Rimini

After two weekends of frantic activity, followed by a birthday that was by turns wonderful and the very depths of misery, I was faced with the prospect of 3 days alone in Bra over the June bank holiday.

Lesser men would have crumbled. I headed south, in search of sun, booze and hedonism.

Rimini holds a special place in the Italian psyche. Much as Ibiza promises Brits frantic humping and cheap drugs, or the Baltic coast lures Germans with regimented sunloungers and efficient sausage service, so Rimini represents to Italians the very apex of sitting in street cafes quaffing latte, tight D & G t-shirts, and flouncing effeminatly by the sea.

The train from Porta Nouva was an 'Intercity', which means it costs twice as much, is fractionally quicker than a Regionale and some cockend is guarenteed to turn up an hour into your journey and demand 'their' seat. So I wedged myself into a sqaure of sunlight in the vestibule behind the engine and settled down for 4 hours of gentle slumber. This was disturbed when, lets call him 'Enrique', got on at Bologna, and ran over my hand with his wheeled suitcase. He was going to Rimini for the season he said, to work in an aubergine (he may have meant hotel, my Italian is not strong, and his English stretched to 'hello'). He was eager and fresh faced, just out of school, 18, never left Rome before. I did my part, flying the flag for Britain by grumpily reading my book and occasionally kicking the offending luggage that had invaded my sunny hidey-hole.

Bob's Jammin' Party Hostel (perhaps THE premier reggae themed hostel in all of Italy) was two blocks from the beach, remarkably clean, well stocked with hot water (despite my usual tank emptying prowess, I was defeated here) and inhabited by freaks. The pick of whom, the Number One Breakdancing Crew in Croatia, spent most of the evening tossing a frizbee up and down the street, catching it with a series of bone defying moves and deftly firing it back to another of their cohort, who would try to top them. We ended up drunk, on the beach, late that night, having 'Shot the Strip'. They were a good contrast to the tribes of miserable Germans, laconic Italians and pissed Brits who roamed between the strip-clubs; the standout being a loud Northern monkey, stood on a concrete bollard outside 'Dave's Bar' shouting "What can I say, she FOOKIN' wanted me mate, she's got FOOKIN' good taste, waaaahayyyy!" to anyone in ear shot.

So Rimini is wonderful; Blackpool by the Adriatic, with all the piss, kebabs, sex shows, happy hours and angry Northerners you'd expect. It's not very Italian, and I think that's why they flock there. You can't be cool all the time, after all.

Carbon Footprint

As an irredeemably middle class, lefty, Guardian reading, organic humous eating ponce I tacitly 'care' about my carbon footprint.

Until this year, I hadn't flown for 3 years and revelled in it, not as a sign of bitter student poverty, but as a faintly holier-than-thou stick with which to beat others. "Well, of course, I take holidays in Britain" I would say, neglecting to mention my previous globe hopping, petulant girlfriend who steadfastly refused to run off to Rome with me, or long list of places I would be flying to the instant I had any spare cash.

This year, I've taken 9 short haul flights already, with at least 3 more, plus two trans-atlantic, before the end of July. I think it's fair to say I've done more than my share of fucking up the globe. But, with yet another ominous report in today's Observer saying, and I paraphrase, "We're never going to hit a target of a 2 degree rise in global temperatures, it'll be more like 4.8, and frankly that's a bit conservative, but that's no reason to stop trying", there's a strong temptation to think "fuck the next generation, let's enjoy the end of days now, before fuel costs more than gold and we're all eating Soylent Green in eco-highrises on top of Yorkshire fells".

I've re-discovered my love of solo travel. The opertunity to be alone with your thoughts, the endless parade of the dispossed, the idealistic and the downright fruitloop you meet, a different hostel every night, a new country every few days, drinking alone, writing in a notebook, and not giving a shit who stares at you. It's a wonderful thing, and I don't know why it scares so many people. Paul Theroux (a man whose curiosity is matched only by his boundless grumpiness) describes it as a "masochistic pleasure" that draws writers because they're at heart solitary, introspective and antisocial creatures.

I can't say I disagree, and who doesn't like a little masochism, now and again.

And, as a coda to that, I've got 18 days left in Bra (which will be a hellish death march) then it's back out into the unknown. I have no idea what will happen this year, or where the hell I'll be next June, but for the first time in year's I'm excited about the future. I don't know what's going to happen, whether wonderful things will work out, or if I'll end up toasting a lonely new year in some remote outpost, but it's going to be fun finding out.

Nice

"The 23.30 to Nice... uhhhh... where is it?"

"No trains, the French" he looks disgusted at the very thought of them, "They strike".

I jog back up the platform. "Yeah, we're fucked" I shout brightly to the petulantly waiting American "The French are on strike, as usual". We turn and begin our trudge toward the taxi rank and the cabbies rubbing their hands with glee. On the way out we're assailed by a large swarm of indeterminated oriental origin:

"What he say?"

"No trains to France tonight... or tomorrow, maybe you can find a bus, where are you going?"

"A bus" she gives me a look usually reserved for something unpleasant you've stepped in "Where are we going to find a bus at midnight?"

"I dunno, bus station?" I reply, helpfully.

"We're going to Barcelona, we have a SCHEDULE, we can't be late"

"Well, if it's any consolation" I smile, one foot in the waiting taxi "The strike is only in the Cote D'Azur, if you can get through to Marsailles, you're laughing"

"And how far is Marsailles?", incredulous, unsmiling.

"Oh, about 120 miles, good luck" I wave cheerily and slam the door. Fuck 'em, don't shoot the messenger.

The drive from Ventimilia on the Italian border to Nice is one of those twisty, turny James Bond style affairs, whipping along elevated highways and barrelling through mountain tunnels. It's also unrelentingly awful, 50 miles of eye-fucking development clinging to the hillsides like whitewashed concrete turds. Scraggy beaches, seedy casinos, Yanky truckstops and an overdose of Botox; whatever charm the Riviera used to have has long since died and been buried under yet another 4 lane. Imagine Long Beach, California, but Francophone; frankly Dante had nothing on this.

On the way I discover two of my travelling companions are from Maryland, studying in Spain and over in Nice for a holiday. The other, a silent French girl, huddles in the back row (a 7 seat Taxi and you can only take 4 of us to Nice, eh, you greedy motherfucker?) and says nothing.

We arrive at Nice Ville station ("Le railway station" gestures the cabbie, "Oui, le gare de SNCF" I reply, no way are you out languaging me you patronising Italian bastard), bathed in the red neon glow of an enourmous sign promising 'SEX' in huge letters across the street. I get out and stand in the midnight crowd of shady immigrants, dealers and pimps. Remarkably, I instantly fail to fit in and am offered 'girl' and 'something nice' the instant I put my bag down. A wizened Moroccan approaches and askes for a cigarette. As I obliged his stubby fingers reach out and start clawing for more from my pack. "Non, non" I say, waving him away "Fuck you" he replies, and slopes off to a dark corner.

I'm silently cursing this humid, garlic scented, wine quaffing country when Abs appears on my left. "Ahhhh, bonsoir mon ami, ceva?" I say, pretentiously. Despite both having As at GCSE french, this is our total mastery of the langauge. We walk back to Sam's flat (his ginger, Scottish friend, who failed utterly to tan in the 6 months he spent here), a reassuringly cliche affair just up from the beach, complete with window shutters, billowing white curtains and a rickety bike propped up in the hallway.

The next day is breakfast at the station (though Abs refuses any food, on the basis that it cuts down on schmoozing time), followed by a rammed train down the coast to Cannes (during which Abs ingratiates himself to two French ladies, and I loudly teach him the word 'Putain' which causes a bit of Gallic consternation).

Cannes at Festival time is much like Edinburgh. The streets are crowded with people from all over the world, most of whom have some form of dubious accreditation slung round their necks in a doomed attempt to seem important (ourselves included). A one armed chap asks Abs for a fag, and graces us with the now standard "fuck you" when we politely decline. But I'm more mellow than I was the previous night, and send him on his way with a cheery "vous etes un putain!", doing my part to foster a greater European understanding.

The weekend becomes a blur of surreal vignettes after that, as Abs roamed the strip relentless promoting his film, and I pursued my ambition of getting as drunk as possible on complimentary booze. The Turks offered strong coffee and cold beer (thanks, Turkish Culture Ministry), the Thai hut presented us with a peculair buffet comprising mainly jellied coconut, beer and the Thai ambassador (he'd been in Paris for two months, and found everything tremendously exciting). There was a lovely moment when, checking our emails in The Majestic, a rush of "Oh my God, it's Jackie Chan" brought Mylene Klass 'n' sproglet racing to the window next to us, along with her CNN film crew, all clearly star struck to see a real celebrity for a change (as an aside, she's much shorter than you'd expect, and wouldn't look out of place on the dancefloor of some WKD 'n' vomit themed club somewhere in the Midlands).

All too soon, the weekend was over, and I was racing out of Cannes station on the way back to Italy. I'd taken the same journey just two weeks before (after it turned out that flying Glasgow, Stansted, Nice then sitting on a train for 4 hours cost half as much as flying to Turin), and the leg from Nice through the Alps to Cuneo is one of those journeys that anyone with even a passing interest in train travel should take at least once in their lives. The modern SNCF takes you on a gently winding single track up into the foothills, through sunny alpine meadows and past great Medieval villages perched high on rocky promantaries, their ancient walls one small earthquake away from total destruction. At Col de Braus a breath-takingly gorgeous French woman got on, wearing grass-stained jodphurs and smelling of horse, and sat across the eisle from me. "How wonderful it must be to ride through these sunny meadows" I thought, then instantly questioned my sexuality. Two weeks before, at Breil-sur-Roya (a tiny village high in the alps, surrounded on all sides by brooding mountains), I'd got talking to an elderly American in the cafe while waiting for the rattly rail-car on to Italy. His daughter was working in Nice, and he was taking the oppertunity to ride the trains all over the alps. "American? You're in the wrong country mate". He smiled, and I ran for my train.

The transition from French train to Italian is a stark reminder of the difference between the countries. The French one is sedate, clean and modern, the Italian ancient, dirty, crowded and charges recklessly along the exposed clifftops like a beast possessed. At Cuneo the ticket machine was broken, so I bought a hasitly scribbled piece of paper from the guard, as the driver looked at me with amusement from his cab (I should point out we were hurtling along toward Turin at this point, and every fiber of my being wanted to scream "WATCH THE RAILS YOU LACONIC BASTARD" as I peered over his shoulder).

Bra was, as always, unchanged when I got back. Dark, slumbering, lightly industrial and utterly uninteresting. I looked back up the line as I crossed the tracks, and thought of the festival still in full swing just 100km away down on that awful coast. One way or another, I was sure I'd be back one day.

Lechery

In Britain, the focus has been on Berlusconi romping back to power a few weeks back. Much more interesting is the progress made by the Northern League up here in the Po Valley.

A foamingly right wing party, they captured 10% of the national vote, and much more than that here in Piemonte and the surrounding regions. They're anti-immigration (most Italian parties are anti-immigration, but they go further by being anti-EU immigration too), anti-gay, pro-death penalty and support the partition of Italy into a rich north and poor south. If they stood in the Home Counties of England, they'd win every seat by a landslide.

Anyway, the rather spurious point to all this is that Italy, particularly small town Italy, is a remarkably conservative country, especially when it comes to matters of society.

In the ideal Italian household, the man would go out and work, whilst the woman tended the house and spawned heirs. In the evening, the husband would come home and take the family round to Mamas (always, note, his mamas), where they'd be fed and have their laundry lovingly washed and pressed.

In the youth, this is reflected in a bazaar relationship between the sexes, in which your perfumed, flouncing, Italian Manchild spends his days leaching fiercely at anything even remotely female. The girls buy into this with the kind of rampant 'don't ask me, I'm just a girl' twittering that would have Germaine Greer reaching for her revolver.

I had this explained to me by a charismatic young vineyard owner (who had seduced one of my colleagues by pumping her full of premium Barolo ). "God gave me eyes! I'm Italian, I use my eyes to look at every woman! It means nothing, it is just for pleasure". Italian women don't so much wear their hearts on their sleeve as their aspirations on their arse. 'Slut', 'Goddess' and, the starkly blunt, 'Rich' are just three of the slogans I've seen pumping plumply up the Vias of Knockers this week.

This attitude is fairly alien to the British (at least the southern English, for whom the fear of social embarrassment means we need to twat down at least a bottle of wine before we'll talk to anyone who wasn't introduced to us by a member of our family) and it does have an enticing air of freedom and liberation about it. Until you realise that the whole shallow dance continues a culture in which men are (effeminate) men and woman are in the kitchen.

The Big Italian Momma stereotype is alive and well. And cooking and cleaning. Because, after all, that's all she's good for.

The Italian Job (oh, shhhh)

After three weeks with nothing to do but read the English papers (all of them) I was ushered into my bosses room for a meeting.

Scary Boss: "So Chris, here is the project for you"

Me: "Oh great!" (the thundering hooves of misplaced optimism echoing in my ears)

SB: "What we would like you to do is contact everyone in the world working in education and ask them what they're doing"

Me: "Ok, sounds interesting... uhhh, give me the contacts list and I'll get cracking"

SB (arching eyebrow): "Oh no. There is no list, you'll have to find them yourself. Here's a list of countries for you to contact"

(hands over a sheet of A4 with a list of countries printed on it... and nothing else)

Me: "Oh! Oh. Well I wouldn't know where to..."

SB: "Don't worry. It's ok, you'll have help"

(hahahahahahahahahahahahaha!)

As anyone who's done a Graduate Internship will tell you, we're pretty much the bottom rung of the employment ladder (even the cleaners outrank us, because they know where the booze is hidden).

So cue several weeks of me sending out plaintive emails to regional co-ordinators, begging for ten minutes of their time, if they'd be so kind, to please help this project before it crashes headfirst into a rocky chasm.

No joy.

8 weeks later and, all things considered, remarkable progress had been made. I'd talked to Aborgines in the outback, fishermen in Nova Scotia and a peculiar woman in Germany who kept calling me 'Sir'.

A follow up meeting was called.

SB: "So, the project is now finished?"

Me: "Well... no, because"

SB: "But it says here on my plan (produces plan that bears little relation to reality as we know it) that you should be done by now"

Me: "Well in an ideal world it would be. An ideal world where people replied to my emails, sent things when they said they would and answered their phone"

SB: "This is... disappointing"

Now, my boss is Russian and, therefore, already quite terrifying. My dreams are haunted by a recurring vision of being shipped out to Kamchatka for letting the side down.

So, I've adopted a new strategy. I simply walk into peoples offices and talk to them until they give me the info I need, in a desperate bid to make me fuck off (all except one chap who, on offering me a drink at half ten in the morning, produced a whiskey bottle from his draw [I like him]).

I've also taken to producing reams and reams of print outs, in a vain bid to make myself look more productive than I really am.

The net result? I have to interview 20 people in the next week or we're buggered.

Salute!

Fucking salute...

My most Italian moment

Today was a beautiful day in Knockers. Naturally I spent most of it lying in bed, sun streaming through the window, surfing the net.

However, at 4 o'clock I strolled out for coffee, which turned into two, a slice of pizza and a small beer. I sat in the park in the early evening reading Tom Jones (better than I thought it would be, not enough sex though) and watching the Italians promenade past in their Sunday best (they do this, taking to the streets on weekend evenings to walk around, stopping to chat to each other, it's all very surreal).

Suddenly one of the boys playing football across the park lashed a wild shot miles off target and in my direction.

Now, those of you who know me well (which is all three of you who read this) know my sporting prowess is not, perhaps, on a par with my contemporaries. I once played rugby for the House in school (yeah, yeah, we bummed each other afterwards, happy?); we lost, badly. When I play tennis, half the time the ball doesn't reach the net, let alone clear it; badminton, I swish vainly at the shuttle-cock trying to hit the stupid nipply end (and, of course, failing).

So, not the strongest of foundations. But... but!

As the ball sailed over I lept from my bench (sunglasses, freshly trimmed beard, casual jacket, looking for all the world like Marcello Mastroianni in La Dolce Vita) and, in one fluid motion, powered the ball back with the side of my foot in a perfectly straight, beautifully judged, arc right across the park, aimed directly at the boys head.

It was, without question, the coolest thing I've ever done.

They asked me to join in!

I should point out, at this juncture, that they were ten year olds.

They waved aside protestations that I was foreign and couldn't speak the language. And so, for ten minutes I filled the role of Cool Foreign Uncle, deftly sheparding the ball out of defence and punting it upfield in the vague direction of an attacking player (I am, after all, English).

We won!

I think. It was hard to tell.

I'm not a fan of Knockers, and I loathe my place of work with a passion, but Italy?

Yeah, I could live here.

European Politics

Here's a (faintly surprising) thing.

The Italians hate the French.

This puts them in that exclusive world club: "Everyone who isn't French".

Using World Wars as an example (and I'm British, so I enjoy doing that):

The Germans and the British fight on, pointlessly, until everyone is dead.

The French build big, futile walls to cower behind. Throw down their guns at the first sign of trouble, and spend the rest of the war sneering at the occupying force whilst plying them with Champagne and coffee.

The Italians, when outnumbered on one side, simply turn around and start firing the other way.

You have to admire their pragmatism.

I am, to all intents and purposes, employed by the EU. I enjoy this state of affairs; it appeals to my hand-wringing, limp-wristed, Guardian reading side (and lets face it, I'm fairly one dimensional).

However, the Italians also hate each other. There's a term for it, Campanilissimo, which means, vaguely literally, bell-tower lover. They're wedded to their region far more than they are to Rome or the other states of Italy. It's been less than 150 years since Garibaldi, Cavour and Vittorio Emmanuelle II (and trust me, in Piedmont you're never more than 5 inches from a street, piazza or monument dedicated to one or all of them) united Italy into a bunch of slightly resentful provinces hell bent on hating each other.

In recent years this has boiled down to a North v South thing. In the South the economy is built on tourism and crime; in the North it's built on proper things like the manufacture of coffee grinders and high fashion.

The North views the South as little more than idle scroungers too bone idle to do more than fleece the occasional tourist. The South see Northerners as little more than wannabe Germans.

The government takes a pragmatic (natch) line and deals with this by collapsing into anarchy every few months.

So we have an election coming!

This boils down to no more than 'which corrupt tycoon do you want to rule you for the next few months until their inevitable downfall'.

Sylvio Berlusconi, famed through-out Italy as a man able to hold on to power for more than 10 days, is hotly tipped by the media as the man most likely to win the next election. He's got a proven track record, they say, and he enjoys widespread support from almost every TV pundit and newspaper editor in the country.

Silvio Berlusconi happens to own almost every TV station and newspaper in the country.

Go figure, eh?