The shame! The shame!

Oh God, I'm sitting here at my desk, it's early in the morning, my head spinning with hangover, my stomach sick with nausea. The hunting season's started and the fields around here are full of fucking barking dogs. There's sporadic gunfire. There's a thick fog and it's cold. Why do I drink so much? Why did I drink so much last night? And then to make things worse, why did I berate the people we had round for supper so badly? It started off pleasantly enough of course. I had the Italian version of Radio 3 on and they were broadcasting The Last Night live from the Royal Albert Hall. I'd started the evening in the best way possible with a pint of gin and tonic and then raced along with a lot of red wine. When it got to Land of Hope and Glory I was plastered. Truly trolleyed. Ratfaced. So I stood up and started singing. Then when it had finished I started shouting. Shouting with tears in my eyes. Shouting that this (Land of Hope etc) was the reason that Italians had identity cards and we didn't, that Blair should be impeached, locked up in the Tower of London, executed and have his stupid grinning fucking mug stuck on a pole on Westminster Bridge as a warning to all the other bastards on the Fascist fucking left.
I seem to recall that it all went rather quiet when I eventually slumped back down on the table.

All sulphured out

I was at a family dinner the other evening, enjoying some lovely glasses of sparkling water, when I happened to mention to the distant cousin sitting next to me that I had a bit of a stiff neck. Quick as a shot she was off, and returned dragging behind her the family medicine box. Italians are enthusiastic first-aiders and most of them have an arsenal of bandages, ointments, plasters, drugs and pain killers at home that wouldn't look out of place in a NATO field hospital. After rummaging around for about ten minutes she triumphantly extracted a rock-hard, yellow cylinder (above) to the general approval of the assembled family. "Right", she enthused, "let me at you! Where is the stiffness?" and when I indicated the general area, she got me in a headlock and started rolling said cylinder up and down my neck with the palm of her hand. I could hear the occasional little snick, as if there was a small electrical discharge. "That'll be the negative ions coming out!". Anyway, it would seem that pure sulphur applied to the affected part can be a great help for a colpo d'aria (what you get if you sit in a draught) or indeed any general aches and pains. Did it work? I have to say there was some short-term relief. But it could have been the headlock.
By the way, we are now told to spell sulphur, sulfur. I blame Blair.