Now cooler and fitter

Hello all from sunny Italy.

I realise that it's been a while since I last posted something here, so felt that now would be as good a time as any. That said, I can't really think of much just now, so now may not be as good a time as any, and in fact may actually be quite a bad time. Che sara' sara', as they say here, which until recently I had never connected to the song that ends the line with 'whatever will be will be'. I always thought that was a French song. So now Italy can be proud of Joe Dolce's ode to lack of matriarchal respect and whatever this other song is called. But I digest....

Life has continued in much the same vein that it was careering forward in last time I wrote. So, to sum up: work = easy, tempereature = hot, girls = hot. Contrary to the English rule of a double postive = a negative, I can confirm that a double hot = good stuff. Sometimes rules can be good.

Last time I wrote, Samp were playing Lazio, which the fascist Romans won. The game wasn't particularly good, but then that shouldn't be too much of a surprise when it included Genoa's second team. The first team will be beating Lecce on Sunday for the last game of the season, which of course I shall be attending. It should be good, and I'm told that there will be a party afterwards in Piazza della Vittoria, which is an apt name for a place to celebrate victory in. One thing that I found curious last week: Genoa were away in Torino playing, in what was essentially a meaningless game for Genoa, as 5th placed was all but assured, and 4th was unlikely. Torino on the other hand are a bit on the Sampdoria side of the spectrum, and so are likely to get relegated. These two teams have a friendship which doesn't happen in Britain, and so it was widely assumed that Genoa would lose, thus helping their old chums at Torino out. They didn't, and actually won 3-2 (the temerity!) which raised alot of ridiculously maintained eyebrows. With my British head on, I can't get over this, as it would be pretty obvious cheating if Genoa did lose without putting up a fight. Also, given that the players are paid quite a lot, I would be disappointed if my hard earned money was being given to people who didn't do anything to earn it. Much like MP's really. But thankfully, Genoa won, and at the end their was even a brawl on the pitch. Good times.

Last weekend I had a new tattoo, which most of you will probably have already seen on Facebook or in person, so I won't put it up here to save my parents the displeasure of looking at it. It's really rather nice I think, and I am at least 15% cooler than I was. What was particularly satisfying was that the tattooist spoke no English, so I had to talk to him in Italian. This was satisfying, as we had a conversation without my being able to be lazy and revert back to English, which was nice.

In other good news, I haven't smoked for 1.5 days, and have resisted the urge to kill anyone. I don't normally smoke alot anyway, but this will probably be a good thing for me, and although not incredibly easy, isn't all that hard either. In an effort to improve my health, I went out on Wednesday to watch Barcelona beating Man U ( :=) ) and got a bit drunk. Therefore yesterday, many things were unappealing, least of all smoking. Expect my self-help guides in all bad stores by Christmas. As Ice Cube rapped: "Check yo'self before you wreck yo'self", although the next line is totally inappropriate, as I'm sure fellow rap fans would agree.

On that note, I think that's it from me to you, so

Ciao the now

P.S. I believe that Clare's husband Patrick (although he also responds to the shorter version 'Patrick') is now a reader of this. So hello Patrick! Also, if you've made it this far, well done, and hello to you even if your name isn't Patrick! Hello! And Goodbye!