Alex Giorgetti

So, with all this hype of the Olympics, I thought I had better post something related to it. Rather than news of the actual games; sports are something I know extremely little about; here is a post about an Italian Olympic athlete instead. Alex Giorgetti is a water polo player for the Italian men's team, which is nicknamed Settebello. The Italian water polo team is one of the best in the world, over the years it has accumulated six Olympic medals in the sport, also winning 5 World Championships, 5 World Cups, 10 European Championships medals, and one World League medal. 

Alex Giorgetti was born on the 24th of December 1987, in Budapest, Hungary and with dual-citizenship, has also lived part of his life in Savona, Italy. He stands at a height of 187cm and has the current weight of 78kg. He plays for Pro Recco and in 2011, Giorgetti won World's Best Water Polo Player. Also, he plays as number five, my favourite number and the number of Fabio Cannavaro in Forza Azzurri.

I can't seem to find any videos on youtube that I can actually understand; there are more uploaded interviews in Hungarian than in Italian. I should get my Hungarian friend to translate them for me haha. But here are a few anyway:

I did, however, find an interesting interview with Giorgetti about his conversion to Catholicism and a visit to the pilgrimage site of Medjugorje, in Bosnia and Herzegovina, where apparently, people have seen apparitions of the Virgin Mary. The entire phenomenon is not endorsed by the Catholic Church and it has come under much scrutiny and criticism; though that hasn't stopped the estimated 30 million who have visited the site since 1981, when the apparitions were first reported. The whole thing kind of seems like a psychological scam, but what Giorgetti said about his faith is quite fascinating. (I have had to edit the English translation because it didn't make sense, but have only made minor grammatical corrections.)

'Poiché l'Italia non vinceva il campionato del mondo da ben vent’anni, ho preso la decisione che se avessimo raggiunto un buon risultato sarei venuto a Medjugorje a ringraziare Gesù per questo. Non solo siamo diventati campioni del mondo, ma sono anche stato premiato come miglior giocatore del campionato. Ecco perché ho deciso di venire a ringraziare Gesù e Nostra Signora per tutte le grazie che mi ha concesso. Ho salito la collina dell’Apparizione e la montagna della Croce a piedi nudi ed è stata un esperienza davvero bella per me. Mi sento contento e soddisfatto e non vedo l’ora di tornare in Italia a testimoniare la bellezza di questo luogo. Sono arrivato qui con mio fratello gemello. Prima, non ci parlavamo; ne mai gli ho detto che gli volevo bene. Non è mai andato in chiesa, non ha mai pregato e ora per la prima volta qui è andato a confessarsi ed alla santa messa. Vedo tutto ciò come frutto della mia conversione e sono davvero felice di vederlo così allegro, non era mai successo in passato. Non era stato fortunato come me nella vita, perché era nato con un handycap fisico e tutto ciò lo ha influenzato. I nostri genitori ci hanno sempre separati in tutto quello che dovevamo fare. Mia madre ha dimostrato più affetto a me ed io ero quello con i vestiti migliori, i giocattoli, quello che ha ricevuto più caramelle e dolci durante il periodo della nostra infanzia. Lei vedeva che amavo gli sport e che ero portato per la pallanuoto e per l’allenamento in piscina. Ho avuto una vita perfetta; Ero giovane, di bell’aspetto e di successo, mentre mio fratello era solo e triste. Ero troppo egoista per vederlo. Non ho avuto necessità di comunicare molto con la mia famiglia perché ho avuto tutto dalla vita: soldi, ragazze e carriera. Ma tutto questo non è durato troppo a lungo. Ho concluso il lungo rapporto che avevo con la mia ragazza. La amavo davvero, ma era interessata soltanto a soldi ed alla gloria. Ho rifiutato l'invito del Coach nella nostra nazionale ed ero completamente disperato, distrutto, senza famiglia, amici, senza ragazza e carriera.

Ero sull'orlo della depressione. Poco dopo conobbi una coppia di fratelli gemelli che hanno condiviso con me la storia della loro conversione. La loro storia mi ha toccato profondamente ed ho deciso di raccontare loro i miei problemi, la mia solitudine ed il mio disagio. Ho desiderato l’aiuto di Gesù, per cambiare vita e darmi la pace che desideravo così profondamente. Da quel momento sono cominciati i cambiamenti nella mia vita. Mi sono confessato, ho iniziato ad andare alla santa messa, a leggere la Sacra Bibbia e ad aiutare i poveri. La mia vita è cambiata completamente. I rapporti con la mia famiglia e con la gente sono cambiati, pieni di significato, la mia carriera è avanzata e sono diventato una persona nuova. Era semplicemente Dio che volgeva tutto al bene.

La mia famiglia ed i miei amici hanno letto della mia conversione sui giornali, e quando ho deciso di condividere tutto con la gente sono rimasti molto sorpresi. La cosa più bella è quando potete vivere nella verità ed essere chi realmente siete. La mia nuova vita è appena cominciata ed il mio desiderio è di incontrare Gesù ogni giorno di più. Spero che la mia storia sia di esempio per altri giovani affinché cambino vita e capiscano che senza Gesù le loro vite sono senza senso.' (Alex Giorgetti)

'Since Italy has not won the World Championship in the last twenty years, I made the decision that if we achieved a good result, I would come to Medjugorje and thank Jesus for that. Not only did we become the World Championship Winners, but I was awarded as the best player of the Championship. That is why I decided to come and thank Jesus and Our Lady for all of the graces they bestowed upon me. I climbed Apparition Hill and Cross Mountain in my bare feet, and that was such a beautiful experience for me. I feel content and fulfilled and cannot wait to return to Italy so I can be a witness about the beauty of this place. I arrived here with my twin brother. Before, we never spoke together; I never told him that I loved him. He never went to church, never prayed and now for the first time he went to confession and Holy Mass here. I see all of that as fruits of my conversion and I am so happy to see him as joyful as he is, that was never the case in the past. He was not as lucky as I was in my life, because he was born with a physical disability and all of that influenced him. Our parents always separated us in everything we were to do. Mother showed more affection to me and I was the one with better clothes, toys, the one who received more candies and sweets throughout the time of our childhood. She could see that I loved sports and that I was talented for water polo and she was always taking me for training practice at swimming pools. I had the perfect life; I was young, good-looking, and successful while my brother was lonely and sad. I was even too selfish to see that. I did not have a need to talk to my family because I had everything else in my life: money, girlfriends and a successful career. But all of that did not last too long. I ended the long relationship that I had with my girlfriend. I loved her sincerely, but she was interested only in money and glory. I rejected an invitation from our National Team Coach and I was completely desperate, broke, without family, friends, without a girlfriend and a career.

I was nearly in depression. Shortly afterwards, I got to meet a pair of twin brothers who shared their story of conversion with me. Their story touched me deeply and I decided to share with them my own problems, my loneliness and my restlessness. I wanted Jesus to heal me, to change my life and give me peace that I was longing for so deeply. That is when changes started to take place in my life. I confessed, started going to Holy Mass, reading the Holy Bible, and helping the poor. My life was changed completely. Relationships with my family and other people became different, full of meaning; my career was advancing again and I became a new person. It was simply because God turns everything to good.

My family and my friends read about my conversion in newspapers, after that I decided to share with other people and they were truly surprised. The most beautiful thing is when you are able to live the truth and to be what you really are. My new life has just begun and my desire is to meet Jesus more and more with each day. I hope my story will be an example to other young people to change their lives and to understand that nothing in their lives makes sense without Jesus.' (Alex Giorgetti)

Rome: Open City

A. O. Scott of the The New York Times looks back at Roberto Rossellini's film, Roma, città aperta, one of my favourite Italian Neorealist films.

Carousel

It's been just shy of six months, but the memories replay over and over again, like a carousel circling round and round, until I feel almost sickly dizzy. The pain of emptiness is starting to fade. I think that it's a good thing.

Memoria

'Memory has to be strong enough to enable us to act without forgetting what we intended to do, to learn without ceasing to be the same person, but it also has to be weak enough to allow us to keep moving into the future.'

- Italo Calvino

I can't seem to find the original quote, which would have been in Italian; but I really like what Calvino writes, he has such thoughtful ways of phrasing things.

Pratariccia

Recently eBay listed the Tuscan village of Pratariccia for sale. At 850m altitude the medieval village looks over the beautiful Casentino valley, and has been abandoned since the early 1960's when villagers traded their farming and shepherding lifestyles for jobs in Italian factories during the economic boom. It is believed the owners of the village are a monastic order, and are looking to sell the village, which includes 25 cottages and eight hectares of land, for only €2.5m. At the moment, deer, wild boar, and wolves roam the land, and without proper road leading to the site, after driving within 800m, Pratariccia must be reached on foot. It is approximated that a further €1m would be needed to do renovate the cottages, add the road, and connect to electricity. However, only 40km east from Florence, €3.5m or so seems like a steal for an entire village. Neighbouring Pratariccia are the hilltop villages of Bibbiena and Poppi, and a national park from where the river Arno is sourced.

Pratariccia is in obvious need of a lot of restoration work, but I think that if it falls into the hands of the right developers it could become a great investment and would make a beautiful holiday retreat for private or tourist use. What fun it would be to be a property developer and work with such richly historical sites.

Home

'Oh, London is a man's town, there's power in the air;

And Paris is a woman's town, with flowers in her hair;
And it's sweet to dream in Venice, and it's great to study Rome;
But when it comes to living, there is no place like home.'

- Henry Van Dyke

Liam Finn's Guide to New Zealand

Liam Finn's Guide to New Zealand. I love what he says about the ocean keeping us humble; its sheer vastness, its ability to be both calming and terrifying, makes me feel so insignificant. Just looking at it daily, either out of the window, on the walk to the bus stop, or on the journey over the bridge, puts everything into perspective and reminds me how petty my trivial worries are in the grand scheme of things.

Amalfi

Sweet the memory is to me
Of a land beyond the sea,
Where the waves and mountains meet,
Where, amid her mulberry-trees,
Sits Amalfi in the heat,
Bathing ever her white feet
In the tideless summer seas.
In the middle of the town,
From its fountains in the hills,
Tumbling through the narrow gorge,
The Canneto rushes down,
Turns the great wheels of the mills,
Lifts the hammers of the forge.

'Tis a stairway, not a street,
That ascends the deep ravine,
Where the torrent leaps between
Rocky walls that almost meet.
Toiling up from stair to stair
Peasant girls their burdens bear;
Sunburnt daughters of the soil,
Stately figures tall and straight,
What inexorable fate
Dooms them to this life of toil?

Lord of vineyards and of lands,
Far above the convent stands.
On its terraced walk aloof
Leans a monk with folded hands,
Placid, satisfied, serene,
Looking down upon the scene
Over wall and red-tiled roof;
Wondering unto what good end
All this toil and traffic tend,
And why all men cannot be
Free from care and free from pain,
And the sordid love of gain,
And as indolent as he.

Where are now the freighted barks
From the marts of east and west?
Where the knights in iron sarks
Journeying to the Holy Land,
Glove of steel upon the hand,
Cross of crimson on the breast?
Where the pomp of camp and court?
Where the pilgrims with their prayers?
Where the merchants with their wares,
And their gallant brigantines
Sailing safely into port
Chased by corsair Algerines?

Vanished like a fleet of cloud,
Like a passing trumpet-blast,
Are those splendours of the past,
And the commerce and the crowd!
Fathoms deep beneath the seas
Lie the ancient wharves and quays
Swallowed by the engulfing waves;
Silent streets and vacant halls,
Ruined roofs and towers and walls;
Hidden from all mortal eyes
Deep the sunken city lies:
Even cities have their graves!

This is an enchanted land!
Round the headlands far away
Sweeps the blue Salernian bay
With its sickle of white sand:
Further still and furthermost
On the dim-discovered coast
Paestum with its ruins lies,
And its roses all in bloom
Seem to tinge the fatal skies
Of that lonely land of doom.

On his terrace, high in air,
Nothing doth the good monk care
For such worldly themes as these.
From the garden just below
Little puffs of perfume blow,
And a sound is in his ears
Of the murmur of the bees
In the shining chestnut-trees;
Nothing else he heeds or hears.
All the landscape seems to swoon
In the happy afternoon;
Slowly o'er his senses creep
The encroaching waves of sleep,
And he sinks as sank the town,
Unresisting, fathoms down,
Into caverns cool and deep!

Walled about with drifts of snow,
Hearing the fierce north wind blow,
Seeing all the landscape white,
And the river cased in ice,
Comes this memory of delight,
Comes this vision unto me
Of a long-lost Paradise
In the land beyond the sea.

- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Un ospite inusuale e inaspettato

La Domenica del Corriere

10 March 1929

Un ospite inusuale e inaspettato: Una visita inopinata. A Paderno (Udine), il guidatore di un'automobile, per evitare un carretto, sterzava violentemente, lanciando così la macchina contro un muro, che si sfondava. E' facile immaginare il terrore di una famiglia di contadini, che era seduta dietro il muro, quando questo crollava. Per fortuna, vi sono stati soltanto alcuni feriti leggeri.

(An Unusual and Unexpected Guest: An unexpected visit. In Paderno (Udine), the driver of a car, swerved violently to avoid a cart, thereby launching his car into a wall, which is smashed. It is easy to imagine the terror of a peasant family, who was sitting behind the wall when it collapsed. Fortunately, there were only a few slightly wounded.)

Eternal City

'When we have left Rome in such a state as this, we are astonished by the discovery, by and by, that our heartstrings have mysteriously attached themselves to the Eternal City, and are drawing us thitherward again, as if it were more familiar, more intimately our home, than even the spot where we were born.'

from The Marble Faun - Nathaniel Hawthorne

Christine Ferber

Alsace, France-based Christine Ferber interviewed on Euromaxx about her specialty jams.

Rita Atria

On the 26th of July 1992, a young seventeen year old Italian girl committed suicide. This is Rita Atria's story.

Where talking is met with deadly silence: In a small town on a Sicilian hilltop, a young woman could no longer keep quiet after the Mafia shot dead first her father, then her brother. Clare Longrigg reports on the courage, the fear and the tragic death of Rita Atria.

by Clare Longrigg, The Independent, Monday 21 September 1992.

NICOLO ATRIA and Piera Aiello were married in Partanna, a little hilltop town in the beautiful and fertile Val del Bellice, in western Sicily. When their baby was three, they moved to Montevago, a village near Agrigento, and set up their own pizzeria.

On the day of the opening, in June last year, they held a modest celebration, and invited a few neighbours. The guests departed early. As Nicolo was clearing away, a man walked into the restaurant and shot him. Nicolo died in Piera's arms. He was 24.

It was a settling of scores between Mafia clans, and people knew better than to interfere. Nicolo's father, Vito, a shepherd, had been shot dead in 1985 by a hitman from a rival family. Nicolo was 18 at the time, the only son, and he talked obsessively about avenging his father. He probably knew who the murderer was; perhaps, in his eagerness to be taken seriously, he had talked too much about his vendetta.

The police made half-hearted inquiries into Nicolo's death, but were greeted by silence. This is Mafia heartland, and nobody talks to the police, not even to ask the time of day. That would have been the end of it, had it not been for Nicolo's sister. Rita was 18, a quiet girl, ordinary-looking, short, with dark brown hair and black eyes. Her father and now her brother had been murdered, and she knew that the killers were free and had nothing to fear: Mafia hitmen are seldom arrested and almost never tried for murder.

Rita had been timid and unassuming, always in the background of small-town life. Unable to suppress her grief and anger any longer, she took her revenge. She disobeyed the Mafia's most powerful, unwritten law - instilled into her from her earliest childhood. A month after her brother's murder, she went to the police with his widow, and talked.

The police took the women straight to Paolo Borsellino, the magistrate conducting investigations into Mafia activity in the west of Sicily. Rita's anger came out in a torrent of words. She told Borsellino about the war between the Mafia families of Partanna, in which 30 people have died in the past few years; she named the heads of the most powerful families. She named the men who had killed her father and her brother. Borsellino questioned her about Partanna's most notorious unsolved murder: the shooting of the deputy mayor in 1983. Rita told him what every other resident of Partanna believed, but would not say: that the former mayor had killed his own deputy.

Last October the police made their move. Ten people were imprisoned for Mafia crimes on the evidence of Rita Atria's testimony, and in the following months, 20 more mafiosi were behind bars. When her mother found out that Rita was collaborating with the police, she threw her out. It did not matter that her own son's killer was to be brought to justice; as far as she was concerned, the police were on the wrong side of the law. Borsellino was afraid the Mafia would discover the identity of his source and try to silence her. Rita was taken to a seventh-floor flat on the outskirts of Rome, where the only people she knew were her police guards. Borsellino became her lifeline.

On Sunday 19 July, Paolo Borsellino was blown up on the doorstep of his mother's house in Palermo. Italy reeled with the shock. Rita, alone in the apartment in Rome, read the papers and saw the mangled cars and bodies on television. A week later, she locked herself into the apartment and wrote a note, which said: 'I am devastated by the killing of Judge Borsellino. Now there's no one to protect me, I'm scared and I can't take any more.' Then she threw herself out of the window.

It took two days for the newspapers to trace this anonymous suicide - no one in the apartment block knew the girl on the seventh floor, and no one but Borsellino and his colleagues had seen her for months. Anti-Mafia campaigners instantly adopted Rita as a martyr. The unknown heroine was splashed across every front page, but no one had a picture of her.

The road to Partanna winds through the rich countryside, past fields of melons and corn. As you approach the small hilltop town, the road rises in a grandiose arc and curls into a massive spaghetti junction. But this astonishing construction does not actually lead into the town. You have to circle the summit and go down again, turn down a side street and enter the town on the old, broken road.

Partanna was partially destroyed by earthquakes in 1968, and, after almost 10 years, the money began to arrive to rebuild it. Rivers of money, from the EC and the state, went straight into the pockets of the Mafia. Individuals were paid to rebuild their own palatial villas. The approach road with no exit appeared, while the church roof still lies where it fell.

On the day of Rita Atria's funeral, journalists and anti-Mafia campaigners arrived from Palermo and wandered about in the blistering heat, trying to find out when the ceremony would take place. There was a confusion about the proceedings that heightened the mutual suspicion between the townsfolk of Partanna and the unwelcome visitors. At the town hall, they said Mass would be held at noon. At the church, a man said there would be no funeral for Rita.

At one o'clock, Don Calogero Russo, the parish priest, stepped out to the vestry in the middle of another funeral, and was taken aback to find a group of women waiting for him, demanding to know what was happening and when the funeral would be. 'These are terrible times. It's a cruel world. What a dreadful thing to happen,' he said in an unctuous voice. 'We won't be saying Mass for the poor girl, her family doesn't want us to.'

This was difficult to believe: there had been no sign of a single member of Rita's family since the news of her death had broken, and her sister-in-law, who had gone to the police with her, was still in hiding. The women were indignant. As they walked away, one remarked that a priest who would not say Mass for a girl who had betrayed the Cosa Nostra must be a mafioso. Another said that because Rita had committed suicide, the priest would not bury her in holy ground.

The citizens of Partanna seemed rather inclined to forget who Rita Atria was. But a bar owner was more helpful. She said that Rita's mother was in the local hospice for the poor, being looked after by the nuns. 'She's only 50, but they say she's gone mad. I'm not surprised after what has happened.'

The hospice is surrounded by 20ft walls, with a solid steel gate and electronic surveillance. A voice on the entryphone beneath the eye of a video camera shrieked at the outsiders to go away.

At five o'clock the entrance to the cemetery was blocked by television cameras and press photographers. Journalists and anti-Mafia campaigners outnumbered the local mourners, and searched frantically for anyone who had known the dead girl. A strangled howl among the tombs sent the press corps half-running towards Rita's family grave. The mother? But the old woman in black, grey hair wild about her crumpled face, was not related. A group of women from Partanna looked on uneasily. They all said they didn't know Rita Atria, but it was a pity, such a young girl . . .

To a brief burst of applause, Rita's coffin came unsteadily down the path. It was carried by a dozen women from Palermo, heroines of the anti-Mafia movement who jostled for position to pay homage to their dead sister. At the rear was Michela Buscemi, who had taken her brothers' mafioso killers to court; leading the mourners was Letizia Battaglia, who spent two years photographing the shattered corpses of Mafia victims, in protest against Cosa Nostra.

The coffin was followed by the mayor and three carabinieri in uniform, bearing a standard - it had been decided, at short notice, that Rita was an official heroine. Father Russo celebrated Mass under a piercing blue sky, the cyprus trees rustled by a gentle breeze. The small crowd filtered through the graves, standing on the tombs to get a better view. The mayor gave a long speech about Rita's bravery, without once mentioning the Mafia.

Father Russo recited: 'Pardon your servant for her sins. . . .' 'Rita non ha peccato, ha parlato,' cried out one of the protesters. 'Rita did not sin, she talked. And what she said was the truth.' There was a shocked silence, then a ripple of cautious applause.

Rita was not the first to talk. In recent years, a number of women from Mafia families have denounced the killers of their husbands or sons. All of them have been ostracised by their families as a result, many have had their livelihoods destroyed. When Michela Buscemi testified against the killers of her brothers, Salvo and Rodolfo, her bar in Palermo was blown up and her mother disowned her; it was not until her four-year-old daughter's life was threatened that she withdrew her case. Pietra Lo Verso's husband fell foul of a Mafia boss and was shot dead in a massacre that killed eight people. She took his killers to court; as a result, customers deserted her shop, her parents cut her out of their lives, and her sons will not allow her to speak to anyone.

During his last investigations, Judge Borsellino maintained that the only effective weapons in the war against the Mafia were the pentiti - the 'penitent' mafiosi who, out of fear or revenge, revealed the inside workings of the impenetrable organisation - and the innocent members of Mafia families who knew the names of killers and bosses. He knew what would happen to a woman who betrayed her family to the police, and he used to give his 'penitents' personal support, remembering birthdays and Christmas presents for the children. Just before he died, he had requested better protection for these informers.

When Rita Atria's funeral was over, the journalists, giving up hope of finding anyone who had known her, interviewed each other outside the cemetery gate. But as the people of Partanna edged back up the hill to their homes, one woman spoke up. 'I didn't know Rita, but I came to her funeral because I believe in what she did,' she said rapidly as the reporters closed in around her, wielding microphones. 'We are all to blame for her death, because of our silence. But what happened to her is not going to change anything around here. It's not going to make anyone else talk.'

Source: The Independent

NZ: Young, Wild, and Free

The other night my friend and I were looking at a map of the world and were somewhat confused as to how large New Zealand looks in comparison to other countries of the world; we thought there must have been some error in scale, but it turns out that it really is that size. To give an example, New Zealand has a total area of 268,021 km squared, while Italy has 301,338 km squared. But while they have a population of over 60 million, we have yet to reach 4.5 million.

I think perhaps because we are so isolated, our population is so small, and the rest of the world barely knows anything about our existence, we have this mentality that we are tiny and maybe even insignificant in the grand scheme of things. But this is what I like best about it here. This fun video was circulating between my friends who had been on exchange here from Europe; it probably doesn't make much sense if you haven't been here before, but it is New Zealand through and through. Oh bless.

A parody of Young, Wild, and Free by Snoop Dogg and Wiz Khalifa feat. Bruno Mars, this version was created by Graeme Knowles, Alex Newbury, Brandon Woollett, Vincenzo Ritossa, and Waylon Edwards.

Here are the lyrics:

So what we chill out,

So what we love sheep,

We're just having fun,

And drink at 18. 

So what there's no jobs, 

You can all go to Aussie, 

But we'll always be Kiwi. 

So what I keep a stuffed kiwi on top of my drawer, 

I chuck my jandals on fresh off the floor, 

Head outside to play some cricket with the bros, 

Chur bro, 

Have a drink out the hose, 

'Cos the water's fresh everywhere, 

With four million tall, 

We don't need to share, 

Yea we are small, 

If you look at a map you won't find us at all, 

Not part of Aussie, 

I've about had enough! 

This is Aotearoa, 

From Kaitaia to the Bluff. 

You know what it feels like, 

We won the cup again, 

a big smile on my face, 

looking for the case, 

trying to find that bitter taste. 

Got ID, the cops aren't on my case, 

but Veezy, you're looking quite uneasy, 

Irrelevant 

Kicking back, fishing away, 

mowing lawns for the rest of the day, 

Beer is the pay, 

the Kiwi way. 

Planking like your life's just a game, 

silver fern, black shirt, Mr Waylon sing that chorus again. 

So what we chill out, 

So what we love sheep, 

We're just having fun, 

And drink at 18. 

So what there's no jobs, 

You can all go to Aussie, 

But we'll always be Kiwi. 

And we don't even care, when we hear you Frenchies cheer, 

it don't matter, the World Cup is over here!

Farming everywhere we're going, got the cash flowing, 

Sheep, cows, trees and kiwis, we got 'em growing! 

Whakarongo mai, Maui fished this land, 

looking for kai, he pulled the sun from the sky, 

what a choice guy!

I come from the land of the long white cloud, 

the Aussies took the pavlova but the lumps are ours! 

Now I'm grilling, tuataras be chilling, 

I got my barbeque, my saussies are sizzling, 

Got my bike, no job, eight children, 

Shop at Warehouse, got myself a bargain. 

L&P, Bumblebee, TV3, Touch Rugby, 

Watch with me, this is us, true kiwi, 

and we'll forever be, one big family. 

So what we chill out, 

So what we love sheep, 

We're just having fun, 

And drink at 18. 

So what there's no jobs, 

You can all go to Aussie, 

But we'll always be Kiwi. 

Haka, haka, slap your legs and we know how to party, 

Haka, haka, smack your chest and we're having fun, 

so we just, haka, haka, stamp your feet and then pull your war face, 

Haka, haka, and jump really high. 

So what we chill out, 

So what we love sheep, 

We're just having fun, 

And drink at 18. 

So what there's no jobs, 

You can all go to Aussie, 

But we'll always be Kiwi.

Ill

For the past few days I've been extremely ill with the worst flu I've ever had so haven't really been able to do anything at all. It's been so frustrating to have to just lie here and wait until it goes away while my work is put on hold; but it has made me so grateful for my health, for my amazing family, and the fact that I know that this sickness will be over soon. Life, through all its ups and downs, is truly beautiful.

Io Sono l'Amore

Io Sono l'Amore is an Italian film directed by Luca Guadagnino and starring Tilda Swinton. This film featured beautiful cinematography, especially in the first few opening sequences, further developing its rich use of colour. These screenshots hardly do it justice. I adored the grandeur of the scenes and the acting was superb. Tilda Swinton even learnt Italian with a Russian accent for her role, but she just seems like such a witch in her films and in interviews. Flavio Parenti who plays her son, Edoardo Jr., on the other hand is marvellously handsome and charming. Io Sono l'Amore is a sumptuous film that reveals just how destructive such decadence and selfishness can be.

'In the oppulent world of Milan's upper class, the Recchi family have it all - wealth, beauty, taste, and reputation. Their life is governed by exotic multiple-course meals and discreet staff, by extravagant parties and exclusive labels. When Edoardo Senior (Gabriele Ferzetti), the family patriarch, decides to name a successor to the reigns of his industrial company, he surprises everyone by spitting power between his son Tancredi (Pippo Delbono), and grandson Edo (Flavio Parenti). But Edo dreams of opening a restaurant with his friend Antonio (Edoardo Gabbriellini), a handsome and talented chef. When Edo introduces his Russian mother, Emma (Tilda Swinton), to Antonio, sparks fly, and the pair soon embark on an affaire gastronomique, which could spell the fall of this powerful dynasty.'

  

Perugia

'I should perhaps do the reader a service by telling him just how a week at Perugia may be spent. His first care must be to ignore the very dream of haste, walking everywhere very slowly and very much at random, and to impute an esoteric sense to almost anything his eye may happen to encounter. Almost everything in fact lends itself to the historic, the romantic, the æsthetic fallacy - almost everything has an antique queerness and richness that ekes out the reduced state; that of a grim and battered old adventuress, the heroine of many shames and scandals, surviving to an extraordinary age and a considerable penury, but with ancient gifts of princes and other forms of the wages of sin to show, and the most beautiful garden of all the world to sit and doze and count her beads in and remember.'

from Transatlantic Sketches - Henry James

Luca Cordero di Montezemolo

Luca Cordero di Montezemolo, Chairman of Ferrari for Journal Interview, Deutsche Welle on the road ahead for Italy, finding its way out of the financial crisis and looking forward to its future.

Olympics

Italy has hosted three of the modern Olympic Games. In 1956 they held the Winter Olympics in Cortina d'Ampezzo, in 1960 the Summer Olympics in Rome, and in 2006 the Winter Olympics in Torino.

Walks in Paris

'A walk about Paris will provide lessons in history, beauty, and in the point of life.'

- Thomas Jefferson

Landmannalaugar

Landmannalaugar, Iceland

National Geographic

At Venice

On the Lido
On her still lake the city sits
While bark and boat beside her flits,
Nor hears, her soft siesta taking,
The Adriatic billows breaking.

In the Piazza at night
O beautiful beneath the magic moon
To walk the watery way of palaces;
O beautiful, o'er-vaulted with gemmed blue
This spacious court; with colour and with gold,
With cupolas, and pinnacles, and points,
And crosses multiplex, and tips, and balls,
(Wherewith the bright stars unreproving mix,
Nor scorn by hasty eyes to be confused;)
Fantastically perfect this lone pile
Of oriental glory; these long ranges
Of classic chiselling; this gay flickering crowd,
And the calm Campanile - Beautiful!
O beautiful!

- Arthur Hugh Clough

Charms

Today I was in a store when the lady at the counter noticed the silver charms on my necklace; one of the Eiffel Tower and the other a small medallion of the Madeleine. It turns out she is a Parisian, and has lived in New Zealand for three years now. It's funny how small the world has become with such fast-paced advancements in technology; travel is becoming easier. As much as I adore the past; I love how global everything is nowadays; and am excited to explore more countries.

Paolo Borsellino

Corriere della Sera 20 July 1992

Today is the anniversary of Paolo Borsellino's assassination on the 19th of July 1992. I wasn't old enough to remember this day, but my mum says she can still remember watching the horrific events on the news all those years ago. Less than two months after the murder of his fellow prosecutor friend, Giovanni Falcone, Borsellino was targeted by the mafia and brutally killed. Both men died by car bombs; Falcone with his wife and three bodyguards, Borsellino with five policemen.

Here is the blog I wrote earlier on for the anniversary of Giovanni Falcone's death, with information about both Paolo Borsellino and Rita Atria also. Amazing people whose lives were cut short much too prematurely.  http://allthedaysordained.blogspot.co.nz/2012/05/giovanni-falcone-paolo-borsellino-and.html

'Chi ha paura muore ogni giorno, chi non ha paura muore una volta sola.'

'Those who are scared die everyday, those who are not scared die only once.'

- Paolo Borsellino

Massacre of Capaci (Giovanni Falcone)

Massacre of Via D'Amelio (Paolo Borsellini)

London Town

'A mighty mass of brick, and smoke, and shipping,
Dirty and dusty, but as wide as eye
Could reach, with here and there a sail just skipping
In sight, then lost amidst the forestry
Of masts; a wilderness of steeples peeping
On tiptoe through their sea-coal canopy;
A huge, dun cupola, like a foolscap crown
On a fool's head - and there is London Town.'

from Don Juan, Canto X, Stanza 82 - Lord Byron

Costa Concordia: Shipwreck Tourism

Costa Concordia: Shipwreck Tourism video by Journal Reporters, Deustche Welle

Ice Cream

'Particularly around the Pantheon, there are streets in Rome where practically everyone seems to be carrying an ice cream cone. In Rome there are serious disputes among connoisseurs about the relative merits of the slick Gelateria della Palma and the more traditional Giolitti.'

from Travels with Alice - Calvin Trillin

Milano: Inaugurazione dei musei artistico ed archeologico: gl'invati nella Corte Ducale

La Domenica del Corriere 27 May 1900

Milano: Inaugurazione dei musei artistico ed archeologico: gl'invati nella Corte Ducale

Milan: Inauguration of art and archaeological museums: those invited to the Ducal Court

Lac Rose

 

Lac Rose, also known as Lake Retba, is situated in Senegal, north of the Cap Vert peninsula and north east of Dakar. The pink colour is caused by Dunaliella salina, harmless halophilic bacteria which love the 40% salt content of the lake. Michael Danson, an expert in bacteria from Bath University says, 'The strawberry colour is produced by salt-loving organism Dunaliella salina. They produce a red pigment that absorbs ad uses the energy of sunlight to create more energy, turning the water pink.'

Like the Dead Sea, people float easily on Lac Rose. Salt is collected from the lake to be sold, and those who are working for extended periods for up to seven hours daily must protect their skin with shea butter. The colour is strongest in the dry season, and colour varies from light purple to deep magenta, dependent on the time of day.

Sicilia

'This violence of landscape, this cruelty of climate, this continual tension in everything, and these monuments, even of the past, magnificent yet incomprehensible because not built by us and yet standing around like lovely mute ghosts; all those rulers who landed by main force from every direction, who were at once obeyed, soon detested, and always misunderstood, their only expressions works of art we couldn't understand and taxes which we understood only too well and which they spent elsewhere: all these things have formed our character.'

from Il Gattopardo - Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa

Italy: Living in an Earthquake Zone

A video entitled Italy: Living in an Earthquake Zone on European Journal, Deutsche Welle. Extremely irritating commentary but the clips show the devastation of the earthquakes that hit the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy a few months ago. Heart-breaking to see the loss of buildings that have survived so many years before this shake.

Intangible

'You can't escape the past in Paris, and yet what's so wonderful about it is that the past and present intermingle so intangibly that it doesn't seem to burden.'

- Allen Ginsberg

Beneath the Skies

'What is that feeling when you're driving away from people and they recede on the plain till you see their specks dispersing? - it's the too-huge world vaulting us, and it's good-bye. But we lean forward to the next crazy venture beneath the skies.'

from On the Road - Jack Kerouac

It is the goodbyes in life that I am awfully afraid of.

Cantam toti de fericire - Baietii din Brasov

I was on the hunt for a Romanian version of Happy Birthday for a friend, but couldn't find anything on youtube. My amazing lack of Romanian language almost led me to post a Happy New Year song instead; until I came across this gem of choral music by Baietii din Brasov, Cantam toti de fericire. No idea who they are or what they are singing so beautifully; the tune sounds strangely familiar, but I can't quite pin it.

Jusqu'à toi

Jusqu'à toi, released in English as Every Jack has a Jill, directed by Jennifer Devoldère, has got to be one of the worst foreign films I've seen yet. Starring American actor Justin Bartha and French actress Mélanie Laurent, the film moves excruciatingly slowly and barely shows any scenes of Paris, let alone enough to make it worth the time. From the blurb on the back of the DVD I thought I would be able to settle down to do some etching while watching a predictable but cute story; little did I know that the narrative would be so stilted and the acting insipid - Justin Bartha is especially irritating. I watched until the very end in constant hope that it would get better but it was not to be. To be fair there were a few cinematographically nice scenes and Billy Boyd's Scottish accent was quite cute, but the lead actors were dull and uninspiring.

'26-year-old Chloe lives alone in Paris between an invasive neighbour, a petty-minded colleague and a bossy DVD rental store manager. It is a life that doesn't live up to her expectations.

30-year-old Jack, an American who's been dumped by his girlfriend, wins a trip to Paris. By a fortunate stroke of luck, Chloe gets her hands on Jack's suitcase, a gift from his father that he cherishes deeply. Chloe falls in love with the suitcase's contents. Chloe loves Jack, even though she's never seen him and knows nothing about him. She convinces herself that he's the man of her dreams, that they're made for one another, and she does everything she can to find him.'