My last posted-presence til after Christmas

The obligatory festive cheer-fuelled 'hello' one and all.

I intend this to be the last post before Christmas, so let's make it a good one, eh? It will be the last one, mainly because I leave here on Wednesday, and don't plan to do anything at all when I'm in Edinburgh except maybe (definitely) drink Guinness.

So yes, in theory I jet back to Scotland on Wednesday, although this is dependent on not crashing in flames. This is my normal consideration when flying, but this year there's the added bonus of maybe being stranded in an airport somewhere. How exciting! This could epitomise teh modern-day Christmas spirit though: being surrounded by narky people all wishing they were somewhere else.

If the weather does continue to conspire against me and my fellow travellers (although in reality I'll look at them in the airports with disdain, but for the solidarity of the season and all, we'll be 'fellows'. We're not though, and never will be), I hope that we can resist the temptation to jokingly threaten to blow an airport sky high, as the inevitable po-faced prosecution and conviction isn't what I'm hoping for in 2011.
Indeed, in this time of reviews of the previous year and predictions of the next, the only thing I hope is that next year is better than this one. It's not all been bad, with some times of joy but as a whole, it's been a pretty testicles year.

The below video cheers me up though. I highly recommend it. I properly heart Will Ferrell.

http://FunnyOrDie.com/m/4zol

It's been brought to my attention that despite keeping this charade of a blog going for nigh on 2 and a half years, I've only mentioned one of my friends here, Joanna, once or maybe twice. So, Joanna, Joanna, Joanna, Joanna. There you are, job done. Also, from previous posts, I may have accidentally implied that Diana wasn't great at problem solving or joke understanding. This may or may not be true, but it's not because she's thick, it's because she's Italian. ;)

Something that I've consistently forgotten to mention is that with so many people driving scooters here, loads of people zip about in the streets with helmets on. Occasionally they seem to recognise me and wave, but even though they can see my face in all of its abstract glory, they are wearing a helmet so I don't recognise them. This makes me feel a bit rude, because I have to feign recognition and bonhomie. If only I knew more people with truly distinctive eyes, it'd be easier, but as it is, I don't know anyone with eyepatches or Terminator-style unblinking red LED lights for eyes. More's the pity.

A couple of weeks ago I went to see a hip young beat combo called Enroco literally tear up the stage with their musical stylings. I say literally, where I should say, 'in no way', as they're all far too polite and mild mannered. But they are very good. They're the band of my friend Francesco, and despite us being good buds, I'd never seen them before, and missed the first song and another one during their set when I was away getting some fresh air. What I saw was tip top though. Their new album will be released soon I think, so make sure you rush out and buy it. If you're after a more instant fix, why not buy Home, the latest album by Rosie Nimmo, which is available on iTunes. Do it. You know you want to, and it might also mean I'll have some (hopefully far-off) inheritance beyond houses in France. Alternatively, if you'd like to buy a house in France, get in touch.

And now to the football. Last week the valiant, half-lions half-eagles of Genoa played the lowly donkeys of Napoli. It wasn't a particularly good game, and we lost, but it does raise an interesting point, at least for me. And you're reading my blog, so in case you hadn't realised by now, it's pretty much all about me. Sorry about that.
But yes, Napoli and Genoa. In Italy there's a strange idea of two clubs being friendly, or twinned, hence it might not be strange to hear natives referring to Genoa and Napoli as 'Gemellati'. To my primitive Scottish brain, this concept is both confusing and ridiculous. It also seems to me to be indicative of calcio here, and Italian culture as a whole. Wearing my cod-sociology hat, I'd suggest that the idea that two teams might be friends could maybe have an effect on matches. (I don't want to suggest that football in Italy is in anyway systematically dodgy or that for years there have been suspicious results and decisions. Other people have already done that for me.) Indeed, two years ago, Genoa played Torino, and at the time we were best buds. But it was at the tail end of a bad season for Torino, and they seemed to think that we'd lie down for them so they could get the win that their team so thoroughly didn't deserve. We did the honourable thing and beat them, they subsequently got relegated, and now they don't like us anymore. Like big, tiff-having girls.
But really, there were loads of Napoli fans in the Genoa end, which in normal circumstances would not be allowed to happen. But because of some spurious reason, we're friends. I refuse to kow-tow to this popular way of thinking. Outside of the stadium, great, you support another team, ok. But inside the stadium, if you're playing us, I want you to die. Maybe not physically, but spiritually or in some other tangible but not absolute way, yes. I have nothing but scorn for the concept of Gemellati, therefore Other Teams, just as I do for Conservatives and people who believe that star signs are real or have some kind of bearing on life. True, these all sit differently on my scorn-o-meter, but they're all still on there, making imaginary irritating "ping-ping-ping" noises while shining imaginary but no less goat-getting tacky neon lights directly into the part of my brain that deals with hallucinatory visions.

Tomorrow is the derby. The Republic vs The Rebel Alliance; Ivan Drago vs Rocky; the Italian political system vs Democracy. All of these ultimately doomed battles fall into insignificance compared to Sampdoria vs Genoa. I have my ticket, and whisper it so that my folks don't hear, but the best thing I could get for Christmas would be a victory for the only team from the city of Genoa. One of our collection of so-far-underperforming players is called Rudolf, and so you can probably see where I could lazily go with that. I won't though. Too obvious. It's going to be pretty bracing at the pub and the stadium, so I'm swithering wearing 2 pairs of trousers. Cold times.

I think that's all folks, it just leaves me to say, Happy Christmas, Merry New Year, and of course...

FORZA GENOA!!!!!!

More waffle than a Belgian bakery

Merry Christmas everyone! Consider this, the second blog in just a matter of days, to be a present, from me to you. I do expect something in return, but not a blog. Preferably something shiny that costs money.

I'm posting this quite early in the day, unusually, because I've got a big gap between lessons, and also I've just had 3 coffees in the last hour, so I AM ROCKING. LET'S GO LETS GO LET'S GO!

Lately I've been trying to improve my Italian grammar, as I'm blindingly aware that I'm not the best. I used to be a quitter, but then I decided that wasn't for me, so I'm trying to persevere with the grammar. It's pretty hard though. There are many things I don't understand: girls; how they put the stripes in Aquafresh toothpaste; Korean; and now I can add the vast majority of Italian grammar to this list. (Two things I do know though, are that you should never look at a gorilla in the eyes, and the origin of the adjective 'rubenesque'. I use my time productively, I'm sure you'll agree.)

I don't particularly consider myself British, beyond the convenience of having the passport. As a country it has the dubious honour of the creation of modern day Iraq by taking disparate communities who didn't like each other much and lumping them all together, and the invention of concentration camps. Both of these ideas, with hindsight, weren't great (although hindsight shouldn't have been necessary to tell them that they were probably weren't too good at the time either). However, both of these arose from the Empire, and one positive aspect of the empire was the proliferation of the language. English is what keeps me in beer and occasional good times, so I'm grateful for this. Also, I'm hugely thankful that 'we' had an empire with a lasting effect rather than the Italian's. (Obviously ignore this if you're from Abyssinia.) Italian grammar seems like a torture tool. Move over water-boarding, Guantanamo is introducing lessons on the Partitives. To my lazy mind it seems needlessly complicated and full of caveats. English may not be the easiest, exception to the rule-free language in the world, but compared to Italian it's like something very easy. So, I think I'll sleuce back into my habit of quitting difficult things, and have instead decided that vocabulary is my new focus. Unlike Italian tax, it's less taxing.

For those of you in the frozen tundra of the north, you'll be relieved to hear that Genoa is no longer so miserable weather-wise. Today, in effect, is very sunny. Still a bit nippy, but much more pleasant. Also, thank the Lord that I don't believe in, it's not so windy. The wind here is fierce, which has two serious drawbacks. Firstly, it makes my hair look like a bush dragged backwards through a bigger bush, which you'll appreciate is pretty serious. Secondly, it makes sleeping tricky. See, I live on the 5th floor, and there's only one appartment above me. But above my room, it sounds like they've moored a boat. I expect it's just a shed or something, but in the wind it creaks to and fro in a most unedifying way. If it were an actual boat in the actual sea, that'd be alright, if a little uncomfortable in bed (a water bed, perhaps), because at least the waves have some rhythm, rocking me off to my strange, nightmare-filled dreams. But this boat is not in the sea, it's actually quite far away from it, and has about as much rhythm as one of the losers from the early episodes of X Factor. It gives respite from my previously mentioned dreams, but at the same time means I'm less of a ray of sunshine in the morning than I previously was. So, fingers crossed that the wind stays away, otherwise I may accidentally repeatedly stab someone on the bus with a rolled-up newspaper.

That all seems like a bit of a moan. I do appreciate that living in Italy is pretty cool, and when I think about it, I guess I feel lucky. But I wouldn't be Scottish if I didn't complain about something. I'm merely upholding my end of the bargain.

Until next time amigos, buenos dias.
:)