Hello Goodbye Hello

If you visit this blog on a regular basis, you'll have had a disappointing few months, and I apologise. I've been in the UK for personal reasons that I haven't really wanted to talk about here, and the various things that so preoccupied me seem to have lost their immediate relevance. My two black beasts - Berlusconi and Ratzinger - feel far away, despite the latter's attempt to beard me in my lair this summer, and the ongoing farce of Italian politics is, well, precisely that. To my shame, I can't even summon up a more than ordinary outrage at homophobia, perhaps the result of watching programmes like Strictly Come Dancing and X Factor, where being gay sometimes seems the rule rather than exception. I've also come to hate the look of this blog, and don't like the new templates being offered (this is technical stuff - fellow bloggers will understand). SO... I'm up and off to Wordpress, where I will apply the old formula: a change is as good as a rest, and see what happens. I'll be taking all the old stuff with me, so don't despair, you'll still be able to see what I thought about Maria Vittoria Brambilla (don't care? Don't worry, you're not alone..). I've packed. I'm ready to go. From today, you'll find me here.

Words

If I had a thousand pounds for every time I've heard people complain that the use of the word 'gay' to describe what these same people tend to refer to as the 'homosexual life style' had deprived them of the only word available in the English language to talk about the really important things in life, like, oh I don't know, party lights, streamers, summer dresses, just general joy and loveliness, I still wouldn't have enough money to wrest the term 'tea party' back from the misinformed bigots who seriously believe their pathological state of unreason to be 'political'. This thought came to me as I sliced into a rather good cake earlier today and wished that I had a few good friends with me to share it. A tea party, I thought, how nice. How nice that would be.