Street Stories

The little boy on the plastic tricycle stops outside the half-shuttered window. “Bello!” he roars. “Bellooooooo!”

His mother shushes him. “Not like that. Call him gently.”

The boy looks up, uncomprehending, before shouting again. His mother rolls her eyes, but this time there’s an answering bark from inside the house. The object of the boy’s affections, a black cocker spaniel, leaps up onto the windowsill and sniffs the air, silky ears twitching as he listens to the different sounds on the street. Satisfied now that he can see his friend, the boy resumes trundling along the street, the empty rattle of heavy plastic wheels over uneven tarmac sounding his presence even after he’s turned the corner. Mamma doesn’t seem worried that she can’t see him. It’s only when the noise stops that she hurries after him, calling his name to check that he’s OK.

A boy swaggers out onto a first floor balcony, stripped to the waist, showing off the perfect olive-skinned torso of Italian youth. A voice calls him from inside and he flicks his chin up with a soft ‘huh’ sound to indicate ‘yes’ to whatever the question was. He leans forward, hands on the edge of the balcony, surveying his domain with the arrogance that being 18, beautiful and on your own patch brings.

A door creaks open. An old woman emerges. Her skin is ghostly white and she moves with difficulty. This may be the only journey she makes each day: out to the street to hang the washing out, and then again later on to bring it in. Her gnarled hands clutch the clothes horse on the pavement. It’s draped with heavy table linen and she has difficulty moving it at first, but she perseveres. She backs her way up the shallow steps, inch by tortuous inch, heaving the still-laden clothes horse with her and wincing as each sudden movement jars her aged, arthritic joints.

Three girls sit at a table outside the cafe on the corner. One is showing another photos on her phone, while the third gazes around her, a picture of studied boredom. She pushes her chair back, jerking to her feet. “Caffè, ragazze?” She barely waits for the answer before stalking inside the cafe to place the order with the barista. Her demeanour softens as she talks to him, and a shy smile appears. The girl with the phone looks up at the scene inside and snickers before whispering to the girl sitting next to her, whose eyes light up with delicious amusement as she watches the third girl flirt unsuccessfully with a man far too old for her.

A couple in their sixties emerge from a flat. The woman’s body language is stiff and unyielding, and she seems angry. She gestures sharply to her husband and turns on her heel, walking away from him even as he tries to speak to her. She passes the girls and looks them up and down, disdain on her face. Her husband, behind her back, is far more appreciative, taking his time raking his eyes upwards from their feet. When he meets the knowing amusement in their eyes he flushes and turns away. They laugh as he hunches his shoulders and turns back into the house.

The baker stretches and yawns. He walks to the door of the shop and stands there, hands on hips, looking out for customers and conversation. A young woman with an already full shopping bag enters. From the way she gestures and cocks her head it seems she’s asking him a question. In response, he shrugs and spreads his arms wide, a doleful half-smile on his face. Whatever the question was, the answer is no. She smiles and shrugs back: “Never mind …”

The men gathered outside the Juventus Club gossip like old women, cackling over the latest stories and tutting at bad news. The mechanic in the next door garage good-naturedly ignores the heckling that he receives in the form of well-meaning advice, only joining in when it looks as if one of the men is about to grab a spanner and do the work himself. “Eh, Giovanni, basta!” A pair of older teenage girls walks past and the men fall into bashful silence while the mechanic grins and chats with easy familarity. “Ciao, Mariella! How are you, bellamia?” The friend fiddles awkwardly with her hair while the old men stare in silence. Mariella and the mechanic exchange goodbye kisses and her friend hustles her away, eager to escape. The men relax.

by Kate Bailward Posted on September 10, 2012
Posted in Living Like a Maniac | Tagged , | 2 Comments

Sunday Supper

First gather your ingredients …

A Sunday night chuck it together kind of a lazy supper for one, to use up whatever you’ve got left in the fridge. I had a medium aubergine, a small courgette and some ricotta, as well as a jar of passata vellutata. You could say it was a very bastardised version of parmigiana alla melanzana, or you could just take it on its own merits and call it courgette, ricotta and aubergine rolls in tomato sauce. Or something else entirely. Whatever takes your fancy.

Slice the aubergine thin enough that you can roll it up once it’s been cooked, and drop it into a hot pan. Cook slowly on both sides until it’s soft. Meanwhile, dice the courgettes very finely. You can grate them if you have the means to do so, but I didn’t. It wasn’t a bad thing. It meant I concentrated on chopping them and left the aubergines alone to cook through, something I’m often too impatient to do.

When the courgettes are fine-diced, or grated, or whatever you want to do with them, put them in a bowl and grate black pepper onto them. Mix in a generous tablespoon of ricotta. Chuck in five or so mashed anchovies and a teaspoon of finely chopped salted capers (rinse them first) to give flavour. Mix everything about until it’s well combined.

By this time the aubergines should be done. Drop them onto a a plate and, if you value your fingertips, leave them there for a minute. When they’re cool enough to handle, spoon some of the courgette mixture into the middle of each slice of aubergine and roll them up. Place them, seam side down, in an ovenproof dish or tin into which you have already poured enough passata to cover the bottom thinly and stop the aubergines from sticking.

Pour over some more passata. I used half a 350g jar in total. Spread some ricotta over the top of the tomato-covered aubergine rolls and then sprinkle with a little dried oregano. Pop into the oven and forget about them for half an hour or so as you watch MilleVoci, or whatever other non-challenging Sunday night talent show is on. Pour yourself a glass of wine. You could catch up with your book, or you could just daydream and consider which combination of gelato flavours is best. (It’s coffee and cinnamon, by the way.)

When the smell of toasty-hot ricotta gets too much for you, pull the dish from the oven, transfer the aubergines onto a plate, and eat at will. Follow with coffee and a passeggiata with friends via the gelateria and you’ll be more than ready for whatever Monday morning throws at you.

by Kate Bailward Posted on September 3, 2012
Posted in Eating Like a Maniac | Tagged , , | 4 Comments

Desperately seeking something

I hope this isn’t jumping the gun, but I think I may have found ‘the one’. Through a website. Yes, seriously. The best thing was that it wasn’t even me that did the running – I got an email out of the blue based on the information I’d given in my profile and – well – it just seemed perfect right away.

It’s at this point that I should confess I’m talking about a flat, not a man. The similarities between the hunt for the two are striking, though. Over the years, usually at times of black desperation when I shouldn’t even consider starting a new relationship without first taking part in some serious therapy sessions, I’ve dipped my toe into the online dating pool far too many times. It always starts out with idle curiosity and before I know it I’m filling out all my details, shelling out a load of cash and sitting back to cross my fingers for a good result while pretending to myself that I really couldn’t care less whether anyone contacts me.

Do I sound jaded? Maybe I am. I have no objection to the concept of internet dating. In some ways it’s a far better way to get to know someone than the English tradition of fancying someone in a pub, getting pissed with them and having a drunken fumble that may or may not turn into a relationship. On the other hand, internet dating is a cynical business that profits from people’s unhappiness. I get it – the key word here is business. They’re trying to make money, the same as all of us. But there’s something about shelling out money upfront, rather than if or when you get results, that leaves a nasty taste in the mouth. Punters are reeled in with free viewings and promises of guaranteed* love (*terms and conditions apply) which may or may not ever come to fruition.

When it comes down to it, it’s all about the tease; something that the Italians excel at. And the Brits? – well, not so much. I recently had a conversation with a couple of Italians about one-night-stands and how they find the concept absolutely appalling. In many ways I agree. However, they then revealed that in Messina and Catania, rather than going through with oral sex in the early stages of a relationship, they merely – er – sniff the area*. I think I was more shocked by that than they were by one-night-stands.

Cultural differences exist in the hunt for flats just as much as the search for love. I spent ages combing ads looking for a double room and wondering why they were all so cheap. Then I realised that what the Italians call a double room is what we would call a twin, and each *bed* can be rented. I changed my search parameters quick-smart.

And so back to my flat. Much the same as with any new relationship, I don’t want to say too much about it at this point in time, for fear of jinxing things. We’ve agreed to give it a go for the next year, but I haven’t even moved in yet, much less got to the stage of introducing my friends and family. However let’s just say that early signs are good, and I’m hoping for something long-lasting.

I’ll keep you posted.

*correction: After speaking to a friend of mine who’s married to an Italian it seems I was translating too literally from the original conversation, and it’s more along the lines of ‘look, don’t touch’, or ‘touch, but nothing more’. So it’s still all about the tease, but just not as twisted as I’d thought.

I feel like a public information service.

You’re welcome.

Image: Brandon Christopher Warren (Creative Commons)

by Kate Bailward Posted on August 26, 2012
Posted in Living Like a Maniac | Tagged , , , | 12 Comments

Capture the Colour

Blue

On Easter Day in Florence there is a tradition called the Scoppio del Carro –  the explosion of the cart. After the mid-morning mass the priest lights a dove-shaped fuse at the main altar of the duomo. The ‘dove’ then flies along a zipline and out of the main doors of the cathedral into a 30-foot high cart filled with fireworks. What results is a glorious twenty-minute explosion spectacular.

I was there in 2010. Unable to get into the Duomo square, I ended up inside the cathedral. At first I was disappointed as it meant that I didn’t have a good view of the fireworks. However, as the explosions continued, the air around the cart filled with smoke and the inside of the cathedral was plunged into an other-worldly blue cloud. This picture was taken after the final fireworks had done their thing and the doors were about to close, to the accompaniment of dramatic organ music.

For some, blue is the colour of sadness. For me it will always be fireworks and the scent of cordite in an Italian cathedral.

Green

Walking down from the mainland of Siracusa, over the bridge onto Ortigia island, the market is almost the first thing that you see in the morning. Traders tout for business alongside permanent shops, and the area hums with activity.

The shop from which I took this picture was stuffed to the gills with exotic ingredients which can be hard to find in Italy. However, the thing that caught my eye was the inventiveness of the signage: green tub lids scrawled with what looked like Tipp-Ex. The thin plastic floated in the breeze and let the light through until it became translucent, like one of those violently coloured fruit lollies that you used to suck as a kid. In a moment of synesthetic sense memory, I tasted lime and my mouth started to water.

Green is the colour of childhood treats and excitement.

Yellow

On the eastern side of Sicily, where I live, yellow is in short supply. We sit at the foot of Etna and our city is built of lava stone. Strong and impressive, yes, but also grey and dark. Move to the south and west of the island, however, and the stone becomes lighter. The cathedral on Ortigia island, just off Siracusa, is dazzling white. Outside, it’s too bright. You become blinded by the whiteness of it, and the sun reflecting back. Find the shadows, however, and you find beauty. This picture was taken in the sheltered porch of the cathedral: the crossing ground between outside and in. Here the light mellows as it dances through the ornate iron gates, blending with the cool darkness inside and casting shadows that tempt you in with their softness.

Yellow: a play of light and shade; the colour of sunlight and warmth.

White

For tonight in Hell, they are tolling the bell
For the Whore that lay at The Tabard
And well we know how the carrion crow
Doth feast in our Cross Bones Graveyard.
– John Constable-

The Cross Bones graveyard in Southwark, London was originally a single women’s (for which read: prostitutes’) graveyard in the 1500s, when Bankside was a seething mass of debauchery. In later years it became a plague pit and then a pauper’s burial ground before being closed for health and safety reasons in the 19th century. The health and safety in question was that of overcrowding: in the 1990s, when London Underground excavated part of the site, they removed some 148 skeletons, which were estimated to be only 1% of the total number of people bured there. It’s a place that holds a lot of ghosts.

Nowadays it is concreted over and locked behind high iron gates. The ghosts live on in people’s minds, however, and the gates have become a shrine of sorts. Regular vigils are held here, and people leave offerings to and memories of the dead: not just those in the graveyard, but any and all ‘outcast dead’.

This memorial caught my eye when I visited in February 2009. It commemorates the five women murdered by the serial killer Steve Wright in Ipswich in 2006. I remembered the news coverage of the case and how it had made me angry at the time. As the case went on the media hung like terriers onto the fact that the five women had the same job – prostitute. What was sometimes forgotten was that they were, above all, women with names and families. Ultimately, they were killed unlawfully. Whatever their lifestyle, they were the victims in this case.

White: the colour of neutrality and of innocence.
R.I.P. Gemma, Tania, Anneli, Paula and Annette.

Red

Red is sometimes the colour of passion; of lust. I took this picture in Rome in May of this year. The people in the background are part of a protest march. I started to take pictures because I liked the juxtaposition of bright red flowers in the foreground and banners in the background. More focused on the pictures than the protest, it took me a few minutes to realise that they were protesting against abortion.

Many of the protesters were from the Church: I noticed dog collars and wimples aplenty. The group you see here walked quietly. Their presence was enough for them to make their point. However, they were followed by a group of young men wearing black. They chanted and punched the air as they walked: “ogni aborto è uno più morto” (every abortion is one more death). Their grins sickened me. Theirs was not a protest from a deep-seated sense of doing right, but for the rush of kicking the traces.

Red, on this occasion, was the colour of anger.

by Kate Bailward Posted on August 17, 2012
Posted in Living Like a Maniac | Tagged , , | 9 Comments

Two crabs and a lobster

Lobster red

“They’re here,” says Dad, interrupting my vital early evening viewing of some obscure Olympic sport or another. I stay in my seat. ‘They’ are two brown crabs and a lobster, caught off the Dorset coast sometime today, and my guess is they’re going to be pissed off. Yes, they’re still alive. And somebody needs to make them not so. As that somebody would appear to be me, and I have absolutely no idea what I’m doing, I’m more than a little apprehensive.

If you’ve never dealt with live crustacea, the internet is, as always, a veritable hive of information. Also as always, some is more useful than the rest. I discover that lobsters don’t die through ageing, only by disease, fishing or fighting. This possibly explains why they’re such feisty buggers. Of course I’ll fight you! I’m never going to get old! En garde! It’s not helpful in my quest to find out how to convert it from the live pinchy thing in my fridge to a dead yummy thing on my table, though. I continue searching. When I find that it’s possible to hypnotise them my day is made, but for the traditionalists there are other ways to deal with them.

If you worked in Giorgio Locatelli’s kitchen, for instance, you could knock them out with a Crustastun, a device that looks suspiciously like a repurposed photocopier. Hardier souls (or those who don’t cook lobsters for a living) drown them in fresh water or stick a sharp implement into their central nervous system. The most brutal just chuck them straight into boiling stock with no preparation. Putting them into cold storage to slow down their nervous systems before you do anything seems to be universally recommended whatever you do. It’s all very interesting, but my procrastination doesn’t change the fact that at some point these beasts are going to go from living to dead at my hands. Dragging my heels, I head to the kitchen.

There’s a good lobster …

To my guilty relief, Ma’s beaten me to it and is standing in the middle of the room trying to weigh one of the crabs. He’s big. Bloody big. He’s been on ice for his journey from Dorset to Somerset so he’s calm, but beads of condensation are already appearing as hot kitchen air hits cold shell, so he won’t be that way for long. He looks ridiculous on his back on the scales. I take a photo. Ma grabs a skewer while muttering something about ‘that guy on the Guardian website’. She’s looking somewhat manic and it occurs to me that she might never have done this before either.

Shit.

According to Tim Hayward, it’s as simple as finding the crab’s tail, flipping it up and skewering through into its central nervous system before stabbing it between the eyes for good measure. Gruesome. Also? Easier said than done. As Ma scrabbles around with her skewer his tail is clamped so hard to his underside that it’s as if it’s glued there. Mind you, I’d do the same if I had a proven weak spot, so I can’t really blame him.

Upside down and defenceless. Well, apart from the bloody great claws, that is …

It’s time for Plan B. On my travels around the world of crustacea via the internetz I found that Shanghai hairy crabs (yes! They’re a thing!) were subdued by scrubbing, so we try scratching his stomach. He goes ballistic and starts snapping his pincers at us while weebling his stalky little eyes about. We retreat to a safe distance. He eyes us from the counter with menace on his face. In the battle between crab and human, the crustacean has won the first round.

The humans consult. “Maybe try his back?” I suggest. It’s worth a try, and I don’t think we could piss him off any more than we have done already. Nodding at the wisdom of this, Ma sneaks up behind him, grabs him with a be-tea-towelled hand and starts scratching his shell. Amazingly it works. He stops waving his claws about and after a couple of minutes his legs are completely relaxed, offering no resistance when poked with an exploratory finger. Result! It’s time for the moment of truth. Off comes the lid of the stockpot, in goes the crab, and it isn’t long before he’s sleeping for good.

Good enough to eat

Flushed with our success, Ma and I decide to tackle the lobster. She’s on safer ground with this one, having prepped her fair share in her years as a chef. She starts fishing around in the knife drawer for a good, solid instrument of death, but the hippy in me rebels. “Why don’t we try hypnotism instead?”

(You really should follow that hypnotism link, by the way. It’s deliciously silly. Make sure you’ve got the sound on, though. Go on – I’ll wait …

… Hello again! Yes, I did warn you it was silly. Good, though, don’t you think? Now – back to the story.)

Putting the knife down on the counter with a crestfallen expression, Ma agrees to give the hypnotism a try. “The stock’s nearly boiling, though. This had better be quick.” She starts to stroke the lobster’s back. His antennae droop and his tail curls under. Unbelievable! The hippy shit works! We turn him on his nose and he balances, just like the internet told us he would, blowing bubbles as he does so. We even have time for photos before he goes into a second pot. God, this is easy-peasy!

In the pot

The first crab has had its allotted time for boiling, so out he comes for a quick rinse under the tap. The air in the kitchen fills with the scent of hot sand and seashells and we drop him into a bowl to go back into the fridge. His claws fold neatly in front of him, and he looks – well – good enough to eat.

Time to get his mate.

This one’s bigger than the one we’ve just cooked, and feisty with it. As we stick him on the scales, he waves his claws with intent and glares at us with beady-eyed fury. His tail is just as firmly clamped to his stomach as the other one’s was, so there’ll be no quick dispatch here, either. Ma starts to scratch his back. It subdues him a bit, but he’s not going into full catatonia like the other one did. Five minutes of back massage later he’s dozy, but not out.

Opinion is divided as to whether crabs feel pain. All I can say is, whether it’s muscle spasms or sentience, a crab that’s not sufficiently sleepy thrashes as you put it into boiling water. At best you will be splashed with hot stock, and the crab’s legs will fall off as you cook it. At worst, it’s potentially inhumane. Put it this way: I won’t be doing it like that again.

Heavy shelling

After the trauma of boiling the beasts alive, shelling them is painless, if gross. As I chop through the lobster’s head, green vileness explodes all over the knife. It looks like Slimer from Ghostbusters has been in and had a field day. Apparently you can eat this bit, but I decide to leave it in the ‘discard’ pile anyway, along with the genuinely inedible (as opposed to just icky-looking) bits. Dad, meanwhile, grabs a wine bottle and shows me a sneaky trick for getting the meat out of the legs. Place the leg on a board, open end facing away from you, and roll the bottle up along it. As you do so, the meat squidges out like toothpaste from a tube. No poking about with skewers and breaking bits off halfway inside the leg – just a perfect, shell-less, delicious bit of lobster.

The crabs are far fiddlier to deal with. Who would have thought the brown beasts to have had so much meat in them? At first, after scooping out what I can see in the shell I look at the pitiful pile and am disappointed. Then I pull a leg joint away from the body and realise that I’ve hit the mother-load. An hour later I’ve got cramped fingers from holding the skewer, and hands covered in crab meat which, given earlier events, I can’t quite bring myself to eat.

Tomorrow is another day, though.

by Kate Bailward Posted on August 10, 2012
Posted in Eating Like a Maniac | Tagged , , | Comments Off on Two crabs and a lobster

Treats

I don’t usually do #frifotos, but when I found out that the theme for today is treats I knew I had the perfect pictures.

There’s a bit of a story to go with them, too – but that’s a tale for another day. Happy Friday, everyone! What’s *your* favourite treat?

by Kate Bailward Posted on August 3, 2012
Posted in Eating Like a Maniac | Comments Off on Treats

Italish

Lizzy is mid-sentence when she takes in a sharp breath and stops talking. Her voice lowers. “Too loud,” she mutters, succinctly, nodding towards the two women behind Ali and me. “We’re being *commented* on.” Shortly thereafter the two women pick up their glasses of wine and move outside to finish their drinks.

Oh dear.

It was only to be expected. The three of us went to school together and Lizzy hasn’t seen Ali for fifteen or so years. We arrange to meet in an Italian cafe/restaurant, but when we phone Lizzy at half four to tell her we’ve arrived, she trills down the phone, “Darling, I’m just having an emergency bath. I’ll be with you in ten.” There was no way this was going to be a low-key meal.

Deciding that half past four is too early for cocktails, despite being on holiday, we sit outside to drink coffee and eat teacakes. You’d think we were downing bottles of meths, though, from the stares that we get from passers by. I’ve got used to this in Italy, but I wasn’t expecting it in Dorset. The English that I remember from before I moved away were more circumspect. Apparently times have changed. Maybe it’s just that we’re sitting outside in the middle of a rainy English summer, but we’re under a canopy, for god’s sake. They’re the ones that are out walking in it. We move inside, away from the staring, and towards aperitivi.

“Negroni? Si!”

The manager’s eyes widen at my response to his reeling off of the various cocktails on offer.

“Ma, lei è italiana?” I laugh and tell him I live in Catania, at which point he nearly explodes with excitement.

“But I’m from Palermo! Wow! What are you doing here in the rain? Oh, I know what you should drink – it’s not on the menu but I can make it – Aperol spritz!”

Ah, now I’m home.

There’s something weird about being back in my country of birth nowadays. I’m living with my parents while I’m here, in the same village that I grew up in, seeing the same old faces around me. It should be comfortable – but it isn’t. There’s a dichotomy between my sense memory and my heart; don’t even mention the language. Although I’m still a long way from fluent in Italian, I’ve started to forget the English words for things. It’s the idioms that are the first to go, and I find myself struggling for phrases that I know are at the back of my mind somewhere but won’t come out. Descriptions become tortuous as I fumble for words. It’s almost as frustrating as when I’m in Italy and can’t find the Italian for what I mean, although at least in Italy I can wave my hands around and people will understand.

So I keep ending up in Italian-run cafes and restaurants while I’m here. The food’s good, obviously. However, more than that: when I get inside it’s so delicious to hear Italian and to speak it, and to be welcomed because of that fact, that I wonder why I would ever want to go anywhere else.

 “Um – are you ready yet?” We laughed when the waitress gave us our menus and said she’d give us half an hour, but we’ve been so rapt in conversation that we haven’t even looked at them. We flip them open and start to scan before remembering the specials board on the far side of the restaurant. It’s half-hidden behind another table of people, so we’re craning and bobbing up and down in our seats when the manager returns. “Ahem! Ladies! I’m here! Let me tell you what we have for you today.” He describes each one with the loving detail that only an Italian can produce when it comes to food and we order mixed antipasti despite my internal misgivings that ordering fritti misti in an inland town in Dorset might be a mistake.

It’s not.

“My god but that calamari is good! Oh, and have you tried the whitebait? Bloody hell, that prawn is amazing …” We ooh and ahh our way through the starter, barely needing to chew delicious, tender rings of squid and thin slices of parma ham. Just as well, really, as the conversation continues apace. There might have been worries before the meal that fifteen years was too big a gap to bridge, but there needn’t have been.

The manager flits back and forth between our table and others. The restaurant’s filling up, but he keeps coming back to have a quick chat in Italian. It’s so lovely to be speaking the language to which I’ve become more accustomed in recent years. He quizzes me on my knowledge of Sicilian. I produce a couple of phrases, and he throws a new Catanese one at me, which I promptly forget. Main courses are devoured. The first bottle of Sicilian wine disappears and is replaced. Pudding is beyond us all, but good Italian coffee is welcome. “Espresso? Ovviamente!”

Then out of nowhere appear shot glasses of limoncello, with which the manager joins in. “Cheers!” He introduces himself – “Giuseppe. Piacere.” – and we shake hands all around the table.

We stand up to leave, laughing and ruing the English rain outside as we exchange kisses. “When do you go back to Sicily?” asks Giuseppe. “46 degrees today – I’m going in August and I can’t wait!” He’s been called to another table, but he waits as we fumble our way back into coats and scarves before saying goodbye with a grin. “Ciao ragazze. Alla prossima!”

Until the next time. Can’t wait.

Images by cupcake_eater, andrewrennie and modenadude (Creative Commons)

by Kate Bailward Posted on July 25, 2012
Posted in Eating Like a Maniac, Living Like a Maniac | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Review: InterRail by Alessandro Gallenzi

It took me two-thirds of the book InterRail to work out what it reminded me of, but finally it came to me: Accidental Death of an Anarchist by Dario Fo. There’s something about the author Alessandro Gallenzi’s way of writing conversation that is very reminiscent of Fo’s play. It’s therefore interesting to note that, as well as being a novelist, Gallenzi is a playwright. Incidentally, according to his bio, he’s also a poet, prize-winning translator and publisher – this is a man who keeps himself busy.

His novel InterRail goes back in time to (if my calculations are correct) the early 90s.  It follows Francesco, a 21 year old Italian travelling alone for the first time, and is apparently based on the author’s own experiences of InterRailing as a young man. How closely we are not told, but Francesco has the adventure of a lifetime, meeting the girl of his dreams, winning (and losing) huge amounts of money and getting involved in an international scandal. Phew.

The cover of the book depicts a train track-SLASH-fly zipper opening up to reveal a map of Europe. Cheeky. However, although Francesco garners plenty of attention on his travels, the story that I was really interested in was that of Pierre, the mystery stranger who flits in and out of Francesco’s life causing trouble. While Francesco is experiencing PG-rated sex and his first taste of space cakes, Pierre is roaring around Europe in a Maserati providing a much more fantastical side to the story. As Maria Feletti had the Anarchist, so Francesco has Pierre. He’s the maniac counterpoint to what is otherwise a routine memoir of notches on bedposts; with Pierre’s help it becomes an entertaining absurdist adventure, complete with fast cars, casinos, beautiful, vengeful women, blockhead detectives and double-crosses aplenty.

While I’m yet to experience any of the kind of adventures that Francesco did on my train journeys across France and Italy, I’ve got plenty of tales to tell. From meeting the middle-aged couple from Messina – “I’m an arancino with legs!” announced the wife cheerfully before chattering all the way to Napoli and revealing her secret desire to turn up at a station and get on the first train, no matter where it was going – to sharing a night cabin with not just one but two earth-shattering snorers, to looking out of the train window to see the glittering turquoise of the Adriatic so close that it seemed as if we were in the water, I’ll take the train over a plane any day.

With this in mind, I’ll be entering Alma Books’ competition to win an InterRail pass across Europe. And, as if that weren’t enough, they’ll throw in a copy of InterRail to keep you entertained as you go. To enter, tell them what you would do if you had an InterRail pass. Where would you go? What would you see? Be inventive – Europe is your oyster! Two lucky winners will be picked by Alessandro Gallenzi on 31 July, so you still have a little time to refine your travel plans.

In bocca al lupo!

by Kate Bailward Posted on July 23, 2012
Posted in Reviewing Like a Maniac | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Sicily to Somerset by train

I’ve been playing with Tripline, a new site that maps your journeys. You have the option to add commentary, music, photos – whatever you want, really. Lots of fun! So here’s my journey from Sicily to Somerset, with music, map and accompanying stories. It’s a long trip (2,309 km and over 30 hours travelling), but a good one. If I could avoid ever travelling by plane again, I would. Trains rock.

by Kate Bailward Posted on July 16, 2012
Posted in Travelling Like a Maniac | Tagged , , , | 8 Comments

Galhampton Party in the Park 2012

I’m standing in a muddy field in Somerset in the pouring rain, listening to bands, dancing like a loon and drinking cider. You might think I was at Glastonbury. I’m not. I’m in Galhampton, a little village that you’ve probably never heard of, which has been running a successful music festival for the past seven years on their village green.

The South West of England is currently in the middle of a severe weather alert. Rain has been lashing down like stairrods for the last twelve hours and roads are flooded all over the place. The festival was supposed to kick off at 12pm, but the first two acts had to cancel due to the fact that the organisers hadn’t been able to get the stage up in time. Parking which would usually be in the field backing onto the village green has been hastily moved two miles down the road to the local milk depot, where there’s hard standing rather than deep clay mud, and shuttle buses organised. This works out well for me: my brother Jim lives – ooh – about two miles south of the village. As he’s my festival partner for the day this means that we’ll be able to hitch a lift mere minutes from his front door, rather than hiking half an hour across the fields, which had been our original plan. Perfect.

When we arrive at the milk depot there’s a minibus ready to leave. We jog through the gate, to the confusion of the parking stewards, two bedraggled but cheerful local women. Lovely day for a stroll, innum! You got tickets? What you doin’ walkin’ from up there, then? Oh, you lives that way? Arrr! G’wan then – bus might be full, but there’ll be another ‘un in ten minutes an’ there’s tea ’n’ cakes while ‘ee waits.

This isn’t like any other festival that you’ve been to before.

For a start, Galhampton village green is a proper, old-fashioned village green. There’s a slide and a climbing frame, but they’re solid rather than fancy, built to withstand rough and tumble treatment. The grass is kept under control, but there’s no pretension that this is anything other than a useful open space for people to use as they will. In short, it’s a mown field. It isn’t big, but then neither is the village, which only has 400 inhabitants. Put a blow up stage, some marquees and 1300 people (the festival’s capacity) on it and it’s buzzing.

Party in the Park has been running in Galhampton since 2005, when a few bright sparks decided that having a concert would be a good way to raise money for the village hall. It was so successful that it’s now a yearly event – and yes, profits continue to go towards the village hall. In many ways, it’s more a village fete than a festival. Food comes in the form of hog-roast, supplied by a local butcher, drink is from a local microbrewery, and there is a dedicated children’s activity tent. Despite the cosy atmosphere, however, the stage is professionally set up, with a full rig of lights and complement of speakers.

The bands still change in the village hall, though.

Walk around the ground and it’ll take you ten minutes and you’ll probably run into ten people you know. Children are left to run freely, controlled by the fact that everyone knows who they are. Today, most of the kids attending are rolling around on the ground, taking advantage of their waterproofs to get as dirty as possible. I spot three small boys covered from head to toe in mud, devouring sausages, and ask their dad if I can take their photo. He looks mildly surprised that I would even ask. “Of course! I’m only sorry I cleaned them up …”

Small boys aren’t the only ones enjoying the mud. Groups of pale-skinned English roses in identikit outfits – denim hotpants over opaque black tights, Dad’s woolly socks and green wellies coupled with SuperDry jackets, unbrushed hair and too much eyeliner – flirt with rosy-cheeked boys in baggy jeans and sensible coats by doing their best to get muddy handprints on their bottoms. The more daring do high kicks and aim for bootprints. There’s a lot of shrieking and giggling going on while Hobo Jones and the Junkyard Dogs, on stage, banter with the crowd. “You can buy our CDs after the show. Buy 100 and use ‘em to keep the birds off yer turnips! Mind you, lads: better to have the birds *on* yer turnips, eh?” The boys go red to the ends of their hair and the girls begin feigning cool disinterest. Hobo Jones and his Dogs guffaw and continue the set.

Afternoon turns to evening. The rain lets up for an hour or so and then starts again. Worms, disturbed by the wet ground and people stomping around above them, come to the surface in droves. We return to the cider tent.

Oh lawdy: the cider tent.

I may be more of a lightweight than I was when I moved to Italy three years ago, but I can still hold my drink. (You can take the girl out of Somerset, but you can never take the Somerset out of the girl.) Two pints of Black Rat, though, and my brother and I are ready to fall over. ‘Ee’s good stuff, see. We’re just considering bailing out early when we realise that next to the stage there’s a tea tent.

Cider, home-made cakes and cups of restorative tea? This isn’t just a festival, it’s a proper Westcountry festival. As we say round these parts: it’s gert lush, my babber. Now get stuck in.

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by Kate Bailward Posted on July 11, 2012
Posted in Living Like a Maniac | Tagged , , | 5 Comments