Taxi! Smettere di essere uno strano uovo e concentrarsi sulla strada!* (Napoli, 23-27 April 2009)

Bustling, chaotic, anarchic Naples.  Jewel of Italy’s south.  Birthplace of at least three popes and a couple of kings and queens.  Sacked and invaded by the Goths, Byzantines, Normans and other long-forgotten races in times immemorial since its founding during the 8th century BC.  Glorious, romantic, dilapidated Naples.  Its history and virtues recounted and extolled by countless poets, writers, artists, bards and troubadours throughout the ages.  The subject of many a cautionary tale (“watch your bags – the city is full of pickpockets!”, “oh, and watch out for the mafiosi too!”) and of Northern Italy’s scorn (“it’s dirty – get out of it as soon as you can!”).

We stepped off the plane onto the tarmac of Naples airport, the Italian morning sunshine making us blink as it slowly thawed our English-spring frozen bones.  The April air was heavy with the scent of spring – common enough in Europe at this time of year – but deliciously overladen with the ripe, sultry lusciousness only found in a city of the south.

But despite the weight of history, of legend, of Hollywood myth, where would Naples (or Italy) be without its food, coffee, shopping, mad taxi drivers and peacocking males?  Or, in other words, where would Italy be without those things driving three girls to the Continent for  a weekend of fun?

Ich Bin Ein Doughnut* (Berlin, 16-19 June 2009)

Seven years of living in Europe and I’d not once made it to Germany.  And I had concluded that for all intents and purposes, I probably never would, unless an occasion demanded it.

“But you can’t leave Europe without seeing Berlin,” a friend exclaimed, aghast.  “Berlin is awesome.”

I was unconvinced.  Germanic food had never really appealed.  During visits to Vienna and Salzburg, I had initially attacked the gulasch, sachertorte, sauerkraut and apfelstrudel with gusto.  But prolonged consumption of dumplings, stew and offal had left me nauseous, plump and err… longing for a Marks & Spencer salad.  And a country known for punctual trains, dour burly, efficient folk (permit me the stereotypes, please!) and the shrill synthesized electronic beats and heart pounding bass of techno was quite the antithesis of my ideal café (con leche/au lait/latte)-quaffing people-watching foodie-fuelled break in one of the laidback, emotionally volatile Continental nations.

Still, there was that undeniable slice of history that Berlin inhabited.  I’d been fortunate enough to visit Moscow, St Petersburg, Vienna, Paris, Versailles, Rome, Budapest, Prague, Amsterdam and London, of course.  It was time to venture to the Bundesrepublik Deutschland.

Judging an e-Book by its cover

Here in the UK, there has only been the faintest ripple of interest in Kindle, the wireless reading device which, endorsed by Oprah Winfrey, is making a big splash across the Pond.  Effectively an iPod for books, Kindle allows you to download books via Amazon and access them much like the iPod access music via iTunes.  Kindle, with its smooth white rectangular shape, even channels the spirit of Apple’s creation.  The Kindle application can also be added to your iPhone so that your iPhone effectively becomes an e-reader.

Mad, Bad and Dangerous to know: Mad Men, AMC, 2007/2008

The opening sequence of Mad Men floats across the screen like a slick, successful Everyman executive’s nightmare: the silhouetted man reaches his expansive office, which slowly crumbles as he freefalls, past giant advertising billboards towards what end, we are unsure.  His doom?  Utopia?  Only the final episode will tell.

By referencing indelible images of the past (9/11, Hitchcock’s Vertigo) and soundtracked by David Carbonara’s haunting instrumental theme, the scene is set.  Madison Avenue.  New York.  The 1960s.  Nixon is in power and a young Senator by the name of John F. Kennedy is making his mark.  A time when men are men – and on Madison Avenue, they are the masters of the universe – and rarely seen without a cigarette or a drink in hand.  A time when women are housewives, mothers, daughters, secretaries, mistresses and shopgirls and occasionally, artists or divorcées – but never equals.  When children are seen but rarely heard.  When hippy beatniks and their ‘art’ are irrelevant and peripheral.  The Beatles have yet to hit America, the Summer of Love is almost a decade away and Vietnam was simply an exotic destination in East Asia.

Engaging in liplock, sir? You’re nicked!

In news to cheer the hearts of all broken-hearted, lonely folk  beseiged by the media and marketing pre-Valentine’s Day blitz last week, one UK train station has imposed a kissing ban.

La Nouvelle Année and a few of my Favourite Things

So this is the New Year/And I don’t feel any different/The clanking of crystal/Explosions off in the distance

So everybody put your best suit or dress on/Let’s make believe that we are wealthy for just this once/Lighting firecrackers off on the front lawn/As thirty dialogues bleed into one

I wish the world was flat like the old days/Then I could travel just by folding a map/No more airplanes, or speed trains, or freeways/There’d be no distance that could hold us back

- death cab for cutie

The lyrics of emo/indie fencesitters and Seth Cohen pin-ups Death Cab for Cutie seem apt as 2008 and its events (natural, political, financial - it all seemed particularly calamitous) segues quietly into 2009.

BoJo may have lost his MoJo

Walking past a bunch of English schoolchildren outside London’s City Hall… all no more than 8 years old, bundled up in puffa jackets, woolly hats and gloves, their cheeks rosily glowing in the bitter chill of London’s sudden cold snap.  Their teacher asked: ‘And who’s the Mayor of London?’

‘Gordon Brown!’ they all chanted in unison.

Boris better start reviewing his PR methodology.  Perhaps a spot on Blue Peter then?

The End of the Road Festival, 12-14 September 2008, Larmer Tree Gardens, Dorset

Festivals: General

It is a peculiar quirk of the English psyche – call it optimism, stoicism, delusional or plain eccentricity – that any prospect of sunshine, no matter how vague, must be celebrated out of doors, in a field, throwing shapes or gently swaying to live music.  Because it’s summer, yeah, and the weather is gonna be wik-ked!  Never mind that the chances of extended brilliant warm sunshine during the English summer are, although less slim than Gwyneth Paltrow contributing something of relevance to the average person’s reality, still quite unlikely.  It’s summer, and that means it isn’t spring (grey, with the sort of rain which gets inside your socks and winds gusty enough to turn your umbrella inside out), winter (dark, cold, with winds capable of whipping through your outer layers to your bones) or autumn (shorter chillier days wreathed in misty flumes, bonfire smoke and golden sunshine).

It’s All Gone Too Far

Facebook is a wonderful (if not invasive) phenomenon. Each bulletin board shrine to our good selves can update a multitude of people – our ‘friends’ and ‘network’- as to where we’re at in a nanosecond. And conversely, we can apprise ourselves as to what our friends, family, acquaintances and stalkees are up to at any given moment. Many of us acknowledge this as a fairly useful, sometimes necessary, addition for keeping up with folks in our busy lives. And Microsoft seems to have confirmed this with a rumoured deal of US$250 billion for a minority stake in the networking site.

Ibiza Chill, Espana 10-17 June 2006

Ibiza. The word conjures up a multitude of images. Mad dance parties in huge superclubs. ‘Chillout’ CDs. The Venga Boys. Misbehaving, partying, vomiting clubbers. Drugged up, drunk and/or comatose revellers. Perhaps even a certain Seat model of car.But that perception of Ibiza is primarily restricted to the Brits (and Aussies). The Spanish, Germans and Italians, have always known that the White Isle offers so much more.

A haven for hippies – particularly of the Teutonic variety – since the 1960s, who arrived and never left. We stayed in a little bungalow in Cala Gracioneta, just out of hideous San Antonio, owned by a German gentleman who had inherited the property from his father, one of these blessed bohemian types. The bungalow itself was one of five residences on the property, four of which were rented out to holidaymakers, the fifth being the residence of the German gentleman and his wife. Our little bungalow was one of three in a row overlooking the Cala and a stone’s throw away from the beach and the clear, cool water of the Meditarranean. More importantly, it was within stumbling distance of Cala Gracioneta’s chiringuito, a delightful Spanish institution where one can obtain all manner of goodies, namely Spanish coffee (arguably the best in the world), liqueurs and mouthwatering paella, amongst other lip-smackingly delicious snacks right by the beach.