Why switching off your mobile at night is good for you

This morning, 10:00. A text message woke me up. Uhhh... who could that be...? Slightly worried a crawled out of bed. "Missing you." Goodness me, I thought lying next to Oliver, who's that...? "We have not seen you for a while. Hope you will visit us soon. Regards." Ahhh - it's the hairdresser near work!

I have been there only twice, i.e. when I didn't make it in time to go to my usual one in Covent Garden which is cheap, delivers cool hair cuts and you don't need an appointment. So the one near work (which is more expensive, not as cool and takes very long to cut my hair) has hooked me into their sms marketing net. Well, I must admit that it's a good technique: if I didn't like the other one so much I'd probably go back more often. But hey - why on earth do they text clients at 10 a.m. on sunday? Do they think I'm now more inclined to go back...?!?

Happy Vaffanculo Day 2!!

Oh, thank goodness for Beppe Grillo!

Not only he organised the first Vaffanculo Day last year (see video below) but he's done it again!! Yes, today has been V-Day2: all over Italy fed up Italians have gathered and shouted out lout against the monopoly of information, the Italian and European funding of that same monopolistic information, the mafia among parlamentarians.... Today signatures have been collected for three referenda: the abolition of the Order of Journalists (which doesn't exist anywhere else), the abolition of public financing of a billion Euro a year to the publishing industry (Berlusconi gets a large chunck of this money), the abolition of the Gasparri law and the duopoly Parties-Mediaset (i.e. media businessman should not have direct control of government media).

Is this asking too much in a democratic, developed country part of the EU, the G7, the NATO etc.?

Needless to say, most Italian and international newspapers and tvs have ignored this event.

The New York Times on Beppe Grillo's VDay in 2007:

Ode to Isabel Allende

I remember reading The House of Spirits in my teens when I was still at school and falling in love with the level of fantasy and by the eventfulness of the book. But meeting Isabel Allende in real life is a completely different thing.

First of all she is petit - and keeps making jokes about it. She is some sort of small bundle of energy with plenty of stories and jokes and a wonderful understanding of people. She gave a reading of her latest book, her autobiography, on Tuesday at the Southbank Centre. She travels with her American husband Willie, a really nice guy, who is the central part of a good part of her jokes.

Before going I had done some research, visited her homepage and learnt that she despites being Chilean she has lived for a long time first in Venezuela and then in California. Now in her second marriage, she has a son (her daughter died in the early 1990s) and three grandchildren. Her family is very lively and she loves writing letters - which is what some of her novels evolve from. Before she turned a novelist she worked as a journalist (apparently Pablo Neruda refused to be interviewed by her claiming her fantasy is too developed and she should be a novelist instead) and as a literary translator (she was fired because she changed dialogs and endings to make the women in the books sound less "idiotic"). As a matter of fact you never know if something she's telling or writing is true or not, but does it really matter? She truly is a great lady!!

Opposition? Which opposition?

Ciao ragazzi, è bellissimo sapere che siete vibranti di energia e di idee!!

Continuerò a scrivere il mio blog in inglese perchè desidero poter raggiungere il maggior numero di persone possibili. Ma continuate a scrivere, fatevi sentire!

As some of you have pointed out, the latest elections in Italy were tough because of a lack of a real, strong opposition. Yes, Veltroni & friends were the opposition - but they could have never made it. And in this I must admit that Berlusconi has done very well: he realised he had to change the underlying structure of his political approach, he changed it by doing his homework and also by borrowing some ideas from the opposition itself and thus undermined the opposition. (Thank you Zadig for the reference to Ezio Mauro and Ilvo Diamanti on Repubblica.it.) And once again it was a case of choosing the "lesser of evils" (see: http://www.beppegrillo.it/2008/04/il_meno_peggio_1/index.html).

So now it's back to us and to the political opposition: if Berlusconi managed to learn his lesson, so can we! We need to understand how he did this, what allowed him to drop all those smaller parties with tree and plant references and move on. And how did you do it? Through information!

Some of you said it is a matter of culture. Yes, culture is important, it is our roots - but it should never block out innovation and ideas. Even Berlusconi managed to change some of his political strategies!

Some others said it is all about ignorance. The literal meaning of that word is "little, limited knowledge". So again, beating ignorance is about information. It's about acquiring new knowledge and also about being open to new ideas, to new approaches, to new times. Even Berlusconi evolved his underlying political structure!

Sometimes even people we do not like can be an example for us...

Why learning English could save Italians

So, Berlusconi has won once again.

When talking about the elections on Monday my boss, an English businessman, asked me what was wrong with Prodi. "Nothing", I thought. "So why are we back with Berlusconi then?" After some thinking I replied "He's unglamorous. That's all". Even The Sunday Times of London describes him as "Great Seducer" leading a "glamour team".

But if this is true, why are Italians such glamour addicts? Well, it's partly because of information. As we all know Italian is spoken in Italy, in a small part of Switzerland and in some border areas. So the information Italians gets is what is published on national media. Trouble is Berlusconi the businessman owns a big part of the most important national newspapers, magazines and book publishing companies and three of the six big TV channels. And The other 3 main channels are state run, so Berlusconi the prime minister now has direct control over them too, as he had twice before. This is the reason why everywhere you look or read there is so much coverage about sex and celebrities: keep them busy with gossip and they won't ask for politics and economy.

Another reason why Italians (secretly?) believe they are the best is history. And climate. And Food. And Wine. And fashion. And the landscape. And Venice, Rome, Tuscany and Lake Como, now with George Clooney. And... and the whole world is watching from out there telling them how wonderful they are! So many times during my four years in London I met people, told them I'm from Italy and spent the following 10 minutes or more listening to what a marvellous country that is!!

The real problem is that Italians do not need to learn about the rest of the world - because the rest of the world comes to Italy. But what both Italians and foreigners fail to understand is the huge difference it makes to holiday in a country rather than to live there, i.e. work or study, be sick, buy or rent a place, install a landline phone, etc.

So why would a better knowledge of the English language save them? Because then they would be able to read foreign newspapers, magazines, books and web sites and watch foreign TV and news. They would be able to learn from the world which is out there, learn how others do things, learn from other peoples' and other countries' mistakes. And gain the possibility of choosing.

The only other thing that could change things is a major catastrophe. We'll see what they choose.

Salman Rushdie

On Sunday night I went to the Southbank Centre with some friends to listen to an interview with Salman Rushdie. He is probably best known for his The Satanic Verses which he wrote 20 year ago and attracted him a lot of enemies, mainly muslims. Some say he did it to attract public and media attention. I believe that fame may be a welcome side effect of an act of freedom of speach - but why would anyone voluntarily put themselves in such a lifechanging and lifethreatening situation.
I haven't read his verses, actually I haven't read any of his books, but after listening to him for over an hour I can call myself his fan! He has a great sense of humor, is a fabulous live reader and is very knowledgable. His ideas on religion, i.e. a collection of accepted norms designed to set a standard of good conduct for a group of people(s), is very close to mine. His writing in the form of stream of though is very interesting and intriguing, analysing a person's thoughts and feelings from all angles. And the idea of an Indian pricess who is "lost on the way" to Europe and finds herself becoming the enchantress of Florence in the 15th century is a magnificent play with fantasy based on widespread historical research.

Italian parlamentary elections 2008

This morning I went to the Italian Consulat and voted. It felt great!

I had to go there because I had forgotten to tell them I had moved to a different address and they sent the electoral post to my old address, and only yesterday I realised that elections were getting closer. So I called them up and was pleasantly surprised by their efficiency and friendlyness - something one does not intuitively associate with Italian burocracy. They told me it was too late to post it again and if I could pass by the consulat to vote.

So this morning I got up a little earlier and got down there. I like voting, I believe it is a very important part of democracy. After all people have been fighting for it for so long. So I queued, then went in, received my envelope, went out, voted in front of the consulat and then brought everything in again and posted it in the electoral urn. One is not allwed to vote inside since there are CCTVs in each room, and your vote is secret. This is one of the things I have learnt today.

The other one is that Emanuele Filiberto, the grandson of the former king of Italy, is now on the electoral roll for the lower chamber! Ha!

A bit of history: Italy was a monarchy - the Savoy being the ruling family - until the end of the war, after which the country became a democratic republic and all mail heirs of the Savoy dynasty were not allowed into Italy any longer. They fought for this law to be changed, starting to raise public awareness about it in the mid 1990s. In 2002 this law was amended and they could go back. In the meantime Emanuele Filiberto's father, Vittorio Emanuele, had been in trouble with justice a few times maily because of corruption and arms trafficking. After they were allowed back in Italy, Emanuele Filiberto got married in Rome to a French actress, his father got into trouble in Italy because of luxury prostitution, he himself founded a political party and soon after that its former vice president was arrested for allegedly being involved in the mafia and another member of the party is on the black list for this year's Liechtenstein tax scandal. And now we can vote for him.

Yeah, politics and power and (il)legal business. They evolve but the essence stays. The funny thing though is that I still believe in democracy...

And btw - happy birthday Kris!!

Charlotte

I love my blog. I enjoy so much sitting down and writing down my thoughts. I like thinking about it when I'm going somewhere and writing my next post in my mind. It makes me think about what I'll write next, something new and interesting and important to me and others too.

Today's post is dedicated to Charlotte, my little cousin and goddaughter. She's a wonderful smart thing whose young life has already proven tough. This week two years ago she underwent surgery to remove a brain tumour in a rather advanced stage. The shock was great and the pain too. She has since been cut open a few times and has gone through many therapies; you name them. At the age of seven she is now fine, or as fine as you can get.

What I personaly struggled most with is that she has lost the innocence children have at that age, due to the serious side effects of brain surgery, the strong therapies on a young body and last but not least the psychological side effects. The last can be summarized in the child's thought "Why is everybody so sad? What have I done wrong...?" leading to obvious feelings of guilt.

Her parents and family have been most incredible in dealing with it managing very well the difficult task of remaining optimistic and speaking openly about it. On my side the distance didn't help. Even now I find it difficult to talk about her illness. I have come to realise that people very often are embarrassed to talk about cancer because they don't know how to deal with it. This has been confirmed to me by other people, both cancer patients and their family and friends.

I have witnessed that speaking openly about such topics has enormous beneficial effects. And if you want to donate some money to charity, the Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children in London may be a good start. Or the Förderkreis für tumor- und leukämiekranke Kinder in Ulm if you live in continental Europe.

New York & real life

Last week we finally sat down and booked our trip to New York for the end of May. We have been thinking about it for a long time, and I have been dreaming about it for even longer. So once the booking was confirmed and the trip had been paid - what a joy!! Oh the feeling when a dream comes true! I smiled when I opened the confirmation email, I smiled when I started whistling the song New York, New York, I smiled over dinner, I smiled at the supermarket.... I kept smiling. And adding stuff to the list of things I want to do ad see. The big apple - I'm coming!

Then yesterday evening it dawned on me that not only we're flying from Heathrow Terminal 5, but that we are also flying British Airways. Shock!! It feels like the Atlantic ocean is getting bigger and bigger and New York is silently drifting away from me... I'll have to talk to Oliver.

My bad luck with past flights is not to be underestimated: 2 flights missed, 1 flight cancelled, 1 flight nearly cancelled due to an attempted terrorist attack (the one with liquids), 1 major delay due to fog, 1 major delay due to technical faults with the main air radar in northern Italy, 2 baggage delays. Am I flying too much or is there something wrong out there?!?

Ah, yes, I do live on an island.