Mantovani

Apart from a Chinese restaurant in every town, Italians don't seem to go in for ethnic eating very much. When you've got a cuisine as good as theirs, this is fairly understandable. However, the food is always agressively regional - Trentino is full of 'typical' restaurants. This means that if somebody wants to atracts the punters by setting up a joint that serves something out of the ordinary, what they do is to open a restaurant which serves food based on the cooking of a different region of Italy. So it is that Levico has a Mantuan Restaurant, serving the cuisine of Mantua (Mantova and hence Mantovani), a city all of 150kms down the A22 Autostrada. We went the other night, and it has to be said it was pretty good. Sue had ravioli stuffed with pumpkin and ginger and I went for the traditional pasta then meat approach, starting with very acceptable lasagne and then moving on to a rather nice pork cutlet and chips. The menu also included Donkey Stew, which I think I'm going to draw the line at: there are some animals you just don't want to eat. Sue suggested it would probably come al la Desperate Dan's Cow Pie anyway, with ears flopping over the side of the dish....

Ka-ching!

Well, I got through with the distance learning project. I suppose it would have felt slightly less silly if the actual distance involved had been slighty greater; the students working on this magnum opus were actually in a building 150 yards down the road from the school where we monitored them. Given the time involved (and that Charles et al was prepared to pay for) I think I set up quite a cool operation, albeit a bit of a string and brown paper construction. We gave the students CD-ROM stuff to work on, and I edited down weblog pages for them based on my ESOL links page, with a paralel one for German. These went on the client's Intranet. Then we got the real teachers to set them written work and got the students to send this as Word documents to a Hotmail account I set up. We marked and returned this, and put some of it on it's very own blog. So I wasn't terribly amused when Diana the DoS (single; stessed out, we've met her type a zillion times before), told me on the Friday morning that there was a problem: they'd checked the Hotmail account the night before and millions of students had sent their work in; how were we going to mark it all?

Needless to say the answer was, "cut the wind and piss, I'll do it." The marking actually took about two hours, slightly longer than it took me to persuade theGerman teacher to mark his part (or "influence" as they used to say at the British Council, the old problem of having responsibility but no authority). I call that a farking success personally. And OK, the students were round the corner, but lots of the villages where the school sends teachers are a couple of hours drive up remote mountain valleys; maybe there's milage in selling them distance learning packages.

Renaissance Man - soldier, playwrite, poet, aviator, fascist.

Gabrielle d'Annuzio was all these things. By all accounts he was also a great poet - he certainly acted the part. Described as a war hero, "military adventurer" would be closer to the mark. It was d'Annuzio who in the 1930s led the Italian recapture/occupation of Fiume (which means river), now Rijeka (which means river), in Istria. Rijeka/Fiume was a city in Yugoslavia when I visited while Interrailing in the 70s, now God knows where it is - Croatia? Slovenia? However, thank you Mr Exilby, 'O' level History comes in handy yet again.

Scared of d'Annuzio's resulting massive public popularity, Mussolini attempted to buy him off by providing a sumptuous estate on Lake Garda, Il Vittoriale (English link doesn't seem to work). We went round it yesterday. Here d'Annuzio would sit in half darkness (apparrently he was sensitive to light, due to a war wound in WW1), surrounded by fantastically expensive tat, and contemplate his navel (along with his naval). Amongst the millions of books, buddhas and grand pianos he had a dedicated room specifically for him to meditate on death. The effect of the house is at the same time funerial and camp. I thought I was bad at hoarding stuff, but d'Annuzio's mementos include two cars one of which he drove to Fiume in, a biplane in which he famously flew over Vienna (hanging from the ceiling), and a motor torpedo boat. Best of all is the ship Puglia in which d'Annuzio famously sailed to Fiume (there's an inconsistency here somewhere...). This was donated to d'Annuzio by the Italian marines, and there it sits; a full size, sea-going gunboat, embedded into a hill side, about 200 feet up a hillside overlooking a freshwater lake two hundred miles from the nearest sea. In fact the back of the ship has been reconstructed, with strips of marble cut to look like deck planking, so that the ship merges into the terracing of the hillside. Clever architects the fascists (made the trains run on time as well so I understand).

So, not the sort of day out you have all the time, but fun, with a major spaghetti pig out in Arco coming home. Lake Garda is also pretty amazing, so big you usually can't see the other shore, which is kinda wierd. But then, as Hunter Thompson says:-

"When the going gets wierd, the wierd turn pro". Gabrielle d'Annuzio was one pro wierdo.

The Feds

I'm just back from teaching the students of Federazione Cooperative. These are all adults and a nice class. For reasons I don't fully understand (coincidence?), three of them are fairly high-powered local politicians. Of these, the most high-powered is Walter; when I ask them what they've been doing for the weekend Walter's discourse is peppered with phrases like 'delegation' and 'key note speech'. Walter is tall and immaculately dressed and looks like Harrison Ford with capped teeth.

One of the other students asked me for the pronouciation difference between "won't" and "want". This is a question of vowel difference, so I came up with "I won't go" straight away, but then struggled for a second with "want"; "I want... um... I want ...". At this point Walter perks up with "I want a fuck".

Er, no, not quite the correct vowel sound there actually Walter... I finally come up with "I want a clock", but the moment had passed.

I think my own English is begining to go skewiff. I found myself actually saying something like "have you a car?" today, a structure I usually come down on students like a ton of bricks up with along isn't it?


San Osvaldo

My Italian, on the other hand is coming on by leaps and ... somethings. Yesterday Sue and I drove up to the Cinquevalle, above Goose Town, and took a walk through the woods to the Chapel of St Oswald. Along the way the municipality of Goose Town has placed small plaques with enlightening poems, which I was able to effortlessly translate:-

"The mountain, its graceful, um something, um shoeshop, er um er um, something about the sky, heaven... um um, you know, well I thought that meant 'breakfast'... um train driver?

I think we've all felt that sometime.


Roncegno

Is the name of the town Sue has christened 'Goose Town'. This is because there's a giant mural on one of the walls which shows a jolly looking bloke in a bright blue suit apparently having sex with a goose. Photos here at the earliest opportunity. Goose sex seems to be a recurring theme here; all over Trento at the moment there are posters advertising next months festival of St Vigiliana. These seem to show a party of blokes apparently attempting to insert a hose pipe up the back passage of a ten foot high goose. As Terry Pratchett memorably puts it, I suppose it's cultural. Roncegno, meanwhile, is an awfully nice, sleepy place with pastel painted houses and bougainvilia everywhere, where one could happily start renovating a Liberty style flat in a fading pallazo. It has at least four hairdressers but sadly lacks a decent ice cream parlour, which could be a major downer. Sue has meanwhile added "Valgusana" to "the Dolmonites".


Return to the cat church

I took Sue to see the cats on Sunday, but they were scared off by the passing multitudes on the cycle track. We went back yesterday and there they were, dozens of the critters. We sat and watched them doing cat stuff. After about five minutes an embarresed looking lady whirred up on an electric bicycle. She was about our age and looked relatively normal, rather than the expected eccentric old bat. Anyway, we crept away as she disappeared round the back of the church with a carrier bag, presumably full of more cooked pasta for the feline locals.


A vision of lovliness

I've previously mentioned the vigili, the paramilitary traffic wardens. Today I saw my first vigila (presumably), a little blonde babe with shades, a truncheon and the white pointy hat. She can feel my coller anytime guys...

Sorry about that, it must be the heat...

Bollocks to this

Here I sit, attempting to create a German language web page using Italian language software - and without any sort of graphic editor; just me and the raw code. There's a long silence as me and the HTML look each other in the eye. Somewhere a cicada strigulates. Who's gonna blink first?

Umlauts? Ha! I spit at their name!

Agriculture

The next place up the Valsugana is Pergine, pronounced 'Perjinay, a fair sized place, Eastleigh to Levico's Glossop. It's not a bad berg with some good caffs.

Most of the valley bottoms in Trentino are given over to growing apples - the lamentable 'Goldens', though it has to be said they taste better here than the French Golden Disgustings we get at home. My flat is actually on an orchard run by the family Pacher, and there's strawberrys grown behind. In fact its a bit like Botley or Locks Heath... well, come to think of it, no it isn't. Higher up in the isolated valleys they practise Transhumance (up there even the Bulldog has a hair lip), and there's a quite lot of vines growing producing some utterly spiffing local whites (Müller Thergau - found the bastard umlaut - and Pinot Gregio are especailly banging) as well as some very nice cool-margin reds. There's a vine growing up to the balcony of the flat - shame I won't be here to harvest the grapes. Then again, maybe it isn't.

However, the Valsugana is far too far North for the cultivation of Olives. This is a major shame, as it would be great to walk into a shop and ask for some local Olive Oil - "extra Virgine di Pergine".

Calcio

Miraculously Southampton are in the final of the FA Cup today (or as one of my Greek students pronounced it years ago, the "facup" - to rhyme with "Bacup"... or even a hooray henry describing a chaotic situation). It's the first time since 1976, and they're playing Arsenal. There's not much chance of a win, but I'd still like to see it although there's little chance, Italian TV is very parochial and probably won't show it, and anyway I have to drive to Verona to pick Sue up from the airport today. She's just been on the phone from Ringway to ask what books I want picking up from WH Smugs - I've gone for Ian Rankin, Patrick O'Brien and Terry Pratchett, my three absolute favs for holiday reading. Over the last few weeks I've been working my way through Levico library's 'great world classics' series which is all they have in English; so far I've got through Orlando (fun, bit smartarse, loved the film... well on reflection loved gorgeous Tilda Swinton in the film), The Master of Ballentrea (breathtakingly well-written and fast-paced story, I can never understand why RL Stevenson isn't considered one of the greatest novelists ever ... but it's probably because he writes stories that are hard to put down rather than acres of smart arse prose) and Lord Jim, which I've just started and is pretty cool.

But to return to our moutons, I'm going to miss the match. Tom took me to task years ago about supporting Southampton. This at a stage where he was just out of listing players for a fantasy pets league, and everybody in the family had to have an allegiance to somewhere. He pointed out that I couldn't name a single Southampton player. He's right, I think I can name maybe half a dozen players who've ever played for the Saints. And the only manager who I remember is Lawrie McMehenmy (sp?) because he lived in Merdon Avenue and possibly that bloke with the squeeky voice (or was that Portsmouth?) and the guy with the comedy hairdo. But that's not the point, they're the team from my home town, and I support them because of that, even if I'm not actually very interested in football.

Maybe I can see if chums can text me if anyone scores....

It is jolly nice here

I've been whinging quite a lot in this space lately, but really it's the job that's a bit shitty rather than the place. Italy doesn't grasp my vitals in the way that Greece and indeed Scotland, do, and for that matter I'm not really a "lakes and mountains" person (I'll wait till I start subscribing to Saga magazine), but it is undeniably very beautiful and has had fantastic benefits to my health. So I'm going to try and make the next few blogs more about the area. Right, off to do something to blog about (life reflects art, or Vicky Verky...)

Geraniums in the Bidet

And Basil in the Bathtub. (Well actually the washbasin. There isn't a bath in this flat which is a major pain). I'm writing this at home for future posting at the biblioteca, and I've just found the plants on my balcony are dried out. Not a good idea to water them in direct sunlight, hence... It's a very nice early summer day today, and yet yesterday morning, May 15th, there was quite a lot of fresh snow on top of the Brentas as I was driving into work, which shows how high some of this stuff is.

HTML - How to make lots

Charles, who runs the school I'm working for (note use of present continuous to denote a temporary activity centred around the current time) is 'mostly harmless' but has his moments. When a client asked him if the school could provide 2 days online distance learning he jumped at the marketing opportunity and said "absolutely, we've got a bloke who knows all about that stuff..." Which I actually don't. Considering that most of my working life has been involved either with computers or EFL I'm surprisingly ignorant about CALL and the other points where the two fields overlap. This is why I'm going to complete my masters at Manchester so I can take modules to turn it into TESOL and Educational Technology.

Following renegotiation, Charles is now paying me if not the going rate for IT work, at least my teaching rate based on the actual hours worked (rather than the extra work disappearing into the 80 teaching hours per month for which I'm paid but rarely expected to work). This is some comfort in the light of last months £397.62 mobile bill. Anyway, this is why I've just spent the morning at home cutting HTML. I actually find programming strangely enjoyable - I always used to think it was like being paid to do a crossword all day. And yes, Lardarse of Oldham Borough Council, I know writing HTML isn't 'programming', because there's no iteration in it. To which I say this:-

"It's been nearly three years now. Have you taken that bloody suit to the dry cleaners yet?"


Stressed Eric

With the combination of Charles' little project, new students, the threat of a mad and disruptive Doctor who'd been bullying one of our girlie teachers being put in with my nice Wednesday night elementaries, and consistent screw ups by the solicitors over the new house purchase, it's been another piggy week. But, great news, the solicitors have got my documents from Italy, and the purchase is going ahead! And Sue's coming out tomorrow! On Wednesday night I sat down in a bar thouroughly pissed off and hand wrote what was meant to be a blog entry. I may put on extracts later, but for now, positivity rules. Right, off to the library.

Blogger me with a Fishfork

Well, that was actually very straightforward. I went into work for my evening Advanced Doctors group, asked the secretary if I could use her PC, signed on to Blogger and pasted and posted the stuff I wrote at home today. The whole thing was very easy - I was in and out in about five minutes.

Sadly I'm only likely to have use of this laptop for a week or so, after which we'll have to consider Plan 'D'.


Forget about it

In the wonderful 'Donny Brasco Johnny Depp's eponymous character explains how the phrase "Forget about it" as used by the New York Mafiosi, whose ranks he has infiltrated, can mean various things depending on the intonation.

Today in Italian class we learnt the word figurati. This can mean "don't mention it" when someone thanks you for doing something, but also something like "as if" or "incredible" when expressing scepticism. These are exactly the sort of uses Depp’s Donny B outlines for "forget about it" in the movie. A quick observation:-

* American Mafiosi are ethnically Italian.
* Both phrases, though they don't have a lexical relationship, begin with a /f/ sound.

So, you're looking for a good phrase in your new language that means figurati, huh? Well, what did that Polish guy over there just say? ”Forget about it...”

Needless to say I didn't attempt to share this dazzling (and almost certainly erroneous) sociolinguistic insight with Francesca, our teacher (at the same time a colleague). Northern Italians get very twitchy at the mention of the 'M' word, and in fact are extremely touchy about anything which associates them with the chaos and corruption of the South. I've never lived in the South of Italy, but certainly Trentino does not fit the stereotype of what Italy is supposed to be like; you can sort of understand why the hard working, well organised, honest and socially responsible Northerners get pissed off with the reputation of the whole country being dragged down by people who live hundreds of kilometres away. This may be totally unfair on the South (but I suspect it isn't). And Southerners probably rightly believe Northerners to be up their own fundaments.

Which brings me to

It isn't like that 2 - Holes in the road in Greece and Italy

In the towns in Greece and Italy the streets are full of big holes. The difference is this:-

In Italy (well, in Trentino anyway - I suspect it's different in the South):-

* the holes are accompanied by JCBs and other heavy plant;

* they are enclosed by red plastic fences and warning signs for the public, and Health and Safety notices for workers;

* they include a huge pink notice – with graphics - explaining that the Autonomous Province of Trentino/Alto Adige is spending 50 million euro to improve storm drainage in Levico and solve the dampness problem in Granny Pacher's back yard, for the benefit of future generations and our children's health!

Thankfully they don't seem to have heard about mission statements yet...

* during daylight hours the hole is guarded by a fierce jobsworth whose role is to scream at anybody who attempts to pass through the works rather than taking the two mile detour round them. This man is a plain clothes member of the Drains Police’s crack "Give foreigners on bicycles a hard time" squad.

The work is always done and the hole filled in within a couple of days. This would be fine, except that they invariably start digging a new one fifty feet down the street the following day...

In Greece the streets are just full of big holes.

An awful conclusion

So is it that there's an Alpine mentality? Because the awful fact is that not only does Trentino look like Switzerland rather than Italy but (whisper it gently) the people act like the Swiss. Get me a large measure of the finest malt Islay can provide and a rare and bleeding steak, for I weary of these Puritans and fear I can write no more.

The sad fact, anyway, is that this country is far better organised and, basically… more civilised… than Britain is….

Plan 'C'

I'm now back on the flat and writing this on a borrowed laptop. Plan 'C' involves blogging at home, then diving into work or the library to do a swift cut and paste job to Blogger. This might conceivably give me the opportunity to proof read and spell check my postings before the Library Police (Specialist Harassing Foreigners Squad) move in to chuck me off their computers. Lets see if it works.

Why food isn't meant to be blue

I'm eating a Speck and Cheese sunflower bread Roll (speck is actually a sort of smoked ham and very nice - despite my offensively anti-germanisms of a few posts ago) and drinking 'limited edition blue Pepsi'. This is also nice - sort of peppermint flavoured - but food really shouldn't be that colour. It's as if there's some primeval voice deep within my DNA saying 'don't touch that stuff Ug! - poisonous!' I'm sure Otzi wouldn't have touched it with a prehistoric bargepole.

He'd probably have had the Dr Pepper instead.

It's not like that 1 - a geographical moment

The province of Trentino is not how you imagine Italy to be. For a start it's buggering hilly. The mountain behind Levico, Panarotta, is 2002 metres high (all heights still correct) and that's a short one, with some of the Dolomites (or Dolmonites as Sue calls them) going over 3000 metres comfortably. This puts last year's preoccupation with Munros into perspective - even Ben Nevis is only 1400metres. Levico is on the North side of the Valsugana (as are all the other towns - presumably to get the maximum amount of sunshine). From my balcony you look directly across to a proper mountain, Cima Vezzana (AKA Pizzo di Levico) - pointy, covered with snow until a couple of weeks ago with crevasses, the lot, and with a Austro-Hungarian fort from WW1 on its top peak (more on this anon). At 1908 it's half as high again as Ben Nevis, but of course, out here that's chickenshit.

The next one down the Valsugana is higher again. This is Cima Dodici, which means 'Peak 12'. Only someone exceptionally linguistically naive would wonder if the one just after that is called 'Peak 13'.

It's 'Peak 11.'

Il veccio Guilliamo

Italy has at least four seperate police forces. These range from the Vigili, who you go and see if someone says something horrid about your best friend at breaktime and Miss hears, to the Guardia Finazia who deal with major crime and ignore everything else as beneath their dignity. There's also the traffic police, the Caribiniere (all reputed to be thick), the City Police who obviously exist mainly for political reasons, the Customs Police and for all I know Pet Bunny Rabbit Police. Traditionally police officers are transferered as far as possible from their home town to avoid corruption. All wear Ruritanian uniforms and shades and wonder why British visitors start whistling 'YMCA' when they walk past. All this is vitallly important to know as, in the event of you deciding to commit a crime, you need to know which lot you should run away from.

What happened to all the fascists?

Well, they all became librarians in the Autonomous Province of Trentino Alto Adige stoopid! Obviously! Actually I am now in the library at Roncegno, a very pleasing village a few miles down Valsugana from Levico (where the library closes on Mondays), and the librarian just waved me straight on to their net terminal, without even asking to see my library card (I had to fill in a twelve page document, give three referees and submit a DNA smaple, but this is after all only what one expects. The machine (however), is grindingly slow - there had to be something.

A Day out with the Iceman

But I'm going to stop whinging, as I had a pretty good weekend. Saturday ranks amongst the best trips out since I've been in Italy. I went to Bolzano, which is the capital of the (mainly) German speaking half of the province. So far, I haven't worked out how to assess which language to speak to people without giving offence and in one case just thought 'sod it' and spoke English.

The South Tyrol Museum in Bolzano is the final (?) resting place of Otzi the iceman. Otzi was probably a shepherd or trader, and lived sometime between 3500 and 3100BC (I have the book - all dates correct). He was in his mid-forties when somone shot him with a flint arrow, and he wandered off onto the mountain side (3210 metres up - all heights correct) and bled to death. By a very strange sequence of events - his body and all possessions survived. After he died his body was covered with snow and then buried by a glacier - but because he was in a two metre deep hollow the glacier didin't crush it. He finally came to light in the very hot summer of 1991, when a german couple doing a bergbummel or a litvazuele or one of those things strayed off the path looking for a short cut - a few more days and he'd probably have thawed and disappeared.

Any, its a really good museum. Otzi is now in a refridgerated room and you look at him through a thick glass panel. Sometime in the late copper age I worked in Archeology, but I've never felt good about digging people up from what was meant to be there final resting place. But with Otzi its different - he died alone and friendless and never had proper burial - somehow whats happened to him 5000 years after he died seem fitting. Doesn't really seem that gruesome either - from what you can see Otzi appears to have turned into a human kipper. Anyway, well worth the trip, and I bought the kids book (much more interesting than the adult one) from which these facts are gleaned. More info here.

Piston Broke

It has to be said that there have been times in my life (Edinburgh last summer springs to mind) when I've had a lot more fun than I'm having in italy this week. I've had a bitch of a week. The job is one of those typical ones you get with small EFL schools with a lot of external clients; maybe you only do 20 hours per week, but its an hour here, three hours there. This leads to typical days like yesterday; I taught 12AM till 1.00, hung around, then taught 2.30 till 5.30, hung around some more , then 8.00PM to 10.00PM. With travell time this means your day lasts about 12 hours at a time. Not terribly commenserate with sightseeing. In addtion the school has got me doing DoS type work, but aren't paying extra for it and thy seem to think I'm going to put some sort of online training course together for them (fraid IT consultancy costs, baby). On top of all this I've been chasing round trying to get some sort of Italian lawyer to authenitcate my signiture on the mortgage agreement for the new buy to let house in Broadbottom - without a lot of success and I may have to fly home next week. And my bitch of a landlady is ripping me off. Seventy Euros for one month's gas? I could have gassed myself for a lot cheaper.

Bad Habits

Are we downhearted? Well, for once yes actually. Wednesday and Thursday night I drove the half hour home from Trento to Levico at half ten at night, then got on the pushbike and hit the nightspots of Levico, not to mention a few beers and the odd grappa (actually there's no other sort). And it felt good...

Chronic Irrigation

So just before I left for the boozer last night I watered the plants on my balcony - I bought herbs a couple of geraniums and some flowery things on the spring market in Levico a couple of weeks ago. Of course that time of night I was worried that the sound of three jugs of excess water tipping onto the front drive would wake Mrs P. I needn't have worried. About two minutes later there was a noise like thunder, it suddenly got cold and it sounded like the bugger of all rainstorms. So just before I dug out the galloshes and cycle cape I checked out on the balcony again. Behold! I don't think I mentioned my flat is in a house on a smallholding. They grow a few vines, and the big local cash crop, "Golden" apples. And low! the irragtion system had been turned on.

Maybe it's gas powered.

La Chiase delle Gatti

Almost certainly doesn't mean 'The Church of Cats'. I'm never going to catch up with everything, but here's what happened yesterday.

When in doubt, lick your arse

Set out to cycle up a Dolomite, but it seemed a lot easier to ride along the bottom of Valsugana, the valley where I live. In the middle of nowhere I came across a tiny church, San Salvatore, entirely populated by cats. There wasn't a human around, but someone had been putting down spaghetti for them - in fact an old table was laid out with a check cloth. Most bizarre. Tried to make friends with one who looked like the grandad of them all, but he wasn't convinced. Strange how cats go when they don't live with humans. Refilled my bidons from the spring and sat there for about half an hour - a peaceful spot. Then on to the next big town in the Valsugana. By the time I get there the rain that's been threatening all day is pissing down, so I sit in a caff and eat slices of pizza. Borgo Valsugana on a wet Friday afternoon may not be the most inspiring place to be, but I can probably think of much worse. However, unenthralled by the prospect of cycling 15kms home to Levico in the pissing rain, I opt to put the bike on the train. When it comes in the guard jumps down and gives me a cheery flash of dazzling white teeth. "What, catching the train?" he asks me in a mix of about 4 languages. "Proper cyclists carry on in rain, snow, hail, thunder. I myself won the local cycle championship three times in appalling weather". Fortunately I just about understand this, but don't have the ability to reply "didn't stop you ending up as a sodding train conductor though, did it pal?" Anyway, nice to get on a nice dry train (full of gigling teenage girlies) and so home.

For that matter there are probably worse things than being a train conductor in the Valsugana.

Eureeeeka!!!

At last! We're back guys! Hi Jem! Hi Rob! Words cannot express the horror of the months of silence since writing the last entry on the 9 April! All those months of blogging drivvel from Broadbottom, now my life finally gets intersting and I couldn't publish!

The why and wherefore

I'm writing this on the school PC on a Saturday. In fact I've come in specially to catch up with some planning work (nice to be given DoS work - nicer still if they were paying for it) so I could put the theory to the test. Blogger will accept postings from Trentino libraries but won't publish it. So what I'll have to do is go to the library, write all my blurb, then find an excuse to get five minutes on line at work and press the 'publish' button. Lets see if it works.

She's Miss Dolomite-ee-hee

Is just one of the appalling puns you've been spared. It's been such a long time since I blogged - driving through Germany six weeks ago I was thinking out bits that would be fun to blog. All I can remember now is staying in some little Burg with a name like Bad Gobsmack on the edge of Bavaria. The meal started with what looked like a small pot of pig lard falvoured with cumin seed, but after that it quite quickly became a lot less palatable. I never have a clue what anything is on a German menu, it all sounds totally disgusting, so just said 'schnitzel with noodles' which I think comes just after 'snow fights and sleigh rides' in that Julie Andrews song. Everytime the waitress put something down on someones table she said "So! " and the name of the dish - you'd think she was a magician wiping away the covers to reveal someones teleported watch and awaiting applause. When Sue came to Italy a few weeks later out we played the german menu game:-

"So! Mauschitt mit schpunk!"
"So! Lardarse von schnot!"
"So! Batspiddle und schweinkrap mit speigelei!"
"So! Doggiedoos mit ratsbits und goatzballen!"

The game went on for some time, fortunately these are the only one's I can remember.

Back in Bad Gobsmack everybody went to bed by 8.30, the excitment was just too much.