It’s all acronyms today, isn’t it? FAQ stands for ‘Frequently Asked Questions’, and I’ve been getting plenty about the new format ebooks which are now available, for Kobo, Kindle and so on. If you’re used to buying ebooks from Amazon or similar, which then download automatically onto your ebook reader, well then it’s fair enough […]
Archives for May 2019
This week’s Book of the Week: ‘2 giugno 1946’, of course!
Buondì. That’s a picture of my wife and younger daughter outside our local polling station on Sunday. They’re holding their voter-ID cards and umbrellas, as it was raining. Despite the weather, we were excited to be participating in the Europe-wide elections, along with hundreds of millions of other people in countries as far apart as […]
Switching channels
Buondì. I don’t watch TV much these days, and when I do, it’s mostly Netflix, which isn’t ‘proper’ TV, in the sense that you have to choose a channel and watch whatever is showing at that moment. When I was a kid in the ‘seventies, I was an avid viewer, of course, as everyone was. […]
The time is money, money is time conundrum
Buondì. I was chatting with my online Turkish teacher this morning, more or less in Turkish, which was pleasing, about the proliferation of ‘free’ Italian courses in our city. Various organisations offer language teaching for immigrants and the like, though she pointed out that she’d met plenty of people who, like her, could have afforded […]
Will summer never come?
Buondì. Don’t know what it’s like where you are, but here in Bologna it’s been miserable for months. We’ve had the occasional flash of nice weather, but lately it’s been rain, rain, then more rain. Each day I watch the simplified news and weather forecast from Sweden (to improve my Swedish, obviously), then shout out […]
New B2/C1-Level Easy Reader: Prometeo e la guerra dei titani
Buondì. I’ve been suffering from ‘mouse elbow’ (which is like tennis elbow but with whiskers) and so need to go easy on the typing / touch-pad use. Hence just a quick one today, to let you know that we have a new B2/C1-level Italian ‘easy reader’. This one is called ‘Prometeo e la guerra dei […]
Not so frequent, but still sweet
Buondì. As I was just washing last night’s dishes, listening to channel one on Swedish national radio, and pondering what to write about this morning, the term ‘sweet spot’ occurred. Also, an email that I received yesterday from some irritating blogger or podcaster or Instagrammer seeking a link from the club’s ‘Other Resources‘ page to […]
Another stroll down Memory Lane (part 1)
Buondì. A couple of years ago, I collected some of the best articles that I’d written in the five years the club had existed onto a new page, “Best of” OnlineItalianClub.com, wrote about it in a post entitled ‘A stroll down Memory Lane‘, then promptly forgot it. This morning I remembered, and found some time […]
Did Leonardo da Vinci invent the ebook?
Buondì. Today’s topic: did Leonardo da Vinci invent the ebook? Let’s weigh the evidence. Ebooks are convenient to carry around, don’t require the destruction of trees or the use of toxic inks, and can be delivered anywhere in the world without recourse to the appalling Italian postal service. They’re clearly a genius idea. That said, […]
Customer Disservice
Buondì. One of the first things I do on waking up in the morning is to check emails on my smartphone. And yes, I know that isn’t a very healthy way to start the day, but the club has members in all time zones so people often write in while I’m asleep. Initially I just […]
