col favore delle tenebre

I am not sure how old I was. Elementary school? Or maybe later on.. middle school (I am not sure if you can say like that in English). Anyhow, I remember, there was this nun that every now and then was asking us to explain the meaning of certain expressions like, for example "col favore delle tenebre". What does it mean? In English it would sound like "thanks to the night darkness" or something like that. Why the night time is making a favour? Why so much generosity? Is it a true favour or not? Who can tell. "Time has told me." (as Nick Drake use to say. Che Dio l'abbia in Gloria). Then let's do it this way.

Other memories: there was this poem called "Il Calcio in Città", meaning "football in the city", where football is meant like "soccer". This poem was in my "sussidiario", one of those books that you are given when you are at the medium/middle schools. I think the author was some famous guy, not Gianni Rodari but someone like him, an old chap or something. Today, I was looking into google to find out who was the original writer and guess what: I discovered that some kids in a class won a prize because of this poem, as if they wrote it themselves. Here is the link: it is a pdf file.
Maybe I was wrong, and it is really those kids who wrote the poem. Who can tell?
But the reason why I like to remember this is because of something I was specifically involved with. When we were kids, at school (actually it was a private school held by nuns) we use to do something extremely dangerous: playing soccer on the top of a roof, among the highest roofs in Rome, where the barriers were so low that we could have fallen very easily... the good thing is that we were kids, therefore we were short and proportionally the barriers were higher. We were really doing the "calcio in città", soccer in the city, on the roofs. We were not using a reall ball, actually we were using the little metallic leads of the fruit juices of Joga for example or Zuegg or Valfrutta. That was soo cool at the time and so stupid if I think about it now.. I mean.. not really stupid but at least naive. Which is cool anyway.

After that (or before that) the other competition: we use to read that poem, "Il Calcio in Città". The competition consisted in being able to read it as quickly as possible and being able to make sense at the same time. I mean, you should have been able to understand all the words. That was the difficulty: we needed a referee, someone who could have judged the spelling and take the time (at the same time).

You can try to do it your self, the text is up there, on the pdf link.

Ok, I bored you enough, expecially if you managed to read up to this.
Take care and speak you tomorrow.

PB

I continue to flow (Incompatibile con la robba commerciale)

I know, everybody has got some inconsitency in their own life. But Fernando tought me well not to be ashamed of this. Actually, it is extrely important to be aware of inconsistence, almost to be proud of it even, at least sometimes. Inonsistence may be a proof of intelligence, actually this happens in many cases.

It is funny, for non english people, realising that the word "inconsistence", in Latin, or in easitalian would be translated in something like "not proper, non exhistent, made of nothing" or something.

Etymologically Speaking, it is actually very interesting to see how the English people, blamed "inconsistency" as sign, as a proof of "being nothing". That is very, very English, I would say.

Anyhow, most of my 4 readers will find this little chat here a bit useless or misplaced. Actually this is very punctual, but again today is one of those private moments of which I still don't feel very confortable speaking about so openly. Maybe soon. Again, Fernando Pessoa and Ortega y Gasset tought me everything.

Il barcone dellammore, the love boat, is up there in the photo. That was the only night when (almost) all of the crew went togheter to this crazy place. One of the crew got the boat prize, if you see what I mean. I am not up for this kind of prizes anymore, as you know, but it is always cool. Now they are doing it once a week regularly, at least until the summer goes on.

The sad thing is that if the Samurai is not there too.. I don't really find it that much interesting anymore. I went there last time and there was mr. Jamaica as well.. but not Samurai. Before leaving for Japan, my master will stay in London for a few days in our humble house. Then he will leave us for one year and hopefully come back soon(er). Just joking.. I hope he is going to have a lot of joy and fun in his "homeland".

This is it for the moment. Have a good day.

PB

Ps - About the title, as some of you may have noticed, it is a very noble quotation from Piotta, notorious Roman poet.

Sometimes they come back

Here I am.. back from the other side. Shortly.
I will be back very soon. In the meantime, enjoy Rome's low finess..

Bus Blues

Hello... here I am, back to the blog industry. Sorry for the delay. Actually, I am sorry we could not take your call, but if you leave your nickname, blog address, the time you called and the reason why you call, we will track you back as soon as possible. Beeeep.

Been very very busy lately, didn't have the time to write much.. one of those situations in which you live a lot and you don't write enough.. still, you live those situations in which you feel like "wow, this is a blog situation, a kodak moment.. something I'd love to blog about" then you start writing (in your head) the very best post of your life... something astonishing that everybody will love to comment.. and then it's gone. You come back home, you are too tired to go to the computer, log in to the page and write about things.. it's just too late, tomorrow it's another day and you'd rather sleep if you can.

Kind of. My problem was also that my Sagem My X6 has been dieing and coming back to life very often these days... therefore I couldn't put any new pictures on the blog and I didn't feel like writing withouth a pix. I have been on holidays for few days.. not long.. and not really.. a bit of family-biz plus loads of things to do in Italy too.. therefore... you know how it is. I mean, you-people-that-have-been-living-far-from-your-home-land-for-too-long. There are many out there like us in the blog space, and strangely enough, those are the blogs I'd rather read.

Here is fine, Penge looks like Calabria. It's September now and it is so bloody hot... it simply doesn't look like England. Bush'd be happy probably.. climate is changing for the better.. at least here in Pengeland. Sad irony, I know. It is really sad what is happening in New Orleans these days. I have a friend of mine here who was thinking about moving back down there... and it doesn't look like the best moment to do it.

More news: there are apples and pears in the garden! Incredible but true: the neighbour was right! So we now have loads of apples and peers lieing in the garden, rottening.. as well as berries (those are much better but there aren't enough yet.. and probably they are not ready either). I cut some apples from the tree, I am still not sure if I am going to eat them or not. They do look nice tho. A bit too green maybe.

Ok, too much void talking... but still I am not in one of those moods like "I am writing my very best post"... not really. I'd rather go with my flow of coscience... and see what happens.

About pixes (relatable to the title) this guy was great and I do like this pix a lot. This is the Bus Blues guy.. and God knows what was in that plastic bag. Some sort of inspiration, maybe.

All the best.