Angry dance

I just love these guys. Footloose will never be the same!

The Truman Show

Sometimes things slip besides us, we know they are approaching, we know they are just within reach, and then they are gone. The sand trickles. Time erases resolutions.

And sometimes things come back. Such is the case of Weir's Truman Show, which I had never seen before - perhaps because of a silly prejudice regarding Jim Carrey, which I just coudn't imagine starring in a 'serious' movie. And thank god they do.


No review this time. Slightly too late for that. But a big THANK YOU to Peter Weir for giving us another magical film, after Picnic at Hanging Rock, Witness and Dead Poets' Society (yes, I LOVE that movie, no comment please).

I shed a little tear (not publicly, since mother was next to me and didn't want to give her reason to worry her son was a little queer... oooops, too late for that I guess...). I am going to bed happy.

Shan't stand for it

I won't last long in this godforsaken country. I don't lick ass, can't bear rude people, won't stand bullies and arrogant pricks, therefore will be gunned down sooner or later. Or elected president. Either way, I'm doomed.

Take Friday for example. Following a brief correspondence, Professor P from Bocconi University, the renowned academic centre that churns out Italy's economic elite (errr....) since 1902, tells me to meet him at 2 pm at his office to discuss possible collaborations between the university and my project.

I turn up, as always, 20 minutes too early, and spend most of them finding his office, which is well hidden in the intricate maze that is the Bocconi hamlet. Once I get there, the office door is locked, and there is no sign of him inside it.

I wander the empty corridors, until I find an open office. Inside, an English professor offers to help me locate him, only to find out his email system had not been set up, two weeks into the academic year. I wonder what sort of a job university professors have, when they don't need to email anyone for 2 weeks. Maybe they just spend their time thinking about kitty fairies.

Finally, at about 2:20, I find the secretaries' office, where I have to beg for them to call the professor on his mobile:

- We don't do this sort of thing
- But I have a MEETING with him, and he's not there! What I am supposed to do?
- Come back during reception hours
- I am NOT a student!!!!
- Really!?!?
- REALLY!
- Alright. I'll call him. What's your name again?
- Dr MZ from T.. H.. in London
Riiing. Riiing.
- Hello? Professor P? It's S. There's one of your students here, M something
- !!!!!!!!
- He doesn't know who you are.
- I TOLD YOU I AM NOT A STUDENT. I AM DR MZ FROM T.. H.. IN LONDON
- He says he's from Ze Ab... Ok.
puts down receiver
- He's coming.

10 minutes later, as I stand by the professor's door, a slender man approaches me. He walks straight past me, unlocking the door. That's when I explode.

- Professor P?
- Yes?
- It's Dr MZ from T.. H.. in London. We were supposed to meet 30 minutes ago.
- I didn't make a note of our meeting.
- But YOU gave me the appointment.
- Well I didn't write it down.
- Don't you have a diary?

The professor's jaw drops suddenly.

- I asked you, don't you have a diary to keep track of your meetings? Or do you think people just have all the time in the world?
- Excuse me?!
- You heard me. I give you 20 minutes.

20 minutes later, he asked me to give a lecture to his students.

Yes. I won't last long.

Burn After Reading

Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. The Coen brothers are just on fire these days. One just wonders: with so many disfunctional families around, how did these two get it SO right?


What struck me most about the movie was how incredibly good all the acting was. EVERYONE in the film was PERFECTLY cast, and EVERYONE was just so brilliant.


From Brad Pitt (yes, I know, I have a weak spot there, but ask Lady V, he was GOOD!!!) playing the dumb gym instructor (probably his most fitting role since Thelma & Louise) to Tilda Swinton playing the hardened middle class wife (much dribbling from Lady V), each character was just perfect.


Above all, I loved good ol' George in the role of a controlling and gym-obsessed middle-aged man who is trying to keep the positive wheel spinning, only to come crashing down and catch the first flight to Venezuela.


Won't give away anything else. Just go see it.

a little new obsession

Courtesy of La Tot Donatella Jackson. She truly knows how to give good TV series.

Contemplating improving what is already practically perfect...

Milan, yah

With all of you posting furiously about your lives, I feel a little blackmailed into doing the same. Mind you, I will still do what I want, when I want to. But in this case, I will indulge you a little.

So, as Lady V pointed out, the first few weeks in Milan have been rather eventful. Naturally we're both being terribly cool ad fashionable, wearing only the laterst knitwear and hopping around in flaming pink Vespas.

Well. Not really.

I have rocked a bike up from Tuscany, and am now riding my favourite means of transport in possibly the most cycle-unfriendly city I have ever visited. Why? Well, to begin with, most of the roads are covered in this:


As if bumping up and down on these little buggers wasn't enough, occasionally I find myself having to cross through these:


The combination of trecherous gaps and slippery metals has already made me fall twice in front of indifferent passerbys. Thus I REFUSE to stop using my helmet - considered terribly unfashionable in the fashion capital - since I know at some point I am going to get hit by someone.

The living situation, as some of you have already been able to hear from me, is far from ideal. In a mock-1960s Doris Day and Rock Hudson sitcom, we sleep side-by-side in the little space available to us, while my sister camps in the livign room. I feel like a member of the Frank family, except if I remember well her and Peter had their own sleeping spaces, so you see it's worse than the Holocaust, or at least Vietnam.

Hopefully this will change soon, but I doubt so.

The rest of the time is spent journeying up and down the peninsula to reach our beloved litte Tuscan retreat. There, it must be said, I still have my room, which makes going to bed a really pleasant affair. Lots of movie-watching, lots of relaxing, and the occasional bureaucratic nightmare to do with the chicken shed. Gosh. Don't even get me started, but let me say that the little derelict building will end up costing us more than a flat in New York.

I am now in London, about to go back. A quick visit to do with the launch of the King's Cross Hub, which looks amazing. Coming back made me realise how much I love this city, which in a sense is my real home, and how much I want to make sure I come back here soon. Milan will never be my home, although, for the time being, it's really cool to be there. Truth be said, I miss everyone here, I miss the long evening rants around the table with Little P and Little H, I miss hanging out with P&M talking about life and Tuvan throat singing, I miss A's little rants about the banking system and D's dark humour, I miss B's fondness for turquoise, and G's reassuring presence.

Ok, enough of this. Off today, back to the Dark Heart of the Med, ready to kick ass.

And you'll just see, 6 months from now we'll all be celebrating huge victories and planning how to take over the world...

fwihpeiorpapsdufiauspwefdhgmvsdgyvpa

still no update on my life in Milan. You're just going to have to get used to it.
Instead, a little rant.
I visit all your blogs religiously, and post several comments on them - at least when I can be bothered. I think I am one of 4 people more or less who visit your blog. Still, you refuse to accept the bleak reality and insist on the ridiculous request of making commenters type long obstruse sequences of letters, to prevent spam.
now, really, do you think you're going to get submerged with all these web-generated ads about viagra and holidays in Kabul, that you need to keep the wretched thing on? the one person who DOES get about 1m visitors a second, Le Duc, doesn't have one. he'd be the only one to have a right to. and he doesn't. is his blog submerged with spam. I don't think so.
so please, spare me the torture. turn the wretched thing off!