living in rome

blog

Romebuddy's been around in one form or another since 1996, before blogs existed. But it was in fact the world's first blog. What's a blog anyway? - Simply a stream of opinionated rantings posted online at sporadic intervals. We've been doing that for twelve years, and taking flak for it in our crusade to tell the world what it's really like for a foreigner living at the sharp end of Rome. It just seemed like a natural thing to do, but we never called it a blog.
Every blog should have a theme, an editorial characteristic that sets it apart from the mass of sameness, so to break that monotony of PC drivel, here's the theme of our blog – ‘Living In Italy Without Being Able To Speak Italian’. What could be more useful and pertinent to your requirements? Because you won’t be able to speak Italian either when you first arrive in Rome. But at Romebuddy, we’re experts at not speaking Italian - We've been not speaking Italian here for nearly twelve dedicated years. It's a worthy cause, so, in the words of Shakespeare ('cos it ain’t like we’re ignorant, it’s just that we don’t see what's so darned attractive about the Italian language. Seeing how the mafia still control everything here, and how bad the service is in Italian shops and businesses, its hardly an incentive to learn. As a matter of fact, I'm doing the Italians a favour by not learning their language - Because if I could speak and write it well, I'd make their lives an utter misery with all the consumer rights campaigns I’d mount and all the unyielding letters of complaint I’d write to Italian government departments and corporations. Heck, I’d even stand for election – I could do it – I’m legally resident here with an indefinite permesso soggiorno, I'm married to an Italian and I can vote in Italian elections. You might say “What’s so special, (or even new), about mounting a consumer rights campaign in Italy”? Well it’s special because Italy has no cultural history of complaining about bad service. Consumer power is unheard of here. They moan to each other about stuff, but they never take it to the next level – That’s because they’ve always traditionally lived under three-pronged totalitarianism – A totalitiarian religion called Roman Catholicism, being a cult which hijacked true Christianity 300 years after Christ started the real church. And a totalitarian communist party who shalt never be gainsaid by half the population. And a totalitarian mafia who take care of the other half of the Italian population who aren’t communists. All this means that Italians get through life simply by passing the buck.
Now, falling in between the cracks of these three groups are a few decent, responsible Italians who I love and respect and call my friends, and I deeply and gratefully thank them for taking me in and calling me their friend. They know who they are – An Italian friend is worth their weight in gold – Yes, there are good people here – But an Italian stranger is pretty much worthless. Even Italians will tell you that. And when first moving here, it’ll take you a while to winkle some good Italians out, so for the most part, the only Italians you’ll find at first will be those who seem to be working twenty four hours a day to rip you off. And that’s where RomeBuddy comes in – A friendly voice in this wilderness that says “You are not alone”.) So, back to the Shakespeare: Admit me, Chorus, to this history, who, prologue-like, your humble patience flog, gently to hear, kindly to judge, our blog:

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August 25th 2008

Well, it's all over now - Didn’t China put on a marvellous Olympics for us! They showed us what can be achieved when a million patriotic hearts beat as one.

(Photo credit: Michael Steele/Getty Images)

It's not that their persecution of Christians and other dissidents is forgivable. It isn’t. But apart from the negatives in her society, China has given us an exemplary demonstration of how selfless discipline, mass and personally responsible civic pride, and unity of purpose produces great positives - Magnificent order, beauty and honourable victory far surpassing the rather sordid displays of individuality that the rest of the so-called free world values these days.

So nice to see decently dressed children for a change, and with proper shoes, not like the velcro trainered hooded horrors of young Britain, or the precocious little fashion slaves of Italy. It's been a long time since I saw such delightful infants. They were dressed exactly as children should be dressed, that is
to say, they wore what their parents, elders and betters had told
them to wear, and without argument, I'm sure.
(Photo credit: Xinhua)

British journalist Andrew Gilligan opined with typical modern English bleeding heart snideness that it’s easy to put on a show like this when you’re a dictatorship, but I found little to reassure me of the superiority of modern western culture in Britain’s shoddy little preview for 2012. It’s been rightly said that the London 2012 Olympic logo resembles an afro-haired person kneeling to administer oral sex to a standing partner, and the British personalities offered for our veneration atop the double-decker bus were nothing more than a rags to riches talent contest winner singing about ‘a whole lotta love’ with a dirty old rocker. Evidently the theme of the British-hosted Olympics is going to be sex and rock and roll and quite possibly steroids as well. The cultural types represented by Leona Lewis and Jimmy Page espouse the very opposite values to the classic Olympian ideal, that is, overnight success without effort, and reward through rebellious unconvention, not to mention heavy heroin use, and quite apart from the obvious fact that neither of them are athletes. Shame on Britain. I think our Olympic planners have rather missed the point.

Boris was marvellous though. It was a refreshing change to see a decently dressed Englishman, wearing a suit as it should be worn, not (as those of the 'Latin' countries and Americans so often make the mistake) as something to make oneself look good, but simply as a mark of respect for the occasion, or one's host, and I felt a twinge of pride as he took the flag and waved it without a hint of the enthusiasm that lesser nations than Great Britain mandatorily attach to the business of flag-waving. A sterling and inspirational performance from our finest mayor since Dick Whittington. At least we got something right.

(Photo credit: Clive Rose/Getty Images)

 

August 24th 2008

Balancing my earlier comments about Italian Olympic boxing, I was truly sorry to see heavyweight Clemente Russo lose the final. His dayjob is a policeman. This fact continually irks me, as statistically, Italian Olympic athletes are drawn almost exclusively from either the Italian armed forces, the police, or the well-heeled classes. There’s nothing remotely egalitarian about Italian athletics. Their state schools possess little or no sports equipment, let alone a running track or sports field, so if you are an Italian pacifist working class teenager, you can kiss all hopes of an athletics career goodbye. Any sport or game in Italy apart from soccer is an elitist pursuit. Nevertheless, Russo, cop though he is, seems like a nice chap, and it’s worth noting that he was too gentlemanly to take cheap advantage by targeting the cut above his opponent's eye.

(AP Photo/Murad Sezer)

He quietly wept tears of patriotic shame during the medal presentation, though not extravagantly so, and behaved in a manly fashion. As an honorary Italian myself, I was proud of him. And not only is he tough, he’s also an extremely good looking boy.

Bravo Clemente. No gold this year, but take heart, there’s no shame in silver.

 

August 18th 2008

Deceptive Italian marketing techniques: Okay, so here's a packet of teabags I bought in an Italian supermarket a few days ago:

At the bottom-left corner of the box-front it says "25 bags". As a matter of fact, all teabag boxes of this size, by any brand, in any supermarket here, contain 25 bags. It's the standard package size for 25 teabags. But this one says in the top-right corner "5 bags FREE". So how many teabags would you expect to find in this box at the regular 25 bag price?
30, right? But - Wrong. You’re in Italy now. After I bought it, took it home, and opened it, I discovered there were only 25 teabags in this box. This is the sort of sales technique of ambigous packaging description Italians seem to like to use. It'd be illegal in civilized countries. But you’re in Italy now, so forget all about legal advertising standards and practice. So, shame on you 'Star Tea' of ‘Agrate Brianza’, Milan, wherever that is. Star actually make a pretty good stock cube used widely by cooks in Italy, including by my wife. But I seriously think that Star should get out of the tea game, as their tea is no way comparable to the quality of their stock cubes.
And shame on my other pet hate, GS Supermarket, for going along with this apparent con. I hate GS. MUCH more about them to come in another rant when I have time to give them the full treatment. But for now, trust me – GS is too overpriced for me, and Star Tea is AWFUL tasting tea. In fact it has no recognizable tea taste that I can discern at all. Also, it takes about five minutes to brew only a quarter of the flavour that a proper English teabag like Typhoo or Tetley produces in ten seconds. Though, much as I dislike GS as a supermarket, I have to admit that GS's own brand of teabags ('English Breakfast Ceylon') taste five times better than this rubbish from 'Star Tea', and for only a few cents more, and at least GS don’t mislead about how many bags might be in the box. See, this is what I will Neeeever understand about Italian retail practice - If your product is bad anyway, why further prejudice your potential customers against you by burning and conning tham as well? And if you stay in Italy for any length of time, you'll notice instances of this again and again - Italian purveyors of goods and services seemingly going out of their way to deliberately give you bad service and poor value, as if losing money and killing their own business was their aim. It's the Eighth Mystery Of The Ancient World.

August 15th 2008

Ferragusta today folks. That's a national holiday in Italy and it's the reason why Rome is like a ghost town today. The whole country just shuts down. Except Blockbuster Video Hire, a good ol' American company that stays open to entertain Italy.

August 11th 2008 - More...

Mamma-mia, just got the bad news, Isaac Hayes is dead. The dude made seminal music, and I always remember the hair standing up on the back of my neck the first time I heard The Theme From Shaft. The movie also has one of the best opening sequences of any movie, Richard Roundtree, one cool niggah striding up out of Times Square subway and walking along Broadway on a bleak New York winter's day like he owns the city. And he does. John Shaft, the man who won't cop out when there's danger all about, and Isaac Hayes, the man behind the music. Come and get these memories:

But actually after the title theme of Shaft, I think I always almost preferred this track from the movie: Music doesn't get much smoother than
'Cafe Regios'....

And more...

Darn! Bernie Mac as well! Just found out. You don't hear nuthin' about these guys in Italy. Saw it on the Internet just now. It's been a raw couple of years - James Brown, Isaac Hayes, and now Bernie Mac.

Bernie Mac died of Pneumonia. That's worrying. The Big P Seems to be making a comeback in places you wouldn't expect. In fact a friend of mine here in Rome has just gone into hospital with it. And that reminds me of another thing that sucks about Italy - The healthcare - Let me give y'all a tip - Don't EVER check yo'self into an Italian hospital - if you do, chances are you won't come out again unless it's in a box. Since moving to Italy I've personally known so many people that have died. This guy I know with pneumonia saw the Italian doctor here a few days ago, and they told him "there's nuthin' wrong with you man, go home". So he went home and got sicker. Went back for a second opinion. "Ooops, sorry we missed it first time - You got pneumonia!". I mean, how could they miss something as simple and lethal as Ol' Man Pneumonia? Well from my experiences here, I'd say it was a fairly routine mistake for the Italian health service. There's some good doctors in Italy, but they're hindered by a lousy administration system. I've a lot more to say about Italian healthcare elsewhere on this website - Follow the links over there on the right somewhere...

 

August 11th 2008
Well, it’s turned out just I said - No, the Muslims haven’t blown Beijing to smithereens. Yet. It’s the other thing I said about Italian TV coverage of the Olympics – Because sure enough, it’s been a non-stop show of volleyball, archery, and fencing. So far on Italian TV we’ve seen almost nothing else of the Olympics here except the bouts of those elite minority sports that Italians happen to excel in. I was watching the archery this morning. Italy of course were in it. It was the semi-finals. So Italy played their heat against some other country and it was televised. But afterwards the other two finalists played, and because it wasn’t Italy in that heat, the TV coverage switched to some other event, women’s sculling or somesuch which had an Italian racing in it. Then, half an hour later when it was time for the Italian archery team to resume play the final match, the TV coverage went back to the archery. Like, the other semifinalists didn’t matter? Archers from the Ukraine aren’t worth watching? Who in Italy would be interested? No-one apparently. Still, the good news is that Italy LOST the archery anyway. Three cheers for Korea!
Similarly it gave me great pleasure to see the Italian featherweight boxer getting totally flattened by some black guy from the States:

(Photo by Robert Deutsch, USAT)

This was heart-warming because that’s not something you see too often in Italy. It’s difficult to quantify just how racist and anti-black Italy is as a nation – But I’ll give you an idea – Step 1: Come to Italy on vacation. Step 2: Try to find a black person serving you in any shop or restaurant.
You won’t. Find any, that is. Because a black man can’t get a job in Italy. Much less a black woman. Not even sweeping the streets. Thus it also goes without saying that you will never EVER find a black person in Italy employed in any management capacity. So it was wonderful this morning to see the black American boxer reprise Jesse Owen’s victory over the Aryan Nazis in Hitler’s 1936 Olympics, Italy's great white hope gettin’ pounded this morning by a righteous brother of color, on behalf of all the brothers here in Italy who can’t get near a wage packet, thanks to Italy’s deep rooted employment discrimination policy.

Mind you, Italy clawed back a point towards the end of the day as their woman did in fact win a gold for fencing. However, it wasn’t so bad after all, because this particular Italian Olympian managed to successfully show the world what she was really made of in the most childish display of victorious exhibitionism I’ve witnessed in a long time. There’s only two words for it – Bad Taste. Explanatory theories such as ‘probably spoiled as a child’ or ‘just plain flaky’ spring to mind.

"I want my lollipop, and I want it NOW!"

Photo credit: Getty

She screamed, she howled, she wept, she shook her fists, she had to be carried off the platform by her trainer who then put her on his shoulders and marched her around the auditorium as if she’d just saved the world.
I mean, if you’re Frodo Baggins and you’ve just had your finger bitten off by an invisible homicidal dwarf to save Middle Earth, that’s one thing – You deserve a ride home on an eagle. But Miss Vatertazziwazzi or whatever her name is should have been bundled into an ambulance. She needs therapy, or at least a few lessons in manners and gracious winning. Really. I’d hate to have had to be around her if she’d lost. It's not as if it was her first win - She's apparantly been winning gold medals for about the last ten years. And somewhere in the middle of her victory speech to the cameras (and have you noticed how Italians interviewed for TV never look at the person interviewing them? Oh no, they all look straight at the camera. I think it’s only in Italy that we see this arrogance par excellence (“Hey everybody look at me, I’m on TV and I’m too good to look at the interviewer, I’m gonna look at YOU; Look at ME!!) she compounded her sins by mentioning “sacrifice”. What flipping sacrifice? Fencing is an elite sport. It’s not something you learn at state school. You learn fencing at residential colleges in Switzerland. Did you know that the average Italian owns 2.4 houses? What’d she sacrifice? That extra Alfa Romeo? That vacation in Sardinia last year? Check out her website
( http://www.valentinavezzali.com/view_photo.php ) and gauge for yourself how much sacrifice this Italian society sweetheart and Vanity Fair cover girl might have been experiencing in the past twelve months and if her crude display of victory was justified.
She should try living in Italy and raising kids on 93 Euros a week, then tell us about sacrifice. Better still, she should try being black in Italy and then maybe she might have something credible to tell the world about sacrifice.

 

August 8th 2008
The Olympics start today - Not that we'll see much of it here in Italy - That's because Italian TV coverage of Olympics usually only shows the events which Italians are good at - In the 2004 Olympics at Athens, all we were shown on Italian TV was endless bouts of beach volleyball, archery, and fencing. But mainly volleyball. See, contrary to the popular mythology you'll have had fed you since birth about Italians being wonderful, open, friendly, jolly people, they actualy don't give a hoot about the rest of the world. To them, the Olympics are kind of a drag, unless Italy's winning. So you won't be seeing many Olympic running events on Italian TV this summer. That's because Italians don't run. It's not their style. As long as you live here, you will never see an Italian run. Not even for a bus. They'd rather be late than look undignified and sweat into their shirt. Italians always look like cats who have just lost a fight with another cat - You know, that kind of "Who? Me? Lost the fight?" look, that offended, "I looked stupid back there, but I'm not gonna let it show" look. Cat owners - You know exactly what I mean. That's how Italians look when they're all dressed up. And they're ALWAYS all dressed up. The great British novelist Len Deighton (or was it Dick Francis?) once wrote that the typical Italian man looks like a carefully assembled plastic toy.
So - They don't run. They don't run for the bus, they don't run in Beijing, so you won't be seeing much of anyone else running in Beijing on your Italian TV either.

 

August 7th 2008
Just seen a news story on TV about big flight delays at Ciampino airport. They interviewed the 'Director' of the airport, but hey, the guy wasn’t even wearing a tie. Just an open necked shirt with a grungy old leather surfer necklace. Looked more like an icecream vendor. Would you trust a guy to run a whole international airport who can’t even be bothered to smarten up for the TV cameras? I'm not surprised the airport is in chaos if there’s a guy dressed like a bum running the show. But that’s Italy. get used to it. You'll have to.
And another thing about Ciampino – The best thing abut Ciampino is RyanAir and EasyJet, who run thousands of successful flights a month in and out of that place, at rock bottom prices. RyanAir and EasyJet are of course not Italian, they are Irish and British/Greek. Italy has its own nationalized airline, called Alitalia, which has gone bust twice and keeps having to be bailed out with public money, it’s so useless. But Italians are so jealous of RyanAir and EasyJet that they’ve now disallowed several RyanAir and EasyJet routes out of Ciampino, so that their own useless ailing state airline can get the business instead. Major inconvenience to me personally as I used to lile to fly EasyJet to East Midlands airport in the UK. Now I have to use RyanAir. RyanAir are okay, but I preferred to spend an extra twenty bucks on the slightly more upmarket EasyJet. Yes, I’m a snob.

 

August 1st 2008
Italy has just done something really weird this week - Not quite martial law, but the PM (Berlusconi) has ordered the army into all cities to 'help out' the police, and also issued guns to traffic wardens ("Don't park there, or I'll shoot you"). He says it's because there is too much crime escalation here (reportedly mostly from Romanians and other third word immigrants actually, not Italians per se), but I think it's because he is worried about big scale terrorism starting up again at the Olympics. If it happens it will trigger all kinds of civil unrest all over the world, especially in NATO countries such as Italy who have helped the US in Iraq. So he's got the army out on the streets already. I don't really mind, but it's kind of extreme.
Unlike in the US, where Americans would go bananas about this, nobody here seems to mind it much, and it's hardly been mentioned. But like many Latin countries, Italy has a long history of using a lot of police power, particularly ever since the 1970's when there was a lot of domestic terrorism in Europe (Bader Meinhof, Red Brigades etc). So Italians are used to it. To them it's fairly normal, or, not abnormal anyway. People I know here are amazed that I do not possess an English ID card. "There is no such thing in England" I tell them. "An Englishman's word is his bond. It should be enough for you. I don't need some ratty piece of paper from the government to prove who I am. You need simply to believe me. That is the basis of civilization".
There's still a law here that has been kept on the books since 1978 because of terrorism, that if you move into a new rental apartment or house, or even the lowliest, smallest one-room bedsitter, you have to submit your ID card to the landlord, who then takes it to the police to register where you're living. No ID, no apartment. I think that's appalling. This law has never been repealed, but nobody here seems to mind. I don't mind the army on the streets, though. Eclectic, that's me.