An Earful of Milan

Milano was not the city I expected it to be. Unlike most European cities, Milano is not built on or near any great river. Everything worth seeing is spread out over the entire city, so if you want to see the sights, you have to be prepared to travel round. There is a lot to see, so we didn’t get to see it all. I did get to visit a few shoe shops, courtesy of my darling wife, and a few up-market fashion houses where browsing around feels expensive even if you don’t buy anything. I spent considerable time waiting outside these places and got a lot of involuntary sunbathing done in the process. Man, it was hot. Twenty eight in the shade and sticky like syrup. Luckily, it cools down a little in the evening.

Food and drink is as expensive as it is anywhere else in Europe. For a real bargain, go to Greece. There were not a great many restaurants around us and, as my wife is hampered by a trick knee at the moment, we had to go local. We were not exactly in the middle of Milan but found a couple of pleasant places nearby and ate heartily. We dined on spaghetti, risotto, pizza and fish. I even had a T-bone at one place. The local white wines were good. Forget the bottles, go for the house white in a jug. Steer clear of anything that looks like a restaurant anywhere close to the Cathedral. Prices are double.

We found a bar, if one could call it a bar, on the Corso Buenos Aires. This was more a collection of plastic chairs and tables stretched out along the pavement, served by a small shop front of a bar with Ice cream and booze. It was nice to just sit and watch Milan go by. Drinking beer and keeping the little lady topped up with Margueritas suited my mood perfectly after a day in the hot sun. It was during this interlude that I was attacked by a horrid little green Italian insect which flew into my ear. Literally, into my ear.

You know that ZZEEEE noise that mosquitoes make as they go past your ear? Imagine that, only fifty times louder as the bug flies around inside your head.

Being the resolute type and not given to abject terror or panic, I immediately jumped to my feet, grabbed the swizzle stick from my wife’s drink and stuck it into my ear. I then performed a dance, something like a cross between the twist and the cha-cha across the width of the pavement before me, whilst wiggling the stick in my ear and screaming “Aaaaaggh! Get out of my ear hole you little bastard..”. This was all terribly ineffective but was, at least, highly amusing for those around us and those passing by on the street. Finally the creature vacated my aural orifice and I fell back into my plastic recliner with a sigh of relief. The waiter, a charming and helpful young man, asked if there was anything he could do and I decided that more beer was the only thing that would help. If nothing else, I thought, it may dampen the memory of the dreadful assault by “Insecto Italiano”. My wife took it all with a sense of bravado and could not hide her amusement. So much for pity and sympathy, support and solace. She refused to use the swizzle stick again, though I have no explanation to offer for this and never understood why.

We did get to see the Duomo Cathedral and a few parks. We walked the centre streets. I bought a pipe. My wife bought shoes and other clothing items. We used the Metro, which is surprisingly easy and cheap to travel by. We took a few pictures.

I probably won’t revisit Milano as a tourist. As I said, it’s all very spread out. But it is a vibrant city and worth a visit. As a footnote to this travelogue I have to say, the Hotel Bagliori was comfortable, clean, well equipped and well staffed. It was not opulent nor was it expensive. If you are looking for a relatively good and cheap hotel in Milano, I can recommend it. Eat breakfast in the garden. It’s a great way to start the day.

Ciao.

Spaghetti Milanesi

No, this is not another recipe review. My holiday starts today and I’m looking forward to a week off. It starts with a short break in Italy. Milan, to be exact. I don’t know a damn thing about Milan,  apart from it’s location in the north of Italy. In fact, I don’t really know that much about Italy. OK, it’s shaped like a boot, predominantly catholic, once ruled an empire from Rome, the pope lives there and they eat spaghetti. Which they imported from China. I was last in Italy about thirty years ago in my military days and visited Venice on the R&R days. I drank loads of wine and the currency was Lira back then. I did not buy souvenirs.

This time I’m going with my dear lady wife who will doubtless drag me into every shoe shop in the town and I daresay I’ll be eating spaghetti at some point. I’ll probably also try the risotto and the osse bucco, along with more wine. Italy is not famous for its beer. I may just buy a new Italian pipe. I will visit the Duomo, pictured here. Not because I’m religious in any way. It’s just that it’s so bloody big, it warrants a look-see.

I will take pictures. No point being there if you can’t document the affair somehow.

I can’t help thinking of my father when I mention Italy. He was there in the last great European war. He landed at Anzio, was nearly killed at Monte Cassino and ended the war guarding trains that travelled north and south on endless replenishment runs. He saw Mussolini’s body, hung upside down, in Rome. He saw the entire country in the run of a year or so. From Calabria in the south to the very northernmost end of Italy in the Dolomite mountains. He saw Naples, Rome, Venice, Milan and Turin and all points in between. He even learned the language and, to my surprise, never forgot it. The war ended for him on a platform in Rome at the central station.

I won’t be doing anything like that. But I will raise a glass to his memory at some point while I’m there.

See you all in a couple of days.

The Weekend from Hell

Last weekend was long weekend, Thursday and Friday free. I decided it was time to put some time and effort into our second home. We have a 210 year old cottage on the island of Lolland, Denmark. It has a thatched roof. Very quaint. We haven’t been there for a while and I suspected the garden was probably getting to be a bit overgrown.

Packing all the necessary tools for doing battle with the lawn and the hedge and armed with a big bag of “vittals”, I set off on the 100 mile trip on the Thursday evening. It rained all the way.

On reaching our cottage, the rain stopped and I drove into a jungle. The hedge was huge, the grass was three feet tall and nettles had taken over a chunk of what once was lawn. Everything had grown unbelievably. Including the weeping willow over the fishpond. There were days of hard work here.

Entering the house, I realised something was missing. The wood stove had disappeared. Nothing else, just the wood stove. The back door was smashed indicating the point of entry for what had obviously been a break in. Then I noticed the water on the floor. Where had that come from? Rushing outside I looked up at the thatch. Four large holes in the thatching gave me my immediate answer.

Almost reduced to abject misery and livid about the break in, I decided to simply inspect the whole property and make a to do list for the following day. I fortified myself with tea and biscuits and then went to bed.

Friday dawned after a sleepless night.

I called the police. They took details but didn’t come to inspect the damage. I called the thatcher. He promised to take a look-see at my roof. I then got stuck into the lawn. At least, it had been a lawn once. Now it looked like an overgrown hayfield. After an hour I had it cut back to three inches. Then I tackled the hedge. That was pretty easy after the lawn.

In front of the house we have a brick patio. I couldn’t see any bricks for weeds that had grown up between the stones. I lifted them all, one by one and cleaned the whole area of thistles and dandelions and re-laid the stones. Then I tackled the larger outer lawn. It is much bigger than the lawn in front of the house, so it took me forever. By the evening, I was done in and hungry. I took a quick shower and headed off to the local town. Pizza and a beer, and then a drive into the surrounding countryside to relax.

A friend turned up on Saturday. I still hadn’t heard from the thatcher, so I gave him a ring. He was going to come over on the morrow and would bring tarpaulins with him to cover the holes in the roof. My pal and I took stock of what I had achieved and what was left to do. I wanted to continue on the garden and left him to get cracking with the whitewashing of the old house. This we did and we were both finished with our appointed tasks relatively quickly. Agreeing all was done, we went off in the late afternoon to find beer and food. We did so, and had a pleasant evening in the house drinking a lot of beer and eating well.

He left me on the Sunday morning and I waited for my thatcher. He duly arrived at two in the afternoon and we covered the roof. We discussed repairs. A new section over the entire eastern side of the house is necessary. Sixty thousand Danish Crowns. About nine thousand dollars. Ow! Still, it has to be done, so he gets to do the job.

Finally, I left Lolland and headed home. Tired but relatively happy.

On reaching home, the dogs were the first to greet me. I have never been away for three days since they came to live with us so they were excited to see me back. So excited that the larger one of the two broke a claw off in the maul and needed a bandage on the foot.

Back to work on Monday then. Hallelujah. But no, it continued. We have to take a reduction in wages to keep the company alive and I have to take my team over to normal daytime hours as the day team can’t keep up because they have so many away on sick leave or schooling. So now I have to get up early in the mornings again and get paid less for the trouble? Sheesh!

I need a holiday.

Re: Health Warning

My last offering, the post entitled “Health Warning”, has attracted a little spam e-mail which I couldn’t resist bringing here. I have a fairly ruthless attitude toward spam, I generally delete it immediately, but this one caught my eye because of a piece of poor spelling. I wonder just what a “juice fact” is and why would it take 3-5 days?

 

Emma D
coloncleanse.netne.net
emmadawson@yahoo.com

Submitted on: 2009/04/19 at 11:10pm

One of the most important things I found out about colon cleaning is you MUST juice fact for 3-5 days to get the OLD stuff out of your system. Of course clear the fasting with your doctor first.

 

Well, thanks Em.. that’s very thoughtful of you.

On another note; I couldn’t help feeling a bit put out by the suggestion that my colon is in any way in need of clearing out. That usually gets done at least once a day while I take a look at the newspaper or read my paper mail. Guess what happens when I see pictures of politicians I don’t like.

Yep. I multi-task while I’m on the toilet.

I reckon my colon is in good order. I can fart like an elephant too (just ask my wife) and, while I’m on the subject, my ex, several campers and the entire population of the island of Møn, is still talking about the anal explosion that shook the earth several years ago. I’ve never heard a camping site go so quiet in the middle of the day. It was a real party stopper. My guts are OK.

I have no idea who Emma D. is or why she may be interested in the workings of my bowels, but hey, if you require some help in that general direction, drop her a line. Or should that be, dump her a line?

At least, she won’t be filling you with crap.

I left all the links here, so you could get quick and easy access. Have fun.

Health Warning

It probably comes as no surprise to those that know me well, that I do not engage in anything that may be described as strenuous. This is primarily because I made myself a promise, on leaving the armed forces many moons ago, that I wasn’t going to run flat out for anything or anyone ever again. I live at a sedate pace. I walk with my dogs, I don’t run with them. I do not own a bicycle. I drive a car. Everywhere. I prefer to relax in my armchair than work my ass off in the garden and I eat what I like and smoke my pipe and drink beer. I also eat at least one Mars bar a day and have a well developed sweet tooth. I weigh 110 Kilograms, my blood pressure, measured last week, is 140 over 83. I have no idea what that means, but it is supposed to be around the ideal. Woo-hoo!
Beyond that, I get to go to work five days a week and that can be a regular work out in itself, every Monday to Friday. Physical activity is not my best, nor favourite, subject under life’s curriculum.

The health nuts don’t like me. I am seldom sick. I do not visit my doctor weekly. I do not suffer from depressions, nervous disorders, a dodgy ticker or anything else that my chosen lifestyle should cause me to suffer from. I am 56 years old this year and still going very strong, thank you. I have only been in hospital once in my life. For colic. I was twenty three at the time. A young and very fit soldier.

What’s this all about, you may ask? Well, I heard the news today and, once more, the nanny state do-gooders are about to infringe on my private life again. The latest suggestion from the oh-so concerned Social Democrat guardians of my welfare, whether I like it or not, is to have shops and supermarkets remove sweets and cigarettes from public view.
Sugar and smoke. The two single most deadly substances known to the green people. The fat crusaders have joined the fray along with the anti-smokers and the anti-drinkers, believing that by banning anything enjoyable, we shall all live forever.

Wonderful. More bloody nonsense from the anti-life brigade.

At the same time, though apparently not worthy of the same depth of coverage, the news also reported the finding of a jogger in someone’s drive. He was dead. He probably jogged himself to death. A form of suicide by which many have shuffled off the mortal coil of late, as the health nuts get us up out of our comfortable armchairs where we sit with our pipes full of poisonous weed and eat our sticky, heart clogging chocolate bars. Had this health fanatic been sharing my experience at the time, he would still be alive today. I don’t jog. I wouldn’t dream of it. My body is built for comfort, not speed. This guy just sped himself into an early grave. He was 57 years old. Strangely enough, the report didn’t mention whether or not this guy smoked, drank, ate sweets or just took his time to sit for a few hours a day, relax and ponder life’s complexities in silent pursuit of the inner peace that smoking my dreaded and, now proven, not so dangerous pipe brings me. I know what works for me, and physical exertion ain’t it. I’m in no hurry to overwork my vital body parts.

Here’s the thing. We’re all gonna die. You, me, my wife, my kids, your wife, your kids, your husband. The greens, the reds, the in betweens and the do-gooders. The criminals, the insane and the geniuses. All of us. The question is, how much you are going to enjoy yourself while you are able to enjoy yourself? I believe the content among us live longer than those who worry themselves over everything and, especially, on other’s behalf.

As I said somewhere else in a moment of inspiration, I don’t have a due by date stamped on my ass. I don’t know if I’ll be here tomorrow. So for now at least, I will enjoy what I like while I can. I may not live longer than you but I will have a good time of it while I’m here. If I do live longer than you, well, then I was right!

Now let’s see, pipe, tobacco, beer and a Mars bar. Yep, got it all. What’s on the TV?

Easter Sunset

My wife and I visited her parents during the Easter break. While not considering myself by any means a photographer, I just couldn’t help getting a shot or two of this stunning springtime sunset over Roskildefjord. This is part of the view from the beach, a stones throw away from my parents-in-law’s house.

 

 

Skinny Dipping with the Dogs

Spring is sprung. The temperature went up today and for the first time in a long time, I could feel the call of the wild. Well, actually not feel it, but the dogs have a good run of it over the winter and bath day has finally come round. I could really smell the call of the wild. They have started to shed hair for the summer and they have fur that holds all the crap they have run through in the last few days so it was high time. Out with the big old plastic tub then and into the shower.

The dogs, being dogs, have a sixth sense about all this. They may just remember it from Christmas time, which was the last bath day but they were definitely suspicious. The bigger one went and hid under the dining table, the smaller under our bed. Guess which one is the brighter of the two.

Experience tells me that getting a dachshund into water isn’t easy unless it stinks like a swamp. They’ll go happily into that. But if it smells like shampoo, they’re not much for it. So the process starts with me getting naked while the tub fills up. Then I catch the dogs one at a time. Starting with the larger of the two, I got going. Getting her into the tub is a wrestling match from hell. Everything is a fight with her. She stands solidly on all four legs that are now transformed into concrete pillars and cooperation is the least likely thing to expect. Holding her firmly with one hand, I scrubbed with the other. She was constantly trying to escape this cruel fate, ready to go at the least sign of my left hand weakening. I swear, the dog is fitted with some kind of outboard motor. Nothing else could move that amount of water in so short a time. My wife, who treats the two canines as her babies, encouraged me by telling me that I was being too hard and not nearly gentle enough as I scrubbed three months of dirt out of the furry beast that was fighting my every move. The water was too hot, she said, I got soap in the dog’s eyes and ears, she said. I was way too rough, she said. The dog was beating the living daylights out of me. 
I was as wet as the dog and the water was freezing on my bare stomach and legs. And I can now speak from experience, dog shampoo does not sting your eyes.

Finally it was half time. One dog washed and one to go. The dog leapt from the tub, shook herself all over and ran off to the living room to roll on her rug. My wife followed with big fluffy towels. I drew breath and rounded up my new bathing partner. Refilling the tub, I got ready for round two.

The smaller dog is not really smaller. She is a few pounds lighter. Otherwise there isn’t much difference between them any more. However, she is a little easier to handle. She resigns herself to her fate. Bathing her was no big thing compared to the other. Which actually makes the process quicker and we were finished in no time. She too, shook herself all over the place and ran off to the living room looking for sympathy and towels and mum.

I stayed in the shower and washed myself. I was covered in dog hair. Once finished, I had to go find my own towel. The dogs were being dried with the usual battery of towels that hang in our bathroom.

By the time I got to the living room the dogs were out in the garden enjoying the sun and drying out by more natural means. Once again, I was told I was too hard on the dogs, not nearly gentle enough, uncaring, disrespectful and all things unholy. The dogs are avoiding me for now and I am considering whether or not I should take them for a reconciling walk and leave my good lady to clean up the bathroom or just do the clean up myself and be the bad guy for the rest of the day. I’ll probably take the walk.

Talk about a dog’s life!

A Going Concern

My ever growing pipe collection is getting out of hand. Looking at my collection the other day I decided some of them had to go. It’s not that I don’t love them any more, it’s just that I have some that I never, or rarely, smoke and I find myself looking around for other pipes anyway. It seemed logical then, to sell off some of those that I rarely use and put the freed up cash into more pipes that I would like to own. I decided to look at auctioning them off.

Ebay was, of course, the obvious candidate but the auction fees are huge. If I had to make up for that, then I would have to extend my prices. Other sites were no better. Shipping is also a bit of a bind. Postage ain’t cheap anymore. All this would eat up my pocket money. There is but one solution to this. I have to have my own market place. So I made one.

Easy said, Exile, but not so easy to do.

First one has to figure out what one wants to do. Designing a webside is easy enough with a page editor and, with a bit of work, one can make a working page in a few hours. I did this.
Then I thought about a sort of order form. Linked to my home page. I built that too. Then one has to think about some sort of “Thank you for your business page” to follow and confirm the order. How does that work? The order has to be linked to an email address too. Otherwise, I wouldn’t get it, would I? And pictures? Well, you have to have them hosted somewhere so that you can link them in. A Photobucket account will do that. Free, believe it or not.

What if someone just wants to enquire about one of the items up for sale? A contact page has to be built too. Again, it has to connect to your email. Another page to confirm that the enquiry has been sent would be a nice addition.

It just kept going. Finally it was done. It all worked, more or less, on my computer.

So far, so good. Steady as you go Exile.

Webhosting was the next problem. There are many out there, and half of them are more in it for the money than for anything else, so don’t be fooled by “Free webhosting”. Nothing is free. You need a domain name. You have to buy that. You have to register your domain. That is not free either. A good web hotel is going to cost you something. Each month.
But hey, it’s free to sign up to. That costs nothing. Everything else will though.
I found a good one here in Denmark. It is not expensive and the service is very good. The support is very good too. Live chat with a capable support guy is invaluable. If you want to know where, then drop me a line.

So, I had my domain, my webhotel, my access codes and my raw websides. I needed a file transfer program now. Filezilla is good. And you can download it for free. It works too. I transferred all my files to my new swanky website.

And…..

It didn’t work. At all. Nada. Zip. Butt kiss. Oh, bugger.

The support guy got me up and running but none of my secondary pages worked. He couldn’t help me with that so I had to find a crash course in html language to get my stuff going. They are out there too. Just Google for html tutorials. Then read. For hours. Then you fiddle about with your webside’s raw scripts and correct hundreds of code lines. With luck, it will only take a day or two. Like Einstein once said, “If we knew what we were doing, it wouldn’t be called research.” I am not Einstein, so my “research” was pitifully slow in coming to anything like fruition!

After a long weekend and some really bloody marvellous guesswork, I finally had it going. It loads in seconds because I have kept it simple. The contact forms work. The order forms work. The pictures come up in the right places. It thanks you for doing business with me or writing to me. It even has a spam filter built in to keep the spam slimeballs off me. Best of all, I have total control over it. I can put up what I want. No fixed templates to bind me. No hindrance on the content side of things. The egoist’s dream come true. Facebook, I spit on you!

I feel like Dr. Frankenstein. I want to yell, “It’s alive!” I have made the monster live. I have promoted myself to God status. I have become a creator! Support guy, thou art mine archangel of mercy! Cry havoc and let loose the dogs of cyber business!

Ahem… Sorry.

Now back in the real world, I have to publicise it. I have to get it to show up in search engines. All that will come later, I’m sure. My learning curve is getting flatter as I gain more experience with this new toy.
In the meantime, if you need a good, clean used pipe, be it a cheapo or a high end of the market smoking instrument, it may just be that I have the very thing. Take a peek.

You’ll find me at http://exilesplace.dk

Actually, I’m rather proud of it!

OK, This Has Gone Far Enough..!

Have you noticed the price of petrol today?

I did. Actually I look every day. But this one took the proverbial biscuit.

Driving past my petrol station this afternoon I couldn’t help stopping and taking a picture of the electronic advertising. This is a real picture, it isn’t photoshopped.

After not tanking the car up.. I drove off.

There must be a short circuit somewhere, because the sign was OK later on.

Or was this just a practice run for coming fuel prices?

Either way, I don’t think the poor guy who owns this place had much custom while his sign displayed these outrageous prices!

The End is Nigh.. Or Not.. Who Knows?

I met an anti smoker today while I was out with the dogs. I meet them, I suppose, every day, but this one gave me some astonishing news.
"That will kill you." she said.
"What?" I replied.
"Smoking. It will kill you." I drew on my pipe, hard and long, and blew smoke at her.
"How?" I asked.
"It will kill you. It shortens your life."
"I see." I said. "So if I didn’t smoke, I would live for ever?"
"No. But you won’t live as long as you should."
"And how long should I live? I asked. "Tell me, when am I going to die?"
"I don’t know."
"Then how can you state that I am going to live longer, or shorter, than something that you know nothing of?" I was getting ready for the usual tirade. "Do you know how I am going to die?"
"No" She said.
"Then how can you be sure that smoking my pipe will shorten my life? Will the bus that is destined to run me over be early that day because I smoke? See, I’d love to know when and how I will die. Then I can make some real plans as to how I am going to spend the rest of my time here. Until then, I’ll just enjoy what I can, while I can. Which includes smoking my pipe."
"But it’s bad for you."
"Really? Then explain to me why pipe smokers appear to live longer than their non smoking contemporaries. Why is the percentage higher among non smokers than smokers where Alzheimers is concerned? Why are pipe smokers generally less troubled by these so called stress related diseases? And while we’re about it, show me one death certificate that states cause of death as being "Smoking". There isn’t one. People do not die from smoking. They die of diseases that may be aggravated by it, but the disease itself is the killer. Or was none of that mentioned in the last piece of so called hard evidence that you read and draw your conclusions from? My thanks for your concern Madame, but it really is wasted here."

I called the dogs to me and walked off leaving her to consider my argument. If we were all given a set number of days to live then I could understand any math involved. But we aren’t. We are not guaranteed a certain length of life. So how can anybody be sure that anything we do will lengthen or shorten our time on this earth? We do not all die of old age. Some of us die in traffic, accidents at work, war, natural disasters. So even the manner of our demise is not guaranteed and is unknown to us. To assume then, that my life will be shortened or not by any activity I choose to indulge in is purely hypothetical as there is no end point to measure backwards from. Mountaineering is equally as potentially dangerous. So is hang gliding. Driving. Or even just going to work and back each day. Working for fifty years will damage your health. You don’t see any feckin’ government health warnings there though, do you?

Life is ultimately only terminable. I will die one day. That is inevitable. I am not worried about it, because once it is done with, I will know nothing about it. Unfortunately, I do not have a "Due by" date stamped on my arse. On the other hand, if I was to spend the rest of my days worrying about it, it would be a pretty miserable life anyway.

I want quality while I can get it. Not quantity at any price.