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Just another month, really, which has flown by. There've been some warm harbingers of spring and some icy, damp reminders of winter. Paid work has been fine, although I seem to have lost control of keeping my podcast pipeline flowing. A bit more deliberately active. Covid-19 had no impact on the month, although I have had to cancel one brief trip in March.

I'm feeling a bit stir-crazy as my blessed knee is still cramping my style more than somewhat. More than two months now since whatever it was, and during that time I've discovered that anti-inflamatories (diclofenac) help with the pain, but also encourage me to get out and walk, which doesn't help w...

My friend Jason observed, in a more general why-write-a-blog post, that a stranger in a strange land often writes, daily even, about "about all the new and interesting things that caught his eye". Over time though, and so partly as a result of familiarity and partly as a result of other things...

Romans in general don't seem to be big on charity shops, or second hand. Of course, the Church is the charity, and there are big yellow bins on the streets that harvest used clothing for redistribution.¹ For non-clothes, however, there's not much in the way of options to recycle. There is, howev...

It's crap; is it also art?

Walking down to visit a friend last night, I spotted something odd on the pavement. Holy crap, I thought, I need to get a picture of that. Nobody will believe me.

Yes, that's dogshit. Yes, that's a beautifully lettered sign stuck in it on a toothpick. It reads, rough...

So we’re sat in the front row in front of the big white screen, glancing around at the beautiful courtyard of the palazzo that houses the administrative offices of the Provincia di Roma. We’re there to see a movie, part of the Wine and Food Film Festival. A woman comes on stage. She announces that...

The sign says: It is three weeks that this glass is here on the ground. I don't know who has the job of removing it ... If you leave a broom near here, I will clean it, if whoever ought to do it doesn't come. That may be a smiley too. It went up on Wednesday, but I didn't have my camera. I sna...

We went into a very local neighbourhood restaurant down in Trastevere, a Mom & Pop place, where Mom was a surprisingly apple-cheeked dame bustling around the tables in a colourful tomato-themed pinafore. In one corner -- their corner -- was a table of older gents; dapper, joshing one another, joshin...

Eats Wombats, who seems to be avoiding my post on his name, has instead chosen to encourage me to blog Strange Things About This Country.¹ I’m flattered, but there’s already quite enough blogging by foreigners on the quaint ways of Italy and they’re easy enough to find. Besides, once you’ve de...

They pruned a palm next door. What were they thinking? Plonkers.

A hipster-groovester joint, down in a semi-derelict area overlooking the river. By day, the street is lined by shops that all sell car, motorcycle and bicycle accessories that I wouldn't trust with my life. And blow-up kayaks, which I would. By night, one enters a sleek, minimalist bar where a man w...

I am developing an unhealthy obsession with nuns. After all, in the end they’re probably more or less normal people, with the same hopes, fears, ambitions etc. as the rest of us. But I still find it noteworthy when I see them doing more or less normal things. Like using laptop computers. And weari...

It had been a long, besuited day. I escaped and, being downtown already, wandered off in search of amusement. And then, as I was walking down towards the Piazza di Sant’Ignazio, I heard music. Not standard street-busker fare, but something nostalgic, something essentially English. A brass band. P...

I am incredibly angry. Actually, I’m resigned, but who writes because they’re resigned?

On the way to work each morning I generally take a short-cut through a modern church down the road. It's an unlovely church, but skipping through it shaves five minutes off the walk and sometimes affords amus...

I stepped off the bus a couple of days ago and heard the unmistakeable screech of the invisible parakeet. In the Villa Pamphilij and elsewhere I’ve caught glimpses of them flitting high overhead through the umbrella pines. One memorable evening, just after we had moved in here, I happened to be lo...

Saturday night, on the town. An early movie, then a stroll through the centre of the city to an English pub where a friend’s band is to play later that night. Much later, it turns out. They are scheduled for 9.30, which suggests 10.30 will be nearer the mark. It is only 7.30. Normally it’d be ea...

Burned spoon, pack of bicarbonate of soda, pop bottle with a silver foil lid. A lovely slim little knife was there too, but I had already picked it up before I snapped the picture. I didn't need to call in CSI: Rome to know what had been going on. Drugs! No surprise, really; down on the wasteland...

Sunday evening, on the way home from a day trip up-country, and the traffic is intense. Bad enough. Then we approach the first of the tollbooths on the way home and the Italians, desperate as ever to Get Ahead, are cruising up any empty lane, assuming they can squeeze in later to where they want to...

At the Post Office:

Me: Good morning. I’d like five 80 cent priority stamps please.

Man behind counter: I’ll see. (Wanders off)

Me: (Drums fingers. Looks at scraps of paper on counter. Glances at watch.)

MBC: (Wanders back.) We don’t have any.

Me: (Voice a tad squeaky, incredulous...

I dunno. You wait 28 years for a Bob Dylan concert and then two come along in 8 months. Outdoors at the Auditorium and most entertaining it was too. First off, Italians slow-handclapping because The Man had not appeared by 10 past the appointed hour. How ironic is that? To be honest, their hearts d...

Gave up my World Cup virginity in the nicest company, and there was much whooping and hollering when Italy rammed one in in the closing minutes. The second, a lovely little chip over the goalie, made victory even sweeter. Cycled home through streets packed with flag-waving jubilation. The sight,...

Sitting quietly geeking at my desk, 11 pm last Thursday night. It's been a quiet day, a Roman Holiday, SS Peter and Paul. We've been at work, though, because our gaff is outside Rome and has its own saints to take care of it. Boom! I've been watching season 2 of 24, and my instinct is to look butch...

There's this old bloke at the table, mouth stoved in because he hasn't put his teeth in, unshaven. And he's picking carefully at his plate of orecchiette with their sauce of lovely fresh tomatoes, onions and rocket. He's moving the rocket, leaf by leaf, to the side of the plate.

"What are you doi...

Many of the more upmarket bars do a little free-for-the-taking spread of an evening, lest one drink without something to nibble. I was hungrier than that. But it was late in the day, and the selection of sandwiches was not great. I lit on one of -- surprise -- mozarella, prosciutto and tomato, and o...

7:43 am. I am standing at the bar, doing a cappuccino and cornetto. In walks the milk delivery man. Short, wiry, sparse sandy hair and blue eyes. Not very Italian, if you get my drift. He's lugging two crates full of milk. His truck is parked outside. Double parked, obviously. He drops the crat...