Drawn to the Flame

I left an exterior house light on the other night and this little chap showed up, lying trashed and seemingly no longer of this cruel world on the terrace presumably having spent quite a few hours hurling himself against the synthetic flame. Actually he wasn't so little, about three inches tip to tip, and I immediately presumed it was a butterfly but then twigged when I saw the offending light still switched on. I took him into the Mad Brother Memorial Shed which is quite dark and left him there to get his wind back. The next day he was no longer there so I do hope (and think) he recovered.
Continuing the Nature Notes theme, last Saturday I heard the first cuckoo and on Sunday saw the first swallow, twisting and turning northwards.

Please, stop me!

One barely knows where to begin. But I will. All my Italian pupils use the word lavatory. Some interim punctuation would not go amiss. And as for issues....God help us.

1950s Radio

In an after-dinner red wine haze, I was idly flicking through the 962 digital TV channels in an anonymous hotel room in an anonymous Italian town when I came across the radio station channels And amidst a blizzard of EuroPop stations with the DJs in constant fits of hysterical laughter even as they hand over to the weather forecaster I found this little gem.
It's from RAI, Italy's BBC. Just go to the right hand side where the box is headed "Dirette Radio". Click on RAI radiofd 5 and step back in time. Straight classical music, no ads, no pleading for listeners' opinions via SMS/Twitter/email. No dumbing down. Just a terribly formal annnouncer who details the music in a wonderful deadpan voice and then they play the bloody stuff without telling you alla BBC Radio 3 with Rob sodding Cowan giggling that Bruckner never wrote anything worthwhile after his 9th because his piles got to him.
This is presuming that you like classical music of course.
Lord I am getting old and grumpy.

Ghastly ExPat Musings

Clearly, it is wonderful to live in Italy. No Nick Clegg, no wide-boy Cameron, no licensing laws and an abundance of the whole food and wine thingy.
However it is not all sweetness and light. I have nothing else to write about, differently abled as I am. So, as I survey* my horribly swollen knee**, here are the things I miss most about Blighty. They are not in order of importance.
1. Boots the Chemist
2. County cricket
3. Evensong at St Mary Abbots, Kensington...
4. ...and going to The Elephant afterwards
5. Going to the theatre, darling
6. Mates
7. Decent ale
8. London
9. Horse racing
10. Devonshire
11. Manners (behavioural attitude, not some apocryphal butler)
12. Fevertree tonic water
13. My sister
14. Gordon's Wine Bar

*Actually, it's not that bad now
** Re-reading the last knee-related post, it does now seem a little tragic. Apologies.

And the next one please!

Just three minutes after taking this on the road that connects Combo Towers with what passes for  civilisation here, I went down like a sack of you-know-what and did my knee. Just where you can see the sign in the distance which, with black humour, reminds motorist to fit snow chains before descending the hill. As I lay in the middle of the road, nearly a mile from home, with both dogs licking my face, I seriously wondered how I was going to get back. No mobile, even the snow plough wasn't due past for a few hours. You hardly see anyone here in the high summer, let alone when it's -5º and snowing. The riiiiiiiiip of something tearing in my leg still echoed around the empty frozen hills. How long oh Lord, I thought, how long?
At the hospital (under three hours for A&E, radiology, orthopedics, A&E again to be dismissed) they said that immediately after an injury like this and when the limb is warm it can work for a while without there being too much pain.
Now the offending leg is wrapped up in one of those Velcro® festooned braces which runs from thigh to foot and which some High Court judges would pay good money to be forced to wear. Next week a scan to see the extent of the damage.
This is the latest in a regular series of visits to the local hospital. Falling off the roof was probably the most spectacular but the rest...metal splinters from splitting logs with an iron wedge that required surgery (twice), dog bites, braining myself on a door lintel (5 stitches), the vegetable slicer (3 stitches), the eye injury clearing a path (machete)....if anyone knows anyone who is more wearily accident-prone than your humble correspondent please do get in touch.
The next visit to A&E could be tomorrow because I will have done my very own personal 40 days of Lent with nary a drop passing my lips so Saturday night will be marked by the consumption of industrial quantities of red wine.
With a bit of luck.

Gun Ho!

I hope you like this one.
I have to get rid of some vermin. So I decided to buy an air rifle, nothing too serious, just a decent make that I'd heard about.
So off I tootle to a specialist hunting shop about 20 miles from here. I open the door, ding-a-ling goes the little bell and I enter the empty shop, its silent walls lined with gun cabinets, decoys, fishing rods and camouflaged hunting jackets, each with around 160 pockets. Nothing. I stand and wait. Eventually the person who is presumably the owner comes out from the back room. He is about 45 and thick set. Now Piedmont folk aren't exactly known for their spontaneity and joie de vivre. His salutation was an almost imperceptible raising of his eyebrows. Not a grunt escaped his lips, greasy from the salami he had presumably been snacking on in the back.
I asked him if he had a Weihrauch 577 in stock. I had barely finished forming the question before his face was wreathed in the sort of broad smile that you might see on a lottery winner's face. He raised his arms heavenwards. "Such a good choice my friend, such a good choice!" For a terrible moment I thought he was going to vault the counter and allow me to taste the salami second-hand. "Such a rifle! Such German engineering! Buying a Weihrauch is an investment! You'll have to wait until the middle of February when the next shipment arrives. But the wait will be more than worth your while, my friend! A wonderful rifle!"
I asked him how much this particular rifle cost. He laid both hands on the glass-topped counter and his head dropped, as if he was examining his nails. "These German rifles just fly off the shelves my friend. They fly off the shelves! The 577 is a beauty, one of their flagship models!" He looked up at me, the smile hadn't left him. "It costs €340. I can maybe give you a little discount but...I don't know..maybe €5? Here's our card. Ring me at the end of January and I'll put your Weihrauch to one side my friend!" Ding-a-ling went the little bell as I left the shop.
What the bastard doesn't know is that Mrs Combo's cousin went to the same shop towards the end of last year, bought the same rifle, didn't ask for a discount, got a rifle case thrown in and paid €260.
It's my accent you see. I have the most dreadful English pronunciation so that some shopkeepers wet themselves either with joy and/or laughter as soon as I open my trap. Think of this bloke, in reverse.
Anyhoo, I'm buying my rifle via mail order from a shop in Blackpool. So there.

My Old Cock

I ate some cockerel last night. It was greeted at the table with unbridled joy amongst the assembled diners. Once an uncastrated rooster was fairly standard fare here but even in Italy, the capon (the castrated cockerel) is now more common. This old bird came from a local farm where it had been scratching around and generally ruling the roost for a couple of years. I don't know how much the kind hosts paid for it, but probably a premium. We had half of the fowl boiled and served with a parsley and garlic sauce and the other half roasted. It was quite delicious and surprisingly tender. They had probably cooked it for about three days. Going for seconds I was served the Parson's Nose which took some getting down I can tell you. All washed down with bottles and bottles of Barbera and Dolcetto.

Although as your correspondent is doing January yet again, I stayed on fizzy water. How many years is it now Mr Unmitigated? The January on-the-wagon thing does seem to be awfully popular now doesn't it? The only slight upside is that I felt like a spring chicken this morning.