Italians are funny. This is the reason why we still are in the EU, it’s cause we make you all laugh. The latest joke is that our Justice Minister’s wife got arrested ( Ironic, hein? Alanise Morrisette would have wrote an entire album about us) and so our Government is now falling apart ( I’m astonished, things like that never happen here).
Now, in these days I realized something that really upsat me. French people - who probably found very hard to accept to be defeated during Soccer World Champioships, ah ah ahahahahahahah - is now trying really hard to gain the supremacy in the “Funniest Country Ever World Competition”. Well, I must admit. There can be no competition. You win. If it wasn’t for the little blue-eyed dwarf and his romantic love story, I really wouldn’t know what to read when I’m at the toilet ( you know, even Italian politics ain’t that moving, involving and absolutely useless). Now I know how many times do the French Romeo and Juliet caugh in a day, I know that they went to Pyramids ( and so did I…so what?), I know that Carla is pregnant ( pyramids weren’t that interesting in the end, were they?) and, most of all, I know that the President’s former wife thinks that her ex-husband is, I quote: “A useless fucker”.
Well, this is really funny, I must admit. Anyway, since irony will be the only thing that will save us, our comedians are doing their best ( I can’t wait to hear next Berlusconi’s joke, I’m sure it’s coming…): there you are the amazing portait our beloved Fiorello made of our/their a little less beloved Carla.
www.qiblalocator.com is a webpage that allows Muslims all around the world to know the exact position of La Mecca from the place they are. It’s very easy, you just scribble the address of the place you are, and a red line will show you the direction your prayers shoud take.
This is the coolest thing I’ve ever read about. I wish I had something to tell me exactly where to send my whishes, my hopes and my faith. I’ve always envied those little moments in a Muslim day during which, no matter who, they take their time to convey their faith towards someone ( or something) they can visualize wherever they are.
If our reference points are getting weaker and weaker as the time goes by, as the world shrinks, as the institutions fall apart, will a GPS save us?
We keep thinking the small, comfy world we live in it’s the worst world ever. We keep dreaming of a place in which there is no unemployement, no old politicians minding their own business, no lousy TV programs. If we don’t like ourselves we could always say it’s our small world’s fault. Couple months ago I met Lelia. She’a a pretty, smart and very young Lebanese journalist. We became friends, and that surprised me in the beginning, cause I’d never thought I could feel someone, that was born so far away from me and my culture, so close to me. She’s the coordinator of NewsLab blog, a 20 women from the Mediterranean blog, and we all daily keep in touch through a newsgroup. Two days ago we received this e-mail.
“C’est vers 16h 45 que le bruit de l’explosion a retentit a Beyrouth, alors que j’etais chez moi. Les premieres informations font etat de 3 morts et plus de 10 blesses, et apparemment c’est un convoi de l’ambassade americaine qui a ete visee par l’explosion. La porte-parole de l’ambassade US a cependant refuse de confirmer a l’heure qu’il est ces informations. Les photos ne sont pas encore disponibles, et je n’ai pas acces au blog, postez ce texte pour moi, merci”
It’s hard to understand. I mean, I go nuts if I don’t have my superfast internet connection, if people in the subway stomp on my feet, if there are no Vanity Fair issues left to buy. Maybe our small, comfy world isn’t that bad.
It’s sales time, that for a girl who got hired for the first time in her life ( after five years spent working for free ) means the paradise. Too bad that I usually sit behind my desk at 09.30 in the morning and get off at 08.00 p.m., so I can fall in love with the shop windows only platonically and have to keep being dressed up as a stagiaire ( which it’s a metaphore for ”I look completely messed up”). Anyway, saving money isn’t a bad idea either, since I’ve noticed ( and I’m not a finance genius at all, I’m more the goat-for-cow-swap kind of girl) that lately people is getting poorer and poorer ( maybe switching from Liras to Euro wasn’t such a good idea. Now we can wander around Europe as much as we like, but we have no money to go back home…) and have started looking for alternatives. Take a look at the newspapers, the only ones who can still afford a standard lifestyle ( standard: not being obliged to fight with the squirrels for a bunch of acorns in the city park) are those who have been able to give something ( anything) for rent. Of course, who has an apartment, a house, a cave ( please, don’t laugh, caves in Milan are bloody expensive…and romantic, as well, you and your sweetheart could pretend to be Mary and Joseph at Christmas Eve) nowadays can consider himself only a step below Onassis. Anyway, even if you aren’t so lucky, don’t bring yourself down. Just take a look around you: almost everything you own could be useful for someone else. You could buy a webpage, and give the pixels for rent at one dollar each, as in the Million Dollar Homepage . You could give your pet for rent ( please, notice that the renting rates depend from how cool your pet is. You could get more or less 6 euros/hour for your boring boring turtle and about 500 euros/hour for your guitar playing monkey). If you don’t own a pet and you have no idea of what a pixel is but you own a huge self-esteem, you could always apply for a job at Lease Your Body and walk around with the latest Big Mac commercial stick on your forhead. I’ve read of people leasing the parking space in front of their house and also of people giving their Granny for rent ( don’t think it’s evil, the sweet old lady probably wouldn’t even notice the difference between her grandchildren and a Bengali family, if it wasn’t for the effects of curry on her digestive system). Anyway, the thing is, if you’re broke and sales are almost over, quit thinking about making a robbery and start leasing!
