have shaped now. Well, they did not in my day. This is one big mistake if, as I suspect, the situation in our schools has not changed. Sort of makes studying history a bit of a waste of time. Here, I should perhaps mention that up to sixteen years of age I loved history and it was certainly my favourite subject. However, my love of this subject was almost eradicated by the dreadful teaching I was faced with while I was in sixth form.

Why is it that live and society just seem to go round in constant circles?

Share: