very very hot and I am not only referring to the 30+ degrees over here

This week we have seen the terrible events in Greece. I really wonder why on earth these youngsters have no other way to protest but being violent. Greece is a young democracy, but still a democracy, is not a country where rights are not guaranteed and despite the sorrow and the rage for the death of a young man I do not think that transforming a country in a battlefield should attract so much sympathy and, even worse, being used by political forces as a reason to ask for government resignation. I do not like Karamanlis at all but the leader of the opposition, Papandreou, could have saved his words: “A deep wound for the democracy”. For God sake, Mr. Papandreou, there are more things a politician should base his protests and thought on. And I am sure that Greece has many more than this. A policeman that kills someone is not the army shooting on all protesters! My sympathy to the poor Alexis’ family but these youngsters should understand that it is not destroying things around that you make justice and that they should find some different activities to make this world a better one. They aren’t any better than the policeman that shot, for sure not. And let’s not forget the scarce sense of responsibilities shown by the trade unions in not canceling a general strike proclaimed before the violence erupted… How disgusting!

1 billion people starving in the world. This is the true tragedy but nobody seems to bother about it. FAO published the data this week and despite a few articles on the paper and some TV reportage, all back looking at the ups and downs of the stock exchanges.

Nobody is looking anymore at Iraqi people dying and Afghanistan ending up back in the hands of the Taliban. Cholera in Zimbabwe and God knows how many more tragedies happening.

So young people, if you want to do something for democracy try to change this world but not with fire and Molotov. That is the way this world was built and doesn’t seem to be so perfect…

Brazil… Sao Paulo won the football league for the 3rd year in a row making happy a small portion of population. Sao Paulo has got far too many teams (Corinthians, Sao Paulo, Palmeiras, Juventude, Nacional, Portuguesa and Santos) and the celebrations for the victory, except for some fireworks and a few people going around in circle in their cars, were really unseen.

Imagine you live in Italy in Via Giuseppe Verdi or in Paris in Rue Emile Zola, you would tend to call the street by the guy’s surname, Via Verdi or Rue Zola… Not here. Here is Giuseppe and Emile and it is written big big big while the rest of the name is in small characters. Sometimes is tough to go somewhere and taxi driver do not seem to realise that GPS is around and a nice Tom Tom would make their life and the passenger’s one easier. The same route has taken between 3 minutes and 20 minutes without traffic! Ranging from 12 Reais to 35… Annoying and frustrating!

Telephone calls… This is something pretty difficult here in Brazil. Let’s see where to start. Mobile phone providers. There are a few, TIM and Claro are the major ones. Only TIM allows you, though, to send sms abroad. Of course I have Claro because the colleague that bought it for me didn’t think that I could have needed a SIM card to send sms overseas, because he doesn’t. Same for receiving sms from overseas… It’s a bit of a lottery. Making calls locally is pretty easy, just dial the number, no need to insert a prefix or anything else. When you start calling or sending sms to people in other states, the problems starts. If you want to give your mobile number to someone you will say: “My landline number is 0xx11/12345678” where xx is the operator you decide to use to call that number from your state. This can be either 14 or 21. This is what I was told but this is not the whole truth: 014 (Brasil Telecom), 015 (Telefonica), 021 (Embratel), 023 (Intelig), 031 (Telemar) is more likely. Imagine all of us in Europe having our mobile phone number saved as +44 20 xxxxxxx… when you come over here you cannot call like that anymore because you have to embed in the number one of those operators’ codes too! If you use your original SIM card it’s ok but if you use a local one you have to change all the numbers accordingly.

Imagine going to the Louvre and see the Mona Lisa with her head chopped… This is the comparison that Vladimir Luxuria, transgender, politician and winner of the Italian reality show, L’isola dei famosi, has done when Brokeback Mountain has been broadcast on the Italian TV without the (gay) love scenes. Seems like it has been a terrible misunderstanding and the movie will be broadcast again with the love scenes where they were meant to be, in the movie itself. Of course, in perfect Italian style, this will create another big stink and everyone will be intervening from the government to the opposition to the trade unions to the Church to God–knows-who-else-has-a-bloody-say-in-it! What a country!

I read about this movie, long ago, that it was a drama about two men loving each other but victim of a society that didn’t accept the homosexuality as a fact. I have to be honest… The movie I saw was slightly different… I found that the two protagonists, actually one more than the other, could not accept the fact of being gay at all, while the other one was more prisoner of his own fear of prejudice. Gay people accepting their sexuality tend not to fear the society, especially if you are single as the two in the movies were, all the rest is bullshit, especially these days.

Back to Brazil but first a stop in Illinois.

Blagojevich, the democratic governor, has been arrested for starting an auction to assign the seat that Obama has left free at the Senate. If in Italy we should jail politicians that do these kind of things we should import politicians from other countries! You know what the Democrats’ comments have been? Embarrassment but “we do not interfere with the investigations.” Jeez, in Italy just last week there has been a stink out of possible investigations against the mayors of Naples and Florence.

Back to Brazil…

One of the things I love most in this country is the Valet service. You never have to bother about parking your car when you go to restaurants. There are always spaces or the Valet parking for you. In some places is free, in other cases the price ranges between 11 and 14 reais which is a bargain considering the time saved and how much would cost to park it in a faraway garage.

One of the things I hate most, on the other hand, is the way they serve pizzas here. They do not put the pizza in front of you. They come an put a slice at the time in your plate every time this is empty. The poor waiters are always running around between tables! Pizza is a big thing here with a selection that in Italy, but also in Britain or elsewhere, is unthinkable. The taste is generally good but far too much cheese on it! And no way to get less...

Let me tell you a story that shows how cold and heartless some politicians can be. A law from 1896 states clearly the characteristics for a dwell to be considered legally inhabitable. According to that law many Italian apartments should be shut down. But, nobody says anything. This law, however can be a problem if you are an immigrant in Italy and you want your family to join you. You have to produce all sort of documents including a certificate of dwelling certifying that the property you own or rent is ok for human beings. A Macedonian immigrant obtains the permit to bring over 2 family members but he has a wife and two daughters, 9 and 12 years old. He tries to leave his oldest daughter with her grandparents but the child doesn’t want to leave the parents and the man takes her illegally to Italy. Being a honest man, he goes to the police and reports the situation and, automatically, the justice starts all degrees of processes until the Supreme Court says that the child can stay in Italy with the family. All of Italy is happy except the Northern League’s politicians that see it as a dangerous previous case that would allow criminals and illegal immigrants to do the same. I never heard so much crap! If someone comes to Italy to smuggle drugs or comes to the country illegally, do you think they will go to register and ask to bring their families over? Bloody racist bunch they are! I hate them!

It reminds me of the story of Carmela Cimini, an illegal Italian immigrant to Switzerland, that remained locked in her “apartment” for two years and used to cook in the cupboard so that nobody would know that she was there... 2 years hiding from the civilised Swiss... Sod them! She said that in 1963, the day she left the room, was a Sunday, and she ate an ice-cream, the nicest she has ever had in her whole life. Sorry guys but there is no space for racist people in my life. I am still going through cuts amongst my acquaintances and will continue.

But another case really made me feel ashamed of being a human being. It’s the story of a young romi, less than 4 years old that was found in the streets of Rome in terrible conditions and that, according to the Italian laws has been sent back to Romania and by the authorities of that country sent back to the family that used to torture him to push him to beg. The law part of the agreement between Italy and Romania says that any Romanian minor found unaccompanied is sent back to Bucharest... Fantastic!

Berlusconi during the EU meeting about the Kyoto Protocol has declared that “When someone has got pneumonia, doesn’t go to the barber” meaning that during a period of economic crisis we shouldn’t really care about the environment. I feel relieved by such statement because it is in open contradiction to the general idea that Berlusconi will live forever, so he can not give a shit about the environment but as Italian and as earthling I find rather disgusting that Italy is one of the worst countries in the world in terms of Gas emission, especially if we consider the fact that we pollute for nothing because our growth is really modest or insignificant. Anyway an agreement has been reached, the usual compromise but, better than seeing an Italian and a Polish veto blocking everything. Sarkozy can take home a badge for his insignificant Presidency of the EU.

Talk next week guys.