Clash of the Regulations

The invisible Kraken of the skies is still lurking, so, yes, dear readers, I’m still ensconced under domestic covers, and not fending for the last packet of pretzels on a Continental tincan flight.

Logical:

Wait until Friday, act like a normal person.

Dubious:

Wait until the 23rd, hop a cruise ship or merchant steamer; collect trunk upon disembarking.

The gods must be crazy:

Casablanca, subway, train, Tangier, cab, boat, Europe, train, train, bus. Camels? Parasols? Play it again, Sam?

Updates to follow!

And the end of all our travels…

…isn’t quite now. Though I am back at the beginning, in a way; somehow in the excitement of THE STRIKE and THE ESSAYS and LOTS OF TEA I forgot to mention that I would be, briefly, heading back to EST.

It’s true. There was no jetlag. I am a lady without a circadian rhythm. I am however a lady with a jumbo pack of REESE’S PEANUT BUTTER EASTER EGGS, which has created such an effervescent effect on my bloodstream that EVERYTHING MUST BE IN CAPITALS.

Oh, chocolate (!) and peanut butter (!!). You are lacking in foreign lands. This is a sad thing, but now, you bring me great joy (!!!!!!!).

Anyway. I’ll be ricocheting between the nation’s capital and the nation’s first capital for the next ten days or so. I will not be bouncing back across to the University of Hertfordshire, which is, I kid you not, offering a Master’s in Vampire Literature. I don’t even know.

ANYWAY D.c. is pretty fantastic and Philly is pretty beguiling and probably, if you’re in town, you should say hi.

Christmas is solved

Given what the lady cosmetics must have smelled like (a delicate bouquet of, sometimes, oil and bird dung and lead) I can only imagine how irresistible this is. Turns out the Mediterranean hordes were truly barbarians- nay, not for the pants, but for the shamefaced rejection of AFTER SHAVE, with which they were doused after conquering, and made merry.

Actually, no part of this makes sense at all. It is glorious.

Eternallycool.net, which frequently stupefies me with glorious tales of Rome and the sweetest marketing on the planet (protip: Laundry Stonehenge), offers up this:

The Italian version is totally over the winning you over with honey, sweet ladies and AFTERSHAVE OF THE CONQUERORS; they’re all, “IF you don’t visit, we’ll carry it away.” While cringe-inducing, the rest of the sentence mutters (menacingly?) that the most grand masterpieces of the HISTORY OF ART (emphasis mine but really, it’s like a carney selling the Capitoline Venus off) ALWAYS await you in Italy.

Except for the poor, the tired, and those who try to visit on holidays, Fridays when the sun is nice, and whenever museums chose between special exhibits and electricity.

Clearly the answer is FILLING THE COLOSSEUM with BACCHUS, that delicate aroma, that alluring smell, of centurions after five years of mud-flinging, sword-banging warfare in provinces without running water. This will solve every problem, ever.

Good move!

Some of you may be aware that Britain mostly looks like this:

You may think, why, that is a silly way of storing the bikes, and what a lovely protective layer of igloo they have upon them. Whyever is the snow still on the streets, and on the sidewalks, and the alleys of fair Oxon?

ANSWER:

Under current legislation, householders and companies open themselves up to legal action if they try to clear a public pavement outside their property. If they leave the path in a treacherous condition, they cannot be sued.

I am not making this up.

John McQuater, president of the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers, admitted: “If you do nothing you cannot be liable. If you do something, you could be liable to a legal action.”

Society: you’re doing it wrong!

Tea and cakes and snow, oh my

Addendum, 2010 edition

Rome at New Years is seriously more of a war zone than anything so simple as a party. In Naples the fireworks went off in crowded, medieval quarters; the tops of the alleys were thick with smoke.

Bonus: setting off illicit fireworks resulted in BOOMS which set off the anti-theft klackzons attached to sensible Vespas, which shuddered under the onslaught of the end of the Noughties.

In Rome the morning after was filled with champagne corks in puddles and champagne bottles crashed on the marble heaps of the forum. The city was shut and shuttered (literally; most apartments retain modern moats of electric locks and doors made of thick steel). Ah, debauchery. 1600 years young. To the eternal city: you’re looking fabulous, darling, just fabulous.

ch. 12.30: in which I am grumpy, and without words.

Analyze this

Fragments of a church, Rome

Shot from the hip

In which I take 959 photographs

Note: it is only day five.

Belated ciao

Oops so Iàm in Rome. In the haste of last minute papers and citations and the hell that was Gatwick airport, that was forgotten. Rome is rain-slicked but warm, and honestly, late night walks in the rain after parfait alle mandorle amare are nothing to scoff at. Now composed of 36% flaky pastry by volume. Took 150 photographs of a cistern/latrine/hole in the ground made by the Romans which is really all the incentive I needed to wander through tunnels for half an hour.

Also have drunken at least two shots of espresso. oh Italy you are glorious.