This could quite easily turn into the blog of 'seasons I hate in Italy'. The current festival that is the fixation of my loathing is Carnival.
Perhaps to the resident of a country that doesn't bother with it, Carnival conjures up images of elaborately costumed people winding their way through Venice in a trail of sophistication, or riotous scenes of debauchery in Brazil. It's a prelude to misery wherever you are, and the costumes don't change anything.
Here we are in Lombardia and, obviously, the adults aren't going to get dressed up in silly costumes - that would be undignified. And anyway, Armani doesn't do a Carnival line. (He does do hotels though.) So what can we do? Yes, get our kids to dress up! After all, everyone was forced to dress up by their parents a generation ago so we'll inflict it on our kids. Expensive parties are staged at Sporting Clubs for kids to wear their costumes, but there's also just a general free-for-all in the streets; in front of the cathedral is a particularly popular spot.
Of course, to an extent, children love it: they have the opportunity to dress up as Batman, Spiderman, a Fairy, Snow White, whatever, and spray things around and scream and shout. Their enthusiasm pales after a while though. The temperatures are near zero and they're wearing some scratchy nylon stuff on top of their jumpers; there's only so much running round you can do to keep warm. After five years here I'm still not sure what the parents get out of it. Noone's explained it to me. It’s one of those things that don’t get questioned. Perhaps it's the chance to see what they looked like themselves as children, to see some sort of innocence. But if that was the case then you'd have thought that the whole nasty episode would die out quite quickly. 'Yes, I hated it and my child hates it as well. But we'll just carry on another five minutes...' It's not the parents who organise it all though, it's the grandparents (the parents are at work or are organising a 'white week' skiing). Maybe that explains it - the grandparents want to see their children again. They weren't there the first time around, or else they were too pissed off to enjoy it.
Oh, and there are these awful biscuits that people bring round to your house - chiacchiere. You have one and it clogs up your mouth and your jaw can't work hard enough to get rid of the thing from your system. Can you believe it? Food in Italy that's not worth eating.
Carnival Week coincides with women's fashion week in Milan. You can tell it's fashion week becasue there are all of these very tall, very skinny English speaking girls around. Anorexics Week. The restaurants must be biting their knuckles with frustration. They start arriving at the end of January, along with the Japanese (who probably make up for the restaurateurs’ frustration with the English speaking women). The English speaking girls seem to have an aversion to tights and coats. They walk around like Edinburgh junkies with mini-skirts and bare legs all turned to blue gooseflesh. Maybe they're all Californian and they didn't realise when they left that it's still winter in Europe. Maybe their brains are just so totally fucked with drugs that they don't notice the season.
This morning I put my watch on without even looking at it - I knew I was already late. When I arrived in the classroom, a mere five minutes late, I looked at my watch. It had stopped 10 days ago. So this evening I went to the local watch battery shop. Viale Piceno, just near a Blockbuster. It’s one of the streets which forms a ring road round the city centre, just beyond one of the more pleasant parts of the city and just before another area that you could just about live in. So it’s a bit short of identity and the old-fashioned shops that line it have survived, at least until now.
The shop doesn’t only do watch batteries, but that’s what the signs in the window say. Really it’s a jeweller’s. I buzzed to enter. A Chinese girl gets up from the back of the shop and buzzes to open the door. She returns to her seat next to a peroxide blonde woman who might be young but might be past young. As I enter a man appears from under a counter at the side with his head at an angle asking what I want. He asks me to wait while he looks for the battery. I have time to look at the stuff they’re selling. They seem to specialise in silver picture frames.
There’s probably a good living in silver picture frames in Italy. Without even trying we have a collection of at least eight silver picture frames. People give them to you for practically every family occasion: marriage; birth; christening; birthday. They’re not offensive, usually, but they’re certainly rather more ostentatious than you might really like.
The shop here seems to have done something unusual. Instead of the absurd 80s style photos in the frames, they’ve put photos of themselves. Pride of place is given to the photos of family members with famous people. ‘Famous’ is relative here. Famous means the type of celebrity you see in the innumerable gossip magazines. Famous in the sense that you’re not quite sure what they became famous for; now they’re famous but what do they actually do? Some of the photos are posed – the celebrity TV presenter with his arm around a middle-aged man who looks overwhelmed with the emotion of the scene – but some are just snapshots – a young woman standing behind a seated quiz show host at some gala dinner.
Outside the traffic is almost completely blocked and horns are being sounded. One lane of traffic is continually being taken up by double-parked taxis and limos. I imagine that Blockbuster must be doing something; it would only take one half-celebrity to throw everyone into near hysteria. The people in this shop might even go outside the door. The man returns with my watch and his head still at an angle, as if he’s trying to shake sea water out of it. I pay, I don’t get a receipt, decide not to make a fuss, and leave. I walk past Blockbuster and the crowds of people to see if there’s a computer shop here – I’m sure there used to be.
The crowds are somehow connected with Fashion Week. English is being spoken by practically everybody. People are going in and coming out of a building I’d never noticed before – the Bottega Veneta. I’m sure I should know what it is, but I don’t. Glamorous American women are having earnest conversations and keeping their eyes peeled for anyone of interest.
Where are all these people the rest of the time? Are they just passing through? Not from the topics of conversation – houses, maids, cars. I realise my life lacks a certain sort of glamour. Not that I would like to be involved in Fashion Week, but I feel as if I should be a little more aware of it.
My computer shop has gone. Perhaps the Bottega Veneta is pushing Viale Piceno upmarket. Soon there’ll be fashionable bars, a concept store and Mexican and Japanese restaurants. Starbucks. Maybe I should have bought two batteries for my watch – the next time I need one I suspect the shop will have packed up its celebrity photos.
Perhaps to the resident of a country that doesn't bother with it, Carnival conjures up images of elaborately costumed people winding their way through Venice in a trail of sophistication, or riotous scenes of debauchery in Brazil. It's a prelude to misery wherever you are, and the costumes don't change anything.
Here we are in Lombardia and, obviously, the adults aren't going to get dressed up in silly costumes - that would be undignified. And anyway, Armani doesn't do a Carnival line. (He does do hotels though.) So what can we do? Yes, get our kids to dress up! After all, everyone was forced to dress up by their parents a generation ago so we'll inflict it on our kids. Expensive parties are staged at Sporting Clubs for kids to wear their costumes, but there's also just a general free-for-all in the streets; in front of the cathedral is a particularly popular spot.
Of course, to an extent, children love it: they have the opportunity to dress up as Batman, Spiderman, a Fairy, Snow White, whatever, and spray things around and scream and shout. Their enthusiasm pales after a while though. The temperatures are near zero and they're wearing some scratchy nylon stuff on top of their jumpers; there's only so much running round you can do to keep warm. After five years here I'm still not sure what the parents get out of it. Noone's explained it to me. It’s one of those things that don’t get questioned. Perhaps it's the chance to see what they looked like themselves as children, to see some sort of innocence. But if that was the case then you'd have thought that the whole nasty episode would die out quite quickly. 'Yes, I hated it and my child hates it as well. But we'll just carry on another five minutes...' It's not the parents who organise it all though, it's the grandparents (the parents are at work or are organising a 'white week' skiing). Maybe that explains it - the grandparents want to see their children again. They weren't there the first time around, or else they were too pissed off to enjoy it.
Oh, and there are these awful biscuits that people bring round to your house - chiacchiere. You have one and it clogs up your mouth and your jaw can't work hard enough to get rid of the thing from your system. Can you believe it? Food in Italy that's not worth eating.
Carnival Week coincides with women's fashion week in Milan. You can tell it's fashion week becasue there are all of these very tall, very skinny English speaking girls around. Anorexics Week. The restaurants must be biting their knuckles with frustration. They start arriving at the end of January, along with the Japanese (who probably make up for the restaurateurs’ frustration with the English speaking women). The English speaking girls seem to have an aversion to tights and coats. They walk around like Edinburgh junkies with mini-skirts and bare legs all turned to blue gooseflesh. Maybe they're all Californian and they didn't realise when they left that it's still winter in Europe. Maybe their brains are just so totally fucked with drugs that they don't notice the season.
This morning I put my watch on without even looking at it - I knew I was already late. When I arrived in the classroom, a mere five minutes late, I looked at my watch. It had stopped 10 days ago. So this evening I went to the local watch battery shop. Viale Piceno, just near a Blockbuster. It’s one of the streets which forms a ring road round the city centre, just beyond one of the more pleasant parts of the city and just before another area that you could just about live in. So it’s a bit short of identity and the old-fashioned shops that line it have survived, at least until now.
The shop doesn’t only do watch batteries, but that’s what the signs in the window say. Really it’s a jeweller’s. I buzzed to enter. A Chinese girl gets up from the back of the shop and buzzes to open the door. She returns to her seat next to a peroxide blonde woman who might be young but might be past young. As I enter a man appears from under a counter at the side with his head at an angle asking what I want. He asks me to wait while he looks for the battery. I have time to look at the stuff they’re selling. They seem to specialise in silver picture frames.
There’s probably a good living in silver picture frames in Italy. Without even trying we have a collection of at least eight silver picture frames. People give them to you for practically every family occasion: marriage; birth; christening; birthday. They’re not offensive, usually, but they’re certainly rather more ostentatious than you might really like.
The shop here seems to have done something unusual. Instead of the absurd 80s style photos in the frames, they’ve put photos of themselves. Pride of place is given to the photos of family members with famous people. ‘Famous’ is relative here. Famous means the type of celebrity you see in the innumerable gossip magazines. Famous in the sense that you’re not quite sure what they became famous for; now they’re famous but what do they actually do? Some of the photos are posed – the celebrity TV presenter with his arm around a middle-aged man who looks overwhelmed with the emotion of the scene – but some are just snapshots – a young woman standing behind a seated quiz show host at some gala dinner.
Outside the traffic is almost completely blocked and horns are being sounded. One lane of traffic is continually being taken up by double-parked taxis and limos. I imagine that Blockbuster must be doing something; it would only take one half-celebrity to throw everyone into near hysteria. The people in this shop might even go outside the door. The man returns with my watch and his head still at an angle, as if he’s trying to shake sea water out of it. I pay, I don’t get a receipt, decide not to make a fuss, and leave. I walk past Blockbuster and the crowds of people to see if there’s a computer shop here – I’m sure there used to be.
The crowds are somehow connected with Fashion Week. English is being spoken by practically everybody. People are going in and coming out of a building I’d never noticed before – the Bottega Veneta. I’m sure I should know what it is, but I don’t. Glamorous American women are having earnest conversations and keeping their eyes peeled for anyone of interest.
Where are all these people the rest of the time? Are they just passing through? Not from the topics of conversation – houses, maids, cars. I realise my life lacks a certain sort of glamour. Not that I would like to be involved in Fashion Week, but I feel as if I should be a little more aware of it.
My computer shop has gone. Perhaps the Bottega Veneta is pushing Viale Piceno upmarket. Soon there’ll be fashionable bars, a concept store and Mexican and Japanese restaurants. Starbucks. Maybe I should have bought two batteries for my watch – the next time I need one I suspect the shop will have packed up its celebrity photos.
