[hillary] post for nunyaa

This post is dedicated to Nunyaa.

[l'altro posto] modican style

The thing which strikes you about this part of Sicily straight away is the friendliness of the people. It's a word bandied about by all tourist boards but in the case of Modica, it is most assuredly so.

Take that one step further, in the form of the cafe of choice in the choice main shopping street - via Sacre Cuore - and you have the makings of a delight.

Ten years ago, L'Altro Posto [The Other Place] started up on this street and a little gem it proved to be too. In that time it has become the place to eat for the business community in this area so why should we be any different?

Quite frankly, if I haven't had my cappuccino and choc croissant by eleven from Georgio or Marcella, I start to chafe at the bit and Welshcakes is of a similar mind with her prosciutto and melon lunch which I occasionally join her for.

This could be followed by fruit, gelati, then an espresso of local origin - Caffè MOAK.

One is spoilt for choice really and all I can suggest is that if you make it down this neck of the woods, seek out L'Altro Posto and you'll be assured of the sort of welcome I too received after only a few days - a beaming:

Ciao!

This is cross-posted at Welshcakes Limoncello.

[raffaele's] modican style

As with many of the best businesses in Modica, the approach to Raffaele's salon is inconspicuous but once the lift decants you into the reception area [or alternatively you can mountain climb up the tiled steps if you're quite sportif], a wonderworld awaits you.

There is the chic, the hustle and bustle, the girls who assist him and then there is:

Raffaele.

Still some years from 'a certain age', the first thing which strikes you about the man is the warm and open smile, the second thing is his pink polo T and the third the women milling around, planting kisses upon his craggy cheek.

He greets us with enthusiasm then zips away to attend to this lady or that whilst a girl brings us an espresso each and on a plush cushioned divan, we await his attendance upon our cappelli although in my case it's more wishful thinking than any specific style.

Welshcakes is whisked away for the shampoo phase and I take my leave with beaming smiles all round.

Oh, by the way, did I mention the views across the Modican countryside from his large window wall?

This is cross-posted at Welshcakes Limoncello.

[interim report] first two weeks

Pretty boring title and not a lot of time to write.

Thank you so much for your comments - I have not deleted even one of them from my e-mail notification and will get to each of you in turn both on this site and visiting you.

So to Sicily. Well, there is Sicily and Sicily and big city issues are pretty much the province of other bigger cities like Palermo, Catania and so on.

This is a less bustling town and that suits us fine although it can make due process longwinded. The trick is to try not to deal with officialdom - read Welshcakes' post on the election to get an idea.

This town is in three parts - alto, sordo and bassa. Bassa is where the tourists go although I don't particularly think it is better. Modica is on the side of a hill but not running down to the sea - rather it runs down into a valley and the sea is 20km away.

This results in a hot dry climate and it can get into the mid 40s in summer. Today is better - 20 and cloudy but we haven't really started summer yet.

Alto is the higher area where the Church of St George is and I haven't been there yet, still tied up in domestic and official status issues. Here with Welshcakes has proved more than workable and she is one hell of a good chef.

Ellee, I did put on some weight early, then changed to the Sicilian diet and lost some and now am about the same.

Sordo, where we live, is the commercial centre of the town and thus does not hold a place in the people's hearts to the same extent. It is modern in aspect, unlike the really ancient architecture in the other two parts. Still, I particularly like it and it's a hop, skip and jump from Welshcakes' school.

Routines have begun and one of mine is the morning capuccino at L'Altro Posto [The Other Place] cafe in the main boutique street. Not exactly chic but quite elevated in theme, let's say. You want to see a cross-section of Modica - it comes through this cafe and I'm now seen as a regular.

Welshcakes' boss's husband said that in the evening, people do not ask, 'What shall we do?' but rather, 'What shall we eat and where?' and this is true.

Another aspect is the treatment, by the north, of this region as 'Africa' and there is truth in this too, in that Rome does not appear too concerned with the lower tip of Sicily. So they just go about their business in an interesting way. There are problems with African illegal immigration [the boat people] but not so much to this town.

One interesting effect is the 'Lotus Eater' syndrome. A sort of languor comes over a person and as it's necessary for a blogger to have fire in his belly, this has seeped away in my case. We were discussing this last evening and I bemoaned the fact that I've already taken on the feminists, gay mafia, immigration, 'Them', PC and other choice targets so what is there left to get apoplectic about?

You see the problem? Lol.

Anyway, please indicate, in the comments section, what aspects you'd like me to post about as it's difficult to think clearly in this euphoric Welshcakes state. Plus I'm meeting the famous Raffaele at the hairdressers later.

:)

[slow boat to oblivion] your seven reservations

Ever thought of sending out the press gang to round up those seven most obnoxious people in your existence? Well, the long boat is at the ready and you can pack them all on board at a most reasonable charge.

Who would your seven include? You can't include known monsters of yesteryear such as Hitler or Idi Amin but modern pains in the butt such as ... oh ... Greer, Shatner, Hilton and so on

Should make interesting reading.

[election 2008] down to the wire

Right in the middle of municipal elections here and need all the names we can get so if you're at a bit of a loose end, you might mosey on down our way and sign on. I mean, whom would you rather have, Prodi or this energetic lady above with ideas who seems to be going places fast

While contemplating this, you might toddle on over to L'Altro Posto and we'll discuss it over an espresso or eight, before a guided tour of the lower town. But I have to warn you - election campaigns here get quite frenetic so if you're, say, on a heart pacemaker, well best forget it perhaps.

With a date of June 15/16, this blog will keep you posted on all the highs and lows. Stay tuned.

De ja vue

De ja vue

Remember this? I didn't expect to be revisiting it. However, I came across this video today and it and the article beneath supplements the post nicely. For those too busy to spend almost 9 minutes watching a video, here is a 1 minute audio summary.

[thought for the day] wednesday evening

Slumped in a chair dissolute, this blogger, alas [and everyone loves a lass], has no thought for the day to share save:

Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z

[quick note] on the way out

Once I can organize access and various systems, I can blog again, thanks to Welshcakes but these are not straightforward just yet. More soon.

[thought for the day] spoilt rotten in sicily

Now I don't want you to get the idea that this was an easy meal - anything but!

In fact, it was well on for midnight at the point it was served and it was so scrumptious that I dipped into the bowl afterwards whenever Welshcakes wan't looking. The salad was also scrummy and I forgot to mention the pasta butterflies which preceded the course you see in the photo.

All of which brings me to this evening's thought for the day:

A tavola si dimenticano i triboli.

While you sort that one out, we're off to dine again ...

Should you be so inclined.

(another guest post by Harry Haddock. I am assuming James still wants these?)

Ok, so you've fallen in love with Hugh Farnley-Fartypants, and wish to retreat to a rural idyll to raise your own vegetables, rear your own organic, free range meat and grow dope in your greenhouse hope for a better environment for your kids. Jolly good. However, may this country boy, who grew up on a small farm, offer a word of advice?

That word is sheep, and the advice is don't.

I'm sure you are all familiar with the concept of the food chain. You know, stuff at the bottom gets eaten, and we sit at the top getting tubby. However, you are probably unaware that there is also natures intellectual ladder as well. Yes, you've guessed it. At the bottom are single cell organisms who don't even have the capacity to react to their surroundings, and at the top is me, handing out superb advice such as this. As you are all discerning readers, you are probably just a couple of rungs down, gazing up admiringly (which is why I could never wear a Beckham style skirt. I'm far too bashful). Somewhere in the middle are the contestants who make fools of themselves on Big Brother (a new series of which, I understand, is starting soon, consigning me to my study to mumble about how I should be world dictator). Just below them are the people who watch the show and vote. So, you get the general picture.

What you need to understand is that all farm animals fit somewhere on this ladder. At the top, undoubtedly, would be pigs. They are a marvel; more intelligent than most cats and dogs. Well, stupid ones, anyway. Goats are fairly amusing; cows are very dim, I'm afraid. And don't get me started on ducks and geese. Chickens are saved from condemnation by their generally amusing nature and ability to be excellent mothers to un-hatched eggs, which is lucky for the ducks, who have all the maternal instincts of some of todays sink estate mothers. All in all, if you get the balance right, you should all be able to rub along together quite nicely, and your freezer will be the culinary treasure trove it should be.

But please, think thee not of sheep.

You see sheep are the earth's most stupid creatures. Some breeds are worse than others, but they are all a fairly intellectually challenged bunch. I had the pleasure of growing up with a pedigree flock of Lincoln Longwool sheep, who are the worlds most stupid sheep, and would like to take this opportunity to clear your mind of any Ovis aries husbandry with a few examples.

Let us begin with moving sheep. When a field of grass has been munched by our woollen friends, they will let you know it is time to be moved to pastures fresh. They will achieve this by all standing at the gate (usually the wrong gate) and bleating constantly. Passing townies spending a day in the countryside will be so alarmed by this pathetic, ear splitting din that they will assume you are guilty of animal cruelty, and will report you to the RSPCA. You will then enter the field, and drive them up to the correct gate, that you will start to open. This will alarm the sheep, and just enough of them to be annoying will break from the flock and run around the field making an even more pathetic sounding din, at which point a second car load of townies (this time militant vegans) will pass by, and upon hearing the racket, will assume you are slaughtering them all with meat cleavers. They won't report you to the RSPCA, but will return later to firebomb your farmhouse instead.

Eventually, you will herd all but one of the sheep into the adjacent field, with its promise of acres of lush, fresh grass. Except the 'lead sheep' will stop, as soon as his tippy tappy feet touch the new grass, to have a bit of a munch, thus holding up the whole shooting match. A bit of shoving from behind will eventually cause the sheep to spill into the new field, but too slowly for the one remaining sheep, who will panic upon seeing his mates at the other side of the fence. Instead of following them through the gate, this sheep will emit a third, panicked bleat, while he follows the flock down the wrong side of the fence until fear really sets in. Despite the calm reassurance of yourself and your helpers, this sheep will throw itself at the fence, in an agonising attempt to do that which it has never achieved before; too pass through solid objects. At this point, you will catch the sheep (putting your back out), and gently guide it to the gate, and its colleagues. It will run away indignantly, as if you were the idiot.

Thinking you ordeal is over, you will return for some well deserved tea. After putting the remaining animals to bed, a process that will involve no repeat of the afternoons fuss, because all of your other animals aren't as stupid as sheep. Did I mention that sheep were stupid? You see, you have a kind of unspoken deal with the other animals ~ 'I'm going to feed you now', 'Oh, good, we'll turn in for the night then', 'Sweet'.

Arising in the morning, you will look at the field where the sheep should be. Except, only about half of them will still be there. The other half, having spent their whole night looking enviously at the field they have just been moved from, will have escaped. Except the lambs will have escaped via a different route to their mothers. The whole farm will now echo to more wailing and bleating. You will repeat yesterdays farce to get them all back together.

You then realise that you have to go into town for something. The sheep will pick up on your general sense of apprehension at this news. They will stand and watch your land rover disappear from the end of the drive. About six of them will drop dead at this point, for no good reason ~ usually because the wind has changed direction,or something. About another six will introduce you to an essential design flaw in many breeds of sheep ~ if they roll onto their backs, with their legs in the air, they can't get back up, and also die unless rescued. This doesn't stop them doing it, again, and again, and again, and always when you have just left for they day. Often, they will wait until they have an audience, usually a third car load of townies, who will report you to DEFRA, or Bill Oddie, or someone.

The remainder of your sheep will then get foot rot. Instantly. Without warning. They will hobble around like they have been forced to play football with Nobby Styles, until you return and have to deal with it by cutting out the infected part of the foot, applying disinfectant spray (which, in your old age, will turn out to be harmless for sheep, but will give you some horrid medical condition or other). All that is before you have to dag them (don't ask), dip them (ditto) and shear them (thank god for unemployed Aussies).

Seriously folks. Rural idyll if you must. Sheep ~ no.

Public servant or drug dealer?

Public servant or drug dealer?

It all started when Ironside contacted me to ask if I knew what had happened to The Three Aguidos forum. I replied that I didn't, because I had not progressed far enough through my daily reads to discover the server not found message yet. I only knew that there had been an internal row with the administrators over whether a particular poster should be banned. I didn't know whether this led to the plug being pulled. Later, a story circulated that there had been a serious fire at the building hosting the server.

In any event, I thought there would be hell of a lot of internet junkies looking for their fix and rattling on cold turkey. Internet Addiction Disorder is serious, don't you know? Therefore, on the spur of the moment, I decided I would set up a forum and provide shelter for all the waifs and strays. I Googled the question 'How do I set up a forum?', and the first result looked promising. However, the stupid thing kept telling me to use a genuine email address. Of course, I effed and blind at the thing shouting that it was genuine, all to no avail. So, I tried another and this one had no problem accepting my email address. I was up and running in minutes, later I realised I should have learnt to walk first, and announced on my two blogs (here and here) what the forum address is. Very shortly, the place was full of refugees from the 3As forum.

For most it was a port in a storm. However, there were a few very vociferous ones screaming axe-murderer this, that, and the other. And trading insults with each other. I had to delete comments, lock a thread down, warn a few, and banned others. Some left because they found the insults too shocking. Luckily, I have a thick skin. But, I just wish those who sling mud got it right in the first place. Axe-killer or axe-manslaugterer, to be precise. As some pointed out, it's no secret and the info is on my blog, at least I was open and honest whereas how many of those who keep their identity secret on-line have skeletons in their closet?

The stats on both my blogs went through the roof for a couple of days, and there were dozens of posts and thousands of views and hundreds of comments on the forum. I needed to split the first category into sections. Er? I didn't know how to do it. I phoned a blogging mate who has ME, and me with my AS, and we stumbled and bumbled around in the admin section for hours trying to sort it. He tired first around midnight, I poured a whisky and made a spliff and carried on trying to figure it all out. I was reading the bold print and knew it was important, it was stating that I had to allow permissions. But, how? Then I read on a bit and there it was. More info in the manual click here. That was the piece of the jigsaw puzzle I was looking for.

Then the anti-climax. This morning the flock had all gone. I checked to see whether the 3As was up and running again. It was. Relief and yet at the same time disappointment. I had not been king for a day, but for about 3 days. We are a community out there in cyber-space. Its supply and demand. As one drug dealer gets busted by the police another starts to deal, and the junkies are happy. How long I could have maintained the supply I don't know. But, I do feel as though for awhile I was providing a public service.

[thought for the day] monday evening

Just before bedtime, a double espresso is always a winner.

[Courtesy The Little Book of Stress]

[monday quiz] tough one this

Ragusa, courtesy Italy Visits


1. Cicero described Siracusa as the greatest and most beautiful city of all Ancient Greece - on which island is it situated?

2. After the Expedition of the Thousand led by Giuseppe Garibaldi, which island became part of the Kingdom of Italy in 1860 as part of the risorgimento?

3. The island which owes its reputation as an isle of lemons to the Arabs is ...?

4. The seven Aeolian islands are near to which large Italian island?

5. The 1959 nobel prizewinner for literature, Salvatore Quasimodo, came from which island?

Answers

Sicily

[yuk] is this the new youth?

Sorry but when I read this it was during a nice elevenses on a quiet Day of the Republic in Sicily and nauseated would be a mild adjective. I look at the above pic and two things spring to mind:

1] Was I any better during my drunken youth?

2] Could anyone make love to one of those?

Yes and no. At the risk of alienating half my readership, is it really desirable breeding mindless chavs like this, will you feel secure in your old age with these roaming about [see Kate's post], how did a whole generation go this way? Well done to the forces of darkness which managed to bring about this state of affairs.

Allow me to go further - when the parents and teachers say, 'Oh there's nothing I can do with them anymore,' I am moved to reply, 'Well why don't you just make sure they get home at a reasonable hour, insert the word 'no' in your vocabulary and into their understanding?'

Kids need limits, parameters, generous parameters with a heap of compassion but parameters nonetheless. Parents and teachers need backbones.

Last evening we went down to the local Festa for the Day of the Republic and there were kids everywhere on motorbikes, running around, being cool, making out and so on and that was that. On the hamburger stall were two Catholic icons and everyone was cheerful in a 'mindful' way.

Three nights ago I was coming back home here along an unlit street when a bunch of thuggish youths appeared through the gloom. 'Oh dear,' I thought but not in those words, 'oh well, it was a good life while it lasted.' Thoughts of the BBC news of the two who were shopped by their mother for blinding a man - these thoughts flashed across the mind at that point.

I stepped to one side and as they came at me, one said Grazie and another Buona Sera. They all smiled and continued their argument further along the road. I continued along the road in the other direction, puzzled.

Wonder what would have happened in Britain or Berlin under the same circumstances? Meanwhile, this:

Parents told how to teach drinking to children

Please. I mean ... really.

[guest post] too much Heaven on their minds

A bizarre six-month standoff came to an end in May, when the last few members of a Russian doomsday cult that had holed themselves up in a cave awaiting the end of the world finally gave themselves up. The cultists had threatened to blow themselves up using gas canisters if the authorities tried to remove them, but during the siege two women had died and the resulting stench eventually drove the remaining holdouts from their lair. The cult leader himself, Pyotr Kuznetsov, had chosen to direct operations from the rather more comfortable environment of a nearby house, before being hospitalised last month after attempting suicide by bashing his head repeatedly against a log. He is currently in a local mental hospital, his condition described as “stable”.

There are plentiful examples of colourful cults from around the world, many of which are harmless (my own favourite hails from the tiny island of Tanna in the South Pacific, whose inhabitants worship our very own Prince Philip as a deity), but in the European media, talks of “cults” normally centres around infamous American examples, from Jonestown through the Branch Davidians to the recent scandal surrounding the Yearning for Zion ranch in Texas. Yet there is little doubt that, when it comes to fringe beliefs, Russia is the market leader.

Depending on who you ask, there are anywhere between 600,000 and a million Russians in the thousands of sects or cults that have sprung up in the country over the last decade in particular. Most of these, like Pyotr Kuznetsov’s True Russian Orthodox Church, have obvious roots in the established state religion. Others are more esoteric, from the Georgian mystic in Lithuania, Lena Lolisvili, who prays to God to energize toilet paper that she then wraps around her patients to “heal” them, to Grigory Grabovoi’s “DRUGG” [“friend”] Party, which claimed to be able to resurrect the children killed in the Beslan massacre – for a fee, naturally.

Grabovoi’s audacious tilt at the Russian presidency had to be shelved, sadly, when he was imprisoned for fraud, which was a shame; his first act upon assuming the reins of power would have been to "immediately issue a law prohibiting to die", which I would have liked to see. But the overlap between charlatanism and politics remains; a small group in Novgorod who style themselves the “Rus’ Resurrecting” sect worship an icon of Vladimir Putin. "We didn't choose Putin," Mother Fontinya told Moskovsky Komsomolets. "It was when Yeltsin was naming him as his successor [during a live New Year's Eve TV broadcast in 1999]. My soul exploded with joy! 'An ubermensch! God himself has chosen him!'" I cried. "Yeltsin was the destroyer, and God replaced him with his creation". Well, I guess he got her vote.

Perhaps the most famous of Russia’s many current Messiahs is Sergei Torop, aka “Vissarion”, a former traffic cop who experienced a spiritual awakening in 1990 and promptly set up a self-sustaining community on a remote mountain in the Siberian wilderness. Now known as – what else? – the “Jesus of Siberia” [for whom, as the photo at the top demonstrates, he is, in fairness, a dead ringer], Vissarion’s network of communes is thousands strong, and the holy one claims up to 100,000 followers worldwide. His “gospel” is at once wildly idiosyncratic yet pretty typical of Russian sects; a fusion of classical Orthodox doctrine and Eastern mysticism, with a hefty sprinkling of environmentalism and New Age nonsense thrown in for good measure. And the man himself is modest but firm when asked whether he is indeed the second coming of, you know, the big guy himself: "It's all very complicated,” he told a Guardian reporter who went to interview him, “but to keep things simple, yes, I am Jesus Christ.”

Vissarion is slightly unusual, in that he does not seem to be fleecing his adherents for every rouble he can get. Salvation, in Russia as elsewhere, rarely comes cheap; many cults demand hefty tithes of their adherents’ incomes, and some are patently nothing more than scams. But that’s not to say there’s nothing in it for the Jesus of Siberia:

"[My wife] was the one woman who would open the whole world of women to me," he says. "Through her, I knew I could understand all women; what women's weaknesses are. There are now lots of women in love with me... For me, all people are equally close and I carry large responsibility for them all. So it is, I need to be free. My wife is now learning how correctly to see and regard me, to understand she's not the only woman in my life. There are a thousand others!"

He may be the Messiah, then, but he’s also a very naughty boy.

Russia’s Vissarions only thrive, though, because there is a burgeoning market for the snake oil he offers. The fall of the Iron Curtain saw Russians assailed by change from all sides; the drab homogeneity of the country’s streets and media quickly became a riot of advertising and information overload, a whirlwind of new products and services competing for the citizens’ attention, and their money. In those chaotic Yeltsin years, kooky sects hardly stuck out as they might do in a more settled society; combined with a general rise in religious observance, it is perhaps unsurprising that not all the spiritual answers on offer in the new Russia are entirely sane. And, predictably, a lot of the blame falls on foreign influences; as the chairman of the Russian Union of Writers puts it, "Russia is cloning the cells of immorality that it grasped from Western culture".

For a long time, Russian authorities have adopted a relaxed attitude towards these groups. Their main response, in typical Russian fashion, has been a bureaucratic one; all religions are required to register with the Ministry of Justice, but sanctions for failing to do so are unevenly enforced. The principal opposition to this explosion in religious diversity, predictably enough, is the Russian Orthodox Church, who fire off angry press releases attacking Jehovah’s Witnesses and Scientologists and help to organise seminars with catchy titles like “Totalitarian Sects as Weapons of Mass Destruction”.

It’s easy to mock the self-interested nature of the Church’s warnings, and charismatic loons like Vissarion always make good copy. But one does not have to be a student of doomsday cults to grasp the problem these sects pose, and the scale on which vulnerable people are – potentially – being abused, not just financially but psychologically and, probably, sexually. As the recently discovered letters of Jim Jones follower Phyllis Alexander to her parents demonstrate with chilling clarity, the complete physical and mental submission that comes with cult membership often bears a heavy price. It will come as no surprise if the next Jonestown takes place in the icy wastes of Siberia.

A version of this post previously appeared in Jewcy magazine.

[sicily scene] blur of changing images

So, finally accessed my site through "nourishing" in Google and got:

It's looking a little neglected over here at Nourishing Obscurity where there are usually at least four or five posts a day. I don't know what happened to ...

Well, contrary to rumours that Dominatrix Welshcakes had me in bondage, in fact the opposite was true and this week has been packed with incident. After I saw my escort off into the sunset yesterday, I went looking for the bus back to our town [2 hours away to Welshcakes City] and the instructions were - wherever the bus drops you off, that's where you get back on.

Well no, actually - the bus stop for the return bus is cunningly disguised in a shoebox over by another Terminal about 500 metres away and they further disguise its presence by surrounding it with 24 coming and going buses of a similar nature. No matter - I found it by asking the Carabinieri officer, to his surprise and jumped on.

The engine went dead. Yes it did.

Double-decker airconditioned coach with padded seats and it went dead. They tired, the other bus drivers tried, they all tried horn hooting, shouting and gesticulating but the bus was unmoved. For 30 minutes. For 60. For 70.

The mechanic came and tried many clever things before getting into the cabin, looking one moment and kicking the engine cover.

The bus now on the move south into the setting sun, the olive and burnt sienna countryside with the picturesque little stone houses and terracotta roofs perched on craggy outcrops, the romantic Italian crooners through the sound system, the water run-off from the airconditioning dripping in time onto the back seat, we cruised at a leisurely 80 kph back to Modica Bassa, the lower old town where everything happens.

Chock full of the real Sicily [see the photos], this is the tourist mecca or in the case of last evening, around 9 p.m., the street of wild scenes, from a geriatric army pouring over the countryside, scouting men and women in shorts, adorned with scarves and woggles, of sealed off streets making the taking of a bus up the steep 1 in 4 hill to Villa Welshcakes through to wave upon wave of the cities youth, decked out in party gear and all trying desperately to appear cooler or more colourful than the next.

Silly me - knackered from the walk so far on the flat, I called in on Anita's cafe which has one main feature apart from the cuisine - it is situated down an arcade which then turns at the end at right angles and the 'bay' has tables and chairs. Good, I thought, as I shook hands with the proprietors, decent salad in peace.

I asked for a small salad, which doesn't compute in the Sicilian brain and so she brought me a bowl twice the size [30cm across and 15cm deep] ... half full. Then it was up the hill to a Welshcakes' welcome and you really need to be here to fully appreciate these.

Little did I suspect what would happen and since I've run out of room here, this is continued at Welshcakes ...

This is a typical Welshcakes welcome:

Thought for the Week!

SLEEP
Walter de la Mare
When all, and birds, and creeping beasts,
When the dark of night is deep,
From the moving wonder of their lives
Commit themselves to sleep.

Without a thought, or fear, they shut
The narrow gates of sense;
Heedless and quiet, in slumber turn
Their strength to impotence.

The transient strangeness of the earth
Their spirits no more see:
Within a silent gloom withdrawn,
They slumber in secrecy.

Two worlds they have--a globe forgot,
Wheeling from dark to light;
And all the enchanted realm of dream
That burgeons out of night.

Effing madness or what?

Effing madness or what?

I think it is a beautiful old mansion. The government pays £3.18M for the property 3 days after it was sold for £1.35M! Then English Heritage spends £4M restoring it, only to offer it for sale between £4.5M and £5M. The new owner, if anybody is mad enough to buy it, will need to spend another £6M on further repairs. Then, it is claimed that the public must have access! If I had that kind of money, I would not want a place open to the general public. I think it is wrong for English Heritage to expect it both ways, sell the property and still keep it open to the public.

Mrs Sat Nav knows best

Guest post by Harry Haddock

Aaaah. A week away in the Outer Hebrides shooting and fishing. No database servers that have become possessed by the devil. No clients to chase for money that should have been in the bank 30 days ago. No financial directors ringing you up screaming, telling you that the printer your company has installed doesn't work, and that you are all incompetent bastards, only to find he has unplugged the device to allow him to charge his mobile phone.

We're nearly there. Setting off at stupid 'o' clock in the morning, we fly up the M6, missing an accident that closes the motorway just in time for rush hour, by about half an hour. Nip past Manchester, and are munching some rather tasty ham sandwiches at Carlisle by 8 in the morning. Superb. It's also pretty fine weather for this far up north at this time of year ~ only a few dark clouds interrupting the sun.

As we get further north, the weather only gets better. We skirt around loch Lomond, which is so calm it looks like glass. No, really ~ actual glass. Not a single ripple disturbs the reflections of the mountains. A car load of chubby American tourists stop, seemingly in the middle of the road, to get out and take pictures. Everyone is in such a great mood, we don't mind. 'Don't blame you', I think as I manoeuvre around their RV.

Even the 'surf's up dude' chaps in their Toyota Hilux, with an overloaded trailer that has a wheel that is about to fall off, don't alarm us; I wonder if they made it through the highlands without loosing it. It's approaching half past four. The sat nav says it's only 60 miles to Mallaig. Why is it insisting that we will be a further 2 hours?

'At the next junction, turn left'

That doesn't look right, but I turn left anyway. Onto a jetty that extends out into a loch. Now, I'm fairly used to all of the features on Dave's car after four hours driving, but unless I'm mistaken, there isn't a James Bond style 'turn this car into a submarine' option. There does appear to be a ferry, however, on the other side of the loch. Zooming out on the sat nav, we see what the plan is. Get the ferry, and cut about 40 miles off your journey. Super. But why the two hours to travel less than 60 miles?

The ferry trundles towards us, and after paying our fare,we take the short hop across the loch.

'Turn left' the sat nav chirps. But everyone else is turning right. Never mind, Mrs Sat Nav knows best. Oh no she doesn't.

We wind our way around what seems like every loch and bay on the west coast of Scotland. On a single track road. At about 20 mph, with mad post men and builders keen to get back to their wives after a weeks hard work hurtling towards us at break neck speeds. Dave appears to be turning slightly red in the face. 'Um, I might have programmed in the shortest, instead of the quickest, route', he explains. Really? The road gets smaller and smaller, the surface more and more pot holed. I start to wish we had come in my Land Rover.

Exactly two hours later, we arrive in Mallaig, set up camp, lock the guns away, and set off to the nearest pub. After several pints of Stella, it doesn't seem that bad at all. After all, we got to see all the best bits of Scotland, despite the best efforts of the mad postman.

A week of fantastic weather, sunburn, plenty of rabbits and fantastic scenery followed, although the fish remained elusive and couldn't be tempted from the sea with our bait. Perhaps we should have asked the Sat Nav where they were as well?

Is Milton better than Shakespeare

Ask a stupid question and you might get a stupid answer. This question, which forms the title of a book by Princeton academic Nigel Smith, is pretty odd. Shakespeare for a start was a playwright. John Milton was a poet and political controversialist. Milton's poetry is much more magisterial than Shakespeare's: he doesn't create characters as much as argue in verse. Shakespeare's poetry is tied to moments, whereas Milton's is tied to the great dramas of Christian theology- the fall (Paradise Lost) and the person of Christ (Paradise Regained). To compare them seems to miss the point- because in a sense they were never trying to do the same thing- Shakespeare touches on great themes by sketching individual lives, Milton touches on individual lives by sketching great themes. One wrote the most natural verse ever written in English, the other wrote the most artificial (Milton's lines are often filled with amazing music, but the music is much more difficult to grasp than Shakespeare's is).

Furthermore it seems to me a little stupid even to want to compare them. Milton is generally thought of as the lesser poet: but his poetry still repays great attention. He was one of the greatest writers to have ever lived and some of his lines- 'better to reign in hell than serve in heaven' will survive as long as the English language. He was also an amazingly fecund political thinker- a republican who defended the English experiment in government without a king in the 1650s, he was an early advocate for divorce and for freedom of religion. To say he was worse than Shakespeare is a bit like saying Einstein was a less important scientist than Newton- so what? It doesn't mean that you cannot understand science without understanding relativity or that you cannot really understand English literature or history without reading Milton. Milton understood that himself writing a eulogy of Shakespeare and so did Newton, commenting that those alive today stand on the shoulders of giants. Lists that rank authors are often pernicious: the idea that there are authors who you should read- a kind of top ten or even top one or top a hundred is barmy. You should read everything with any quality.

And yet.... there is a reason this book has been produced and its not because the question is a serious question... rather the question is a means. It is a means for Smith to introduce all the ideas about Milton that academics have had over the last forty years to a general readership, smuggled amidst the idea that one could prove Milton was better than Shakespeare. It is like the virtues of an Everyman catalogue: the idea of a list is epistemic nonsence- but it is didactic sense- it helps people enter the wonderful world of literature and art to know which painters and authors to look at, then they can move on. That is the purpose of this book and of literary lists or any kind of list in general, they are not meant seriously but as aides to people entering a subject for the first time. A question like this is a crutch- before you can walk unaided it is useful, once you can understand the subject, you can throw it away.

Is Milton better than Shakespeare? For those who have read them, silly question- for those who haven't read either- start with Shakespeare and move on to the later poet.

Should the McCanns be subjected to a media blackout?

Should the McCanns be subjected to a media blackout?

Watching the Breakfast News on BBC1 this morning there was a report on a genuine case of abduction. And when I heard that the abductors had asked for a media black out, I could not help thinking 'what a pity there was not a media black out in the McCann case'. Gerry and Kate McCann are still maintaining that Madeleine was abducted. Even though the evidence does not support this version of events.

Perhaps, the big tent on the McCann media circus is being pulled down by the PJ?

Yesterday, It was being reported that the PJ would not now be conducting a reconstruction because the PJ wanted all the Tapas Bar 9 to take part and 4 of them refused to return to Portugal. They are Jane Tanner, Russel O'Brien, and Rachel and Matthew Oldfield. Apparently, they are all concerned that they will be prosecuted for child neglect because, like the McCanns, they left their children unsupervised whilst out binge drinking.

Today, it is being reported that the PJ are seeking to prosecute the McCanns for child neglect.

Children and animals tend to get people all emotional. However, it is necessary to put aside all such emotions in the McCann case. The McCanns spin doctor, Clarence Mitchell, is claiming that their legal advice in relation to the McCanns conduct is “well within the bounds of responsible parenting”. I beg to differ, because the question is 'Is it safe to leave children under 4 years of age unsupervised?'.

My challenge to you all is to find on the internet support for the McCanns position that it is safe to leave children under 4 years of age unsupervised.

Under both English and Portuguese law it amounts to child neglect and/or child abandonment. If the McCanns lawyers are stating otherwise, I would argue that they should be sued for providing negligent legal advice.

More on Sicily while we await the Master's Return

It's looking a little neglected over here at Nourishing Obscurity where there are usually at least four or five posts a day. I don't know what happened to all the other guest posters, as there is a long list of others besides me but they are all keeping quiet.

So I'll keep you entertained with a little more about Sicily, well a very special place in Sicily and perhaps James will get to see it while he is there. It's not so far from Modica as I recall. It's La Villa Romana del Casale, situated 5 km outside the town of Piazza Armerina in central Sicily.

Today a UNESCO World Heritage Site, it is visited annually by more than half a million people. What draws these tourists there are the more than forty rooms with 12,500 square feet of mosaic pavement, the best collection of Roman mosaics in existence today.

A mosaic from the Corridor of the Great Hunt

I was fortunate enough to visit this wonderful spot in 2000, as a side trip from my stay in Taormina. A group of about fifteen of us took a tour arranged by the language school where I was studying and we had an excellent Italian guide, with the tour being in Italian of course. It seems that so many of the guides I have had on trips to Italy have been architects. I don't know if there is an over supply of architects in Italy and they cannot find work in their field, but they certainly make splendid guides.

Catwalks are used to traverse the mosaics and you can see the overhead
protective cover. Our excellent architect guide is in the blue shirt

The villa, which was the house of a large surrounding estate, was constructed over an older villa around 320 AD. While there is much controversy about who the owner was, he was certainly a man of wealth and power. From the mosaics we can see that he had connections in Africa, he loved hunting as well as music and poetry and that he was probably a pagan. The villa was thought to be destroyed by invaders about 150 years later although some buildings continued to be used until the twelfth century when there was a fire. The site was abandoned and finally the whole was covered by mud landslides. It is this fact that enabled the mosaics to survive and be so well preserved today.

Another part of the Great Hunt mosaic

At the end of the nineteenth century preliminary excavations were made of the site but most of the work was done during three periods in the twentieth century. The major excavations were done between 1950-60, when a cover was built over the whole to protect the mosaics.

The furnaces where the wood was burned to heat the water both
for the baths and the heating system of the villa itself

The extensive mosaics of the villa were probably done in the early fourth century by North African artists, for the materials are considered African in origin. A very detailed account of the mosaics is given here where the workmanship is discussed as well as the mosaics of each room. Of course when we talk about a room, we are basically talking about the floor because most of the walls, although there, are damaged, however some frescoes and wall paintings and niches for statues still exist.

A different style of mosaic, with a central so-called "erotic" image, in the
antechamber to the main bedroom in the private quarters

Visitors to the villa walk on catwalks built on the old walls which you can see in my photo. It is not easy to photograph the mosaics since you stand high above them. In addition they look rather dull because they are open to the air and covered in dust, although in fact when cleaned they have good colour on the whole.

The famous Bikini Girls mosaic

Of course the most widely known of the mosaics is the Bikini Girls Mosaic seen above. It is situated in the Sala delle Dieci Ragazze, The Room of the 10 Girls. But another mosaic floor, in the Ambulacro della Grande Caccia, The Corridor of the Great Hunt, measuring 60m or 197 ft in length by 5 m or 16ft in width, is surely more splendid. The mosaics depicted there are among the most impressive from the ancient world, showing the hunting and capture of wild animals and their transportation to Rome for use in the Colosseum and the Circus Maximus. I'm afraid my scanned photos do not do justice to this amazing place. Please click on them for a slight improvement.

I would consider my visit to this villa one of the highlights of my stay in Sicily and recommend it highly should you go there. As the Italians say, Vale la pena. It's worth the trouble.


Originally posted at Nobody Important. I apologize if you've read it before.

La Sicilia

If you are a regular reader of the Sicily Scene, you know by now that James has landed in one of my favourite places in the world, the island of Sicily or La Sicilia as the Italians say. Just to give you a taste of this wonderful place I am posting here something I wrote about my stay there in 2000 at Taormina, which is not far from where James is now with Welshcakes at Modica.

Looking from Taormina, across the Bay of Naxos
Mount Etna in the mist on the upper right

As a longtime italophile and having made quite a few trips to Italy over many years, in 2000 I made my favourite Italian trip to Taormina, Sicily, where I spent two weeks taking an Italian course at the local language school and there I fell in love with Sicily.

The Greek Theatre at Taormina

This was the second of three trips I have made to Italy to study at language school and to make a homestay with an Italian family. This time my "family" was a little old Italian widow, who was at least 10 years older and I was 65 at the time. She lived in an apartment on the second floor of a building just four doors from the school, Babilonia, so I didn't have far to travel each morning. My room was very spartan, tiled floor, with a single bed, a wardrobe and a small desk. We shared a bathroom and ate breakfast and dinner together at a tiny table in the kitchen. She did have a large combined living-dining room with a huge TV but we only sat in there to watch the odd soccer match for she was una tifosa del calcio, a true soccer fan and sometimes invited me to watch with her. Usually after dinner I had homework to do, so we mainly socialized over dinner.

I think she was quite delighted that I was an older person because usually the students from the school were young girls with whom she had nothing in common. During my first meal in her home she waited on me, but I invited her to eat with me and from then on we always sat together at meals. She was a good cook and we ate well. Lots of fish, often pesce spada or swordfish, a favourite of mine and it was so fresh there. We also had some delightful and interesting conversations in her kitchen.

She herself was not Sicilian, but came from the central region of Italy. There she met her Sicilian husband who was the chef at a large hotel in her hometown and she herself was a member of the hotel staff. He was a widower, older than her and with grown children, while she was in her thirties. They married and moved back to Taormina where he became the chef at a very exclusive hotel and she stayed home and raised her two children. One thing I found very intriguing was that she spoke the dialect of her region to him and he spoke his Sicilian dialect to her, but they never spoke the same language. Somehow, it worked for them. Fortunately she spoke Italian to me, as I do not know the Sicilian dialect at all and those with whom I came into contact in the small town always spoke Italian with me, thank goodness. She had a grown daughter who came to inspect me and I think approved of the fact that her mother had a "student" more her own age for a change.

Bougainvillea and oleanders tucked against the wall of the Greek Theatre

Taormina is one of the most beautiful spots in the world, to my mind. Since the early Greeks discovered it as a holiday destination, it has been the favourite spot of many famous people. In 1787 J.W.Goethe discovered the beauties of Sicily and, in particular, of Taormina. He described the beauties of this land and its people and pronounced Taormina a "patch of paradise". The late nineteenth and early twentieth century saw many artists, writers and intellectuals spend time in Taormina, including D H Lawrence.

Perched on the side of Mount Tauro, it has a panoramic view of the Mediterranean Sea with the Bay of Naxos below and the nearby, often smouldering volcano of Mount Etna can be seen from anywhere in Taormina. In fact Mount Etna erupted the day before I arrived and the gritty ash was around for quite a while. I was there in June so it was not yet crowded although it was still quite hot. The streets were narrow and hilly but it was easy to walk around, while dodging the cars and crazy traffic jams.

Language classes were from 9 am to 1 pm and we quickly found favourite spots at outdoor cafes for lunch or to take a cooling granita, in the middle of the afternoon. We often made side trips in the afternoon, one being to Etna although we could not get very near because it was so active at the time. We visited the rocky beach below which you reached via a funicular or cable car and took a boat tour on the surrounding waters. We spent time at the open-aired Greek Theatre which was remodelled by the Romans and explored the stores along the Corso Umberto. The public library, formerly the Church of St Augustine, was a favourite spot for us for it was very cool inside and sometimes we sat in the shade of the trees in the Botanical Garden. One afternoon we climbed the path to the sanctuary of the Madonna della Rocca at Castelmola, a small town higher up Mount Tauro, with even more splendid views of the surrounding area.

The facade of a house, decorated with ceramics and frescoes and a lovely painted door

So why did I like Sicily so much? The bright light and the blue of the Mediterranean Sea around Taormina were beautiful. There were flowers everywhere, especially the bougainvillea and the oleanders which reminded me so much of Australia that I was drawn to it immediately. In other parts of Sicily where I travelled later, I found eucalypts had been planted, rather disasterously in fact since they sucked up the precious underground water, but this further reminded me of Australia. As always the Italian people were friendly and welcoming and I just felt very comfortable in Sicily and hopefully I'll return there some day.

Sadly my stay in Taormina was before I had a digital camera so my photos are limited. If you have an interest, a very wonderful photographer, Galen Frysinger, has posted many of his photos of Taormina here. These will show you why you should visit this beautiful town should you find yourself in Sicily and of course it goes without saying you should visit Modica which I have yet to do.

I can only say that I am very envious of James and his soggiorno in Sicily. I am sure you will be hearing a lot more about this wonderful place on this blog in the very near future when James gets his act together and returns to blogging here.

We all know how much James loves snow and the cold weather so I do hope the very hot weather of Sicily does not do him in. But then he survived the climate in Australia for a very long time so I am confident that he will enjoy Sicily which will remind him of Australia in so many ways.

Have a wonderful time in Sicily, James. We hope to see you back at Nourishing Obscurity very soon.

Posted in days gone by at Nobody Important

Silbury Hill

I am not sure my posts are worthy of posting on such an esteemed blog, but I will share with you a recent blog post that my readers enjoyed.

The May edition of Heritage Today has a very interesting article on the latest discoveries regarding the mysterious Silbury Hill. The hill is near Marlborough just on the edge of the A4.

In 2000 a large hole opened up and archaeologists and engineers teamed up to find a solution. The hole was caused by a shaft that had been sunk by the Duke of Northumberland in 1776. Furthermore the soil was seeping into various tunnels that had been channeled into the hill over the years. The largest tunnel was created by Professor Richard Atkinson in 1968. The BBC sponsored him to carry out the dig and Magnus Magnusson presented a programme from within. The entrance can be seen in the following picture (from Heritage Today magazine). To repair the hill all the voids had to be filled from the middle outwards with bags of chalk followed by a chalk and water mixture. The door to the entrance has now been placed in the nearby Alexander Keiller Museum in Avebury.

There have been many theories as to the significance of the hill; burial chamber for an ancient king, a platform for druid sacrifices and astronomical observatory are among the suggestions. The stabilising of the structure enabled archaeologists to shed a bit more light on the hill. It is now certain that there was no burial beneath the mound. A piece of pottery at the site has also established that the Romans had a settlement there.

Due to radiocarbon dating using pieces of antler it has now been established that the hill was started around 2400BC and probably went on for several hundred years. It is composed of a series of layers secured by stakes, then gradually built on top of. The mound eventually got covered by different layers of local material; clay, chalk, topsoil, turf and even some sarsen stones. Whilst looking in the main tunnel the archaeologists realised that the hill had started off as several mounds which later joined into the single mound, initially it stood 5 metres high. The mound grew to 25 metres high, the top part consisting of chalk that had been quarried from an adjacent ditch. At this stage it appears that the mound was left for a while as there is a layer soil showing signs that grass had colonised it. After this rest period more chalk was piled on top until the hill eventually stood at 37 metres high. It is the largest prehistoric mound in the whole of Europe that has been hand made by humans.

Click on photo for a larger view.

I shall leave you with the final paragraph from the article.

Silbury Hill has been called the British equivalent of the pyramids, but why did Stone Age man build it? Nobody knows, exactly. Quite apart from any ritualistic significance Silbury may have had for its builders, just constructing it would have been its own reward. Having such a great shared purpose would have helped the community to cohere. Perhaps future generations will say something similar of the people who came to repair the monument in the early twenty-first century. why has Silbury been mended? Because our nation is strengthened through doing it.

More interesting facts about the mound can be found on the Silbury Hill page of the English Heritage website.

Where Has James Gone?

James has gone on a travel adventure. One of the challenges will be to suppress his blog addiction. I doubt that it will be too long before he is amongst us again.

Where do you think he will pop up from next?

Click Here to take the survey

I will compile the results and post later.

Let's hope it is not like this.



Seems that James's blog readers are pretty discerning.

[hiatus] not for too long - farewell

Once I was crazy enough to try bobsleigh - well actually luge, feet first.

It's an interesting phenomenon - once you're over that lip at the top, there is only one way down and there is no choice but to lie back and let the skids become part of you, using miniscule bodyshifts to minimize bends, on e false move and I think you can imagine.

Therefore, even though the heart was doing awful things, you had to suppress it and get the breathing going for when you hit the compression bends. There was one particular bend to the left and I remember the overhanging trees as I came into a short straight and the skids came back to the fall line and picked up speed - you couldn't sneeze or move the head except to strain the eyes downwards but in so doing, this lost speed.

Fat lot that mattered to me, speed - perfectly happy to lop a few seconds off and live. Halfway down the straight and it became fairly obvious that ... er ... there was almost a right angle left at the end [or so it seemed] and to go from semi-vertical to semi-horizontal in a microsecond was going to do interesting things to the metabolism.

At this point I thought of putting the legs out to stop before the turn but then realized that the walls would snap the legs back behind me and anyway here it was ... aaagh. The turn was bad enough, crushing the chest but when I shot up to the ridge, hanging centrifugally before flattening out to the fall line again with the skids wobbling left and right, it seemed it might be a good idea to ... um ... stop if you don't mind ... please?

Vague feelings now of high up near the ridge on the left, snap back, high up on the right, back to the line and then the final drop where it felt like taking off before the tube became gradually shallow and then severely reversed upwards and the blades finally stopped.

Um ... right. Exhilarating? For some perhaps but you could keep it as far as I was concerned. Count me among the spineless please - I'd prefer not to meet my lunch coming up on my way down. With thoughts like these, the base of the chairlift was beckoning again and there was a free chair.

Seems to me there's a huge difference between you brave people who go on the Oblivion, Megaphobia and so on and actually trust the damned thing not to come off whilst you're flung out into space. In my case, it was always going to be in my hands what happened and somehow that was more comforting.

Tomorrow is entirely out of my hands.

I'd like to sign off now and hand over to Colin Campbell for some time, trusting and hoping you won't shun the blog but will come to read some of the guest posts. One way or another I'll let you know what happened. Thank you so much too, those friends who put up with the maudlin mood in the last few weeks and stuck with me.

Cheers and let's leave on a good note:

Thousands of private counselors are offering free services to troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan with mental health problems, jumping in to help because the military is short on therapists.

Now that's altruism for you. So don't miss out - apply today.

[sunday notes] bumbling around, getting it done

As Russia sweeps to Eurovision victory, this blogger quietly exits [yes that visa came through] Good luck to Russia who sustained me for so many years. 99% of the population and I got on fine but unfortunately, the wrong 99%.

Sorry to disappoint but there'll be no cutting expose from Higham - time to move on to new disasters [no, no - good things]. This week sees the action. As it will be pretty busy the next few days, I might not pop up again in that time, if at all.

In the meanwhile, may I leave visitors to this site in the most capable administrative hands of Haggiso, aka Colin Campbell, whose job it is to keep a motley collection of guest posters roughly in line or indeed - even posting.

Actually, we have quite appropriate weather just now - bitter grey skies, intermittent rain, plus 7 degrees and a chilly wind. It's been like this for some days but hey, this is meant to be summer, you know.

The big ask

Tomorrow, between 10 a.m. and 12 a.m. London time my companion and I will pass through a most dangerous time and a number of things can and might go wrong which will change the game plan so significantly that I end up in a different country to the one I had in mind.

Now, there is a passage in Matt 18:19-20:

Again I say unto you, That if two of you shall agree on earth as touching any thing that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven. For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.

So, reading the fine print here, it needs a minimum of two together, it seems but whether that means two or three in collusion at the end of an e-mail or whether it means you have to be actually together is not clear, as Matt's internet connection was down at the time.

Well anyway, I'll leave that one up to you.

Meanwhile

May I recommend to the romantics amongst you [sorry to be sickening] not a bad profile of Kate Middleton, the latest Gordo bashing is not worth the effort on Positive Sunday, we needn't bother either with the Hillary stirring in Florida but tomorrow being Memorial Day, here are a few articles about it.

Let's remember all vets everywhere.

So, best head off as a few people will visit today and I have nothing to put on the table just now. Back later in the day.