My Grappa Hell

And the next one please!

2012-02-10T16:45:00.000+01:00

Just three minutes after taking this on the road that connects Combo Towers with what passes for civilisation here, I went down like a sack of you-know-what and did my knee. Just where you can see the sign in the distance which, with black humour, reminds motorist to fit snow chains before descending the hill. As I lay in the middle of the road, nearly a mile from home, with both dogs licking my face, I seriously wondered how I was going to get back. No mobile, even the snow plough wasn't due past for a few hours. You hardly see anyone here in the high summer, let alone when it's -5º and snowing. The riiiiiiiiip of something tearing in my leg still echoed around the empty frozen hills. How long oh Lord, I thought, how long?
At the hospital (under three hours for A&E, radiology, orthopedics, A&E again to be dismissed) they said that immediately after an injury like this and when the limb is warm it can work for a while without there being too much pain.
Now the offending leg is wrapped up in one of those Velcro® festooned braces which runs from thigh to foot and which some High Court judges would pay good money to be forced to wear. Next week a scan to see the extent of the damage.
This is the latest in a regular series of visits to the local hospital. Falling off the roof was probably the most spectacular but the rest...metal splinters from splitting logs with an iron wedge that required surgery (twice), dog bites, braining myself on a door lintel (5 stitches), the vegetable slicer (3 stitches), the eye injury clearing a path (machete)....if anyone knows anyone who is more wearily accident-prone than your humble correspondent please do get in touch.
The next visit to A&E could be tomorrow because I will have done my very own personal 40 days of Lent with nary a drop passing my lips so Saturday night will be marked by the consumption of industrial quantities of red wine.
With a bit of luck.

Gun Ho!

2012-01-17T19:20:00.001+01:00

I hope you like this one.
I have to get rid of some vermin. So I decided to buy an air rifle, nothing too serious, just a decent make that I'd heard about.
So off I tootle to a specialist hunting shop about 20 miles from here. I open the door, ding-a-ling goes the little bell and I enter the empty shop, its silent walls lined with gun cabinets, decoys, fishing rods and camouflaged hunting jackets, each with around 160 pockets. Nothing. I stand and wait. Eventually the person who is presumably the owner comes out from the back room. He is about 45 and thick set. Now Piedmont folk aren't exactly known for their spontaneity and joie de vivre. His salutation was an almost imperceptible raising of his eyebrows. Not a grunt escaped his lips, greasy from the salami he had presumably been snacking on in the back.
I asked him if he had a Weihrauch 577 in stock. I had barely finished forming the question before his face was wreathed in the sort of broad smile that you might see on a lottery winner's face. He raised his arms heavenwards. "Such a good choice my friend, such a good choice!" For a terrible moment I thought he was going to vault the counter and allow me to taste the salami second-hand. "Such a rifle! Such German engineering! Buying a Weihrauch is an investment! You'll have to wait until the middle of February when the next shipment arrives. But the wait will be more than worth your while, my friend! A wonderful rifle!"
I asked him how much this particular rifle cost. He laid both hands on the glass-topped counter and his head dropped, as if he was examining his nails. "These German rifles just fly off the shelves my friend. They fly off the shelves! The 577 is a beauty, one of their flagship models!" He looked up at me, the smile hadn't left him. "It costs €340. I can maybe give you a little discount but...I don't know..maybe €5? Here's our card. Ring me at the end of January and I'll put your Weihrauch to one side my friend!" Ding-a-ling went the little bell as I left the shop.
What the bastard doesn't know is that Mrs Combo's cousin went to the same shop towards the end of last year, bought the same rifle, didn't ask for a discount, got a rifle case thrown in and paid €260.
It's my accent you see. I have the most dreadful English pronunciation so that some shopkeepers wet themselves either with joy and/or laughter as soon as I open my trap. Think of this bloke, in reverse.
Anyhoo, I'm buying my rifle via mail order from a shop in Blackpool. So there.

My Old Cock

2012-01-08T09:49:00.001+01:00

I ate some cockerel last night. It was greeted at the table with unbridled joy amongst the assembled diners. Once an uncastrated rooster was fairly standard fare here but even in Italy, the capon (the castrated cockerel) is now more common. This old bird came from a local farm where it had been scratching around and generally ruling the roost for a couple of years. I don't know how much the kind hosts paid for it, but probably a premium. We had half of the fowl boiled and served with a parsley and garlic sauce and the other half roasted. It was quite delicious and surprisingly tender. They had probably cooked it for about three days. Going for seconds I was served the Parson's Nose which took some getting down I can tell you. All washed down with bottles and bottles of Barbera and Dolcetto.

Although as your correspondent is doing January yet again, I stayed on fizzy water. How many years is it now Mr Unmitigated? The January on-the-wagon thing does seem to be awfully popular now doesn't it? The only slight upside is that I felt like a spring chicken this morning.

On the Lash in Genoa

2011-12-23T14:15:00.001+01:00

An old chum from Blighty came out for a Christmas dinner and Genoa was chosen as the activity centre for the event. At one of (the several) bars that enjoyed our custom prior to sitting at table, the above moment of reasonably spontaneous dancing took place in a narrow alley, so typical of the old town, graffiti an' all. Wonderful. You wouldn't see that in Plymouth or Portsmouth I'd wager.

My Italian Bank

2011-11-29T20:35:00.001+01:00

Life in Italy is usually OK. Despite fragile governments, endemic corruption, a sclerotic and bloated public sector and undoubtedly the worst drivers in the world (Somalia and Burkina Faso included), there is a steady unchanging rhythm to life here that is in sharp contrast to the frenzied change that seems, to me at least, Blighty's hallmark.
But the banks. Oh, the bloody, sodding banks.
The first thing to understand is that, even by Italian standards, they are amongst the most unionised workforces in the land. They are unsackable. A teller can defraud a gentle, white-haired 91 year old widow of her life savings and the worst punishment they will receive is a transfer to another branch. You can tell it's unionised by the complete and utter lack of customer service. And the stupid opening hours. Monday, Tuesday and Friday 9.15 - 12.20 and 2.10 - 4.15; Wednesday and Thursday 8.50 - 12.00 and 1.55 - 4.05*
Let me tell you about yesterday. My bank card stopped working. I just couldn't get it into the sodding machine. The first hurdle is the bank entry system. Because tooled-up robbers are quite common in Italy there are some of the most astonishing door entry mechanisms. The one at my bank resembles something out of an early Star Trek episode, with a glass cylinder that swallows you up on the street and spits you out into the bank foyer.
I go to the Customer Service Counter, an oxymoron if ever there was one. No one there. I go to a teller. He is straining over an intermediate level Sudoku in the local paper. I stand there. He looks up. I can tell he is a filthy communist because he bristles at the sight of a well-fed customer who pays his bloody wages. Not a word of greeting. I explain my problem. He bristles further because it is even worse; I am a foreigner. Monosyllabically, he tells me to go back to the Customer Service counter. Behind a screen around the corner from the counter is the sound of stern, one-way conversation. I poke my head around. A young couple are staring with a mixture of fear and incomprehension at the Bank's Customer Service Manager who is in turn staring at me with a mixture of contempt and disbelief. I weakly wave my bank card in the air and try and explain the problem. "I shall be occupied here for at least half an hour." I see the young couple sag visibly, like animals taking a bullet. "I suggest you see a teller" "But he..." "Good afternoon."
I go back to the teller. There is now a 69 year ex-railway worker who retired 21 years ago trying to cash in some 1944 War Bonds he found in his great uncle's attic. After about twenty minutes it is my turn. The teller smirks as he tells me to go upstairs to see the other Customer Service representative. This has probably made his week, even although it is only Monday. He has won and what's better he knows that I know he has won. The ocean going bastard.
But this is big news! Ten years with this bank and I didn't know there was (a) an upstairs or (b) another person responsible for Customer Service. I go up the stairs in an almost jaunty manner, feeling I have been allowed into a special place.
It is another, surreal world up there, a series of modern, expensively-curtained offices with a monastery-like silence untainted by the sound of any labour. I find my target, one Signora Rivetti. She looks as it she could open a beer bottle at 20 yards just by looking at it. She happens to be on the telephone, talking about her sister's piles. I knock gingerly on the glass window. "Wait, please! No, those rubber rings are worse than useless. And I should know!" She motions me into her office. She has a big fluffy monkey fixed to the top of her computer screen. He is looking over his shoulder at me and smiling. I flick him a V just to let him know who's boss.
Twenty five minutes later I leave. She has scissored my old bank card, stapled it to a piece of paper and told me in no uncertain terms that I should have a new card in a week. If it doesn't arrive I am to ring and make an appointment and come back. In some manner that she can't possibly imagine I contrived to de-magnetise it, oaf that I am. I should ensure to keep the new one away from any sources of heat. I signed seven separate forms, some of them twice on the same page.
I leave the bank, ejected by the cylinder onto a damp, misty piazza. Somewhere nearby is the sound of laughter. I head for the nearest bar.

*except for the third Wednesday in every month when it closes at 3.00 for staff training

Bar Basso, Milan

2011-11-27T11:03:00.001+01:00

Meet Maurizio, the Anglophile owner of Bar Basso in Milan, one of the city's most traditional bars. He invented the Negroni Sbagliato in the 60s, replacing the standard measure of gin with Prosecco thus making it slightly less of an alcohol bomb. Needless to say I had a genuine Negroni, and it was superb. We had a chat, Maurizio and I, and I said I was from Devonshire and he said he liked to stay in Sidmouth. Sidmouth! Next to Budleigh Salterton it's probably the place I'd like to spend my last days in. Which may well not be that far off, if things carry on as they are. This is later on the same evening.

It's got to stop. I'm 57 FFS!

The Great War

2011-11-06T21:33:00.002+01:00

I've just finished reading Tommy by Richard Holmes, published by Harper Perennial. It tells the story of the British soldier on the Western Front from 1914 to 1918. I cannot recommend it highly enough. It is comprehensive but never boring. It tells of the (for us) unimaginable horror in an almost impersonal way, which somehow makes the words even more harrowing. But it is also packed with fascinating background material. Like how the army found itself so desperately short of horses in 1914 that they sent vets around the farms and smallholdings of Britain to requisition horses, many of which were more family pets than working animals. Off they were taken, the majority to die horribly in the Flanders mud. How the War saw previously unseen advances in medicine and the treatment of wounds. At the astonishment of hearing newly-arrived American soldiers describing Germans as "motherfucking cocksuckers", a particular lexical coupling that was entirely new to the average Tommy. Of particular interest is the issue (here used in its original sense if you please) of leave. Many soldiers found going on leave unpleasant and depressing, finding people in Blighty ignorant and dismissive of what was actually going on at the front ("What do you get up to in your spare time when you're not fighting? Go to a dance hall or the cinema?"), or that the pain of leaving their loved ones again was just not worth the candle, or actually missing the comradeship of the trench and returning to find out who had been killed or who had survived more important than being at home.
And then of course Armistice Day on November 11th 1918. In British cities it was marked with church bells pealing, with noisy celebrations and parties throughout the land.
The soldiers in France and Belgium noticed more than anything else the extraordinary, all-embracing silence, still to be found in the exquisitely tidy CWGC cemeteries, like the Guillemont Road Cemetery above, to be found near the Somme.

God Spede the Plow

2011-10-27T22:58:00.000+02:00

I was chatting to the horribly young Valerio after he had delivered our wood for the winter when he happened to point out that he and his brother were responsible for clearing the snow from our roads (see above, that is him last winter). "Lordy" I said, "what a wonderful job, all that power and effect, master of all that you see, clearing a path for us humble peasants" in effect the usual nonsense.
"Don't you believe it" he said, "it's a bag of shit" and this from an utterly charming young man to whom you would only be too glad to introduce your panting, hormone-crazed daughter.
"So what's the problem Valerio?" I asked tentatively, expecting another volley of foul language.
"It's the others" he replied, looking over his shoulder. "It's dog eat dog in this business. We get €24 for every kilometer we clear. There are 28 kilometers in your parish and that sounds a lot but if we hit an obstacle, given that half the time we can't see where the road is, that can damage the blade. It's all hydraulics you see. Expensive stuff. Chains for our tractor tyres cost a fortune and we have to have them because the hills are so steep. Then there are the other bastards, one evening last year I tried to start the tractor but it wouldn't go because someone had poured a load of sand into the fuel tank. They want to steal our business you see. I'll swing before anyone takes this work off me. Bastards, all of them"
By then his lip had started to quiver. I paid him for the wood and wished him well.
Serious stuff, being a snowplough driver.

A couple of pre-dinner drinks

2011-10-14T02:00:00.000+02:00

Ah, the changing seasons of life. Once an aperitif was four pints of London Pride and two bags of KP Nuts.

The Upside of a Drought

2011-10-05T09:31:00.001+02:00

For the first time EVER the seriously dry weather this year has meant that I have been able to get the three vegetable plots ploughed before the winter kicks in. The soil here is very heavy so once the rain (when oh when?) comes it is pretty unworkable until the spring and it dries out.

Anyhoo, my mate Alessandro pitched up with his trusty Fiat and a single share plough and got stuck in. An hour saw the job finished. I shall dress the plots with some serious manure in the spring and then harrow and Robert will be my father's brother. I vow that there will not be a repeat of this year's tomato nightmare.

Some Culture. For a Change.

2011-09-26T12:14:00.000+02:00

Up to the pleasing bi-lingual town of Trento to sing a Mass at the Duomo with the choir. It's a good place to visit because it has the best of Italy (food, wine, architecture) and the best of Germany (people don't park on the pavements). On the Sunday we all went to the town's impressive castle, the (literally) Good Advice Castle. There was an exhibition on the trading and cultural relationship between the Med and the Alps, which wasn't as mind-numbingly dull as one might expect. At the entrance there was this chap, sorry it's a bit blurred. Now, that's a tummy!

On show were some wonderful pieces like this beautiful terracotta bust from the third century BC.

And this exquisitely fine gold crown, made for a Gallic princess's funeral in the 4th century BC. She had three in her tomb near Ancona apparently, but the other two were lost. There are myrtleberries, flowers and leaves, all worked together.

And then just to reassure you lot that I haven't taken complete leave of my senses, this is a wonderful white wine that Bruno and I discovered in a bar in a small town on the way back home. Custoza is a blend of local whites from near Verona, there's usually some Trebbiano and Garganega along with whatever else they have to hand. Lip-smackingly good. Doubt if you'd find it in Blighty. The joy of Italy!

All Bunched Up

2011-09-12T11:01:00.000+02:00

As I may have posted before (and can't be bothered to check), grape picking is not some bucolic, idyllic pastime. It is backbreaking, hot, uncomfortable and seemingly without end. There are wasps and mosquitoes, the constant threat of the picker on the other side of the row of vines clipping off one of your pinkies with his/her secateurs as you both go for the same stem, bunches of grapes that don't hang down temptingly but have grown around one of the many training wires. And the heat, oh the bloody heat and the sweat.

Anyhoo, we stopped for a a couple of rolls at lunchtime, our motley crew, Albanians, Italians and one extremely red-faced Brit. I ate one roll with salami and another with Parma ham and drank about a litre of sparkling water.

Bruna had the right idea 'though, perched in the shade of the tractor cab.
As you might imagine your correspondent will be paid in kind, not in cash.

Up in Them Hills

2011-08-23T16:47:00.000+02:00

Up to the mountains towards Austria, in the Trentino region, for another wine-fuelled choir party. Above is the hotel where Bruno and I stayed. Interesting place, the weather vane features a beer tankard.

I don't know if you can see but the clock in the hotel bar shows 9.15 (in the morning of course) and there are already some hearty local types who have downed a couple of glasses of red wine to get the day off on the right foot. I feel almost ashamed to say that I had a coffee. Honest.

At the party itself this demijohn holds 54 litres of Teroldego, a very quaffable local red. Bruno and I gave it our best shot. The pottery pitchers were a nice touch.

In this rather dramatic picture, the lady is firing up a small cigar. Brava!

The Joy of Travel

2011-08-08T17:15:00.000+02:00

Sensible, relaxed Italy where one can still have a pleasing glass of Merlot at a motorway service station. Or a beer. Or a Grappa.
Maybe that's why Italy has some really sensational, extravagant multi-vehicle accidents on its autostrade.

Hubris

2011-08-01T15:49:00.000+02:00

I cannot remember a summer like this, in terms of the weather, which has been uniformly awful. But, remarkably, awful without a drop or rain. It's been dry with some serious gales which often saw the garden furniture sailing merrily over the fence. The tomato plants took a real hammering in a particularly bad rain-free tempest about six weeks ago and they've never really recovered. Once Italians used to compliment me on the size and abundance of my tomatoes. Now little groups of horribly-inbred wall-eyed locals stand just outside the gates, pointing at me and cackling with cruel humour at my discomfiture. I try and chase them away with comments like "Hey Benito, that's a nice tooth you've got" but they soon re-assemble and carry on with their gurning and grinning.

Dining Alone

2011-07-25T20:59:00.000+02:00

To Rome, on business. Above is the view from the Deputy Mayor's office. Then the joy of the expense account stopover. I left the hotel I was staying in near the huge central railway station, Roma Termini, and had a wander around some back streets. I came across this trattoria. The walls were covered with framed photographs of the well-fed owner with a series of B list Italian slebs. Perfect.

A smooth, fruit-laden Sangiovese from Tuscany accompanied a bottle of sparkling mineral water and some decent nosh.

I do so enjoy eating alone, especially in large cities away from home. It's the anonymity I think. The pleasure is, of course, doubled when you can claim it back on exes.

Tullians

2011-07-17T11:23:00.000+02:00

To Asti to see Jethro Tull in concert. Ian Anderson is 64 and still does that one-legged flute solo thing. I read later that he is a millionaire. Not surprised frankly at €35 a ticket for a 90 minute open-air concert. Still the venue was pleasant, next to Asti's cathedral and it was interesting to feel one's ribcage and teeth vibrate to a bass line coming from a serious speaker some ten yards away. Aqualung was one of the first LPs I bought I think.

Jethro Tull is huge in Italy. There is even a fan club called The Tullians who follow them everywhere, superannuated old, skinny hippies with black headscarves, serious earrings and out-of-it eyes. When I was at St Custard's I packed in the violin and asked if I could learn to play the clarinet. The skool orchestra was without a flautist however so the (oddly) heterosexual music master cajoled me into taking up the damn thing. Dreadful instrument, nearly as useless as the harp. Anderson plays it very well however, I'll give him that. I think I'd have been much happier with the clarinet. Ah, all those lost opportunities.

Hotel Architecture

2011-07-07T17:54:00.000+02:00

This is the remarkable lobby of a hotel I stayed in recently in Asti. It was pleasingly run-down. This picture I think makes it look better kept than it actually is. Presumably dating from 1970s (any ideas from the architecturally-minded?) the lobby's island feature really caught my eye. Someone has filled the base with that sort of white shredded plastic packaging material you find inside the box when you order an electronic item from Amazon. One of the half-dead pot plants has a faded red ribbon tied around it. The three distant guests marked the height of activity whilst I was there. Silence invariably reigned apart from an occasional trolley bag being dragged across the lobby by a weary sales representative heading for his dusty Fiat Croma and yet another meaningless appointment.

When Will It End?

2011-07-04T17:57:00.000+02:00

Pretty bloody quickly if things carry on like this I think.

My mate Sid

2011-07-01T10:56:00.001+02:00

I was clearing out the PH Memorial Shed in a rare burst of activity. There were a load of concrete bricks in one corner, damp from a gently leaking pipe. That corner was dark and as I got towards the bottom of the pile, puffing and panting in my ghastly late middle-aged way, I thought I saw something slither. I ran out squeaking, got a serious torch and went back. Yes, there was Sid all curled up amongst mice-chewed newspaper and all sorts of other unmentionable stuff. I would like to say that I was the one who captured him but I thought that it might be better to get someone who knows what a viper looks like. So along came Gianni and his wife Rosella and with a pair of barbecue tongs we got him in a large glass.

He was quite long and struck out a couple of times. After a lot of tooth sucking Gianni declared that this was not a viper but a bicha, a harmless mouse-eating snake (good for you Sid). So I gingerly let him go into the next field and off he slithered happy as ~~Larry~~ Sid.

We have a truly ignorant neighbour who claims on a regular basis to have killed vipers which is almost certainly bollocks. Another neighbour (89 year old Riccardo) has lived here all his life and says he has never seen one; he is probably right. Snakes are good for the countryside although that bloke in Blighty who was bitten by one of his King Cobras this week and then died may well have overstated his affection for them somewhat.

Uncle Hector's car

2011-06-16T17:11:00.000+02:00

Some eleven years ago dear Uncle Hector drove back to his farm near Launceston in Cornwall (Cornovaglia in Italian, the only British county to have an Italian name) from a local Parish Council meeting, parked the car in the drive that leads down to the milking sheds and went inside, greeted Auntie Eileen, had a cup of tea, said he thought he'd go to bed, which he did and never got up again. Nice way to go really. Anyhoo, this is his car and it looks as if it has never been moved.

Blighty Today

2011-06-04T11:57:00.001+02:00

Just back from a whirlwind visit to Devonshire to visit the last resting places of a variety of dead relatives, wonderful weather, gorgeous English countryside, great beer and wine and probably the best fish and chips I've ever eaten. Anyhoo, back in Italy where the weather is so British, damp and cold and miserable.
For reasons too complicated to go into here, I flew in and out of Birmingham and yesterday coming back it was almost deserted which was such an unexpected joy after the usual horrors of Gatwick or Thiefrow.
Some of you may be surprised that I did not take advantage of this heart-warming offer from the Yates's bar, but where is the indefinite article? It's Breakfast and a Pint.

God help us.

Tea Time

2011-05-17T21:26:00.000+02:00

I have reverted (through a logistical cock-up) to leaf tea. And, whaddya know, it's better than tea bags. Still PG Tips of course but it's a nicer cuppa (or should that be mugga?). A proposito, do you like my new mug?

Only in Italy...

2011-05-11T10:48:00.001+02:00

...and I believe in North Korea is there a functioning communist party. Actually this being Italy, there is more than one communist party, this lot being of the Leninist faction. I think the flags are quite striking.

This is their newspaper. Unreadably dull of course. Workers of the World Unite! it says.

Home Grown

2011-05-02T22:00:00.000+02:00

Ron's freshly-picked asparagus, steamed and then half of them whizzed up to make the sauce, and some tips kept whole, served with pine nuts and decent olive oil and the whole delicious lot washed down with a juicy 13.5º Barbera d'Asti.

You can laugh but...

2011-04-19T21:34:00.000+02:00

..I rather like this. It's a tasting note written live as it were, as the writer was sipping the wine. Whether you think it's all bollocks or not, some of the words remind us how beautiful the English language can be. The writer, by the way, is a serious wine buff who knows his onions (as it were). And if you want a bottle, you can get some here. Cheapest price is £2,000 a bottle.

1985 La Tache; Grand Cru Monopole; Domaine de la Romanee-Conti: wild strawberry, plum, herbs, wood, charcoal, wood, cinnamon, raspberry, fresh, meaty, hugely complex. gamey, forest floor, wild blueberry, wonderful stuff, bonfire, chocolate, Asian spices, burnt matches, peat, cherry, minerals, iron, earth, hints of sous bois, blood orange, rosemary, thyme, oregano, eucalyptus, minty, but this kept developing in the glass, tannins have dropped away but it has a great backbone of acid, this will hold beautifully! Coffee, expresso. salt beef, salt, shitty, this just keeps changing. Sea air, asparagus, saline, vegetal, sea shore, sea shell, oyster sauce, milky, creamy, wet soil, lemon, grapefruit, sorbet, core of wild red fruit, wild raspberry and strawberry; molasses, superb depth, salt and pepper, fish and chip shop, beer batter, fresh plum, lemon, roses, rosebush, rose water, ethereal and deep, transcendental, pepperoni and chilli sauce, fish sauce, almonds, nettles, underbrush, grass, pollen, honey, dust, lifted but deep! WOW just wow! Blackberries, smoke, bonfire, wild raspberry, earth, cooked cranberry, this is the single greatest wine I have tried in my life! Fresher, lighter and more ethereal! Gunpowder, oxtail, cooked beef, cooked lemons, perfume, nail varnish but not in a bad way! Pork Crackling, so deep, so complex! Burnt fat; cooking oil, rubber, wax, maldon sea salt, squid, octopus, sea water, burnt raspberry, leather sofa, cigar, cigar box, almost like a Diplomaticos No. 2; fresh strawberry, bulls blood, absolutely brilliant, the best and most complex wine I have ever tasted! Wonderful texture! ******** [easily the longest tasting note I think I have ever written and the only guaranteed 8* wine!!!!!!!!!!].
A really brilliant wine that we thought would never show in the way it did with its poor levels and ashy, disintegrating cork! It was a revelation, and we even saw a beguiling peachy light in the Decanter. You just have to be sorry for any wine that had the pleasure of sharing the table with such a wine! Oh how I feel for that wine!

Wa-hey!

2011-04-13T11:05:00.000+02:00

The Intrepid One, on his return to Blighty from the war hell that is Libya, kindly left the Combo household a large tin of green tea, given to him by a Chinese worker he met at a drilling site in the desert. Rather surprisingly I've been drinking the stuff and yesterday evening went to get a spoonful when I noticed a small, sealed plastic bag at the bottom of the tin. The contents look interesting. What shall I do people, drink it or smoke it?

Re TIO and Mad Dog McClane: I cannot post on your blogs even though you are both Blogger, the format is different I think. Any ideas anyone?

Malvern Hills

2011-04-06T10:54:00.000+02:00

This lot pitched up at the weekend. What's the collective noun for Morgans? A creak?

Sweet Expectation

2011-04-01T09:48:00.000+02:00

Thought you might like to see some genuine in-class Italian graffiti:

There is a scrawl in this one below that says "our mission is perversion" and a broken heart below. Elsewhere, not visible, is "Sesso senza amore" - "sex without love".

Rather worryingly this is in a classroom where the pupil age is 14. Presumably they're all at it like rabbits, except for the plug ugly ones of course. Interestingly, teenage pregnancies here are almost unheard of. There was a Peruvian girl in the local village who got knocked up at the age of 14 by an Albanian lad but she was whisked off, never to be seen again. Maybe here in Italy sex and love do go hand in hand when you are a young teen, but I'm too old (damn! damn!) to find out. In Blighty you are (I think this is going to sound very 1960s) either in the family way or you have a bun in the oven or you are up the duff. There's probably a lot worse too now.

In Italy they say the woman is in dolce attesa, sweet expectation.

Says it all really.

Getting Stuffed

2011-03-25T11:44:00.000+01:00

This was the snack table at a friend's house whilst we all watched England getting stuffed by Ireland on Saturday. The Italians loved watching my despair.

That's It Then

2011-03-24T11:07:00.001+01:00

Bloody bugger. Spring's here. So that's it then.
All that delicious abdication of responsibility for the outdoors that goes hand in hand with winter is finished.
Those 11 acres* will need sorting, ploughing, harrowing, seeding, planting, cutting, taking care of....oh my God I think I need a drink.

* Outrageous overstatement. I only have to till and tend one acre. The other ten can sod off.

Local Railways

2011-03-14T15:38:00.000+01:00

Italy had the great fortune never to have enjoyed the attention of a Dr Beeching as did Blighty in the 60s. The Italian railway network is still largely intact and branch lines still exist. Maybe there's only a couple of trains a day, the stations are unstaffed, the ticket machines don't work and the waiting room no longer has old vine cuttings glowing faintly in the hearth but most stations are still extant. I came across this little gem the other day. Cesare Pavese wrote La Luna e i Falò (The Moon and the Bonfires) in 1949 just before he topped himself* at the age of 41. This station is near his birthplace so the plaque has a line from the book which, badly translated, reads: "Through the peach orchards I could hear the train arriving and filling the valley...".

*He was a Communist so I can see his point. If he'd have hung on for a while he'd have eventually seen the light, become a Conservative, jetted around the world for Champagne-assisted book launches, had it off with Sophia Loren and got hammered regularly on decent Italian red wine.

My Grappa Heaven

2011-02-28T21:28:00.000+01:00

To just north of Venice at the weekend to go to a wine tasting at Smooth Tony's. On the way Bruno and I stopped off here, at Nardini's Distillery Tap in the historic town of Bassano del Grappa, so you get the idea of this town's principal business. The firm is still family owned and run of course, no stock market quotation or selling out for lots of wonga to some French luxury goods conglomerate here, this is Italy not Blighty after all. All the bottles in the bar are of different types of grappa and they don't sell anything else.

It was packed at four in the afternoon, with people enjoying a range of different grappa-based snifters.

This is the view from one side of the bar of the historic bridge, that's if you can still have the power of vision of course.

And this is the view from the other side. Not bad eh?

Bruno and I started with some serious 50º grappas and then moved on to their Tagliatella which is a grappa-based liqueur and difficult to find outside of the Veneto region. Then we saw some people knocking these back so we had one each.

They're called cinquanta-cinquanta (50/50) and we never found out what the make-up was as we seemed to have mislaid the power of speech. But long live Nardini and Italian tradition!

Words, words, words

2011-02-18T17:09:00.000+01:00

There I am, just vacantly tootling along, thinking either about nothing at all or which bottle to open this evening and then a word just zooms along and - bang! - after years of failing to see the etymological link, there it is staring me in my face (faccia in Italian but that one's too obvious). 'To avoid' in Italian is evitare, and then I heard someone on the wireless say "inevitable" - light bulb time! But why don't we have 'evitable'? Well, we do actually but has anyone ever heard it used? I haven't, but it's there in Chambers. And then there's one of my favourites (another that no one uses), 'beaker'. And guess what Italian for glass is? Bicchiere! Bingo, another shaft of illumination that I should have clocked years ago, especially with all the beakers of Sercial I've caned in Gordon's.
Etymology is one of the few interests I managed to acquire at St. Custard's when in an early Latin class, our master 'Plum' Tucker wrote one word on the blackboard:

peninsula

and then asked us how the word came about. We just sat there in our freezing Devonshire classroom, smelling of manure and Horlick's tablets, and then underneath he wrote two Latin words:

paene (almost) + insula (island)

and ecco! revelation. Thanks Plum, against all the odds something stuck.

The Tempting Table

2011-02-15T11:46:00.000+01:00

Ah, the ineffable delight of a virgin Italian lunch table about to be deflowered!

Mind the Gap

2011-02-13T18:21:00.001+01:00

Yesterday morning I was reminded of the huge, unbridgeable, dizzying, yawning chasm that exists between Anglo-Saxon drinking culture and the Italians' view of booze.
Andrea came for a English conversation lesson as he does every Saturday morning. He is 25, tall, slim and predictably good-looking. His manners are impeccable. He has a degree in engineering and a good job, a nice new car, a very attractive girlfriend who he will almost certainly marry and they will have two gorgeous children and a wonderful, happy, fulfilled life together. All in all he is an extremely nice, decent chap. Obviously I dislike him intensely.
Anyhoo, yesterday the conversation meandered hither and thither and talking about last weekend he happened to mention that he had had gastric flu and, returning from a day out on Sunday, ha vomitato as soon as he got home. "The English verb is vomit, yes? So I vomited?" he inquired pleasantly. "Well, you're right there but we don't use it that much. We tend to say 'I was sick' which is the word we also use for when we are ill. It takes its meaning from the context. Between friends 'though, you would probably say 'I threw up". He was busy writing down this new vocabulary. Very precise is Andrea.
"Of course Andrea, there are many slang references to being sick, the Australians in particular have many funny ways of describing the act of throwing up." "Really?" he asked innocently. "Well, one that was very popular was 'calling God on the big white telephone'. I looked at Andrea, his brow creasing with thought. "Why call God.." he asked, thinking out loud, "...to ask to make you better?" "Not really, it's more when you have had too much too drink and you have to be sick..." and here I got down on my knees and made a circle with my arms around an imaginary lavatory bowl at which his quizzical look deepened, "..ohhhhhhh God", fake retch, "ohhhhhh God", fake retch.
I looked up, through my tears of near laughter, at his face, blank with disbelief, as I struggled to stand up, wondering if he would be coming back next week.

Off the Wagon

2011-02-02T11:52:00.000+01:00

That's The Intrepid One leaving this morning after 36 hours of virtually solid boozing. The Landy is full of Libyan rocks, sand and Italian wine.

This was one of the smarter bars.

And this was a serious Barbera that we got stuck in to much later.
Now for some rest I think. Mamma mia.

Nearly there now...

2011-01-28T11:58:00.000+01:00

...and just thinking about the first one for Monday evening. Something that kicks in straightaway. A glass of fizz would be fine and there's plenty of that in the cellar. However I am leaning towards the above, shot when the days were warmer. A cracking get-you-up-there drink that washes away a month of penitential suffering. I wonder if The Intrepid One will fancy one too after a month in the desert but he'll probably demur and demand a huge glass of Barbera d'Asti. Plenty of that too.

Only in Italy...

2011-01-26T22:20:00.002+01:00

Meet Mike Bongiorno. Mike was the stalwart of Italian television. He was the game show king. He came over from America light years ago, changed his name and got on the box and never really left it. Towards the end of his TV career (he died in harness in 2009) there would be his rheumy face dragging out questions to some old bag at half past three in the afternoon in front of a catatonic audience both in the studio and at home. I can't think of a comparable figure on Blighty television, perhaps Brucie but without the height, hooter, talent and sense of irony. Anyhoo, he fell off his perch at the relatively young age (for an Italian) of 85 and in a display of staggering bad taste of which only the Italians are sometimes capable, he was given a State Funeral, his procession lined with thousands of weeping old biddies and arm-twisted schoolchildren endlessly texting each other for want of something better to do.
In an exquisite twist to the story, yesterday somebody nicked Mike's coffin from the family tomb near Novara up towards Milan. The family are awaiting the ransom request.

31 Days

2011-01-10T12:09:00.000+01:00

It's that special month again when the very serious corkscrew is put away in the cutlery drawer and that special pourer gadget that means not a drop of wine is spilt onto the exquisite Irish linen tablecloth is placed reverentially on the gadget shelf.
January is a long, long month dear reader.
Normal service should resume when The Intrepid One pitches up in his Land Rover, fresh from more African Adventures. Predicted arrival date is January 31st.
There are some upsides to this ghastly annual ritual but for the life of me I can't think of one.

Milk of Magnesia

2010-12-28T22:22:00.000+01:00

Just some photographs from lunch on Christmas Day. After a while I just couldn't be bothered to pick up the camera. Can you still buy Milk of Magnesia in Blighty?

It's That Time!

2010-12-21T09:52:00.000+01:00

Happy Christmas!

What's this then?

2010-12-12T18:58:00.001+01:00

A funny fruit. Funny peculiar rather than funny ha-ha of course. Matures in November and has a very sweet gloopy orange pulp that is nice to eat but some white-ish pith that are very bitter. Very popular with birds hereabouts when there's not much else to feed on. The branches are very delicate and break easily. A special Combo prize to the first reader to give the correct name. Maybe I should change the name of this nonsense blog to Unmitigated Italy.

Hen Night

2010-12-07T11:35:00.000+01:00

I bought a hen from a local peasant (paid way over the odds of course) and it came with all its bits and pieces. Inserting my hand you-know-where I found that apart from its guts there was also an egg which I had for brekker next day with brown bread soldiers and lots of butter. I boiled the fowl with carrots, a stick of celery and an onion and it was eaten with a fruit mustard. The wine was the deliciously drinkable Cabernet Franc from Smooth Tony. Yum yum pig's bum.

Le Marche and Rome

2010-12-02T11:16:00.006+01:00

The dog-eat-dog cut and thrust of the Combo empire-building programme continues apace and necessitated a trip to Urbino in Le Marche and then The Eternal City. Urbino is a predictably exquisite hilltop town near the Adriatic coast, virtually untouched since Dante sharpened his quill.
How about this for a bar?
And then I snuck in here for a couple.
The local white wine is called Verdicchio and there are two sub-classifications, Castelli dei Jesi and Matelica which are effectively two different regions. Expressing an interest in the difference between the wines, the charming owner gave me an unexpected BOGOF so I got four glasses for the price of two. Plus stuffing my face with all the usual delicious aperitivi that crowded the bar counter. I spent €6. Imagine an Italian going into a pub in, say, Godalming and asking about the difference between London Pride. and Taylor's Landlord. Two free pints? Your 'avin a larf, intcher? (I'm sure they don't speak like that in Godalming by the way.)

Then it was on to Rome the next day. Business finished I spent ten minutes rubbernecking outside the Italian parliament waiting for that week's government to collapse. There was this police car outside. Neat or what? Note the completely superfluous two blue lights on the roof.

The Gentleman's Relish

2010-11-11T11:29:00.005+01:00

Rummaging around in the larder for some nibbles the other day, I found tucked away at the back the above, a present from Lord Unmitigated, part of a washed-up expat food parcel he kindly sent over yonks ago. The Marmite, PG Tips, decent Cheddar and bottles of ale went the way of all good things almost immediately of course but somehow this slipped through the net. Always thought the best before dates on food labels are a con. This tasted absolutely delicious on hot brown toast. Thank you old chum. All washed down with a big mug of PG Tips, of course!

A Damp Winterish Wedding...

2010-11-04T23:48:00.007+01:00

...but none the worse for that!
One of Mrs Combo's cousins, like many thrusting young Italians, works on a cruise ship. He dropped on with a Peruvian waitress so decided to make it legal at a remote 1960s church hereabouts. With typical Italian disregard for the finer points of spirituality the church builders couldn't be bothered to put in a ring of bells so they made do with a nice pair of loudspeakers that broadcast on a loop tape a supremely tinny recording of two clanking bells:
It is also an Italian tradition to use rice as confetti and also to wish the couple good luck as they leave the church. Unfortunately English txtspk would now seem to be de rigeur
The food at the wedding breakfast was excellent....

...as was the grip quality of the lavatory paper used for the bridal hearse.

Mellow Fruitfulness blah blah..

2010-11-03T10:25:00.004+01:00

I managed to snap this just before it started raining three days ago. It is still raining. Copiously. General stuff is now starting to be carried down the hill. A small river is running through the cellar and a prodigious hole has appeared in the woodshed roof. A drink must be in order, that'll make it all better.

The Fear of God

2010-10-20T11:26:00.005+02:00

With choir on Sunday evening to a distant village to sing a concert. Village deserted, rain lashing down, bar closed, more choristers than public. Usual story. The evening brightened up considerably however when I saw this painting dominating the east end, behind the altar. I presume it's St. Bartholomew. You can say what you like about the Church of Rome, but they do good death.
They also would appear to have a pretty decent sense of humour too. Having been flayed to death, he was made the patron saint of tanners.

A Bad Choice

2010-10-17T17:41:00.004+02:00

One of my favourite local-ish wines is Bonarda, from the Oltrepo Pavese district, in the western part of Lombardy, not that far from Comboland. Bonarda is perfect red wine for glugging in quantity, with about 12º of alcohol, nicely acidic and just so slightly fizzy. It'll never win any prizes of course as it's for people with peasant tastes (me) but it's great fun. Doing some idle browsing in a supermarket the other day I chanced upon this Sangue di Giuda (Judas's Blood!) from the same district so I thought, whoopee, I'll have some of that bleeder. Error. It's sweet and foul. Live and learn. Excuse rubbish photo, I was so disappointed with Judas's wine I necked a bottle of decent Barbera as recompense.

A load of old...

2010-10-02T12:08:00.005+02:00

The trip to London wrought its revenge with a decent bout of laryngitis which meant three days in bed, no wine and lots of simple, nourishing food.
The Combo Mother-in-Law rustled up one of her staple dishes for me. Tripe with Spanish beans, potatoes and tomatoes.
I can just about remember my father tucking in to a huge steaming bowl of tripa alla inglese, that being great leathery sheets of the stuff boiled for about nine weeks in milk and onions. Intending visitors could be seen running away from the house with a handkerchief pressed over their faces, dry heaving at the foul stink. Then there was my time in the abattoir where I got to know cows' (and pigs' and sheep's) stomachs rather too well, but that's for another day.
This very Italian dish is a lot more delicate (not difficult), but I still have a problem, oops sorry, issue with the texture of tripe. It's not meat but it's not fat either its....hmm, offal in its purest form I suppose.
WH, this sounds like a dish for you. Do you ever cook tripe? Can one still buy it in Blighty?

Waterstones

2010-09-28T16:26:00.003+02:00

What is it with Waterstones' counter staff? Are there ANY heterosexuals who work in one of their shops?
I remember when I used to go to their Kensington High Street branch which, several years ago, seemed to have 100% wimmin-based personnel. The emotion of profound, intense dislike that radiated out over the cash till was tangible. And that was without buying anything by Ted Hughes or Jim Davidson.
Last week I went to their Piccadilly mausoleum to buy Under the Sun, the Collected Letters of Bruce Chatwin, for a dear friend. Bruce was, of course, extremely fond of crashing the yoghurt truck with other members of his sex.
Waterstones seem to have slammed their employment policy into reverse in the intervening years. All the counter staff were male. Dressed in black. I tried to choose the least overt. To no avail. "Ooh" he trilled far too loudly, "you will JUST LOVE this!" I looked at my shoes as hard as I could. " Bruce was so, just so impossible, like a chameleon" (giggle) "Which we all are, aren't we" (glancing up at me whilst slipping the book just so into the bag), "whether we like it or not?"
Sometimes it's tough being a man in a bookshop.

Little Beauties

2010-09-09T10:35:00.005+02:00

I appreciate there is some danger of this nonsense getting all foodie at the expense of being all boozie, but I must share this one with you.
Some recent rain followed by late summer heat gave hope to fungaioli hereabouts and so your correspondent ventured out into the Comboland woods with Lucky and Flossie to see what was going on.
And look at this beauty! Forget your Penny Buns, these are the real deal, coccone or Caesar's Mushroom in Blighty, where they aren't to be found as I understand it. Shame because they are exquisite eaten like this:
sliced raw, served on hand-ground raw beef and drizzled, darling, with your best olive oil and then lovingly scattered with parsley. To accompany this I knocked off a bottle of local Cortese, just slightly sparkling.
PS The big mistake here is to confuse them with these which look identical when growing, before the head pops out. Apparently they taste jolly good too, but then two weeks later you are dead.

What's tomato with you?

2010-09-02T21:13:00.004+02:00

Of course, it's all very well piggin' out on tomatoes, morning dew picked from the sagging vine (you're fired, ed.) but the secondary joy of the Combo Crop is making a passata sauce and freezing it for use during the winter. It's terribly easy, if rather hot work in a summer kitchen. Put as many of the bleeders as you can in a large saucepan, add enough water just to cover the bottom of the pan and set over a low heat to go all soft.
The whip 'em out and put them through the mouli by hand (real Italians have a machine that does it but I can't be arsed, after all these toms are organic, right?)

and then just heat for ten minutes or so to drive out a little excess water and then freeze in bags.
As a taster for the coming season Mrs Combo produced this dish called parmigiana which has aubergines, said tomato sauce and Parmesan. Helped down by an excellent Barbera d'Asti from
Giovanni Piacenza, a very hearty winemaker in all senses of the word.
Yum yum, pig's bum!

Happy Birthday Lucky!

2010-08-26T22:37:00.004+02:00

Probably the most pampered Labrador in Christendom celebrated her 11th birthday this week. We went down to the river for a dip. Happy birthday Sausage!

One for Diplo

2010-08-19T15:20:00.004+02:00

When all the talk is done, when chins have been stroked and teeth sucked, the proof of the pudding is when the end result is placed delicately in your gob. The finest buffalo mozzarella, delicate olive oil made by some wizened inbred peasant from Liguria, fresh basil from the herb garden and undoubtedly the finest tomatoes on God's green earth. I thank you.

Miserable Romans

2010-08-14T17:17:00.005+02:00

The badly-oiled, leaking behemoth that is Combo Catering creaked into action last weekend. Big wedding at a local country house. Your correspondent was in charge of the drinks table at the pre-dinner aperitivi and then acted as wine waiter throughout the evening.
Pride of place pre-dinner was this very expensive bowl full of cheap, home-made, tooth enamel stripping sangria.
I made about ten litres and they necked virtually the lot, to wash down lots of tables of delicious nibbles, lovingly prepared by Mrs Combo.
However, it was an odd wedding, very low-key for Italian standards, a few desultory "eep, eep urraaaas"* and that was about it. Seemed more like a provincial Rotary Club lunch. I asked a local guest afterwards for a reason and he said "Most of them were up from Rome. Miserable bastards, Romans."

*It's what Italians shout at weddings as they toast the bride and groom. Lord knows where they got that from.

Game Over?

2010-08-12T22:11:00.001+02:00

As High as Kites

2010-08-05T12:13:00.008+02:00

Away with Bruno the last weekend to Trentino for the annual summer party given by this choir. Not for the faint-hearted, this very Italian celebration starts in the morning and lasts all day. It takes place in a field about 5,000ft up a mountain. We arrived at around 10.30 in the morning and I heeded Bruno's words from my first time there a few years ago: "If you take wine before midday you won't see 3 o'clock. Trust me." So I trusted him and saw out the first 90 minutes lining my stomach with a quite excellent broth taken from the meats being boiled over an open fire.
Some of the members of the choir like to fortify their beakers of broth with some red wine, the local Teroldego. I erred only once.
All the food is cooked at small stations dotted here and there and, not surprisingly, is invariably delicious. Lots of meat of course.
And polenta, per forza.
The white wine is kept cool with the anguria in a tub filled with ice cold water from a local spring.
The red wine is usually brought to the table by wheelbarrow. As the consumption of wine speeds up so the singing starts. The choir was formed after the First World War and their repertoire is based mainly on folk songs from when the Italians were engaged against the Austrians, high up in the snowy mountains. It was a bloody, cruel conflict (is there one that isn't?) and their songs are very Italian, very mournful, mainly about how they miss their Mum (first) and then their wife or girlfriend (second). It's mostly in close six part harmony and you can hear some here.
Oh, and they also drink like fish.
We left (more or less upright, surprisingly) the thrash at around half past six in the evening. Then we went out for some supper and lots more wine. Fan-tas-tic!

They're back!

2010-07-30T14:40:00.003+02:00

Game over for the Merseyside-California tomato alliance I'm afraid. And these are just the first ones.
Appropriately the first photograph taken on the new camera. Remind me to tell you about the courier company that delivered it.
* Thumbs up and thanks to ChrisP for pointing me in the right direction. They say this one is bomb proof. We'll see

The Fruit of the Land

2010-07-18T22:30:00.005+02:00

The wet spring and the hot summer coupled with copious amounts of dung look like making the Combo vegetable business even more lucrative this year. The zucchini flowers are outrageously large and exotic .......

......and the tomatoes are shaping up to beat all records.

Gadjo, read this and weep! For you the tomato war is over!

Well, there's a thing!

2010-07-11T12:15:00.004+02:00

Took the dogs out extra early this morning. Staggering past Riccardo's vineyard and vegetable plot, I saw a rather, er, well-built man rhythmically digging and lifting potatoes. Flossie immediately flew into said plot and I followed to retrieve. The digger paused. He was wearing mid-calf leather boots and unnervingly short shorts. And that was it. And his head was shaven to the quick. The exercise meant his body was rimed with sweat, despite the early hour. "Morning", I said, "have you seen a dog?" "No" he replied, running his hand down his torso. "You don't recognise me do you?" I stared at him. "Can't say I do. Your face is..." "I'm the carabiniere, from the village" he said proudly, flexing his arms against the fork, "people never recognise me when I'm like this. Riccardo asked me to help him this morning." Now I saw him, sitting behind the wheel of a dark blue Land Rover, in a freshly-ironed crisp shirt and tie, with that over-the-top peaked cap they wear and the dark blue trousers with a smart red stripe. And mirror shades of course. Always mirror shades. "Ah, of course!" I replied. "There, you see, now you recognise me too! It's always the same story. I love this work, here, in the middle of nature, when it's hot. Really hot." "Well, that's a good job then isn't it, because today's going to be a scorcher, ah, here's Flossie" I replied as brightly as I could, before legging it. "Don't work too hard, ha ha." "You can never work too hard," he replied darkly, before turning back to his labour of love.

Third World

2010-06-29T12:54:00.005+02:00

Having a flutter on the gee-gees has been a favourite whim since the early days of Combo. It is obviously not my fault. It was my mother who sent me to the bookmaker's shop in Kingsteignton in about 1966 to put two bob each way on Superfine in the Grand National. The first step through that door was like walking into a toy shop. All that smoke, the tinny tannoy commentary, the man marking prices on the board...heaven. I was hooked. Thanks Mum, look what you did to me!
All gambling in Italy is state controlled. If you try and click on to Ladbrokes or Coral or Paddy Power, a page comes up with the Italian Government department crest saying the company does not have a license to operate in Italy. What it really means is, they couldn't cope with the competition. However as I looked longingly a couple of weeks ago at the Royal Ascot page on the Sporting Life site there was an offer from William Hill. Deposit £20 and get a free matched £20 bet. What the hell, I thought. I clicked and, heavens above, the Hill site opened up in all its seductive beauty! I started to fill in the online form, name, address, then country with the huge drop-down menu. A, E, I...hold on, where is Italy? No Italy! I sent off an e-mail to their customer services department and got the tart reply that "William Hill no longer accepts bets from the Italian Republic", with no further elaboration. So, fellow gin-soaked expats here in one of the world's most beautiful countries, if we want to have a bet with William Hill maybe we should move to Armenia or Burkina Faso, Kyrgyzstan or Liberia, Yemen or Zimbabwe, all of whom are perfectly acceptable to the London bookmaker.
Unbelieveable.

London Boozers

2010-06-20T10:38:00.010+02:00

Sitting in The Doghouse listening to the rain plink relentlessly on the exquisitely tiled roof, I thought of my time in London and the various pubs that took the Combo shilling. Do you know I think I can feel a list coming on? So without thinking too hard, here are my top ten pubs in reverse order. Please bear in mind this is ten years out of date and is biased to west London.

10. The Elephant and Castle, just around the back of one of my favourite churches in London, St Mary Abbots on High Street Ken. Perfect for a pint after Evensong on a warm summer's evening.
9. The Red Lion, just off Jermyn Street. Wonderful mirrored interior and the bonus of a decent bookies directly opposite. Many a happy working afternoon was spent there, often enlivened by the sound of fellow inebriates cartwheeling down the precipitous stairs to the bog.
8. The Andover, Hammersmith. A locals' local, a spotlessly clean, well-run back street Fuller's boozer. Well it was, when it was run by Tom and Moira, the perfect Irish couple. They retired, now it's gone to the dogs, all chi-chi and soulless.
7. The Captain's Cabin, around the back of our office on Jermyn Street. Included because it was such a filthy shit hole, on the corner of a narrow side street that stank of urine. Inside it was worse, terrible beer, disgusting food, shoddy service, ghastly pond-life clientèle and a permanently sticky carpet. I liked it enormously. I understand it has been refurbished. Such a waste.
6. The Scarsdale, Kensington. Excellent session pub with cracking Aussie barmaids. Many a happy hour etc.
5. The Tabard, Turnham Green. Perfectly placed around the corner from the underground station on my way home to Bedford Park. Three doors from Andy's Kebabs, a shrine to calories. I remember once dining upstairs and seeing the table soar up past my face with a soundtrack of breaking wood and wicker. My chair had collapsed under me.
4. The Windsor Castle, Campden Hill Road. A gorgeous pub, smashing beer, wonderful interior and eye-wateringly expensive. What more could you want? Also the scene of the biggest, most life-changing mistake of my life. 1.40pm, Saturday 19th November 1988. Not that I'm bitter you understand.
3. The Dove, Hammersmith. Everyone loves this pub, wonderfully snug in the winter, glorious in the summer on the back terrace, watching the Thames rise and fall. I wonder what happened to Old Caramac, eh Pete?
2. Gordon's, Villiers Street. I know, I know, it's not a pub but this is my list and I don't care. A very special place. Makes me hanker for London just thinking about it. Another beaker of Sercial my man!
1. The French House, Dean Street. If I had to choose a pub for One Last One, it would be here at about 11 o'clock on a Friday morning. Probably a Bloody Mary since you ask.

Panasonic-less

2010-06-15T10:18:00.005+02:00

I know, I know, I know, don't go on. I have been remiss and I deserve some sound punishment. Put together a horrible blend of idleness, drunkenness and the thin excuse of not having a camera and this is the result. No posts for a month. Still don't have the new camera. Comboland is rather short of decent retailers for this sort of kit so I am waiting for a trip to Big Town when all will be resolved. Any recommendations by the way reader? I am pretty sure I will be going for a Panasonic again, but any tips welcome.
By way of a farewell, I will put up this heart-tugger, one of the last shots from the old camera before it was car-doored. Ain't she sweet?

Matchstick time

2010-05-06T22:31:00.003+02:00

Vinogirl - I need your help! It's election night and I want to stay up for as long as possible and, of course, alcohol is de rigeur. But what to drink? I'm having a crack at some Bonarda, no not the Argentinian* one but the real one from the Oltrepo Pavese region, not that far from Comboland and it is just such a perfect glugging wine, kicking in at about 12.5º, just-so-slightly fizzy, a foaming purple in the glass that settles down to a perfumed, juicy red that goes down a treat. I have never seen a bottle of Italian Bonarda on sale in Blighty and it is a crying shame. Anyway, enough of that. I wonder if I shall make midnight. Doubtful.And if the insurance company will cough up for my new camera. Double doubtful.

*the grape that makes Bonarda, Croatina, was taken to Argentina by the first Italian immigrants.

Beats Me

2010-04-21T09:11:00.004+02:00

Having contrived to close the car door on my jacket pocket which contained my precious Panasonic digital camera (another €300 down the swanee but at least it was a fairly dignified exit, the one before that drowned in Chinese fish oil) bloggin' has been even lighter than normal.
However at choir practice a tenor, a fan of modern art, passed me a photocopied page and asked me to translate into Italian the title, or description, I'm not quite sure what it is. Anyway, it is the catalogue page of the piece, a pen drawing, that he has bought.
The drawing consists of a dotted line that starts at the top and then sort of veers off to the left, below that is a squiggle with a black dot in the middle; to the right of where the dotted line starts there is what would appear to be the rendition of a 1950s plastic lampshade.
This is the title and/or description:
"Since the House is all wall and possibly not going to fall down, I go within to take a bath. Nanny has turned it on. Alone, I feel full of desire to copulate with the water, which is green and smooth coming out of the taps."

Sending a Letter

2010-03-30T16:12:00.003+02:00

Down to a local post office to send a letter to Blighty. This particular post office (not the one above, sadly) is only open three mornings a week, from 10 to 12. There is always a relaxed air, even though it is the size of about four telephone boxes and bizarrely has a very un-Italian single queue system in place (a single arrow painted on the floor). The Poste Italiane worker was behind the glass, his head thrown back, probably in deep and fond contemplation of his forthcoming retirement at the age of 50 on 85% of his salary. I waited a moment and then knocked gently on the counter. He returned to the awful reality of work with a grunt. No greeting of course. "Blighty please my dear old thing" I said pushing the envelope under the screen whilst quietly humming Heart of Oak. He picked up the letter and looked at it very carefully. "Computer's not working so can't frank it" he said eventually, barely able to disguise his pleasure. We looked at each other for a few moments. I thought it might be worth trying, although I knew it was a long shot. "Um, I suppose a stamp might be out of the question?" He smiled sadly and gently shook his head, slowly pushing the letter back under the glass.

All Those Years

2010-03-19T09:12:00.003+01:00

More post-lunch debris, this time from Ron's %$th birthday last week. Sorry the picture is so awful but you try and take a decent shot after downing a bottle of Bonarda, and then some. Very good kit, Bonarda. Comes from the Oltrepo Pavese district. If you ever see a bottle, have a go.

Railway Station Bars

2010-03-09T10:05:00.006+01:00

I think that those bars that are to be found near railway stations are invariably the more interesting wherever you go in the world. The customers usually include ne'er-do-wells, tramps, itinerants, low lifes, and all the bottom feeders of this wonderful world in which we live. And a place where the Combo genes feel instantly at home of course.
A Sunday trip to Milan became, because of the Byzantine workings of the Italian State Railway timetabling system, a true endurance test (78 miles = 4 hours) with many opportunities to change trains and change bars. Normally of course, one runs up a tab in an Italian bar and coughs up at the end of the session. But those bars in the vicinity of railway stations have learnt to their cost that such largesse often ends in tears when shady types form their customer base.
I rather liked this sign with its diverse range of glassware asking punters to pay for their drinks immediately. Which I did of course. Campari and Soda topped up with a good slug of white wine, since you ask.

Table debris

2010-02-25T18:10:00.003+01:00

Good lunch.

'Ear 'ear

2010-02-23T21:31:00.003+01:00

I would like to introduce the new addition to the Combo household to you. She is called Flossie and is a right little monkey. She has ears like semaphore railway signals as you can see.

Stuck

2010-02-21T19:16:00.002+01:00

Great bar and trattoria in the middle of nowhere. Accurate use of the English possessive too.

Hoping for Spring

2010-02-14T21:25:00.004+01:00

I took this before it snowed (again). They are my Welsh tulips.

Bottle count

2010-02-12T16:59:00.004+01:00

This was the count from a dinner last night. From left to right, a serious fizz from one of Italy's best makers, a smasher from McLaren Vale, probably the best Monferrato Rosso (a blend of Barbera and Cabernet Sauvignon) from hereabouts and with the chocolate pudding to finish off a simply wonderful Moscato d'Asti. The latter is so pleasant and light (5º) that it's the sort of stuff you could have a good crack at for breakfast (but only at the weekend of course). The Aussie was a gift brought by hand from Oz. Impossible to find on the shelves around here. Apologies for the quality of the photograph, it was quite late.

A Grappa Frenzy

2010-02-03T20:37:00.003+01:00

The arrival of The Intrepid One meant that vaulting off the wagon two days early was forgiveable I think. Saturday evening came and went in a wonderful haze of decent local wines of both colours and some serious nosh (rabbit since you ask preceded by Combo own label mushrooms and stuffed chilli peppers). On Sunday TIO tootled off but there was no stopping Ronnie and lunch at a local restaurant seemed in order. To mark the occasion and to help the digestion (of course), the owner pulled this one off the special shelf, age unknown but at least 40 years old as the company stopped making grappa in 1960.
It was surprisingly mellow with a pleasant aviation fuel afterburn.

Then it was on to Bruno's where he pulled these two babies out, from profoundly different ends of the grappa spectrum.
The Tagliatella is from my favourite grappa house, Nardini, and is a terribly moreish grappa - amaro cross. The other bottle needs to be drunk wearing the sort of kit bomb-disposal experts don before they approach some roadside device in Afghanistan. Not for the faint-hearted.

Faithful Friend

2010-01-26T13:33:00.005+01:00

I know I bang on but this car is just remarkable. The winter here, like last year, is proving pretty long and hard but whilst the rest of Piedmont is slithering around, the climb up to Combo Towers is a doddle thanks to the Panda. She's will be 21 next month so as a special birthday treat she's going to get serviced. Lucky girl.

A long, hard month

2010-01-23T21:36:00.005+01:00

Obviously I have not written anything for three weeks because I have nothing to say because I am on the wagon and life is too fearful to even contemplate something like putting a few words together.
My January misery was anticipated and compounded perfectly by this bottle of 1967 Chambertin which I had been keeping for a special occasion and New Year's Eve 2009 seemed as good a time as any. It was 100% sodding oxidised.
A faint light is glimmering however, as The Intrepid One is pitching up next Saturday on his way back from The Dark Continent so a few bottles will be on the table and January can go whistle.

Drink More Wine!

2010-01-09T22:16:00.003+01:00

Car dealer Bruno has this (original) sign up on the wall of his dining room. I cannot think of a more appropriate place for it. Console was an organisation set up to "defend and increase sales of wine in Italy". Unfortunately your correspondent is having the standard dry January for which many apologies.

A Popular Singer

2009-12-29T18:27:00.004+01:00

I understand that the local dance halls are invariably sold out when this lady tops the bill.

More Food! More Wine!

2009-12-24T11:14:00.004+01:00

Ah, the visual and gastronomic delights of fresh, home-made pasta.

Yet another pre-Christmas family lunch, and it looks like there's about a bottle a head and that's just for starters.
The pleasures of the Italian table are indeed manifold.

You're only old twice

2009-12-20T21:15:00.003+01:00

Down to the Big City by the Sea for a tough match against Bari, only to hear whilst on the train that the match had been postponed because of ice on the terraces. At Genoa? Bathed in Mediterranean sunshine? Another local council weapons grade cock up. Haven't they heard of salt? Only in Italy.
So what to do? Off to a trattoria for a perfectly awful meal, followed by a couple of Camparis at this bar with its sadly festive tree and not much else.
Back to the station. This is Genoa Brignole. Isn't it impressive? This one is for Wilko.
Then boozing on the journey back. Marvellous. Neither of these are Ron, sadly. Far too young.

Sign of the Times

2009-12-17T09:29:00.003+01:00

This sign, now on its last legs, is still extant (and still being ignored) at the entrance to an alley in a local village. Doesn't look much like the HuziSuzi MFS50X9 MoFokka Firebreatha favoured by today's local youths.

Genoa Frenzy

2009-12-09T23:55:00.004+01:00

A busy Sunday boozing in the wonderful port of Genoa was only slightly spoilt by the result of the match, Genoa 2 - Parma 2, we wuz robbed by the bastard in the black (although now it is the bastard in fluorescent lime green, like some motorway worker but with more sponsor decals).
This is one of my young friends, a bonkers Genoa fan, he works on a cargo ship, five months on and two months off. And he certainly makes the most of his two months off, I can tell you. He eats and drinks for Italy, look at him go.
Genoa is such a wonderful city, full of dodgy bars and stunning architecture. It is quite my favourite place on earth. Just look at this terrible shot of a 50s/60s Campari poster from God-knows-when, that I managed to blur in the stairwell of some bar.
And it wasn't there for museum effect, it has been there since the dawn of time because no one has ever been bothered to take it down. And she's quite fit of course which is a help. The words say "drink life baby!" which sound pretty good to me and that's why I drink Campari at every available opportunity. Having done so, this is where I ended up. Will Ron never learn?

I surrender!

2009-11-17T09:29:00.006+01:00

The Intrepid One was over with the twinkle-toed Jo. It was quite a demanding weekend.
There was a lot of this.
And quite a lot of this.
And even some of this.
However the climax of the weekend was undoubtedly a first-ever visit to a genuine Italian dance hall, a raid led of course by the evergreen Giulio the Singer and The Tigerwoman.
It was a remarkable experience that is difficult to encapsulate with mere words. It was as if we had all stepped back into an Italian equivalent of Butlin's from the mid-fifties.
Jo wowed the regulars and collected quite a few admirers. She only declined one invitation to dance from a local ("he smelled of pee"). Fortunately TIO had managed not to soil himself and so was allowed to give her a bit of a whirl too.

All photographs © TIO. Cheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeers!

Going up?

2009-11-12T11:01:00.003+01:00

Now here's one for you lot. Which country do you think has more lifts per '000 head of population in the world? Of course, it's Italy. And do you know why? Because all Italians, he exaggerated wildly, live in blocks of flats. And on this single subject, dear reader, there is a book to write. There is a complete, self-contained enormous legal strata that deals just with the (literally) millions of disputes within said blocks of flats, another sprawling, unimaginably vast, layer of administrators, huge gangs of cleaners with their clapped-out Iveco vans, and so it goes on. Most of these palazzi were shoved up during the renowned boom that Italy enjoyed in the 1960s and early 70s, (Italians of a certain age still get misty-eyed when they start banging on about that golden time, and boy do they bang on) and for that reason most are somewhat, er, ugly. But inside...what a time capsule we have. Utterly untouched in terms of decoration or furniture, the halls and landings of Italian blocks of flats are silent, stark mausoleums, with nary a sign of dirt or mote of dust. Perhaps you will hear a distant television, but there is (sadly) little sound of crockery smashing against walls as another marital infidelity is uncovered. There is an occasional 1950s-style notice in a little glass frame advising the complete closure of the main entrance and counselling against the use of the lift in case of fire, but that is it.
Apart from all those bloody pot plants. Every-bastard-where, on every landing, outside every door, just sitting there doing sod all, being bloody shiny and green and evil, growing half an inch every ten years, as they have been since the six storey nightmare was thrown up forty years ago.

I really think I should get out more. Or is that stay in more? Can't quite make up my mind. Time for a Campari and Soda I believe.

And another...

2009-11-08T21:09:00.004+01:00

Different table, different bottles, same endless excess, another night out with Giulio the Singer. And on Friday The Intrepid One arrives for some R&R. I may well need some professional help in a week's time.

Bar None

2009-11-01T17:45:00.006+01:00

Combo Catering decanted to the town of Vercelli last week to sate the hunger of braying arty types at the launch of a new Guggenheim exhibition in the local museum. Whilst the horribly underpaid and viciously overworked minions sweated away, I was able to take some time out for a gentle stroll around Vercelli, famous for being the rice capital of Italy, surrounded on all sides by flatness, utter flatness, and squillions of hectares of rice fields, each carefully flooded in the spring and summer creating a vast patchwork of mirrored geometric shapes when seen from the comfort of an airliner (get on with it, ed.). Anyway, because of all this, the town is renowned for the size and hunger of its mosquitoes in summer and the impenetrability of its fogs in winter. However, the centre of the town itself is an absolute jewel, with some sensational food shops and beautiful bars like this one:
The establishment is 120 years old, unchanged and still in the keep of the same family. The bar itself is not zinc but a mixture of tin and antimony, whatever that is. That's my coffee bottom right (on duty hence damned abstinence).
Well worth a visit to neck a few Campari and sodas (when not on duty) and soak up Italy's living past.

No Holding Back

2009-10-28T09:20:00.003+01:00

Fibonacci was over at the weekend and there wasn't much staring out of windows, I can tell you. On the Friday it was two different bars for an aperitivo and then a restaurant with Bruno and Giulio and various other topers, then two more bars in town before moving on for one for the ditch.....

...here, a wonderfully tacky bar/disco by the swimming pool. I believe Fred and I were drinking Spritz (see posts passim) by then, but I can't be sure. The weekend after that little outing took on an altogether more sedate tone as you might imagine for men of a certain age. Chopping up wood, cleaning car windows (thanks Fred) and pretty significant consumption of more wine and mushrooms. Fred's brother, The Intrepid One, will be over shortly so if I can manage to survive that as well there is a fair chance that I might see out the winter.

Clearing from the West

2009-10-22T12:27:00.004+02:00

Up to the hilltop village to post a letter; after two days of foul rain and cold, this was the view this morning as the weather clears from the west. There is even a some snow visible on the mountains, and they are quite low, towards the sea. Unusual for October. This afternoon Fibonacci arrives, so all hope is lost for the weekend. He is without his Welsh travelling companion this time.
Incidentally, in front of me in the post office was a monk paying a gas bill. Afterwards I saw him getting into a brand new 09 reg 4x4 Panda. So much for an austere bloody existence. Shouldn't he be on a donkey or something?

It's all over

2009-10-15T19:26:00.002+02:00

Well, nearly over. After the day spent grape picking a couple of weeks back, GianCarlo came round the day before yesterday with my payment.
Thirty litres of the finest Dolcetto di Ovada. Should see me through to the end of the month, even with a long weekend visit coming up by Out The Window Bloke. Thirty litres! That's what I call a fair day's wage for a fair day's work.

Close Call

2009-10-07T15:54:00.004+02:00

I promise this is the last post about mushrooms. But this year is a very special year in terms of the quantity and quality; Italians are going bonkers in their frenzy to collect. Cars parked badly on grassy verges, shouted pleas of "Giuseppe, where are you?" echoing around the woods, the grunting as creaking baskets are loaded into car boots and the thump, thump, thump of the helicopter ambulance as they look for an open area to pick up some fractured fungaiolo who leaned over just a little too far in his quest for that big fat one and fell 40 feet down a ravine.
And there was a bit of a mushroom frenzy in Casa Combo last night as a good number of these little beauties were wolfed down in the company of friends and a serious amount of Barbera d'Asti. Paying the price today. They play hell with your digestive system.

Penny Buns

2009-10-01T10:12:00.006+02:00

The Italian State is omnipotent. It even announces when people can start mushrooming - a national pastime here. Anyway, today is the day as the heavy rain of about ten days ago was followed by some hot weather, making conditions ideal for funghi. And not only do they say when you can go but also how much you have to pay for a permesso, the mushroom picking licence. I think this year it is about €35; and it doesn't finish there. You then have to validate it with a marca da bollo, which is an official government stamp (only available from tobacconists) at €14.90; so you are meant to wedge up the thick end of €50 to get muddy, catch a cold and run the risk of a wild boar using your rear end as target practice whilst you are bent over not finding mushrooms. I don't know anyone who actually pays it, but maybe the professional funghioli (mushroom hunters) do in case the Italian Forestry Police (yes, they really do exist, spending most of their time driving round in Land Rovers and 4x4 Pandas doing sod all) nab them.
Licence-less I was out with Lucky this morning in the Combo woods and found these beauties. They are porcini or ceps (in French) or, rather pleasingly, penny buns for us lot. I shall slice them finely and fry them in a little olive oil with finely chopped garlic and parsley. Fresh bread and washed down with some decent Gavi di Gavi. Yum yum pig's bum!

PS Set prop courtesy of Unmitigated England.
PPS I am aware that what little posting there has been of late has been virtually alcohol-free. What with one thing and another I have been distracted recently. I shall do my utmost etc etc

Ready for Winter

2009-09-30T11:21:00.004+02:00

The local and much-loved ritual of ripping off the dumb foreigner reached its usual annual zenith with the delivery by some locals of our wood for this winter. Gone are the days when Ron trudged off up into the hills with a chainsaw, jerrycan of petrol and can of chain oil. Sod that for a game of soldiers. Firstly, the consignment was to be seasoned oak and ash. The trailer had been bulked up with poplar. Then, where was the print out from the public weighbridge for the trailer weight? Much scratching of heads whilst staring at the ground and grunting.
Looks like I may have to get the chain saw out of storage not only to menace the peasants but also to chop down some of the Combo timber for next year. It never ends.

One for Vinogirl

2009-09-27T20:04:00.020+02:00

The rose-tinted image of grape picking is not even remotely near the sheer back breaking horror of it all. For a start, the lovely bunches of grapes are not at a good height, but low down so you have to bend down. All the time. And then, most of them aren't just hanging there neat and tidy, waiting for the, snick, precise snip of your secateurs. They may be squashed between vine branches or trellis uprights, many will have sent out hardy tendrils that clamp to other branches, lots are hidden behind foliage, there is the ever-present danger of the person working the other side of the row taking off one of your fingers, then there are the wasps and hornets that arrive in droves once the sun is up. Oh no, it's a tough life in the vendemmia season. And then there's your back, which when you are the wrong side of, er, old really doesn't want to carry on after about four hours. I had the misfortune to be working the rows with a 78 year old local woman, Adrianna, who doesn't understand the meaning of "please, I beg you, for the love of God, slow down". Started at 8.00am, finished at 6.00 pm, half an hour for lunch. Never again.
Not much grape selection here Vinogirl. Everything goes in, mildewed, rotting or not and then it's off to the local co-operative. We picked all barbera on Friday.

At least Piero's happy, the old dog.

Two New Additions

2009-09-17T11:15:00.004+02:00

Here are two newcomers to the Combo drinks cabinet; Punt e Mes is one of Italy's oldest vermouths and China (pron. keena) Martini is an extra-herby version of the classic Martini Rosso that is drunk as a digestivo. It took a bit of a caning the other night from some Brits so some re-stocking may be called for. The Punt e Mes is OK (any port in a storm etc) but red vermouths aren't my favourite. Vermouth comes from the German word wermut which means wormwood, this being the principal ingredient in absinthe. Which did for the frog poet Verlaine, who fell off his perch at 51.

Country Boy

2009-09-14T18:43:00.003+02:00

Spotted near a country trattoria at the weekend. New one on me. Diplo?

Red Cross Parcel

2009-09-04T12:01:00.004+02:00

Friends from Blighty have arrived by motor car bringing vital supplies. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Hooligans on the Lash

2009-08-28T11:44:00.004+02:00

Down to a new bar in the local town to watch Odense-Genoa in the EuropaSuperLeague Cup of Cups, or whatever it's called this year. The bar owner, in the light of the West Ham - Millwall action, thought that he might cash in on the English hooligan presence (me) with a beer promotion. Given the paucity of the offer (I mean, buy three medium beers and get a small one free? A small one?) I snubbed his poor marketing and drank Campari and white wine all evening. However, I still managed to uphold his rosy view of all things English by lobbing empty glasses at passing cars and later on throwing a metal chair through a window. At the end of the match he waved at me warmly as I climbed into the ambulance, escorted by two carabinieri and a not wholly unattractive female paramedic.

One for Wilko

2009-08-26T17:48:00.003+02:00

Back in the fresh, hope-filled days of May the excellent English Buildings blog had a post on an exquisite bus shelter in Worcestershire. You can see it here. I had been meaning for quite a while to photograph a nearby bus shelter that is anything but exquisite but is rather more functional being a repository for death notices, local dance hall posters and a decades old declaration of love for Laura. Anyway, snapped as I passed by this morning on the way to the post office to send a couple of letters to Blighty (queueing time: 12 mins; processing time: 4 mins, a sort of record hereabouts given that I was the only other person in the queue).