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?

Bellini-esque: Intro – Venice 3-6 May 2007

Beauty. Art. Achitecture. Faded glory. The city where Robert Browning died. Where Byron kept his fiery mistress Margarita Cogni. A striped shirted man standing at the rear of a gondola, belting out an aria as he steers the craft through a picturesque, narrow canal while his charges, a couple, canoodle. An unpleasant watery stink. Titian. Caneletto. Pigeons.

Venice means many things to many people. To my father, who visited during the honeymoon with my mother some two decades ago, it meant amazing food. To my housemate, the city would be full of Americans believing they were being faah-bulous in flouncing about far from home, in a city so steeped in history and culture. To a single friend, it would be a ground hog day Valentines’ Day fiasco, a city to be strenuously avoided unless one was with a lover. To a colleague, getting lost in its maze of lanes was one of life’s greatest pleasures. Yet another person hoped it wouldn’t be a chocolate box city, full of tourists and locals catering to them, but with very little real work being done.

Eros’ Arrows go Awry

Three vignettes from three renowned directors: Wong Kar Wai, Steven Soderbergh and Michelangelo Antonioni. The premise, the arcing force of desire charted by directors who had already made powerful comments on the same (Wong in Happy Together and In The Mood for Love, Steven Soderbergh in Out of Sight and Antonioni in Blow Up) was faultlessly conceived. But as some things in life, the sum is very much less than the parts and the execution fails to deliver.

Games boys will play

The gangster drama genre (save The Untouchables and the crackin’ Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels) has never been a particular favourite of mine. Ugly men, overflowing with testorone, playing infantile games of power and wealth while talking of honour while they coldbloodedly mow down enemies and treat their women like virgins or whores. So far, so very *yawn*.

Romanzo Criminale (trans. Crime Novel) hardly breaks this mould.  However, it pulls off its interpretation of the ganster flick with suitably Italian panache.

Where’s Clooney? or I Laghi, Italia 25-29 May 2006

The agony, the ecstasy, the spectacle, the good times, the (more than) occasional snorefests, and the plain old distraction of fußball’s month long fest, has dissipated. Time to painfully wrench back into life away from staring, round eyed at a bunch of millionaires chase after a golden sphere, and catch up blog-wise, on an Italian weekend in May.

Lago di Como’s most famous resident was nowhere about during our sojourn to the Italian lakes. He was never far from our thoughts however; the receptionist at our hostel pointed out his casa, Villa Oleandra, on a map of Como (in Laglio, on the Lago di Como’s western shore), before we even had a chance to ask, and on the Saturday, tantalising local newspaper headlines appeared at the newspaper stalls. They read something to the effect of ‘GEORGE CLOONEY: NARCOTICI EN CASA’ (sic). We never did get to the bottom of those headlines but as the Italian nationals, nor a google search revealed anything, i can only assume it was a local beat up. But that hardly mattered.

Dude, the defender’s chest is not a football

His actions have stunned his nation and the globe and will, no doubt, dominate water cooler conversations and newspaper headlines tomorrow.

Minutes after a glorious header attempt on goal (brilliantly blocked by Buffon, whose name still manages to make me smile), Zidane decided to put his head to practise again… err, on an Italian defender’s chest. Needless to say, as they’ve been doing for thousands of years, the Italian collapsed like a Portuguese player.