“Vodka Limon por favor” I said to the young lady behind the bar, as she sloped off to quench the thirst of yet another local ahead of me. She sniffed the air – my money obviously not good enough for her. Deciding this could take awhile, I turned, instead, to resume my conversation with the youthful and ever so dashing Indian Diplomat, Anurag Jha; whom I had just this minute been introduced to. “Apologies for cutting you short there, dear boy. You were going to say something about working on a gramophone record. What did you call it, Mumbo? Oh how I do like the Latin records.” Mr Jha said something about a Russian female playing his record. It sounded like jolly good fun;
Memories Archive
Memories, friendships, calories and Mulino Bianco products – are just some of the things I will be taking back from this trip. They are the lucky ones. For not everything I have with me in Milan will be making the return leg home. My shoes, which have served my working life and rare smart social appearance requirements so well to date (they’ve been crap, actually) – did not quite make the full trip. Neither did the toenail on my left foot. I’m not exaggerating when I say how much it rained yesterday – and how wet I got. My trusty Harrington is still damp, some 15 hours later – but the shoes are beyond saving; well, beyond wanting to save. The sole gave up the
I was going to give this post the subtitle ‘warmth’. Not as in temperature, but the warmth shown by one person to another – or in this case, lots of people. But then it started to rain. And rain. And rain. My whole top half is a mess of hair and cotton, stuck, like cling film, to each shivering part. I spent the afternoon in Vercelli. A small town between Milan and Turin; surrounded by a sea of risotto rice fields. As you catch the train, the submerged fields are all you can see for miles around. I was there to meet two lads, leaders of the Ghigni Bianchi – a supporters club of Pro Vercelli. We’d caught up earlier in the season through Facebook.
This is the postcard where I just dump stuff. The parts, and places, that didn’t quite get the time – or warrant the attention of their own, individual postcard. The disappearance of Cacio e Pepe from the average restaurant/tourist menu was rather disappointing. Travellers clearly no longer see the want or the value in plain pasta, cheese and ground pepper. You’re as, if not more likely to get foreign beer in the restaurants and trattorias near the main sites. I still absolutely adore eating a sweet, sugary cornetto for my breakfast – it’s why I’ve smuggled some back with my shampoo. What ever connotations and historical wrongs that may be associated with the Vittorio Emanuele II Monument – it is still, day or night, one
I feel bloated. It’s post beer, rich food, average night’s sleep – bloated. Sleep interrupted by thoughts of a return – thoughts of a departure. I think we all had those thoughts. Even LLK – who spent three nights comfortably sleeping in a double bed, before falling out of it on her last night. In a city whose history has been dominated by the gods, by one god; I have to take that as a sign. Or, I can just assume that my daughter turned over one too many times in her sleep. Logic prevails. An old me, mentality – not of passing years – would have moped around until It was time to get the taxi. Negative thoughts cascading behind my eyes. This me,
What a mess. I’m finding it hard to watch the images on the screen. Even harder listening to the empty shell of a man trying to fathom why someone has set fire to his family business. What makes it hard is that the images are not from some far off battlefield, or political hotspot – but London; my London. OK – so it’s some six years and more since I last lived in London, but then – unless you really want to – I don’t think you ever truly erase the identity of where you were born. My accent betrays me the instant I start to speak – the words I use, not necessarily slang in form, can be traced back to my youth. Even
This guest post is part of a series of first memories of football. As the piece explains, this match wasn’t my first actually footballing memory – more the first time I can recall football actually meaning something more than just being a game, on TV, where the result was a mere formality. When it started to mean more than what it really should
Yesterday we sat around a table eating food with people we call friends. It was the second Sunday in succession that we’ve had reason to do that. Some of those friends we get to see on a weekly or at least monthly basis. Others, we haven’t seen – or may not see for years. Yet we still use the same word to describe them – to categorise their presence within our lives; to mark the special relationship we share. I’ve written to you about the importance family will play in your life. I think my view of family is often dictated by the hours of Irish/Italian American themed TV programmes I watch – positioning myself as the patriarch of a big family – that brings
Ok, so the title is slightly misleading. It’s not meant to imply that porn is the friend; a crutch I rely on when I’m down or have certain urges. No. What I mean is that I have a friend who works in the porn industry. A friend who now goes by the professional name of Lara Latex – her real world name forever lost to her thousands of fans on facebook and twitter. We met at college. We were on the same course, though she was in the year above. We played on the same Volleyball team, had the same group of mates and went on the same nights out – though I think we both would have preferred to have been somewhere less commercial