Pasticceria Scarpato - Nice cakes, shame about the website

February 16, 2008 · Filed Under Good Italian Things · 1 Comment

I won’t say how I found out about the site of Italian biscuit and cake maker, Scarpato, but I decided to check it out. Well, I do like Italian food and one of the aims of this blog is to do a little promotion of all things Italian.

So, off I went to have a mosey around.

What I found was a very interesting selection of Italian cakes and pastries, plus a few other goodies, as you can see in this .pdf version of their 2007 Christmas catalogue. Check out the fun turkey and piggy cakes on pages 16 and 18. Very original. However, although these temptations may well tempt you, there is nowhere on Scarpato’s clean looking site that I could find that actually tells you where you can lay your hands on these scrummy looking delights. Neither within Italy or any other countries.

Not knowing where you can find these things is one thing which lets Scarpato’s otherwise nice little site down, the other thing is that the site is only half in English, and even though you may click on the little US/UK flag, this does not guarantee that everything you will see is in English. Maybe I could rustle up a little translation work from them!
What a great shame - lots of tempting treats all locked behind a virtual window. Another wee problem is that many of the cakes are shown on the main site in their decorative wrappings, but you cannot see what the actual cake looks like.

Yes, I know you could try to contact this company via email or phone, but it would save their and yours if they invested a little more effort in their website. I hope they do.

I might ring the Verona based Scarpato up and gently bend their ears over these little oversights.

PS Please let me know if you have heard of this company. I think I have seen their stuff on sale in the shops here, but I don’t think the Scarpato brand has been etched into my brain in the same way as Barilla, for example.

Tags: Christmas, company, contact, email, English, good, interesting, Italia, Italian, Italian food, Italy, phone, products, promotion, translation, website

Walter Veltroni - saviour, or same old, same old?

February 15, 2008 · Filed Under Italians · 3 Comments

My brief profile of Walter Veltroni led to a couple of unexpected reactions. First, I received an email in Italian in support of the man, saying that he really is a great hope for Italy. And then, someone from Stateside asked, very nicely, how to contact Veltroni. No reason was given.

I have to admit that I’ve been quizzing a few Italians about Veltroni recently and nobody I spoke to, young or old, voiced any particular support for the man. Primarily because, he appears to be regarded as nothing new or fresh.

One young man observed that Veltroni had been in politics in Italy for 25 odd years. It is sounding, from this, and other comments, that Italians are seeing through this ‘repackaging’.

But the really worrying thing is that Italian politicians are viewed, especially by the young, as being totally out of touch with the life of the average Italian. Not good, seeing as they are supposed to be representing the people’s wishes.

I must have a look at the Italian constitution in order to see whether Italy’s politicians could be considered to be acting in an unconstitutional fashion.

Italy certainly is an intriguing place!

Tags: comment, comments, contact, email, Italia, Italian, Italian politicians, Italians, Italy, People, Politics, Walter Veltroni, young

Assistance in finding EFL teachers.

October 2, 2007 · Filed Under Work · Comment

I’m planning to use this blog to help English language teachers find, well, other English language teachers in Italy.

If you are an independent language teacher, like me, then you may well have come across the situation in which you have had to turn down work because you simply don’t have the resources to handle it. By resources, I generally mean teachers. As everyone in this game knows, one of the biggest problems is finding good teachers, and good teachers often do not know where to look. Not any more, or that is my hope.

So, if you have a big job coming up, want to expand or simply want to develop a few contacts in your area of Italy, send me some details, and I’ll post them here. I’ll post fuller information on this matter either later today, or tomorrow.

Tags: contact, English, English language, help, Information, Italy, jobs, networking, teachers, teaching, TEFL