When progress isn’t.

I got my nice shiny new travel pass last week. It's one of those high tech credit card sized cards with a chip built in to it. Very flash. Trouble is it's not as convenient as the old paper model. With the old 'tree unfriendly' model I could waft on and off buses, trams and the metro in an almost painless fashion and I even stood a sporting chance of getting a seat, seeing as I did not have to fiddle about getting my ticket stamped. I could also get a new monthly pass from just about any old tobacconists or from many news kiosks. Easy peasy!

Enter tram door left, high tech digi-card. No more wafting on and off for me, oh no. Now I have to place the card next to a reader every time I get on a bus or a tram – no chance of getting a seat now – especially as I often need to hunt around to find the reader thingy. Black mark one.

Now, how about getting my digi-pass charged up. This trendy chip is a bit too flash for newsagents and ciggie stores, and so far, they don't seem to have had the appropriate machines installed.

My story: OK, I'll check out one of the many new machines located in the underground stations, or so I thought. Got there, only had a 50 Euro note and the machine would only give me 9 Euros 95 cents change – this did not seem a great deal seeing as I only had to fork out 30 Euros. I noticed that the machine details that it can accept Euro notes of up to 200 Euro denominations and wandered how many people had pressed buttons, inserted notes and then got a wee bit miffed when the machine proudly spurted out 9 Euros 95 in change. I'd love to be there when (or should I say, the next time) this happens. Anyway, I hopped on a train and hopped off at Cadorna, which luckily has an ATM point (a sort of shop were you can get tickets and stuff) and one of those charming machines which dishes out numbers to avoid queue jumping. They should have told the old bloke who jumped in front of me – although he acted out of pure confusion, not malice, so I didn't get cross about it. Black mark two.

The act of recharging was actually quite painless, although you seem to need to keep the paper receipts you get to help you remember just from when to when your digi-card will be valid. Otherwise there seems to be no quick way of knowing. With the old paper travel passes you could see at a glance for how long your ticket was valid, 'coz it said 'March 2005' on it. Another black mark to technology.

The big brother bit. As I'm now required to have my digi-pass read every time I jump on or use public transport, the powers-that-be may track my progress around Milan. They can see where I go and at what time. Bye, bye privacy. Grey mark.

Great shame really, because at 30 Euros a month, the travel pass is exceptionally good value – which is why I shall persist. I only hope others will not be put off and, heaven forbid, resort to the dreaded automobile, thus upping the already stratospheric pollution levels here.

The differences between girls and boys.

Until I actually became a father, I sort of believed that boys and girls started off the same. What I mean is that I believed that girls were encouraged to play with toys aimed at their sex and boys, likewise, played with toys that were intended to turn them into, well, boys. You probably think I am daft, and you, dear reader, probably knew this all along, but I didn't, not really. The fact that I'd never really given it a thought until I had a child, is about the only excuse I can offer for my ignorance. I apologise for this.

Anyway, boys, it seems, do seem to like playing with toy cars and soldiers, and find running around shooting things good fun. Not that much different to the adults they eventually grown into, in actual fact. Little girls, on the other hand, seem to prefer pretty clothes, imitations of baby humans, jewelry and other feminine objects and pursuits. I would also mention that despite having been encouraged to play with boys' toys, my son's little cousin has resolutely stuck to activities and items which are more suited to girls. Like our son's cousin's mother, I too rather believed that the role of the sexes was more a result of conditioning, and thus not necessarily related to our biological and physiological make up.

I was wrong.

I think I'm a little slow on occasion. No, maybe it's just that I am a little slow. Full stop.

And finally…..

…after a bout of pretty chilly weather, the snow finally arrived, covering Milan with a snug blanket of deep snow. 'Wonderful' is the only word to describe it, unless, of course, you need to travel any great distance. Luckily for me, my 'out and about' work for the week had all but come to an end and my final two hour session was supposed to have been with a guy who lives well outside Milan. When he rang me back, he explained that he had been trying to extricate his car from snow in the area of the hostpital which he had just visited. Needless to say, our meeting was put off until another day.

Despite the widespread chaos; it began snowing early on Friday morning, and apart from stopping for a while last night, it has continued to snow all through the day; we managed to drop our little one off at his council run day nursery (And later observed that his much more expensive private ex-nursery was closed – very odd – the public sector outdid the private for a change). Then, after having seen a jam-packed tram, my other half decided that going to work would not be a great idea and so we decided to wander down to the

Sempione Park and on towards the centre of Milan. We took quite a number of photos, too. I've uploaded a few below:

On the left is a street near where we live.

Below you will see a couple of bikes which were most probably not used much today.

This is the playground which our little one often drags us to:

And finally, here is a photo of myself posing for the camera in Milan's castle's courtyard:

It was a glorious day and the park became magical. There was even the sound of a river provided courtesy of the cars driving along the roads around the park. The sound they made as they drove through the salty slush which covered the streets was exactly the same as that of a fast flowing river. It was almost surreal.

A fabulous Friday, it was. It's 11pm and the snow has finally stopped, but if it all turns to ice things will be fun tomorrow. Whatever the case, we shall be out and about enjoying the temporary transformation of the city as for as long as it lasts.

Shame it came after Christmas, though.

Long day

Am again considering having myself cloned. Then while one of me was at work, the other could be at home doing other stuff. It's one of those busy periods when I find myself up to my ears in work. This is great from a financial point of view in that it may help cover some of those slack periods. The thing about working for yourself is that you don't get holiday or sick pay and the tax man makes no allowances for these either. Sob. Sob.

For some unknown reason the first few months of the year have always been busy for me work wise.

I just hope my voice, poor instrument, holds out. I'm using it for rather too many hours a day and although I do try to keep my TTT to a minimum, it is just not always possible. I suppose I could always just record all of those phrases I find myself repeating over and over again.

An ode to my favourite gadget

My pocket PC. It's great. Apart from being able to keep a record of what I'm getting up to, it can send emails, show me my photos, surf the net, read my beloved .pdf files, nag, er, remind me not to procrastinate, help me check the meanings of words, let me look at (small versions) just about every document I'm using at the moment, keep information in one nice easy place, play music and show me films(but I don't bother with these functions, 'coz of my magic MP3 player and our big TV). It can also talk to my mobile phone (scintillating conversations they have too, I can assure you) and it makes a fine cup of tea (joke).

Of all the gadgets I have or have had, it's one of the most useful and is used more than my phone, which is saying something. It is so dinky and portable that I can take just about anywhere.

British for children

Does the title of this entry make sense? If so, please enlighten me. And perhaps the education authorities here in Milan, for it was they who entitled a section in their brochure promoting infant schools with these words. The title in Italian is "Inglese per bambini", which, thankfully is more likely to be understood correctly by parents flicking through this booklet. It's not a typo either, seeing as this expression is repeated within the text of the section.

Before they go about teaching children English, maybe they should study the language.

I did (note the use of the past tense) have quite a lot of faith in the Italian education system.

I don't know. I really don't.