Strikes, bins and so forth...

I'm translating a book for one of my students right now, a book on Jazz Method for Saxophone, a very rare American collector's book with in the back pages a series of loose appendixes and music sheets.
I've been keeping bits to work on at work, and bits to work on at home, however, since last night i decide to launch myself into the final clean up of the room, I made a pile of about 6 kilos of scrap paper and rubbish which I chucked into a bin bag and threw out this morning.
When I returned to the house after various errands, I sat down to start more translating work. After a couple minutes looking for the book, I realised it was devoid of appendixes... Oh-oh...
I searched and searched and scrabbled through my files and rachel's knicker drawers where most archeological discoveries of world-importance can be found, then it suddenly dawned on me that they must have slipped by accident into the giant pile of refuse I had just lumbered into the enormous stinking rotten meat-strewn rubbish tip an hour earlier.
I knew what I had to do, all I needed was moral support, a leg-up and a large stick. Maria, poor thing, was the only one around to stand guard as I prepared to ridicule myself and catapault my wee upper-half headlong into the skip.
I climbed onto a rickety chair and Maria held my legs as I dangled half-in and half out of the skip, arms flailing, cursing the heathens and their mothers, releasing stench after stench as I furiously searched for the paper bag.... I finally found it and scrabbled about, nearly knocking myself in and dragging maria and the rickety chair with me, naturally someone had chucked three large bags full of moudly veg on top of it. I pulled it out with a triumphant smile like a desperate vagrant whose discovered a knobbly turnip end to chew on and the left-overs of pret-a-Manger on top of his cardboard box. I ripped it open with glee, amazing and scaring to bits the toffy-nosed Florentine women going about their daily shopping... Of course, nothing to be found except spine-curdling embarassment and possibly the loss of maria's friendship and respect.
Then I remembered. I'd left them neatly in my inbox at work, safely tucked away despite my complete lack of organisational skills...

still... made a great movie moment. and I won't need to buy another perfume for at least a year, Eau de Pong seems to suit my delicate nature...

Trotted into work around 5 the other day after waiting with rachel like two twonks at the bus stop for half an hour before discovering that there was a strike.
In Italy, knowledge of strikes, or in fact any industrial action such as building works, proletariat cabbage riots, bread rationing and the like is obtained solely by esoteric means. Crystal balls are gazed at, oracles consulted, psychic consultations held. Old grannies seem to pick up the smell of strikes by osmosis in their sleep or have a built in strike-clock. No-one would dare insult our higher intelligence by posting anything so much as a notice or a warning in the vicinity of the bus stop, or announcing it on the website... Pfff, stuff of lesser mortals...

tomorrow there's a journalist's strike and I only know this because it has been prompted in part by Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes's refusal to let paparazzi attend their wedding at Lago di Bracciano thus putting most italian reviews out of intellectual material for the month anyway.

Wild boar, fat pigeons, comic books and car stress

The car practically ran out of gas half-way to Viterbo as we'd been stuck for 1 1/2 hours on the ring road outside of Rome. We'd missed lunch-time, F was so stressed I could literally hear the individual grey hairs sprouting furiously from his fuming skull... Things were bad... We were bumbling along a dirt-track backwards and forwards trying to guess which way was north, me in a desperate silent bid to prevent F's stress levels reaching Def Con 5, hunger munching our stomachs away when we finally communally passed out (including the car) in front of a battered sign on the side of the road that read Taverna Di Campagna. In the distance a plume of smoke rising from beyond the olive groves gave us hope that a hot meal was not lost, even as the clock approach 4...
We bumped down the windy lane through leafy groves and our path opened onto a delightful courtyard of a small farmhouse and barn slap in the middle of vines and cherry trees. Pigeons as fat as geese flapped in their coops above our heads and two large hens cockadoodledooed joyfully in the background. When the bumptious and no-nonsense Bruna emerged from a steamy kitchen behind the barn wafting scents of thick stews and meaty wonders across the yard it became clear that whatever we were about to eat would have been raised, fed, slaughtered, stuffed, grown, hunted, stewed and brewed right there in the fields by mein host and that it would be damn f-ing delicious.
By god it was...

Arrivederci Prato...

Oh how I weep over the corpse of dear industrial wasteland prato... Blubber, blubber...
Indeed the day of my fleeing approacheth, and about bloody time too!
After 7 hours of sweating my way through the Rome metro, three hairy offices, endless sun-shines-out-of-your-corporate-bottom grins of approval and worship and 10 litres of eagerly proffered coca-cola, Cobra Group, Appco Direct, McDonalds/Microsoft/Big Corpogloba-world-wide/money-grubbing industry hobnobbins GAVE ME A JOB!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WOOOOHOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm getting out of this flea-ridden cesspit strewn with the corpses of nameless immigrant spawn chained to walls in filthy hovels stirring vats full of beetle-blood dyed cheap fabrics with which to cloth the backs of penniless Ukrainians the world over.

Poor pratato. Little does anyone know that it is also the hallowed resting-place of the Virgin's most-chaste chastity girdle and more of the ubiquitous Tuscan renaissance graffitti.

Rome, Culture, Money, a decent flat, my most delicious Frisco and the joys of hash and bongo drum Centri Sociali, here I come!!!!

stay tunes for more...

Teaching Ping Ping to Sing Sing Sing...

Have just been assigned a new student, the delightful and diminutive Shufung Fu Zheng, 1.20 m. of teeth, wooden clogs and nervous arm-waving syndrome. She is a 'Survival One', which is W:S:I speak for "haven't got a clue, please show me how to get one using sign language and bright colourful picture books". Somehow, one of the witchy consultants has convinced her that in less than three months she will succesfully join multiple word groups, and possibly a whole verb together to form a semi-convincing sentence. And I am the jibbering git who has been entrusted to complete this death-defying task. I silently wee my knickers.

I shall be entertaining dear Shufung with my witty repartee and Rolf Harris-type board drawings for another 30 hours between 20.30 and 22.00 every Tuesday and Thursday night, thus excluding any possibilty of watching the latest season of England's proudest export, Midsommer Murders, dubbed badly under the slightly racier name of "Ispettore Barnaby" on La Sette from now until Christmas.

We began with the alphabet, which-in short, was absolutely excruciating, especially after she insisted on having it sung to her with accompanying Birdie Song dance steps to which she clapped along in a toothy-grinned frenzy. Mouth frothing in a terrifying display of overenthusiasm.

WHen it comes to Asian students in general, cultural Sensitivity begs patience in the face of the great "L" versus "R" pronounciation debate. Let's face it, most Brits are pretty cack-handed with the piffling 24 letters we have to deal with in everyday life, let alone Chinese characters and the complexity of a language in which one small difference in vowel inflection when adressing your fellow man could mean the difference between being offered dinner or having your face rubbed in it.
However... WHen it's heading towards ten o'clock and you've been locked in a sweaty school for 9 hours gritting your teeth as endless streams of people butcher your language into liver patè and plague you with nitty gritty questions such as "Please Miss Teacher, what means the saxon genitals?", trying to get correct pronounciation from dear Shufung Ping Pong was like searching for poo on a Swiss pavement.

It took the best part of an hour to teach her "Who's that?" which inevitably came out in various guises ranging from:

"Foo Bobo?" to "Potty Patty?" to the incomprehensible "ping dong tocky tocky?"

Naturally I smiled and nodded and grinned and tried to disguise the noise of splitting sides, cracking ribs and shameless begging to God as signs of encouragement and deep impression. She responded by showering me with spit as she proudly demonstrated the complex tongue to palate motion required to eke out a "thththththththtththth" sound, her favourite acheivement of the day.

Conclusion? We shall review the alphabet next lesson and I shall hire both a speech therapist and psychiatric nurse to assist me in this tremendous ordeal. I make it my personal goal to have Ding Dong Ping Ping Zheng whateverhernameis chanting Shakespearian verse backwards by mid-November without the need of a face transplant due to contortion and excessive mouth frothing.

and now, home to watch Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise get wierd and naked in Kubrick's "Eyes Wide Shut". Maybe even a pint!

A call from outer space...

Ragazzi! The tide flows in, the tide flows out, shepherds watch their flocks, the sun revolves in its golden orb and Emma continues to slowly consume the world's diminishing reserves of piggy-type food stuffs. Oh JOY! TRIUMPHANT LAND OF WONDERFUL HAM!!!!!! I THANK THEE OH ROMAN GOD OF PORK! In between rambunctious weekends enjoying what Italy, or more precisely Rome has to offer as far as culinary delights go (forget the guide book, Florence might have pretty buildings, but give me a roman trattoria any day of the week. Florentines wouldn't know a pizza if Dean Martin frisbeed one at their faces!), i have been tearing my already thinning hair out in frustration at the train service to Prato (I am officially the world's youngest Old Retired Fart, listen to me, i'll be complaining that I can't find decent Swedish Orthopedic health shoes anywhere next...). I have been offered a 4 day posh job with lots of posh fancy shmancy fashion toffy noses in fancy shmancy toffy nosed Milan, talking business English to fancy shmancy fake-tanned money grabbers in poncey suits (yeah, yeah, I know, deep down I love it, superficial bling bling Versace...). Business English? Me? Business? LAUGH? I nearly died?! I can't even open a bank account! My only residual talents are the ability to make a continuous prat of myself and eat 3 packs of Asda Parma Ham in less than 30 seconds. Its a wonder the BBC haven't hired me yet! On the subject of Business. And English. And my abilities. Ladies and Gentlemen, I henceforth seeketh advice... I need a new job. Yes, still teaching English, I still enjoy that, and for the moment this will suit me fine, but for the love of god, Wall Street is driving me up the wall - and not in the cool Spiderman sense... Suddenly EVERYONE is working for Wall Street, Sarah in Rome, Gaby in Bologna, anyone else? Maybe its just mine that is horrendous, but let's just say, if you know any good job gossip (tefl.net proving unsatisfactory). sling it my way. I don't particularly care where, although preferably South of Florence or in central florence. and definitely NOT milano. And even more definitely not Prato. (sarah did you take the job in Rome that everyone at my Wall Street is applying for? Damn you!!! about 6 of us sent our c.v's there!) On another point, I have recently discovered........ crime! yes, finally, after the drought of 2005, and peaceful Florence, aside from the odd heroin overdose and attempted kidnapping by what appears to be the same "dusky ethnic minority type in headscarf" that we hear about every so often... This weekend I have heard the particularly grisly story of what I have dubbed the "Psycho-Mammone". (Mammone, you know, boy's who live with their mummy's until they are 40, in England they would be called recluses, unemployed or "a bit simple, like" - whereas here the act of setting foot outside your house before 30 is considered devilishly brave and a display of incredible survival skills) Well, an extreme case of Mammon-ism would be Mr. Mirko Santori, or something of the sort, who's mother was discovered mummified, and sealed into a cupboard with silicon gel three years after her death. It would appear poor old Mirko had a bit of trouble accepting that his poor dear mother, bless her wee soul, had departed the dear earth. Instead, he put on her best dress, powdered her face, tie a bow in her hair and arranged her in the cupboard on a comfortable pillow, then sealed her in. He would remove the seals once every so often to clean the old dear and make sure she was comfy (!?!?!?!??! WHY? WHO? I MEAN... HUH?!?!??!) and then shove her back in again. In the meantime, over the next three years, he recorded his painful decent into complete mental breakdown by scrawling a diary in marker pen on every blank surface in his house. Ah, Italy. Country of hot-blooded passionate males. Or just complte wierdos... Stay tuned for next week with the fat women who didn't move an inch from her living room chair for 2 1/2 years and became one with the fabric covering. She was probably waiting for a train to Viareggio.