Buondì. The weekend was fun, spent in part responding to abuse from BOTH SIDES in the Ukrainian conflict. First there was a very well-written young lady (I couldn’t fault her English, at least) who was angry that I was repeating Russian ‘talking points’, specifically that Ukraine has a corruption problem, which the Russians apparently think […]
Archives for July 2023
The war’s started (the ‘war on woke’, too)
Buondì. The war’s started. No, not THAT war, not Putin’s unprovoked invasion of a peaceable if rather corrupt European state, which has filled Italy and other European countries with desperate refugees, caused the deaths and maimings of hundreds of thousands of soldiers and civilians, and raised my heating bills. World War One. I’ve been looking […]
Alliances, a new easy reader ebook, and the donations appeal
Buondì. Below is the link to episode eight of our thirty-part Summer Series of FREE articles (with online audio): Episodio 8. Le premesse alla Prima Guerra Mondiale e la Triplice Alleanza (1913-1914) We’re up to the various diplomatic manoeuvrings which eventually resulted in the outbreak of WWI in 1914. I remember studying this at school […]
Lo scatolone di sabbia
Buondì. Just a quickie today, to introduce installment seven of our thirty-part Summer Series of FREE articles (with online audio): Episodio 7. La triste impresa coloniale italiana: lo scatolone di sabbia (1911-1912) It’s a short one, perhaps because it deals with just a single year from the twentieth century. Not much can happen in a […]
Tailoring a suit for a hunchback
Buondì. If you’ve been keeping pace with our FREE Summer Series of Italian articles with online audio, then you’ll recall that we left off, on Wednesday, at the point at which Italy’s crafty king had seized Rome from the Pope and made it the country’s capital. So far, so good! I was eager to find […]
How God lost his capital to horny King Vittorio Emanuele
Buondì. Italian history is replete with emperors, kings, princes, and various grades of aristocrat – dukes, counts, and the like. But let’s not be forgetting the popes! Wikipedia has a list of all two hundred and sixty-six of them. They weren’t all ‘Italian’ of course (neither were all the emperors and kings), and they weren’t […]
Tax the poor, then go to war
Buondì. I got told off for the subject line of Friday’s emailed article, which was “Le donne a Parigi non portano le mutande!” (“Women in Paris don’t wear panties!”) It was sexist, apparently, and reflected poorly, both on me personally, and on the club. The article in question was promoting the newly-published Episodio 3 of […]
“Le donne a Parigi non portano le mutande!”
Buondì. Yes, well – I’m off to the coast for the weekend, and leaving shortly, so needed to get your attention. King Vittorio Emanuele II di Savoia – future ruler of the whole of Italy, lucky man – was nicknamed “il re galantuomo” (the gentleman king), though privately was considered by his peers to be […]
There are two problems with history…
Buondì. If you read Monday’s article, you’ll know the club’s Summer Series (30 FREE articles with online audio) has begun. The series is titled ‘Dal Risorgimento alla Seconda Guerra Mondiale’ and is the fourth out of five. We began three years back with the mystical origins of Rome, then skimmed the Medieval period, touched on […]
FREE Summer Series from today: what it is and how to use it
Buondì. Our ten-week, thirty-episode, FREE Summer Series of articles with online audio begins today. Hurrah! The idea is to provide Italian reading/listening practice material for anyone who wishes to take advantage of it, no registration or payment required. Do spread the word, won’t you? We don’t advertise, so rely on club members to tell their […]