THERE HAD TO BE CAKE

Like so many all over the world, I devoted Monday to watching, on television, the ritual that accompanied the end of an era in London. I am glad I bought an extra box of tissues! A friend and I lunched, between processions, church services, standing for the national anthem and tears, on Italian stuzzichini (finger food) and a Turkish lahmacun (because it tastes good cold and I had therefore been able to make it the day before, using a pizza base not pitta bread, as it traditional). After that there had to be cake and my local bar made the one you see below for me - a thank you to the late Queen but also looking to the future with King Charles:   

Thus a Welshwoman and a Scottish woman in Sicily bade farewell to this most international of queens and we do not think she would have minded at all. 

"SOME MORNING, UNAWARE"

 O, to be in England

Now that April 's there,

And whoever wakes in England

Sees, some morning, unaware,

 ...

wrote Robert Browning in Home Thoughts, from Abroad and went on to list, in the poem, some of the things you might see and hear in the English countryside on an April morning. But you see them distractedly, "unaware" because you take them for granted; you are "there" and able to see them every day.

Many words have been written about the momentous events of this week, so, planning this post, I wondered what I could possibly add to what great and renowned writers have already said. I had written about the Queen on this blog only in June, when we were celebrating her Platinum Jubilee, yet that seems a decade ago now. I pondered, wondered again and considered not writing anything at all but then I thought that perhaps I could write about what it is like to be British and hear such news when you are not "there",  do not wake in England or one of the other nations of the United Kingdom, cannot totally gauge the atmosphere "there" but suddenly, although you hope you have become bicultural, feel more British than you have for years. And you reel from the impact of the news you have just heard.

On the morning of what began as an ordinary day, Thursday, 8th September, I was looking at the British newspapers online and following certain developments on Twitter when suddenly I read that Her Majesty the Queen had been advised to rest as her doctors were "concerned". Alarm bells did not immediately ring in my head as we had seen Her Majesty accepting the resignation of one Prime Minister only on Monday and she had appointed the new one on Tuesday. In the photos, she looked frail but happy. She had rallied before; surely she would rally again? But then serious journalists started tweeting that something strange was going on in Parliament; notes were being passed round and Members of Parliament were looking grim. The Speaker interrupted the session to convey the best wishes of the House to the Queen. It occurred to me that the very fact that the Palace had issued a statement meant that things were very bad and, when we were told that first the (then) Prince of Wales and later the Princess Royal had gone to Balmoral, we knew. As Brits we all knew, wherever we were in the world. In the afternoon the Queen's other children and Prince William arrived at Balmoral and the only further news for hours was that the Queen was "comfortable". Again, as Brits, we knew that this probably meant, "Nothing further can be done" but we perhaps did not expect the  news we dreaded to come so quickly. At home I switched on BBC World News and saw that their main royal news presenter was wearing a black tie. 

At seven o'clock in Italy, which is six o'clock in the UK,  I took my dog out and when I came back, I went into the kitchen for a moment with the television still on in the living room. I heard the words "King" and "Charles" and then I knew for certain. I watched the written announcement that was displayed on the screen and a piece of my heart - the fragment that had woken in England "unaware" and had taken the Queen for granted - dropped out of my body. The National Anthem was played and although I was alone I stood up. I thought, "Oh, goodness, I've got to sing God Save the King" (for the Crown passes immediately to the heir upon the death of the Sovereign).

I thought back to the Coronation, when I was three. I've written before on this blog about how, when it was over, I had asked my great aunt when the next one would be and she had replied, "When the Queen dies." I had cried, because I didn't want this lovely young woman with the dazzling smile to die but I didn't want to wait either. And here I was, seventy years later, and I was standing in a living room in Sicily crying my eyes out just like that little girl so long ago.

When you live in a foreign land, you begin to see your own country with new eyes, especially if you have had to explain its ways and traditions to others, which, as a teacher, I have had to do. I have spent a large part of my life criticising the monarchy but over the years, looking at it not from "there" but from "here", I have come to the conclusion that it has its merits. I think I began to soften towards the Queen in particular when I watched a documentary about her, filmed not long after Prince Philip's retirement from royal duties, in which she walked down what looked like the kitchen stairs of whatever palace she was in one grey, rainy morning, perfectly dressed in coat and matching hat as always, smiling and ready to leave for an engagement. It came into my mind that she must have felt very lonely, despite her entourage. Few would have criticised her if she had handed over to her heir at that time but she was her own woman: when she was twenty-one she had famously made a promise to the people of her nation and the Commonwealth to serve them all her life and she was going to keep it. And who will ever forget the photo that went round the world in 2021, in which she stood alone, because of Covid, on what must have been the worst day of her life - that of her husband's funeral? She may have been a Queen, but how she must have longed for a comforting human touch that day. As someone who spent Italy's first, long, very strict lockdown totally alone apart from my dog, I can tell you that her famous lockdown speech, containing the reference to the song We'll Meet Again which every British person understood, gave a seventy-year-old Welshwoman in Sicily the hope that she desperately needed.

Students often ask me if the royals are "snobs" and I always reply, "Absolutely not." On the contrary, they are trained to put people at ease and are supposed to be polite to everyone. (All right, one was gaffe-prone but we have forgiven him.)  It is often said that the Queen met "everyone" and today a photo of her shaking hands and talking to Kermit the frog of Muppet fame has emerged on social media. She is smiling and she would have been as courteous to Kermit the frog as she was to the Archbishop of Canterbury. 

Watching the documentaries shown during the BBC's coverage of the Queen's death, it has become much clearer to me that she did, indeed, meet "everyone" and how hard she worked. I am usually the first to say that it is not "work" as ordinary people know it but I do not think we can imagine what it takes to be constantly travelling (albeit in great comfort), make speeches which you may not agree with at the behest of a government which operates in your name but tells you what to do, to always smile, appear interested and, most skilfully, engage in conversation without really saying anything at all - to be the perfect "soft power" diplomat. It is because of her strictly kept political neutrality that the Queen was, and is, so respected around the world and it is also why the tributes - some of them from unexpected sources -  have poured in.

Of these tributes, two stand out for me, one from a head of state and the other from an elderly Sicilian gentleman whom I do not know but pass the time of day with in the street:

President Macron said,

For you, she was your Queen.

For us, she was The Queen.

She will be with all of us forever.

The Sicilian man said,

I am so sorry about the Queen. I was in love with her. For me it was as if she was Italian.

Her Majesty was, insofar as her job permitted it, her own woman but she was everybody's Queen.

I do not know when I will wake in England or Wales again, Your Majesty, but I do know that I will never wake "unaware" that you have gone.

For those of you who speak Italian, here is a link to a video in which I show and explain the Coronation Crown coin which I have kept for seventy years. (I'm about one second from the end of the clip and you will need some Sicilian pazienza to skip the ads!)

https://www.videomediterraneo.it/notizie/attualita/morte-elisabetta-ii-il-ricordo-dei-britannici-in-sicilia/

MARKING AN ERA

On the occasion of Her Majesty The Queen's Platinum Jubilee, I'm going to begin with another extract from my memoir, A Place Called Siracusa:

I think we must have got the TV for the Coronation and we had red, white and blue flags all over the house in the run-up to it. I dressed up as the Queen and paraded around pretending to be her for what seemed like months and when it was all over I kept asking when the next Coronation would be.

“Not until the Queen dies”,

said Auntie Mabel, disappointing me abjectly.

I did not want Her Majesty to die but I couldn't believe I'd have to wait till I was as old as Mum and Dad, or even Auntie Mabel and Grandpa! But meanwhile we had a new, young Queen with a dazzling smile and a year or two later my class at school was taken to watch her drive through Bristol. All we really saw was a flash of the strawberry-coloured suit she was wearing as she passed but we waved our little flags like mad, and afterwards drew excruciating pictures of the occasion for posterity. The Queen was soon to disappoint me again, however and the reason for this was our new, red sofa. I was so happy because it was red, my favourite colour at the time but Dad quickly decided it needed to be covered and covered it was, in heavy, drab material. I cried buckets and asked Grandpa when the covers would come off.

“When the Queen comes”, he replied.

I spent months with my nose pressed against my bedroom window, waiting for the Queen to come, but she never did. I've been disillusioned with the monarchy ever since.

Sixty-nine years on and I still don't want the Queen to die. I'm not even a monarchist but I can't imagine the world without her. In a very strange way, which is hard to explain to non-Brits, the Queen has been a part of our lives, though most of us have never met her, many have never seen her at a live event and a large percentage are indifferent to the monarchy, if not against it. I can only explain this sentiment by saying that she perhaps represents the collective memory of the nation. On this particular Jubilee, I am watching the coverage and celebrating in my little way because I believe it is possible to have doubts about the relevance of the monarchy as an institution, whilst maintaining respect for a woman who has always done what she regards as her duty. I also rejoice because, wherever we are, we have had very little to celebrate together for a very long time. I must say that yesterday (2nd June), as I watched the crowd in London walking peacefully to Buckingham Palace, as the people of Britain have, on important national occasions of both joy and sorrow, for generations, I was able to think, “Yes, that is the Britain I remember and the Britain I continue to love.”

In this spirit, then, I wish Her Majesty and the country that made me a very happy Platinum Jubilee. This little rhyme came into my head the other day:

So here's my Coronation Crown

and I paraded up and down,

a “pretend queen”, when I was three,

yet all things pass – and I, and she. 

THE TIME HAS COME...

"The time has come", the blogger said,

to talk of many things,

of popes and queens and festivals

and carnivals and kings."

Let's start with the festival: Sanremo 2022 ended on Saturday, after a great week's entertainment, with an overall win for the duo Mahmood and Blanco and their song Brividi. They will go on to represent Italy with this song at the Eurovision Song Contest in Turin in May so you'll be hearing a lot more of it.

I liked it very much, but I also likes Elisa's song, O forse sei tu, which was beautifully sung and it was nice to see the singer back at the Festival after 20 years. (I've always followed Sanremo, even from Britain.) Elisa came second and also won the the prize for best musical composition. She must have been very pleased as later she skateboarded back to her hotel, still in her beautiful, long, floaty white dress. Brava, Elisa! The Gianni who is so loved in Italy that he is sometimes known as the "Gianni nazionale", the great Gianni Morandi, came third with Apri tutte le porte - Open all the Doors, a song which, with its description of waking up feeling indolent and then being determined to open the doors of life and let the sun in, appealed to everyone's mood. Morandi, with Jovanotti, won the Cover Night (in my opinion always the best night, as I like to wallow in nostalgia) and really the singer has made a fantastic comeback after suffering serious burns to his hands and legs last year in a garden accident. I wish I had his energy!

My favourite song, and therefore the one I voted for, was Irama's Ovunque Sarai  - Wherever You Are and he gave it everything on the final night, saying,

" This evening I'm going to sing to remind all who have lost a loved one that love and beauty always remain in the present."

Irama was placed fourth but I'm sure he will win the Festival one day.

It was also good to see female co-presenters who had been chosen not only for their looks but for what they had to say, which was consistently interesting and I mentioned Lorena Cesarini in my post last Thursday. Had there been an elegance prize, it was generally agreed, it would have gone to to Drusilla Foer, the alter ego of the actor Gianluca Gori. It was the first time Sanremo had been co-presented by a celebrity en travesti and well done to the organisers for moving with the times. Last week, I said that if I make it to the age of 82 I want to be like Iva Zanicchi but after the following exchange on Saturday I've decided I don't:

Iva:  "How tall you are!"

Drusilla: "Taller than you!"

Iva: "You've got other things I don't have!"

Drusilla: "Yes, I'm cultured."

So Drusilla took the repartee prize too and went on to say that she thought we should stop focussing on our diversity and concentrate on our uniqueness. She is strongly tipped to be the main presenter of Sanremo 2023.

From the Festival to another celebration, that of the Platinum Jubilee of Her Majesty the Queen: I'm not entirely a monarchist, as regular readers will know, but I'm not entirely an anti-monarchist either, absurd though the institution can be. Anyway, my friend Carol King and I decided it would have been churlish not to at least drink a toast to her. I think we have all decided to celebrate whatever moments we can in this third year of the pandemic so a "Lizzie lunch" was planned: I prepared some antipasti - my green tomatoes in balsamic vinegar, Asiago cheese with cotognata (quince paste), dried sausage, sun-dried tomatoes and olives. 

We ordered some chicken and chips from a popular rosticceria (as that's a bit British) and a tray of little cakes including these pretty mini-cheesecakes and chocolate cups from my local pasticceria. 

As it's carnival time (although many carnivals have been postponed to the spring because of the pandemic) I also got in some traditional chiacchiere biscuits. This is the first time I've seen some drizzled with pistacchio cream instead of chocolate and very good they were too.

As I said, it would have been
churlish not to...

People have remarked that the Queen's Accession Day 2022 Message is "perfect pitch" and indeed it hit the right note and concentrated on the positive. Her Majesty had the courage to look to the future and also to grant the wish that she knew would make her son and heir apparent happy - that is, to recognise his wife as future Queen (and not Princess Consort as originally suggested in deference to public opinion almost seventeen years ago). We have all moved on, I think, though many people I have spoken to here are indignant on behalf of the late Diana. My view from abroad is that the British have not forgotten her and even if they had, there are series like The Crown to remind them, but that they have forgiven Charles and come to respect him more. Even future kings can make mistakes in their personal lives and my own view is that he has paid for them.

What, I wonder, would Pope Francis think about that? I don't think he would pass judgement on a non-Catholic marriage but perhaps he would quietly wish Charles, who had great respect for his predecessor-but-one and who postponed his second wedding to attend the latter's funeral, well. It would seem so judging by the humility of this man on Sunday's Che tempo che fa programme. The Pope surprised us all by admitting he had wanted to be a butcher as a child, because, shopping with his mother or grandmother, he had seen that the butcher had a bag into which he put money. Quite a change of vocation! The Pope was most angry about what he described as a crime - the treatment of immigrants - saying that they were being held in what amounted to concentration camps in Libya and he saw war as the cause of most of the world's ills:

"A year without arms and there would be enough food and education for the whole world."

Asked about the suffering of children, Pope Francis said that, despite his faith, he could give no explanation and I admired his honesty.

On a lighter note, he admitted that one of his reasons for not choosing to live in the Papal apartment was that the popes who had lived there before him were saints, while he is not one and he needs people around him, for friendship sustains him. He also said that a sense of humour is like a medicine.

Presenter Fabio Fazio has been criticised today for being a little too humble in this edition of Che tempo che fa but I think he is a great interviewer and he did not avoid difficult questions. And who would not have been overawed when interviewing the Pope?

All these events were pleasant distractions from what is happenng in my own country and I found each of them uplifting. If only I could stop scrolling the news more often! 

 

AN EXCUSE FOR CAKE

Today Queen Elizabeth II becomes Britain's longest-reigning monarch and at London Town, Modica - Centro Linguistico Internazionale we've got cake to celebrate!

Grazie, Delizie D'autore!

THE "CHI" ISSUE

Tonight I'm going to weigh in on the story that won't go away and yes, I have a copy of Chi - it's pronounced "kee", for any Sky presenters who may be reading - the Italian magazine that has published pictures of a topless Kate along with others that have been trumpeted as "even more intimate".  The magazine may have sold out in locations such as Milan and Bologna, but it was still on the newsstands here late on Saturday and in the newsagent's people were talking about but not, for the most part,  buying it.  That may say more about Sicilian spending habits than it does about the quality or otherwise of the publication in question.

Having purchased a copy [because I'm still too British to leaf through it and put it back on the shelf] I can tell you that the answer to the question, "What's all the fuss about?" is, "Very little":  The "intimate" pictures show nothing more than the couple applying sun lotion to each other's backs and a caress of the head, while the young woman sunbathes topless, just as millions of others do - except, of course, that this young woman is the future Queen of the United Kingdom and that is the editor's justification for publishing the pictures.

I have to say that I would have more respect for the editor if he simply admitted to publishing to sell more copies and it is worth pointing out that Chi is the magazine which published photographs of the dying Diana, Princess of Wales some years ago - a more serious lapse of taste with the potential to deeply wound a number of people, including the young man who features so prominently in the September 26th issue.

More interesting, for me, are several interviews in the same issue with key Italian media figures, one of whom, Clemente Minum, director of TG5 news, expresses views which are close to my own:  Mr Minum points out that members of the Windsor family enjoy many privileges, for which being a little more careful about what they say and do seems a small price to pay.

I would add this:  if the Windsors had ever known what it is like to need money - I mean really need it - they might understand that the temptation, for paparazzi and public alike, to photograph them in compromising situations is irresistible.

Back in 1962, the film producer Carlo Ponti who, as the husband of Sophia Loren, knew a thing or two about paparazzi, wrote this:

"Our privacy as a couple is always threatened, and consequently we move from country to country or across the ocean, from house to flat and back again, in the effort to safeguard it.  We don't hold others responsible for this lack of privacy. The fault, if any, lies in ourselves, or rather in our chosen profession."

Prince William of Wales did not choose to be a royal but his wife did.  She has plenty of advisers but an example is close at hand in her grandmother-in-law, the only head of state in the world who could have played the part of a "Bond girl" at the Olympics Opening Ceremony whilst retaining her dignity. Why? Because retaining her dignity is what she has been doing all her life.

TREAT OF THE WEEK - 17

I have to admit that I felt quite nostalgic this afternoon as I watched the Team GB Athletes' Parade through London. There was just something about the grey sky, the orderliness and organisation combined with evident joy that made it beautifully and delightfully British and the tears were streaming down my face.  I was three years old at the time of the present Queen's Coronation and, though a lot of my "memories" of it have probably been embroidered by what I have seen and read since, I have a very clear memory of an atmosphere of joy and hope. I imagine that people in my own country are experiencing similar emotions now.

Later a student of mine - who knew nothing of the Parade but perhaps a little telepathy was in operation all the same - had the lovely thought of making a cake for me and we had afternoon tea. That's one of the nicest things anyone has done for me and suddenly London didn't seem so far away after all.

DON'T PANIC, YOUR MAJ!

Don't panic, Your Majesty - Sicily Scene is ready for your Jubilee bash!

 I've got Jubilee toes

and it's amazing what you can find at Catania market:

By the way, my lovely hairdresser Raffaele would have been devastated if he hadn't received an invitation and, as I know you're very busy, Ma'am, I made sure you sent him one:

Cincin, Lilibet!

ONE FOR MY OWN COUNTRY ...

... parts of which are in a bit of trouble.

These are the landscapes of my childhood and I remember them thus.

- Just another reminder of how something can suddenly hit you for six, emotionally, when you live abroad.

Anti-monarchist that I am, though, I would like to know what our beloved heir to the throne, who has a mansion not a million miles from these scenes, is doing to help? [Other than being towed along in a dinghy to survey the scene, that is.] OK, I know he can't exactly throw Highgrove open to the public, for security and other reasons, but surely the man could do something?

"LA REGINA" LOSES IT

It's not often that I read a news item from Britain that actually cheers me up these days but today's story of the Queen, who may or may not have stormed out of a photo shoot after being asked to remove her tiara, is being reported here with amusement and some puzzlement. The BBC, of course, looks stupid, first saying that HM "stormed in" not out, and then having to apologise for showing the footage at all in a trailer for a documentary.

Now, I'm not normally one to defend the Windsors and have often thought that HM would do well to follow Coco Chanel's fashion advice to "look in the mirror and take one thing off" , in particular with regard to accessories. But hey, so the lady had a clothes tantrum! What woman doesn't and who among us does not know the feeling? You spend hours trying to look just right [admittedly with a lot of professional help in the case of Elisabetta ] decide, finally, that you will pass muster and then, when you do make an entrance, you don't need someone putting you down - particularly another woman! So welcome to the girls' club, Lizzie Windsor!

The Italian expression perdere le staffe for losing one's temper, literally "to lose one's stirrups" is rather appropriately used in this case, don't you think?!