Italy discovers hot water --Or, that being a Mammone is bad for your relationship

In an unprecedented move, a judge annulled a couple's marriage because the husband couldn't cut the apron strings with his mamma.  As his young wife discovered, that's not actually true.  It's not that they couldn't cut the strings. It's that the apron was hanging in his kitchen - with the mamma in it.

A Norwegian advert cleverly depicting a 'mammone'

in Life imitating Art

The judge's ruling was seen by many long-suffering wives as long overdue. One woman outside the courthouse was overheard saying, "Recognition of the problem is the first step toward recovery -- Now maybe, we can all start the healing process of putting mothers-in-law back in the rightful homes."

In fact, according to sociologists, mothers-in-law are the cause of 30% of separations in Italy, after mistresses and casual after-work sex with trans.  In another 40% of the cases, the cause for separation of course is death.  Not of elderly men who succumb to nature at a ripe old age, but the thousands of wives and exes who are killed at an astonishing rate by their partners.

For the court (and I am not making this up), the wife can consider her marriage invalid, since the husband was not in a position to stop being a bambino, even after moving out of the home - to the upstairs apartment.

Italy's Prime Minister Renzi goes for a Triple Dip

Photo from l'Espresso Magazine

As news of Italy entering a Triple-Dip Recession came in on the economic front, Italy's Prime Minister Renzi decided to celebrate by offering scoops of gelato to the clearly stressed & distressed employees of Palazzo Chigi, the seat of Italy's President.  Citing that they "Only earn 2.4 times the salary of Barack Obama," they needed some cheering up.    After all, Renzi continued, "To get a triple dip is as difficult as those triple flips dynamic gymnasts do at the Olympics.  My people work hard to get us where we are today.  It takes guts to gut a country - just see what Silvio did - so here's some buon gelato helping to help those who need it least."  A Renzi spokesperson added, "We're humanizing government.  These poor State employees have to face 'il rientro' from their 6-week holidays.  It's tough the first day back. I mean, the traffic! Our poor chauffeurs! It's a jungle out there."

Since his ice cream man stunt which was lampooned across social media left, right and center, Italy has since entered into a full-scale depression.  In response, Renzi, for his part said, "Depression? Isn't that the lovely recess where they put those lovely scoops of ice cream to make a fabulous sundae? Sounds delizioso!"

Despite all the criticism, people close to the Prime Minister remarked: "I'd rather see ice cream dished out here in cones than lathered upon call girls or another sort of cone in the private quarters of our Last Emperor, Silvio."

And, in case you're wondering where he got the inspiration, click here to hear Paolo Conte's excellent song, Un Gelato al Limon.

White Nights - The Costa Concordia Crew pulls an All-nighter

The amazing salvage operation of righting the downed cruise ship, The Costa Concordia, that had it looking like a beached whale since that fateful night when the Captain, showing off to his on-board hooker, finally came to a close as it pulled into the Genova (Genoa) harbour.  Crews worked day & night to first perch the ship on a ledge so it would not slide down onto the sea bed, destroying the natural habitat, and then righting the ship and finally, getting it to float - to then move up the coast to where it will be dismantled.

An amazing simulation video of the entire operation is here: 

http://video.ilsole24ore.com/SoleOnLine5/Video/Notizie/Italia/2013/concordia-rimozione/videoremoval.php

The French stirred up a fuss when they heard that Italians would be dragging the ship near the Corsica coast.  And so they sent out a pollution containment boat to "monitor" the process, as if yes, that would do the trick if the Concordia started leaking god knows what  hydrocarbons (no, I'm not smarter than a 5th grader) and muddying up the Mediterranean.  To put things in perspective, the boat is 60000 tons of steel - the Empire State Building is 57000.

So in this 24/7 and 2 1/2 year rescue operation came to a close, the Captain of the party ship decided he would celebrate the completion in the best way possible: By attending a White Party on the island of Ischia.  

Picture by Ischia Online Newspaper, Il Golfo

Issuing a statement as he wound his way thru the crowd, Schettino said that "Being on an island was as close as he could come to actually being near the island of Giglio" and "Wearing white is a sign of respect for those poor people who died so needlessly that night."  Schettino went on to say that by showing he was ready to move on with his life, and others (except, of course, those who perished) should do the same.  In short, by 'living it up' he was an example for all.

To the rest of us, left wondering what happened to House Arrest, Schettino said "House music, Arrested Development, just mix it in like a Buon Mojito, and all troubles will pass." 

Schettino bares his soul...

*White nights or, Notte Bianche are what Italians call all-nighters.

Italy wins for recycling most in Europe - The Costa Concordia

...in one fell swoop (both literally, and figuratively).  Already the largest ship salvage operation in history, crews finally floated the massive cruise liner as the first phase toward its final voyage Destination: The Breakers.  Although the nearly-beached ship (resting on a platform built to protect the environment in case the ship slid down into the bottom of the sea) made for a nice tourist attraction, the Costa Concordia who lost 32 passengers that fateful night, will leave its resting place to be sent up the coast to Genova to be taken apart.
Saving the ship in order to save the environment has come at a price tag of 1.5 billion euro - yeah, that's billion with a B.  The company is hoping to make their hapless Captain Coward, Mr. Schettino, pay for it.  "Maybe he can work it off, you know, by polishing the brass on a new boat - for the next 3000 years," one executive suggested. 
But Costa, operator of the very popular Costa Aquarium and other tourist attractions says they might just prop the ship up in the harbour in Genova. "I mean, people have been flocking to Giglio island for the better part of two years...imagine the crowds this could draw!" said another marketing executive. 
Certainly, it'd be one way to make the money back on the loss of their luxury liner.

A time-lapse from the Telegraph on refloating the ship

Garbage in your park? Rome decides if you can't beat 'em, join 'em!

'La Bellezza sulla Monnezza'
Beauty wins over the Garbage Beast
photo from RomaToday

In an audacious move by Roma Capitale - or the Rome Municipality, the City decided to seriously 'think out of the box' and take on a new approach to garbage collection. By removing all the garbage cans* from one of its rather large parks. This experiment was launched on May 1st, and for the most part, was deemed somewhat successful. While more people brought their garbage out of the park nearer the large containers, they did see a larger accumulation around the canisters still left standing.
"The fact that people actually bothered to bring the garbage to one place rather than just leave it where they were picnicking for us is a huge success," remarked the AMA Garbage guys.  We hope that it catches on and more and more people who enjoy the park, actually take out what they put in.
Two months on, however, residents are reporting more and more garbage going uncollected than ever before. To the point that one of the rivers feeding into the Tiber has its very own garbage dam - made entirely of plastic bottles and reeds. 
"If nothing else, we've lightened the load on our work hours and workers. I mean, driving around the park every once in awhile and pretending we were doing it on a weekly basis was really maddening for all concerned. Now we just don't do it. This is one for transparent government."

*True story - only the quotes are made up (as usual)

European Taxi Drivers Uber-challenge: Beat them at their own illegal tricks

In a bizarre twist of karma, Taxi Drivers throughout Europe staged a strike to express their dismay with potential passengers, who, in their opinion, are not respecting the law. Uber, the car sharing app was launched in Europe, but no one knew about it until the taxis decided that passengers actually paying the right price for trips around town might threaten their monopoly on shaking down customers outright.  
As one taxi driver put it, "Are you kidding me? They pay only about 30 bucks to hop all in one car from the airport.  We charge over 100 for that kind of service - and with it, we give you a tour of all Milan or Rome before getting you to your destination. Beat that, Uber!"
In Italy, taxis were on strike, but no one even noticed, since they sit at their stations all day instead of actually carting passengers around town like in many other metropolises.  Another driver put it simply, "We can sit around all day if we like.  We just keep raising the rates. You know, it helps us offset the lack of passengers - we don't know why they'd prefer low-cost, heck, even air-conditioned vehicles. That's not what urban mobility is about, ya know what I mean?"
Another added, "Look--I make my living out of cheating customers. It's just how it's done. Foreigners? I double the meter. Sometimes I turn it off altogether. Or tell 'em it has to be a fixed rate for short distances. Bags, extra. Inside the city, outside the city, if you can double the meter at least three times a day, you're making it good. But it's not that easy. You think we're going to let these guys come in and provide a fixed low-cost price list for transport services?" 

UBER is a pusher in corrupt Milano - Outlaws
(irony not included)

But UBER, had the last laugh. I had no idea 'til today that the service even existed in Europe. Post-European wide strike, subscriptions went up by 850%. And just to show the taxis that they are a company well-versed in supply & demand, they even decided to lower their tariffs by 20%.  After all, everyone knows that taxi cab advertising garners the greatest number of hits. 

Italy's Prime Minister Renzi and the Million Euro Giveaway!

Well, make that 80 euro. But, if you multiply that figure by the number of people who received some extra dosh in the mail, well, you're pretty much feeling like the recipient of a Nigerian Prince's bounty. But in the interest of Par Condicio, since I took Berlusconi to task for the same practice [See Burnt by the Tuscan Sun's - Buying Votes with Public Money], I thought I'd give you the inside scoop on what, exactly, is going through Renzi & Cos. minds after conjuring up the Big Giveaway (of course, after counting the votes up that'd he'd get in response):

Photo by Bern as published in
Libero Quotidiano

80 Euro! Do you know what you can buy for that...!  Why, you can buy 10 pizza pies -- that's nearly one per month! That'll really get the economy rolling...

80 Euro! That's nearly a one-way trip on a super-fast (well, okay..not-so-fast) train from Rome to Milano.  Too bad, you won't be able to get out, but the 80 would take you as far as say...Parma! And, they have terrific prosciutto to boot.  Imagine the taste of that prosciutto after you've been buying lowcost counterfeit prosciutto from Albania all these years just to save a few bucks.  It'll melt right in your mouth.

80 Euro! Well, since I'm about to raise the garbage tax and a few others...it actually, will come out in the wash...but, don't tell anyone I said so. Especially that guy Grillo. He'll go ballistic.

80 Euro! By my calculations, that's roughly one and a half tanks of gas.  Now, that may not sound like much, but think about it--In those terms, you'll start riding a bicycle and that's good for the environment! So, it's a Win-Win-Win kinda deal...I win election, the environment wins, and you win too - as long as you don't spend it on gasoline...that is.