Chaos in Part of Milan this Morning
When I got to the business school in the Fiera area of Milan this morning, at around 9, I found just about all the classrooms deserted. Oops, I’ve arrived far too early, I thought. I checked the time, and it was indeed around 9, on both my trusty mobiles.
Very odd. I had noticed that the traffic was a little heavier than normal, but this happens from time to time, and whenever there is an accident somewhere or other in Milan.
In an effort to understand just what had happened I asked the two or so staff who had made it into work, and was told that the red underground line had been having some problems.
The knock-on effect was incredible, with many of the students, and I imagine many office workers, not managing to arrive much before 10, and other students continued to drift in throughout the morning, even if a few did give up the struggle and return home. A couple of people I met had had to walk a mile or so to get to work. Total chaos.
The disruption of this single line managed reverberate enough to bring just about the whole of this usually fast moving area of Milan to a virtual standstill for more or less a whole morning.
Very strange. A funny start to a Friday if ever there was one.
Will He Stay or Will He Go Now?
This is the question many Italians will be asking each other regarding Prodi’s chances of surviving the confidence vote his government is about to face. Oddly enough, it does appear as though Prodi may manage to hang on by the skin of his teeth. We shall see.
Actually, Prodi is quite highly regarded outside of Italy - as a recent article in the Financial Times pointed out, and certain members of his team have been quietly beavering away and achieving a few things. For example, there has been a crack down on tax evasion, and systems are finally being installed that will make it much more difficult for Italians to avoid paying up. The recent introduction of personalised pharmacy receipts is an example of this.
What is even odder (except for the opposition run Mediaset) is that the media in general seem to ignore any of this government’s achievements, and Prodi is not exactly the ‘blowing his own trumpet type’ either. This does not help too much, especially in the face of media-savvy Berlusco who knows a thing or two about blowing trumpets, and is not at all averse to it. However, with a few notable exceptions, it’s almost as if the much of the nation lacks a good deal of self-confidence, which is strange seeing as there is no shortage of talent here, and many Italian brands are well known at an international level.
Even at a local level, Italy is choc-a-block full of entrepreneurs, and the Lombardy region, I was reading on Wikipedia, can boast one of the highest per capita GDPs in the whole world, higher even than Saudi Arabia! This shows just what Italy and its population can do when they want to.
Just because everyone else is being pessimistic about this country, does not mean that I have to be too, even if I do grumble about many things here. I shall just say that my relationship with Italy is a little like that of the school teacher who knows that his or her pupil can, not could, but can, do better, much better. Not that Italy is ‘my pupil’, but I think you will understand what I’m trying to say.
Search lights over Milan
I don’t know if anyone else noticed, but the night sky was lit up by around four searchlights on Sunday and Monday night. When I first saw these beams of light, I thought it was something to do with Ferrari winning the F1 championship, but I don’t know why the lights continued to shine on Monday. Maybe Milan is expecting an alien invasion or something. Then again, the local power company may have been trying to burn off a few excess watts of energy production. Who knows. Well I don’t. If someone could ‘enlighten’ me, I’d be all ears.
Ok, so I chatted with the vet
On the way back from picking up a few things from the supermarket, I decided to drop in at the vets and have a word about giving our pup raw meat. At first, the vet said it is not good, basically because dogs are no longer wild animals and there is potentially dangerous bacteria in raw meat that domesticated dogs cannot handle. But when I pointed out many humans in Italy eat raw meat, that dogs sniff dog excrement, and that I had a dog that ate wild rabbits etc to no ill effect, he changed his tune a wee bit.
He still maintained that the mass produced dried dog foods are specially studied and prepared to provide our four legged friends with a balanced diet blah blah, but seemed to concede that there is nothing that definately states that giving dogs raw meat can do them harm, although he seemed to think that there might be long term negative effects. What these effects may be, we did not go into. He did say that humans should not eat raw meat, because it can be dangerous for them. So no more raw sausages, carpaccio, and uncooked mince for us bipeds.
My other half, though, remains unconvinced despite my arguments, and thinks that giving our dog raw meat will not do him any good, even though I said that I only wanted to supplement his diet, which means one meal a day or so of raw meat and other meals using the dried dog food. My opinion is that the meat will reduce the possibility that our town living dog will end up with mysterious allergies and the other signs of poor health that come from living in our pollution ridden city. Alas, other half does not want to hear about the positive results of American and Swedish research into the effects of what are oft called BARF type diets.
What will I do? I shall go against the grain, even if the direction in which the grain runs is not too clear, and continue to feed our pup some good old raw meat. If this causes problems, and I really do not think it will, I will be happy to admit that I was wrong.
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