Forces of order

If you’re wondering what this Cossiga petition business is about (see widget and earlier post), let me fill you in with a few details. Cossiga is an ex-president of Italy who served within the government as home secretary during the most heated period of internal terrorism, otherwise known as the “years of lead” (anni del piombo). In the course of an interview with journalist Andrea Cangini a few days ago, during which he was asked about his reaction to recent student protests against the education ‘reform’ being pushed through parliament, he said: 

“Maroni (Italy’s current home secretary) should withdraw the police from the streets and the universities, infiltrate the students’ movement with agents provocateurs ready for anything and give the demonstrators a couple of weeks to rampage shops, set fire to cars and turn the cities upside down […] After which, backed up by popular support, ambulance sirens should drown out those of the police […] in the sense that the police should show no mercy and make sure that everyone ends in hospital. Don’t arrest them, given that the magistrates would release them immediately, just beat them up and beat up those teachers who stir them up […] above all the teachers […] I don’t mean the old ones, I mean the young women teachers […] There are teachesr who indoctrinate the children and take them onto the streets: criminal behaviour!” (“Maroni […] dovrebbe ritirare le forze di polizia dalle strade e dalle università, infiltrare il movimento con agenti provocatori pronti a tutto, e lasciare che per una decina di giorni i manifestanti devastino i negozi, diano fuoco alle macchine e mettano a ferro e fuoco le città. […] Dopo di che, forti del consenso popolare, il suono delle sirene delle ambulanze dovrà sovrastare quello delle auto di polizia e carabinieri […] nel senso che le forze dell’ordine non dovrebbero avere pietà e mandarli tutti in ospedale. Non arrestarli, che tanto poi i magistrati li rimetterebbero subito in libertà, ma picchiarli e picchiare anche quei docenti che li fomentano […], soprattutto i docenti […] non dico quelli anziani, certo, ma le maestre ragazzine sì. […] Ci sono insegnanti che indottrinano i bambini e li portano in piazza: un atteggiamento criminale!”)

Cossiga’s well-known for being psychologically unstable, if not totally unhinged, but this certainly gives an unnerving glimpse into the techniques he adopted during his own time at the ministry of the interior, a period during which an innocent demonstrator, Georgiana Masi, was shot dead by exactly the kind of agent provocateur he suggests Maroni employ. Not that there was any need to explain the technique to the Berlusconi government, as it’s already been applied with considerable success, in terms of blood-letting and lesson-teaching, at G8 in Genova a few years back. It looks like we can expect more of the same. 1977, Rome – Georgiana Masi. 2001, Genova – Carlo Giuliani. 2008, Milan? – ?

The author speaks, so button up and listen

One of the things I did when I went to visit Jen and Chris at Salt Publishing last month was make a podcast in which I talk about short stories. The result is – how shall I put this? – engagingly unprepared. Here it is. 

http://www.youtube.com/v/nLh7oFP4afo&hl=en&fs=1

For more information about the book, click here. (As though you didn’t know.) And if you want to buy it, click on the widget somewhere to the right, and the Amazon fairy will provide.

A froggie would a sacking go

The curator of the exhibition in Bolzano that included this admittedly rather unlovely artwork, by Martin Kippenberger, has just had her contract withdrawn. Corinne Diserens, appointed director of the new Museion to give it a touch of international class and responsible for the presence of the crucified amphibian, has already been excommunicated by the local archbishop, as well as being on the receiving end of protests, hunger strikes, complaints to the authorities and a letter from ‘Eggs’ Benedict himself. Given that the exhibition, entitled Peripheral Vision and Collective Body (it sounds better in Italian, just) ended in September, Diserens, currently gathering material in China for her next show at the Museion, must have been surprised to be told yesterday that her services are no longer needed. There’s surely no connection between her summary dismissal and the fact that the Volkspartei, which had an absolute majority in the province until last week, did rather badly in the local elections. Maybe they should ask for the crucifix back and see if they can attach a scapegoat to it.

Austin Drage: Billie Jean

I like this very much. I saw it on X Factor. Should I be worried on either count? On both?

http://www.youtube.com/v/gEOI8QMGAlM&hl=en&fs=1

Breaking wind: Cossiga talks through arsehole

APPELLO AL PRESIDENTE NAPOLITANO PER FARE CHIAREZZA SULLE RECENTI DICHIARAZIONI DEL SEN. COSSIGA 

I’ll give you some more information about this when I get a chance later today, but if you speak Italian and/or live in Italy, and already know what this is about, I’m sure you’ll be signing the petition… The man needs stopping. Well, needed stopping some decades back…

The evidence

What I did on my holidays

I’m tempted to make this a photographic record but there is a limit to the number of atmospheric shots – shingle beaches, empty oyster shells (empty because you always remember the camera after the oyster has been slurped down), half-timbered facades with the date displayed in ornate stucco arrangements, charity shops, general quaintness punctuated by austere Caspar David Friedrich-like seascapes and unusual views of Canterbury cathedral – that people are prepared to stomach, and I’m worried that I might not know exactly what it is. I’d put on a video or two, made with our new camcorder, of places we’ve seen and stayed at, but I learnt – alas too late – two cardinal no-no’s in the amateur video business. One: Don’t whizz round like a dervish because it makes people dizzy. Two: a picture really is worth a thousand words, which means that a moving picture tends to obviate the need for any commentary at all, and particularly commentary along the lines of ‘…and this is the very attractive and well-equipped bathroom…’. So I’ll keep them to myself (and maybe YouTube, where I can pretend to be anonymous). 

Which leaves me with moments. My first taste of samphire, and wondering if its gathering is still a dreadful trade. Using the predictive whatsit on my mobile to tell my sister we’re eating at the Crab and Winkle in Whitstable (where I had the samphire, as it happens, as part of an excellent meal – I recommend it) and only realised as I was about to send it that my phone had predicted Arab and Winkle, two words that don’t often go together. Wondering on the bus to Faversham what the woman with a baseball cap and ankh earrings was writing feverishly over dozens of pages of a spiral notebook and finally reading the words: ‘I wish to let go of the past – with love’ on each line of each page. The luck of finding a Donna Karan suit for men (I didn’t know she did stuff for men) in a charity shop – in what will be my size after a fortnight’s semi-serious dieting – for a tenner. An exquisitely detailed latex seed, sprouting from latex earth and wrapped in a strip of paper with a fish printed on it, the whole thing no bigger than an eggcup. Wind, water, rain, the scent of asphalt. A pyramid of cockle shells constantly fed by a rolling strip of rubber crankily emerging from the side of a building. The sheer variety of fishermens’ huts. A security guard at Canterbury who, when asked which building was the Archbishop’s Palace, said, with a hostile leer, ‘I do know, of course, but I can’t tell you.’ People having time to talk.

Be warned. Photographs will follow.

Bear with me…

… for a few more days. I’ll be back!

It’s a technical thing.

Economising

According to today’s Repubblica, sales of the Economist around the Italian parliament buildings have plummeted since Berlusconi returned to power. I wonder why.

The new deputies and senators aren’t buying the Financial Times or the Wall Street Journal either. Maybe it isn’t a political thing at all. Maybe they just don’t like reading.

It’s out! Out, I tell you!

Well, today’s the big day. The Scent of Cinnamon and Other Stories is now officially available from all good booksellers. If you pester them. Go on. Pester them. And, of course, from Amazon. You can order it directly from this blog by clicking on the widget on the right. You won’t regret it. I’ll keep you updated with reviews and the exciting promotional activities Salt and I are dreaming up to make sure that no one in the known universe will be unaware of the book. You can, of course, do your part by telling everyone how wonderful it is, even if you haven’t read it yet. And, naturally, it would make a fabulous Christmas present for broad-minded aunts. 

Anything else? Not that I can think of. Oh yes, for more information click here.