A little less concrete, please

Hey y'all

It's been a few weeks, so I figured it was time to update you on my never-ending thrill-ride of a life. Charlie Sheen hasn't got anything on me.

Having said that, not a lot has happened, but don't let that stop you from reading on. You never know, something interesting/amusing/diverting from the monotony of existence might be in here somewhere. No promises, mind.

So, yeah, life is crashing on. I still like beer, football is still King, still got a job that I really like, still can't speak to girls. Some things will never change.

Talking of work, lately I've been working a lot at the World Trade Centre in Genoa, which isn't quite as exciting as the name suggests, but is still pretty tall. It's based in Sampierdarena, which as fans of football team etymology may note, has the shame of supplying part of the name of Sampdoria. I'll not bore you with the details of the how and why of this, so will instead bore you with other things. Sampierdarena is a heady mix of Ecuadorian people, roundabouts and busy roads. There are a couple of streets that I imagine 5o years ago or so were quite grand, however in the more recent past it has taken a turn for the ugly, thanks in no small part to the wisdom of architects/town planners who felt that what it really needed was a uniform colour of grey. It's been rather enthusiastically concreted, overshadowing the few small decent parts of it, and yet, strangely, despite the fact that lots of people work there, there is a paucity of benches near the WTC where I could eat my lunch. How inconsiderate - did no one tell them I was coming? However, this may have something to do with the fact that the WTC is also windier than a fat person who loves beans.

More on the work tip: many moons ago when I was a mere mortal starting on the path to teaching immortality, I imagined that teaching English would be a bit of a skive: working a few hours a day (almost always in the evening), and then having a relaxing libation before tottering off to bed and repeating the same idyllic existence ad nauseum. This, it became clear quite soon, was not to be the case. Although today I don't start work til after lunch it's only because a student cancelled this morning, and yesterday I started at 9 in the morning and finished at 8.30 in the evening. Although Route One (the fantasy) sounds just lovely, it's not really practical if I want to have any money, so Route Two (the grim reality) it is. I'll be 28 next week, and the realisation of what exactly adult life entails is starting to hit home now. Still, it was a good run while it lasted. Ho, and very much, hum.

A couple of weeks ago it was the 150th anniversary of the unification of all of the disparate states that now make Italy. Although I really like living here, I wouldn't say that Italy is particularly unified. As one wit/twat (I forget which he is) from a political party said: "Garibaldi didn't unify Italy, he divided Africa." Oh, now I remember, he's a twat. His political party is the Lega Nord, who's original aim was to partition Italy so that the more industrial north could break away from the more agricultural south and be it's own state. Bizarrely, this party born in the north, is actually quite popular in the south, so now they've decided that what the real problem in this almost suffocatingly Catholic country is Islam. Another religion that is archaic, dogmatic, and restricts the freedoms of the population? No thanks, we're Catholics.

Woaf, that almost sounds like a rant. Sorry. But yeah, there was the birthday of Italia. The centre of town was bedecked with about 5 flags, and they changed the colour of the water in the fountain in the main piazza to make the tri-colour, which was all very jolly. Unfortunately, the weather wasn't too great, and it was also St Patrick's Day, so I missed it all in the search of a good pint of Guinness. Mission: failed. :( There was a bagpipe player in one bar though, which as far as I know isn't an Oirish thing. It pretty much filled my bagpipe quota for this year too.

The Genovese (people from Genoa) are generally not what you could call a cheery bunch. In many ways they remind me of Scottish people, which is perhaps why I feel so comfortable here. There is a word in the dialect of Genoa, (which I'm sure my Genovese friends will forgive me for the inevitably poor spelling) which is mughegnare, which means to grumble. I like this word a lot, and it has quite a satisfying sound. So much so, that when I say it I no longer feel like grumbling. I do though, just to keep up appearances.

I've been toiling away, working my fingers to the bone writing in my blog what could politely be called 'stuff of varying quality', for nigh on three years (!?), with my only reward your imagined faces contorting in apathy. So, I decided that I'd try to look into getting some ca$hmoney for writing my blog. I signed up with a popular search engine, which for anonymity's sake I'll call 'Goggle', as they said they could put wee adverts on the sides of the blog, thus generating the millions of pounds that I so richly deserve. I've just been looking at the T&C's, which was a novel experience as I don't think I've ever actually done that before. But they say that I can't encourage you to click on whatever worthless tat they're pushing, and that any profits they make would only maybe be paid to me, using a formula so complicated that they can't possibly tell me. Well, that's not what I'm after, so I clicked on the 'bugger that' button. Even though I'd like to get paid for this, I don't seriously think I'd actually get much from it, so enjoy your advert-free blog readings people.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaand finally, in football news 'Doria could be facing the startlingly amusing prospect of plying their trade in Serie B next year. Relegation is looming like the realisation that you can never get back the few minutes you just spent reading this. Fnar fnar fnar fnar.

Until next time, cheery bye bye!