RIDDLE OF THE WEEK

When is an installment not an installment? When Rai [Italy's public service broadcasting company, owned by the Ministry of Economy and Finance] has anything to do with it, that's when!

For some time now, Italy has been trying to solve the problem of TV licence fee evaders, of which there are many.  A couple of years ago, it was decided that, if the fee was added to electricity bills, everyone would have to pay it on time, for everyone has electricity and if you have electricity you are bound to have a TV, right?  Who, after all, could live without one? Well, quite a few people are actually claiming that they can and do.

If you genuinely don't have a TV and therefore wish to be exempted from licence fee payment, you are going to have to prove it, this year and every year, and, quite honestly, I don't fancy your chances. I have a friend here who has never had a TV and who has to date fought a ten-year battle in order to be believed - a fiasco which began long before some bureaucrat came up with the combined licence fee and electricity bill idea.

But let us get to the installments: as a softener, the licence fee has been slightly reduced from €113,50 to €100 per year, to be paid in ten installments.  Parliament finally passed the measure last year after much to-ing amd fro-ing and if you're British, like me, you might have expected to be billed for the first installment with the first electricity bill of 2016. This didn't happen and nobody seemed to know if or when the payments would have to start. Now, however, it has been announced that the first "installment" will be requested with the July electricity bill - only it won't be one installment, but six, as the January - June installments will have to be paid in one go.  To my mind, this renders them non-installments but a down payment, though everybody else just sighs and regards the situation as perfectly normal - which of course, it is in Italy, a country not known for its ability to simplify such matters.

Something tells me there is going to be a fair amount of chaos in July!

SICILY, USA?

So anxious are certain Italian politicians to rid themselves of what they regard as the "burden" of the South that one of their number, Mario Borghezio of the Lega Nord,  has suggested that Sicily and Campania be sold to the USA.  The idea that Sicily might become a US state dates back at least to the end of World War 11 and the era of Salvatore Giuliano so its resurgence in another unsettled period is hardly a surprise.  But let's take a light-hearted look at what the idea could mean in practice:

As far as I know, no one, this time round, has asked the Americans if they want to buy but their arrival might speed up transactions at the post office.  On second thoughts, the narrow street that is home to the Modica Sorda post office is far too narrow for all the indigenous cars whose drivers insist on entering it so I can't quite see Cadillacs managing the parking. Most of Modica's streets would have to be widened, in fact, and I think the Modicani would be accommodating about this, understanding as they do the necessity of driving wherever they want to go.

The only time when it is permitted not to drive is during the passeggiata, which takes place after work but before dinner on weekdays and any time after siesta until dinner time on Sundays.  This is when men and women parade in their finery along a set route and when you reach the end of the street or promenade you turn around and walk its whole length again.  It is also where boy meets girl, man courts woman, local gossip is exchanged and fashion trends are set.  It is essential, ladies, to throw on as much bling as possible and the men will blend in once they get used to wearing trainers with suits.  [The trainers, by the way, must be by Gucci.]

But we are jumping ahead, for our happy band of American administrators will need to take a siesta after all that driving and competing for parking spaces, followed by lunch. When they wake up, it will not be time for dinner, as at home, but to head back to the office for a few hours.  Then, having fulfilled their passeggiata duties and survived until the earliest possible hour at which a Sicilian might consider dining - at around 8.30 pm - they may be relieved to know that Sicily does have its own fast food in the form of focacce and arancini.  [Modica even saw off a McDonald's a few years ago so it is better not to mention Big Macs here.]

Pizza, though, is definitely not fast food and should you decide to go out for one you will have to show pazienza while it is cooked in a traditional, stone oven.  It will occur to no one to offer you an aperitvo during this considerable wait so you will have to do what the locals do and order a plate of chips to fill both the time and your stomach.  You are expected to consume one whole pizza each, not between you but don't worry because when it comes it will be so delicious that you will have no difficulty.

Afterwards you will take another passeggiata as you move on to a bar known for its pastries and you might even get to bed at around 1 am or later on Saturdays.  Oh yes, the pace of life might be slower but believe me, you will need all your energy!

Talking of the pace of life, the pace of Italian bureaucracy, as everybody knows, is even slower. No sale has been agreed and I think that, in Sicily, we 'll be happily staying exactly as we are.

STROMBOLI STOPS SMOKING

I am not referring to the volcano, however:  It seems that the only tobacconist in the little village of Ginostra on the island applied to have his licence renewed six months ago but has received no response.  Therefore it will be impossible to buy cigarettes in the village from Easter and, Italian bureaucracy being what it is, this situation may continue into the summer tourist season. 

The 40 or so villagers are protesting to the government and are urging tourists to do the same.  Personally, I think they should leave things as they are!

CONGRATULATIONS - HERE IS YOUR FINE

"The inhabitants of Ispica", goes a local saying, "will live to be 100".  And when they reach that great age they receive, not a telegram from their head of state, as in the UK, but a nice fat fine from their city of origin, it seems.

Signora Michela Concetta Leontini, who celebrated her hundredth birthday on 10th January, was dismayed to be handed, a few days later, a fine of over €6,000 for non-payment of a rubbish collection tax in Ispica for the years 2005 - 2010. She has not lived in the house referred to for 72 years, having left Ispica for Ragusa in 1939 and Ragusa for Rome, where she still lives, in 1950.

The house is not only uninhabited but has never had running water, electricity or gas.  Signora Leontini intends to contest the fine at Ragusa County Court.

CENSUS AND SENSIBILITY

I have just completed the 34-page, 2011 Italian Census online and it wasn't an onerous task.  However, much has been made of the fact that this is the first "digital census" for the country and many people were angry and frustrated on census day [last Sunday] when the site became overloaded and they could not access it.  Even some of those who did had difficulty in sending their completed form online and resorted to pen and paper in the end.  

All seems to be functioning splendidly now, I must say, although residents who do not read Italian are not able to find the promised help in some of their own languages online.  As I was pressing the button to generate a receipt for my form, I did notice that this, at least, seems to be available in German and Slovenian so perhaps the foreign language guidelines will appear in a few days.

The only slight difficulty I found was that academic qualifications cannot be matched exactly between one country and another but I have been luckier than the Bishop of Piazza Armerina who, being unable to find his type of work listed, called Istat [the Italian Statistics Office] for help and was told to just pick the job description which most nearly corresponded to his own from the list.  The good Bishop finally chose to describe himself as "involved in activities such as hairdressing or launderette services".

I am at a loss to understand why the census compilers need to know how many loos, baths and showers I have but I answered dutifully and refrained from writing, "I've got a bidet, too but I don't use it because I'm British".

Image: Wikimedia Commons

A VISIT TO THE RABBIT WARREN

During August I received two rather confusing communications from the local refuse collection office:  the first was a letter [addressed to me personally at my home] informing me that they did not have my address to send me any bills [although these have been arriving regularly ever since I have been here] and the second, which appeared the very next day, contained the latest bill.

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"Curiouser and curiouser", thought I, especially when I read the first letter more carefully:  it required me to fill in an enclosed form which asked for all kinds of complicated information about which I have no idea such as the distance, in square metres, from my apartment to the nearest communal rubbish containers.  Now, I was never a dab hand with a ruler at school so the thought of using some kind of surveyor's contraption outside with any success defeated me totally and I knew that I would not be able to present this information in person, as requested.

Nevertheless, the deadline for the return of the letter having already expired, I decided this morning that the only thing I could do was to throw myself upon the mercy of the good folk at the office, which is situated in the town hall in Modica Bassa.  I was rather hoping it would turn out to be one of the small offices at street level outside the main building but, having been told that the person I needed to speak to could be found in the second office in the row and then the fifth, I soon resigned myself to climbing the steep, marble staircase in the imposing edifice itself.

Inside, you are usually greeted by a friendly pensioner who directs you to the office you want - or somewhere within a few hundred metres of it - and as you walk down corridor after corridor, you encounter a rabbit warren of cupboard-like apertures in which legions of clerks are busily ensuring that Italy's bureaucracy will survive for at least another millenium.

Finally, I was directed up a further flight of ancient stone steps to a row of offices so small that I was convinced only miniature rabbits could inhabit them and, when I knocked, found not one but four people typing away inside.

"Ah", said the clerk when I explained the reason for my errand, "we must have sent the letter asking for information after we sent the bill."

"So I can tear it up, then?" I asked hopefully.

"Oh, no, signora, we have to give you a receipt to prove that you have come here and then you must keep the papers together.  But you will have to wait a few minutes, signora, as we have to find the computer programme that will produce the receipt."

Not for nothing have I spent six years coming to terms with the workings of the Sicilian post office, so at that point I settled myself in a corner with the book I had brought along for just such an eventuality.  After half an hour, I resisted the temptation to utter,

"Oh, my ears and whiskers, how late it's getting!"

I must admit to becoming a little peturbed when the gentleman dealing with my query had to unplug his printer, connect it to a colleague's computer and then start the programme all over again because his own printer was "not compatible" but  I assure you, reader, that I did not bat an impatient eyelid.

At last, the document was printed and I was ready to leave, but not before it had been literally rubber-stamped with much noise and embellished with both my own signature and that of the clerk.

"It takes all the running you can do to stay in the same place", I remembered as I left.

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BRILLIANCE VERSUS BUREAUCRACY

This is an article of mine published in Italy Magazine yesterday.  I offer the whole of it here as it shows how frustrating some of Italy's bureaucratic procedures can be and not just over minor , day to day matters:

Two patients suffering from trachea cancer, a 31-year-old Czech woman and a 19-year-old British woman, received successful trachea [windpipe] transplants using their own stem cells in Italy during July. This is the first time such a procedure has been carried out in Italy but the technique was pioneered by a Swiss-born Italian doctor two years ago in Spain.

Dr Paolo Macchiarini headed the team of forty doctors and nurses during the ten-hour operations using donor windpipes which had been stripped of their cells and then injected with regenerated tissue from the noses and bone marrow of the two patients. The stem cells will take two to three months to grow but the tracheae are functional. The patients will not need anti-rejection drugs because the tracheae contain their own tissue.

In another first for Italy, the patients received radiation therapy during the operations in order to reduce the risk of recidivous tumours.

The British patient was able to speak three or four days after the operation, said a spokesman at the Careggi University Hospital in Florence. Both patients have now been discharged and the Czech patient is the mother of a five-month-old baby.

Dr Macchiarini told a press conference that the technique could, in the future, be used on other organs.

You would imagine, then, that all at the Careggi are happy and of course they are, with regard to the result of the surgery.  However, with regard to Dr Macchiarini, an enormous row, now dubbed “il giallo di Macchiarini” [“The Macchiarini Mystery”] by the media, has developed:  Dr Macchiarini [51] joined the   Careggi as Head of the Department of General Thoracic and Regenerative Surgery and Intrathoracic Biotransplantation earlier this year from the University of Barcelona, where he was Head of Thoracic Surgery.  According to his statement, he was offered both a clinical and a teaching post but the University post, which he had hoped would allow him to train talented young doctors in his techniques, has not materialised. He was also promised research funding from several sources but only the Region of Tuscany has so far kept its promise.

Dr Macchiairini is frustrated with Italian bureaucratic procedures in the academic world and says he does not understand why, after four meetings of the Academic Board at the Careggi, he has still not officially been offered the University post. The somewhat embarrassed President of the Careggi has said that certain procedures have to be followed in all Italian universities and the main stumbling block seems to be that Dr Macchiarini has not been a candidate in Italy’s complicated series of written competitions for academic posts. Dr Macchiarini sweeps this reasoning aside, saying that the University of London and the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm only had to read his CV to offer him a post.

Now Dr Macchiarini has accepted an academic post at the Karolinska Institute, although he will not yet abandon his medical work at the Careggi. A new contract, which will allow him to work in both locations, is being drawn up by the Careggi.

The President of the Tuscan Region, Enrico Rossi, who was instrumental in persuading Dr Macchiarini to return to Italy, has expressed his disappointment at the fact that it will not be possible for Dr Macchiarini to establish a specialist medical school in Italy and his sincere hope that the “super surgeon” will not leave the Careggi entirely.

Do you sympathise with Dr Macchiarini or the University Board?

ONLY IN ITALY

Overheard in a public office today:

Citizen to official:  "Excuse me, are you busy?"
Official:  "It depends."

SKY ITALIA, YOU ASKED FOR IT....

In youth, I had a very quick temper which often shamed me in personal relationships despite, or perhaps because of, the fact that I had a job, then as now, which requires infinite patience. Now it is rare for me to lose my temper on a personal level, though I am still angered by war, injustice, hunger, poverty, racism and the "big things" of life.

Tonight, however, I am furious on my own behalf and this post constitutes a rant at the cause: the decision-makers at Sky Italia, who have, without a word of warning, taken BBC Entertainment off their platform. There I was on Monday evening, settling down for my "treat of the week" - two hours of "Holby City" - but when I keyed the channel number in there was a notice from Sky saying that from 1st March BBC Entertainment was unavailable. There was no explanation or advice offered.

Most of you know that I'm an Italian graduate and am fluent in the language, so I do watch Italian TV, though I would rather listen to BBC Radio 4 than watch anything. But "Holby City" and "Casualty" are my little bits of Britain and I look - I mean looked - forward to them. Selina's love life, Charlie's childcare problems, Connie the man-eating medical director and Chrissie, the matron who's anybody's after a martini, are the stuff of which quite pleasant dreams are made. But now because of Sky Italia's actions - or maybe non-actions - I won't know who is sleeping in whose bed in any of the hospital departments from one week to the next. [You didn't think the medical staff had time for the patients in these programmes, did you?] Come on Sky Italia, these are serious matters!

There are , apparently, other cards which you can buy to receive BBC Entertainment in Italy but I'm hanged if I'm going to shell out more when Sky is already so expensive! Oh, no, I am going to keep on and on at Sky until the channel is restored to our screens and, if the facebook group "Bring Back BBC Entertainment on Sky Italia" is anything to go by, a lot of other ex-pat Brits in Italy are ready to do the same.

Not that BBC Entertainment - formerly BBC Prime - is a perfect channel, for it is far from that. It sometimes screens soap opera episodes in the wrong order so you get completely muddled [the sensation is a bit like being drunk] it goes in for Saturday night "stacks", so that you get about three hours of episodes of one programme - this is just lazy scheduling - and it shows repeats of comedies from thirty years ago time and time again. I have to admit, though, that these are funnier than a lot of the comedy that is churned out today and the familiar faces give you a sort of cosy, nostalgic feeling. The channel also angered a lot of viewers a couple of years ago when it announced a decision to broadcast even more rubbish "reality" and "lifestyle" shows. So it was far from perfect but it was, after all, dear old "Auntie" BBC and we put up with it stoically, as Brits do. And now we want it back! It's quite simple, Sky Italia: we have the right to grumble about it but you don't have the right to take it away.

All any of us can get out of Sky is that it "has not renewed its contract" with the BBC and the BBC is confirming that. Is it a coincidence that the Berlusconi government has cut advertising time on Sky or that the BBC announced massive cuts yesterday? Or could it be that Sky's bureaucratic procedures cannot cope with the channel's change of name? Your guess is as good as mine. But Sky had better get its act together or it will find itself losing many of the British clients who keep it in business.

In revenge, here are some Skyisms for you. Sky News, I have to say, is often first on the scene and when it is good it is very, very good. But most of the time it is mediocre and sometimes it is terrible.

On Saturday, for instance, we had pictures of people standing on a Hawaiian beach waiting for the tsunami, digital cameras at the ready [as if the tsunami was going to stop and say "cheese"] while a female news presenter several times described waves which were "crashing in" as we all gazed at a remarkably calm sea. Sky newsreaders can rarely hide their disappointment when a disaster fails to happen and this one was no exception.

Then there was the time when a weathergirl was called in to fill a Saturday afternoon slot by describing what happens in a flood:

"It's like a teacup that overflows", she explained as if she were Einstein.

Well, thank you, Sky, I would never have figured that out!

When Madeleine McCann disappeared nearly every Sky News reporter got a beano out to Portugal. Even the excellent Kay Burley was despatched to an almost empty beach to interview British holidaymakers. Why the task needed someone of Burley's standing was never explained.

But by far the most common occurence on Sky News is some political row or other which somehow always breaks out late at night or on weekends. On those occasions a hapless political reporter, usually poor old Peter Spencer, has to stand, in snow, fog or torrential rain, outside a Downing Street where nothing is happening or outside a Parliament where nothing is happening. Do they think their viewers have no imagination at all? Is this what I pay my 500 euros a year for?

No, it is not, Sky. I pay it to receive foreign channels that I would not otherwise be able to receive. If you cannot restore BBC Entertainment you will lose my subscription and many others and I wouldn't have thought that you could afford this in these desperate times. So what have you got to say for yourselves, Sky Italia?

Da: Patricia Eggleton No. cliente: ********

A: Sky Italia

Oggetto: Canale 138 - BBC Entertainment

Modica, 3 marzo 2010

Spett. Ditta Sky Italia

sono spiacente di notare che, dal 1 marzo 2010, il canale BBC Entertainment non è più disponibile sulla piattaforma Sky e Vi prego di informarmi dei Vostri motivi per la situazione.

Questo canale è importante per molte persone anglofone che abitano in Italia e lo Sky è in grado di perdere i loro abbonamenti. C'è già un gruppo molto attivo sul facebook.

Vi prego di riconsiderare la Vostra decisione.

Mi auguro di sentirVi presto.

Distinti saluti

Patricia Eggleton

SHE WHO SPEAKETH TOO SOON...

The other day I reported that the water service was functioning again and many of my kind commenters were happy and relieved for me. However, last night the supply in the condominio ran out yet again. I wasn't too worried, for as soon as I heard that the lorries were delivering again I rang the Water Office to book our next truckload of 10 cubic meters. This was on Monday.

When I phoned our lorry driver this morning to ask if he could deliver today, he said that, as a delivery had been requested, he thought so. Then a neighbour saw him delivering further up the street and he informed her that the Office had said we wouldn't get any water for another 7 - 10 days! [The temperature has reached over 40 C today.] So there was nothing for it but to ask the lorry driver for a delivery a pagamento and, as of half an hour ago, we have water but I am 35 € poorer. I am going to insist that the other tenants chip in this time!

The driver told me that when he went to the Office to find our bolleta, the note that authorises him to make the delivery, he couldn't locate it because there was a montagna of them, such is the demand on the service in the heat. I understand that and of course, none of this is his fault, but heat in Sicily in July is hardly a new phenomenon, is it?! Ah, well, pazienza.

I loved Tommy Steele as a child and this was the "B" side of "A Handful of Songs" - on 78 rpm vinyl!

Tommy Steele - Water, Water
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SICILIAN SAGES

Uncertain: that is how most Sicilians feel about the coming year according to a Demopolis poll. Like others all over the world, they are worried about what the future holds for themselves and their children and 53% of those interviewed feel that their family financial situation is more precarious than it was a year ago. Sicilians have cut down their expenditure on clothing, accessories, travel and leisure activities, with many having decided to stay at home to celebrate New Year rather than go out. At Christmas the majority cut down on the amount they would usually spend on presents but did not spend less on food and technological goods. 66% of interviewees thought that the economic situation in Sicily and in Italy as a whole will worsen over the next 12 months.

Interestingly, when asked what important news events they remembered from 2008, the majority recalled national and international news stories: they could not think of a single important event that had happened in Sicily! Sicilians continue to derive their contentment from family and friends and it is this, rather than the promises of politicians, that gives them hope.

How does all this compare to the feelings of people in Italy in general? Well, according to this report on a separate, nationwide poll, the predominant mood expressed by interviewees was pessimism. 60% of respondents expected to be in financial difficulty in 2009 and 31% of those who have jobs live in fear of losing them. However, from my own observations it is impossible to be totally pessimistic in Sicily: frustrated, yes; resigned, yes and uncertain, certainly, for the simplest transaction can turn into a bureaucratic nightmare and you never know if, let alone when, it will be completed. In the rest of Italy you may be prepared for the bureaucracy but you do know that eventually your business will be concluded! But in Sicily, where family is everything and friends are cherished, you can, on most days, even in the middle of winter, at least sit in the sun and exercise your pazienza!

Finally, just to cheer up my fellow countrymen and women, the only people in Europe who feel more pessimistic than the Italians at the moment are reportedly the British!

DON'T MENTION WALES!

There I was, sitting innocently at work doing some preparation before class this morning when the phone went and it was my boss: "I am coming to get you right now and you have to come down to the electoral office in Modica Bassa to register to vote!" [My boss, being a candidate in the municipal elections, will not accept my British indolence as an excuse.] It was 11.20 by this time and I had to sign the papers by midday! In the background I could hear electoral officers asking, "Is England in the EU?" [I didn't think it appropriate to shout out "Britain, if you don't mind!"] and then someone said, "They can't be - they've got sterling and not the euro!" Without losing my pazienza I explained that the euro was nothing to do with EU membership. Then I was asked if I had residenza [permission to live here], I answered in the affirmative and, lo and behold, they "found" me on the computer!

Seven minutes later, boss arrived, said we'd have to pick up my ID documents from home - lord knows why, as it is fairly obvious that if you have residenza here you have had to show these to get it in the first place - but again, I didn't argue and dashed into my bedroom to retrieve these, confusing both James and Simi in my haste.

11.59 and we arrive at the office. My documents are whisked off to be photocopied yet again, all the papers are ready, I am treated like a Queen, sign them and by 12.01 we are done. "When the papers are stamped", said the kindly lady clerk [for everything has to be literally rubber-stamped in triplicate] "the voting papers will be brought to your house". All smiles, handshakes and grazie then, and now I await the courier in the morning. I almost exist in this city!

"If they weren't sure about England being in the EU, it's a good thing neither of us mentioned Wales", I remarked to my dear boss on the way back.

QUESTO E QUELLO

= "This and that":

1. In order to survive: I paid my annual TV licence fee last week and those of you who have not followed the blog from the beginning may be surprised to learn that the bill is sent out by the Agenzia Entrate [tax office]. In Italy as soon as you have your residenza - permission to reside in a town – it is assumed that you cannot live without a television! [ You can’t get the residenza without the Carta CEE, if you are an EU citizen, ie., permission to remain in the country which you are not supposed to need, or permesso di soggiorno if you are not, and you can’t obtain either of these without your codice fiscale, equivalent to a UK National Insurance number, which is issued by the Agenzia Entrate, who might tell you that they cannot issue it because you don’t yet have the residenza!]

2. Another water saga: The condominio ran out of water yesterday morning. I’d forgotten to order a lorry-load on Thursday so phoned on Friday morning and asked if it would be at all possible to deliver on Saturday. I did not speak to the usual helpful employee and the reply was a stern, “Not before Monday or Tuesday”. But there is a new tenant upstairs and she tells me she has connections with the politici, so I gladly passed on the phone number for water requests to her. About 10 minutes later, just as I was leaving the building to go out for lunch, I heard the welcome sound of the camion trundling up the street. [I'm sure a Sicilian proverb would be appropriate here but I can't think which one it is!]

3. "The working-day world": [I just looked that up, as I’d always thought the quote was “workaday” and had forgotten it is from As You Like It, which you will all know.] Work is tiring but satisfying and my new students are charming. But a timetable?! Forget it, reader, for it changes hourly: some book a 2-hour or 90-minute lesson but then give up after an hour as they are tired; others have priorities such as the latest girlfriend or Carnevale celebrations this week; and then others arrive out of nowhere wanting a one-off lesson because they have an exam or have to give a business presentation in English the next day! It is all unpredictable and interesting and I am beginning to like it that way. By this time of evening , though, I am stanca morta [dead tired] so forgive me if my blog visiting is a little erratic at the moment. [And yes, I do have my new boss’s permission to post on this!]

THE YELLOW "BLUES"

I am not referring to the colours of an Italian football team or to the EU flag, but to the corporate colours of the Italian Post Office, which, although I wrote that it had much improved a few weeks ago, has managed to depress me yet again!

Today it took me one hour and forty-five minutes to pay my gas bill in there. [This was the bill for part two of last winter and it was enormous, so that hardly lifted my mood either.] I had tried to get the deed done yesterday lunch time, for usually the place is quieter during that period, but gave up after one hour. Irma, who happened to be there too, walked out after ten minutes, so I don’t think I displayed a particularly un-Italian lack of pazienza when I threw in the towel !

This morning I arrived there armed with a bottle of water and a [long] book and, after taking my “ticket” [oh, how the Italians love “il ticket” and I could understand this affection if the possession of one made the slightest difference to the speed at which you are served] I settled myself down for the duration. My ticket said “C105” – ie, that you are there to pay a conto corrente [bill] and, when the next “C” number is displayed on screen, you should be able to work out how many people are ahead of you. Well, I waited and waited and “P” numbers for postal services came up, as did “H” numbers for post office account holders, numbers for business customers and numbers for “pensionati” to collect their state pensions, which are paid out by alphabetical order of surname at the beginning of each month. Today was "F &G" day, which is not as bad, here, as "A & B" day, but you know you are in for a long wait if you have to carry out a transaction on any "pension day". [The PO was closed on the 1st, for Tutti i Santi / I Morti, which has not helped the process this month.] I am truly sorry to say that the pensionati are half the trouble, though it is not their fault, as collecting their due seems to require a myriad documents, signatures and [literally] official rubber-stamping on these. But do they get annoyed? – They do not, for they seem to regard it as a chance to meet friends and as a joyous day out! Every now and then one of these old dears will mistake the letter on their ticket, amble up to the counter and say, “But I thought it was my turn” and the clerks often decide it is quicker to take pity on them than argue. Well, no “C” numbers came up for an hour and eventually what I hoped would be a rebellion began, as a group of women shouted at a clerk, “Ma perché non si mostra mai il C? Noi siamo qua da due ore – non è giusto!” [= “Why doesn’t the C ever come up? We’ve been here 2 hours – it’s not fair”] and I joined in this cry, because I’m buggered if there is going to be a revolution without me!

The poor clerk just replied that she couldn’t help what her computer did but she did seem relieved when it started showing “C” numbers. Of course, we were only on about number C 65 at this stage so I was plunged into despair anew as I realised that the belligerent women had calmed down and the revolution was for another day.

By 1pm, the building was nearly empty but still, you see, you had to await your “magic number” and as the harassed woman clerk kept pressing her computer button to bring up the digits on the display board, she started using the intervals when no one appeared to gossip to her colleague instead of pressing the button again to bring up the next number! I was at screaming point by then, and had even closed William Hague’s biography of Pitt the Younger – I was rather thinking of throwing it at a clerk or at least one of the computers – when the elderly gentleman next to me started clapping his hands and shouting at her, “Signora, non c’è! Avanti!” [= “That person is no longer here. Get on with it!"] I could have kissed him!

However, when my turn did come, reader, I got the nice male clerk with the smile and the sparkly eyes – and for that I forgive Poste Italiane everything!

THE WCL PRODUCTION LINE

1. The olives, duly bashed, are now in a solution of coarse salt and water, which will be changed twice daily for 10 days.

2. The quinces for the quince liqueur have been grated and must sit thus for 4 days.

3. The alcohol for the liqueur has been poured onto bashed [I seem to be doing a lot of bashing lately] cloves, coriander seeds, cinnamon and almonds plus a little nutmeg [in the absence of mace]. After 4 days I will press the quinces through muslin and add them. After 10 days, the sugar should be added and the mixture left for another 10 days before straining.


By the way, if any Italian government bureaucrats are reading this post, the title does not mean that this blog supports a profit-making company! Se sta leggendo quest'articolo qualche burocrate del governo italiano, il titolo non significa che questo blog costituisca un'organizzazione imprenditoriale del lavoro!

FURTHER UPDATE ON THE "BAVAGLIO"

Now, at last, Times Online has a take on it here. We have the amendment, which states that "Persons who have or use personal or collective internet sites, whether or not they carry products, and provided they do not constitute a profit-making company, will not have to register with the roc [Registro degli operatori della comunicazione]". Beppe Grillo is as unconvinced as I am that this is the solution, for he asks, as I asked on Tuesday, whether sites which, for instance, carry Google Ads, could be deemed "profit-making companies". This being Italy, I fear they might. The whole thing is still ambiguous. Grillo also points out that the rest of the world is now laughing at Italy.

I still think all this has happened because a group of politicians see bloggers as possible sources of revenue, first and foremost, but it could also be that they wouldn't mind shutting down blogs such as Grillo's. To me he is a very welcome thorn in the side of authority.

This is what I think will happen, for what it's worth: I think we will all, eventually, have to at least begin some ridiculous, costly - in time if not in money - process of "registering" ; we will be fed-up, irritated and worried to death as the procedures are very unlikely to be simple. And finally, when the government [whichever is in by then] realises that the idea is a non-starter and impossible to regulate, there will be a climb-down - not least because this law will be out of line with EU statutes.

UPDATE ON THE "BAVAGLIO" [GAG]

So now the totally out of date Levi has proposed that an additional clause be added to article 7 of the " gagging law" [ which would require all blog writers to register with the authorities and to pay a tax on their activity] stating that blogs which operate for "private" and not "collective" use would be exempt from this regulation. But blogging is by definition a collective activity! What's the point of bloody well writing one if it is not going to be read and commented upon? - Might as well keep a nice, secret diary, like the Victorians. "When you are in a hole", I would like to say to signor Levi, "stop digging": ie., admit it's an ill-conceived, ridiculous law in its entirety, scrap it and start again!

OF TONERS AND TINTERS

Here in Modica about 1400 citizens were issued, at the beginning of the year, with identity cards which are useless - because the wrong sort of toner was used in the Comune printer and the ink fades quickly. The Comune has said it will "try" to reissue cards to those affected without their having to pay administration fees or for bolli all over again. Bolli are special stamps which you have to purchase for nearly every document in Italy and they are a source of much revenue and fun for town authorities, as the officials just love sending you to the tobacconist's to buy them and making you wait all over again when you come back. [The trip to the tobacconist's may be a long one as the nearest might not have a bollo of the value that you need for the particular document.] The citizens have already had to pay themselves for new photographs for the replacement cards. I'll be interested to find out what other fees they are actually charged.

In a Warholist gesture, a 54-year-old man threw red dye into the Trevi Fountain in Rome on Friday. It has been cleaned up today. I think it looked rather pretty myself, and it seems I am not alone in this opinion, as now artists and celebrities are pointing out that it's not a bad idea and that the incident has generated a great deal of publicity for Rome. The photographer Oliviero Toscani has gone just a little over the top, though, in declaring that "Rome still menstruates - it's still fertile!" - Oh, I do love Italians!

GOING - GAGA - GAGGED

UPDATE: 23.10.07, 6.30 PM: Corriere's online edition has this, in which the minister proposing the law has stated categorically that no gagging of bloggers is intended and that the law will only apply to professional online publishing, bringing the law for online newspaper editions into line with that for printed versions. An amendment making this clear is to be announced tomorrow. However, it is my opinion that an ambiguity remains: how do you define a "private blog?" Could blogs which carry even a little advertising be judged "professional", for instance?

It has happened in China, there have been attempts in the US, blogs in Burma have been shut down and in Britain a rich businessman has attempted to have parts of the blogosphere silenced. James has been warning us all for ages, I have to say. Now we have this in Italy: if this ridiculous ddl [draft law] is passed, a blogger like me will have to appoint an editor and a registered journalist as editor in chief, register the blog with the government, produce a myriad documents and pay taxes on it! I am not joking! Thank goodness for Beppe Grillo who has hard-hitting articles on the proposal here and here. I think this crazy idea is less to do with censorship than with certain ministers having espied a source of possible revenue.

Hat tip: Winchester Whisperer

SICILY IN FLAMES

43 C here at 1pm and many parts of Sicily are in flames. Three people were killed on Wednesday in a fire at a hotel in the Messina area and today a village in the Palermo area has been evacuated. Some of these fires have been started deliberately and Sicily Guide gives two possible reasons here. As I've mentioned before, I have read that another motive may be the hope of obtaining a job as a firefighter. This would seem to be an erroneous assumption, though, as I read in Corriere today [article unavailable online] that at this time, 70% of Protezione Civile workers are on holiday! Can you believe it, at the most dangerous period of the year? The reason? Good old Italian bureaucracy, of course: these workers' contracts are renewed annually on 31st August and in early August this year 7/10 of them were ordered to take their statutory leave entitlement of 19 days plus 4 bank holidays, so that if their contracts are not renewed they will not have to be paid for holidays they did not take. An almighty row has broken out, with the authorities saying that the workers on leave do not work for the fire service, their colleagues stating that they jolly well do and the public calling for the head of whoever signed this leave law into existence. Meanwhile the President of Italy is calling for a mobilitazione permanente to prevent further tragedies like the one in Patti, Messina.