and back to the shit normal life

oh God... what a difference makes... 

Back home, heating needs to be flushed  (1000£ ) lights blew up, stock market crashing, one less investment bank in there, another 2 waiting to go and with that my job too. 

Only highlights of the week were

 a fabolous dinner ( hosted by me) with invaluable contribution of lovely M&M without them 

would not have been possible... thank you love you both dearly. 

and the Soros and Alain de Botton talk - inspiring

Now it's friday night, too exhausted to go out, to depressed to think. So... let's remember the jolly good times of heaven- i.e. the past week. What a wonderful experience.... 

Let's start from NYC, still not convinced I could really live there but hey! those 3 days were amazing ... 

Funnily enough... look what I found in the picture collection... and probably what would really remain of it very soon


And you can already buy Lehman parafernalia on Ebay ( just to remember the old times) !

The best week of my life

and.... Bucolic it was.. 

The most amazing place I have ever been to, the most amazing people and the most beautiful holiday of my entire life.
I haven't complained despite becoming St Lazzarus after mosquitos attack and despite spraining my ankle. 
I don't know where to start either... as I have 500 pictures in my camera... ready to be downloaded and I'm sure another 5000 on the go.. the housemates had to even buy a new hard-drive to store all the evidence.
There are no highlights, every single moment of it was wonderful.. and the wedding... wish any couple such a wonderful wedding..

I even woke up early and run two mornings in a row
I'm still weeping, I don't get nostalgic when I leave Sicily, but I cried when I left Vermont.

I could probably live picking apples, peeling them and making apple pies.. 

But back to reality... 1 hr queue at Paddington, no hot water as my boiler decided to break once again and.... workkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk ( the dreaded evil).

Photos will come.. once iphoto stops crashing....

but no worries.. I'll bang on to this for at least 10 posts... ( I'll make you beg for depressing posts!)   

U.S.A be ready I'm coming

And me too I will be in the bucolic surrounding of Vermont... 

Who will crack first?  

The challenge :  

PC obsessed vs Me

I haven't been to the States for quite a while now, not sure a lot has changed, but all my friends report back highly and they would actually consider swapping NY for London.

The way I see the States ( still open to be surprised on this trip ) as opposed to Sicily is the way you are brought up.

In Sicily, if you see somebody doing something he shouldn't, authorises you to do it as well.

In the States, if you see somebody doing something he shouldn't you report it, so nobody else will ever do it again. 

If you report it in Sicily ( even in kindergarten, all the kids will circle you and they'll start chanting... Chi fa la spia non e' figlio di Maria ( meaning, he who spies is not the son of the Madonna) 

Cultures... Let's face it... if I was born American I would have probably been electrocuted by now. Which really wouldn't have been a bad option either.

Waiting.. waiting for godot

Yup! always waiting for something that never materialises.. 

They are not dreams, you can't write a little letter to father Xmas to send things to you also because father Xmas only comes down chimneys and I only have a stupid fig tree

yes yes I know.. you can make things happens.

I know you couldn't care less. I know you will always remain of your opinion, I know you think I'm wrong and blablabla.. 

Birth? Coincidence? Luck...
X grew up in Raleigh, North Carolina, and counts among his ancestors, a rogue colonist who, in 1676, launched an unauthorized attack on Indians that briefly led to his controlling most of Virginia. His father, ran the North Carolina real estate operations of both Prudential and later Merrill Lynch & Co. When his father eventually remarried, it was to the sister of a man who was fast becoming a Wall Street legend: Julian Robertson.
He is the middle of three sons. His brothers,  graduated from local public schools, he, in his junior year, ventured out of town enrolling in preppy Episcopal High School, by coincidence Robertson's alma mater. Students at Episcopal were expected to work hard and had to sit in study hall during free periods and evenings. Only in the afternoon did they get a few hours outdoors, to play football or other sports. He didn't seem to mind. One afternoon I passed through study hall, and there was him, grinding away, recalls Lee Ainslie Jr., the former Episcopal headmaster and father of Lee Ainslie III, manager of the $4.5 billion Maverick Capital hedge funds. Most other boys would have been happy to be outdoors playing.

An aficionado of Ernest Hemingway and Nathaniel Hawthorne, he cultivated his love of the outdoors in the bucolic surroundings of Vermont. Southerners at Middlebury stuck out like sore thumbs, recalls classmate Christopher Brady, who heads money management and advisory firm Chart Group and is the son of former Treasury secretary Nicholas Brady. He hunted a lot, skiied incessantly and studied.
Still, there were some early signs of the future financier: During the summers following his sophomore and junior years, He worked as a clerk for New York Stock Exchange specialist Walter N. Frank & Co. and met Frank after working on his deep-sea charter fishing boat off Montauk, Long Island, during the summer of 1976.
An early influence was Paul Tudor Jones, who was sharing an apartment with Charles Johnson, a former roommate of Zack Bacon's at the University of North Carolina. Jones, who had started out as a cotton trader, was then working as a commodities broker with E.F. Hutton.
He soon headed off to get his MBA at Columbia University, where he used his student loan as capital to continue to trade. To his chagrin, he lost it all - and had to work odd jobs to make up the difference.
From this experience, he learned how to handle risk, he landed at Shearson Lehman Hutton in 1983 as a futures broker, trading on behalf of some of the biggest names in the hedge fund world. For a 27-year-old, he deployed a powerful Rolodex. Jones and brother Zack, who deployed landed at Soros Fund Management as head trader, threw plenty of business his way. He quickly became a top commission producer.
He was very fortunate to be right in the middle of that network, notes Charles Stockley, president of Stockley Asset Management, a futures trading firm, and a childhood friend of Jones's. You can't say that his career is a story of someone starting at the bottom and clawing his way up. But he took the ball and ran with it, and ultimately he surpassed them all.
His gilt-edged client list had another advantage, in addition to the hefty commissions: By trading on behalf of Soros and Jones, he learned their investing styles.
By 1986 he had acquired enough of a reputation to start managing other peoples' money. The following year, while still at Shearson, he set up a small fund . Right off he hit a home run. He correctly anticipated the stock market crash, going short S&P futures and then shifting to a long position just as the market bottomed.
By the end of the decade, he had established a strong track record, and he decided to move to a bigger stage

That first year, the fund was up 86 percent, thanks largely to his decision to short the Nikkei index just before the Japanese markets collapsed. He also anticipated Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait and went short stocks and long oil.
As he set out to raise more money, his task was made easier by his friendship with Jones, who had decided to close his funds to new money. In a letter to investors, Jones recommended they invest spare capital with him. Jones also introduced him to Busson, who had helped him raise money in Europe. 

The story is for me and it's not for you.. also because you get bored of reading things like this I omitted some pieces and some names.

It's not luck... it's not coincidence... yes you have to be great, but somebody has to give you a chance... 

Waiting to hear what's the excuse this time.. 

I close my day with some thoughts

The world appreciates more people that recycle and donate to charity than people that respect others. 

Wish one single individual in this planet could understand that diplomacy it only serves the purpose of using your intellect to manipulate people. 

I offer them the choice to say no, I give them the opportunity to have their opinions. 

However that's wrong, because human kind prefers to be manipulated and pushed to do something, as long as that's done in a nice way.

That's an additional reason why there is no reason for the existence of human kind on planet earth. 

You can now use a service so that their phone calls don't reach a number but manipulate the system so that you can just leave a message into the answer phone, that's for people which haven't got the courage to say what they think not even on the phone. 

As people only like nice unchallenging people a new software has been developed and you can't even tell that's not a real human, it's just a nice smiling good looking diplomatic one ( i.e. the equivalent to the hologram that speaks in front of you).

Diplomacy can be replaced by a computer, thinking and opinions can't. 

But that's just a point of view, which will never be shared by unthinking individuals.  

I was born turbated and I will die deluded. Doesn't matter, I can't change the world because I'm fair, people rather have Hitler burning them alive.

He made history after all. 

Gina home alone

Errrrrrrrrrr.

11.10 : Hello... Anna... lights blew up. There is no light in 1/4 of the house.. including the fridge.. the braciolettine will defrost, what will I do with the meat?

11.12 Mum... I have been living in the house for nearly 3 years and that has never happened to me. Also... just 1/4 of the house? How is that possible? 

Let's rewind.. Where did you clean? What did you open? 

11.15 Nothing nothing nothing

well to make a story short, she manages to short circuit a part of the house while attempting to charge her mobile phone. How that's possible... not sure really!

Thanks to John ( the caretaker of the building, which loves me due to my slitty eyes connection and because when he used to have the keys of my flat used to perve on M's seminaked pictures from the photoshoot )

Anyhow.. Gina made him coffee, he switched the light back on. Bless him

15:00  ring ring  .... I found the brush ( that's to clean the carpet) how do you say flour in english? 

19:00 back home- 

there are objects on the shelves as they looked empty and M's scarf is properly ironed and packaged in a little plastic sleeve - because you know, Gina lives in that world in which in the morning, before wearing a scarf you remove it from the plastic unfold it and wear it, at night time you fold it and replace it in the bag

Come come... look what I bought? beautiful, useful... ( it's a brush to clean the floor on the balcony) I wonder how I lived without one till now

Gina bought Heinz tomato soup instead of chopped tomatoes, flour  ( which I already had) 

the nevermissable crisps ( the crunchy ones... ) 

I really don't know if my mum is like I'll be as an old woman, or as the creature I will put in the world. I think after this experience, I really learnt that no I haven't got the patience for it. 

Clearly.. as she hasn't talked all day... we have already touched the world domination the 100 rules of cleaning and the principles of cooking. 

She also said she hasn't stopped for one sec. Do you know what? I believe her. 

- I don't find these drawers suitable to keep cooking pans

- you should have allowed me to send you the sitting steps ( i.e. a small ladder which can be used as a seat) so she could reach the top shelves

- How do you clean the gas bits?? 

If I had a calculator to know how many carbon emissions she generated by using cleaning products I think will be more than a flight to NY. 

Tomorrow I'll hang a stepcount to her belt... let's see how many steps can she go through in a day in the house. I buy 10k 

Saturday: Wycombe - the caves and the trekking tour

Thanks to Diana for  the patience, the choice of trek and for spending a day with Gina and me. 

I must say it was wonderful. As you could see from previous post.. not enough to tire Gina but it was wonderful to see her happy and not complaining. She even said : You could not have chosen a better day! Bliss... what happened to that bliss only god knows.. 

As the original plan of walking 16km was "too easy" for her, she started the walk with a jog!

Sorry forgot the photographic evidence of today

When I say... it's like having a kid.. I'm not kidding

I also forgot ( not sure how... to recount the amazing day we had yesterday in the countryside...) but photos of that and full story to follow- yes.. yesterday was a wonderful day with Gina and Diana, but today everything got wiped out. I'm now certain that Gina suffers from ADD and that must be hereditary ( not sure that's an english word)  

It was the the first Soho pride in history with the sunshine and I missed it

I have been trying all day to say to myself, there are many Soho prides there is only one Gina. 

Still it was the only Soho pride with the sunshine since I seem to remember. 

Spending time with Gina is how I picture having my own kid, with the difference that a kid 

a) might find some other interest than nagging me

b) you can shout at the kid and tell him to shut up

c) kids sleep a couple of hours a day or stay quiet in front of the telly or a videogame

8 am : Gina could no longer stay in bed, hence she decided to get up and start going around the house, making noises and doing things

8:30 : I could no longer stay in bed, too much trotting around

9:00 : Mum please, it's morning, could you kindly stop asking questions till at least I have a coffee.. it really takes 10 minutes for me to have a coffee, can I read my emails and have a coffee and then we can talk

9:00:01 Ok then I tidy up the  drawers then.

9:00:02 Can I throw this away? 

MUMmmmmmmmmm

9:00:05  Can you check if this is expired?

9:00:07  Where shall I put this ? 

well in the flipping same drawer you took it from

9:00:10 Do you need this? 

9:00:20 Do you need all these stick things ( chopsticks!), you already have so many

9:00:30 blablablabla... 

i started smoking fags

9:01  you are not washing your hair again are you? It's going to fall off if you keep washing it

9:03 Can we go running?

 

Mum I really need to read some stuff, could you please, please be silent for 10 minutes

9:05 What is this for? 

9:06 and this? 

then she started hoovering.. and guess what.. the subject fell again on the infamous flipping carpet, the ugly horrible heavy extremely expensive white shit that she decided to deliver to my office on my birthday last year ( after months of discussions on the fact that I wanted a dark carpet) .. anyhow.. carpet now needs washing and she wants to attempt the flipping task with a toothbrush.. 

Can you not do something more useful? No... 

anyhow... 

I wasn't allowed to read, I ended up tidying the drawers and loading the washing machine

at 11.30 we eventually went out... destination : running trainers shop

Together with trainers, she must have tried 20 tops, for which I had to provide smaller bigger, smaller, let's try this again size. 2 hours later she's the owner of a new pair of running shoes ( still not convinced of why she can't use them to the gym too or why they can't be waterproof or why they don't make them black) 

It was painful, really painful beyond painful... including translating every single writing on every single t-shirt in the David and Goliah shop, trying every single tea in the tea shop and so on and so forth, like finding fridge magnets red phone shaped, finding a  present for a kid, find a pair of trekking trousers like mine, despite she doesn't ever go trekking.

Arguments of the day were 

once again the carpet, as tomorrow, while I'm at work, she'll attempt to lift it ( it weights 30 kgs) find a shop that washes it ( she doesn't speak a word of english and she gets lost) 

and... TATTOOs  the addition to the insults today was that clever people don't have tattoos... I really truly honestly don't understand how certain ideas radicate in her mind.

Anyway tattoos are for stupid and the only thing is acceptable is a small little flower on your  hand ( now that's a fucking idiot ).

After I managed to stir away from the "capricci della natura" akas gay people all day, on our way back we bumped into a group of trannies.

Gina : Where are they going dressed like that? 

me: today is soho pride

Gina : what's soho pride? 

me : it's a street party where people dress up, there is music all day and when gay people are proud to be gay

Gina: Does A ever dress like that? 

me : no mum he doesn't. 

Gina: can we buy a brush to clean the carpet?

I'm now home, I missed pride, I missed the sunshine, didn't buy any of the things I needed to, didn't read anything I was supposed to, I feel exhausted more than when i don't sleep for the entire weekend, I almost want to cry and to make it worse, the weekend is gone, tomorrow is work shit again.

Still can't switch on the telly because she doesn't understand it ( how on earth can you translate word by word the X factor???? ) and still I have to decide what to eat... I want a beer and a pizza but can't say that either.

I feel hopeless. I never ever have headache, today I have, I honestly feel drained. 

If I ever decide to have a kid, please friends, make sure I'm never allowed  to make him feel the same.

Gina

I just noticed how appropriate the picture is!

Well I wanted to post about the olympics, but can't really find pictures or I can't lie saying I watched them, however I'm very proud of the water polo  girls... ( more so because I used to play with one of them) and on this I could go on a tangent and start thinking what if I was there... But I must say I always wish I was somewhere else or doing something else, but I wouldn't switch my frustrating banking job for water polo olympics. Don't know why, but that's the way my brain works.. 

Let's switch onto the Gina subject. 

Gina landed Thursday, went to pick her up at the airport, despite with fever, she was there smiling and happy to see her little baby ( me ) with a sporty handbag, trainers and a 29 kg suitcase containing:

7 salami 

4 kg of parmesan

30 skewers of braciolettine messinesi

1 whole calf fillet

6 sausages 

and more...

and before you ask.. no no rabbit this time. 

The way I define my mum : she says I'm lazy and for those that know me, that makes them imagine a tasmanian devil little person which never stay stills.. 

Let's start from this morning. 

I took the day off, to spend time with her and it was Ferragosto in Italy, so work would have been dull anyway and as none of my clients were there, no damage could have been done by my colleagues. 

By 8.30, time at which I opened my eyes, Gina had already made the coffee, washed the floor, cleaned the windows...

9.00  G: did you have a shower? I thought we were going running! Me: errrrrr no!

9.45 the Zatorski guys arrive, including their little baby ... to deliver the 2m x 1m  lamb...

Despite the wife tells Gina that she speaks Italian and despite I tell her that they are the artists of the lamb. She said and repeated a couple of times " What's that? a dead animal? what do you have to do with a dead animal. that's not a painting... that's a picture of a dead animal. But is it really dead?? " the only thing Z+Z could reply was: "errrr.. there is also a bird in it.. and it's alive"

Anyhow... we couldn't hang the picture because as we discovered it weights 23 Kg and english walls, even my picture railings are not made to hold such a weight, hence the hanging is to be rescheduled. 

11.30 Gina and I leave the house : direction Borough market, where Gina tasted every possible thing and asked me about every individual food... as queuing doesn't exist in her vocabulary we couldn't eat in any of the places there, because people are just crazy that they queue to eat, so we bought some fresh mozzarella, some parma ham, begged the bread guy to cut a ciabatta for us and made a panino... this without .."ask the guys where he gets his mozzarella from, there is diossina in Italy".

however despite she didn't want to queue, she wanted to know what all these people were queuing for, so at every stall, we run to the front, she put her head almost in the pan and then left...the same for every shop... particular attention went to the fishmonger.. where she run to the front of the queue, asked me for every single name of every single fish to then scream : This fish looks very dead to me.. like more than a couple of days.. 

What's that?

ostrich 

blaaaaaaaww che schifo

( have you seen how many guys died in Italy with drugs.. you know london is at the first place do they take  pills or they sniff! - Ludovica said she never smoked a joint ) 

Sorry that's what she's saying while I sit here typing. 

Borough market bored her, so we walked a bit, then it was sunny so i decided to sit in the sun, where it was wonderful ( being  off work, relaxed on a sunny day it was wonderful and I was happy to be with Gina too ) .. she basically took the piss out of every single individual passing in front of us- the executive summary was that Italians have more piercing than Anglosaxons.. 

You know they showed this woman in italy with 3000 piercings and another one with nails long till her feet

Left the bench, after I manage to swig a beer and we went to the Tate,  from there onto the Millennium Bridge, St Paul's, the outdoor shop where she wanted to buy those amazingly comfortable chairs, then Bond street, Oxford street  ( at night time window glasses look very clean... how do you clean on top of the wardrobe? ) 

While I was queuing for my new Iphone.. yes couldn't resist to get the 3g 16g .. Gina, obviously not made to wait, went in and out of the shop searching every single shop around... she even managed to go to Body Shop ( her favourite place and convinced the woman behind the till to hold her stuff till my arrival).

then selfridges... because Gina likes 3 things in life... dried fruit ( of which we bought a massive selection of in borough market) Louis Vitton bags ( for which is absurd she has to queue) and body creams ( I think we stayed about 40 minute at la praire place, and she even managed to get samples out of the woman) 

9.20 cab home

10.30 dinner

Dinner discussion:

Would you sleep with a man if you knew he went with a gay guy? Those guys are just ill.. like the ones that sleep with kids

you know f and a don't look gay when they walk, does f not have a boyfriend? why not? does it not sleep with anybody?  does it not tell you guys?? 

Mum ... maybe the married men that go with gay men, have always been gay but maybe they were constrained by parents like you not to show it and marry a woman.. 

No.. they are ill

Ok mum

Can you pass me the parmesan

Gina is now walking naked around the flat, to go and weight herself... 23.14  she might be tired and maybe go to bed. ( i'm sure she'll call over in a sec to ask something) 

Shhhhhhhhhhh Gina is asleep...Ops.. no! It's cream time... 

weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

WeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeGOAPE

CUIL pronounced cool- more crap than anything else

www.cuil.com
there is a lot of fuss about this lately, they reckon to be the biggest search engine in the world. They obviously would like to scoop some of google's success if not to "Appannete it".
Well, if you are a 10 year old looking for some stupid research, or if you have never used the internet, look marvellous, good, organised and beautiful, if you type google for everything including finding a street, stick to our beloved GOOGLE.

CUIL... try to get smarter first... you couldn't even find the address of my favorite club, mind you any important thing.
RIDICOLOUSLY CRAP. Searched for 10 things, couldn't find any...
Amatorial crap..
It doesn't even make suggestions.

Really 2008 must be the year of going backwards... in everything

rock me sexy jesus

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSVR94c0bqM&NR=1

The last famous words.....

My boss: What's Friday 13th to Italians?

Me: lucky lucky lucky you can even buy lucky charms with the number 13 on it

I hit a black swan.... and it shit on me.. against all the odds..

Friday 13th Sunday 15th

that was the so planned Maremma's weekend... you can see the angelic pictures on Tot's blog....

but I shall tell you the not told...

Summary:

flights booked 2 flights missed 2

people fainted : 1 

people bleeding : many

people slapped : 1 twice me 

picture for Gina : 1 

13th

15:37

M: at waterloo now. Going to catch a cab to liverpool street. Where are u? what's your ETA at liverpool street?

me: no idea i'm superbusy

M: see u at stansted

16:00 launch of passport and e-mail to colleague to check me in - Failed

16:45 Leave the office

16:53 liverpool street ( missed stansted express by 35 seconds)

17:15 stansted express

17.27 M: where are you?

Me: I think I won't make it

17.57 M: boarding flight on time

18.00 I arrive at check in desk, gate closed.

18.05 Go to customer service beg woman which calls to see if they still accept me- Failed

18.08 Any places on the Pisa's flight? - booked. discover as 1 hr delay

20.10 boarding to pisa's flight F: you are a c*nt

23.00 pisa's airport

23.10 pisa's station pisa's station pisa's station- weird people no train -me myself and a bottle of gin and vodka

01.20 eventually board the 00.50 train - the famous TORINO-VILLA SAN GIOVANNI animal carrier.. famous for people with card board boxes and live chickens.

trot to seat 25 carriage 3- 6 people box closed- reserved sit occupied by feet of snoaring unedentified individual- lights off

01.40 ticket man wakes up gives me my seat

01.45 woman on left dirty talks in mobile - man in front snoars

02.40 grosseto where exhausted m f & j wait for me. Punishment: holding maude

4.00 eventually reunited- wine, cheese, salami

F J & M got even stopped by police... AND THE CHINESE??? Tot F almost accused of smuggling immigrants...

12.00 wake up - no sun no even Swadowy -go back to sleep

brilliant afternoon looking at the tree.. taiching in the landscape. drinking drinking. occupy restaurant, dry their supply of prosecco and order monstrous amount of food.. which we asked to be saved in a doggy bag... ( see we are so recycling people now.. that we won't waste food either.. 

night... research of party - by mistake rock up to wedding anniversary of posh old couple which almost called the police at the sights of the tots.. 

Reserve, hit the right party- neat bottle of vodka downed one- people drunk - all - M never even made it to the party as stayed in the car. 

Slapped by F - twice. 

Lying on street - once

Sunday.... angelical cooking with waves of sunshine and crunchiness as F cooked crackers... yes crunchy tasty and with rosemary from the queen of broth.

Anyhow time to leave already... on board.. of Mina... we by luck reach the first airport but Fiumicino is packed solid, get off, run to pee, get in a cab, 40 minutes later, we haven't moved. 1.5 hr later, still there. 

Return flight missed. 

Call F actually J ( as F's phone drowned during the weekend) they are in Fregene... 

Taxi man takes M and I to Fregene.. 

errrrrrrrrr.

The errrrrrr gets worse as there is the sea... and clearly one two three... skinny dipping ole' - annoyed owner of boat club surprised by our presence chuck us out of their place... 

back in the car, restaurant food alcohol 

back to Rome... where they forget me outside on a road with me not knowing where the house actually is.. 

Anyhow... start searching flights.. nothing available.... sleep

wake up proposal to take train to Pisa and flight from there : rejected

We rock to Fiumicino hoping for a last minute flight... they don't exist.. we go through terminal a b and c... nothing... 

end up booking return flight  ( and yes... we will be back on the 11th for more).

hang around Rome airport for about 4 hours, buy wine and similar... take flight to Milan... Security steals our wine... for some absurd reason... The last drop... THE WINE NO... NO... NO... M stops talking. 

London Heathrow... plane too near to exit... so help was called to manouvre plane and passengers 35 cm backwards.. 

11 pm of the day after HOME. 

And I now have a picture of my new boyfriend on my phone- so Gina can be happy too. 

PS. The insurance doesn't cover such events... so .. why on earth do people buy insurance??

how many ridicolous things can people tell at interviews

Dear reader, you know that between my hobbies there was going for interviews.

Well that was till I was actually looking for a job. 

A while back I decided that I would only change to do what I want to do, not what people need me to do.

The latest excuses I had to sit through ranged between you will get bored to do that job and  you are a woman and women are irrational therefore you can't trust them ( I think they must have wives with terrible PMSs) 

Anyhow last weekend they reached the top!

Let me start from the beginning

Saturday arrived at the famous Terminal 5 to discover that despite I had a ticket and a reserved seat, BA didn't have any recollection of me traveling ( apparently another of my bright colleague doing, as she forgot to issue the ticket) 

Nonetheless.. for once in a lifetime I was early at the airport, so after a couple of emergency phone calls was on a plane, and after a bit of fighting, was also sat next to M. Because you know, people have issues if you go to them and say - sorry would you mind to sit in business class and I take your on the wing middle seat.

Anyhow reach Milan and then train to Turin where Andrea & bf, Gallo, Mazzola gf and Davidone were waiting for me for a party. 

Andrea surpassed himself as the best host in the planet, welcoming me with home made lasagne and all the different things I love to eat. 

All sprayed  with bottle after bottle of champagne and few treats. Result: woke up the day after at 8 pm, to visit his new amazing shop, meeting Cri & Max and learnt of the new baby to come ( that seems to be the latest fashion- babies... seems that more the economy is fuct and people miserable, more they have kids- must be true, something you can't understand till you have them!) 

Anyhow Monday morning, wake up...  after 3.5 hours of train we arrive in Lugano- yes, I'm ready to move to this smiling little boring postcard town, in  order to get the job I like. 

After 4 hours of interview eventually meet the big man. Obviously they had in mind a different job for me. As they like the way I deal with client, my knowledge of financial markets and blabla bla. they would like me to market their fund across Europe, Us & Asia and take care of existing clients which seem to have become more and more picky in their request for explanation of products and trading strategies.. 

Well... I wanted to execute their trades, i.e. a step down for me, but with open potential for eventually trading.... 

So I propose: I'm prepared, to move in dump town, travel the world, raise  your funds and if I reach the target you set I would like to,  then ... start executing your trades. And we are talking about raising 1 bn $, something you certainly don't achieve in a day!

Do you know what the answer was? 

- we have found that anglo saxon people are better at developing relationship on the phone, therefore we prefer to have an English person executing our trades ( 80% of the company including the founder are Italian!) 

- We find women irrational!

And last but not least excuse: YOU ARE NOT JESUS CHRIST- if you are good at raising funds, you can't possibly be good at executing trades ( mind you- I only have about 8 years experience at doing this - and the reason why I actually got an interview was because they appreciate the job I do.)

I stood up, said goodbye and left the town- back to Milan , smuggled M in the hotel to lie on heavenly bed, with heavenly pillows, washed my hand with soap with heavenly wheatgerm ( what I pile of heavenly flipping crap) and went for a kilo of fiorentina which wasn't on a bed of heavenly rocket, because I fucking hate rocket.

On my way back BA kindly lost my luggage- delivered 2 days later by angry unspecified individual.. 

Morning after.. get phonecall from headhunter:

I have a great opportunity for you - a marketing role in Geneva... 

I don't think he will call for a while. 

Stop 3 Gaudi is a genius, why they don't make his chairs

The great hotel where they don't like to give customers the window handles.. just in case the jump off!!  Well it was a bit embarassing to take the lift 16 floors down to ask for the handles and be told that nobody is allowed to have them!!! oh well

Cokoo.. who's the behind the sofa babbau??

Look what a happy place... they have smileys on the street

Ohhhhhhhhhhhh`!

The egg... 

ARGGGGGGGGGGGGG

Wish I could make those angry faces as pfrap on her blog ( which I really love, but unfortunately in years now haven't managed to post a comment into.. ) - the buying the HD tv to play videogames... well that's something I would do too..

anyway... I know I said I'd stop ranting.. but really had another very bad day at work- I'm starting to wonder if I had a good one since I joined.
Anyhow.. today I got called again by my boss for a meeting.. I stepped again on their head ops.. truly.. but he eventually explained how the politics inside my workplace works.

Basically if you have a problem or an idea or a complaint you go to your boss ( I have 3 at my desk- yes not even the credit crunch got rid of them- mind you we fired tons of people- but the good ones, the lazy ones are all there).

Anyway if your idea is not listened to or your problem solved you are, under any circumstance, allowed to talk to anybody above the 3 guys about it ( even if they 3 don't understand what I'm talking about).
The additional accident apparently happened on Friday.
This is what happened, after a dinner with a client ( where my boss took me as he can't hold a discussion about the markets) we met the boss of my boss of my bosses outside a pub, we stopped for a chat and as I expressed my wish to trade our option book he said he will meet me on Friday. ( to give you a short bio - he used to work where I was before, left to run a hedge fund, sank it, lost all their money and took it to bankruptcy, so he got hired as head of our trading desk)
Friday I met him - his answer was you are sales why should I spend time getting you to trade our option book.. so why did you agree to meet me in the first place anyway? ( hence additional depression on Friday)
While I was there I asked him about other stuff and what he thought about it.
Today my boss ( boss1) called me to say that I wasn't allowed to talk to him about potential ideas to make money for the bank ( mind you all valid points) as that meant stepping on them.
Now same ideas were written to boss 1 2 and 3 previously, discussed previously, and so I was told raised previously... so.. I didn't see the issue there.

So boss 4 instead of looking at the numbers and acting on some potential great business wasted his time to go to boss 1 2 and 3 and say why that was raised by me and not by them...
so today was called in to say if they don't do something I just have to go back to them and ask.. what about that ? what you think of this? are you raising my point?? Am I their flipping nanny??? you know me... don't you think I would have already asked that about 100 times???

Then I was given an example which I think I'll never forget for life.
If our CEO walked in the corridor, stopped and asked you something, you are not allowed to say that something could be improved, because that would bring the entire team that looks under that thing into scrutiny.
And I said well.. that's the all point- proving that you really don't need that team because they are lazy and stupid..
ooh well.. no.. your ideas have to remain hanging there so that everybody can lazily trot along. In any other place, ideas and good business opportunities are looked in and rewarded.

Here clearly not...

Argued with a client too. and blablabla...

but you don't care.. because as Bill Gross said today in his last report "We have for so long now be willling to be entertained rather than informed, that we more or less accept majority opinion"... "it's Sunday afternoon at the Coliseum folks and all good fun, but the hordes are crossing the Alps and headed for modern day Rome - better educated, harder working, and willing to sacrifice today for a better tomorrow. Can it be any wonder that an estimated 1% of America's wealth migrates into foreign hands every year? We, as a people, are overweight, poorly educated, overindulged, and imbued with such a sense of self importance on a geopolitical scale, that our allies are dropping like flies."


Oh well... I'm day after day approaching more the thought of really quitting, worse come to the worst I go and live with Gina - well life really must hate me if we have to come round to that.

OK OK you want to see some pictures now- I really tried to upload you.. swear it didn't work!

Stop 2

Together with little Heidi- taking one of the London walk to visit a well known place, but discovering it..
We even did our little bit to help the community and help an old lady crossing the street with a shopping trolley!

We started with Chalk Farm and the graffiti ( my little old favourite)

We then proceeded with a little photoshoot, taking in the views, finding a very posh pair of D&G sunnies and visiting some landmarks.. 









And walking through the Zoo, discovering this amazing floating Chinese restaurant and walking through Camden the same night it burnt into high flames.

Apparently keeping a diary

relieves from depression.. Or so some stupid website stated..

So.. as there are lots of picture missing and many of you complaining about lack of fun things..

here you go.. You have to be patient.. as have a lot to catch up and my memory is a bit blurred on the events.

Let's start from the beginning....

Training for the Himalaya- the training turned out to be far more physically demanding than the climb itself.. but the training like many things didn't last very long and soon resumed the vodka and redbull and fag lifting

But here you go..

Stop 1

Val d'Aosta - the introduction of the Ciaspole - the weird shoes to walk in the snow..

I was crying for the pain and for lack of of a summit to reach. Just white snow on white snow on white snow..

But it was beautiful. Courtesy of Cri, Max and the walkie talkies that buzzed all the way!




 

The holy grail

Sometimes it feels like I'm looking for the holy grail in life.. Honestly it does
What I ask for it is just some comprehension, something... I don't know ... a minimal thing that goes the way I want.
Friends which are faithful and coherent, a job which doesn't depress me, a lover which understands what hurts me, but I came to the conclusion that it must be me. Either I accept life and people for what they are and I adapt to it, or I don't.
I tried, but I can't, I just can't believe that everything can be so wrong for so long.
I didn't want to be in this world, I am and I will never cope with it. I think that it's a skill, which I don't have and I don't seem to be able to learn, unfortunately they don't run an MBA on it, if they did I couldn't afford one anyway.
I think today I officially gave up, whatever happens next I truly don't care.
See I'm tempted to leave my job for the day of my birthday, the first only beautiful amazing present I ever received for my birthday, but that means I will have to leave the place where I live, the only thing which I can go back to, the only door in life of which I have a key for, the only thing I actually created. It's material, I know but it does exist, it's the only comfort I get, the only thing which doesn't change its mind, unlike people. Giving it up it will be like giving up everything. Yes it's sad, but that it's the way I live, waiting for somebody to understand me, unfortunately only walls can, however I don't fully own them, because you know in life you also have to be lucky enough to be male white posh and rich otherwise it's the equivalent of being thrown off a cliff, just that unfortunately they didn't, so they kill you slowly to make you stay here and keep being a hamster.
I'm even too coward and too fed up to end it all, I'm so stupid I'm waiting for people to do it for me. But my existence is killing me slowly eventually it will all end, and as I want it to be quick it won't, it will be a slow destroying pain.. just please write on my grave

Born turbated, died misunderstood.

If I could just not see tomorrow, that will be such a relief.

Probably you wish I never came back to blogging, but then do you really care?