You
know what's been happening since my last column? No? Well,
let me join you because I can barely remember myself. This
is probably a good thing, because it means that I'm doing
lots of things. Actually this is probably a bad thing, because
if I was working hard on the book then I'd having nothing
to tell you except for endless rambling about stuff no one
else understands or is ever likely to read. That sort of
thing is for four in the morning on the steps above Aristo's
bar, drinking grappa. Which is, come to mention it, also
generally a bad idea in the long run.
But
I haven't been doing any work. Instead I've been showing
visitors around little bits of Italy while they put up with
almost non-stop rain, hanging out, getting to know people
better and seeing a little more of the country. I've also
done two grape harvests, or 'vendemmie'. Obviously this
has involved drinking. But, and this is an odd one, I've
also been hanging out with Alessandro more and, because
he doesn't drink, I've been drinking less when I'm with
him. This is an end result I sort of wanted from Italy:
to drink less. It isn't all roses though - at other times,
such as the first day Andrew and Abi were here, I am still
drinking too much.
So
it's a bit of a toss up. But I am learning a lot, possibly
as much as people told me I could, or people hoped that
I would, or as much as I never suspected I might. It's quite
odd, because in a way, right now, I want to stop doing these
blogs and just get on and live, but really, deep down, I
know that's a combination of laziness and avoidance.
Instead,
I'll try to share some of the things that I feel I've been
learning. You'd normally say "the things I've learned",
but I don't feel I've learned them yet. I'm learning them.
I've got a much better feel for verb tenses, that's for
starters, but that's not one of the things I want to share
(I've banged on about that quite enough over here already).
Why Italians are often late |
Italians are not always late. It might seem so, but they're
not. They're sort of famous for this trait, that nothing
runs on time and people don't turn up for things until long
after they've started, etc. Though there is some truth in
such things, they're not actually true. I caught the train
several times recently between here and Pisa, and not once
were the trains more than a few minutes late. This beats
services in England hands down. As an aside, it only cost
me around €3.50 to go to Pisa and back. In England,
the same train ticket would cost me between twice and three
times as much, at least.
But
Italians are often late. This is not because they have no
sense of timekeeping. It is because it is rather bad manners
to leave when you say you are going to leave. There is a
process to leaving any kind of gathering or situation that
can be most closely paralleled in English to saying "I
really must be going" when you're in fact sitting about,
smoking a cigarette and saying "yes please" when
someone asks you if you'd like another drink. When I'm with
someone and they say "Right! We're off", at home
I'd start to get annoyed if, after 15 minutes, we haven't
started to move. Here, if you are walking out the door five
minutes after you say "Andiamo", or 'let's go',
there may actually be something wrong.
One
possible reason may be that mama is making your lunch or
dinner. Under such circumstances it is perfectly all right
to whack your drink down your neck, explain yourself ("I
will be a dead man unless I get back to mama for dinner",
which is always followed by gratuitous nodding of heads
all round) and leave. Other than this, if people want you
to stay you will be questioned as to why you are leaving,
and if the reason isn't good enough (if, for example, you've
left the gas on, someone less important than the people
you're with is at death's door, or you have this silly thing
called a book to write that hasn't been touched in weeks),
people will act like you've stabbed their best friend through
the heart and lightly sautéed their cat. At the same
time. In front of them. I didn't understand this before
and now cringe at the number of times in the summer when
I would get up from a table at Aristo's, say "Right,
I'm off", say "ciao" and walk away while
people looked perplexed.
Timekeeping.
Italians seem to know precisely what time they need to leave
somewhere to arrive at their destination. This, however,
seems to be the time when they announce they will be leaving,
not the time they actually leave. This is why they are often
late. Italians compensate for this sometimes shocking disparity
by all following the same rule, thus expecting people to
turn up at almost any time. I have met a few Italians who
despair of this behaviour but realise that they are utterly
different, and bow their heads in understanding when I say
"Ah, so-and-so meant four o'clock Italian time, not
English time". I can only begin to imagine what kind
of nightmare it must be to organise a party here, but I
suspect that hostesses are blethering loons by the time
most of the guests eventually turn up.
Why Italians are good drivers |
Italians can and do drive fast. They are fully capable
of making a simple trip through town feel like a you are
fighting a 160-kilo gorilla armed only with a handful of
ice cream and some harsh language. This harsh language is
usually based around words that relate to pigs, perhaps
combined with some light blasphemy. They have often made
me, a confirmed atheist, cross myself. But they are quite
a long way from the parlous state in which I expected to
find them. In certain books written by foreigners who have
come to make their homes in Italy (I shall name no names),
Italian driving has been described as anything from terrible
to a motorised blood sport. Though I don't deny that there
are Italians who drive like maniacs and some of them have
crossed my path (at speed), generally Italians drive better
than people do in England.
Of
course, it's what I mean by better that counts here. There
are some people who know me, and some members of Her Majesty's
Constabulary (Avon and Somerset, for example) who might
say that the real truth is that I always drove like an Italian
in England, and I simply feel more at home here. But I don't
think this is entirely the case. People who drive slowly
are dangerous, according to Italians I have driven with,
because you can't predict what they're going to do, and
by the time you see them you are about to jump in their
boot. If you are following a ridiculous 50kmh speed limit
and everyone else is trying to break the laws of physics
you are In The Way. I wholeheartedly agree with this. Italians
are generally good drivers for three reasons.
1) They seem to enjoy it. There is no sense in driving
slowly, because it is not fun.
2) They have to be. Driving fast is not just fun, it is
also often necessary because they are often late, as I mentioned
earlier.
3) Driving with other people who are all trying to defy
Einstein requires the reactions of a panther.
There
is another reason why Italians drive the way they do. At
the age of fourteen it is possible in Italy to drive a 50cc
moped without a driving licence of any sort. A driving licence
is merely an obstacle to be overcome on the way to driving
a car, a faster moped or a motorbike. It is not an assessment
of how well you drive, it is simply an annoying period of
time in which you must learn how the state wants you to
drive, so that when you see the Polizia or the Carabinieri
by the side of the road in years to come you have some idea
of what they expect to see. This keeps the Carabinieri and
the Polizia in traffic duty, because no one really obeys
the rules, and gives the average Italian driver the added
incentive of a Them and Us situation.
Essentially,
the Italian Way of Driving adds frisson to life, which is
why the music genre 'Middle of the Road' simply would not
be understood here. Middle of the Road to me means dull,
staid, old, and rather flaccid. But Italian drivers live
in the middle of the road, and if possible leaning into
a corner at the same time. Being Middle of the Road here
can only mean one thing - you are truly living.
Why Italians can organise things |
Another
myth of Italy is that Italians could not, to use an English
phrase, organise a piss-up in a brewery. This is utter nonsense.
Many Italians I have met have direct access to a brewery
and can, in fact, organise a piss-up at the drop of a hat,
at any time of the day or night. They appear to have astoundingly
liberal drinking hours laws, which are either excellent
or terrible, depending on which side of a hangover you are
viewing them from.
Things often seem fabulously disorganised in Italy because
of three things.
1) The state attempts to butt in on the affair and organise
things for them. This is bound to cause problems because
of points two and three.
2) The problem Italians have is that they either all want
to organise something, or no one does. There rarely appears
to be a middle ground. This does not mean they can't organise
it. But if everyone in a room is trying to 'help' organise
something, it tends to become somewhat unruly.
3) Being too organised is akin to sipping or driving slowly.
It is no fun, and is for Other People. There simply must
be an element of chance or happenstance to anything organised
because otherwise there would be no drama in it. As the
Italians over the years have helped define what drama is,
it would be impossible to remove it from their lives, and
no one would want to anyway. Being too organised will bring
you dangerously close to being like the English or, worse,
the Germans, neither of whom can make wine worth drinking.
The Germans have held their end up by making schnapps, the
English beer. These are the only things that save them.
The
proof of all this was demonstrated to me recently in two
ways. One was that, after several years of beating around
the bush, a group of people finally got it together and
decided to form a jazz club in Barga. This is, in my opinion,
an excellent idea. There are still many problems to be encountered
between now and the time the place opens in November, but
the decision's been made. This is great news.
Secondly, I've been to two grape harvests and both events
were rigorously organised and went flawlessly. Getting between
12 and 20 people to pick your grapes and get them from the
terraces to a cantina where they then must be unloaded,
crushed and put into various containers is not a task to
be taken lightly.
Nonetheless,
Babbo's wine is now sitting in huge vats bubbling away.
The day itself was hard work and great fun, and I have another
new name - Jonnie. I have very little idea why I was called
this except that Lido (it's 'lee-doh', 'lee-doh' ok? Not
'lie-do'. The swimming pool is pronounced the same way),
Lido decided that this is what he would call me and then
proceeded to work me like a dog. But lugging bins of wine
around when the weather's nice, especially when you know
you've spent plenty of time playing with them, pruning them,
stripping the leaves off (sorry Babbo, some of that was
a bit harsh I know) and generally looking after them is
extremely rewarding. After we'd worked our socks off, La
Padrona produced a spread that threatened to kill everyone
present. We ate a lot of it, because it was extremely good,
and then tried to eat the pudding. Several helpings of the
pudding. I know a few people even had three plates of the
pudding, but I will not stoop to naming them. They know
who they are.
One
unpleasant result of all this peasant stuff is that I've
received my first wasp sting, which has made the little
finger on my right hand swell up as well as spreading to
the top of my hand. This hurt at the time A LOT. This was,
however, at the previous vendemmia at Piero's house down
the road from Babbo's. After I got stung the men all stood
around and said 'ooh, nasty, but it's nothing so let's get
on with it' and I tried to but I couldn't. I just couldn't
put my hand back in the bin to pull the grapes out.
At
dinner the women had goaded me about not yet meeting an
Italian woman worthy of marrying (a common stick to beat
me with, because I am somehow slighting all Italian women
and, for all I know, Italy itself by refusing to marry one
of them). After I got stung, I wandered into the house to
where the women had gathered to clear up the dinner things
and announced that I'd been attacked. There was some hoohah,
after which some alcohol or something was produced and squirted
over my hand. As far as I can tell, this achieved nothing.
However, they joked that this was like my view of the Italian
women, or something. "No," I said, pointing at
my chest, "this is where women sting." I think
they understood.
All
of which means that driving to Lucca in a Fiat Panda with
three Italian women, and then spending an afternoon wandering
the streets of the town with a stunning Tuscan blue sky
overhead is a pleasure. All things are combined - minor
lateness, pseudo-dangerous driving and Italian females.
Walking around, I didn't mind waiting for them while they
shopped. There was enough beauty knocking about to last
all day. Driving home, they chatted and tried to find a
radio station that both played good music and wasn't 'fascisto'.
I, meanwhile, looked out of the window while the sun set
and the scenery sped by and felt sad after such a happy
day.
I don't belong here, I thought, but sometimes I wish I
did.
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