Nov
30

Self-conscious three point five year old

2006 | Filed Under Italy, Me, My son | 1 Comment

My three and a half year old son has been saying ‘Voglio un papa Italiano’ recently - this means ‘I want an Italian dad’.  He still wants me to be his dad, luckily, but he would prefer me to be Italian, which is a little difficult seeing as I’m English and all that.  What he really means is that he wants me to speak to him in Italian, which is something I will not do, at least not until he is able to speak English as well as or better than myself.

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Nov
29

Skeletons

2006 | Filed Under Italy, Milan | 1 Comment

While walking down my street I notice them tied to lamp posts or fixed to the upside down U shaped things designed to stop people from parking on the pavements.  Some appear to be in perfect condition.  But the poor objects seem to have been forgotten, no longer cherished, but abandoned by their owners.  Their loneliness does not, however go unnoticed by others who often give them a cruel kick hard enough to cause a once essential part of their anatomies to buckle.  These objects start to look a little unwell and, if they had not truly been abandoned before, then they surely will be now.  And they are.

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Nov
27

Language level test

2006 | Filed Under Language, Work | 1 Comment

Quite a while back I cooked up a 90 question multiple choice test to help me divide groups of between 30 and 50 people into two or four sub-groups.  My test has proved to be very effective and certainly speeds up the process of dividing classes into groups.

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Nov
27

When banal is good.

2006 | Filed Under Italy, Language, Work | 2 Comments

I spoke to someone who complemented me on my work website - englishisin.com.  She said that although the advice on it was ‘banale’ it actually made sense.  The part she was referring to was my technique for training your mind to think in English.  The method I propose is to start by looking around and naming objects in your head directly in English, then start trying to form simple sentences describing your environment, again in your mind and directly in English.  Once you are adept at this you can start thinking about your plans for the day and so on.

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Nov
27

Antique terms

2006 | Filed Under Italy | 5 Comments

My other half, who works in the antiques trade, often sends me texts to translate, check and correct. The only trouble is that I am not all that hot on expressions such as bombature, rocailles, modanate and baccelliere (this last one is ‘bachelor’ sometimes…). But I got ‘ebanistici’ to be ‘cabinet maker’, which seemed to fit quite well. Our usual way round this is to leave them as they are, in Italian, and hope that those working in this field know what the blazes these terms mean. Maybe I am wrong, but attempting to translate some furniture terminology is quite possibly like trying to translate words used on musical scores such as ‘allegro’, ‘forte’ or ‘pianissimo’, ie not really necessary. At least I hope so.

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Nov
27

Arrogance

2006 | Filed Under Me | 6 Comments

I have been accused of being arrogant and self-opinionated, which of course is totally untrue, says he lying through his teeth. The other day an old friend from the UK asked me if I was still self-opinionated and I, honestly I thought, said that I was, or rather I am. While I’m not that proud of this aspect of my character, I have to admit that it has helped me a little bit. After all, believing in yourself is not always such a bad thing, but if you believe in yourself too much you become labelled as arrogant. This is possibly, no definitely, why some people dislike me at first contact, although such people are, thankfully, quite few and far between and others seem to be able to look deeper and understand that there is more there.

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Nov
27

Privacy laws

2006 | Filed Under Italian politics | 4 Comments

I keep on hearing about the fabled Italian privacy laws, so the other day I took a look at the actual wording of the laws. I shall have another go, seeing as I got a little lost in all the cross referencing that went on and did not really come away feeling as though I had understood that much. Above all, I did not really manage to follow all the references to sub-clauses and other articles, although I had done something similar with property laws in the UK in another life, so I know it can be done if you have enough time.  Making laws nice and convoluted is a great way of ensuring that only those who can engage lawyers can really benefit from them.  It also keeps certain groups of politicians in power.

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Nov
27

Brioni

2006 | Filed Under Good Italian Things | Leave a Comment

You will know the names Versace, Armani and D&G, but I wonder how many know of Brioni. The company has been around since 1945.

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Nov
25

Italian TV, yet again

2006 | Filed Under Italian TV | Leave a Comment

Good news. Apparently I’m not alone in thinking Italian TV stinks. Indeed the TV news carried a story about the introduction of a new code of practice designed to raise and maintain the quality of TV programming.

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Nov
19

Cappelleria Melegari

2006 | Filed Under Milan - My Zone | Leave a Comment

Cappelleria Melegari is mainly a hat shop. Why am I writing about it? Well, it’s just one of the many characteristic shops which you can find in Italy, where the chain store uniformity has yet to take hold. Cappelleria Melegari is an example of just how wonderful shops can be. It sells more than just hats, you can find shirts, including my favourite grandad shirts, jackets, womens’ wear and childrens’ clothing, not to mention other winter gear such as gloves and scarves. The prices are not low, but the quality certainly is. It does not restrict itself to Italian clothing and accessories either, you will find stuff from the UK, Ireland and even Australia, plus a few other places. Then there are the hats.

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Nov
16

Dell 6400 - update

2006 | Filed Under Technology and Gadgets | Leave a Comment

I’ve had my new Dell 6400 laptop for a couple of months now and I thought I would write a bit about my impressions so far.

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Nov
16

Confusion reigns

2006 | Filed Under Italian politics | Leave a Comment

Just what Prodi and his government are up to is anyone’s guess at the moment.  Reforms, or rather changes, are being discussed right left and centre, but the nature of all the proposals seems to change from one day to the next.  Proposals for new taxes or changes to existing taxes seem to come and go.  It all smells of pre-Berlusco Italian government, that is one man is trying to keep all and sundry happy, but failing (You have to hand it to Berlusco - at least he managed to keep one government in power for a whole 5 years - a real record in post war Italian politics - I think Guinness have written it into their famous book and I would dearly love to know just how he did it, or maybe I wouldn’t!!) .  All the little factions which make up the current government cannot agree on anything.  And so, as is the way here, enter the no-confidence vote.  This vote has traditionally brought down dilatory and ineffectual Italian governments countless times since WWII.  The trouble is one dilatory and ineffectual Italian government is usually replaced by yet another.  Rinse and repeat.  With Prodi back in the chair Italian politics seems to have gone back to its usual old tricks - revolving door government.  This country could do with a bi or tri-party system so at least everyone could be forced to tow the party line and actually get something done.  This, however, would be far too simple and totally goes against the Italian propensity for complexity.  Many Italian managers still believe that KISS was some old US ‘hard’ rock band, I suspect.  Many Italian politicians, on the other hand, would not even know that KISS was a US rock band…..

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