Honesty is not the best policy, in Italy.
While reading the English version of Beppe Grillo’s wonderful blog I found a rather worrying entry, well, more worrying than the rest. Mr Grillo does not paint a wonderful picture of the Italian establishment at the best of times, but this was almost shocking.
From the entry here, it would appear that many of the country’s ‘leaders’ are indeed convicted criminals. 25 honourable members have actually been convicted of some rather interesting crimes, not the sort of non-payment of speeding fines thing, but more serious stuff. How the heck these people can be charged with running a country is a little beyond me. In actual fact once a little political back scratching has been eliminated the number of IMPs who are either under investigation, have been investigated but got away as a result of time-barring laws, and who have actually been convicted the total comes to around 82, or around 10% of the Italian parliament.
Take a look at the list and see for yourself.
Now if anyone would like to offer me some gainful employment in the States or Canada, please will they get in touch. I pity the vast majority of Italians, they do not really deserve this.
As I said in a recent previous post - Italy is a great place for holidays.
Damn, I miss the car.
This time last year I got rid of my car. I hardly used the thing, so getting rid of it was the right thing to do. However, we are moving towards the summer break and the idea of hauling child and stuff around on the train does not enthrall me. One of are options is to go and spend some time with my nice, but older generation in-laws, whose idea of a good time seems to be passing the time of day playing cards or watching some mind numbing Italian TV program. They are a wee bit different from my own parents who pass the time by going out with friends, messing around in their large garden and, in the case of my 70 plus year old dad, building a car. As you may expect, I’m a little reluctant to hole up with the in-laws without having some form of transport at my disposal. This is why I miss the car.
I think I’m going to hire a car for a couple of weeks so I can keep in-laws happy by showing off the little one and keep myself from boredom overload by wandering off to explore the lovely countryside which surrounds the in-laws soon to be sold country retreat. I’d quite like to take a tent so I can sleep outside in the garden, but this will horrify the in-laws who are convinced that it is too damp and that I shall contract some illness or other. It has not, however, crossed their minds that the inhabitants of countries such as Ireland, Norway and Scotland don’t seem to suffer too badly from the damp despite living with it all year round. My parents even took my brother and myself camping in very damp old Scotland, but we are here to tell the tale. Old wives theories seem to abound here in the living museum.
Right, now I’m going to speak to someone I know who works for a certain company known as Avis. He should be able to get me a good deal.
Summer hols, here I come!
PS Italy is one great place for holidays.
My computer is suffering from the heat
I used my compressed air to blow out some of the dust from the vents on my laptop, and I even locked the CPU fan with a bent paper clip to stop it from be spun to death by the high speed air. Good I thought that will sort out the high temperature readings. Only it did not.
I switched on my trusty PC and started up the Speedfan temperature monitoring utility. The temperature hit 90°C and my PC shut down just about instantly. Cripes, I thought. Time for a new laptop. Hope I actually get some cash this month.
Once I had calmed down a bit, I had another go with the air spray in the hope that I might clear some blockage or other. Then I switched the poor overheated thing back on. It fired up normally and the temp gauge has been showing a steady 55°C all day, much to my relief. My wallet, credit card and bank account also breathed a sigh of relief too. Summer is a great time when you are self employed, you get the tax bill followed by the VAT bill all in quick succession and when your in a ‘I have the cash, but it’s not quite yet in my bank account’ type cash-flow problem, all this extra expense can make what is already a hot and bothersome period, yet hotter and more bothersome.
Thanks be to the creator that my laptop is whirring away doing its amazing stuff as per usual.
-
Photos from Flickr
-
Ads
-
-
