Seatbelts

Obviously everybody needs to wear one. In the Italian legislation, likely the European one, there a couple of exceptions. Police, fire brigades, passengers and users of emergency vehicles, cars, taxi drivers and people which have peculiar pathologies. And guess what? Gina & Pina have got an exemption.
Gina declaring that she's too small hence the belt cuts her throat and
Pina saying that cars are too small and the belt limits her movements.
Then I leave to your imagination, what happens when the police stops them to fine them for not wearing a belt.
They do a little act, they show the documents, duly signed and regular and there you go, they hit the road again for the next bunch of flowers or for next restaurant to try. The latest had a chocolate theme. Chickpeas soup and chocolate???

L'esenzione, inoltre, riguarda: gli appartenenti alle Forze di Polizia e ai corpi di Polizia Municipale e Provinciale nell'espletamento di un servizio d'emergenza, nonché le Forze Armatenell'espletamento di attività istituzionali in situazioni di emergenza; i conducenti e gli addetti dei veicoli del servizio antincendio e sanitario in caso di intervento di emergenza; le persone che risultino affette da patologie particolari; le donne in stato di gravidanza ed i passeggeri degli autobus in cui è previsto il trasporto anche di passeggeri in piedi, quando tali veicoli sono adibiti al trasporto locale.

Cube II

See..these are the movies I like.

Strega

While on one of those insane exchange of messages while a work, subject fell on sicilian food and obviously various liqueurs. Maraschino was mentioned, which is nice with Pinapple. That reminded me of:

Gina comes from Pietralcina, where Santo Pio was born.
Pietralcina, near Benevento ( which has nothing to do with Sicily or Puglia)
Benevento, used to be called Maleventum, i.e. bad winds, bad luck.

According to an old legend, Benevento is the place where witches from all over the world meet.
Here since 1860, the family Alberti has guarded a secret, an old recipe, passed on from father to son.
And it is here in Benevento that is produced the most ancient and best- known liqueur in the world. A liqueur whose unique colour and incomparable flavour have gave it the principle role for each encounter ever since.
BEWITCHED BY STREGA

As an old ad used to go

Il primo sorso affascina,
Il secondo strega
The first sip charmes you,
The second one betwitches you.

Jesus found on Google maps

Jesus is the one on the left

He has appeared in many places – on a cement floor, on a shower wall, and most notably on a dog's bottom – but now Jesus has appeared in a place that's perhaps more appropriate… floating in the shape of a cloud over Mount Sinai.

Or so claims somebody on YouTube, anyway.

The video was created by one Brian Martin of the USA, who describes it in the following manner: 'I google mapped where people thought Mt Sinai is in the world and when I zoomed in, I saw Jesus in the Clouds. You can see his Body, Robe, Belt like thing and FACE.. also a Halo on his head.'

In case you're wondering, Jesus is floating at a 45% angle, with his face in the North East. You can see him best if you sort of stand back and squint quite a lot. Sort of.

Sadly, the video has now been removed from YouTube. However, to help you identify the Jesus:

Other things that it potentially bears a resemblance to, according to internet commenters, include The Flying Spaghetti Monster, The Predator, and A Cloud.

And then there was Easter

Oh yes..
Sicily = Saturday to Saturday.
I won't bore you with the numerous phone calls, dinners, lunches and visits to friends. The biggest issue is that everybody wants their personal space with me. My plan of booking a table for 20 and answer the marriage and kid questions all at once wasn't accepted as a polite thing to do.

Gina was more hyperactive than usual, then I wonder why I never sleep.
Hence she wakes up at 5 and goes for a run, all the police cars, the rubbish bin collectors and grocery shops of the area know her, most of all, as the nutter that runs in the early hours of the morning, some of them as the little lady that jumps the queue because she's always in a hurry.
Well yes, you need to know that if Gina enters a shop and she doesn't get immediate attention, she will just leave. If patience has never been my virtue, then Gina's never made an appearance in the course of her life, well or since I know her.

I went running with her, one afternoon, in the middle of the woods with wild rabbits crossing the paths and angry dogs following us. Street dogs have always concerned me and it amazes me that Sicily must be the only region in the civilised world, to still have such a huge number trotting around.
She runs with a stone in her hand, just in case they attack..
In one of these episodes Gina took Pina for a run in the woods.
While Gina was comfortably dressed, Pina was just over from a meeting hence with tight skirt, jacket and summery high heeled shoes.
Ater about one hour, they were tired so they decided to take a shortcut. There was a very steep hill, Pina rolled her skirt up but still wasn't enough and her shoes were slipping, hence Gina said I push you. And there you go, Pina with hands on the wall and Gina pushing her ass up.
I have been searching the web to find a cartoon or a picty to depict it, but I didn't succeed.. Hope you can visualise that. In case refer to prefer Gina & Pina's episodes.

I forgot to tell you, Gina loves flowers and fruit. Especially stealing them.
I stopped her from stopping the car in the emergency lane on the motorway, to climb up the wall and "collect" some flowers. But nothing I could to avoid her climbing in somebody' s garden to get a huge bunch of flowers with which she just kept walking on the street.
The dog almost attacked me ( on the street, still waiting for Gina) and her ( head to toes in the garden pulling away- with the owners just inside the overlooking house)
I asked.. Mum, what if they came out ? what would you have said?
Gina: Well... that as I saw many flowers in the garden and I assumed they didn't like to collect them, and you can't just leave those beautiful flowers there. Can you?
I'm glad they didn't ask.
These flowers are so beautiful that when you get married I'll fill the church of them. errr...



I also saw pollo & polla ... as they were going to an outrageous wedding ( with tons of roses and a photo service comparable to a film set).
Ah yes and I also bought a pair of roller blades, so if you want to join me for a stroll, feel welcome.
And Pina rescued me from the diet with swordfish kebabs ( braciolettine di pescespada) with bay leaves bbqued on the spot.

Remember Federica?
These are her latest creations.

Art with Mike

Courtyard of the Royal Academy

After Damien Hirst's Virgin Mother

and Rodin's Gates of Hell,

Kiefer’s sculpture is the latest.

Walking across london

Would you snort your father's ashes? Keith Richards apparently did.

Richards made the extraordinary admission in an interview with NME magazine.

"The strangest thing I've tried to snort? My father. I snorted my father," he said.
"He was cremated and I couldn't resist grinding him up with a little bit of blow. My dad wouldn't have cared, he didn't give a sh*t.
"It went down pretty well, and I'm still alive." His father, Bert, died in 2002 aged 84.
The 63-year-old rocker also recounted his worst drugs experience.
"It was when someone put strychnine in my dope. It was in Switzerland. I was totally comatose, but I was totally awake. I could listen to everyone, and they were like, 'He's dead, he's dead!', waving their fingers and pushing me about, and I was thinking, 'I'm not dead!'," he recalled.
But he said: "I've no pretensions about immortality - I'm the same as everyone else - same as you, same as everybody, I'm the same old b*stard, just kind of lucky.
"I was number one on the Who's Likely To Die list for 10 years. I mean, I was really disappointed when I fell off the list."
And he added: "Some doctor told me I had six months to live and I went to their funeral. The obit columns are of quite an interest to me these days. I don't trust doctors. It's not to say there ain't some good ones, but on a general level, no, I wouldn't trust 'em at all."
Richards predicted that Pete Doherty could be the next drugs casualty - and told him to leave supermodel Kate Moss alone.
"My advice for Pete Doherty is that he should shut the f*ck up and leave her," he said. "I don't know the man, all I know is he's pushing his luck and there it is, but so is Kate, who I know very well.
"Kate wants to play with bad boys, and she's done one, and then another one, and then another one. Badabing, badabang, badaboom. She'll live, the boys will die."
And he warned rock stars not to emulate his fabled drug-taking.
"I did it because that was the way I did it. Now people think it's a way of life," he said.
Of today's musicians, he declared: "Everyone's a load of crap. They're are trying to be somebody else and they ain't being themselves. Libertines, Arctic Monkeys, Bloc Party? Load of crap, load of crap. Posers, rubbish."The Rolling Stones will kick off the European leg of their A Bigger Bang tour in June.
Last year their touring was interrupted when Richards reportedly fell out of a palm tree while on holiday in Fiji.
But Richards said: "I wasn't climbing a tree. I was sitting on a f*cking shrub. I was sitting on that shrub again today, but I happened to fall off it the wrong way that day."
He underwent brain surgery after the accident and revealed: "I've been trepanned. That's quite an interesting experience, especially for my brain surgeon, who saw my thoughts flying around in my brain. I've got pictures of it, mate. They cut my head, brain, skull open, went in and pulled out the crap, and put some of it back again.
"But that's the way it is. I mean, sh*t, Keith Richards has got to do everything once."

2 painful hours... but yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeessssss

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As soon as I got tickets I heard a brass band playing.. Wow... I said everybody is celebrating they got Glasto tickets... Not quite... It was a religious parade for "la domenica delle Palme".
Oh well.. the ski is celebrating.