Hell's teeth, it's cold amongst other things

Greetings from the winter wonderland of Genoa!

If you're a British based reader, I understand that you are already experiencing some kind of snowkissed bliss of your own, but as I'm not there it's difficult for me to get too excited about this, and when I think of Scotland I remember the summers of chilly looking grumpy people, and other people too who weren't looking at themselves in the mirror. So yes, it's as cold as a snowman's heart here, and snowing quite a bit today. There's snow on the hills behind my flat, but because we're beside the sea here, precious little of it is lying on regular ground. Probably a good thing, as it'd seem that transport systems are the same everywhere (or at least in Scotland and Italy), as when the weather gets a bit inclement, the buses stop/become more erratic than the Pope's announcements re: contraception. (Oooh, mildly topical. There will be no more of that, I promise.)

A quick update on the ol' flat situation. I'm still no further forward in Operation Unlocked Toilet Door. I'm extremely indecisive, I think, and for the moment I've decided to stay where I am, as moving is a lot of hassle. Also, I've not seen anywhere that blew my socks off which wasn't being rented by an agency that weren't a bunch of thieving schmucks. (For more on thieves, see paragraph at the end re: Juve.) The flat that I'd mentioned in the previous post is in the Vicoli (happy, Vi?), which while I described it architecturally, I realise that I didn't describe it's 'sense'. Although there are a couple of places in the Vicoli that could be described as 'Des Res', it's generally full of thieves, drug dealers, prostitutes and rat pee. I'm sure you can better understand now why I wanted to live there. Barring murdering a flatmate or anything unpleasant, I'll relook at moving out in the summer.

With this sense of the centre of the city in mind, if I didn't like Genova it'd be easy for me to draw a parallel something along the lines of the city having a gloomy filthy heart, a heart of darkness, if you will, but I've not been worn down by it yet, so provisionally see myself here for another year. Also, I have literally no idea what else I'd do.

Another thing with the flat is that just now I'm working a lot, so I'd be able to afford moving without any big problems. However, part of the excitement of my job is that my salary varies depending on how much I work, and although squint teeth seem to be hereditary, money-sense doesn't seem to be. Therefore, I'm not too great at saving money for rainy days. And being Scottish, I'm used to an inordinate number of rainy days. But at the moment I'm making more cheese than an extremely efficient dairy, so I can't complain.

I heard this a couple of days ago, and quite liked it, and I was asked to include it on here to see if you good people can get the right answer, unlike Diana and Francesca. Francesco got it straight away, to which I won't draw any conclusions except that he's a guy and got it straight away, whereas the other two are girls and got it wrong. It's bit like the woman on the road to Gloucester with seven sacks, I think, although I don't remeber that one well.
So: In a room, there are four cats; one cat in each corner. In front of each cat there are 3 cats, and on the tail of every cat is a cat. How many cats are there?
Simples.

And finally, to the football. As part of the corporate rebranding of all supporters here as hooligans by the Italian FA, I received my Tessera dei Tifosi t'other day. It's basically a card that I need to have if I want to have a season ticket or go to away games. This is brilliantly cunning, as you can only go to the stadium if you have a season ticket, therefore with one clunking bureaucratic move the Italian FA has eliminated hooliganism! Three cheers for them!

Hip hop hooray
Hip hop hooray
Hip hop hoo.... Oh, wait. That's not right. Except from the clunking bureaucracy.
Ya see, the Tessera doesn't solve the problem, or even lessen it as far as I'm aware, as much as it moves it to a different part of the stadium. Some of the Samp ultra's objected to the card as an unnecessary infringement of their civil liberties or something, so instead of renewing their season tickets, just buy indidivual tickets on the day of the games now. Not exactly unforseeable. And in typical Italian style, a mere three months after I bought my season ticket and filled in the form for the card, I received it. With processes as slow as this it's no wonder they took 4 years to realise that they were on the wrong side in the Second World War. On this note, I'm sure history is full of it, but I'm quite impressed by one country that can both lose and win a war. But not impressed in a good way, more in a snickering-behind-my-hand-and-on-my-blog kind of way.

Last week, to keep TV audiences happy in the Far East or somewhere, the gallant Genoa played the more convicted cheats than us, Juve, compelling me to get drunk in the morning instead of the early afternoon. I arrived at the pub just as a lot of old farts were going to church, and after the pub I went to my church. The morning was quite cold, so I had a few stiff drinks to "warm me up", and the game was terrible, so I had a couple after the game too. Needless to say, I don't remember much except being quite unhappy with the whole affair. The pub was fun though. Didn't feel the George Best after it wore off though. But that was just as I was going to bed, so not a big deal. Morning/afternoon drunkenness: the way to beat hangovers.

Struth mates and mate-ettes, that's quite a lot of drivel right there, so I'll off and make some lunch.

Take care of yourselves, and each other

Bye Bye!