Bare-faced Cheek

'While nudity is illegal in Australia except on designated beaches, [wow, nowhere else? ed.] local councils consider toplessness acceptable.' A Mr Nile now wants the legislation tightened so that it is clear. “The law... must say:

‘Exposure of women’s breasts on beaches will be prohibited’.” [well, that's leaving a lot of ambiguity as well, but we know, more or less, where he is coming from, ed.]

Though his proposal 'elicited howls of protest from sun-loving Sydneysiders, who have just begun their long summer holiday', Paul Gibson, a Labor party MP, claimed that topless women made people uncomfortable. “If you’re on the beach, do you want somebody with big knockers next to you when you’re there with the kids?” he asked. [Why not? ed.]

Sally Betts, the mayor responsible for Bondi, daringly has asserted that toplessness is not the same as nudity:

“Nude is when you’ve got no clothes on.”

Ms Betts, there you are wrong, and the entire history of art proves it. However, when you state that Sydney faces far worse social problems than bare breasts you have a world of trouble and economic pain on your side.

Here, we're all in Speedos all summer.

What Recession?

The butcher tells me he has sold the entire Christmas stock and is eyeing up frisky little early lambs. The grocer is busier than this time last year. There are no sales until after the Befana on 6 January. The family business has no workers laid-off or on short time. And the wait for the small Mercedes runabout is three weeks.

The skiers return from Austria tonight and tomorrow, there is lots of snow and lots of people.

The factories are opening a few days later but only because the public holidays and weekends fell in such a way this year that the whole of Italy is doing a ponte regardless.

We nearly got lost on the way to lunch because so many new houses had gone up near our host's house in the country we couldn't recognise the village or the bar where you have to turn.

The money has turned up again to have decisions about what to do with it but bonds are really boring in the face of all this economic acivity. At least shares will provide a bit of excitement.

Down the Chimney

So Father Christmas brought me:

a cabin-sized case, on wheels that move effortlessly in any direction (I haven't tried time yet but I'm sure they do that direction too), with pockets for exciting and precious things. There are going to be many outings in 2009.

Orwell's 'Keeping Our Little Corner Clean', which is a constant objective of Angels.

A cushion for my comfy chair embroidered with a pair of silver Angel's wings.

Blusher (perhaps I should more often?) against permanent pallor.

Softest angora, grey and black striped, long socks (cold strikes upwards from stone floors).

The Galactica dvds are half way through (levered off the sofa every few hours to eat but otherwise I am bug-eyed).

The ute (and dog), the Drizeabone, and the parrot are doubtless being brought by La Befana if I have been good all year, otherwise it's coal (which is not so bad after all in 2009).

Oh, and there is a jar of hand repair cream. Beastly olives.

Coming Soon... The Nativity

This is one we made earlier.

Responsibilities

Richest per capita (or nearly) in the region, the Comune has decreed we are too poor to put up Christmas decorations in the village. There is one, mean Nativity scene attached to the wall of the old post office. And I don't like it.

Every year the banging and crashing and roaring of hoists on lorries makes me cross as they festoon the house and its outcrops with lights and shooting stars. 'They'll wreck the intonaco' I moan, 'they have been making that racket for hours and they still haven't started in the church square.' I groan. Every year one of the local civic organisations (or even two or three) borrows a cantina to set up the manger and its wonderful figures. My absolute favourite was the Tennis Club with short-skirted angels in white, and Mary and Joseph with golden Slazenger haloes; even the ox and the ass carried raquets in their front hooves, like the Lamb of God.

Some years there is a tableau in the Piazza, with the shepherds carrying baa-ing lambs across their shoulders, fires burning outside the grocer and the ironmongers, and the three wise men (played by villagers from appropriately distant lands but settled here now) leading asses laden with gifts.

This year - nothing. I have been down to size up the entrance, usually closed with wooden doors, but suitably cavernous and with walls of enormous, hewn stone. I'm eyeing up the dollies, long put away, to represent the Christ Child, we've got the old mangers somewhere. Draperies? If the moths haven't got them, trunks full. Lemon trees often stand for the figures in the Nativity scene, and flowering staffs and things. I can do pomegranate trees too, and straw; can't do the animals but we can rig up a bit of mooing and baaing off stage with a suitable soundtrack.

They'll have to listen to English carols though.

Wood Chopping By the Book

Leo came this evening to give the men's various details for the new work regime under health and safety regulations. It was a surprise. Concern that the willingness to work on the woods might dissipate with any increase in paperwork, had been expressed by him as well as felt by us.

But either rational acceptance of insurance provisions and safety information at work, or the recession, or a mixture of both, have prevailed. After Christmas they'll be cleaning the woods and cutting this year's allowance.

I cling to the hope that I won't be expected to say anything to them about how to wield a chainsaw.

Thurber Strikes Again

I must stop idling through the internet as the rain pours down from battleship-grey skies, and complete shelving the books instead (Yes, I know it's ages but there are trillions, in modern measure, of them). In the meantime, do share this:

What's your head all bandaged up for?
I got hit with some tomatoes.
How could that bruise you up so bad?
These tomatoes were in a can.

I wonder what Miss Groby would have thought of that one.
I dream of my old English teacher occasionally. It seems that we are always in Sherwood Forest and that from far away I can hear Robin Hood winding his silver horn.
"Drat that man for making such a racket on his cornet!" cries Miss Groby. "He scared away a perfectly darling Container for the Thing Contained, a great, big, beautiful one. It leaped right back into its context when that man blew that cornet. It was the most wonderful Container for the Thing Contained I ever saw here in the Forest of Arden."
"This is Sherwood Forest," I say to her.
"That doesn't make any difference at all that I can see," she says to me.

Don't Throw Your Ferragamos

Armed with my Berkies I have just been up to the stanzone vecchio (it being the biggest room in the house) to try shoe throwing. Watching the video, the accuracy and force of Mr al-Zeidi's shoes had surprised me. I can report that shoes make good missiles.

Heavy, a handy (or footy) size, with a good grip to be found under the arch of the foot; they stay on line but turn over and over as they go - and go they do. I was throwing from the pool table end and could hit the far wall with a bit of effort and practice.

Now we all know just how rude we can be with them, and that Sunday is shoe-throwing day, all I have to do is find a war criminal or chi ne fa le veci -a suitable representative .

The Lungarno Vespucci would be a spectacular site for a mass shoe-throwing; I've always hated those ugly, concrete bollards and the gun-toting gorillas with which the United States consulate defaces one of Florence's lovliest river views. That's a crime against humanity by itself.

Rain All Night and Today

The Arno has returned to roaring along, fed by the renewed rain. In Florence there are watchers on the bridges; the river is at the primo livello di guardia.

There are watchers on the bridges much further up the river too. You should see it at Ponte alla Chiassa, both rivers are incredibly high.

Elf'n'Safety

The concern about industrial and agricultural injuries among the workforce has been fed by some catastrophic accidents recently. Agricultural accidents have a tendency to catastrophe as the machinery and tools are designed to concentrate the use of force. As a result anyone employing labour, casual or otherwise, must now complete a full week's course on safety at work. The courses are being run by the Coldiretti.

I had them all insured, but the prospect of teaching my grandmother to suck eggs - be careful with your chainsaws now, and mind the tractor, and the logging chains. And imagine the specialist vocabulary.

I hope there isn't an exam. I can't face another exam., for the rest of my life. They don't let you take in a dictionary, not even in the German.

The Woodcutters and Little Red Riding Hood.

After the olives comes the woodland. On Sunday it was decided which sections of the oak woods should be coppiced (I think that's the right word, I'm out on a bit of a limb, farming. Planes, now, that's another story).

The rules are: any tree under 10 years, go for it; trees older than 10 years up to 20 years, with a DIA (notice on official forms to the Forestale); specific permission required - 20 to 30 years; and over 30 years is a monument and cannot be touched.

Well, those are the rules. Strict instructions have been given to leave the big trees alone. Lesser trees are to be touched only if shadowing cultivated land . If in doubt call before the chainsaws bite. "Si, Signora", they smile.

We have Leo, the Fratelli Giorni (when available), Tonino, Tonino's son (currently in Cassa integrazione - don't ask, I'll have to post on that separately), and The Neapolitan (who is from Naples). Leo is doing his last year on the woodland, due to his knees.

Why do I think they aren't taking a blind bit of notice of me? Is it my cloak?

Guess Who

Sitting in a window embrasure (yes you can, very thick walls, some of the windows even have stone steps up to them) looking at the rain and desultorily reading the papers and popping into people's blogs is not how to pass the days. If the smallest peek of sun would appear...

I spent most of the afternoon reading Mussolini's speeches, which I found on line. (There is concern at my morbid interest in Mussolini and his contribution to our degraded political culture). Believe me, someone else has been at the mussolini too; I have bookmarked the choicer bits and will put them on Angels, defying any reader to identify correctly who is speaking.

Playing With Your Food

We went round the corner to have dinner last night, I hadn't got anything in - rain stopped play. And this is what we had:

A bottle of house white (icy cold) and a bottle of Novello (red).

La Carabazada, principesca crema rinascimentale di zucca gialla
(a crema is a soup smoothed with cream, the pumpkin was flavoured with renaissance spices, principesca you can guess)

Pasticcio di vitella di Cosimo 1 con le pesche e la salsa verde
(pasticcio is a mixture - in this case of finely ground young veal flavoured with ginger, cloves and I think it was allspice, the green sauce was hollandaise but with parsley and something I couldn't get, but exotic and aligned with the sweetness of the peaches)

Perine cotte ripiene di crema di marroni
(braised tiny pears stuffed with chestnut mousse in a darkly alcoholic sauce)

Taken aback by the grandeur of the menu (you should see the rest of what was on offer) in our local trattoria, we asked what was going on. All the centre of the city proper restaurants - not the pizza and fast food places - are cooking from the old recipe books at the moment. The tastes are astonishing: spiced rather than flavoured; constructs of balance, equivalence, opposition, congruity. So much more fun than emphasizing freshness and natural tastes of ingredients.

Devils, those old cooks were, playing cosmic games with the dinner.

1966

Travelling through the upper Valdarno by train today was worrying. The line crosses and recrosses the river though often it is invisible. Not today. The flood plains are filled, stands of trees are up to their armpits in water. The centre of the Arno is a roaring torrent of khaki-coloured mud and debris, topped with white foam and broken by rock outcrops. The gravel beds that usually lie empty all summer long, flocked by wading birds are covered by flows of water like the Rhine. Tributaries boil in from the hills.

And it rains and rains. Icy thunderstorms, one after another rolling in from the north. They say it will never happen again. They say that the dams are no longer expected both to generate electricity and control the water flow towards Florence.

If it eases off raining tomorrow I shall walk down to the Accaiuoli and look how much clearance there is under the Pontevecchio. I'm expecting quite a crowd.