The malleability of folk songs (2)

I gave my talk a few days ago, in Hebrew, to an audience of 12-15 people - rather disappointing. The talk was supposed to last about 75 minutes; I had music for 50 minutes, but I talked much more than I had planned, as I never got to the final song. As far as I am concerned, the talk went well, although it was difficult to tell; indirectly I received a few positive reactions.

Yesterday at the swimming pool I was approached by a lady who runs a similar group for OAPs, this time in English. Would I care to repeat my talk? She can't promise me a bigger audience, but I suppose this doesn't matter. She asked what the title of the talk was, and when I mentioned 'malleability', she became concerned: it might be that some of the audience don't know this word and might be threatened by it. As I probably mentioned in the earlier blog, I couldn't find a word in Hebrew for 'malleability' and had to suffice with 'flexibility'; it's not quite the same. 

'Malleability' is a word used in connection with defining what a metal is; given a lump of tin, one can change its form greatly, like plasticine. People have taken folk songs and changed their shape and form. This is what I mean; 'flexibility' seems like a compromise.

The talk is planned for next Sunday.

Aches and pains: my first swim of the year

It's mid-June, and as always, it's time for the first swim of the year, utilising muscles that have weakened somewhat since last September, the end of last year's swimming season.

First, it was the big toe on my left foot that throbbed a bit: the toe hasn't recovered completely from the gout attack that was only a week ago. With regard to that, I saw our GP on Tuesday, and after we discussed the subject of gout, she decided to start me on the chronic use of Allopurinol, a lowish dose at first. At the end of the month I will be having my comprehensive annual blood tests, so we will be able to see whether two weeks of this drug have managed to lower my uric acid level, which has always been high. She also mentioned that there is normally 3-6 months between gout attacks, and that next time (if there is a next time) I should take Naxin as the primary pain reliever as opposed to Advil or similar, as Naxin better suits my medical profile. I only realised later that she didn't give me a prescription for Naxin; imagine that an attack happens on a Friday afternoon - a few days of pain await me. I shall have to remember this for my next appointment, when we review the results of the blood tests.

Back to swimming: the next ache came when pushing off from the ends of the pool; there's a muscle in the middle of my right thigh that suddenly contracted. This bothered me during my entire time in the pool, but especially at the end of every length. Walking home didn't use this muscle but I felt it again whilst walking up the stairs.

And finally, as expected, my left arm began aching after a few lengths; this always happens the first time, but I expect it to go away shortly.

During June, the pool opens at 8:30 am both on Friday and Saturday, meaning that there will be no Friday swims for a few weeks. I hope that the pool will open at 7:30 am on a Friday, which is much more convenient for me. Also fewer people come at that hour (today the pool was 'packed' - about twelve people swimming at the same time with a few waiting for a spot).

Preparations for Bari video

A few years ago, I wrote The first step in [creating a video] is to convert all the MOV files to WMV format so that Movie Maker can handle them; there is a program which does this painlessly albeit slowly. I'm not sure to which program I was referring but I no longer have such a program. Not only that, the video camera creates MOD files, not MOV, although that point isn't really important.

I tried a few programs on the Internet: one can upload files, have them converted, then download them; this is a painful process and not something that I would like to rely upon. All of the programs that I found that can be installed on one's computer and perform the conversion all have their problems, such as converting only half of each file (the idea is to check out the program then buy it in order to convert the entire file).

All of the programs except for one: eventually I found a program called Handbrake that purports to convert MOD files to WMV, except that it creates files with an M4V extension. I discovered that files with this extension can be loaded into Movie Maker so these converted files are fine. The user interface to Handbrake could be improved no end: it's set up for converting single files. There is a method for converting all the files in a directory but it's far from intuitive. Fortunately someone wrote a tutorial so I was able to convert all the video files with a minimum amount of pain. Actually, that's not totally true: several times the converted output files went into the wrong directory.

I've started work on creating a video: so far I've completed the hotel sequence, where we spent the first two nights. Some of what I filmed didn't turn out well - more pictures of my trouser pocket - but there is enough.

Italy 2022: Returning home

We had an easy morning, packing and cleaning up, until our taxi came at 12 pm to take us to the airport so that we would have plenty of time before our 3:45 pm flight.

Except for the fact that the flight was due to leave at 13:45!!!! We found the Ryanair check-in counter; there was a long queue and one person seemed to be holding everybody up. We quickly realised that there was no way that we could wait for our turn and still be on time, especially as now it was about 12:30 pm and the check-in for our flight was to close at 12:45 pm. My wife did her crying act on a few people who allowed us to jump right to the front, and then we were checking in... or not: the representative was saying that we needed some form in order to enter Israel, despite the fact that we are Israelis. Eventually she called a supervisor and allowed us to check in without further problems.

We then raced through the hand luggage check and passport control, then eventually found our boarding gate. We still had plenty of time. Eventually boarding began, although as I always say, there's no hurry as the plane isn't going to take off without us.

And take off we did. The flight seemed to go reasonably fast, and before we knew it, we had touched down at Ben Gurion airport.

Italy 2022: Staying 'at home'

As I wrote early this morning, I had my first ever attack of gout last night; as a result, I barely slept and my toe was very painful. I dragged myself to breakfast, which fortunately is held in a room a few steps away from our room. After breakfast, my wife went to a pharmacy and bought the equivalent of Neurophen. I took a pill and laid down to rest. Then the skies opened and it rained heavily, which was just as well as we weren't going anywhere. After about three hours, the gross pain had disappeared. After another hour I took another pill, and since then the situation has improved, although there is still sometimes pain, especially when walking.

Late in the afternoon I went out to buy some food for tomorrow: we'll miss both lunch and supper, so we'll prepare rolls in advance.

For supper tonight we went to an interesting restaurant, Frulez, which is much closer than appears on the map. Their menu is somewhat different to those of other restaurants and even includes salads! I had the steamed sea bass fillet along with all kinds of vegetables. The inside of the restaurant is also very interesting.

After dinner, we had gelato - melon and banana - to clean the palate. Despite my best efforts, I still have heartburn as a result of the Neurophen.

So that's it: a week in Bari. Today we were supposed to have gone to see the trulli at Alberobello, which funnily enough is considered to be the major attraction of this area. Well, we've seen them on YouTube videos.

Running up that hill (a deal with God)

To many people's surprise (including herself), Kate Bush's song "Running up that hill" has made a remarkable come-back after 37 years, after having been featured in some hit television show. The lyrics are a bit obscure, but basically Kate wants to make a deal with God, and get him (God) to swap places between Kate and her loved one, so that they can better appreciate life from the other's point of view.

You don't want to hurt me

But see how deep the bullet lies

Unaware, I'm tearing you asunder

Oh, there is thunder in our hearts

Is there so much hate for the ones we love?

Tell me, we both matter, don't we?

We could all do with a bit of swapping places with our loved ones. As I have commented more than once, my wife has problems with her legs; she has undergone a knee replacement on one leg and is about to undergo a bone fusion operation on her other leg. As a result, she walks very slowly whereas I like to walk fast; going on holiday and walking around places can be very difficult.

Last night (and also the night before), the big toe on my left foot hurt somewhat. The first night it wasn't too bad, but last night it was so painful - and still is - that I was barely able to sleep at all; every touch of a sheet on the toe made the constant pain even worse. At the moment I can barely hobble around our hotel room - so we have swapped our places,

I think that this is my first attack of gout; there are several things that agree between what I feel (and know about my blood levels) and what is written in the linked wiki. My father suffered from gout for years and took a prophylactic to prevent it; the article says to try ibuprofen. So I will have to wait for a pharmacy to open in order to buy such pills; I normally never take NSAIDs. 

I wonder whether we are going to do what we intended to do today, as I can barely move and I barely slept. Kate's song is more than apt.

Italy 2022: Ostuni

Today started off the same as Tuesday: get up, have breakfast, get sorted, go to train station, catch 10:02 train to Lecce. But this time we didn't ride to the end of the line; instead we got off at Ostuni, which is midway between Bari and Lecce. Ostuni is often called 'the white city', as many of the walls in the old city are painted with lime (coincidentally I was reading about lime the other day at the Molecule of the Month page). Once off the train, a waiting taxi took us up to the centre of the old city, and before we had time to catch our breath, a brash young man offered to take us on a tour of Ostuni with a "tuk-tuk". 

There is a company in Ostuni that employs several guides for tuk-tuk tours, so it wasn't as if he was exploiting us (at least, not too much). This actually is a good way of seeing the town, as well as fun! My wife's legs wouldn't have allowed us to see as much as we did had we been walking.

Once the breathtaking tour had finished, we decided to have a cup of tea in a nearby cafe. As we did, storm clouds came into view: it started raining again, but this time the rain developed into a complete downpour for about half an hour that left us and all the other patrons of the cafe stranded until the rain eased. Strangely enough, as soon as the rain started, the umbrella sellers appeared; this time we succumbed and bought a big umbrella for 10€ - it's a seller's market. We used the time that we were stranded in order to eat a pizza - big enough for both of us and costing only 7€ (i.e. 3.5€ each), when a cup of tea costs 3€ and there's a cover charge of 3€.

Eventually the rain eased off and we could leave our shelter, aiming for a side street holding various shops. We bought a few items in a shop selling agricultural produce - mainly olive oil and various wines - as well as some ceramics in another shop. On and off the rain was still falling and my throat began itching a little.

When we had finished shopping, we returned to the main square (Liberty Square) where we bumped into our guide from before. We asked him to phone the taxi driver who drove us in the morning (he helpfully gave us his card after the ride in order that he might take us back) as there were no other taxi drivers there. I think that most of the visitors in the old city arrived there by bus from the small train station, or they came in their own cars. The driver appeared after a few minutes and took us back to the station. Fortunately we had to wait only a few minutes for the train that would take us back to Bari.

Once in Bari, we bought some ceramic unicorns for our grand-daughters, that I had seen the day before when wandering around. Then we went home for some sorely needed tea. Then it was up and out again: I wanted to buy - or at least look for - 'the best chocolate in the world'. The mini-market in which I had bought food barely had chocolate at all, so I was looking for other places. Google maps showed me a supermarket not far away and a shop called Caputo Dolciumi that also was not far away. The supermarket didn't seem to have chocolate (and there was a big queue there), but the other shop - that turned out to be at the opposite end of our block, i.e. two minute's walk away - sold only chocolate. My eyes fell on some promising chocolate; at first I picked up several bars of similar chocolate, but then I considered that it might be more prudent to buy one bar of each candidate chocolate and taste it at home. Just as well as none of the chocolates was what I was looking for. I went back there and showed them a photo of the chocolate that I was looking for; they didn't have it but they did have some other mint chocolate that I have yet to taste.

When I was wandering around looking for the supermarket, one of the lenses of my reading glasses fell out. Fortunately I found it and put it in my pocket. When I came back to the flat, my wife put it in place but we didn't have a screwdriver with which to tighten the screw that holds the lens in place. So I had to go out again, looking for an optimist optician. I was sure that I had seen one but I couldn't remember exactly where - it turned out to be just after the supermarket. There they kindly fixed my glasses - without which I wouldn't have been able to write all this (or rather, see what I had written).

Italy 2022: Corso Cavour (2)

Today was a wash-out in more ways than one.

The morning was spent by my wife shopping. I walked around a bit.

Lunch was in an outdoor cafe with a strange menu. I had what might be termed a fusion dish consisting of rice, salmon, cucumbers, carrots, adamame and seaweed. The seaweed tasted really strange and was inedible as far as I am concerned, but the rest was tasty. Too much though: I couldn't eat it all.

In the early evening we had supper on our terrace, then walked down into the old city to see it lit up. It started raining when we were about half-way down Corso Cavour, and by the time we got to the old city, it was raining quite heavily. The only activity that I could see were restaurants, so we gave up on that.

I had spotted a gelateria on one side of the street selling 'after eight' (i.e. mint chocolate) ice cream, so I made a bee-line for there and at least saved something of the day. By the time we had finished eating, the rain had stopped. The colours of some of the flavours were somewhat day-glo, especially cielo (sky) which was a virulent blue. I have no idea what that tastes like and I'm not sure that I want to know.

A long walk back to the flat, and that's that.

Italy 2022: Lecce

Today's activity had us leaving Bari by train and travelling to the southern town of Lecce, that has often been described as the 'Florence of the south'. I think that this term is misleading: it's more like the 'Siena of the south', as the buildings remind me (at least) of those in Siena. After arriving in Lecce following a boring train ride of 100 minutes, we took a taxi to the old city. The first thing that we saw was the staggering Roman amphitheatre, almost completely intact.

After walking around this, we began an investigation into the alleys of the old city; we didn't have a map so we simply followed intuition (and other tourists, to see where they went). To some extent, our path was defined by the amount of shadow, as it was very hot. 

After wandering around the lanes and admiring the architecture, we had a late lunch at the Volo restaurant; when we arrived, there were people sitting outside but we elected to sit inside (and were the only people to do so). Apart from the quality of the food, the decor is very interesting, and it can be seen that a great deal of effort has been placed into making this restaurant a fine place to eat. The restaurant could seat maybe 100 people (there's a second floor) although I don't know when so many people would come all at the same time. As it was hot outside, I didn't have much of an appetite and so chose to have a typical Salento-region soup; there were various vegetables mixed in this but the only one that I identified was probably spinach (two nights in a row!). As can be seen, I drank water, whereas my wife splurged on a glass of red wine (primitivo - I don't think this means 'primitive'!) and a fillet of sea bass. 

After leaving the restaurant, we began to make our way back to the amphitheatre where the taxis are supposed to be, but this time via a different route than the one that we took in the morning. It helps having an inertial navigation device in my head.

Walking down one lane as chosen by the hand of serendipity, I saw the 'statue' that is pictured on the left. The sign behind it says Claudio Riso which made me stop and think for a minute. Riso means rice, but that's not the reason; then it clicked: for a few days before our departure, I had been watching videos* on YouTube about Bari and Puglia, and one of these (which of course I can't find now) had a segment inside the workshop of a craftsman who makes statuettes out of papier mâché (I vaguely remember doing something similar in primary school, although of course on a much lower level). Once having stumbled upon this treasure, we had to go down into the workshop, or rather into the display section of the workshop (the 'work' part is off-limits), enthusing and admiring the various statuettes. No prices were displayed, which is a bit off-putting. After a few minutes, Claudio (presumably) came out to talk to us (the video showed three old men, and Claudio is younger than I am). 

After gushing about the quality of his work, we asked about prices. The cheapest was about 60€ and the most expensive around 250€ - these were of Christian figures and so not interesting to us. Some of the statuettes had 'props', like a guitar or accordion; these extras made those statuettes very expensive. As my wife had arbitrarily set a price ceiling of 100€ - and this was before we knew how much the figurines cost - we didn't have too much choice in what to buy (there was no doubt that we would buy something). In the end we picked a figurine of an Italian dancer (shown below) dancing the pizzica, not the tarantella as I had assumed (this dance was shown in one of the YouTube videos, probably the same one mentioned above, and was also the rhythm chosen by the 'street artist' outside the fort two days ago). This was packed very securely and I hope that the lo-cost air flight will not damage it.

Then back to the amphitheatre, a taxi to the train station then 'home' after another boring train ride.

* I finally found the video that I watched before we went to Italy. The segment with Claudio Riso starts at 4:57 mins within the video and lasts for 3 minutes.

Italy 2022: Corso Cavour

After an even more sumptuous breakfast than the day before, eaten in the garden extension, we packed our bags and set out for our flat on Corso Cavour.  The taxi driver drove towards the centre of Bari and then suddenly (at least) for us stopped in a busy road. We had arrived. I was under the impression that the flat was to the north of the old city so that impression was immediately shattered.

We arrived at about 10:30 am and check in isn't supposed to be for another few hours. We had no way of contacting the flat's manager - or maybe we did: we sat in a cafe next door to the building and used their wi-fi to start sending messages. Eventually we received the codes to the flat and entered.

Shattered illusion #2: I thought that we had a self-catering flat with kitchen, similar to where we stayed in Torino or Venice. No: this is more like a bed and breakfast establishment. What irks is that the price of the flat is almost the same as the hotel, if not slightly more expensive. On the other hand, the hotel is situated in the middle of nowhere and this flat is in a good location.

Once in the flat and connected to the Internet, I looked on the map for where we were. Nowhere near where I thought we'd be. I went out looking for a supermarket - I knew that there was supposed to be one close to the flat, although I didn't know exactly where. A short reconnaissance mission revealed its location, maybe two minutes away. There I bought milk, rolls, tuna, cheese and salmon, the ingredients for easy meals.

After a rest, we got up and went for a walk along Corso Cavour, which appears to be a major through-fare.  I thought that the train station was towards the end of the road (as far as I am concerned), which just goes to show how disorientated I was. When I got to the building that I thought was the station, it turned out to be the Teatro Margherita - which was where the taxi driver dropped us off yesterday! In other words, we're about 500 metres south of the old city, should we decide to visit there again. Behind the theatre is an anchorage and the beginning of the sea promenade; we'll leave that for another evening.

Walking back to the flat, we passed several shoe shops, some of which were selling the type of shoe that I like. One of them had an even better model at a lower price: after I tried these on, I bought two pairs: one blue and one grey. They are much more comfortable than the toe-pinching shoes that I've been wearing for the past month; they are also the correct size (42).

Once we arrived at the flat, I checked the map of the area that I had been looking at previously and discovered that everything seemed to be upside-down, and that left is really right. I was looking for somewhere to eat, and once I figured out where to go, we set off. The first restaurant that seemed promising turned out to be not so promising, so we returned to an eatery that is somewhere between a cafe and a restaurant. It's also without service: one buys a slice of whatever, has it heated up and then one sits at a long table on an uncomfortable chair and eats. My wife had a potato and cheese pasty whereas I had a spinach one; total cost 4€. I think that I saw someone eating this kind of pasty on one of the YouTube Bari videos.

Quite tasty.

After returning home, I set out once more to find the train station which is supposed to be quite close. Using the 'Alice through the looking glass' approach, I quickly found the station; according to my phone, it's 360 metres from the flat, and it took me four and a half minutes to walk there. Of course, I walk quickly, but the major point is that it is very close. There is an interesting fountain in front of the station that I filmed.

Italy 2022: Bari rickshaw tour

The main activity for today was a rickshaw tour of the old city that should be a fun activity by itself, as well as getting a feeling for where everything is in the area.  So, after a good breakfast, we rode in a taxi that was waiting outside of the hotel (not especially for us!), taking us to the edge of the old city. Unfortunately, the map that was printed on the ticket receipt was not very good and didn't show where the rickshaw company was situated. We were dropped off where I've marked an X next to Piazza IV Novembre and walked through Piazza del Ferrarese; we didn't know it at the time, but already we had missed the turning that leads to Strada Valissa (marked in yellow). Instead we walked and walked through the old city in search of a road that we had no chance of finding. Eventually we returned to our starting point, where we found someone who could explain how to get to the tour company (the map section that appears above comes from a picture of a map that I photographed in a shop window; we didn't have it with us).

We arrived at 10:10 am (we were supposed to be there at 9:50) but couldn't approach the counter as there was a group of people hiring bicycles who took up the receptionist's attention for half an hour. When eventually they left, I explained that we had a reservation for 10 am but couldn't find the shop in time. No problem: we were transferred to the 11:30 am tour. I then spent some time looking for a shop where I could buy water and a new hat (my old straw hat had been ruined in the flight to Bari); I thought that I had filmed some of the sights, but later on it turned out that I had filmed my pocket - the old problem of thinking that the camera is on when it's off, and off when it's on.

Eventually our tour began, which was great fun. Riding in the rickshaw was a very good idea as we had shade from the sun and could see the sights with minimum effort. We had thought that the rickshaw driver would be the guide, but no: there was another rickshaw and maybe ten cyclists (including an Israeli couple whom we met whilst queuing yesterday for the flight) accompanying us. The guide pedalled the other rickshaw; we stopped at pre-determined points where the guide would get off her rickshaw and explain about where we stopped.

We had a good tour around the old city, visiting the Castello Svevo (where a 'pavement artist' hijacked the group for making some music - I think that this was a case of the 'artist' seeing the group then asking to perform for us, rather than something planned in advance) which is opposite the famous orecchietta alley (most of the YouTube videos about Bari that we watched in preparation for this trip included a visit to this alley). From there we went through various alleys, including those that we had erroneously walked through in the morning. Then the alleys were wide and empty, and all the doors along them were closed; now the alleys were full of half-full restaurants and there was barely room for our rickshaw to pass without causing problems. Surprisingly for us, the tour finished at the Basilica of St Nicholaus, that was actually the furthest point that I reached in my early morning searches. 

While we were waiting in the tour company's shop for the tour to begin, I noticed a poster for an antiques sale that would take place today at Via Napoli 260. I didn't know where that was, but on the way to the Castello we actually went past this site. This is not the sort of thing that I enjoy but my wife really loves these. We asked our rickshaw driver about this and he said that he would take us there after the tour finished. 

The antiques sale was a odd mixture of high quality glassware and linen mixed with a load of what might politely be termed rubbish. I left my wife to it and walked off in search of a new hat that I found quite quickly (written on the label is "100% paper, made in China"). I walked back to the market where my wife was engrossed in checking out the goods. I sat down on a bench and read my kindle until I heard her shouting my name - she needed money to pay for some glass ornaments that she wanted. By chance, I had earlier seen in the market another two people who had been with us in the queue for checking in the day before.

It was now about 3 pm and finally we were feeling a little hungry. I had seen that there was a small restaurant situated by the market, Tuccio, so we went in there. Strangely enough, we were served by a waiter who is a Christian Arab from a village in the north of Israel who is studying medicine in Italy; he could talk us through the menu in Hebrew. We ordered a single portion of fried hake and potatoes  between us that was more than filling. After paying, we asked the waiter to order a taxi to take us back to the hotel; while we were waiting, my wife talked with two of the waiters and I talked with the proprietor (also young) about Italy and Israel and economic conditions. Very interesting. After some time the taxi came and took us back to our luxury hotel that would be excellent had it been located closer to the old city.

After showering and resting for an hour, my body was screaming out for tea. We went down into the lobby of the hotel, intending to go outside and look for a cafe when I noticed that there was a bar next to the lobby. Aside from the alcoholic drinks it was also possible to order tea with cakes; as opposed to the 'hot' water available at breakfast, this hot water was boiling, and so we had two very good cups of tea each as well as a pastry (filled with cream and cherries - pasticciotto, a local favourite).

After this, we wandered around the lobby and the area outside, which is exceedingly well set out with plenty of shrubs and trees. One of the staff saw us come out and followed us, asking if we wanted a taxi but we said that we just wanted to enjoy the outside of the hotel.

After a while we came back in and went up to our room. Tomorrow we will have another good, if not better, breakfast then we will pack before decamping to our holiday apartment.

If I had to award marks for the day, I would give it 9/10 where the only bad part was the unnecessary (and frustrating) wandering around looking for the tour company.

Italy 2022: Travelling low-cost

The scenes of a crowded Ben Gurion airport shown on television caused us to leave home at 2:30 pm Saturday in order to be at BG at 3 pm, three and a half hours before take off. But as Ryanair flies from the old terminal 1, there weren't very many people there, and we had to wait maybe twenty minutes for the Ryanair check-in to open. Apart from being forced to buy N-95 masks, there were no queues at passport control or luggage checking either. As a result, we sat in the departures lounge for about two hours (I had stopped looking at the time).

The flight to Bari was without incident, although it wasn't exactly a pleasurable experience. Maybe I've forgotten what it's like to fly, but I'm sure that in previous flights I didn't have someone in the adjacent seat digging his elbow into my stomach, as happened a few times. As can be seen in the accompanying photo, we had to be masked at all times, except when eating. We didn't eat on the plane, partially because I (at least) wasn't hungry, but also because most of the items on the plane's menu had been eaten, presumably on the flight from Bari to Tel Aviv. Next week, the flight leaves at 3:30 local time, arrives at Tel Aviv, the engineers retwist the rubber band that powers the aircraft, passengers get on then the plane flies home to Bari. The food gets eaten on the first leg and little is left for the return flight. The touch-down was rather bumpy but that's what one gets when one flies low cost. I do admit though that almost all of my apprehensions did not happen.

Once we got off the plane and through passport control (with only two open booths, so we had to queue for a while), the rest happened very fast. Our single suitcase was on the carousel just as I arrived, so no waiting there. Our pre-booked driver was waiting for us and took us to our sumptuous hotel, where unfortunately we won't have much of a chance to enjoy its facilities as we are here only for two nights.

Senecio walks up the rear garden stairs

Today I just had to wear my new shirt and grab a picture walking up the rear garden stairs. I'm not taking the shirt with me, otherwise we'd have to suffer a series of pictures entitled 'Senecio walks around the old town of Bari', 'Senecio in Lecce' and similar.

There's some weird English written underneath the signature of Paul Klee that also appears on the front of the shirt: "[Art is combined] but with flowers, not with rocy [sic] causes but with ultimate values, not with sex but withisom [sic] not, yunparis [sic] vii [sic] with human nature but with human being. Art is life (riverstone)".

If there is one thing that I detest, it is grammatical errors in t-shirt English; here it's not even English. Presumably "withisom" is supposed to be "with wisdom", but I have no idea what "vunparis vii" is supposed to mean. Also presumably the comma after 'not' should be before it.

Italy 2022: pre-flight check

A major impediment to taking a holiday has been removed, now that the Covid-19 travel restrictions have been lifted. Aligned with this is the fact that my wife will be having surgery on her foot soon, so now seems to be the time to reacquaint ourselves with Italy. Somehow the name 'Bari' was floated - I think that it came from the travel agent - but once I looked into it, Bari became not only a possibility but a definite location. On the map below it's approximately where the red circle is. 

As one can see, Bari is in the south of Italy, on the Adriatic coast, and far away from most of the well-known Italian cities. Not very many people here seem to have heard of Bari*, which in a sense is a good thing, as we won't be hearing Hebrew for a week. Also very interesting is the fact that Rick Steves' 2019 guidebook for Italy stops at Naples/Sorrento/Capri, ignoring Puglia province (in which Bari is situated) as well as Sicily.

We are flying with Ryanair, which is going to be an experience in itself and the major source of apprehension. They fly to and fro once a week on Saturdays only. Once we had the flight sorted out, we could begin working on where to stay; as we had only a few days prior to flying, most places were booked out. Fortunately I was able to snag a very good looking flat in the old town from Monday till Saturday; we'll stay in a hotel for the first two nights and transfer on Monday morning.

Due to various pressures on Sunday when we were working on this, I actually booked for the wrong week! Although the penny dropped quite quickly, it seemed at one stage that Booking would not return our payment, but fortunately that was all sorted, and this morning I saw that my credit card had indeed been credited with the double payment (i.e. the money has been returned).

We're going to play this holiday loose and easy, primarily because of my wife's waning walking abilities, about which I have written probably on every holiday. Fortunately it seems that our flat is in a very good location so there won't be that much walking. 

I didn't notice this before but it's almost exactly ten years since we were in Dubrovnik (a little later in June 2012) and if Dubrovnik is the pearl of the Adriatic, then Bari, almost opposite to Dubrovnik on the other side of the sea, is at least a ruby of the Adriatic. Basically all we want is sea, an old city and a chance to relax a little. I'm sure we'll get all that and more. 

[Incidentally, my previous blog about Senecio did get sent to me automatically, so the hypothesis that blogs with pictures don't get sent has just been falsified.]

* Later on, we discover that two of the families living in the next-door building were in the Bari area at the same time as we were, although we didn't meet.

Senecio lives!

Several years ago I wrote about my connection to this painting 'Senecio' by Paul Klee, so I'm not going to repeat it here. Instead I'll explain why my attention was drawn to the painting anew.

Last night, during a commercial break from the news, my eyes caught an advert that appeared to be set in Italy, selling t-shirts. As I don't have the kind of body that looks good these days in a t-shirt, I wasn't too interested ... until one of the actors turned his back to the camera. On the reverse side of the shirt there was a print of Senecio! It was only visible for a few seconds, and I wonder how many people noticed it.

This morning, by chance, I happened to be in our local shopping mall where is situated a branch of the clothing company that created the television advert. I entered and explained that I was looking for the t-shirt worn in the new advertisement by actor/model Ran Danker (I could identify him, but not his two cronies in the advert). The salespeople didn't know what I was talking about at first, but after a few minutes, they found the shirt that RD was wearing and its catalogue number. Another minute later and I was looking at the shirt itself, or more accurately, at its back. Indeed, Senecio lives. Naturally I bought the shirt.

I wonder whether the Klee estate gets a cut from this sale.

[Although Blogger says that it sends the contents of a blog entry automatically to a list of emails, more often than not this doesn't happen. I have a working hypothesis that having a picture in the blog entry prevents it from being sent. I'll soon see whether my hypothesis is confirmed.]

Update from two months later: I get the impression that the advert that caught my eye was broadcast once only (at least, I've never seen it again), so it was very much serendipity that allowed me to catch it.