From the bottom of the Barrel

And if we capsized it?

2010-09-10T23:46:00.003+01:00

If you ask me we should make an experiment.

(But nobody ever asks me, they know better)

It should last for three generations so as to have meaningful results and keep the statisticians (whoever they are) at bay.

We should all retire at 18. We should work if and only if we pass the age of 65, and then, until we die.

I know, that's impossible. Productivity will be low. People will die of exhaustion for being forced to work at that age. Yeah, yeah.

However, think of your average week-day (smaller example but still fitting). A working day. you wake up, usually too early for your sleep needs. Then it is a succession of chores and family/work related task for the whole day.

Get ready, get to work (maybe take the kids to school) do this do that in the office (or wherever you work), put up with that guy/woman. Get back, get food (do laundry? wash up? persuade the kids to sleep without resorting to pills?)

OK you're done. Let us say we are optimistic and it is 8 pm. Time for yourself. The quality time.

You can: read, listen to music watch a movie write a blog, moonlight as an iPhone developer and pull out the best app yet ever and become millionaire (yeah sure), play the guitar, write a poem, write a book, make interesting conversation with your partner, learn more about the surrounding world, meditate.

And for all that you have got 3-4 hours. OK I hear you! You do not have to do all the above in one day, but the problem is, sunshines that most of us at 8 pm are knackered.

All the intellectual work we can do is to figure out that channel 4+1 is not FIVE but the channel that shows the program you missed one hour ago.

At 9.30 the only physical work your body allows for is reaching for the remote.

Now what if they told you: from tomorrow is the other way round. You go to work at noon.

You wake up, do your yoga, have breakfast with your partner, read the newspaper, jog a little, write your daily haiku maybe. Why all the energy has to go in the most hideous part of your day?

Of course, productivity, technology, reliable products.

I tell you what we are becoming sadder and sadder.

Robots with nice tellies, shiny mobile phones and fast cars: crash test dummies.

So many of us will find ourselves at 65. Overworked and under-pensioned with a life expectancy of another 15 years (or more) physically incapable of having much fun in the abundance of free time suddenly available. Hope then they will have something good on the box.

Destiny? No thanks

2010-07-16T22:43:00.003+01:00

People use to say that things happen for a reason. I believe very few of us have not been told so, at least once in their life. More often than not, when something really bad happens, so that you start wondering about the sadism of fate.
However, a once very wise population - the ancient Greek - depicted the goddesses of fate as old hags, i.e:, not really long sighted beings. As comforting as it may initially seem, if you think about it there' s hardly anything worse than thinking some external entity with a purpose of its own can determine the course of events in your life.
The immediate relief coming from the suspended responsibility in choosing the right course of actions in response to what happens to you is short-lived. It is not reassuring to know you are at the mercy of a puppeteer for two main reasons. For one, there are events whose explanations challenge the most hard-core fatalist. Secondly, and more importantly, if you ask me, is your freedom. I would not trade the power of determining my future with my own decisions with no shared responsibility nor trust in a superior plan. Things happen for a reason, not for a purpose. Destiny is what you make of them.

Aside from the philosophic, this post has been typed in on an iPad. What can I say: you just have to try. Thanks Monica and Mum and Dad for the awesome birthday present!

(Image courtesy of Wikipedia)

This is for my girl that had a bad day at the office

2010-03-04T22:14:00.003Z

"Ladies and Gentlemen" - starts the conductor on the train - "we would like to apologise for the slight delay of this service today. This is due to ..." and a ridiculous excuse follows. It does not matter, it is only a couple of handfuls of minutes that you lost. Or like when you get stranded in an airport for seven hours, then rerouted via Heathrow, stopped at the UK Border for unknown reasons, long enough, though, to miss your connection and had to wait another hour.

It is only your time. Or your money that goes, for some banker that fucks up. Your council services: library, bin collection, recycling and so on, because of incapable politicians.

The project you work for grinds to halt because your boss simply does not get you only have two hands, she's on the rags, or whatever.

I tell you what: you feel stressed and robbed. You sweat it, grind it, scrap until the last bit of energy, I know.

Too much of your day depends on somebody else.

And these somebodies, let you down, regularly.

When your turn comes, instead, flexibility loses all its nice features. Never a penny more than agreed on the payslip. No moving deadlines. No relaxed attitude for your papers or presentations. Always expecting you to be on the ball.

But there they find you, on the bloody ball, until you drop.

Our reward is their face when we pull off another one, when it was almost reasonable to fail.

Because your face in the mirror is what counts, yours the only eyes whose gaze you seek every day. That gaze that approves of you, defies you, pushes you.

That gaze that makes you perfect, inspiring and beautiful, and so lovely

Hypocrisy and technology series: universal congratulation emails

2010-02-09T21:49:00.005Z

Today we will examine how modern day technology can improve your hypocrisy. There is so much you can do, even with primordial pre-Web inventions. Take, for instance, e-mails.

Have you ever received an email sent to the office/building.organisation mailing list that congratulates a colleague you do not know about a personal achievement? Or about their wedding? Or about their baby being born?

If yes, you probably wondered why should you trouble the entire universe with that when his closest friends at work, already know. You probably groaned at the prospect of the several replies on the very same general mailing list, by jubilant colleagues who, however, are too tired to walk to this person's room and shake hands, or not that intimate to pick up the phone and dial the corresponding internal number.

So if they do not care why do they reply? The key is the general mailing list. People have to see they reply. Their participation to the collectively imposed jubilation for someone they do not really care about is now electronically saved forever in hundreds of mailboxes.

The replies, as a matter of fact, read almost always the same

Great news! Congratulations

showing a neutrality beaten only by Switzerland. However, there are some exceptions.

Some individuals, can get carried away and pure nonsense like:

Rock and Roll!

Hurray!

which fall into mere pathetic...

Can't we just ignore each other as in the good old days, I wonder...

100 kids

2009-11-20T22:36:00.005Z

Turn on the telly, listen to the news and they show, for the 100th time they point out, the sinister procession at Wootton Basset.
And we have to endure the torture of seeing another mum in tears saying how special her son was. Another general praising the exceptional man the regiment lost. And feel like you want to throw the remote at the box, but you don't, as that will be only the last link of a chain of useless damages.
Oh how I wish someone at that procession stood up and said that the worst is that those poor kids died believing they were serving their country. The truth, almost unbearable, if you ask me, is that they have been deceived. There was no threat in Afghanistan. As there is not in Iraq. We bombed out mountains lowering them by a few inches as we were after someone who, according to the intelligence was plotting the next nasty attack to US, UK, and Europe, whilst on dialysis hidden in a hole.
100 processions, 100 kids slaughtered ...
Oh I wish someone had the courage to face a BBC camera and told people to pack it in with all this national pride. This is not World War II. Leave the poppies alone and cry the kids, do not sing the heroes. If they came back I bet they would not ask for imitation, they'd rather live on. There is not greater good here, there's human beings. The get killed, they blow themselves up, for some puppets to keep their seats in Parliament and their puppeteers to keep stuffing their gobs, their nostrils, their bloody pockets.

The right thing is at hand

2009-11-19T22:29:00.004Z

I know what you think now. That it is just football. And that I do it only because they're French and I am Italian, and as every Italian, I will always cheer for Trapattoni wherever he is.
Yes, yes, and yes.
But now answer my question: if it is only a football match why don't they play it again? It is not even about money laden Champions League fixtures. Whoever won last night between EIRE and France will make little difference in merchandise sales or in TV broadcasting rights.
Thierry Henry admitted it, it is on record. He used his hands, hence the goal that qualified France over the Republic of Ireland is not valid.
Think of the difference it would make. For once, we can and do rectify something that went wrong. Extraordinary! An international organisation that backtracks, acknowledges the mistake, apologises, and emends.
Oh yeah, of course the pessimists will say: "This will create a precedent. Every time a match will be played and there are grounds to complain, the losing side will demand a replay". And I say: " Then what?". Replaying now does not mean it becomes a rule tomorrow. Moreover, we have the possibility of rectifying a mistake now, and even if, for the next n, rematches will not be conceded, making only n errors is always better than n+1.
After all the blathering about fair play and anti-racist void slogans, for once football could lead as an example of correct human behaviour. Go on then... the right thing is at hand for a change

back on earth

2009-09-04T21:58:00.004+01:00

Hi,

probably you were not expecting to read a new post this soon after yesterday's
It has not happened since my early days in Liverpool.
This is a rare post also because it is here more for me than for you.
It will hopefully serve the purpose of reminding that I am as gullible as anybody and sometimes I do the most stupid things. Therefore, I leave this here, without saying why or what I did.
Hopefully this will limit the future occasions in which I will make a fool of myself.

Summer recap

2009-09-03T21:03:00.004+01:00

Hi there,
I was about to spend another evening vegging out in front of several screens (PC, TV, iPhone) when I noticed that I have not been in posting on this for ages. Not that you missed me, obviously, or if you did, let us say I did not notice.

I have been busy as you might guess, and learned a few valuable lessons in the last three months.

a) ...

Well no, why should I tell you? You have to work it out yourselves. You would not listen anyway.
I have been away. Twice to Italy and once to Crete. Not in this order, which is irrelevant..., I mean the order is. In Crete I met a lot of people but nobody from there. Even the place I stayed at - a conference hotel - was so non typical that could have been produced and pre-packed in Manchester and shipped to the Greek island (which is probably not far from what happened). Therefore, I do not have much to report.

Good, that leaves Italy...

Oh Italy. The food, the sun, ...
And the incomparable sensation of precariousness and uncertainty that makes it so fashionable (when you read about it)
Because, when it is happening to you the perception of precariousness is sort of overwhelming and its fashion fails to register.
People, in both countries often ask me how can I put up with the weather and the notoriously bad food here in UK. Usually, I can't be bothered to reply, but if I am in a very good mood I deign them of an answer that, put more politely than I often care to do in person, goes like:

They invented coats, hats, and umbrellas against the cold and wet weather, and they pay you real money, in some countries, so that you can either go out and buy your food, or cook it yourself. What they have not invented yet, is a way to change people's heads so that they would not try to abuse you, rob you, rip you off, and live off the next person. Until they do, there is not much fun in enjoying the sun bending over and the food tastes funny if you have to earn the money to buy it kissing arses.
I am not a lizard therefore the sun can wait a little longer (also I bend less easily)

What were we talking about? Oh yes, holidays...
Well, it does not matter any more, they're over...back to normality (that's the way I like it! - the song Monica is listening to right now)

The third way

2009-05-19T23:00:00.003+01:00

Hi there,

of all the weeks I thought this was not one during which you'd read from me. But I was wrong.
It is two weeks that either me or the missus have been working late. Weekends and evenings had to make space for necessary things to be done.

The thing is that I do not picture myself or Monica as the typical workaholic. Like those who live for their jobs and neglect everything else, whose only purpose is to be successful in what they do. Why I do it then? Well actually I am even more perverse. The world is not made only of slackers and obsessed. I reckon there is a third way. There is a rarer breed. The super-cool people. Those who can joggle work and life and are satisfied. Nerds, geeks, or losers (call them what you like) want to have you thinking that you must devote your own life to the job in order to do it good. Simply because they are not capable of talking of anything else or of doing anything else proficiently does not mean it is impossible. On the other hand, slackers pretend their life is so important that they cannot get serious about job and miss out on things that really matter.

What I think is really great is not having a job only for paying the rent, but having the additional frequent reward of realizing you have done something right. The utmost satisfaction is doing things they way you reckon they ought to be done. Staying up late until midnight just because you think that is right. Working on weekends not because your boss does it or expects it, but because it feels right to you.

Ultimately, having it your way is important, it is the essence of it all, it is the guarantee that the only label they could stick on you is the one with your own name written on it.
Uniquely marvellously free.

Good night

The delusion of circularity

2009-04-27T21:45:00.003+01:00

Without many preambles let me introduce to you tonight's topic. It is rather a question:
"Are you sure you know what you are doing?"

Fully immersed in normality we perform the majority of our daily action following a (reassuring, fixed, tested, boring?) routine. Rare moments of speculation ( self-consciousness, rebellion?) contribute to variations to the usual procedures that, otherwise, go on unchanged for another day (week, month, or year).

Let me clarify, first of all, that I am not against habits and routines. But personally, I tend to value a lot those moments I hinted at above. Those rare occasions when, maybe whilst gazing out of the window of the train on commute to (back from) work, you ask yourself in this order:

What am I doing with my life in general (where am I heading? what I achieved?)
Why did I start this and that at all (does it still stand as a valid reason?)
What has gone wrong? (was it my fault? can I change that?)
What's next, then?

I do not know about you all, but the answers to these questions usually surprise me. However, they do not matter now. What I would rather stress is the whole point of the questions themselves. I reckon we live under the misconception that our life is circular. True, a whole day is just two rounds of clock but you never wake up younger than you were when you went to sleep.
People way cleverer than me said one cannot walk in the same river twice, therefore there is no circle of life outside the cartoon fiction below

I admit the self-questioning process can become obnoxious, but relying on routines means, living like yesterday's (last month's, last year's) you, who in the meantime might have become someone else. You might want to check you still agree with him every now and then, yeah?

The unbearable lightness of being

2009-04-23T22:02:00.004+01:00

Hey there,
for starters I would like to let my faithful three followers that, if the do not know yet, the world is upside down. The other day Tim Cahill said he would never go and play for Liverpool FC as he's played for Everton for a long time, and that's serious. On the other hand, you see politicians change political parties and ideas more frequently than a horny couple in a swing club, and that is just fine.

This post, however, is not about the importance of football in life, as it is a fact that it influences your life even if you don't give a toss about it.

A while ago I joined the gym and I was talking to one member of the staff who was fine-tuning my work out programme as long as I did it for the first time. Panting on the treadmill I asked him, out of politeness, if that was what he wanted to do as a full-time job. He said he was dead serious about it. He would shortly become a patented personal trainer. He had to take a painstaking course for achieving that. Two weeks full-time, mind you.

The other day an ad on telly went more or less like that: "Do you know that the average salary in IT is over £37,000? Get qualified using our agency. With our flexible online courses, you can study in the evening s after you get home from work. " This morning on Sky they interviewed a poor chap who had been working in IT for years and had been made redundant last October, still jobless (April 23rd). Tell him about the course, go on.

When I was 18 in school a not very keen teacher was landed with the task of asking pupils what they wanted to do at university. A lot among us starting mentioning impossibly difficult subjects in very exclusive and far-away universities. Comparing the ambitions with the actual marks should have led the teacher to advise the dreaming students to settle down with more modest but reachable targets. Did he do that? No. Many of them then went away and either failed or got a degree on a subject they loath after a lot of pain.

It is not easy, you will not win the Nobel Prize, you are an average football player, your voice is nothing special, you probably have to sleep with hundreds of people before even getting inside a TV studio. This should probably go on the front page of every schoolbook, and maybe on Wikipedia too since we are at it.

PS: The fact that many of you will judge this post as too heavy is the perfect proof of what I am saying.

Back and did not really liked what I read in the meantime

2009-04-10T16:41:00.006+01:00

Oh hi there,

I am sorry I have been away so long. After all it is not like people out there missed me. Only 50% of my faithful followers complained (and not that strongly) for my absence. Suffice it to say it was due to work, which I still have to do, like many others out there, to pay for broadband and electricity that make my computer, my TV, and my pS3 go.

Tom Waits is playing in the background. If you haven't got it, by the way I suggest you stop reading this rubbish, go out and buy Nighthawks at the Diner, it is more entertaining and enjoyable than what follows.

Today I want to describe a phenomenon that is creeping up not so quietly. Let us call it e-Bigotry.
The widespread sense of equality, enhanced by the new instruments of knowledge (Wikipedia? No, Facebook) makes people feel they are entitled to give an opinion. Well, that is democracy, one would say. Yes, but now the same people, would support such opinion with their friend's blog post, or Facebook status, claiming that is strong evidence.

Not long ago, someone blogged about boycotting Amazon. His post went more or less like that:
"A friend of mine who's in publishing sent me an email saying the small company he works for will have problems because of the unfair deals Amazon imposes on suppliers, as a market leader...". He concludes asking whether this is just capitalism's hard face or Amazon really needs a lesson.

This is just the last of many other snap judgements based on less than verifiable evidence and, even worse in my opinion, tainted by the unnecessary moral nuance, I have been observing.
Strangely enough many of them were emitted by people with access to High Education, boasting their open-mindedness. Well, you'd be surprised by their inflexibility in condemning, censoring or banning what they do not agree with. It seems that the open-mindedness mentioned above is wide enough to contain their own principles (whatever they are) and just short for anything else.

If you ask me it won't be long until we'll hear someone campaigning against the police prosecuting the poor daughters of deposed dignitaries in Nigeria whose only fault is trying to recuperate their own money with a little help of some frendly stranger randomly reached by email.

Love and Illuminism

2009-01-26T22:33:00.004Z

Tonight I decided to run a small experiment. I put on my Carrie Bradshaw wig and, I know, I am not attractive in the slightest, but at least you can focus on what I am on about i.e.: feelings.
Religion has long since been buried for the average western intellectuals with unsurprisingly little mourning. The message is everywhere, even on the bus, but are you all ready to face the consequences?
If there is probably no God, it is at least as likely that there is no soul either. Many researchers are indeed trying to persuade us that soul's flagship product - love - is just the right combination of sensory stimuli whisked and folded in layers of maths. I spare you and myself of the links here but a new formula is out every month, I am sure you do not need me there.
The love of your life, then, could turn out to be the local solution of a constraint problem rather than the perfect match of your ethereal component.
If this is the case, things like last weekend Guardian's inset entirely devoted to Dating should be treated with renewed respect by our prototypical atheist. A self-contained manual exposing the best techniques for all the possible situations (at the state of the art as it includes even an Internet dating guide) cannot be dismissed and thrown in the recycling bin without serious studying. In the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin's birth, feelings appear in the eyes of our skeptical friend as another trick of human evolution. Why not tricking back then and learn from people's joys and sorrows? So now arm yourself with a calculator, a pen, paper, and your favourite newspaper's HOWTO and make them all yours (men, women, whichever you prefer).

As for me, I do not have an opinion on this, or if I do I prefer not to say it. Be it the proof I am sticking to my New Year's resolution of not feeling forced to have say on everything.
Enough now, the wig is really itchy and I just started asking myself if I look to fat in the jumper I am wearing.

Good night, before it's too late

A night on the property escalator

2009-01-17T23:44:00.005Z

After spending the best part of my youth trying and failing, tonight my luck turned.
I finally can celebrate achieving a goal that has been on the list of the things I thought would never happened to me.
At the end of a mixed flavoured Saturday, not before undergoing almost unbearable suffering, through a nerve-wrecking succession of moments of alternating fortune, after being so close to disaster, I ended up winning, for the first time in my life a game of Monopoly.
I could fill a book with the account of what happened on the board, but my modesty forbids me to indulge in self-praise. Suffice it to say here that the dice forced me to resort to the finest tactics in order to prevail against my opponent: the so far undefeated, real-estate dragon Monica.

As I savour the sweet taste of glory my thoughts go the 7 years old boy I was when I played the first games. I recall all the moments when I thought I was so close to win yet never achieved the final victory. And yet another result is now bagged. Another box is ticked in the chase of the unreachable. Another prohibitive target is attained and the notion of impossibility withdraws another inch. Now life is challenged again to come up with another example of unachievable...
Bring it on

Observing from the treadmill

2009-01-15T22:16:00.003Z

I decided to join the gym last September. This is what I observed in almost four months of persevering.

Inside:

It is hard to persuade body and mind to work-out after a day of work. It is even harder to do it over a weekend when all you want is rest. The best strategy is not thinking of the fact you are actually paying for sweating, lifting weights, and running nowhere. On the other hand, you feel healthier. Physically after a while, mentally much sooner. You shift your focus, and, you discharge energy, as opposite to vegging out in front of the telly, when you just go into suspended mode without letting out anything.

Outside:

People are dirty, or at least hygienically unconcerned. I think 30% of men and more 50% of women in my gym do not take a shower after working out. 99.9% of men walk bare footed on floors where they and the fellow members walked in their shoes from outside.

People are anti-social. All listen to their MP3 players, I think because of (a combination of) the following reasons:
a) They are afraid of hearing someone who comments about their butt (hips, thighs, beards, hair...)
b) They are afraid of someone initiating a conversation with them and then, as to introduce themselves, go for a sweaty handshake
c) They are made physically sick by the music staff put on the gym loudspeaker, which, by the way, I suppose is selected by a panel of experts recruited among the ranks of deaf-sadists rave party-goers.

People are needy. 50% of my gym fellow members carry their mobile phones around in case someone texts them some vital information that cannot wait for the the duration of their work-out (average 45-60 minutes). I actually saw someone interrupting his work-out to run into the dressing room, ring his mum, and tell her about his day. He resumed his training patently relieved.

People are weird. I cannot classify the following examples better. I report the following situations I observed in a single evening in the order they occurred:
1) Outside the gym door, as I entered, I saw a woman in her gym kit, her face red from physical exercise, still panting, puffing voluptuously from a cigarette she was consuming in perfect solitude under the rain;
2) I saw a man performing a complete work-out on three different weights machines in his jeans and jumper;
3) I saw another man taking off his shoes in order to perform squats and then putting them back on.

There is one thing that, however, seems to be outdated nowadays: people do not seem to try and hit on each other anymore. No more men staring at women, or overcharging the weights. No more screams for impressing the chicks. No signs of availability to help the poor wench who cannot work through the complex operations for setting up the treadmill program.
On the other side, no more provocative outfits, nor seductive smiles or mysterious giggling either.
Now it is all about working out and sweating, unless the latest scientific news prove to be a groundbreaking result:

"[..] The most suggestive research comes from George Preti of the Monell Chemical Senses Center. Preti found that male armpit sweat dabbed on the upper lips of women stimulates production of ovulation-triggering luteinizing hormone.[...]". from Wired

If this were the case, most of what observed above could be the hint of subtle evolution, rather than just being extremely and awkwardly reserved.

A Day in the News

2009-01-07T21:26:00.002Z

Tonight I start with a song:

Obviously one of the many masterpieces produced by Lennon and McCartney for The Beatles album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band: A day in the Life.

The opening verse is: I read the news today, oh boy...

Well so did I. I read the newspaper this morning and watched the BBC tonight and, well... oh boy!
Gaza crisis, oh hang on, isn't it only the 30th time in 30 years I am alive that hear about a major military crisis over there? Arabs versus Jews. Who started? The Jews? No the British after WWII. No hang on the Nazis in the 40s. No it was the Romans in 70 AD. No the Egyptians at Moses time... Come on do the want us to believe that is still about the Promised Land?

Oh change of subject, next headline: economic crisis. People wasted money they did not have. You have to pay to save the banks so that bankers save their jobs but you will lose yours as its the crisis baby.

OK last main story, the weather: it is cold! No really? In January? In the UK? -5? Snow? Who would have thought that!?

I bet only a few still wonder why folks are just not interested anymore. The only accurate reality we get is the weather situation. You do not have access to facts. Why should we bother. I buy the newspaper for good English language practice.
And I watch TV because as a diversion from Facebook and blogging.

Well now Monica, it is not my fault if this is boring, it was meant to make you fall asleep soon so tomorrow we can wake up early and go to the gym.

Starting up 2009

2009-01-04T18:11:00.003Z

Hello you all,

and welcome to 2009. This is the New Year post. I did not want to write a wrap-up post for 2008 because, to be perfectly honest with you two, my faithful followers, I was busy enjoying my holidays and staying away from the screen as much as possible was one of the priority.
Let me just put in writing what I kept repeating in the last ten days of 2008. It's been an awesome year, although so many things happened that sometimes I doubt it lasted just for the standard 12 months.

Although 2008 answered to a lot of questions, some still remain opened and, inspired by some interesting readings (see here or for a shorter excerpt here) I hope I will continue questioning myself and the others about big and small problems in life.

Hopefully, I will also continue forcing you two, loyal readers, to devote on of the unbearable two minutes of adverts on the telly to this blog (maybe delaying going to the loo to the next commercial break - now, that is the ultimate flattery I am after)

Last year I posted more that the previous three years altogether. This year, who knows? Maybe even more frequently, provided there's enough crap on the telly the missus wants to watch.

Stay tuned and stay well,

How to be good...(better if someone else pays)

2008-12-15T22:39:00.002Z

Christmas is just a few days away. Markets, mistletoe, ho-ho-hos and lights mix up and melt our hearts in the cold of the upper hemisphere winter.
It is in this spirit, I guess, that many people, especially at work, are sending round messages that look like the following one:

"Dear all,
as you may know, I stopped sending around Christmas cards, as I preferred to donate the corresponding amount to this charity. Merry Christmas..."

Immediately, my mind jumped to a similar initiative I saw in weddings. In Italy, usually, the happy couple, as a memento of their wedding, give out a little gift to their wedding guests. Recently, more and more brides and grooms, decided instead, not to gratify their kind guests in order to devolve the sum for those mementos to charities too.

Now, donating to charities is something I commend, do not get me wrong, but the two cases above are at least questionable from the unselfishness point of view.

I suppose that not sending a card is not a big sacrifice, in fact. If there is someone losing anything it's those who should receive the card that does not get sent. Likewise, the wedding guests, who turn up to the reception, are those who leave empty handed (but at least with their bellies full I hope). Bride and groom are not worse off because of the kind donation. Where's the sacrifice?

I repeat, the donation per se is very nice a gesture, but I suppose it feels even better when you're not doing it at your own expenses.

After all this I decided that this Christmas I want to be good too.
Cards, presents are not enough!
I decided I will donate all YOUR money to my favourite charity, if you are so kind to put me your card details in the comments below, I will bless you...

Web oriented or net guided

2008-12-04T22:02:00.006Z

This is about insecurity. Recession breathing on our necks and causing abnormal bowel movements. And yet big retailers announcing profits here and there.

We thought that cool guys had a MAC

but now

the magic box says a lot of cool people have PCs too.
One does not know what to think.

For someone between 16 and 70 there are a lot of decisions to make:
Which car? Insurance? Mortgage? Supermarket? Flight? Christmas present?
Can we solve our doubts?
Thanks to the cool American military forces, Yes we can!(TM owned by the American Democrat - in fashion again).

Money, travels, supermarkets have their own comparison websites. There is also an online shop for all the right ideas for next Christmas and beyond.

I say it is fantastic... well until you discover that mortgages and car insurances differ from each other in amounts that yearly correspond to the total of cinema tickets you buy (and I do not go that often, you know). In order to save up on your food shopping you should visit each of the surveyed supermarkets for less than three items, because coffee is cheaper in one but detergents are not... And you'll waste invaluable time for 20 pounds a month. Buying the coolest gadget does not insure you against getting the wrongest gift for your sweetheart and, finally, the cheapest air fare includes the insignificant detail that your luggage allowance is lighter than advisable amount of underwear.

Comparing is good, do not get me wrong, but not conclusive. Nevertheless we feel the need of being instructed, without asking why. Now the first question when looking at a product that seems to good to be true, should be where's the catch? How can I get a good service, half-price? Once you spotted the trade-off, then you decide whether to go for it. But, hang on, that involves thinking.
And we can't do that can we? Nay too much of a hassle, let us google for it.

Questions

2008-11-20T21:58:00.004Z

Today, following the example of one of the most interesting bloggers I had the chance to run into, I decided to respond to the questions below, about this blog. Obviously, without being so serious about it.
1. What is your blog about?

The best answer is that I use my blog as an overflow container for my brain. I speculate, meditate, and when I cannot keep it within anymore, I blurt it out here.

2. What will you never write about?

There is no limit in theory. As the past posts prove I can write about everything generating cyberwaste, and hoping to increase my binary footprint and contributing to the blogal warming, until net-enviro-mentalist will finally invade the Net because all the fuss about global warming will have withered.

3. Have you ever considered leaving science?

OK, if you have not bothered following the link above, you probably should know that the original questionnaire comes from a science blog, hence this question. Bit off topic for this blog but, if you must know: yes I did and keep doing it. Like Mark Twain for tobacco, I left science a hundred times so far, but took it up again the following day as I woke up.

4. What would you do instead?

I'd write novels, become rich, and buy a castle where I'd grow old with Monica, breeding horses. However, given the success of this cheap experiment (1 follower, so far), I doubt it would be easy

5. What do you think will science blogging be like in 5 years?

I haven't got a clue. I hope it stays cool, interesting and accessible as it is in the few examples I have come across so far.

6. What is the most extraordinary thing that happened to you because of blogging?

That someone was amused by what I wrote. Being interesting is great, but it depends on the subject you talk about, being entertaining is way more difficult.

7. Did you write a blog post or comment you later regretted?

Comments more than posts. I meditate less on comments and sometimes I argue too harshly, when it is not entirely necessary. People tend to take attacks to their arguments personally, and my attitude contributes to this.

8. When did you first learn about science blogging?

Three weeks ago.

9. What do your colleagues at work say about your blogging?

None of them ever gave me the impression to be aware that I had a blog.

OK that was it for the official questionnaire. Unfortunately, the telly is still engaged so I am afraid I will need to bother you more with other questions.

10. What are the best posts?

Those which conjugate interest and fun proportionally. Blogs about recipes for instance, are not that funny although very interesting, but if they tell about your husband first attempt to cook one, after 25 years away from the pans, they might be funny.

11. What are the worst ones then?

Those that are cryptic. Blogsphere is motley and if you blog, it means you want to communicate something. I see little use in being opaque, you might as well not write

12. Why on earth do you blog?

First, it is my favourite means of whittling away time when Monica is watching unbearable programs on our telly, preventing me to improve my skills on the PlayStation 3. Secondly, I hope to entertain the occasional reader and most importantly my faithful only follower.
Third, it is good English practice. In this post I used three new words I just learned. Try and find them...

Please let me be ill, it looks good on telly

2008-11-13T22:15:00.002Z

This time it is medical fiction that grabs me. I mean, ER, Grey's Anatomy, House MD, all full of hot and very clever people. Patients sometimes are good looking and with interesting stories too. It all makes you feel like getting yourself an injury and go hang out at the hospital for a while.
It is not the classic porn nurse anymore. No, that is so old-style and primitive.
I want to have a stroke in Seattle and wake up so that Meredith Grey can sit next to me and, while I recover, we can talk about her troubled sentimental life or childhood.
I want to catch the rarest virus with camouflaged symptoms just to be interesting for Gregory House. I could be one of his wisecracks victim whilst I secretly breach into Allison Cameron's heart, I am so much better than Robert Chase.

One can say that is why it called is fiction. OK then I will switch on something more real. Reality shows anyone? Even better. Bunch of people put into a house (farm, or island), with zero contact with the outer world, doing absolutely nothing, and by the way it seems like they have been careful in picking camera-friendly people here too.

I like this reality in this box. I am tempted to literally jump inside my TV. What's the worst that can happen? I may hurt myself and end up in the Liverpool ER. Grey's Anatomy looks, Greg House wits all topped with the scouse accent. Who could ask for more? I am so doing it......

From black and white to color

2008-11-06T21:15:00.006Z

As it has been largely anticipated by pollsters, who finally got it right this time, Obama will be the 44th US President. No conspiracies this time, no recounts and even the most nervous Democrat is now relaxing and enjoying the moment two days later.
Satisfaction around the world was almost unanimous. The main reason was that 146 years after Gettysburg battle, in the 200th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln birth, an African American President will occupy the White House.
Personally, I agree it is a big achievement for the United States, and let me add, it was about time!
Nevertheless, Obama did not want to transform his battle for the highest office in the world into a race struggle, and I really hope he will resist to the temptation of celebrating his success as a race triumph. I sincerely hope he did not win just because he is black and voting for him was the new politically correct thing to do. The world press is not making him any favours stressing his ethnicity until obsession. We need much more than that. The world has put a lot of hope in this guy and in the Democrats. The fact he is black is a fortunate coincidence. Now, Americans and the others can let go of the racial taboo. It's been ticked off, in the usual American way: one guy proved anything is possible. That will not directly improve the dire statistics in ghettos, but at least redemption is not out of question apriori.
I hope, now that he's won, that we can focus on what he will do, forgetting what colour his skin is. The barrier is broken, let us see what is beyond that. One day, in 12 years, let us say, hopefully people will say:
"Obama was the first who understood how to fix the Middle-East problem, or was the man who averted the world recession of 2009,... oh yeah, by the way, he was the first black President of the United States".

As well as, anyone who visits or lives in Liverpool and is asked about Penny Lane says:

"Oh yeah it is the place The Beatles immoratalised in a song"

rather than "oh yeah I Googled for it and it was named after some James Penny, a famous slave trader"

Binding Fairy Tales

2008-11-01T22:27:00.003Z

On the last page of today's (01.11.2008) Guardian "Review" insert, there is an advert that takes all the available space.
A collection of all the most famous fairy tales authors of the past, worth £156, is offered for £9.95. Perrault, the Grimm brothers, H. C. Andersen, Aesop and the anonymous Arabian nights all for less than 10 quid.
We will also receive the Blue Fairy Book (alone worth other 34.95) free of charges.
All we have to do is fill out a form and send it along with our payments details to the address specified and...
...Well and(according to the small print) that will serve as introduction to an exclusive book club. Joining this club, which is exactly what we apply for when we post our form, means agreeing on buying two more books from a Catalogue (which is nowhere better specified) within 4 weeks and two further within March 2009.

Two hours ago two persons knocked on my door, flashing some badge, and saying they were from an electricity and gas supplier not based in my area. They offered me an annual credit of £100 plus a prospect of having bills 5-10% cheaper than my current provider. They funnily enough refused to leave a contract so I could examine it carefully in my own time, or any informative leaflet, with the excuse they had very few of them left.

It must have been the same for those who bought in the hedge funds or whatever were those products that made the all banking system collapse in the past few weeks.
People are attracted to bargains. Money is the primary factor, but there is also the secret drive of being smarter. You'll get books that general public pay hundreds of pounds for 15 times less as much. Your gas provider charges you more because it's had the monopoly and thinks of itself as the owner of the network; but you can show'em now. Normal people put money in saving accounts, you can earn 10 times as much investing on those combined products, there is a small risk, but it practically never happens (oh yeah!).

It would be easy not to trust these people. The difficult is not trusting ourselves. Being wary of the stranger is innate. Suppressing our own instinct of being smart daredevils that float over the ignorant bleating crowd, is damn harder.

Bargains are out there, I am sure. But usually it is you that have to chase them, very rarely they knock at your door.
Sorry, have to leave now. I have to phone and order this lamp I saw on telly. Apparently if you rub over it...

From Begging to differ to different beggar

2008-10-22T22:37:00.003+01:00

This post is a reaction.
When I was younger everything was different from what I expected. However this seems abstract and, therefore, not accurate. It simply was that I did not have what other people had (skills, looks, partners) and was not like other people.
The general opinion then was: It is good that you are different. Do not try to be like the others. Defend your individuality.
This is the most anti-social and abused advice one could get.
If, on one hand, one should not indiscriminately accept models from outside, it is far more dangerous to refuse everything. The former could, in the worst case, make you a brainless ewe that will follow the trend, but eventually survive floating on normality. The latter could turn you into an outcast.
Different is not good in principle.
One has to observe the surrounding world. Ask simple questions like: why I am not happy and other people are. And the first question should be, always: am I doing something wrong?
Too easy (and wrong) to say: that would not work for me, if you do not explain rationally why it would not work.
Individuals are often wrong, collectivity are less often. There are rationales under general behaviours and conventions that should be discarded only if you can come up with valid arguments against them.
It is a simple exercise in humbleness to take every advice under consideration and maybe reject it, but on a logic basis. Saying: "I am not doing just because it came from someone else than me" is just ridiculous and the sign of disguised arrogance. It is equivalent to say I have got nothing to learn from outside, and this will not take anyone very far.

The perfect job

2008-10-02T22:04:00.003+01:00

What is the perfect job?
Many answers to this question, most of them containing some among the following words: self-fulfillment, satisfaction, challenges. The cheekiest of you will also throw in money and reasonable office times.
All good.
But let me tell you about a paradise. A niche.
I will describe the job spec first.

Flexible hours, often possible to work from home. The higher you progress the slacker is the degree of control that other have on your job. Temporary or permanent may be the contract you have, it is virtually impossible to fire you before its natural expiry (in order to be given the sack earlier you have to screw up so badly that police must be interested).
If you dare enough, you can get refunded even perks like your home broadband with the excuse that you work from home. I heard of people whose furniture or electronic gadget have been kindly provided by the organisation they work for, to a significant extent.
I am not talking about football stars nor X factors winners: I am talking about Academia.
Before you jump at me: not everybody enjoys such benefits, but there is quite a few.
The interesting is not that such phenomenon exists. It is, rather, why?
Do not be fooled by the usual geeky and slob-like appearance of the so-called boffins. Academics handle more money that you see in a decade.
Like big company executives, they have budgets and employees, and, quite naturally, also fringe benefits.
There is one difference, though. If a manager screws up, he gets the sack, or, does not get any bonus the following year, or in the rosiest scenarios for the unlucky sod, his company will be punished by the market and his job might be in danger.

Academia does not have this. In other words, its managers do bad? There is no accountability. Maybe there will not be as many funds next year, but his job is guaranteed. And his benefits too.
Why? Because we are in the knowledge era. Common people and government look at us (because I work in this environment) in awe and bewilderment. They do not dare to ask or question the doing of academics.
The divide is to big. Academia would reply with a ton of documents filled with incomprehensible jargon that in boffins' opinions prove, without a shade of doubt, that last year they've being busy saving our poor earth and making it a better place for all mankind.
Nonsense!

The reason lies in exactly in the fact that people do not understand them. Scientists failing explaining the benefit of what they are doing to other people, are not doing anything useful.
Mind, I said "explaining the benefits" not explaining how they achieve those.
Universities have education as foremost purpose. If their component do not form people enough educated to understand science and research aims, they have failed.
Like a tree that falls where nobody sees or hears it might as well have not fallen, a ground breaking discovery that cannot be understood by men is pretty much useless.
But if I, the least link of the academic chain, perceive this, is it ever possible that big guns up the hierarchy do not get it?
Unlikely. Then why no one acts? Because, an old Southern Italian say goes like: "the less you know the wiser I am".
If people understood, they'd ask questions. They'd start seeing that maybe, not everything I did last year was useful. That I wasted some money. Then, they might start questioning the opportunity of the benefits I mentioned above.
Flexible hours? Maybe it would be better that next year you turn up at 9 at work and stay until 5. What's that? Oh you focus better at home, do you? Yeah, well you know what? Maybe you should stay at home and focus on your next job, mate? And, since you need focusing, that broadband connection is more a distraction than other.
Oh and that mobile too...

Huck

Peculiar recurrence in time

2008-09-11T22:34:00.006+01:00

On 11 September 2001 4 hijacked planes stunned the Western world crashing in the heart of the US, killing thousands. A network of Islamic terrorists claimed responsibility, allegedly as a revenge for all the crimes that heathens committed in the past against Islam and as a warning that the wrath of God can punish everyone and hit everywhere. 7 years later I'd rather speak of another 9/11 (as the American refer to it).
On the same day, 179 years before (1822), the Catholic Church started making amends for one of the many mistakes in its history. The College of Cardinals admitted that Galileo Galilei was right, as the Earth was not still at the centre of our universe, it moved around the sun (http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2008/09/dayintech_0911).
The desperate attempt of representing the only source of truth led the Catholics to torture, kill, negate the evidence as well as the same utopia made it possible to persuade 19 men to throw themselves and other innocent, unlucky people in the hell of the Twin Towers.
The same sheer nonsense, persuades millions of Americans that they have been invested by God of the role of being sheriffs of the world, at same time an Italian (ex showgirl) minister believes she has got the duty of re-establishing morality on a delicate millenarian problem such as prostitution.
Science, just to stick to religion, has proved, with unequivocal documentary sources, that the history of Jesus is very different from the one they tell about the Christ. The Pope, nonetheless, writes a book that as a premise, dogmatically negates two centuries of scientific investigation, exhorting people just to close their eyes and ears and ignore it.
We should look, instead. And think. If there is one thing that 9/11 should leave as a legacy, is that no one should think or act on our behalf. If there is a God that loves us, He will reveal Himself to each of us, without needing intermediaries. We are perfectly equipped with working brains, we do not need governments that decide what is disgraceful or what is moral. We need societies that open the knowledge to everybody so that each one of us can make the right decision on his own. No greater good but the possibility of knowingly recognise the good.

The bitter yardstick

2008-08-20T22:07:00.004+01:00

There is one thing I always do: I listen. It is something I learned. It was not natural, I acquired it and I owe it to a good friend of mine who used to take his time before replying to my remarks.
The effect of this, unfortunately, is one of the likeliest reasons why a lot of people cannot stand me. The fact that I, in fact, think through every remark is made to me, makes my arguments very nasty, precise and difficult to dismantle, giving out the usual big-headed attitude that people accuse me of. The thing is that I always tend to be the most bitter judge of myself so that if I acquit myself, it is very unlikely that someone else can find me guilty. Not that I cannot be wrong, of course, but it takes at least as much thinking as I spent, to retort. People, usually are not bothered, so they prefer the shortcut of saying I am arrogant and a know-it-all.
That is the ultimate test, though. If one is cannot be bothered to go deep and argue with me, and to have the same patience in examining matters as I did, then maybe is not that interested in me. Hence I cut him/her off. Alas, almost everybody behaves so, giving me the impression that few people actually care. Funnily enough, though, I seem to be in the wrong there, as I tend to be wary of the majority of the individuals around me. Bitterness is what is perceived most by others, and again they stop on the surface and do not investigate on why is that. Obviously, I do not expect that everyone is interested in me, but then I wonder why people do not stop earlier and refrain from passing swift judgments on my being resentful and leery.

Huck

When an enemy dies...

2008-07-31T09:46:00.002+01:00

it's like a part of you goes with him, or rather her, because that is the case today. It is the bit of your personality that you either developed as a reaction to her or thatwas already there and just got stronger and stronger.

Anyway, one of my enemies died last night.
Almost unconsciously, she influenced my life so importantly, that I do not think I am that far from the truth if I say that my career is what it is now as a reaction to her refusal to work with me.
I do not know her enough to say what she was like, as a person, or in private. Professionally though, I think she summarised many of the characteristics of the Italian academic system (and between she and her husband they covered almost the totality).
Nevertheless, I feel sorry for her. And I feel even more sorry reading the official condolences sent by the head of the place where we both worked together.
She was not a bright example for researchers, she did not teach anybody the importance of the scientific investigation, and, above all she did not have the faintest idea of what constructive criticism meant.
She was moody and stubborn.
But she was the only one that read this blog instead of many other colleagues.
So, here I say my heartfelt goodbye, get some rest now, the arguments are just suspended, I'd say for a couple of centuries, until I get there.

Huck

The Esquire The adventurer and two cents from the barrel

2008-07-14T21:33:00.007+01:00

At the time of writing I am on my couch with a copy of Esquire Magazine (July 2008 issue) open on page 64.

A little bit of introduction is needed here. I bought it in an airport because it came almost for free with Men's Health (about which I will maybe talk another time). It read on on its glossy cover: THE MAGAZINE FOR MEN WHO MEAN BUSINESS, and the I thought: what the hell! It is worth an extra quid to find out. The fact that this was written in white over a blinding yellow should have warned me they were not that serious, but it was wrapped in cellophane and I could not investigate further without purchasing.
This morning, on the train I opened it, and curiously started browsing. I read an "interesting" interview with Andrè Agassi admitting he stalked Steffi Graf like a normal dork would do, and the column titled "Inquire: the adventurer, Fat Track Get Charter" by the Finch & Partner CEO, Charles Finch. Here the author moaned for a whole page about his personal private jet pilot having died in a plane crash causing him infinite pain as he has now to catch in commercial ordinary public flights, sitting next to oversized fellow passengers. All my simpathy to the poor CEO.

However, this was only the appetizer for what I found on page 64.
Some David Baddiel, apprently eminent enough to earn his own Wikipedia entry (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Baddiel), writes about feminism and the male sexual perversions. The interesting incipit of his enlightnening column reads as follows:
"At the time of writing, I'm in Italy and Silvio Berlusconi is on the telly." Apparently he refers to the time in which a girl stood up during a TV appeareance of the forthcoming Italian PM asking for advice as she did not have job. The vituperated man just replied: "You're too beautiful to be worried about working, you should marry a millionaire that spoils you". Our Baddiel was disgusted and insulted on behalf of all women community, saying that maybe this kind of reply represents the anti-emancipation feelings of the Italian people. He says that Italian TV with model-shaped attractive women almost naked gives the idea that Italy is not the place to live. Even football is nowadays overrated in over there with respect to UK Premier League.
Well, he might have spent a couple of weeks in Italy, I have been living in the UK for the last two years and a half and, seriously, I do not think Mr. Baddiel has much be proud of.
We might have sexy girls on TV and maybe even some in the Parliament but we have not invented page number three on tabloids where naked chicks pose for middle age blokes to drool upon, whilst pretending to be reading the news.
He may be surprised when he walks in the streets of Rome but that is nothing compared to what you see over here, in Liverpool, come weekend nights. Whatever is the temperature outside, it is never too low to persuade women to show less flesh, and sometimes there is so much out that you feel like you're in a city-wide butcher's.
We might have a PM that jokes a lot, or even that is a joke himslef, but that is what people voted for, I hope this is out of question. UK taxpayers, instead, pay an allowance to the Prince of Wales who lately made the headlines for modifying his cars to better fit his wife's enourmous hat. The current UK Prime Minister has not been directly voted, he succeeded to Tony Blair, promising to call an election very soon, on June 27th 2007 (over one year ago) . He changes his mind with eye-blink rapidity, overthrowing reports from commisions he created himself, when he does not like the conclusions. That is democracy indeed.
British public service expecially, public railways are as sharp as their Italian counterparts (regularly late and overcrowded), but they cost 5 times as many, and do not collapse because British commuters do not protest as they need alcohol to express almost anything loudly.
So, you ask me, what's the difference, and why are you there instead of staying in Italy? Simple. They have money. Great Britain is rich. How they got to that wealth is dubious, but it's there. Maybe not for much longer as we crooked Italians are already settling down up here ;-)

Watch out David...

Huck

PS: English football is so superior that English FA just last year sacked an Euro 2008 incapable Steve McClaren to hire, for a record breaking fee, whom? Hold on... what's he called? Fabio Capello? Where's he from again?

Barrel music market

2008-07-03T22:09:00.004+01:00

I am in constant search for music. I love working with my headphones in my ears as my brain seem to stale if it has not distractions during the boring work routine. The problem is that if I bought all the music I listened to these days I'd be broke. Moreover, if I had to decide which album to keep or listen to a second time, among the last 20 I played I'd say two. For the sake of completeness they are: The Kooks' latest (Konk) and Willie Nelson's Red Haired Stranger and I still have to finish Tom Waits' one (promising though).
The point music industry makes is that it is only fair to pay for people's work and I'd agree if there was a certain level of quality assurance. With digital music revolution nowadays the bulk of the production is intangible without packages or CDs therefore the same music album should be sensibly cheaper than the product off the shelves of HMV or Virgin. Truth is it is not. The majority of albums on iTunes (to name just one) cost around 7.99 pounds, not cheaper enough. Plus, one can find the same thing for free, and bin it most of the times as 90 percent of the album is a commercial production built around one decent single. Corporate mentality. They need to sell. Fair enough I say: we need to save up. Why marketing laws are good only to those with huge profits and they turn them around against you when they mean you not giving your money to them?
At the end of the day you're damaging the artist to a much lesser extent than the loss you induce on the big corporates.
Will there be any market for CDs then? I say yes. You cannot lose face with your best friend if you give him an USB stick full of dodgy MP3s for his birthday. But what will you buy? Sure something that is worth having and not the latest 16 years old pop star wanna be. Quality is hard to die on market, but this means majors won't be able to get away with cheap productions exploiting boy bands, they must scout for talents as in the good old days. Artists will go the usual routes, without Pop Idol or X-Factor shortcuts that take you from singing under the shower to the telly. For those, I'd keep them on MySpace if we must.

Huck

More real, but it is TV

2008-06-26T22:24:00.003+01:00

One thing struck me the other day while I was watching Sex & the City on TV. Now, I've never been a fan of the four horny New Yorkers, as many know, and I am quite positive I won't be one in the near future either. I was watching it just out of precaution, since my partner was, and women must be carefully supervised, otherwise they come up with sentences like: "You do not understand me!" and when you try and find out what's wrong, with the softest of: "What's wrong darling?" They snap at you with: "See? If you loved me, you'd know without asking"... But I am straying now, let us go back at two nights ago.
My sweetheart had just fallen asleep and I was carefully reaching for the remote, when the scene showed the four women having breakfast on a Saturday morning at a coffee house. It looked as it was an usual rendez-vous among the four of them, and, they were discussing about their own private lives without omitting the dingiest detail.
I sat there for minutes before I could remember when I last did that. After 90 seconds of more and more appalling search I dug out a couple of moments when I eye-witnessed true life sharing between friends (this search excluding present and past partners, obviously) in the last four years.
Then, I tried to figure out what on earth have my friends and I been talking about for the past four years. Meaningless and often redundant chats started floating in my memory lake, stale and fictitious. It might be me, but I have the sensation that people do not talk anymore about themselves. They try and make up some fictional self to show around, which is, by the way, very difficult to create and maintain, and that explains also the reluctance that nowadays people show to go out and meet up. The new cool places to meet are those who have the music so loud that people could hardly listen to each other, hence no need to talk, or even better the Internet.
Incredible, but true, in this case, we have something to learn from TV, from Sex & City...
Oh well after I said that, I'd better go...

Huck

Imagine

2008-04-25T22:58:00.004+01:00

Imagine no possessions

I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man

John Lennon (1971)

Well, John, since I am in Liverpool now - though you wrote it probably in New York, let us try then.
I guess you mean that there should not be any poor at all. What would happen on earth if there were not any poor around? We'd all be rich I suppose. Or not? What makes someone rich? No no John I talking material now. Not happiness nor karma, nirvana and that oriental stuff you thought what cool then. What made you rich was the fact you had money. And, in particular one is rich when he's got an amount of a scarce resource - material (gold) or immaterial (money), in a greater quantity with respect to a certain quantity of other individuals. The greater is the number of individuals that have less the richer is the one who's got more. It then seems clear that one needs at least one poor in order to be rich.

Well - you say - no possessions means no rich and no poor, no money at all. Let us consider this hypothesis. We do not earn money or anything for our work. None pays for nothing. The production is a collective effort. For example your mate Bono, his U2 lot, and you if you were still among us, would have then to produce your art pieces without the drive of earning. You and I get given the same amount of food, a similar house, a car each (or as many are deemed appropriate by the universal mankind union - Imagine there's no countries). Maybe in 1971, after you were much better off than when you started in Liverpool, you'd not care a lot. Let me doubt, though, that at the beginning you'd put the same amount of effort you did when you still had to make it to be a star. Maybe, a lawyer, say, would not push it if he'd got paid the same regardless of the final outcomes of his cases. Maybe, (private) doctors would not strive that hard if their success rate would not affect the number of their patients and, therefore, their future incomes.

Well John, I imagined all that, and frankly looks like nightmare rather than a dream,

Huck

Be Green and Pay

2008-02-28T09:24:00.005Z

[Picture taken from the Guardian - http://image.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Environment/Pix/pictures/2007/11/06/baggodwinarticle.jpg]

This morning, turned on my TV on the news: M&S will charge 5p for each carrier bag come May 6 (http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/feb/28/plasticbags.marksspencer).

Every M&S customer then will pay for every bag he takes at the checkout. The news also says that this follows a successful trial carried out by M&S that resulted in a fall by 70% in the demand for polythene bags. The extra money raised will be devoted to improve parks and playgrounds (by a M&S partner).

"He [Sir Stuart Rose - M&S Chief Executive] said: "We want to make it easy for our customers to do their bit to help the environment and our trials have shown us that they want to take action."

The first doubt that arises is whether one can tolerate that a company, profit oriented is the right entity to impose "moral" or politically correct behaviours to people (customers).
The next is what they do it for?
For a start, one cannot deny that environmental concerns are the flavour of the month and it is good publicity for companies to sponsor initiatives that accommodate the collective green conscience. However , this usually - and this last initiative is no exception - falls on the shoulders of customers (see the green taxes on flights for instance).
But there are more reasons, maybe. In M&S case, there is the sponsorship of their partner Groundwork that will benefit from the additional cash generated by the carrier bag toll with no additional costs for M&S. Plus, as some cunning member of the early morning TV Audience noticed - for me and possibly millions of other thankful still sleeping fellows - carrier bags already did not come for free in supermarkets. Their cost is spread over goods that more or less aware customers buy every day. Therefore, either the price of a bag is equal or greater than 5p or there's some extra profit looming for M&S from this initiative.
The obvious - even for the drowsy ones - conclusion then becomes: will we witness a price cut reflecting this in M&S products come next May 6?
Let us just wait and see

Huck

This one got to the one I love

2008-02-14T11:21:00.005Z

Hi there,
usually posts here are a little bit detached from the contingency. I use to tell people that read my blog that I post when I cannot keep it. Basically, this blog is a sort of overflow management device for my - alas - limited brain. Well today I am breaking the rules, and that is the advantage of being the owner of both the rules and their scope. I post about an event which is still occurring or that has happened too recently.
This post is for the other half of the sky or of my bed very often now.
Yeah that is for you my darling, my treasure, my little gold mine.
I never thought you'd represent this much to me. You're the living proof that good things happen to those who wait. Words start failing, there's simply not enough expressiveness in language to describe the vibrations you give to my soul.
I hope I do not seem to weird but the only thing I can say about it is that:

With you I make sense

and, believe me, that has never happened to me before and, so far, is the best thing one like me can feel.

Huck

Two cents about love

2008-02-01T22:16:00.005Z

I know of people that keep moaning about the difficulty of finding Mr.(Mrs.) Right. But if you have a look at where they're seeking, then, no wonder. I could track back some interesting blog entries about this as examples but I refrain for obvious reasons (I'd cite them if they cited me ;-) ).
As you may already have guessed I have my own opinion about the issue and, guess what else? I am about to disclose it to you.

In fact, there are two main facts that I observed.

The first one is a lie. Or better is something else in disguise: love at first sight. It comes in many flavours, but the majority of them have one common factor. It is sudden and unexplainable. I tend to be cautious with irrational thoughts, because if they're irrational they cannot immediately qualify as thoughts (which, on the contrary cannot do without a rational underpinning, can they?). So what is really the passion that grasps our soul in such an irresistible fashion? Well, let us face it: it is lust. Good old biological impulse. Maybe we've been lonely for too long. Maybe we've been sad for too long, and our brain is dying to find a getaway. At that point another, often boring, occupier of our abstract ego, the conscience, says: "Well, hang on, I cannot allow to admit that the body and the bio impulse drive this organism, we need to glorify all that, er... yes I got it, let us say it is love of the rarest nature, the inexplicable love at first sight"

Mind, there are example of the highest poetry deriving from such a mystification. I also would expect a sheer number of protesters - if I were not sure that you could count my readers using only one hand - saying that their 50 years long love story was born as love at first sight. As a matter of fact, I am not denying it. People are lucky. It is perfectly plausible that you meet someone and you fancy him/her and, eventually, he/she turns out to be your soulmate. What I am arguing here is that there's no such thing as gut feeling in love. You do not know in advance and you are not in love at the beginning. We have no statistics, on the contrary, on the number of stories that started as love at first sight and went downhill as soon as the second and the third sight occurred. I'd keep an eye on the number of divorces, though....

Wouldn't it be more reasonable to say: "I fancy him/her and I'll say I love him/her as soon as we've spent at least a whole month together?". It would to me, but I am afraid not quite so to the average Sex & City audience that still defines love as a irrational virus you occasionally catch.

The second one is almost a theorem for me. You have to learn to appreciate your being alone before you can have a satisfactory relationship. Many people get together because they're afraid of loneliness. What good can come from it? Suppose, for a moment, you are one of those, and let us assume, you get together with someone. Now, your constant concern will be: I need to secure this relationship so that I will never go back to square one. The most straightforward way, and therefore, the most used strategy is: let us just turn myself into what I think my partner likes. Of course, you may be lucky and already be the perfect soulmate having hardly to change anything. Very often though, that is not the case; you end up in mocking up a different self, usually with not much success, surely without enjoying your relationship. Moreover, even in the case mentioned before, in which, you're perfect as you are, you'll still have the fear of losing the relation you just acquired. If, on the contrary you do not dread being single, then, automatically your being a partner is not a gain, nor a prize. It represents just the natural evolution of the fact that you like someone who gladly reciprocates. There's nothing to win or, more importantly, to lose.

In a nutshell, as a friend of mine once told me, in love and relationships, one should just relax and enjoy, as much as possible, and leave the inexplicable to capable persons like Sarah Jessica Parker's Carrie. Oh, hang on, shouldn't the fact that her boyfriend's nickname is Mr. Big give any clue about what is that unexplainable thing she's after?

Have a nice night,

Huck

The Milestone

2008-02-01T10:10:00.003Z

OK today's 5 of 5 meaning it is Friday. A very important one, in fact. I finished what I started in December 2005. Technically, I have not finished yet for another six hours or so, but I thought I should blog now before I lose objectivity at the end of the working day on account of what will happen (or won't).
Two years ago I thought I would not stay in Liverpool University, and I still do (as a matter of fact, I am leaving), but for completely different reasons. Back then I reckoned I would have gone back to Italy after a good job experience and a insignificant social life.
Nothing is farther from the current reality. For a starter I am not going back to Italy. I'll change job affiliation as soon as Monday, and I will not move from Liverpool. I'll be a commuter to Manchester, trying to remember how it was to commute back in Italy. In these two years I started to feel more and more at home in Liverpool than I felt in Italy. Friends are not the same down there, or it may be that I have changed. Or, if you ask me, it's rather that I can look at them from a more objective detached standpoint. Many of them just suck, let's be honest. Some friendships have strengthened (Mimmo a point in case) some have loosened (no names here, sorry but I am sure they know), some have just disintegrated (there you go).
Job-wise these two years have been a roller-coaster, a very special one in which the ticket man tried sometimes to kick you out in the middle of the ride. I learned a lot, as I was supposed to do, and, in many future occasions, I will know better for sure. I have been forced to work alone in 90% of the cases and, sometimes, even to step in for someone. Therefore, I'd be a liar if I said I will miss my job in Liverpool: most of the job consisting of dealing with myself, I'll take it with me. The UK Academia in many ways likens the sad Italian one. Same team attitude and a lot of big-headed people. They dig their research holes so deep that none can disturb them and try to discourage any sane attempt to do anything valuable (but this maybe deserves a post of its own). No, I will not miss my job. Nor some of my colleagues.
OK time to go now. A page turns a new day begins, new options, new battles, new awareness. Fare thee well Huck at UNILIV,

"A sadder and a wiser man,
He rose the morrow morn"

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834), British poet. The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (l. 625–626)

Have a nice day,
Huck

Scare

2007-10-16T00:19:00.001+01:00

Tonight I'll talk about scare. There are many kinds of it really, if you think of it. I am more interested tonight in that sort of blocking feeling whose mild version is called anxiety. I started thinking about it tonight because a memory came up to my mind. It was me at the age of maybe 8, or not much older anyway, trying to jump off the highest springboard (the third one was its abbreviation) of the swimming pool we used to swim in on summer.
I think, the first time I spent a whole 30 minutes up there. I actually dried up both outside (skin and swimsuit) and inside (guts and mouth). I cannot remember if I jumped that very time or if I needed another go. Eventually I did, but what came up to me today was that feeling of being on the edge of it but honestly not really able to do it. It is not just immobility is a struggle, very harsh between your soul (brain? rationality? courage? pride?) and an obscure innate natural force that just holds it. Where 'it' was my body in that case... some other times 'it' was my tongue when I wanted to say something, or better should have and I did not, or my fists when I wanted to punch someone bigger than me, but knew better, as it was likely I'd get a beating. Cannot really tell if fright won more battles than it lost. For sure, it lost the one at the swimming pool, as sure as it is not dead. Many times I chicken out, disguising it more or less and most of the times getting away with it. But at the end of the day there is always that clever guy (whose name slips out at the moment) who said: There cannot be courage without fear.
Have a nice night,

Huck

Stories

2007-10-10T22:50:00.001+01:00

Tracy Chapman whining in the background

I could write to you about many things.
There is the girl who's never been with a man, the one who's afraid to live,
there is the one who thought she had everything , that left for getting more and found she hadn't much. There is Dear John who found how hard is to negotiate with an Italian. There is the old boss who once said if you go you ain't coming back and then after a while said: "There's always a place for you here". There is the guy who hit the jackpot and the other who'll never win it since he refuses to play. There is the friend who never leaves you, there are the ones who are thinking of leaving. There is the flip of a coin, the equivalent of the the butterfly wings

Pick your story. I'll tell you about it, and I am good at it. I tell a lot of stories.

In the meantime I sink and relax in this wonderful fall night in Liverpool....

Have a nice night,

Huck

Soaked and drying up

2007-06-13T22:05:00.000+01:00

22.06 the UK time when I start this. Got back soaked from a dinner with project colleagues. KT Tunstall "Under the weather" on iTunes. Odds of finding someone interesting on MSN very very near to zero: I am not bothered to even log on to it.

These project meetings always put me in a good mood and that is not necessarily as good for me. You see a lot of people committing to this and that. A lot of: "Ok... could do it" or "No problem" or "That's easy.... when do you want it ready?" floated in the meeting room. I ask myself do we really need to meet up for working out the problems that just the day before seemed simply impossible?

Were we lying in our email flames yesterday or are we now?

Drying up and so do my thoughts about this post.

After all that is what is happening: the fun's drying up .

Have a nice night,

Huck

The unfinished drink

2007-06-02T10:36:00.000+01:00

“There were lots of things to stop and see – and then it was time to go, always time to go.” from Kurt Vonnegut Jr. Slaughterhouse 5

It may happen that you’re in a period in which you experience too much and too quickly, so that your senses can cope but your brain struggles to elaborate. Life shoots you top speed in many places and you cross the fluid of many experiences interacting with the sorrounding environment in crashes that are not perfectly elastic.
The desire for continuity grows, especially if, everytime, you recognise bits of what you like while you bounce from one place to another. And your inconscious reacts no matter how down your rationality pushes back its protest. It emerges in reactions like leaving an unfinished drink on a table where you had a good time. That is the mark. The unmistakable sign I enjoyed being there. The silent protest to the obvious fact that it has to end at some point. At normal speed you have time to look into things, get bored of some people, discover their defaults. At this, you simply cannot, and the advantage and the problem at same time is that some of them look wonderful from the small sample you tasted. The bottom of the glass is for you all. It means: I wish I had more time with you, but this stupid world usually puts an end to things. Probably a musician would have turned all this in a beautiful song and dedicated it to the people that were around that table. I am not an artist I am afraid, and my people, the shooting stars in the nights of my journeys will have to be happy with this post, written very early in the morning faraway from home.

Hope I have not drunk my last sip of you yet, and that it will never happen.

Huck

Sunday wearing out

2007-05-13T22:52:00.000+01:00

Well as I write this, I look back to the last post I wrote and I think to myself that though just a bunch of days has passed, a lot has changed inside me. Not that anyone could notice though. I will not tell anyone what happened. It's private mates. None can imagine because none has the whole big picture. As usual I am a lot of people and many people, even the closest, have only a fragment or some fragments of me. The reason is that I do not trust anyone to be up to bear the whole. And so far I proved to be right. Some are so self-concerned that they do not feel when I need to talk. You advertise the openings but they simply cannot see. Some are, instead, too busy with self pitying and commiserating that could not really be helpful. So I spend days like this one. Alone, at home, doing stuff, relaxing, chatting with faraway friends, plotting the next heart shredding of the next unfortunate lady. Well it is not my fault, you know. They come to me bold and self confident. I warn them: "mind you, you're gonna feel sorry for yourself shortly". And they do not believe me. Then after they moan: "You're so insensitive" and all the rest of it. They claim they want a real relationship. Bullshit! They want to possess. They want to be in control. They want to be in charge. And this, for the moment, is the only thing I promise I will never allow.

A lot in this post that should really be developed but it is just a small burst and take it as it is please. It would not be a hell of a problem looking at the number of average readers and comments.

Have a nice night.

Lose with style

2007-03-20T23:50:00.000Z

"Well played son!" That is what the referee has kept telling me after the last two football matches I played in the league. Two defeats. "Thanks for the invitation but I will have to decline" that is what was in an email I awaited for 28 days of incredible patience for a person like me. Another loss. Again, you did not do bad. Like for the football you come back to your performance and wonder: if I acted differently, maybe ...
Yeah maybe. Truth is: in both cases you do not really know where you cocked it up. Where you need to improve? You cannot find a satisfying answer and you start being afraid that there is not really much you can do. Maybe in the footie it was your teammates' fault. Maybe your invitation was ok but the recipient was not. In both cases you will never entirely find out. What you do? The image of Hugh Grant keeps standing before my eyes in one of the last scenes of "Love Actually". Save as much as you can: smile, wave and bow out. Hopefully you'll play another match or you'll have another invitation to make to a different recipient.

Inside, anyway, there remains the uncomfortable sensation that maybe if you had had a decent chance...
As long as they don't know they won't regret but you do and it is down to you again to feel sorry for that, it is the most bitter drop to drink, but thanks God the last in every situation.

Good night

Changes

2007-03-18T19:15:00.002Z

Do they really happen?
Someone said: "Change takes time" How long? "From now to then". :-) The thing is that, very often, you find out that nothing changes. Take me. I spent the last year and a half chasing a change and the only thing that changed indeed was me. I learned more English and acquired more cooking skills; along with that I developed more anxiety and I am more scared of Mondays than I used to be. Job is the same old joke apart from changing employer and social life... well it is ok when I sort it out for myself. None takes the lead or makes a decision on my behalf. No one gives you anything meaning that every achievement has to come out of your bloody hands. Fools are always there, very often in charge, showing amazing incompetency or non existing social abilities and you find yourself wondering how on earth can they get by. Get by? That is not correct, they're actually thriving in their self made world, where everyone else is not up to the task that anyway they're not accomplishing in the slightest. Self indulgence and conscience wipe off that what they use. And it does work throughout Europe and maybe the world. To be honest I am currently afraid of crossing the Atlantic. I prefer to avoid the delusion that even there is the same.

Social life? Apart for few hours of bliss during the weekend there's no such thing. However, it works only if you decide where how and with whom. God forbids I rely on someone else to organise the fun. Nothing will come out of it. And with girls you have to be damn quick. In the rare occasion you can put out your best look and the right crack what you can hope for is one warmer night and nothing more. So summing up, the best of luck is wearing the right clothes and the right smile and drawing out a good one in a language you do not master and you'll end up in bed with someone that is hopefully not a whale or that will not turn to be scary the morning after.

That is all. 2000 km for that: same job and not very rewarding social life.

Then there's when you come back for holidays. Oh I dread the moment. People who's been looking forward to seeing you again just to pour their misery on you. And your inner craving for kicking their arses that grows.

Not bad for a change, innit?
Well, better off cleaning the bathroom

Bore

2006-11-01T18:58:00.000Z

Boring has a very onomatopoeic sound. Think of the way you utter it. If you exaggerate its utterance you inflate your mouth like you are puffing the air out of it. And today I did it (puffing) a lot. How can people stand a day in the place I am. Absolutely useless... I do not mean to offend anybody so I apologize in advance but cannot help saying that people seem dead. Nothing on... no place to go.

Sometimes I think that it is intentional. I think that it is convenient to anesthetize young people so that everything can keep going on as it does. Inertia is the key word. If your brain is still for a long time there is less and less likelihood that it will rise from its state and try and make some radical (and dangerous) change.

Therefore, you find people, young people like me, without an interest, an real one, very angry with I don't know who for having missed their chance to be someone. You ask them what did they do, or what do they plan to do for changing the situation. They reply they don't know, they can't do anything ... They simply do not realize that if they do not do anything there's no one that will do for them.

I met people around the world that were the opposite. They just did not care of future or of others. They knew just what they wanted, and in general it was not "I want to be a rocket scientist" or "a bilionarie". It was rather: "I want to see the world", "I want a funny job" "I want to learn as many foreign languages as I can". They wander around the earth grabbing any possibility breathing deeply every molecule of this poisoned atmosphere taking everything that could out of it.

They do not puff... They retain as much as possible for making every single bloody breath count. To make it different from the previous so as to make it a step forward . I guess I learned that during this year that is running out quicker than I expected or wanted (and I reckon it is a good sign). But when you come back here and I see what I mentioned before I feel powerless and without much to say.

This is it for now.

Take it easy lads,

On failures

2006-10-28T14:20:00.000+01:00

"Upon my word, there is nothing on the world so easy to explain as failure - it is, after all, what every body does all the time". From Susanna Clarke's "Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell" p. 98

A little bit slow in this period. At work mainly. Little progress, maybe almost stuck in very complicated experiment session for a paper. A very important one, and I feel that a lot depends on the outcome of this submission. For once, after a lot of time, I am afraid of not making it. Well, it is not that bad at the end of the day to shake your confidence sometimes. I feel human. I always disliked the cathegorical people (as I name them in my personal glossary of people). You know, those that: "I always do this", "I am like that", "I never do.../I always do".

Me myself, I do not know how I am. I don't know what will I do in a certain situation 99% of times until it occurs to me. Guess it is a good thing. In the sense that if one already knows how he/she will react to something it will be half worth living that situation, won't it?

There is also the sub-group of the cathegoricals: the tautological cathegoricals. In the sense that they express their unrefutable assertions about themselves and if one looks carefully, such assertions are trivially true. An example? "I am usually a very peaceful person until I get nervous." Those are very wise because none can contradict them but, as it happens in philosophy (as far as I know) little debate means little information.

I try not to state anything about me that goes beyond one day lenght. Because I do not think I would be able to keep coherent with respect to what I stated. I can fail it or I could be mistaken when I stated it, and I do not want to deprive myself of the liberty of failure. Not that I like to disappoint people, but it might occur and I don't want to build up expectations that I'll never fulfill.

This blog is strange. I always end up in twisted logic developments, that I like a lot but I am not sure other people like as well. However, it is not a problem since, except spammers, there are very few people reading me so I would not bother in changing my style. Or I could. Can turn it into a modern decadent poetry blog. Guess it is easy. Had a few samples of that. Take, for instance, some hardcore (???) songs . The process to compose the lyrics is very easy: put some gloomy phrases about some paranoia (the more depressed, the better result) you can think of and, every now and then, add the words: shit, vomit, piss and their derivatives/synonyms and you're done.

Well can't do now that I just had my lunch... Maybe another time (more certainly never I am afraid)

Take care

Deceiving Past

2006-04-30T19:16:00.000+01:00

“Memory is often unfair, on account of excessive indulgence” Alessandro Perissinotto – Una Piccola Storia Ignobile, 2006, p. 48

Usually things that come from your past appear more shining than they were actually or you remember just the good of what’s in your past. Sometimes you just stop and wonder what went wrong. How come some situations no longer hold if you were so happy and/or thoughtless? We tend to forget that whatever you decide there is a reason, whatever it is and however trivial it is. Past is charming because is so sure and fixed. Future, on the contrary is always blank, or sometimes very black (obscure). Of whatever colour, you picture it, what you know about it is practically useless. But the deception stands in the fact that instead of taking a pen and writing down the blank we are suggested by memories to sit back and stare at what is no more your life. It simply does not exist anymore. Deceivers rely on that. Whatever happen, one should, instead, remember that those crooks are the ones that made your thoughtlessness and happiness just a memory and forced you to abandon past to run towards a different future. Fear and anxiety are useful but when they make you more careful in thinking of what will happen. One does not need, for sure, to be afraid of losing something that is already in the past. The reason is that if it did not make it to stay in you present maybe was not worth of it or more simply it was not so beautiful as it appears now.

still in troubles

2006-01-07T14:38:00.000Z

I don’t know why in my flat doors are made so that they tend to shut. The idea of a shut door makes me feel nervous especially in this period of my life. A shut door means no escape or no way through it. I pretend to consider my decision of getting here as something that did not close any other door in my future hence the sight of a closed door makes me nervous.

Well for those that were tuned yesterday, another trouble was added to the list as this morning I discovered that shower did not work at all. This gave me the chance of ringing my landlord who said he warned the estate agency the day before my arrival as soon as his wife discovered it. Apart from the obvious considerations on the quality of the maintenance that I simply skip let us, if you want, describe what happened today after the tragedy broke up this morning.

As soon as I gathered from my landlord that the girl from the agency knew since yesterday the horrible truth about my shower, I finished up the cleaning (I guess there should be more than one cleaning to get everything tidy, I am afraid) and I went to the agency (luckily just around the corner). As she saw me she knew why I was there. She tried to justify saying that she had got the mail by the landlord stating the problem just 5 minutes after I went away with the keys yesterday. Pity she did not ring me at all throughout the rest of the day. My face was colouring darker and darker and then she kindly offered to call a plumber. Left my keys to her and went to work.

Before getting to university I entered a bank to see whether it was possible to set out a banc account. Bad luck even here! They asked me for passport, I handed it to them. Asked me for employer statement, I already had it… but “Sorry sir” – the lady sad I suspect grinning – “We need a statement by your employer that indicates the address in UK where you live”. I said I had the tenancy contract of the flat I rented. “We cannot accept it, sorry” – said she – “as we need your address stated by your employer”. Well guys have you ever heard that an employer certifies an employee address, and even more strange, such certification is more acceptable than the rent contract?

Went to university, very happy about the balance of the day since then: no worked out problems; +1 on the list of the problems to solve. Well once at office I did not have much to do apart from setting up many tiny things of which the half I couldn’t. I skyped a big friend of mine for more than an hour. Well thanks God he exists. Who knows what I would have done without that call. He made me feel cared of for one hour by someone who’s not my parents.

I cheered up so much I fancied buying a hoover (a monster one, just want to be sure it takes all the tons of dust in my flat away). Well went out from university, and headed to the agency to collect the keys. I hoped I had good news about the shower already repaired and then I wanted to go and by the hoover.
Also this project failed miserably. First the plumber only diagnosed the problem (I didn’t get it at all from the report of the girl of the agency) but didn’t worked it out because he had to be authorized by the landlord that wanted to know the price in advance and so on and so forth. At the end of the day I won’t have the shower repaired until Tuesday at least. Fortunately I can have bath, at least I am tidy. After having had such good news from the agency I bought something in the supermarket (awesome!) nearby. But this took me too much time as the hoover place closed at 5:30 just two minutes before I arrived in front of it. Well, life’s a matter of priorities, food comes first and sometimes you have to give up something in order to eat.

Well came here had another round of cleaning (it is never enough, you should have seen the cloth after I passed it onto the inner glass of the window in the living room).

Plans for tomorrow? Go to another bank. Get the hoover. Go to university (yes work on saturady, what’s wrong? Don’t know what to do I admit). Clean until the damned dust does not get away. Do I seem paranoiac? Maybe it’s because I do not have any book to read. I will buy a new one tomorrow…

Good night for now. If you have still patience see you tomorrow.

Stay tuned.

First Day in Liverpool Blues

2006-01-06T13:03:00.000Z

If you are reading this post, it means that I survived to post it on blog tomorrow. I am home it is Jan 5th (at its end actually as it is 9:37 pm). Home? Well at least what it will be supposed to be my place for the next to years: Liverpool city centre. A brand new start. Some of you would say: wonderful! A brave new world to discover, opportunities and so on… Well just read the diary of my day and then you will have an idea of what can occur to you (I mean in one of the best possible situations):

Yesterday I travelled from the town I used to live in for 27 years towards Milan. Waited for catching the flight to Manchester for about 6 hours in Malpensa airport (Liverpool is so poorly connected to Italy that you start thinking that going by car is not that bad). I agreed with the estate agent that my flat would have been ready for today so I booked a room in Manchester Airport Hotel (one of the most luxurious, mind you) and I spent a gorgeous evening, alone in the hotel restaurant (a mix of Thai Chinese and Malaysian cooking) where the most exiting thing was the message in the fortune biscuit that said more or less: “We can do little alone but we can do much together”. Depression and sorrow started increasing from 2% to 10%. Ok went to bed.

Today, after travelling by train to Liverpool I planned to leave to left luggage my cases. They were so heavy that I had to beg British Airways woman at check not to overcharge for exceeding weight stating I was moving for work and had no other chance to carry al needful thing s with me. She was touched (call it charm or mercy it went after all). But as soon as I found the left luggage stand there was a merry note saying: “Sorry no room for more luggage”. That meant for me that I had to find another alternative for leaving temporarily my cases. I had no chance but carrying them to University brand new (but so dusty) office that was 1 km uphill. Sorrow and depression index raised another 5% more.

Finally I managed to be on time at the agent office (actually 10 mins earlier) and the nice girl that looked after my tenancy proposal offered me a seat and a pile of sheets to sign and mark with my initials. As a son of two lawyers I started reading carefully the agreement and discovered (apart from some typos and the fact that document revision history was printed out as well) that it said that I should have paid (promptly it said) also some services that we agreed had to be charged on the landlord. The beautiful girl promptly corrected such clauses also because, I guess, she read on my face that I’d better reserved an hotel for a week than be fooled like that. The ending was that she gave keys saying: “Do you remember where the flat is? Ok from now on it’s all between you and the landlord (here’ his mobile) that lives in Ireland”. She ignored whether the alarm was on and how it worked. She simply supposed I was that clever that I would have found my way of activating everything in the house such as heating, washer, dishwasher and so on. She just reminded me that landlord’s wife had been there the day before cleaning it up properly. Well I don’t know then if English think that dust is part of the furniture and shouldn’t be removed when cleaning as I found plenty of it in my place.

Well I came home (trying to get used to call it like that). Tried and succeeded to cope with the electronic item they use to open the gate downstairs (why not simple keys? God only knows). And… surprise! The lift was out of order! Simply dead! Pushed the button once …nothing… twice… nothing … held it pushed … no way! Morse coded “please don’t let me down”…same result. Then I realized that had to come back to my office and carry home the overweight luggage and bring it upstairs. Didn’t I tell you that my flat is on the seventh floor, did I? Depression and sorrow dangerously raised over 50%.

I had to take a decision. Eat something in some place or carry home luggage and cook with what my dear mom sent. A look at the state of the pans gave me the final push to invest my money on Liverpool food market. In fact I granted myself a pizza in a place where pizza is taken curiously in a serious way. I will talk somewhere else about the way English write courses descriptions on restaurants menus but it is worth sociological investigation, trust me.

After refill I felt ready for collecting my bags and tried to cheer up myself planning to grab a cab at least on my way back home from University. Would you believe it? No free taxi for all the way back. And after a mile… the stairs! I do not remember much of it. Hope to forget it completely. Sorrow and depression near 70%.

Then my Liverpool friends rang me. It is a couple of colleagues whose female component I met at University when we both were in Bari. She moved to here more than two years ago and met this guy quite soon. Now they live together in a very fancy place. They were so kind they hosted me in December when I started working for University of Liverpool in order to allow me to find a proper flat. The mad me also the favour of keeping some stuff I brought on Dec. and it was time for me to collect it back. So after emptying my biggest bag I headed off to their place, trying to forget that in an hour I would have carried it full upstairs without any lift.

I went there and found them, smiling and relaxed. They’d just arrived from Italy and their bags were still packed with no hurry. Everything was calm and peaceful so that I went away tying not to spoil it all bringing them down with the mess I had at home and in my head. Depression and sorrow now was pointing towards 80%.

Came back. Climbed upstairs. Tried to unpack and put things in their place. Went out again. Did not want to clean up, did not want to cook. Just MacDonalds. Well and a ring home of course. None on the streets but some strange guys that begged for coins from me (didn’t understand almost anything of what they say).

Now here tapping on the keyboard of my laptop that by the way refused to turn on for a couple of dreadful minutes (after panic I discovered that even MAC need to be charged). Well, I am so tired I won’t set any alarm clock. No risk, there are not blinds on the widows yet. Landlord promised that in a week they should be there, we’ll see. Tomorrow, there’s bank account and a bunch of other things to buy and, hopefully some homemade cooking and even more hopefully some mental research work (am I asking to much of myself?).
Depression and sorrow rate? Too tired to assess it (thanks God)

Stay tuned for more. Good night

PACS VOBISKUM

2005-09-14T07:36:00.000+01:00

That is when things become confusing. Just two days ago the past UE President Romano Prodi, the forthcoming main opponent of of Berlusconi in the next elections in 2006, announced that his program includes the regulation of those unions between persons that currently are not included in the thousands of thousands of italian laws. The idea prompted by Prodi was the import (as in Italy we use to do more and more often) what in France were called PACS whose translation is "civil solidarity pacts".
Among these unions there are homosexual relationships, that represent the majority though not the totality of such kind of "de facto" families. Once again Vatican first by means of its own newspaper "Osservatore Romano" then by means of the voice of Italian Bishops' conference raised Its voice. Bible and Italian Consitution, claimed Bishops, say that society build on family that in its turn relies on marriage between a man and a woman.
First clarification by Prodi: "Didn't mean to confuse PACS with families, they are and will be different things". Unfortunately for our past President this didn't help setting down the dust. A variety of comments (that frankly can hardly be called idea and opinions) appeared, attacked or weakly defended Mr. Prodi's outing.
Honest, many defined as suicidal his announcement in a country that proved to be still influenced by Catholic moral. And many recall that this is the second time he does the same mistake (referring to last referendum he mildly supported). The explanation, maybe, stands in the polls that present Comunist leader Bertinotti with a worrying high percentage still. Hence, if Prodi wins next vote (and this is very likely) will have to take in huge consideration Comunists that did prove in past not to be the best affordable ally in a political coalition, and Prodi knows as he was the one they threw away from Prime Minister seat. So an opening towards extreme non Catholic ideas could smoothen the claims of the Comunists, or better attract some votes to himself from that side.
So where are homos' rights? Poor them. They are exchanged for a bunch of votes or worse they are ruled out of the society by Consititution and Church. Someone could, who knows in future, argue that the Italian macho myth would fall down and so would tourism that is why we cannot admit homos in our laws. And Church? Homos is evil, they said. So there is some kind of Love that is evil. Once again there is no trace in Gospel of explicit denial to love someone that has the same gender, though Gospel have been proved to be a 50-50 collaboration between God and scholars. Once again a dogmatic autoreferential position. And this is the way the Pope plans to keep up the pace and regain young people into churches. How many Colonia 2005 will be worth a fair opening to discussion getting down from the altars and talking peer-to-peer like Jesus did? But maybe is better to spend money (whose?) to make up for youth days than to spoil what they built in centuries of untouchable saint dogmatic correctness.

Freedom of expression

2005-06-14T10:17:00.000+01:00

Italy is stunned. Referendum on aided procreation came and went. 25% or a bit more of voters expressed themselves. A lot of debates aroused in the month preceding this important date both on TV and on newspapers. The outcome of the vote was invalid and the first consideration is: we spent a lot of money for the least possible result. I say the least because the outcome is, undoubtedly, the least informative. There are, indeed, various hypotheses explaining what happened last Sunday and Monday and none can be certainly discarded.

What is curious however is the debate itself. Lots of authorities, both lay and religious (mainly catholic) invited Italian citizens to abstention. In vain referendum supporters protested and indicated that according to Italian law this is a crime. Here's the law reference for Italian speaking interested readers LEGGE ELETTORALE - ART. 98 [ T.U. DELLE LEGGI ELETTORALI; TITOLO VII ] further integrated by Art. 51 law 352/1970 (for the specific matter of referendum). Judges did not notice any law infraction though there were some spontaneous legal actions by private referendum supporters (mainly scientists). Abstention instigators entrenched themselves behind the constitutionally guaranteed freedom of expression. They claimed that everyone is free to propose his/her opinion. True. There are, however other freedoms that seem not to be so worth of attention however. For example, freedom to choose the best cure for the individual. Referendum winners decided that if I have procreation difficulties I cannot choose which cure is better for me. Nor can doctors or scientists. Just Parliament. It is worth nothing that at least 50% of researchers stated (with some sort of scientific data as they usually do) that law is not adequate. Abstensionists told me that heterologous fecundation is evil and government must preserve morality and ethics.

I do not want to discuss whether it is evil or not. I am personally not very positive towards these practices if I were the subject. But the problem is that I do not think it is right to decide for others. A state, in my opinion, cannot tell what is right or what is wrong. Rather, it seems more acceptable that it tells what is useful from what is not or, worse, is harmful. Few people, however, contested the harmfulness of heterologous fecundation, and those who did supported it with weak objections that can be applied to adoption as well. Anyway, this debate could have brought to some solution instead of the hieratic: "It is evil". In summary with this law, Parliament deprived almost totally doctors of the authority (and of the responsibility) of deciding the better cure for some disease and, above all, put patients in front of a poorly motivated choice, with all the health consequences of the case.

Catholic Church's particular attitude deserves some words apart. A professional well and weekly articulated campaign was promoted in churches. Thmechanismim is always the millenarsuccessfulul one. People wercontinuouslyly persuaded of their ignorance on the subject. "Let experts decide" - they said. Pity that actual experts (scientists) were at least divided. Parliament was indicated as the right place for the discussion. The doubt arises that they were talking about the same place we keep seeing in television where ignorance and riots happen with monthly frequency.
Catholic Church in centuries assumed the role of people lighthouse, first for necessity (social instability) and tended to keep it against any coscience regaining attempted by Christian souls. Lutheraneran struggle in Middle-Age is the symbol of such constrasts. Priests cannot accept that people decide for themselves and neither a moral relativism, as it would weaken their position. It is at least weird trelativismisms exists and is recognized in almost all other fields of society.

And people? Why do people accept such impositions? Because sometimes they are useful. Religion justified wars and a good number of human right violations. Common man does not want to carefully ponder his opinion and to justify them. It feels more comfortable to say: "I heard it in Church". This iphilosophyosophy that convinced Italians to give up to the right of voting last Sunday and Monday (a right for which their ancestors fought and died), and it resembles in a disturbing way to the philosophy that permitted many abominationsations.

University

2005-05-21T10:15:00.000+01:00

It means everything, in the sense of universal community of knowledge I think. In Italy, it means job: from two points of view mainly.
First one: People here go to university because they have to get a work afterwards and there is the common understanding that university prepares for working
Second one: people stay in University after graduation and possibly goes for a Ph.D. or a research fellowship, as it is a winding road for a permanent public administration position.
I’d like to develop the first aspect because there is too much to say on the both to avoid people yawning too much for a single post (and actually they represent two very different matters).
So, why people go to university here? The majority of them will answer: Because there is no job for anyone after high school. Firms here do not hire unless you do not have a 3 page long CV possibly filled with a bunch of certification (half of them found as gadget in your favourite magazine and the other half celebrating your English, that, actually is no significantly larger than {Hi, Yes, No, Good Morning, Thank you}) and, of course a master degree. I graduated in Dec. 2001 with full marks and honours. A very famous multi-national firm hired me. During the three months I spent there, I used 1% of my notions without learning anything new, and carrying out my tasks with an average of 10 days before schedule. Am I a genius? Nope. That work requirements were too few for a graduate. Many firms do not need graduates it's just fashion. Government (whatever party it is from) uses universities for parking unemployed people thus relieving the social pressure for missing job. And people? Well they’re not free from guilt, at least here. You can see puffed up mummies going outside and boasting on account of their boys that study engineering or medicine or law (in the first four or five years). Then coming back home and pressing up the poor child in order to show off something new (maybe some exotic named exam passed) to neighbours next week. Where is knowledge in it? Where is competency? Where is science or humanism? Come on son, go and study so you’ll become rich and famous. And I say that’s all right but do not tell me you are studying at university. You are earning a (social) certification not a graduation. I think that the spirit of the so deprecated 3+2 system in Italy was just this. Allowing for technical and low level graduation so that students could be input into job market and leave those who want to study alone in their dreams and fantasies. The truth is that 3 years graduates that leave universities are socially looked at as people who didn’t make it and are satisfied with that, as they cannot go further. Indeed this is also subtly encouraged by university itself as institution as more students mean more tax money and (on account of the very brilliant evaluation metrics by the Italian Ministry) more funding. Therefore most students want it easy and very practical till their last exam as they’re not interested at all in speculation on the subject and eventually they become frustrated as they entered the market because they realize they won’t use a significant part of what they were forced to learn. Market will underpay average graduated employees (as there should be a balance between effort and pay) and, above all, won’t offer worth career perspectives to newcomers, especially because they after five years of persuasion that earning money is the only target, will choose the easiest shortcut to monthly salary.

High quality research

2004-10-28T07:59:00.000+01:00

Lots of noise around here on changes that Ministry of (among the others) Research wants to introduce into University. Actually, the ambition here is changing the whole university system. But I will not speak about Ministry's ideas for now. There will be plenty of space for that later on. I need to talk about the reasons of people against his forthcoming law. Many of them ask for more autonomy of universities and more researchers. Well, in the place I work there are the following statistics: 10 full professors, 13 associate professors, 2 stabilized professors (don't know what does it mean precisely but let you know, stay tuned) versus 16 researcher. At a glance one can think that researcher claim about their fewness is well founded. But let us go more in details. The raging researchers claim also to be the core of Italian research, the engine of progress and the ones that produce more in terms of achievements in this country. For our analysis we start from DBLP one of the most famous bibliography service worldwide. Surprisingly one can find, just browsing from authors' data, that in 2003 all the researchers working here produced 47 papers internationally recognized by DBLP, hence with an average of (roughly) 3 per researcher rate of publication. This rate is slightly above the Italian average in the same subject. Therefore it can be taken as a good (or better indulgent) estimate of the national situation in my scientific environment. This average corresponds roughly to the rate of publications of an European PostDoc researcher. This can be seen as a merit for Italian researchers as they cope with publication as well as with lectures (as PostDoc foreign students should have lighter load of that). But, actually, comparing education quality, Italy falls back in the rank. Then one can argue that, in order to keep the pace with euro-colleagues, our national pride researchers efforts cannot assure the quality that foreign lecturers provide to foreign students. Again here many readers may rebate in lots of ways (that's what comments are allowed for), anyway there are also other considerations. In my personal scientific universe, coming back to the aforementioned statistics, there are singular figures. It is the case of the percentage of researcher with 0 or 1 papers published last year i.e.: 37,5%. This results in the 93% of the published work by the 63,5% of research staff. Lots of researchers here complain about the overwhelming teaching load that is uniformly distributed among research staff. Why, then, this workforce that lacked in publishing was not employed for lightening the lecture effort? Maybe because there weren't the instruments for impose different treatments to different people. And here we come to the core point of view. Here in Italy, we have a very sensitive democratic soul. Whenever someone (especially in public administration) tries to touch acquired de facto rights, people wrath rises. You cannot tell people, in public administration, that, since you did not prove to be good in something, you will help doing something else. My title is equal to 10 paper/year guy's one, will likely say each one of the non-author of 2003. And none can force him/her to change mind.
Coming back to figures, if you were in charge of managing your private company, for how many seconds would you have waited before cutting out 37,5% of dead costs? Or better would you have signed a lifetime contract to people giving up the possibility of interrupt the contract if you employee contribution is not adequate anymore? What would you think (always being the CEO of your company) of a contract that says: "I hereby hire Huck with this wage and his work will be to be curious about this subject and develop it in the direction he likes"? This only to show that public educational/research system cannot ignore anymore that as soon as it involves money it cannot refuse to be considered as a company producing services. The fact that it is a public service cannot be the excuse for hiding head in the sand because figures must match at the end of the month, when every man of goodwill wants his daily bread.
(to be continued)

The first one

2004-10-22T14:01:00.000+01:00

None remembers when he was born, I guess. Thank to Tim Berners-Lee everyone can experience an analogous event: being born on Web. And you do it through your first homepage. I think that blog phenomenon is similar (using the same metaphor) to the moment you learn to talk. The difference on blogs as well as on your own web pages is that you are allowed to say everything you want. Therefore, I am afraid that none can stop me from expressing myself here. So, have sit if you want and enjoy.
Ops almost forgot to tell you that on this blog you can also smoke and drink alcohol