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When Digital Television is not Digital

February 1, 2010 Italian TV 7 Comments

For a long time I thought we were lucky enough to have the new fangled, all singing and dancing, much vaunted digital television.  No silly little set top box for us, or so I thought.

I was wrong.  Just after Christmas our digital television provider Fastweb stopped transmitting Italy’s state RAI television channels.  The transmission ceased in readiness for the completion of the transition from analogue to digital television in Italy, I learned.

This was the point when I realized that the digital television service we had watched for a good few years was not as digital as I thought it was.

Losing RAI was bad news, as the only other half-decent television channels which remained were something called channel 7, which rarely shows anything worth watching, and Berlusconi’s free-to-air three: Rete 4, Italia 1 and Channel 5.

We wanted RAI back, and, thankfully, we got our way.

So why wasn’t our supposedly digital television not actually digital?  If you are curious, read on.

… Continue Reading

Sold Out, the First Edition of New Italian Newspaper Il Fatto Quotidiano

September 23, 2009 Italy news 4 Comments

Il Fatto Quotidiano is a new newspaper which hit Italy’s news-stands today.  By Italian standards, this newspaper is quite a bit different from others to be found in Italy.

Il Fatto Quotidiano - New Italian Newspaper

Il Fatto Quotidiano - New Italian Newspaper

In a way, Italy’s newest national newspaper got off to a good start today, in that I could not find a copy at my local news-stand.

There must have been quite a lot of  interest, because the same news-stand bore a hand-written note announcing the fact that copies of Il Fatto Quotidiano had sold out.  I was told that only a few copies had arrived, and from what I’ve understood via Facebook, others have been unable to obtain a copy of what has already come to be known a ‘Il fatto’.

I’ve asked my news-stand to reserve a copy of tomorrow’s edition of Il Fatto Quotidiano for me, by the way.

Why all this interest in a newspaper in Italy?  Well, Il Fatto Quotidiano is run by the Italian equivalents of Woodward and Bernstein, for a start. But there’s more.

… Continue Reading

Abruzzo – Castles and Controversy

September 16, 2009 Italy news 6 Comments

Onna in Abruzzo was one of the many places virtually raised to the ground by the earthquake which hit the Italian region of Abruzzo back in April of this year.  Yesterday, and to much fanfare, ninety four new dwellings were handed over to around 300 people who lost their homes in the earthquake.

The small village of Onna, which was utterly destroyed by the earthquake, has come to symbolise the plight of the people of Abruzzo, and this is why the first new homes were completed in this part of the earthquake struck area.

In England there is an old saying which goes, ‘An Englishman’s home is his castle’, as some may know.  Being English, as I am, I suppose the 47 new houses are the new ‘castles’ for the Abruzzo people.  These castles are made of wood and cost between 30,000 and 60,000 Euros a piece.  The units themselves were built in northern Italy by the Trentino local authority, and then taken to Abruzzo where they were assembled.  While not permanent, these new homes will allow a few of the 36,000 people displaced by the quake to begin rebuilding their lives.

Around 11,000 people are still living in tent cities in the Abruzzo region, whereas 25,000 continue to be put up in hotels along the Abruzzo cost.  Progress has been made, and in Italian terms, it has been made in record time too, even if one or two comments I read on Facebook yesterday suggested that incentives in the form of backhanders may have speeded the construction of the new homes.  If things move too fast in Italy, people become suspicious.

Aside from suspicions of corruption, the inauguration of the first new castles in Abruzzo was accompanied by a few healthy doses of controversy.

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Berlusconi the Paedophile?

May 8, 2009 Italy news 2 Comments

The headline in today’s edition of Libero, a centre-right Italian newspaper, is Tesi: Silvio Pedofilo – Thesis: Silvio Paedophile.

The paper, which is pro-Berlusconi, was expressing its indignation over the insinuation made in Annozero, a political chat show on Italian television .

Michele Santoro, who hosts this chat show, has never been a great Berlusconi fan, it has to be said.

Last night, Santoro, ably assisted by another anti-Berlusconi ally, in the form of author, Marco Travaglio, left certain people with the impression, that the picture being painted of Silvio Berlusconi was that of his being a paedophile.

Funnily enough, I was waiting for such a supposition to break the surface of the Italian media sea, and now, it has. … Continue Reading

When Cure is Better Than Prevention

April 15, 2009 Italy news 3 Comments

Feeling a bit sick, I am.  The head of Italy’s Civil Protection service, Guido Bertolaso, was interviewed on the Italian RAI 24 news channel this evening.

Effectively Bertolaso stated that had Italy’s politicians actually bothered to insist on the enforcement of anti-earthquake building measures, then much of the loss of life and damage which occurred in the Abruzzo quake, and an earlier earthquake in which a school collapsed on its pupils, could have been prevented.

Trouble is, according to Bertolaso, there is just no political mileage in prevention, which is why Italy’s politicians did not worry about this issue.  There was also an anonymous letter in the Epolis free newspaper in Milan laying the blame for the death and destruction firmly at the door of Italy’s dysfunctional institutions.  What a country.

And now censorship is entering the crazy Italian political equation.

… Continue Reading

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Italy News

Francesco Cossiga Understood Italy

18 Aug 2010

For those who did not know, Francesco Cossiga, who died the other day, was an Italian politician and one time President of Italy. Cossiga hailed from Sardinia, was a fan of John Le Carre and had earned himself the nickname “the pickaxe” owing to his no holds barred criticism of other Italian politicians.

Berlusconi v Fini – Slinging Old Mud

12 Aug 2010

As you may be aware, the generally tumultus world of Italian politics is in turmoil. The Berlusconi government is teetering on the brink of collapse, but what is really surprising, is that this collapse was sparked from the inside.

Berlusconi Divorces Fini

30 Jul 2010

Kotipizza Berlusconi

From spat to full-blown split. Silvio Berlusconi’s marriage of political convenience to Gianfranco Fini has ended in tears. Scorned lover Berlusconi even rejected Fini’s last minute attempts to kiss and make up and remain part of Berlusconi’s party of love. End of love in. Period.

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