As I wrote in a previous post I was a terrible student in high school, so much so that at the age of 18 I was still there (and failed again); one silver lining for me, not for my poor parents, was that that year the prof of italian literature "invited" us… Read full post »

Brassawe’s piece on playing the game of chess against humans and a computer made me think back to when I too  played the game in earlier years; back then I was fascinated not only by the game itself but also by the way it was played in the fair city of/… Read full post »

For some light relief, although it is not foodie Tuesday, today we put together a nice little lunch:

Young asparagus with a sprinkle of extra vergin (what else?) olive oil, grilled in the oven and,

peperonata (ratatouille) courtesy of Andrea:

     - 4 peppers (red, gr… Read full post »

Five reasons are really four too many, but let's give the remnants of the moderate GOP  survivors a bit more to hang on; I would like to remind my american friends that the president of the USA is still the ruler of the world (how much longer is open for debate)… Read full post »

I loved (being italian) the ode to italian coffee, and not only, in the blog about the "Dolce Vita" by Maria Stuart, that I put together a few items about our national (besides wine) liquid vice....

But first a cartoon

Translation: What is that I do that excites you the most ?… Read full post »

After reading Brassawe's piece on this open call I was left thinking about "love" (I still have one going not so physical anymore but still very satisfying)....

...... I have long ago stopped having any interest in boy-girl-man-woman love stories, the last one was the movie "Romeo and Julie… Read full post »

Yesterday on a wet blustery Sunday morning a group of us from the florentine hills braved the weather and crossed the river Arno in Florence (Mark Twain remarked famously that only the florentines could call it a river and build bridges across it)

we were on the way to visit Palazzo… Read full post »

Of all american cartoonists Oliphant is my favourite even if his sarcasm is at times against my political grain (but that's the way it should be). His last vignette on the Sunday's NYT cartoons has me somewhat baffled as to what I think is a juxtaposition of images, chiefly that of an… Read full post »

On Easter Monday, a holiday in Italy called Pasquetta (little Easter), it is a tradition for city dwellers to spend the day in the country, some picnicking, some visiting small country town, others just going to one of those roadside restaurants of which Italy abounds.

We live in the country but… Read full post »

Yesterday, Good Friday, we decided to anticipate the Easter Sunday lunch (escape the crowds!) at our favourite tuscan seaside restaurant south of Livorno, the Sassoscritto right on the Aurelia road, one of the main arteries of the roman empire.....we first went there in 1962 on one of our first dates… Read full post »

It was a beautiful evening in the summer of 1995, I was driving from Heathrow to Bristol on the M5 on my way back from Sardinia....

.....in 1993 my company had started an ambitious pan-european hi-tech project to develop an advanced 64 bit dual microprocessor for the multimedia market; the main… Read full post »

As the plat du jour in the USA is the healthcare debate at the SCOTUS and the bands of pro/against crowds are providing fodder for the newsmedia, I would like to put my two cents in as a frequent visitor to the USA:

. I unfortunately had to visit the ER… Read full post »

My son Giancarlo posted this on FB, a work by Dorian Tireli

Nature is a wonderful reminder of beauty, it helps us to balance somewhat, if not nearly enough, all the ugliness and horror around....and so comes La Primavera

Foreground: a mimosa tree and the ever present rosemary bushes Background: olive and apricot trees (wonderful fruits and jam!)

&… Read full post »

Last night on a spring like evening (balmy days and chilly nights) in the fair city of Genova....

...the  old port....

.....and its most famous symbol La Lanterna (the lighthouse).....

.....when the city was a seafaring power, one of the four most notable maritime republics… Read full post »

It was extremely easy to predict as I did in my post last Sept. 30 "Amanda Knox, italian justice and Donald Trump":

......" The trial has attracted worldwide attention, Perugia is a town under siege from the international media circuits (circus?); Matt Lauer of the Today Show is one of… Read full post »

Just in case you have not seen any news report on it, this is to remind us all from time to time of that magical island, Sicily, in the Mediterranean sea as Mount Etna just put  on a display of pyrotechnical beauty  (photographs used here were published in several Italian new… Read full post »

Daniela and Nelusco invited us, Andrea and I,  Polly and Piero and another couple, Fiorenza and Alessandro, for lunch yesterday, the occasion? Polly's birthday and a bon voyage to her and husband going to the USA for the annual visit to family (Polly's mother is celebrating her 100th birthd… Read full post »

After the Berlusconi period

 in the intervening two months following his resignation from government, we were finally, if slowly and painfully, getting back on the road to respectability on the world stage. Two months during which we tried to cancel the superficiality,… Read full post »

 From the upstair windows looking across the valley from our house in the florentine hills with the village of Fornacette below; what a balsam for  heart and mind!

Early morning in the summer,

On a November day,

.....the fog,

Again in November,

%IMA… Read full post »

Just read an interview with Umberto Eco by Antonio Gnoli of the newspaper La Repubblica, the occasion being his 80th birthday on the 5th of this month.

To those not familiar with this fellow, let it suffice to say that he is an unsurpassed essayist, writer, medievalist, professor of semioti… Read full post »

 Upon making some critical remarks on Hitchens after reading the extremely well written eulogy  by Miguela Holt Roybal and her subsequent unabashed defence of criticism in the comments section, I started musing introspectively about my inroads into the anglosaxon culture.

Even though I we… Read full post »

Gone to the ports! Where next?

It all began at about the time that I started classes at the local church in Florence, San Salvi was the name; it was a country church built in the year 1048 and named after an archbishop of Amiens (it has undergone several upgrades and remakes through the centuries). When i burst… Read full post »