A Popular Singer

I understand that the local dance halls are invariably sold out when this lady tops the bill.

More Food! More Wine!

Ah, the visual and gastronomic delights of fresh, home-made pasta.

Yet another pre-Christmas family lunch, and it looks like there's about a bottle a head and that's just for starters.
The pleasures of the Italian table are indeed manifold.

You're only old twice

Down to the Big City by the Sea for a tough match against Bari, only to hear whilst on the train that the match had been postponed because of ice on the terraces. At Genoa? Bathed in Mediterranean sunshine? Another local council weapons grade cock up. Haven't they heard of salt? Only in Italy.
So what to do? Off to a trattoria for a perfectly awful meal, followed by a couple of Camparis at this bar with its sadly festive tree and not much else.
Back to the station. This is Genoa Brignole. Isn't it impressive? This one is for Wilko.
Then boozing on the journey back. Marvellous. Neither of these are Ron, sadly. Far too young.

Sign of the Times

This sign, now on its last legs, is still extant (and still being ignored) at the entrance to an alley in a local village. Doesn't look much like the HuziSuzi MFS50X9 MoFokka Firebreatha favoured by today's local youths.

Genoa Frenzy

A busy Sunday boozing in the wonderful port of Genoa was only slightly spoilt by the result of the match, Genoa 2 - Parma 2, we wuz robbed by the bastard in the black (although now it is the bastard in fluorescent lime green, like some motorway worker but with more sponsor decals).
This is one of my young friends, a bonkers Genoa fan, he works on a cargo ship, five months on and two months off. And he certainly makes the most of his two months off, I can tell you. He eats and drinks for Italy, look at him go.
Genoa is such a wonderful city, full of dodgy bars and stunning architecture. It is quite my favourite place on earth. Just look at this terrible shot of a 50s/60s Campari poster from God-knows-when, that I managed to blur in the stairwell of some bar.
And it wasn't there for museum effect, it has been there since the dawn of time because no one has ever been bothered to take it down. And she's quite fit of course which is a help. The words say "drink life baby!" which sound pretty good to me and that's why I drink Campari at every available opportunity. Having done so, this is where I ended up. Will Ron never learn?

I surrender!

The Intrepid One was over with the twinkle-toed Jo. It was quite a demanding weekend.
There was a lot of this.
And quite a lot of this.
And even some of this.
However the climax of the weekend was undoubtedly a first-ever visit to a genuine Italian dance hall, a raid led of course by the evergreen Giulio the Singer and The Tigerwoman.
It was a remarkable experience that is difficult to encapsulate with mere words. It was as if we had all stepped back into an Italian equivalent of Butlin's from the mid-fifties.
Jo wowed the regulars and collected quite a few admirers. She only declined one invitation to dance from a local ("he smelled of pee"). Fortunately TIO had managed not to soil himself and so was allowed to give her a bit of a whirl too.

All photographs © TIO. Cheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeers!

Going up?

Now here's one for you lot. Which country do you think has more lifts per '000 head of population in the world? Of course, it's Italy. And do you know why? Because all Italians, he exaggerated wildly, live in blocks of flats. And on this single subject, dear reader, there is a book to write. There is a complete, self-contained enormous legal strata that deals just with the (literally) millions of disputes within said blocks of flats, another sprawling, unimaginably vast, layer of administrators, huge gangs of cleaners with their clapped-out Iveco vans, and so it goes on. Most of these palazzi were shoved up during the renowned boom that Italy enjoyed in the 1960s and early 70s, (Italians of a certain age still get misty-eyed when they start banging on about that golden time, and boy do they bang on) and for that reason most are somewhat, er, ugly. But inside...what a time capsule we have. Utterly untouched in terms of decoration or furniture, the halls and landings of Italian blocks of flats are silent, stark mausoleums, with nary a sign of dirt or mote of dust. Perhaps you will hear a distant television, but there is (sadly) little sound of crockery smashing against walls as another marital infidelity is uncovered. There is an occasional 1950s-style notice in a little glass frame advising the complete closure of the main entrance and counselling against the use of the lift in case of fire, but that is it.
Apart from all those bloody pot plants. Every-bastard-where, on every landing, outside every door, just sitting there doing sod all, being bloody shiny and green and evil, growing half an inch every ten years, as they have been since the six storey nightmare was thrown up forty years ago.

I really think I should get out more. Or is that stay in more? Can't quite make up my mind. Time for a Campari and Soda I believe.