Buondì. If you read Monday’s article La scuola di Bom! you might have had a go at translating the Gramsci quote, which I set as ‘homework’. A fraction of one percent of club members did, and posted their results as comments on the article. I’ll link to them in a moment, so you can see […]

Buondì. Longer-term club members will remember Roomie, who lived with us for a little over a year, until March this year. Driving her to the petting zoo each weekday morning (located on the other side of the city) was a chore, as was picking her up in the evenings. She didn’t like the car, and […]

Buondì. On Wednesday we read about charismatic self-publicist Gabriele D’Annunzio, who did his best to stir things up in post-war Italy. To his own advantage, of course! The years immediately after WWI were a difficult time. The economy was in tatters, and the result was a wave of strikes and protests. Think a sort of […]

Buondì. If you saw Monday’s free Summer Series article, you’ll already have heard of Gabriele D’Annunzio, who that article describes as a “patriota e nazionalista … che a quel tempo è il poeta più famoso (e scandaloso) d’Italia”. That article would have given you an idea of what he was capable of – invading someone […]

Buondì. Our kids are away, visiting their grandparents in Britain. As they’re adults now, and as we’ve done the same trip each year for a quarter of a century, we decided to let them go on their own. I had in mind a reduction in the number of meals to cook and dishes to wash, […]

Buondì. OK, so after Wednesday’s historic defeat, today we have another big battle, and this time it’s the sort that Italians name streets after. There’s a Via Vittorio Veneto in Bologna, where I live, and probably one in most other Italian towns and cities, too. Does that give you a clue? Google Maps, when giving […]

Buondì. Running an online business – actually now businesses – for ten years has taught me at least one thing – always be nice to customer service staff! Or at least try. Sometimes it’s hard when you’re ‘not pleased’, I accept that. I’m particularly prone to losing my temper, so when a supplier utterly messes […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]