Obama Girl, Part II

This comes way too late, I realize that. but I feel the need to point out that after this speech:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWe7wTVbLUU

I have stopped feeling guilty, or lacking a proper justification for my preferences.

Politometro

This is my position on the Politometro (i.e. the political compass, adapted to the Italian Elections, which are taking place in twpo weeks time):



The surprising thing is not my position, but the one of most Italian politicians. Well, it's not "surprising" at all, actually, but it's funny how it completely defeats the purpose of the political compass, whose creators wanted to go beyond the two poles left-right distinction, and show how the political spectrum is more complicated than that. Well, it's not really, judging from the Italian reality, where the top left and bottom rights squares are completely empty.

P.S. I actually have a few objections to where some of the people have been placed, but it wouldn't upset the general pattern (that is, it would only move a few people from the top right towards the bottom left area, more or less moderately depending on the person), so I'm not gonna bother you further.

It turns out that the "Marry a millionaire" story was staged: the woman in question was actually already a Berlusconi supporter, who also (unsuccessfully) tried to run for an MP seat. I leave it to your judgment whether this makes matters better or worse.

Marry Berlusconi Jr., baby

I have not had the inspiration to write in a while, first because of my thesis submission and then because of post-submission exhaustion. Even more importantly, I feel I have not really honoured the self-imposed duty of keeping the non-Italian speaking world informed about the impending Italian political fate lately. So, time to make up for that. In a recent debate on job instability, an attractive young woman (yes, the fact that she was a woman and that she was attractive is relevant) confronted Berlusconi on the issue of how young people can manage to pursue important projects in life (e.g. buying property, or having kids) when so many graduates make 1,000 euros (or less) a month and have crappy, completely guarantee-less and short-term contracts. The situation is indeed horrible: the Italian job market is some sort of far west, a mad anarchy of ridiculously exploitative contracts that create perverse incentives for employers. A very high number of highly skilled graduates are formally employed as free-lance professionals for individual projects, whilst they are actually required to work full-time, with a very low salary, no holiday or sick pay and no social insurance whatsoever. Many of my friends are in this situation, including V and S., who are visiting me in Oxford these very days. Now, with this context in mind, here's what Silvio replied to the young woman: "Well, the solution for you is simply: marry a millionaire. Actually, thinking about it, my son is still a bachelor" (imagine this followed by a slimy, botox-infused grin).
What I have to learn from the British press (!!!) is that the remark, in spite of the scandal it created, was successful: the woman is going to vote of Berlusconi, she publicly declared, as she was impressed by the former Prime Minister's "charming ways".
Well, maybe a bit of rain, not-always-so-exciting food and a bit of social awkwardness are not that hard to put up with, after all...

Hilarious

This, by my friend Ale, only for Italian speakers, I am afraid.

Flavoured coffee

Oh, and the second time I shocked the company was by confessing my taste for hazelnut flavoured coffee: me, an Italian, and a pretty food-fascisty one at that.
I have to add, though - as a mitigating circumstance, as it were -, that I did not mean coffee with hazelnut syrup, which is horrible, but ground coffee with hazelnut aroma, which is lovely.

Papa boys, always present

Last Wednesday, G. had some friends over for dinner. It was the first time we met S., G.'s girlfriend, who lives in New York, and is absolutely lovely. At some point the conversation moved to Christian fundamentalists. G. told us the story of the Brazilian football genius Kakà, who apparently turned into one (Christian fundamentalist, not football genius) after his first few years playing for A.C. Milan, and now takes off his uniform shirt every time he scores to show off his undershirt with a big "I BELONG TO JESUS" written on it. P. remarked that only an evangelical could do something like that: "Catholicism," he said, "it's about the Church, not about Jesus, and c'mon, nobody would wear a t-shirt proclaiming their love to the Church, right?".

It was at this point of the evening that I shocked the company for the first time by pointing out that some people do...and I was myself shocked to realize that nobody around the table had ever heard of the papa boys before.

So, these guys (and girls) are basically the Pope's groupies: they follow him around the world, are proud of showing up at any of his happenings ("sempre presenti") and have even found out a "cool" nickname for him: B16. And yes, they do wear t-shirts...
Well, Kakà has much nicer biceps.