Mar
30

Of salami and ties

2006 | Filed Under Work | Leave a Comment

I sometimes receive small presents from my students. Today I got two. One very kind student brought me a 'salami di Felino' (before you ask - it's got nothing to do with dead cats) and the other gave me a teddy bear tie. Yes, a tie with teddy bears all over it. It's not new, it's just that my friendly student did not want it anymore because it was a bit 'over the top' in his eyes and he had noticed that I often sport what Italians would define as being rather racy ties. In actual fact the tie he gave me is a trendy teddy tie by Moschino and it is very nice. I put it on immediately. The great thing about it is that from a distance the teddies are not visible, so others just think it's an ordinary patterned tie. Once you get up close you realise that the colourful designs are teddies. Just the mix of subtly and fun that I like. Very good.

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Mar
30

The plural of ‘mouse’

2006 | Filed Under Thoughts | 5 Comments

As most of you will know the plural of the word 'mouse' happens to be 'mice'. This really is a great shame and I shall explain why. One of my students said 'mouses' this evening, an error I have heard on quite a few occasions, being a teacher of English, however I have to say that I have grown rather fond of the word 'mouses'. It sounds rather cute, almost onamatapaeic in a way.

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Mar
29

Sorting out old and new links

2006 | Filed Under This blog | Leave a Comment

Been seriously busy of late - so have not had time to add back all my links after having re-designed, sort of, this blog. Things are still a little work in progress. Actually, my life is 'work in progress', come to think about it……..

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Mar
28

The French connection

2006 | Filed Under Italian politics | Leave a Comment

There has been quite a lot on the TV here about the rioting in France over the attempts of the French politicos to introduce new employer friendly employment contracts. After seeing all the goings on, I sort of suspected that the word 'militant' might have been French in origin until I checked and found that Latin was to blame.

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Mar
21

In the deep heat of winter

2006 | Filed Under Italy | Leave a Comment

As I write this I am sweltering. Drops of sweat are forming on my forehead (and my armpits are sweaty too - sorry). I am in a tee-shirt and contemplating taking off my trousers. The heat is just too much, yet I am not allowed to open a window and let a nice cooling draft waft through the place as this may have a detrimental effect on our little one's health and probably cause all of us to die a horrible painful cold related death.

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Mar
20

Confusion rocks

2006 | Filed Under Technology and Gadgets, Thoughts | Leave a Comment

I was listening to my faithful mp3 player the other day when the track 'Ride like the wind' came on. It's a track which is quite heavy rock, but melodic at the same time. While I was listening I thought 'It's a long time since I have heard a nice bit of hard driving rock', so, while I was in the centre of Milan looking for a grammar book, I decided to pop down to the music section and look for 'Ride like the wind', which for some reason I was convinced was by Steppenwolf. Anyway, although I managed to find a couple of Steppenwolf albums, I could not find said track. Indeed, I never would have done because I could not remember the name of the track and, I later discovered, it was done by Saxon, not Steppenwolf. At least I got the first letter right.

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Mar
16

A spring in the air

2006 | Filed Under Italy | Leave a Comment

We are fast approaching the end of March and the weather is becoming steadily more clement. I've stopped bothering to take a scarf and my goose down coat is feeling a little too warm for comfort - when the sun is bearing down on me, I cook. Must be a bit like being stuck in a microwave.

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Mar
16

Hi Tech buses?!

2006 | Filed Under Italy, Technology and Gadgets | Leave a Comment

Yes, that's right, the humble buses here in Milan are becoming packed with technology. Some examples: there are the little cameras that the driver uses to ensure that the bus doors don't crush some OAP, then there is the digital dashboard that the driver stares at and the oversize LEDs which display the number and destination, not to mention the little green touch sensitive buttons which are supposed to let you open the bus doors and we must not forget the air conditioning and the announcements from bus control over the speaker system. The things also have special self-adjusting suspension for allowing wheelchair bound persons to get on and off. The list is almost endless.

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Mar
15

Mr Media and the Professor

2006 | Filed Under Italian politics | Leave a Comment

I caught a short part of the TV pre-election duel between Mr B and Mr P(rodi) last night (My son was demanding to hear 'music' on my PC). Today, I heard that around 16 million Italians tuned into last night's shootout - more out of curiosity than anything else, I suspect.

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Mar
15

E-book experience - part 2

2006 | Filed Under Technology and Gadgets | Leave a Comment

I've been reading my e-book today and I have to say that it is not such a bad experience after all. I'd prefer to have a larger screen so I can get more text on it, but this is just a psychological problem of mine - I can't help comparing these e-books with the old paper variety. I find I want new technology to resemble something I'm used to, but only when the technology is attempting to replace some commonly used everyday item, such as a book. The diary program on my pocket pc (A very nice program called Agenda Fusion) both mimics traditional diaries and improves on them, which is just what technology should do, I reckon. Of course, I am rather old, so I do have experience with old technology which interferes with my usage of new tech items. I don't suppose my son will think too much about these things, though.

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Mar
14

E-book experience

2006 | Filed Under Technology and Gadgets | Leave a Comment

Eee by gum, as they have been known to utter in deepest darkest Yorkshire, I've been exploring the infinite expanse that is the e-book market (got carried away a little - the e-market is far from expansive), having installed a thing called Mobipocket reader on my trusty Pocket PC. I also downloaded a free copy of Sun Tzu's 'The Art of War' to give myself some front line experience of the ebook world. Once I've battled through this tome, I should be in a position to say - 'I am an ebook legionnaire' or, possibly, 'ebooks - nice idea, but they won't win any wars.'

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Mar
14

Popular demand

2006 | Filed Under This blog | Leave a Comment

After having been advised, very nicely, that my blog looks better but seems to be rather pallid, I fired up my sophisticated css editor program and used its colour picker to select a new wallpaper colour. This sledgehammer-nut approach has left my blog posts with a subtle shade of green under them.

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