BIDET BUFFOONERY

Image: Wikimedia Commons

OK, own up: who's got a bidet? What do you think of them and do you use them? And who, among the Brits, does not have a friend who thinks these contraptions are for washing your feet?

Italians, of course, love their bidets and 97% of households have them.  Portugal and France are second and third in the European bidet-ownership table. 

Much indignation, therefore, was expressed yesterday when it was reported that Italy had received a €50,000 fine from the EU for not obeying a directive to remove bidets from public and private premises because the installations waste both water and space.  

I remember a student of mine being horrified, a few years ago, when I told her that the British do not have bidets installed in their bathrooms as a matter of course.  "How", she cried, "do you wash yourselves down there?!" "In the bath or the shower", I replied, causing her to sigh at this further proof of Anglo-Saxon ineptitude with regard to our private parts and I could see that she was beginning to worry about me.  "What if you need to do it quickly?" she continued. "You can't have a shower five times a day!" I said there were ways.

Given the amount and variety of "intimate" gels, wipes and deodorants on sale in Italy, you would never imagine that Italians used the bidet quite so often, but there you are:

Paisi ca vai, usanzi che trovi - Places you go to, customs that you find. 

Sicilian proverb

Popular politician and Mayor of Florence Matteo Renzi was reported to have said that the removal of the bidet was a first step to a Europe united by matters other than money and Lega Nord politician Roberto Calderoli  that Italy's Celts weren't worried because they could wash themselves in the [aptly named] Po. 

Alas, it was all a joke which began with an item on the satirical site AnsIapress but we enjoyed it while it lasted. I haven't seen my Sicilian friends so indignant since a set of traffic lights appeared at a busy Modican junction some years ago. The offending lights were regarded as an infringement of Modicans' civil liberties and, unlike the island's bidets, were soon removed.

MOUNTAINGIRL'S PHOTO CHALLENGE - CAFE / EATING OUT

It's Friday and once again I am just in time for my friend mountaingirl's Photo Challenge. This week's theme is "Café / Eating Out".

Why, you may ask, would you want a hot croissant at 1 am? Because, dear reader, if you are young, carefree and Sicilian and it is summer, you eat them on the beach at that time.

UNA DOMENICA D'ESTATE

A lovely, relaxing Sunday at the sea today, with friends Marco and Giovanna who have a house at Sampieri.

As soon as I arrived, Giovanna put a dish of pineapple ice cream, which she had just made in a bimby [I want one!] into my hand. It was delicious and I think I had about five helpings at various points during the day.




The whole family were at home and that includes four lads and two grandmothers. "Insomma .... siamo qua" sighed the grandmothers when I asked how they were. If you are going to say "Insomma" ["in brief"] in this context, reader, you have to precede and follow it by long sighs to indicate that you are dealing with life's burdens as best you can and then you must say,"We're here" as resignedly as possible, rather in the way in which Welsh people say, "There we are, then". I've only ever heard these responses in Sicily.

After quite a long morning dip Giovanna and I stopped off at the house of several of Giovanna's many cousins and there we were served antipasti of focacce and various savoury pastries.

Back at Giovanna's there was pasta al pesto to start. An interesting variation was that the pesto contained some tomato and this transformed it into pesto trapanese:




Next came cotolette di pollo and polpettone which Giovanna had filled with a ham and onion mixture:





Then there was more ice cream, anguria [watermelon] and finally this gel alla cannella [cinnamon gel].




When we could move after that lot, Giovanna and I sauntered down to a little market which has sprung up near the piazza and I found a cotton dress for 15 euros. [I do hope Rosa will approve when she returns tomorrow. She inspects the workwomanship on all my clothes very carefully and makes any necessary adjustments or reinforcements.]

Later we ventured into the sea again and I was introduced to yet another hairdresser! I do find it quite incongruous to be standing in the waves in next-to-nothing whilst greeting a new acquaintance with a [wet] handshake accompanied by all the formal forms of address and pleasantries that such an occasion calls for in Italian. "Oh," said he, giving me a professional once-over: "I knew you weren't Italian because you're so fair and you've got some red in amongst the blonde". Oh, well, in my opinion a woman can never be on friendly terms with too many hairdressers!

Here are some views of Sampieri for you to enjoy:





And, as I didn't post a "sabato musicale" yesterday [ what with all the excitement of Simi's new coat] I'll leave you with this tonight:

Seba - Domenica d'estate

A GIRL AND A WOMAN IN ITALY

My Cardiff hairdresser, who happened to be Sicilian, had a print of this photo displayed prominently in his salon. It is a very attractive photo and is an excellent evocation of the period [1951]. The young men certainly seem to be enjoying themselves but take a closer look at the girl: does she seem happy to you? I've always thought that she looks rather uncomfortable for, flattering though it can be, there comes a point where such attention can also feel threatening.

Some of the comments I received in response to yesterday's Manuel post set me thinking and remembering: when I first came to Italy, in 1969, I was followed everywhere by young and older men. I think it was just because I was pale-skinned and blonde at a time when British girls had a reputation for being very free and easy with their favours whilst Italian girls were hardly let out of the house! I used to find it all quite frightening because a man with good intentions does not, as a rule, approach a woman in the street in Britain. I used to run home to Lucia [to whose family I had been engaged to teach English] to tell her my woes and she would just laugh kindly at me. "How is a man going to get to know you if he doesn't speak to you?" she would ask. "What do you think the passeggiata is for?"

As I grew older and kept coming back, the attention lessened and one good thing about ageing is that it does "free" you in this way. But you do not become invisible to men as you do in Britain once you are over 50. An Italian man will still, sometimes approach you and there is still, from time to time, unwelcome attention. Men of your acquaintance, whether married or not, will always notice what you are wearing or what your perfume is and remark upon it and Italian men can certainly turn a phrase!

- Which brings me to the "spiel". Oh, I did enjoy this when I was younger! The men had the wooing phrases ready for the compliment-starved British girls off pat. It would begin with some remarks about your fair beauty, move along to how he would like to give a rose to this incomparable English one ["Welsh!" I would hiss at this point] meander down paths concerning the fact that there was no one like you in the whole of Italy and end with your eager swain threatening to throw himself off a balcony or bridge [whichever was nearer] if you did not satisfy his ardour. The "Welsh!" correction was my undoing, really, for if you interrupted, he couldn't just continue with the next part - oh, no! It all had to start again and before you knew it it would be 1 am and Mamma would be waiting up for him!

I have no idea what it is like to be young, pretty and foreign in Italy these days, of course, but I would imagine that the girls have become more assertive and the young men not noticeably less romantic!