Pictures for Gordon

Finally, I would like to introduce the first of what I hope is a long series of posts dedicated to Gordon. I will say no more, but just let the images speak for themselves.

Picture No.1: A pizzeria on a street near our house:

So Just What Have We Been Doing? Part 1

You would also all, I'm sure, like to know just what we've been up to over the last three months whilst we haven't been thinking of pathetic excuses to not write up the blog. Well, in order to answer your questions, I intend to take you back to the past with a series of posts relating events of the past three months.

The first event I would like to relate to you is my first experience of Italian five-a-side. Now, Italians are passionate about football, but not only in a fanatical way commonly witnessed in the UK. Here, there are many levels to football worship, ranging from the bestial up through to the philosophically enervating. The game of calcetto, for example, is a very different wee beastie here than it is in the UK. In the UK, such a contest generally consists of lots of running, occasional flashes of brilliance, many comedy moments and lots of banter.

Unfortunately for me, calcetto consists of minimal banter, strict tactical awareness (they play five-a-side with a 1-2-1 formation, with the striker being best described as a 'goal-hanger'), and crisp passing football. No hopeful lobs over the other team's midfield, oh no. The ball has to be played on the floor, preferably as part of some triangular movement involving another team-mate, and no one makes speculative runs. Thus, as my footballing friends will by now know, the following was a good summation of my overall contribution:

Feature No.1: Who Is This?

I now look like this:

But people here in Italy seem to think I look like this guy:

Now, I don't know if you agree with my Italian colleagues that I am Reinhold Messner ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reinhold_Messner ), so who else do I remind you of? Answers on the back of a postcard (preferably attached to this blog...)

A Need

Not for speed, but certainly to try and resuscitate this blog of mine. It won't be easy, and I apologise heartily for the last three months of inactivity, but I will, from now on, try to keep this thing reasonably well updated.

The reason for the delay, if you want to hear an excuse, is that we have been in a period of transition, where we have moved from one temporary home to another, and where we have then indulged in an Italian summer (nothing happens here in August apart from everyone heading to the beach), and then finally our working lives resurrected themselves with a vengeance.

Still, none of these things deserve ignoring you, my now much dwindled reading public, so, in order to try and appease you a little (in a manner akin to Roman emperors throwing Christians to the lions [and yes, obviously I am a Roman emperor and everyone else is an untamed beastie]), I would like to introduce two new features to this blog: