Italian Pikey

Spotted in the local town this weekend. And the Ape (translation bee, as in busy, geddit?) is probably one of the biggest nails of its type I've seen. But it still goes about its work, tooling around the rubbish bins of the town, its horribly-inbred owner scavenging for scrap.

Pile it High!

Well, how could I say no? I have always been a disciple of the Kingsley Amis School of Boozing, which invariably lauded quantity over quality. This remarkable offer of 1.5 litres of Tetrapaked white wine for 79c (around .66p at today's exchange rate) at a local Lidl, plumbed happy new depths in my unremitting quest for rank bevy.
This is the cheapest wine I have ever come across, and believe me I have scoured northern Italy. Goodness knows what Vinogirl will have to say about this. The packaging gives away as little information as possible, as you might imagine. Its 11%, its Italian and packaged near Verona.
I reckon this is the genuine EU wine lake number that you lot have massively subsidised with your taxes, so thank you all very much. It is clearly undrinkable, although maybe after the seventh or eighth plastic beaker you're probably past caring if you're with your horribly-stained mates on the park bench. Which is where I will be in February, knocking this back, when the dark clouds of abstention have lifted and I am back in the sunlit uplands, squeaking and dribbling with childish joy.

Exhortations for a Better Life

Whilst waiting my turn at the spa and contemplating my Condition I enjoyed looking at some of the framed posters on the wall which must have been there for about 30-odd years. The one above is telling people not to wear their clothing too tight as we are all crawling with fungal growths....
....get yourself a hobby.......
....keep in shape...........
...and, strangely for Italy, Drink in Moderation. Quite frankly, if Drinking Moderately leaves you looking like the bloke above, I'd prefer to Drink Immoderately, thank you very much. Which of course I can't for the moment, chiz chiz.

Misery Compounded

Irreplaceable.

Going to Hell

Without wishing to turn this into a medical journal, I am currently undergoing a course of inhalation treatments at the spa. Our local town is famous for its foul, hot, sulphurous waters which bubble up in lots of different places. The water is said to be very good, if drunk, for one's digestion, but it is also used to create steam which is dispensed to those with respiratory or sinus problems. I get the latter in the winter so I booked my series of sessions. The place is very, um, Germanic and 1960s, acres of white tiling, spotlessly clean, few decorations and staffed by frau-like female attendants* who brook no buggering around. The poor shot above, taken at great personal risk, gives a glimpse of one of the row of sinks where the inhalers sit, faced by a slightly vulgar nozzle out of which the steam jets. The view upon entering, particularly when it is full, is terrifying, with rows of old bleeders sitting rigid at their sinks, the women in hairnets, eyes tightly shut, their mouths wide-open in a ghastly blow-up doll rictus as they take the steam orally. Factor in the constant hissing, the clouds of steam and the background aroma of sulphur and it's a sort of healthy hell.
I always leave feeling a little light-headed after all that sulphury steam and on the first flight of stairs on the way out invariably miss my footing and nearly twist my ankle when confronted with the above.

*Oh nursey, nursey, I've been naughty, haven't I nursey?