E’ tutto andato storto

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Buondì.

‘E’ tutto andato storto’ means either ‘Everything WENT wrong’ (Past Simple tense in English) or ‘Everything HAS GONE wrong’ (Present Perfect tense in English).

Don’t panic – that’s good news, at least for English speakers learning Italian. One Italian tense, the ‘passato prossimo’ works for both ‘I did’ and ‘I’ve done’ (‘Ho fatto’).

Learn the ‘presente’ and the ‘passato prossimo’ and you’re more or less finished with Italian tenses. Those two are more than enough to get by with. You could add the ‘imperfetto’ (easy, because it’s got a V in the middle) if you so choose, but no need to bother with the future and so on.

Presente, passato prossimo, that’ll do you just fine.

Anyway, ‘E’ tutto andato storto’.

I’ve had ‘bronchite’ for six weeks or so, probably picked up in an overcrowded British airport while waiting many hours to fly home to Italy.

Given that it was probably viral, I decided to wait before bothering the ‘medico di famiglia’, on the assumption that it would go away.

After five weeks I gave up hope, made an appointment, and saw the medic.

Who raised his eyebrows, pressed his ‘stetoscopio’ to various points on my back, and concluded that there was ‘confusione’ and that I should rush off and book a ‘radiografia del torace’ (RX torace), that’s to say a chest x-ray.

Which I promptly did, and spent the weekend worrying what it would turn up.

But no, come Monday the RX torace was clear, which according to the medico’s hasty email was ‘buone notizie’.

On the plus side, so far I hadn’t spent a euro cent, visits to the family doctor being free, along with any tests that can reasonably be attributed to an ‘essente’ chronic condition.

On the other hand, glugging cough syrup three times a day, along with an antihistamine before bed (helps with mosquito bites, at least) have had no impact on my bronchi, which are still complaining loudly.

So there I was, yesterday, rather drained of energy, and extremely short of time after two hospital visits in two days (different hospitals, at least) when there was a panicked telephone call from my wife, editor of EasyItalianNews.com.

Had I seeen the emailed bulletin? Well I hadn’t – too busy coughing. What was up?

Tuesday’s bulletin of ‘easy’ Italian news had been published on the website as normal, and was then picked up by the mailing system and sent automatically to nineteen thousand subscribers (subscribing to receive emailed bulletins is FREE, or you can read/listen directly on the website).

The problem was with the emailed version, as I could clearly see when I located the morning’s bulletin in my email inbox: è tutto andato storto, indeed!

There were random bits of code sprinkled throughout the text, the audio player had gone, the formatting was messed up. Insomma, it was a total mess.

And once something’s been sent out to a big mailing list, there’s not much you can do about it, apart from blush, shuffle your feet, and promise it won’t happen again.

I had about twenty minutes before leaving for yet another hospital appointment on the other side of town, so did what I could to figure out the cause and to fix it, resending the ‘fixed’ version, which turned out to be just as ‘storto’ as its predecessor.

Back from the hospital in the afternoon, I had more time to identify the issue, by ruling out all the other things that could have gone ‘storto’.

Turns out the providers of EasyItalianNews.com’s mailing system must have tweaked their code, with the result that any formatting in our bulletins is supposedly ‘stripped out’ before subscribers see it, leaving – in theory – just the text and images (fair enough), but in fact producing something that looks like computer vomit.

Talking of AI, also yesterday I was trying to get some legal stuff done on Britain’s Companies House website. Companies House requires a ‘confirmation statement’ for our British companies each year, plus I was supposed to be confirming my own identity, or face a stiff fine!

But their systems had been down since Friday.

I searched Google, but you know how that works these days – the AI assistant summarises what’s known about the search query – ‘the Companies House website is down’. It had nothing to advise on when it might be working again.

On the other hand, when I was spell-checking ‘E’ tutto andato storto’ (Google’s very good at spell-checking, at least) the AI assistant was ever so sympathetic.

It had clearly assumed from my query that I was having a bad day, so invited me to tell it whether I had a personal or work problem, some sudden crisis or accumuulated pressures, and so on. Knowing more about the situation might help it to offer me the best advice, blah blah.

Beh, if I hadn’t Googled ‘recovery time for acute bronchitis’ six weeks ago (“see your doctor if it lasts more than eight weeks”), perhaps I wouldn’t be coughing my lungs up as I type.

Last night, I even went to bed early! And that, despite knowing that I had two bottles of chilled Becks (German beer, currently 99 euro cents a bottle in my local Coop) waiting for me in the fridge.

See? I must have been ill.

And I felt even sicker when I opened the ‘frigo’ this morning – looking for chocolate – only to notice… no beer?

Either Stefi had chugged both bottles, which seemed improbable, or… OMG!

When I got home from the store yesterday evening, I put the two inviting green bottles in the freezer to chill!

Yup, è tutto andato storto!

We now have a freezer full of beer slush.

Alla prossima settimana!

P.S.

And here’s a reminder to read/listen to Tuesday’s bulletin of news from EasyItalianNews.com.

Reading/listening practice will help you consolidate the Italian you’re studying, expand your vocabulary, and build vital comprehension skills.

EasyItalianNews.com is FREE to read/listen to.

Subscribing, and so receiving all three text + audio bulletins of ‘easy’ news via email each week – on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays – is also FREE.

Just enter your email address on this page and click the confirmation link that will be sent to you.

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