[blogfocus friday] latin notes

1 Tuscan Tony notes a quite strange phenomenon:

This was the bizarre spectacle that greeted me when over in Florence for the Remembrance Sunday knees-up at St Mark's Church (always the sound of a loudly torn curtain or two accompanied by a distinct whiff of sulpher whenever I enter the place for some reason) - a gondola, 200 yards downstream of the perfectly foul, excrable and tourist encrusted Ponte Vecchio. For those non-student of Italy, gondolas live in quiet isolation on the lagoon in Venice. The River Arno does not do gondolas - or so I thought. The gondolier was obviously using one of those cheapo mickey mouse Wal-Mart $ 99 sat-navs - long punt home, too.

2. Pasticciera notes the inexorable move to the holiday season via adverts:

Here in Italy, I know we're moving into the holiday season by the arrival of the TV food ads, most notably the chocolates, led by our beloved Alba based Ferrero Rocher and by the eternally popular Parmigiano Reggiano cheese. They haven't rolled out the Christmas version yet, but it can't be too far down the line when the battle of the Pannetone hit the airwaves.

3. Welshcakes notes the other side of the Italian character:

By Sunday evening violence had broken out all over Italy, with police stations being attacked and scenes of unbelieveable destruction around the Olimpico Stadium in Rome. I can understand fans wanting to vent their anger but is that going to bring him back? Is it going to make anybody listen? Of course not. What good anyone thinks further violence will do is beyond me .