Coming to a bridge near you

I start today's witter, not with a skip in my step, or a song in my heart, but with a curse on the eyes of Vodafone and their 'internet' keys. I write this because it has taken me quite some considerable time to connect to this blog, and time = money, and despite being relatively rich in the fomer, I'm distinctly poor in the latter. For this, and not for any personal failing of course, I blame Vodafone.

Barring something remarkable happening in the coming week that is both interesting and parent-friendly enough, this will be my last post, pre-summer, so let's make it adequate, eh?

A couple of weeks ago, I went to a sagra with chums Simone and Laura. For those of you unaware of what one of these be, it be a type of fair/festival for food. Many little towns and villages have sagras, and each sagra 'celebrates' a particular kind of food. My only previous experience of a sagra was back in the mists of time and for wild boar, which was one part delicious and one part bewildering. This most recent sagra was for focaccine, which are essentially filled rolls made from fried dough. The food was almost exclusively following this theme, and was very nice indeed. For a Scottish chap, a sagra is a very strange thing to behold though, as despite there being plentiful supplies of beer and wine, there was no trouble. No yoofs looking threatening, no adults squaring up to each other, no old people falling asleep in corners, not even a recently deposited pool of vomit was to be found. These people clearly don't know how to live and truly appreciate life. The queue for the only food counter was gargantuan, while the bar looked as lonely and dejected as someone who is known around the office as a lift-farter. Bloody foreigners. Unfortunately I had to leave to get the train before the smooth music started and the old people started to kindofwaltz, but you can't have it all, I suppose.

A female friend (I don't remember which one: what can I say I'm like catnip to girls provided that we'd be romantically incompatible or they already have boyfriends) said recently that my blog has too much football chat, which I took as a veiled plea for more football chat. I'm not one to purposefully disappoint my audience as I'm sure this happens in a more organic process, so here goes. A couple of Fridays ago I wasn't having a great time, and wasn't particularly happy, so went to play football in the evening. This was the perfect cure for my malaise, as I had quite a lot of irritation to take out on the football. I scored a heroic 4 goals, and was described by one team mate as a Maiuscola. For those of you what don't know, this was quite a nice thing to be told. Next stop Hampden. A not particularly novel motivation when smashing the balls into the back of the net was to imagine someones' head in place of the ball, which I did with aplomb, however, stemming as it was from my not-entirely-full-of-the-joys-of-springness, a couple of times it was my head I was aiming at. Who knew I could be so limber?

In more football spraff, I'm counting down the days to the next season (whenever that may actually be), as a summer with no football taking place is like a corkscrew without a bottle of wine, a reference to the Pope without mentioning his Hitler Youth days, or a pencil without lead: pointless. I'm so excited to get back to the stadium while pleasingly inebbriated, and I just can't hide it.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaand finally, as previously mentioned, I'm leaving Genoa for the summer on 30th June, and will be in Scotland til the middle of August. To be honest, I'm fairly indifferent about this as I'll be working almost all of the time while I'm there. When I come back here, I'm currently facing the thrilling prospect of being homeless, as I'm for 100% sure that I'm moving out of my current abode next week. I've been looking for a new place to lay my hat, but as yet, to no avail. I'll continue looking, but worst comes to worst, could any Genovese friends please keep an eye out for any cosy looking bridges I could sleep under? I'd prefer, if possible, to not be sharing them with any junkies, hookers, thieves, rats or trolls. Call me picky, but if you don't ask, you don't get.

Right, I should probably get dressed (it's mighty hot here) and go back to work, so, se sei a genova ci sentiamo questa settimana, or if yur in Sco'lan' maybe see ye next, ken?

Toodle pip

Older but resolutely none the wiser

Buongiorno buds

It's been a bit over 2 months since I last posted anything up here, and today's a holiday, so thought I'd feed my pasty whiteness by staying in and writing this. The weather's been a bit changeable today too, which has curtailed my desire to go out beyond an extremely necessary trip to the shops for some food. Now my belly's full, you'll be pleased to hear, so strap yourself in and here we go!

As anti-climactic as the outcomes of the dastardly plans for world domination by James Bond villains, not a lot of amazing news has happened, although I'll try and fill your eyes and brain with rubbish anyway.

So, starting in chronological order: I'm now older. The start of April heralded my birthday and my 28th year. It was a day of mixed emotions: aside from general apathy, there was a relief that I hadn't joined the esteemed members of the 27 Club, followed by sadness that now when I die it won't be nearly as bathed in the reflective glory of Janis Joplin, Tupac, etc as it might have been. Who knew that unthinkingly not dying could be tinged with sadness? For those too green to have reached this entirely unremarkable landmark, or for those so long in the tooth that youth is just a fading star in the dark night sky of age, let me tell you that being 28 is much the same as being 27, or as far as I remember, being 26. True, I'm closer to 30 than I am to 25, and it feels strange to say that I'm 28 when in my brain I'm still about 18, but my carbon record insists that I'm 28, contrary to all other evidence. I can still drink like a young man (although not comfortably in consecutive days, and not standing up all the time or my legs ache). I was never able to run that far, so I still can't do that, and I was mistaken as a child a couple of weeks ago, so it'd seem that I still have the childlike glow of wonder that I'm telling you I once had but that which you've probably never noticed for yourselves.

For my birthday I decided that I'd give myself a tattoo (not a DIY one mind, but as a present). It was suitably painful, moreso than I'd imagined it'd be, but as they say, no pain no gain. I have normally shied away from this train of thought as coming from people who are slightly fanatical about things that are patently unpleasant like exercise or self-improvement, but for my tattoo I'd have to say that it rang true. It wasn't a terrible pain like paying tax, but it was a wee bit worse than my others, which if I had to stratify I'd say was like making small talk with someone that you're not keen on but social protocol dictates that you can't just up and leave when they come over.

My Dad came over here a couple of weeks ago, which was nice. We went for a long hot walk in the Cinque Terre, which is a place near here that's very picturesque. It's not an easy walk though, and we were pretty spent by the time we arrived at the end. Some nice photos though, which I'll upload to facebook as soon as I have an internet connection which isn't utter crap. He brought me the Scotland football top which I wore when we went to the pub/stadium on the Sunday, which was good. A special thanks must be made to Joanna here, as she was his chaperone in the pub while I was being coarse and drank and smoked, as I didn't want to shatter his illusion that I'm some kind of angel. The match we went to was the last of the season versus Cesena, which we won 3-2, but was really just a sideshow to a day of laughing at Sampdoria, as they are shite and they know they are, and got relegated. Fnar fnar. After the match there was a funeral march held for them that went through the centre of the city and featured coffins and crucifixes painted in the Samp colours, and was participated in by 30,000 people according to the paper. It was completely over the top and ridiculous, but then most things are here.

From left to right: Leigh from Plymouth, me, Dad, Massi, Aldo, don't know his name, and at the front, Mauro.

It was good to have my Dad over and spend some time with him, even if he did appear to get a bit tipsy after 2 small beers and take his shirt off in the street. He was putting a t-shirt on in its sted, but still....

It was a bit strange having him over here too though, as ever since coming back here after Christmas I've felt a growing sense of disconnection with Scotland. This is probably understandable given that I've lived here for 3 years now, and it hasn't happened in a particularly noticeable way, it's more just that I've almost completely stopped thinking about it. I'll be back at the end of June though, so maybe this will refresh my fondness for the auld country, or maybe it'll remind me why I like unchanging spells of good weather so much. Still, it'll be good to see my chums back home, and I'll be working for 6 weeks too which is good as I'll be needing the Benjamins for when I come back here in August.

I think that may be about your lot, except for this one final thing that happened the other night. I was out with parent-sitter Joanna, and we decided to have one more drink for the road in a place that I think only opens really late til whenever everyone stumbles out into the morning. Joanna seems to be some kind of powerful magnet for weirdoes with theories about when the world's going to end, and so t'other night her pull was too strong for a guy who was vegetarian like Jesus and other relatively popular characters, therefore signifying his enlightenment. Hitler was vegetarian too, but I'm not sure that fit into his theory of good-guyness, as he's pretty widely considered to have been a wank. While I was listening to him sermonize I decided to roll a cigarette, at which point the barman came over and said that there was to be no smoking of cigarettes in his bar, only of joints. A pretty particular bar, but not one that you could go to often, as the folk in there were pretty far-out, and I don't want to get like them anytime soon. It's got quite a cool vibe though, and everyone was friendly (probably cos they were stoned) if a touch mad.

That seems to be a good place to finish, so til next time

Bye Bye! :)