Batteries of batteries

September 16, 2005 · Filed Under Thoughts · Comment

Almost everything I use these days runs on a battery. They are everywhere. Big ones, little ones, minute ones, light ones, heavy ones, new ones and old ones. No wonder the power generation plants are going into meltdown, it is everyone using up energy to create more energy. Hardly a night goes by without the need for something to be plugged in and recharged.

When I was a wee boy I detested battery powered toys, mainly because the batteries would suddenly run out and interrupt your fun and we never seemed to have any spares in the house either. Now, all my stuff seems to need the things, albeit they are now all rechargeable, well almost all. I often wonder what would happen to this old world if we ran out of electrical power. At least no-one could watch trashy telly, I suppose, which would be a benefit. As for the rest of those things we do from day to day, where would we be? Wouldn't do much good for the likes of Microsoft or even Google. No power, no PCs, no internet. No blogs.

Here is a list of all the things I have that need batteries: No, wait. There are too many and I can't be bothered to write all of them down. Suffice it to say that batteries are everywhere.

Do you ever think about such inane things, dear reader? I do hope not.

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Exactly the Punto

September 16, 2005 · Filed Under Italy · Comment

Fiat, that Italian manufacturer of cars in recent years that nobody bought unless they did know much about or like cars or were able to get a huge discount, may have got it right this time.

This partly state owned megalith is now run by the guy from Ferrari, and it shows in the new Punto, as I hope you can see from the picture:

I don't think it looks at all bad, quite snappy it is actually. It's a little less anonymous than the other CAD, mathematically perfect buzz boxes on the roads today and this gives it a few extra points (or should that be 'Punti', ho ho) in my book.

Things started to go well, er, better for Fiat with the new Panda, which is a nice little car and may even obtain the cult status of is predecessor, although maybe it won't because it is now a 'real' car, whereas before it was a bit of a 'pretend' car, but good fun all the same.

I haven't seen one of these here Puntos in the flesh, so to speak, yet, but I'm looking out for one and hoping that I have not been conned by cool photographers and Photoshop fiddlers. We'll see, but first impressions count, so, so far, I'm impressed.

Oh, did I ever mention that I like cars? No, well I do, it's just that, apart from highly priced exotica which is a wee bit out of my price range, most other modern cars bore my little cotton socks off, so they do.

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Tags: Italian

More Machiavellian naughtiness

September 16, 2005 · Filed Under Italy · Comment

You may have heard about a couple of corporate battle royals which were going on over the taking over of a couple of Italian banks by nasty foreignors.

Italians, it seems, are quite averse to control of Italian businesses going out of Italy. I suppose one can understand this on patriotic grounds, and other countries have done their level best to keep national insitutions, national, too.

One way of keeping the Italian things, dear to you physically close is to seek the help of old school chums. The old school buddy or old school tie network is an integral part of society, throughout the world, and it is widely exploited here in the living museum. I suppose it's a bit like keeping it in the family, but on a larger scale. The 'family' is very strong here - if an Italian had made Star Wars, the famous saying would quite possibly have been 'may the family be with you'.

Well, in order to keep what is now Italian, in the family for the foreseeable future, a certain gentleman, who is the boss of a bank which goes by the unassuming name of the 'Bank of Italy' was caught giving a little help to a few of his friends as a result of the monitoring of phone calls between an old chum of his and whosoever this chum called up. This old schoolmate was being bugged in order to find the ins an outs of some scullduggery he had reportedly been up to. Well, I imagine the investigating team got the shock of their lives when they realised who their suspect was chatting to. Alas, this big bank boss did himself no favours by demonstrating his willingness to help his old mate out. Bad banker.

The overall result of this banker's example of rather dubious business practice is that Italian integrity has taken a(nother) knock for six (Italian readers - that means that Italian integrity has been badly damaged). Needless to say, the governor of the Bank of Italy has been having a bit of a tough time trying to explain away his helpfulness. Lots of people have been saying that this big banker should no longer be banking.

Never a dull moment here.

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