I recently discovered that the Queen Mum is dead. I did so by stumbling into a rather moving Board of Rembrance hanging in the members bar of the British parliament, to which I was recently elected to replace disgraced Tory Jonathan Aitken.
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Italian PM and crooked crooner, media magnate and tryant, Silvio Berlusconi, will hopefully be turfed from office within the next 48 hours.
Maybe then he'll get his punk arse thrown in gaol -
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4793070.stm
Recently his behaviour has been erratic, Accusing his opponents of being “communist baby-eaters and baby-boilers” who “worship Stalin and Pol Pot”, and claiming “I trust the intelligence of the Italian people too much to think that there are so many testicles around who would vote against their own best interests.” - leading to a protest in Rome chasing him chanting “we are testicles”.
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4707368.stm)
Even erotic - saying “seven out of nine” sex chat line girls he has called say they will vote for him.
His opponent, Romano Prodi, might be on to something…
“The prime minister clings to data in the way a drunkard clings to lamp-posts - not for illumination, but to keep him standing up.”
This election, ex-pat Italian citizens are voting for the first time. And soon, anyone with ONE Italian grandparent will be eligilble to be a citizen. I missed the boat this time, but in a few years will be voting in the Italian election myself!
The Italian diaspora is rising!
Sunday's 3rd anniversary of the attack on Iraq was marked with around 200 people protesting in Perth, a far cry from the 20,000 who took to the streets of Dullsville in early '03.
The speakers were sound, especially Anne Azza Aly and human rights lawyer Mark Cox, but none of them addressed the matter of the dramatically dwindling numbers.
National polling released last week indicates that 66% of Australians want the troops out either now or in the short-term future, but only 200 of them would march behind a banner saying 'troops out' in the streets of Perth.
Alexis Vassiley, who has been involved in the campaign since it started 3.5 years ago, told me that people had become “demoralised” and “pessimistic” about their chances of making an impact becuase the vast demonstartions held around the world in 2003 hadnt halted the invasion. He added that it was “still important” to make a stand.
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I understand Melbourne's rally was also small (though an improvement on ours). Any thoughts on why the movement has atrophied and why Howard will be PM for the next 20 years?
I am in Vigliatore. It’s a tiny and relatively new (100 years old) Sicilian town in the north west corner of the island, by the sea. The place is basically a suburb with a few farms in it, but not far from here are some hot spots.
Tindari - stuck up a near by mountain - used to be Tyndaris, a Greek settlement about 3000-3500 years ago. The theatre is still there from those days which in the Summer still gets used by locals for staging plays. The Roman temple around the corner, gymnasium and houses are still in relatively good shape. The town itself is tiny, and is also host to a 400 year old church which houses a 900 year old Madonna and baby Jeebus from the Eastern Roman Empire which washed up on the beach below.
Barcellona (our Barcellona) and Milazzo are both crackers of towns. Milazzo is famous because Garibaldi landed on its beach in 1860 with a thousand troops with the intention of kicking arse and chewing gum. As it turned out he was all out of gum and as a result Italy was a united country by the end of 1861.
Siracusa used to be Archimedes’ home town. Zareen and I spent two nights there checking out the sites. Archimedes helped keep the joint and independent Greek city state for a while, but eventually the Romans swept through it like a storm, killing and maiming. Fortunately most of the resulting mess was mopped up and it is now a picturesque holiday destination.
We checked out the temples of Apollo and Athena, as well as bits of Greek wall and a Roman arsenal. On the first night a big 16th century silver statue of Santa Lucia was paraded through the streets in a procession similar to that in The Godfather II when Vito kills Fanucci, completely with brass marching band, but with more impressive fireworks at three different stops. The statue is solid silver and is complete with a dagger through the unfortunate young lady’s neck. I saw some folks rub their kid on it for good luck - we’re so much more advanced than Pagans! Since it’s solid silver it took 6 hours for the procession to make it from St Lucia’s place to the temple of Athena, which has recently been turned into a Catholic church. (this is even worse than what they did to the big old Commonwealth Bank in Perth!)
Plenty of good grub is being consumed, especially at my zio and zia’s place. My cousins are an energetic bunch and say hilarious stuff like
“It’s hot in Australia, when I visit I will come nude, without underpants.” Frikkin Torres. Little Maddalena, aged 5, put on a headband with a fork stuck in it and announced she was an Indian, with the intention of making Zareen feel at home. While we are on the subject of Ms Kuriyan feeling at home here, four different people have believed her to be Sicilian. I guess Dennis Hopper was right.
K-Bot, tell me how to post photos.
Selah!
GT
I�m in Barcelona.
Top tip - stay the hell away from Mickey�s Tapas Bar on La Rambla. The paella is crap and they charge 21 Euro for a pitcher of sangria, which in the case of Mickey�s is some red goon and fanta with a few bits of orange.
(One highlight of La Rambla was Zareen�s dancing upstaging the Michael Jackson impersonator who, coincidentally, was a Spaniard considerably darker than MJ himself and stubbornly refused to molest the nearby kids.)
Instead, go to Marcelino�s on Muntaner street. The grub is good and cheap and glasses of wine go at 90 euro cents (about $1.60), as do coffees. The rabbit with garlic sauce is a Catalan favourite, apparently.
Paris isn�t as plagued with dog turd as rumoured, and it a swell town. Hanging with my ex-housemate Joey was rockin, and we saw some terrific jazz. The picasso museum is hot stuff, as is the museum di carnival, which has a lot of revolutionary and napoleonic era art and artifacts. French people are exceedingly friendly by the way. And you can smoke in hospitals.
Tokyo is crazy. Interestingly you can occassionally detect traces of a proud and noble culture under all the Hello Kitty, neon and school girl mania. It was obviously this proud and noble culture that inspired me to get rotten drunk at Gaspanic - a 10 square metre underground hip hop club populated with African American ex-pats and local girls in tasteful costumes.
I will write a full report later.
Props to Pakistan for flogging England by an innings and 100 runs even without �that man�Afridi.
Highlight - double century to no namer Mohammed Yousef (WHO?-sef).