The man at the top

January 13, 2006 · Filed Under Italian politics · Comment

Mr B, the boss of Italy and many things within the country, is gearing up for the elections. Late last year, when I should have commented on this, Milan was beset with hoardings bearing the B mans smiling face and stating all the good things Mr B and his minions have done for Italy. One of these statements caught my attention - it stated that Italy and Italians where well respected throughout the world. This struck me as being a wee bit odd seeing as the Economist, last year, had run an article about Italy being the sick old man of Europe, two large Italian companies had almost hit bankruptcy as a result of the less than honest actions of their senior managers and the head of the bank of Italy, no less, was being investigated for insider dealing, amongst other things. Such incidents do not generally create a healthy level of respect for a nation. Perhaps, just perhaps, Mr B should have cancelled this particular advertising campaign, which I suspect probably made many Italians feel rather sick - but I'm only a foreigner, so I know nothing about the place really and I'm probably a communist too.

It seems as though the Fazio affair has led to a nice little can of worms being opened, and buried in the midst of the writhing worms it would seem that there are certain members of parties in opposition to the B man. Needless to say, Mr B is attempting to milk this golden opportunity for all it is worth in an attempt to win the elections once more. I pity the poor voters - the choice seems to be between bank robbers and ad men, both of whom are renown for their rather loose interpretation of the concept of honesty. Of course, if Italians were really lucky, they could have a top politico like Mr 'rispect' Blair as the king of their castle.

With leaders of the present calibre, the human race will be lucky to see the end of this century. And my son is growing up in the middle of all this - heck if I could send him back, I would - for his own sake. Those 'Tears for Fears' guys had a point.

Could I do better? Probably not - but there must be someone out there who can, or do, as someone close to me once commented, we just get what we deserve?

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Tags: Italian, Italy

Pigeons with flu

January 13, 2006 · Filed Under Italy, Thoughts · Comment

Well, this bird flu thing has got to Turkey, which not too far from sunny Italy. It appears that the people who caught this severe form of flu, caught it from birds. From what I understand wild birds can transmit the virus to domestic birds. The people who keep these domestic birds then come into contact with their excrement or blood and thus contract this form of flu. So far, the experts are saying, there have been no cases of the human form of bird flu being passed directly from one person to another. All well and goodish.
My conclusion: It is unlikely that those who do not keep or work with birds will contract this flu.

This sort of allayed my fears until I thought about the pigeon poo on our balcony and all the pigeons which reside in the eaves of our appartment building. It would not be beyond the actions of a two year old to go sticking his little fingers in pigeon poo. Worries me this does. Yet what can we do? Not a fat lot. Live in hope.

I did think about eliminating the pigeons initially, but there are so many that this would be virtually impossible and I would feel sorry for the poor beasties. I also learnt that, whereas in the UK pigeons are considered pests and may be shot, here in Italy it is actually illegal to shoot or attempt to kill the things by any other method. I find this a little odd in a country which serves up tiny little birds, frogs, snails, horse and donkey. Still, I guess you cannot eat pigeons (would you even want to eat the diseased feather dusters you find in cities) in Italy, which would seem to be odd seeing as you can eat just about everything else.

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