Apologies my arse!

The most meaningless, abused and pathetic word of the English language, must be, by far, the word apology and all its various derivates, such as apologies, my deepest apologies, please accept my apologies (what if I don't?), please let me first apologise... used countless of times by the most incompetent companies that I had the misfortune to deal with.

Recently, I went to Woolworths where I have asked for a Virgin phone card but I got a Vodafone card instead. I complained to the cashier about it but she replied to me in a I am not bovvered attitude that I have asked for a Vodafone card in the first place. Her manager was incompetent as much as her colleague, so I forwarded a letter of complaint to the Head Office. What did I get? An apology, you guessed right. Did I get my money back? Of course not.

Secondly, I have asked the Southwark council to shut down the hot water in my block for a few hours so I could carry out some work in my flat. I have sent an email and phoned the department in charge of this and I was told I would get an answer in a week.

A week passed and nobody called me, so I decided to speak with the council in person. Guess what? Apparently, the email I have forwarded them didn't reach the person in charge ... how crap service is that? And you guessed right again, they did apologize for the inconvenience. Wow, I felt so much better, all of a sudden, instead of wishing to have a machine gun with me, I would happily swapped it for a tiny machete.

The clerk didn't admit it was a crap service, no no no, apologies yes, admitting to be a bunch of underdeveloped human beings unable to send an email from A to B, no way. Did I get then the work carried out straight away? No. Did they speed up the process? No, again. Did they get the person who screwed up (Carly , I wrote her name down when I made my first enquiry) and kicked her in the shins? The clerk immediately replied that we don't know where it went wrong. Ignorance is blessed, always will be.

But the most horrible thing in this supposed customer service apology rubbish is that you cannot raise your voice because otherwise they don't want to deal with you. And why is that? They are the ones that screwed up in the first place and you have the bloody right to raise your voice, clinch your fist and tell them to go where the sun does not shine.

But no, instead you have to keep your calm and use the only weapon allowed: sarcasm. They can't do anything against sarcasm because it is an indirect, childish, silly and apparently perfectly gentleman's way to deal with a situation. I don't know why sarcasm in this country is so overrated, I guess it's another side of the politically correct culture that is intoxicating our society.

So I asked the Southwark council clerk: "How long do you reckon it would take to sort out my enquiry? She replied that it was difficult to say.

"A week?" She shrugged her shoulders.

"A month? A year? Before or after London 2012?" I re-asked.

Silence.

She was just waiting for me to go away, satisfied with her word APOLOGY stuck right up my arse.

Thank you Silvio

I am not being sarcastic here. I really mean it: thank you, Silvio Berlusconi. Now I remember why I like you, and why I am still proud to be Italian.

"Young, beautiful and suntanned" was not a racist joke, unless by racist we mean anything said by a white man to a black man. If that's the case, and for many people it is the case, please let's just admit that and forget once and for all about freedom of speech and equality rights.

What Berlusconi said was a compliment. After all, would you feel angry if someone had called you young? Or beautiful? Or... suntanned?

Now, the Politically Correct brigade was outraged by that word, "suntanned". For them it was a reminder of Obama's different colour of skin. Really? Oh, but dear Politically Correct hypocrites, it's been months that you are moaning a black man should be in the White House! or White Americans are too racist to vote for a black man... It's been months you were talking about race, so why Berlusconi can not make a simple joke then?

And apart from that, the word suntanned is indeed a compliment in Italy. Italians get fake tan in winter as much as they can, and in summer, if you are not suntanned you are either a vampire or an Englishman.

The most outraged people in this story were politicians from the Italian Left (still pissed off to have lost the election) and silly Italians abroad scared to be judged as racists by the so called more advanced countries regarding immigration but... not Obama! He didn't make a fuss about what Berlusconi had said because he has more brains than all those idiots who were feeling sorry for him. More brains than the media too, insisting that Berlusconi had made a gaffe and should be apologizing.

Berlusconi has all my admiration for not apologizing to the media or to Obama. I am sure that the day the two will meet, they will have a laugh about it.

And now blame Obama (if you dare)

The US has elected the President the world was waiting for, or so the vast majority of the media have told us to believe. He is The Change, they say, the Hope, the New America. On top of that he had more money to spend for his campaign than McCain (income equality anyone?) and he is younger (ageism anyone?) and... this is the best part of it... he is not another God damn white asshole.

From now on, until January, the media will bombard us with Obama, they will convince us to believe that he is the right man to make the world a safe place again, like it used to be (before Bush they mean). But regardless of the stories the media is going to say, there are only two possible outcomes: either Obama behaves like a True Leftie, or he steers to the centre and sometimes, God or Allah forbid, to the Evil Right.

Let's not forget that President Obama has been voted for by many Lefties, and sooner or later, unless he transforms the USA into a new Soviet Dream, he is going to disappoint many people.

Imagine, if Obama does a Bushy thing, like fighting terrorism for instance, what the anti-American brigade will do? Who are they going to blame for the problems in the world? China? Still red. Russia? Too scared. Al Qaeda? Yeah right... Sooner or later America will return to be the enemy number one. But this time they will not have the easy target of the redneck cowboys such as Reagan or Bush, they will have to aim their anger towards... a black man, son of an immigrant... have they got the guts to do that?

I can only think they will invent a "white conspiracy" of some sort. Or focus their anger on Berlusconi, you know, that showman talking about Change, full of money (to run a campaign) white ass-hole...

Tuna and baked beans combo anyone?

Now this is a question I am begging the world to answer me: what's wrong with eating tuna and baked beans together?

I am asking this because now and then I eat tuna and baked beans during my lunchtime and I regularly get funny looks from my British colleagues... I am very surprised of this, after all in this country people eat sausages and beans or other oddity (to my continental taste) such as tortellini or beans on toast, Christmas pudding, mince meat pies and jacket potatoes with cheese and tuna.

The other funny looks I get is when I eat chunks of parmesan Cheese. I have noticed in England people eat parmesan cheese but only when cut in small crumbs on top of pasta but hey, parmesan cheese is actually better if eaten just like that, au natural.

I guess I am just being a grumpy bloody foreigner and I will only become a true Englishman the day I will drink tea with milk and sugar... now do you call that normal?

The country run by nutters...

In a short story of Edgar Allan Poe titled "The System of Dr. Tarr and Prof. Fether", a group of nutters run an asylum instead of the doctors. Scary stuff, an asylum run by nutters! It was havoc, so what if a whole country was run by a bunch of psychos? Sure it cannot be possible! Well, think again and take a trip to Myanmar.

Myanmar, or Burma as it used to be called, is a fascinating country. The food is not the best in Asia but the sightseeing is truly amazing. Take for example the city of Bagan, the old capital: where else can you find more than 2,000 temples in a radius of 14 kilomteres with so few tourists that you can literally have one or more temples just for yourself for the day? Local artisans make paper, lacquer boxes, jewellery, paintings and anything you can think of for very cheap price.

The Burmese are also a wonderful bunch of people. Polite and nice as the Thais, but because they have not been much in contact with tourists they are nice in a different way, more sincere I would say. Tourism in Burma is in fact not very developed. For every tourist in Myanmar there are aproximately 5,000 in Thailand. People stare at you but even though they are poor they don't hassle you that much for money and if they do, they at least always try to provide you with a service.

Saying that, the country is a mess. Roads and railway tracks are the ones the British built more than sixty years ago and even in big cities like Mandalay (800,000 people live there) the streets have holes like craters and no street-lights. Forget about traffic lights either, people just honk and scramble crossing the road, praying Buddha that everything will work out.

The reason why the country is so underdeveloped it is because is run by a bunch of nutters, just like the asylum in Poe's story: a military junta that have been in power since the British left the country. The junta is doing business mainly with India and China because of the oil, pocketing the money and beating up or executing anybody complaining about the government and the lack of free speech. The Americans have put an embargo (no cash machines in the whole country!) but this is not helping the people, just isolating Myanmar even more from the rest of the world.

The military junta are so out of their mind that they have even moved the capital from Yangon to the jungle for "security reason". More likely to hide the gigantic villas and swimming pools, I dare to say.

Some Human Rights groups argue that tourists should stay away from the country claming that by going there the junta will profit and get stronger even more. As always, idealist Leftish groups don't use their brains and forget to notice that tourism generates a very small fraction of the revenue of the country. Until China and India keep dealing with the junta because of the oil, tourism means just monkey business and staying away from the country will not make any difference to the people in power. But it will for the people. In fact by going to Myanmar, I have given money to restaurant owners, porters, taxi drivers, rickshaw drivers, guides and so on, people that without me will have earned less or no money that day.

The other good reason to go to Myanmar, is that if more foreigners go there, the world will know more about what's going on in the country and maybe, one day, the nutters will go back to the asylum... as patients this time.

The importance of the race

Recently I read, that in the not too distant future, all the races in the world will be mixed so that it will be impossible anymore to classify people as white, black and so on. 

This is great news, I can't wait for that day because, to be honest, the more I read the papers, the more I get the impression that race issues are getting worse by the day. Want an example? I will give you two, from my homeland, Italy.

A week ago, a young black african man, Abdul Salam Guibre, an Italian citizen born in Burkina Faso, has been beaten to death in Milan. The young man, only 19 years old, was caught stealing some biscuits from a van belonging to the owners of a nearby bar. 

Now, the boy has been killed in a very brutal manner and the level of violence of his beating was out of proportion, I can't see how anybody can disagree with that. There was also a racial issue probably, and I am not surprised the owners of the bar got more angry by the fact the young man was black.

 Saying that, I find it ridiculous, the way part of the media and the Left have tried to corrupt a tragedy into a political move. First of all, Walter Veltroni, leader of the PD (the ex-ex Communist Party) has declared that in Italy there is "lots of hate", and then, a few days after the killing, young Communists have marched through the streets where the killing had happened, throwing paint and bottles at the bar and creating havoc.

Now I ask, how come the Left always raise their voice only when a black person or a non-Italian is hurt? Where were Mr Veltroni and the Left brigade during the countless number of times the Italian citizens (mostly white, remember) have been the victims? A young white Italian girl was killed by a couple of illegal Romanian women in Rome a few months ago, and the Left said nothing, did nothing, cared nothing. The Left complains that in Italy the color of the skin makes the difference but they are the first ones to apply this rule.

Now, a second example: in Caserta, six immigrants have been killed Sopranos style by Camorra mobsters. The main reason camorristi kill is because you have pissed them off, meaning you are doing business where you shouldn't. The Camorra is not a nice organization but it is very egalitarian, it kills regardless of the color of skin or social status. There have been thousands of killings like that since I can remember, but now because the people killed were black people, the other black people in town had the great idea of starting a riot claiming the killing was for a racial reason. The Left agrees, after all, who wants to be called a racist?

The day all the races become one, we will all live in peace... or more likely we will find other ways to behave like idiots.  

 

It was forty years ago...

Forty years ago was 1968. I wasn't there and I can't (thanks God) tell the world where I was, what I did, who I belonged to and what I believed in. Unfortunately for me and for many of you that, like me, were not born or "active" in 1968, there are countless stories and myths from the lucky ones who were there.

I have first of all a sneaky feeling that 1968 has been blown out of proportion by the now nostalgic 60-ish years old that in the late sixties were young. I personally think that 1996 was a great year too, don't remember what happened in the world but I was twenty and wild.

The boys and girls of 1968 claim they were politically active and aware of what was going on in the outside world. They wanted peace, freedom and justice, unfortunately they had the tendency to steer towards the Far Left, to the wonderful world of the Soviet Union, who exactly in that year occupied with tanks the country of Czechoslovakia. How did they miss that? Vietnam was at the time a more exotic and fashionable issue, I suppose.

Ex-hippies are proud of the way they lived that year: long hair, marijuana, sex with no strings attached, quality rock bands to listen to, concerts where to go wild and tell the world to fuck off! That was great, I agree but… where is the politics? Do we really think the hippies had a clue of what they were talking about? Jimi Hendrix and Bob Dylan were stoned most of the time, and even if the answers is blowing in the wind, can we please know what this bloody answer is? By the way, getting rid of our armaments or nuclear power was as daft as thinking Czechoslovakia was occupied by the Soviets for good intentions.

Will Smith for President!

I think Will Smith should run for the presidency of the United States.

I mean, look at him, he has much more credibility than Obama: he is more black, more hip and younger than the Democrat candidate. Think I am kidding? I wish I was, but race, age and "hipness" are the qualities that define the myth of Barack Obama, seen by the Liberals, the anti-Americans and most of the Europeans journalists as the perfect president for the USA.

On TV and in the newspapers, in fact, Obama is acclaimed and glorified. Even Boris Johnson, the Conservative Mayor of London, is cheering for him. Now here is who I think the Obama supporters are:

- The vast majority of black people, because Obama .... (similar to the way I would vote for a bald politician).

- Young people, because Obama is younger than the other chap, and the times they are a changin'...

- Naive people, because Obama "has not been" in politics for eternity the way McCain has been. So what, Winnie the Pooh hasn't been either.

- Liberals, because Obama is a Socialist with an "ethnic" name, and they can't wait to finally turn the US into a kind of Britain or France.

- The European journalists, because Obama is not another white old bastard, but a hip, Socialist with an "ethnic" name, and because they feel, somehow, still guilty of the European colonies in Africa.

- Bruce Springsteen, because by supporting Obama he can sell more albums.

- Boris Johnson, because he wants to look hip and branch out to the Left, i.e. get more votes in Peckham next time.

Now, going back to Will Smith, not only he is black, hip and young but he can also sing, act and make us laugh. On top of that, if I am not mistaken, he doesn't hang out with a black Nazi-like character such as Jeremiah Wright, the reverend of Mr Obama's church, that proclaimed white people invented AIDS to kill black people...

Man in Black, save America, please!

Beijing 2008, Lhasa 2068?

The XXIX Olympiad will start in Beijing on the (apparently) auspicious day of the 8th of August 2008. I must say, I feel rather ambivalent towards both the Olympic Games and the host nation.

The Olympics used to be the greatest sporting event of the planet, but when the idea of the modern games was conceived, sport was not the global brand it is now. I ask myself: do the Olympics still have a meaning? They are supposed to be for amateurs but the great majority of athletes are now professionals. What is also the point to include a sport like football for example, where winning the gold medal is as important as the Charity Shield?

Something that has always puzzled me about the Olympics is: why they have to be hosted by only one city and they last only two weeks with so many competitions to run, and the Football World Cup, for example, lasts a month and it is hosted by an entire nation, if not two?

To spice the games up a bit I can suggest the host nation should decide which competitions to include. I.e., in 2012 London will host the games, so why not pick the favourite British sports that will shoot the nation up to the top of the medal table? Darts, bridge, croquet, snooker, queuing and binge drinking, all come to mind. At least the host country will not have to go into trouble in fixing the results of some competitions, such as boxing, gymnastics or synchronized swimming. Ever noticed that in almost every Olympiad the host nation gets many more medals than in any other previous or future Olympics? Must be the food I guess, the climate, the... yes you guessed it right.

China then, why do I feel ambivalent? I must say I like China. I have been there before and I have learned a tiny tiny bit of Mandarin. China has an amazing culture that gave us Confucius, noodles, Kung Fu and the Great Wall. The Chinese are very hospitable people, they work very hard, and they are more capitalists (it's a compliment) than the Westerners.

But what I don't like about China is the dictatorial government, still stubbornly Communist. What I would like the Chinese to do is to get rid of their obsolete regime or finally come clear about their intentions: do they want capitalism, democracy and freedom, or do they want Communism and repression? It looks like they want both. On one hand they are open to the world market and on the other they still have a red flag, the picture of Criminal Mao everywhere and Tibet under control.

I have noticed Chinese people do not care and do not want to talk about Tibet, an independent country that was taken by force, just like the Nazis did with Poland. I can only assume that people believe the government is always right and they think all is for the best.

The Tibetan issue is not only relevant to China but also to the Western world. Especially to the Left, who always ready to fight for human rights (or so it seems) are quite shy in pointing the finger at China, a Communist country after all. Remember South Africa during apartheid? They couldn't even participate in the Olympic Games!

Some people believe the Olympic Games will help the process of freedom of speech in China. I really hope it will, but I am very doubtful we will ever witness an independent Tibet. Lhasa 2068? You dream.

Councils: what do they know?

As per my previous post, I am in the process of trying to buy a house but I am having some trouble getting a mortgage. The problem I'm having is that the flat I am buying is in an ex-council building where there are five floors, and Nationwide doesn't give mortgages if you are trying to buy a flat in an ex-council building that has got more than four floors.

I have tried to convince the surveyors that the building has indeed five floors but only four in the part of the building where the flat I want to buy is. Well, because mathematics is now apparently an opinion, the surveyors counted five floors also in the part of the building where my flat is situated. Even though, if you walk up the stairs you can only go up to the fourth floor!

Now, in the last attempt to make the deal, I thought to check with the council exactly how many floors there are in the building and get a paper to prove that. Well, that should be easy, shouldn't it? I mean , Southwark council built the property so they should know how many floors there are... In fact I even have a letter from the council stating that in block 1 there are 3 floors, in block 2 there are 4 floors and so on. The problem with the paperwork I have received from the council is that it's not clear what the word "block" refers to.

I called the council to try to shed some light on the situation.

Although the council has built the building, the only thing the administrator could tell me was that the building was erected in the '60s and that... well that's it really. I asked if it was possible to know how many floors there are in each section of the building and what is the meaning and the location of the "blocks" mentioned in their report. The administrator said he didn't know, the property was built long time ago and there are no more details.

I asked the administrator what should I do to confirm the number of floors in the building and the administrator gave me an advice to get a survey for it... "Yes, I explained, I did get a survey but the surveyor said there are five floors in my part of the building and I need a letter to prove that there are only four floors and that's why I am asking you, the council who erected the building in the first place"

"Oh, I see" he said. Then silence. "Hmm..." Then silence again.

Silence, the only thing the council knows.

Banks: what do they know?

The best definition of a bank is the following:
"An institution that gives you an umbrella when the sun is out but wants it back when it rains".

For years banks were giving mortgages to any sort of people knocking to their doors. The economy was booming (or so they thought) and home-buyers were able to borrow up to 7 times their salary. Banks were being unreasonably optimistic and/or cynic and many borrowers were deluding themselves. How could people borrow more than 100% of the cost of the property? This is beyond the point of what I call human intelligence.

Now, due to the credit crunch, banks have made a 360 degrees turnaround of their policies. They don't give mortgages to people who can afford one and they come up with the most stupid rules they can think of.

Me and my girlfriend are currently trying to finance an ex-council property in the Elephant and Castle area with Nationwide. Banks don't like ex-council flats, and they try to put you off as much as they can from this type of property but for people like me the choice is not between a private property and ex-council. My choice is between ex-council, pay rent forever or waiting for the Second Coming of the Communist Party.

Nationwide at first decided to give us a mortgage. However, a couple of weeks later we got a letter, saying they cannot offer us the mortgage any more because the property where the flat is located is more than four storeys high. Apparently Nationwide is strict on this rule: more than four floors in an ex-council property and you don't get a mortgage.

The peculiar thing about this building is that there are only four floors but then, bizarrely, in one wing there are five. God knows why the council in 1966 decided to raise a council building with a sprung out floor, maybe because the planners were all celebrating the only World Cup England has ever managed to win I suppose... However, for the sake of one bloody floor, the bank will not give me the rate it had originally promised.

This means that I have lost precious time and I need to look for another bank. This also means I will definitely be getting a worse rate. But, as Nationwide probably will prefer, I can always go insane and buy a flat in a private property and then ask the bank for a mortgage 5-6 times my salary.

I will probably be better off by blowing up the entire fifth floor of the property... come that to mind.

The king is dead. Long live the king

It had been a very long Sunday afternoon and one of the most exciting Wimbledon finals of all times, but in the end we have all understood that after five years of dominance, Roger Federer is not the king of tennis any more.

The final was doomed from the start. In the first two sets Federer made lots of unforced errors and he wasted too many break points. Probably the Roland Garros left a scar on his confidence, and although he had enjoyed a good tournament at Wimbledon up to the final, he knew the real test was to face Nadal.

If the rain hadn't decided to change the screenplay of the match, Federer could have been down and out in three sets. Instead he was able to come back, win two sets at the tie-break and then... well... Nadal was amazing and I think he believed in victory more than Federer. I could be wrong, but I think Federer was too scared to lose to be able to play his best.

I really wanted Federer to win, even if my money was on Nadal. Federer's style of playing is amazing, and when he is in form, he plays with the wisdom of a Buddhist monk and the graciousness of Nureyev. Nadal, on the other hand, is all power, muscles and hard work. When I watch Nadal playing tennis I think that life is sufferance, when I watch Federer I think life could be a dream.

After this match Nadal is the first man after Borg to have won Roland Garros and Wimbledon in the same year, even though in the '70s winning at Wimbledon was much harder than now for base-liners. Federer was very close to achieving the same in 2006 and 2007 but Nadal always stood in his way. Who knows where this Spanish kid can go now but more importantly for me and for all Federer fans is: "Will King Roger come back to be the best tennis player in the world?"

I have mentioned the rain in this post and this final will also be remembered as the last final where the rain was allowed to take part. I think from next year part of the magic of Wimbledon will be gone. No more players will be watching the sky hoping for rain or cursing the interruption. No more the rain will allow the champion a chance to come back into a game to try to turn defeat into victory.

Bring the smoke back where it belongs

Today, 1st July 2008, it is one year of a smoke-free England.

I am a non-smoker. In 30 years I must have smoked no more than twenty cigarettes. However, I am completely against the smoking ban in public places and I actually think that a law that forbids to smoke in a bar is as much stupid as a law forbidding to have sex in a brothel.

The first issue I have against this law is that, as all bad things, it started in Maastricht. Every single day that passes by, countries lose their autonomy and they follow like sheep whatever the sages of the European Union parliament come up with. The law in fact was applied in many European countries, such as my native Italy, as far back as January 2005. At first I thought the Italians would reject the idea and make a pandemonium, but I was mistaken. Italians are now just like the rest of their European buddies: they do as they are told.

What I always liked about England was that this country never gave a toss about Europe. Europe drives on the right and we keep the left. They get the Euro and we keep the pound. They agree on Schengen and we don't. They cannot smoke in a bar and we bloody do!

But then, things change and because Europe must be right, because smoking is bad, because the society is rotten in political correctness rubbish, we ban smoking in every public place.

Now, many people agree with this law because either they don't smoke or they do smoke but they actually think it's not healthy and civilised to smoke in front of other people.

Being at the same time a non-smoker and against the ban, I am probably a grumpy Neanderthal, a nutcase or probably both. However, controversial it may seem, since the smoking ban was introduced, bars and clubs have lost any soul to me.
I used to like to go in a bar, especially in winter, and be part of a scene where friends and people smoked and drank, with the smoke creating an atmosphere that was as part of the bar as much as the beer in the glasses. To me a bar is where the cigarette was supposed to be enjoyed. Now, thanks to the new law, bars looks like hospitals with drinks and what I also can't stand is to see all these smokers been puked outside bars and clubs like prisoners in their hour of freedom. At the same time though, I see them as being part of a sacred circle. If I was still going clubbing, I will probably become a smoker: now the real excitement is to be out in the street.

Convinced? Probably not.

You see, I was born in very political incorrect times and I thank God for that. When I was a kid and had a fever or was ill, my mother used to bring me to see a GP. He was a big guy with a beard and… he was always smoking. Always. Any time of the year he was keeping the window open and, puffing a cigarette, he used to tell me what I had or didn't have. I grew up with the sight of my doctor smoking in front of me and, forever since, a doctor with a cigarette in his mouth is the doctor I trust the most. I have never met one since and if I do, it will only be in prison.

The other issue I have with the smoking ban is that why cannot people decide if they want a no-smoking pub or a smoking one? Why not let the owner of the pub decide what to do with his own business? People should have a choice, in a free society. I don't see why I cannot decide to be unhealthy, if I want to.

The curse of the (young) white man

The new Equality Bill is a typical example of a sort of good idea in theory that turns out stupid in practice and underlines again the double standards of this Labour government.

The Equality Bill is supposed to tackle discrimination at work, to make sure that ethnic minorities, older people and women get fairly treated as the other members of the public. However, as per Labour MP Harriet Harman, firms can discriminate in favour of female and ethnic minority job candidates.
Basically, if there are two people with the similar experience, skills and ability, firms can choose one of the candidates based on sex, religion, age and race. Therefore young, white, male and atheist candidates are the ones who will pay the price. Well done, Ms Harman, how do you call this? I call it DISCRIMINATION. Exactly what the Equality Bill was supposed to get rid off...

I think it will make more sense to let employers decide the candidates with their own judgement. If then their own judgement is biased and they get the wrong people for the wrong job, their business will suffer.

P.S: Male and white I may be, but luckily I am a foreigner and a Catholic... and age gets better by the day.

Penalties and Shearer

Wasn't the 22nd June supposed to bring bad luck to the Spanish? Well, this time it didn't and Italy is out. Bloody penalties, here we go again like in 1990, 1994 and 1998.

The match was very tense and tactical. Italy didn't play that well, apart in defence, but Spain was not spectacular either. What I am pissed off about is Luca Toni, how can we possibly win a match with a striker like that? I still believe Inzaghi could have saved the day, but all in all, Italy wasn't at its best and losing on penalties doesn't bring us shame. We bowed out fighting but not inspiring.

The thing that pisses me off the most, more than Luca Toni, was listening to the Spanish supporters, camouflaged as BBC commentators. Alan Shearer was the most annoying of them all, kept talking about how Italy was not trying to win the match, how Italy was boring, how Italy was lucky and so on, but I would like to remind to Mr Shearer that Italy without knowing how to play has won 4 World Cups and none of them with the help of a dodgy Russian linesman.

Can't wait for Alan Shearer to become a football manager and put into practice all his wisdom. I hope he will remember that in football defence is the key to winning games, World Cups, or qualifying for Euro 2008.

My favourite two weeks of the year...

... when Wimbledon is on.

This is definitely the best tennis tournament in the world, still played on grass, players wear white and sponsorship is not on every corner of the stadium, just like 100 years ago. For this reason Wimbledon has a touch of magic the other Grand Slams tournaments will never have.

To be honest, I am against the new roof on Central Court, which will be ready by next year. The possibility to play when it rains will help TV coverage and will allow the spectators on Central Court not to miss a ball, but it will take away a very important variable to Wimbledon matches: rain is an unpredictable possibility in a tennis match and sometimes it can be the deciding factor between winning and losing. If life was a tennis match, rain could be called destiny or God.

Remember Wimbledon 2001? Tim Henman, the best English hope in 70 odd years, was cruising through the match with Goran Ivanisevic. The match was going in Henman's direction until... the rain decided to fall. Match suspended and when the two players came back it was a completely different match and we all know how it ended: Ivanisevic won and Henman lost. It was unfair, I agree, but life is unfair too and tennis is a true metaphor for life: you play by yourself, anything can happen (good or bad) and you never know when the end arrives.

Talking about end, I am not so sure Roger Federer will win again this year. He is my favourite player because he plays with style and has amazing shots but I have bet on Nadal at 9-1 a couple of weeks ago (compared to Federer at 2.5-1) and I think Nadal could win the title this year.

Let's see if King Roger will prove me wrong.

Va va voom!

I have never enjoyed Thierry Henry goals... until tonight. The flick of his foot was amazing, just a little touch and De Rossi's free kick went straight into the French net. 2-0 and the Italian victory was sealed.

It has been a very tough match and my feelings had been proved wrong but I am not going to complain. We even got a penalty but so clear that nobody in the world, apart from the French coach Domenech and maybe Arsene Wenger could argue with.

The only bad points of the evening are the yellow cards for Gattuso and Pirlo. They will not play against Spain. We are not going to be the the favourites: Spain have Torres and Villa and we have Toni... how many chances does he need to score a goal? I actually miss Pippo Inzaghi, horrible player to watch but he is the most effective Italian striker after Baggio.

Oh, I almost forgot: thanks Holland! Van Basten is definitely still Donadoni golf-buddy.

Italy, out?

I can feel it... Italy going out tomorrow from Euro 2008. I suspect it will end up in a draw, or maybe a late victory followed by the Romanians beating Holland.

So far Italy hasn't played that well. However, after the goal in offside given to Holland (whatever the UEFA bureaucrats have to said about it... ) and the fantasy penalty given against us in the game with Romania and Toni's goal ruled out (what was wrong with it UEFA? Maybe Italy needed an injured Romanian player outside the pitch to validate it?) I have the sneaky feeling UEFA is not on our side.

I wish I could be proved wrong. Getting a penalty or a goal in offside would be handy.

42 days, I agree with it

I am not a fan of Gordon Brown and I much prefers the Tories on power than Labour, but I do agree with the Prime Minister regarding the extension of the terror detention limit to 42 days.

In UK, as in the rest of Europe, the legal system is too soft and criminals gets away too easily. The police needs more time to do their job properly and I can't see any reasons why to oppose the new law, unless you are a Human Right activist or Tory MP David Davis.

Human Rights activists, not surprisingly, disagree with the policy because their real intent is always to protect the terrorists. They come up every time with some pathetic excuses to stop the police doing their job but then, when something terrible like 9/11 or 7/7 happen, what they do? They blame the police and/or the secret services, of course.

Tory MP David Davis is probably bitter because he didn't get at the time the leadership of the Conservative Party and now he thinks he can get the limelight by pretending to be a champion of Liberty. More like a fool, considering his behaviour will weaken a Tory party that was doing so well in recent weeks.

Holland-Italy 3-0

Losing the first match of the tournament 3-0 against Holland it was not the best of starters for the Euro 2008 campaign. I admit that.

However, as Italian I am not too unhappy with the way Italy played and lost. To cite Abraham Lincoln: "Battles are won with the same spirit that they are lost" and tonight the fighting spirit was there.

First thing first: the first Holland goal, the one of Van Nilsterooy in clear offside was a ROBBERY. Holland played a wonderful match but let's no kid ourselves: the first goal changed the match and that goal was never a goal in the first place.

Italy tried to score in various occasions and Holland was deadly in the counter-attack but Holland did not walk over Italy and the final score could have been very different indeed. Toni, Del Piero, Di Natale e Pirlo had plenty of chances. The ball didn't go in, at least no tonight.

The first thing I did after the match was to go and bet on William Hill for Italy to win the tournament. Before this match Italy was 5-1 to win and now 12-1. Italy can still win Euro 2008 as much as they could before this match.

Holland will now probably win the group and I hope they will celebrate in style this great victory against the world champions. Tonight everything went well and it doesn't happen every day...

Jose' at Inter

It doesn't happen every day that the best football manager you can think of, join the team you have always supported. It happened today: Jose Mourinho has joined Inter Milan.

Mourinho has won a lot with Porto and Chelsea and if Abramovich had not fired him last September, I bet Chelsea would have won the Champions League and maybe the Premiership title this year.

Mourinho style of play is not always the most spectacular but always effective, winning for him is what football is all about and he's right. But more than his style of football, what I like about Mourinho is his personality with the media: he has a cool image, sense of humour, a charisma "leader of the pack" type that reminds me of a James Dean or a Maximum Decimus Meridius. Some people consider him arrogant and full of himself and maybe he is, but he has the guts to give no toss about what other people think of him. I much prefer a sincere arrogant like him than a fake modest such as, come to mind, Arsene Wenger or Rafa Benitez.

I am also curious to see the reaction of the Italian media. Sports journalist in Italy are too serious about football and they always miss the funny side of the game. I am not sure they will appreciate Mourinho's sense of humour or his mind games towards rival teams or comments on the referees. He will, I am sure, come up with some new metaphors, remember the one about of the good and bad eggs and the omelette?

Mourinho relationship with president Moratti will be crucial for his success at Inter. The problem with Moratti is that, just like Abramovich, he has plenty of money but doesn't understand football and he wants to have a word in who to buy or how to play. Mourinho on the other hand is very stubborn and proud, he likes to manage in his own terms and at Inter it will not be easy. Saying that, this is definitely a tough job, who else can fill it other than the Special One?

Bruce, almighty?

Last night I went to the library, I mean... I went to see Bruce Springsteen at the Emirates Stadium.

I am a big fan of his music (but not his political views) and I have seen him four times in concert. The best one was in Paris during "The Rising" tour in 2002. I was standing a stone away from the stage and I met lots of fans like me and it was exciting. I felt like one of the few "chosen ones", able to enter the small circle of people with the wristbands, the ones who can say "I was there he winked at me, ha ha ha".

This time, being a bit older, and less fanatic about Bruce, I decided to buy a seating ticket because I couldn't face three or more hours of queuing outside, considering that I was going to the concert by myself. But I thought it was going to be ok, because I had in the past bought a seating ticket for one of his concerts and everybody, from the first tune to the last chorus, was standing anyway. At least that was 10 years ago but this time... with my bewilderment, everybody was instead glue to the seat and the only movement I could spot was was the hammering of the feet or the nodding of the head... depressing indeed.

I must admit the majority of the crowd was over 50 years old of age and I can understand a more moderate approach to a rock concert than youngsters in their 20s but hey, Bruce himself is 58, if he can jump and sing for more than two hours, the supporters can at least stand up and punch the air a little bit, can they? No, apparently.

It was weird to watch the concert that way. I felt a bit bored, the music was not that loud, the view not that great and it seemed to me Bruce himself was not as able as before to carry the crowd with him. It was also the fact that a concert in the stadium, is not, in my opinion, as good as the concert in a closed space. There is a lack of atmosphere in this type of concert and Bruce at 35 was able to step up to the challenge but at 58, I am afraid not.

Another thing that let me perplex was that some people left three quarters into the concert, what's the point of that? I have paid for all the ticket! That remind me an Arsenal-Sunderland match I saw a few years ago. Arsenal was up 2-0 and many Sunderland supporters were leaving the stadium with I think more than 20 minutes to play. I was surprised to see them leaving so early because they were coming from miles away to see their team and then you never know... in fact Sunderland scored 3 goals in a blink of an eye, won the match and went to the next stage of the Carling Cup. I could painfully imagine what the Sunderland supporters that had left early had to say to their wifes when they come back home: "Hi honey, took a day off work, travelled all the country for a silly Carling Cup 3rd round match, spent £££ to watch my team going 2-0 down at half-time and I left before my team amazing comeback to victory. Priceless!"

The best part of the concert was when he performed Badlands. The song beat is very catching and lots of people including me started to clap their hands along with it. Lots of people around me dropped out but I carried on, listening Badlands without clapping? No way!

Thanks God the last three or so songs, including Born to Run, everybody was standing and shouting but all in all I felt the atmosphere at the Emirates was way below my standard for a Springsteen concert.

Out of the stadium, I overheard a couple's conversation, they were both in their 50's and the wife was complaining to the husband that tonight there were too many young people to the concert... Blimey rock is dead for sure, bring on the mazurka!