Today is St Patrick's Day in Ireland, and pretty much here aswell since a coach load of young Irish are in town.
Now it is clear to the Italians that we are English (or German sometimes) because of various telltale indicators - 1) we do not wear clothes with Union Jack flags embroidered on the sleeves or chest, 2) we do not fondle (even) our own genitals in public and 3) I know which lane to be in at roundabouts...but the Irish go even a step further and wear large leprechaun hats, paint clover leaves on their cheeks and carry Irish flags.
The Italians love a saint-day, every day is the day of at least one saint, a child's saint day is celebrated as much as their birthday, the Irish obviously love today.
So why do the English not?
When is St George's day? Should I paint a red cross on my cheek and carry a flag? Do I get a day off? I think, unfortunately, not.
Instead of new ideas to swear patronage to the Queen, or to fly flags over council buildings, why not start giving everyone some reason to celebrate St George. England has it's issues, as does every country, but pride has to start somewhere in order to thrive.
Mind you, at least the UK does not employ the same PR people as South Africa.
On Sky News, South Africa Tourism is sponsoring a sports update segment, and has a nice graphic animation of the flag and a catchy slogan. For the purposes of the text where I can not strike thru a word I will use a different colour...but the slogan comes up on screen saying "South Africa. It's impossible." then a second later the "im" bit is crossed out. So...
"South Africa. It's impossible."
How long did this take, how much were they paid, and what alternatives did they reject before plumping for "It's impossible."?
South Africa, "It's not very nice." or
"Don't go there." or
"You can't go out at night." or even
"It's unlikely you will go home without being mugged."
We know some South Africans who live here now and they say it is a beautiful place, there are places to go and places to not go...but surely there are better slogans to use to entice tourists to go there.
I'll give it a go...
"Italy. Everyone drives really well and is very polite."
Monday 17 March 2008
Sunday 9 March 2008
Gaw blimey Mary Poppins....it's March!
And it is crappy weather here in sunny Tuscany. Although the winter has been milder than Mellow Birds and less snowy than Tin-Tin's lap it seems that rain and wind has synchronized it's arrival with us unlocking the doors and whipping up a frenzy of gelati. I blame that God bloke I've heard so much about.
Anyway, since October - the last time I put finger to keyboard, what's gone down in groove town?
Firstly, and largely a cause of so much not-blogging was the death of a hard drive (or 3 in fact), so everything was put on hold until we could buy another laptop...and that had to be somewhere that spoke English - so England then.
We also lost a cat. Connor had been with us for nearly 18 years and, if you ignore all the urinating on the carpet she was a special companion and is sorely missed. She travelled well and enjoyed Tuscany. She was a star of television and internet and always will be with us.
We sold our house in the hills of Tuscany, www.casadiluce.com if you want to see what we had. A lovely house but too far away from the shop and too cold in the winter. Having taken about 2 years to sell it, we then bought again within a month!
We popped back to England for a while then started work on the kitchen (which we did not have) and the lounge (which we had, but did not like).
We finished that, then came back to work.
Nice break then!
So here we are, sitting waiting for customers. Reading the internet and filling in time...
Although I will not go into it here, I am feeling increasingly sad for the state of the UK. Daily we hear news and reports of what is going on there - binge drinking culture, knife culture, no culture, idiot teenagers and idiot government - and it really is scary. I am not saying Italy is any better or worse but I do know for sure that the UK used to be such a nice place to live - and visit! And now...I am not so sure.
It is absolutely tipping it down now so I think our work here is done.
So, hello to all our friends around the world, we do miss you (most of you) and hope to see or hear from you one fine day. I will summon some wit from the murky depths of my consciousness and bring you some biting satire and repartee some other day soon. I promise!
Also we have a new website for you to look at, the link is on the left of this page.
I'm off to ring out my underwear again.
C
And it is crappy weather here in sunny Tuscany. Although the winter has been milder than Mellow Birds and less snowy than Tin-Tin's lap it seems that rain and wind has synchronized it's arrival with us unlocking the doors and whipping up a frenzy of gelati. I blame that God bloke I've heard so much about.
Anyway, since October - the last time I put finger to keyboard, what's gone down in groove town?
Firstly, and largely a cause of so much not-blogging was the death of a hard drive (or 3 in fact), so everything was put on hold until we could buy another laptop...and that had to be somewhere that spoke English - so England then.
We also lost a cat. Connor had been with us for nearly 18 years and, if you ignore all the urinating on the carpet she was a special companion and is sorely missed. She travelled well and enjoyed Tuscany. She was a star of television and internet and always will be with us.
We sold our house in the hills of Tuscany, www.casadiluce.com if you want to see what we had. A lovely house but too far away from the shop and too cold in the winter. Having taken about 2 years to sell it, we then bought again within a month!
We popped back to England for a while then started work on the kitchen (which we did not have) and the lounge (which we had, but did not like).
We finished that, then came back to work.
Nice break then!
So here we are, sitting waiting for customers. Reading the internet and filling in time...
Although I will not go into it here, I am feeling increasingly sad for the state of the UK. Daily we hear news and reports of what is going on there - binge drinking culture, knife culture, no culture, idiot teenagers and idiot government - and it really is scary. I am not saying Italy is any better or worse but I do know for sure that the UK used to be such a nice place to live - and visit! And now...I am not so sure.
It is absolutely tipping it down now so I think our work here is done.
So, hello to all our friends around the world, we do miss you (most of you) and hope to see or hear from you one fine day. I will summon some wit from the murky depths of my consciousness and bring you some biting satire and repartee some other day soon. I promise!
Also we have a new website for you to look at, the link is on the left of this page.
I'm off to ring out my underwear again.
C
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