No Contest!

Where are you now Mr Gadjo Dilo? Cowering under the stairs? Skulking in the cellar? Did you hear how the traders on the Bucharest tomato futures market reacted when they saw the size and the juiciness of Ron's tomatoes? For you it is all over! The European market for tomatoes belongs to Ronald Combo! And this is just the beginning of my harvest! Hah hah! Weep your black East European tears because for you the game is up! The glittering prizes are all mine, do you hear? All mine!
Right, I think I'd better go and lie down for a day or two. All those exclamation marks. I blame the Punt e Mes.

A Wedding in the Mountains

Went to a wonderful wedding at the weekend. Bruno the Car Dealer's daughter got married to her long-term boyfriend at the family home in the lower Alps beyond a town called Biella. The family home happens to be a folly castle built in 1890 by some serious family money, so half of it looks like a ruin. Perfect for an Italian wedding in the sunshine.
Leaving the church there was a tiny travelling circus in the park (can you spot Coco the Clown?).

There were two hours of aperitivi before we sat at table.

This is the Pimm's table that your correspondent loosely supervised until around 3 in the morning. Looks like things got a little out of hand.

Then it was the kitchen with the hard core drunks for a bowl of pasta and more wine and beer. To bed at four o'clock. A truly terrific wedding.

Rolling and.....action!

Combo Film Productions International is busy casting for its next blockbuster. Cheeky little minx isn't she?

"Better an empty house...

than an unwelcome guest" would be the invariable comment made by an extremely dull former acquaintance of mine from Bristol after he had belched prodigiously, having just downed a pint of Smiles Best.

Some unwelcome guests arrived at Casa Combo last weekend. A group of motorbiking lawyers who booked to stop over on a 'run' for an extended aperitivo, that is a table full of food and drink.
They were coarse, foul-mouthed, offensive, bigoted, arrogant, ignorant, boorish, objectionable drunks. I liked them enormously of course.

The t-shirt speaks volumes. And I thought us English had a virtual monopoly on uncivilised behaviour.

Doctors on the Lash

The Combo Empire's Catering Division was busy on Saturday and Sunday, supplying the food and drink for an all weekend thrash at a private house for three doctors from Milan who were celebrating their 50ths. The Ron Combo Combo kept the dance floor packed with a deft blend of hits from the 70s and 80s, Mrs Combo kept the partygoers' energy levels up with some fabulous food and I kept them all pissed with some frightful cocktails and thousands of bottles of wine. The picture above shows the Combo version of the Mojito. The Italians just couldn't get enough of this on Saturday night (although some of them were paying the price at lunchtime on Sunday). I have to say this lot drank like Brits, most unusual for Italians.
Shortly after this shot was taken (I'd been on the gin, this is at nearly three o'clock on Sunday morning and is a glimpse of the dance floor next to the swimming pool; the weird strips are bamboo fronds from the makeshift roof), it all kicked off and everybody started hurling other people in the pool. I didn't make my excuses and left anyway.

San Guido's Birthday

The patronal festival in the local town is a long-enduring marriage of Catholic devotion and awful tat. A major service in the local cathedral is followed by old Guido being carried around the town in his extremely heavy, gilded, glass-sided coffin by a team of red-faced old buffers. The streets are full of market stalls, mostly selling junk like special cloths that absorb 100 gallons of water or 'African' art.
There is also a big funfair with garish rides and the usual collection of chromed-up old lorries, as in Blighty. All the bumper cars have a big flag, which is a nice touch. I took the photographs early this morning with not a soul about. Without people a fairground is one of the gloomiest, most depressing places on earth. A rollercoaster ride in Italian is Una Montana Russa, a Russian Mountain but no one is able to tell me why. Odd.

Mother Nature

Swallowtail, this morning.