Dear Followers – this blog (perhaps a little over-due) I have dedicated to the odd or weird – mostly as captured on digital imagery. [And you thought all the other blogs were “normal”!!!!!]
So first, how does a cunning marketer of Italian sport (football – that which we call soccer) drive his marketing niche crazy wanting to subscribe to the premium channel. Answer: a “teaser”. What you do is sort of provide the game for free. But not all the game!!! So here we see in this photo taken of our TV set, the Roma vs. Milano game (direct from the Olympic Stadium), balanced on a knife-edge at 0 – 0 (it finished up with the same frustrating score!!). But the whole program amounts to the lovely male and female commentators, sitting snugly behind some floral arrangements (on the left wattle or mimosa – the flower for international women's day here). They call the game with great excitement but the video is only of the excited fans in the stands – never of the game. Never see the ball. Never the goals. Never the players, not the referees. Oh! Dear! Makes you want to be there – or at least to pay the extra to actually see the game.
A new meaning to the term “renter”. Here in Rome, you can “share” cars – provided by the transport authority “ATAC”. If you enrol and presumably get the common key you can just grab a car from wherever you find one (in especially marked and reserved bays) and use it. How about that! Seems to be cutting the number of cars in Rome down by …. ooooh... maybe 10!!! A start. They do the same thing with bikes but they seem to get stolen a bit.
Weird air-travel!!! Well, for now the Airbus A380, supports a funky bar down at the rear of Business Class. I expect that it will make way for more seats and paying customers one day, just as the lounge in the hump of the earliest 747s disappeared under the pressure to get more butts on seats. But for now – cool!! And when its late and you can't sleep and the flight attendants start to relax a bit after the main service, they sometimes even invite you to work behind the bar for them. So, “yours truly” serving the Moet, entertaining the staff and making sure everyone has enough little middle-eastern snacks. And a photo of the lounge replete with mood lighting, seatbelts and a representation of the Palm Dubai on the wall.
No photo – but we have previously mentioned the TV games shows that Italy is famous for. A new one has the contestants choose between two options for which the producers have previously surveyed the Italian population. So, “do most Italians prefer spaghetti or lasagne?” – that type of thing. But one notable question asked last week was “Which of these two famous Italian women do people think has the best decolletage?”. This is a topic as close to the hearts of Italians as the topic is to the heart of the displayer. And the contestant got the answer correct!!!
Other weird stuff – no photo (yet!) but buying a car here is really weird. It is paid for, and now registered. We have known the chassis number for four months, it is brand new but has passed its compulsory roadworthy and has a nice little number plate. And I received an Italinglish email yesterday to tell me that I had to pick it up at 4:00pm on next Tuesday. Nice thought except I will be at 30 000 feet over the Atlantic then. So the little macchino remains a myth – unseen – unloved and growing old sitting in the car yard. If that isn't weird, don't know what is.
I had a couple of trips away recently so Nonna visited the lovely family in Yorkshire rather than batch. I had a few days in Cairo – almost like going home again! - and another few days in Bangkok (first time I had ever slept in Bangkok although I had called in for day trips before). My associates were keen to “eat on the street” which (although it did not include bitumen) included weird food like roasted frog. I ate sensibly and found the non-froggy food simple, but fairly tasteless if unbelievably cheap. So, no pictures of roast frog, but a nice one to end with of the morning river traffic on the Chao Phraya.
Ciao belli
