Curious

I had a look at Blog from Italy’s world wide rankings according to Alexa’s ranking service today, and I noticed a few interesting things.

First, most of my visitors come from the other side of the Atlantic. This is no great surprise, seeing as the USA is probably the most connected nation on earth. But in a very close second place is Italy. Now that did surprise me, as did my blog’s ranking within Italy: 13707.

I have noticed, and am pleased, that quite a few more Italians have been dropping in and leaving comments recently, but I did not really think they would be that interested in my waffling on about their lovely country. Must have been wrong. Sometimes being wrong is not so bad after all!

The surprises though are not over, though. Quite a few Germans pop in here too, which is great, but again surprises me. I mean I’m sure there are more than a few good German blogs that talk about Italy out on the www.

However, the biggest surprise for me is that people from the Philippines and Singapore are visiting too. Again, I had no idea that people from these countries would find my blog even remotely interesting, but some must - so a big thanks for visiting to my readers from the Philippines and Singapore.

I have to admit that it is little discoveries like this that make blogging so fascinating for me.

Who ever you are, and where ever you are from, please feel free to drop in whenever you like. And thanks for doing so.

Alex - the chap that writes all this, er, stuff

The Unkindest Cut

Our peppy little Manchester Terrier puppy has been causing us a few problems recently. The other day he lunged at a child in a toy shop while I was looking at something with my son. I suspect that Atman, our dog, came within a hair’s breadth of biting the child. This was worrying. Then, on another occasion the pup escaped from our apartment and dashed upstairs where another dog lives.

The other dog’s owner saw our little terror and tried to grab him. Atman the nipper had a go at nipping her too.

Another slight problem, but pretty normal for a dog, is that he starts barking every time he hears someone passing our door, including in the depths of night.

In addition to these, er, behavioural problems, the little chap only has one testicle, and we are not sure if the other one is in there or does not exist. The vet has recommended that he be operated on to either find the missing ball, so to speak, or, chop the existing one off, citing the fact that single testicled dogs do not good fathers make. The emasculation of this little chap fair makes my eyes water. Poor little thing.

In fact this operation is worring me quite a bit. I don’t want the little fellows character to change too much, as I believe can happen after such surgery and I’m a little concerned that he is really only being subjected to this operation to calm him down a little and turn him into an animal more suited to city life. I know it’s not exactly a lobotomy, but in some ways it feels a little like it is.

The fateful day is almost upon us as he has been booked in for the op this coming Wednesday. And this surgical intervention does not come particularly cheap either at 400 Euros.

I think it may be fair to say that male Manchester Terriers are perhaps a little too lively for city life and would be much more at home in a house with a nice rambling garden, which we don’t have, alas.

Hopefully my most prolific commenter and fellow dog owner Gege’ Bau may have some advice to offer before the pup is subjected to his fate.

Radio Millenium 88.7 FM Milan

Radio Millenium is the radio station I listen to most often, mainly because it plays lots of music I really love - 80s music. In other words the kind of stuff that appeals to budding old fogey forty something like me. Not too much advertising during the day either.

You can also listen via the www - just go here and hit Web (Firefox won’t let the media player open, but IE 7 will).

It really is very good, and no nobody is paying me to say this (no beans for the wide angle lens fund!), but even if they were, I would!

Have a listen and let me know just how much of an old fogey I’m becoming.

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