ONE SAD SICILIAN

You didn't have to be watching the match between Italy and Belgium in the UEFA Euro 2020 Championship (confusingly taking place in 2021 because of the pandemic) last night to know that Italy won! I happened to be reading, so just followed the cheers from the bar opposite and the surrounding houses and believe me, it is nice to hear happy sounds outside again.

One Sicilian, however, will have been not exactly sad, but perhaps not quite as exultant as the patrons of my local bar, and that person is the Italo-Belgian singer, Salvatore Adamo. Born in Comiso, about 20 miles from where I am writing now and still in the Province of Ragusa, Salvatore Adamo emigrated to Belgium with his parents at the age of three. He now has dual nationality but this did not become possible until 2010. Now 77, Salvatore Adamo of course became famous as just Adamo all over the world, singing mainly in French but also in Italian and other languages. In 2018 he was awarded the Premio Tenco for helping to make Italian music and culture known in other countries.

Speaking about the Euros earlier this week, Adamo said that, like other Italo-Belgians, he would be supporting Belgium as a thank you to the country he has lived in most of his life, although they all keep Italy in their hearts. He said he was sure Italians would understand and I think he is right.

I followed Adamo's music in my youth as a French and Italian student so it is always nice to hear from him. Here is my all-time favourite Adamo song:

 

TWO FLAGS

Two lovely flags flew from my balcony today, for the occasion of the Italy - Wales match in the Euros 2021 in Rome.  

I love both countries but should confess that I don't love or understand football. However, sometimes you need to go with the flow and even I could see it was a good match. 

For me the anthems were the best bit and I must say the Italian commentator made a valiant attempt at pronouncing Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau.

Well done, Italy and onward, Wales!

18 THINGS YOU MAY NOT KNOW ABOUT PALERMO

Palermo has been selected as Italian Capital of Culture 2018 so here, in no particular order, are 18 facts - some quirky, others not so - that you may not know about the city:

1.  Its Palazzo dei Normanni was, from 1130 , the seat of the Sicilian Parliament, one of the oldest in the world. (I've met a lot of Sicilians who claim that it is, in fact, the oldest.] It now houses the Sicilian Regional Assembly.

2.  In 2016 Palermo was declared the worst city in Italy for traffic congestion.

3.  Frutti di Martorana, the marzipan "fruits" you will see everywhere in Sicily in autumn, were, according to legend, first made in The Martorana Convent in Palermo.

4.  The city's most important Arab and Norman buildings, along with the Cathedrals of Cefalù and Monreale, were collectively named a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2015.

San Giovanni degli Eremiti, Palermo

5.  Palermo street food is legendary. Eat it first, then ask what's in it!

6.  The Palermo football team's badge has been ranked (by the British Daily Mail) as among the best in the world.

7.  The city has wide boulevards reminiscent of towns in France.

8.  The word for traditional Sicilian rice balls, arancini, is used in its feminine form, arancine there.

9.  The Catacombe dei Cappuccini (Capuchin Catacombs) are a very macabre, and often upsetting, sight but must be seen. I once decided to leave them till last on a school trip but my students, having been shown the Parliament, Cathedral and other beautiful buildings, were impatiently demanding, "Can we go and see the dead people now?" by mid-morning.

Me with students in Palermo, 1995

10. The city is second only to Naples for the number of coffee manufacturers that call it home (47 in 2011).

11. During the reign of Ruggero (Roger) II, Palermo was a city in which Muslims, Christians and Jews lived side by side in harmony. This was to come to an end, however, under Frederick II, who expelled the Muslims in 1224.

12.  In 1185 Roger's daughter and Frederick's mother Costanza d'Altavilla (Constance d'Hauteville) travelled to Germany to be married with the greatest dowry the world had ever seen. She gave birth to her son in the market square in Ancona on her way back to Sicily. You can read more about this extraordinary journey in a book I reviewed here. Costanza is buried in Palermo Cathedral.

13.  Palermo has a museum of traditional puppets  (opera dei pupi) where you can also see puppet shows at certain times of the year.  You can find out more about opera dei pupi in my post here.

Some of my own Sicilian puppets

14.  Traditional Sicilian carts vary, from province to province, in their design and size. Those from Palermo were squarer and wider than many of the others and were originally used for transporting grapes. This is a link to an article on Sicilian carts that I wrote for Italy Magazine in 2010.

15. Not strictly in the City of Palermo but in Palermo Province and a short bus ride away is Monreale, whose cathedral, begun in 1174, is one of the best preserved examples of Norman architecture anywhere. It contains Byzantine mosaics throughout. There are stunning views of Palermo from Monreale.

16. In 2014 the priests of Palermo Cathedral were much criticised for displaying a prominent WC sign in a side chapel there. I don't know about you, but when being a tourist I've often desperately needed the loo by the time I got to a city's cathedral!

17.  Palermo was named Panormus ("complete port" or possibly "well-protected bay") by the Greeks, This became Balarme under Arabic rule.

18.  To end on a sombre note, Palermo Airport, formerly known as Punta Raisi, was renamed in 1995 in honour of the anti-Mafia judges Paolo Borsellino and Giovanni Falcone who were both murdered in 1992, the latter along with his wife. The airport's full name is now L''aeroporto Internazionale Falcone e Borsellino di Palermo-Punta Raisi but it is usually referred to as aeroporto Falcone e Borsellino. Italy has been remembering the two judges in this, the 25th anniversary year of the stragi (massacres) of Capaci and via D'Amelio. We must not forget that all but one of their bodyguards died with them on those terrible days.

The candidates for Italian Capital of Culture 2020 are Agrigento, Catania, Messina, Noto, Ragusa and Siracusa. Guess which two I'll be rooting for!

City of Palermo
Coat of Arms

THE EAGLE IS BRANDED

I do not often refer to the British Daily Mail on this blog, nor do I often write about sport, neither being favourites of mine, so tonight is a little different. 

You see, those eagle-eyed journos at the Mail have ranked what they consider to be the 20 best football badges in the world and Palermo has the honour of coming seventh. It is a pretty badge, I think, though carino is probably not the first word that comes to the mind of those hunks when they don their team shirts.  [I will not risk posting a picture of the badge here for copyright reasons but it's on the Mail page - they've got more money than me to cope if they get sued - and, of course, the club one.]

The two other Italian clubs listed are Juventus in fourth place and Roma in twentieth. And the winner is...?  São Paulo. Take a look and see what you think. There is also a link on the page to the newspaper's ranking of the worst badges - I'll leave you to decide if you can face that!

OH, ALL RIGHT, THEN.....

OK, Wales, just this once I'll support you, even though you voted "Leave".  But if it's you and Italy in the final, I might have to think again!

Here we are at London Town, Modica - Centro Linguistico Internazionale:

I must say, HM's outfit is much improved by the flag!

ONLY A GAME

Everywhere I went on Saturday I was asked which team I would be supporting in that night's World Cup match and everywhere I went I was met with blank stares of incomprehension when I explained that as I am Welsh, not English, the England team's fortune or misfortune was of no interest to me. I didn't have the heart to add that I don't care about sport anyway!

At midnight, in a good old British "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" frame of mind, I decided I might as well watch the game, which I did with my twitter feed open, and at first I was puzzled at the number of comments disparaging the Italo-Argentinian player Gabriel Paletta, as his name had been notably absent from the Italian commentary. Upon further investigation, I discovered that the Italian tweeters' enthusiasm to get him off the pitch had nothing whatsoever to do with his footie skills;  rather, the poor man had offended their sense of style by combing his hair, somewhat ineptly, over his bald patch and this was earning him more derision than if he had missed a penalty!

One had to feel sorry for the England team's physiotherapist, who injured his ankle cheering and had to be carried off on his own stretcher; it was such a British sort of misfortune, somehow and the Italians were incredulous.  

When "super Mario" [as young Mr Balotelli has become again] scored Italy's second goal the bar opposite erupted and I'd have known what had happened even if I hadn't been watching the action on TV. And of course, at the end of the match it erupted again and over in Catania old Etna decided to join in.

A sour note was struck at around 2 am Italian time on Sunday, when Maurizio Gasparri, former Interior Minister under Silvio Berlusconi and currently Vice President of the Italian Senate, tweeted that his country had seen off the English, who are "pretentious arseholes." Now, I may not be English but I am British and I object! I have tweeted both Mr Gasparri and Mr Renzi to say so. In fairness, I should add that many Italians have also expressed their indignation and shame at this remark.

Whilst we are on the topic of Britishness, I have only one thing to say about Scottish independence:  if you do it, Scotland, it's going to be even more hellish trying to explain the concept of the UK - or what will be left of it - to Italians!

IN THE NAME OF "SPORT"

By now, footage and reports of the horrific events which took place in Rome in the name of "sport" on Saturday evening have gone around the world. Even here, amid conflicting reports, it has been hard to ascertain exactly what happened, who started it and the timescale, but what is certain is this:

Ahead of the Italian Cup Final between Napoli and Fiorentina on Saturday, there were clashes between fans outside the Stadio Olimpico and three Napoli supporters were injured, one critically. Italian newspapers reported this morning that this fan, Ciro Esposito, may, if he survives, lose the use of his legs. Inside the stadium, the kick-off was delayed because of these events and Napoli captain Marek Hamsik and the authorities appeared to be "negotiating" with the Napoli ultrà leader known as Genny 'a carogna, who is said to have given his "permission" for the game to start. The authorities say they were not negotiating but were informing Genny 'a carogna of Ciro Esposito's condition.

Eventually, and in the presence of Prime Minister Renzi, the Italian national anthem was booed in the stadium and the game started.

This much, as I have said, has been reported internationally. However, I can find no international press reports about the t-shirt that Genny 'a carogna was wearing, nor of the heartbreak that this has caused a Sicilian widow:  The t-shirt slogan read "Free Speziale", a reference to Antonino Speziale, who is serving time for the murder of Sicilian police inspector Filippo Raciti in 2007 during an incident of football violence. Marisa Grasso Raciti told Corriere della Sera that the State seemed to have given in to the will of violent fans on Saturday and that the whole incident was an insult to her husband's memory. She is, understandably, particularly upset by the t-shirt and said that no one in authority had called her to express solidarity or sympathy. As you may imagine, she received a telephone call from Prime Minister Renzi shortly after publication of the interview.

In case anyone is interested, Napoli won the match.

I wrote about the murder of Ispettore Raciti here and here in 2007.

Thanks to Corriere della Sera for making this available:

READY

I don't think my red, white and green plastic necklaces were the kind of jewellery the late John Lennon had in mind when he famously told an audience to "rattle their jewels" at a Royal Variety Performance back in 1963 but I'll definitely be rattling them for the Azzurri tonight!

I am otherwise prepared, too. [My nails just caused a sensation in the bar, by the way!]

Forza Azzurri!


The Beatles - "Rattle your jewels" [John Lennon] and Twist and Shout - 1963

WHEN IN ROME [OR LONDON] ....

A paisi unni chi vai, comu vidi fari fai.

- Sicilian proverb

When in Rome, do as the Romans do.

When Fabio Capello was appointed manager of the England football team in 2007, he promised to learn to speak English within one month.  As I said then, such a feat is not possible and subsequent events have proved it.

If you want to learn to speak a foreign language fluently and correctly, some formal study is essential as well as spending time in the target language country .  Yes, it is true that you can pick up a "street" version of the language you wish to learn quite quickly but you will probably not be speaking in what linguists call "appropriate registers".  Appropriate registers, in languages like French, Italian and Spanish, are often demonstrated by which form of the pronoun "you" the speaker chooses to use and in most languages the way in which the speaker greets different people is important:  in my town, Cardiff, UK, I would often greet acquaintances or friends I saw on the bus with a colloquial "Hiya, love" but I would not have said "Hiya, love" to a client, my bank manager or my employer and certainly not to my Queen!  At other times, more complicated situations arise.

This, then, is one of the communication problems that Mr Capello might have faced during his time as England manager and we haven't even touched upon the vexed subject of grammar!  Of course, with interpreters and others available 24/7 to help him, Mr Capello was better placed than most to do without those English lessons but his lack of proficiency in the language cannot have helped when he found himself in an off-pitch situation which required patience, subtlety and diplomacy.

For readers who are not from the UK or Italy, I'll summarise what has happened:  The England team's captain, John Terry, had been accused, in November, of racist abuse of another player, Anton Ferdinand.  A court hearing was scheduled and everyone thought that the outcome would be known by April at the latest but early this month the hearing was adjourned until 9th July.  Because of this the Football Association, the sport's governing body in England, took the decision to strip John Terry of the captaincy and they informed Mr Capello of this decision last Thursday evening before making a public announcement.

Mr Capello was apparently upset that the FA had made this decision without consulting him and is reported to have said that his authority had been undermined.  Then, in an interview shown on Italian television on Sunday evening he stated - calmly and with some eloquence, I have to say - that as John Terry has not yet been proven guilty in a court of law, he should have been allowed  to remain as captain.

The FA board were, naturally, in turn upset that Mr Capello had spoken on Italian television without consulting them and, at a meeting held yesterday, Mr Capello resigned, with no rancour having been displayed on either side, we are told.

So there we have it:  both parties feel that the other has "gone above their head" and both feel aggrieved.  As the FA states on its website that,

"We are committed to making football accessible to everyone, regardless of race, religion, gender, sexuality, background or ability"

it is hard to know what else its board could have done, given the seriousness of the allegations. Yet, as Mr Capello pointed out in his Rai interview, the allegations are exactly that at the moment. 

Now, as many of you will know, I am not in the least interested in football.  What I am interested in, however,  are the ways in which the matter is being reported in the UK and in Italy:  In the British press the fact that Mr Capello learned little English is being emphasised and the feeling is that his employers, who were paying him a cool £6 million a year, could have justifiably hoped for more linguistic enthusiasm.   And at least one British newspaper has alluded to the fact that Mr Capello "seemed to be on holiday a lot", thus echoing a culture clash between Northern and Southern Europe that we have sometimes seen during the euro crisis.

In Italy, on the other hand, most of the coverage has focused on the fact that a man who has not yet been tried has, nevertheless, been punished and that this could have happened without consultation with his line manager.  Most people I have spoken to here have also expressed incredulity regarding this "sentence without a trial."

Mr Capello looks tired to me and I am sure that he is glad to be home, having taken the first possible flight out of London. But I can't help feeling that, had he learned more English and consequently been able to absorb more British culture, he would have gained a better understanding of how the FA, and Britain itself, work.  His stay in my native land might also have been a happier one.

A FOOTBALLING PRODIGY?

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I am not a sports fan and I readily admit, reader, that what I know about the "beautiful game" can be summed up in the following five sentences:

1.  Football is not rugby.

2.  It has something to do with goals.

3.  In the 1960s a Bristol Rovers player called Bobby Jones used to cross himself before he took a corner - or  whatever the verb is for what footballers do with corners - and then wiggle his bum rather seductively.

4.  Another Bobby, Bobby Moore, seemed the cutest thing in the neatest of shorts to me in 1966.

5.  The Italian national team has the hunkiest players in the world.

Thus it was that a young student of mine who wishes to speak about A.C. Milan as an exam topic had to spend half an hour physically demonstrating to me what an "assist" is this afternoon.  "Do you know what a pass is, at least?" he asked in exasperation towards the end of this time.  I replied that even I could probably work that out, then turned to the internet where I learned, to my consternation, that "assist" is an English noun for whatever a footballer does when "assisting" the player who is about to score the goal.

Meanwhile my student, having given up on me, had written,

"Ibrahimovic is the best player and he does many assists and I have his teacher."

"You have his teacher?!" I exclaimed, wondering if we had a footballing prodigy in our midst.  But frantic scribbling out ensued and my student substituted the word, "t-shirt".

There endeth the lesson.

Image of Zlatan Ibrahimovic - Wikipedia

SABATO MUSICALE

I've decided that as I can't beat 'em, I might as well join 'em.  Wales aren't playing so my loyalties are with Italy.

ONLY IN SICILY!

The BBC site has featured not one but two Sicilian stories within the past 24 hours. The first has cheered me up, pointing, as it does, to the Sicilian capacity for exuberance, not to say audacity. I'll leave you to make what you will of the second story.