Postcard from naples - traffic

When we were disembarking at Naples airport, the elderly (but sprightly) gent in front of me remarked to the stewardess that the last time he had been in Naples was 65 years ago.

Personally, having a rifle in your hands and the British Eighth Army behind you is still the best way to see the place. We were flying home, but first we had to get from the hydrofoil port to the airport. This meant a taxi, or, as I like to call it, a near-death experience.

Naples traffic is truly astonishing. I don’t think we saw much of it on the way out, but we certainly saw plenty of it on the way back…much of it less than an inch away from the taxi. Chaos does not do justice to Naples traffic. It’s a free for all. Ever been on the bumper cars at the funfair? It’s like that, all the time, at speed. Everyone has a shitty car, all the cars have bumps and scrapes and the only people not with cars are either pedestrians wandering onto the road without looking or scooter types zipping in and out of non-existent spaces. I actually saw a bloke texting while riding his scooter.

Driving like this only happens in staunchly catholic countries with a strong belief in the afterlife.

Postcard from Sorrento - food

I think I’ve finally cracked why we think that continentals eat more than us and, in a tremendous bout of unfairness that is possibly lined to the EU, are not as chubby as Brits.

It’s because their food is so good. The food I had in Sorrento was fantastic. Fresh, vibrant – even the pasta was tremendous and, you know…it’s pasta! The worst thing is that it’s something we do to ourselves – we eat substandard food – lots of it. It’s bland and its processed and there are two reasons why we eat so damned much of it – it’s because the salt and the sugar and the fat and the ground up elves or whatever they put in it is mildly addictive but mostly, mostly it’s because we eat it and we’re not satisfied. So we decide to have ANOTHER family pack of cheesy Doritos and then, maybe we’ll feel sated. No, all we have is an orange ring round our mouths, a pound of corn chips inadequately digesting in our stretched stomachs and a justified fear of the next visit to the loo.

The other theory is that continentals dare not let themselves get too fat or they would not be able to drive their scooter at such speeds.

Postcard from Sorrento - Weddings

Nobody does bureaucracy quite like the Italians. These are the people that invented the Catholic church – so industrialised the business of religion. Possibly that’s why the wedding I had gone to Sorrento to attend was so fabulous. Even though it was a civil ceremony, the civil ceremony aspect of it was ‘high-church’.

The registrar wore her sash of office – a well preserved fifty year old woman with just the right touch of glam, it looked for all the world as if the happy couple were being married by Miss Italy 1970. The interpreter ensured that the happy couple knew what they were signing up to – many official pronouncements of how you should behave towards one another and at the end of it a marriage certificate in a bloody huge leather wallet – it looked like the a la carte menu at Claridges.

The ceremony was at the Cloister of San Francisco in Sorrento and, as an advert for getting married abroad, could not be bettered. Guitar and lute players strummed, the public kept a respectful distance and the weather was kind. Even the volcano didn’t grumble. Somewhat better than a registry office in Guildford. Medieval Italian architecture has something of an edge over 1960s civic modernism or, as I like to call it, evil in concrete form.

Postcard from Sorrento - Coffee

The coffee of Naples is famous. Probably, it’s been developed to a fine art because anything you can inhale the fragrance of that is not Naples after a six month refuse collectors strike is a good thing. I had ‘un café’ waiting for my hydrofoil. What you get is a cup of water to cleanse the pallet, then a cup of coffee which is basically half a measure of espresso. You drink this and then listen to the blood hammering in your ears as your heart rate climbs to the anaerobic level.

In Sorrento there are many little bars where you go in, order your café, toss your Euro down, doss the coffee back and then bounce off. I found a wee bar and ordered my café. The barista threw the tiny cup down on the counter. Just as I thought ‘rude git’ and grasped the handle, I remembered from the guide-book that the cups are kept in trays of boiling water. They think that scalding coffee tastes better from red-hot ceramic – this, I think, must be a by-product of living near a Volcano.

It did taste spectacular though. Apparently, I was unable to talk coherently for about half an hour afterwards.

Postcard from Sorrento - slim fit

Sorrento is beautiful. It’s also on the cruise circuit. This means that every day, even off season when I was there, there’s an elegant cruise ship anchored in the Bay. It also means that the population of Sorrento, by size, is as follow: American, German, English and Italian. By volume, its American, German, car horn, scooter, Italian, English.

God alone knows what the place is like in high season, but the little medieval alleyways were already crowded with tourists. This does not stop mad-arse Italians on scooters zooming down them at speed. Obviously, they are practicing manoeuvres for bag-snatching before the start of the tourist season.

The Italians here are all turned out really well. I felt like a right scruff in jacket and jeans. Luckily, I was able to improve my appearance no end with the purchase of a proper Italian shirt. I had cleverly left my shirt I had intended to wear to the wedding at home. Along with my camera. Oops.

So needing a replacement shirt I wandered into one of the many clothes shops and selected a fine white one, 16½ collar. Great. The lady at the till looks at the shirt and looks at me.

‘Sleem fit?’
‘Er, no…I suppose not’.
‘Ahhhh, Eenglish fit’. Smirk.

Indeed.

Postcard from Bay of Naples

Naples is a shit hole. How do I know – mainly the smell but also because you can catch a hydrofoil out of it – that’s right, even the boats leave Naples quickly.

Naples is connected to Pompeii, Sorrento and Capri, as well as the Amalfi Coast, by a network of ferries. Best of these are the hydrofoils that hammer across the Bay like speed-boats on steroids. The hydrofoils are, basically, how commuters get from job to home and yet they seem to be a hell of a lot more stylish than the trains I get in the morning.

But they are full of commuters. I can tell this because I can smell my own (when you get the smell of Naples out of your nose) and because while I was running from stem to stern, looking at Naples vanishing into the distance, gawping at Vesuvius or watching Sorrento creep closer, the commuters were reading books or files. Also, I was the only one drinking beer before noon.

I can see one eventually getting used to a view, no matter how spectacular and reading a book rather than looking at the coast…but it takes something special to not keeping your eye on an active volcano – possibly a really good Grisham.

Postcard from Gatwick

Off to Sorrento for a family wedding (family member not Italian, just awkward). One reaches Sorrento via Naples. One reaches Naples via Gatwick.

I’ve seen pictures of what air travel used to be like. Unless you were bombing Dresden in WWII it was actually pretty glamorous. Certainly I bet it did not involve putting your shoes through an X Ray machine. Security at Gatwick is a bloody joke, it would be a lot quicker if you just climbed inside the X Ray machine yourself. Ticket check-in was terribly secure…these days one is checked in by a machine! At five in the morning I was not at my best, and neither was the witch from BA who was ‘helping’ people check in.

After that, Naples was a breath of fresh air. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a shit hole. Really, I can’t believe anywhere like that actually exists in Europe. The poorest places I visited in Cuba were better than Naples.

Still, at least you get to leave quickly – by hydrofoil across the Bay of Naples to Sorrento. The ticket booth was closed but luckily a gypsy was on hand to take me to an open booth, translate for me and then guide me to the right mooring – all for a Euro. Far better service than BA offer – wonder if she wants a job at Gatwick?

Let's a go!

The dirty dishes are piling up, the laundry hamper overflows and the ironing pile has snow on its peak. Why? MarioKart Wii, that’s why. I’ve played MarioKart for many years, in its many incarnations and it’s good to see that the game has lost none of its charm. Race one and, just as I am about to cross the finish line in first place, Luigi zooms past me, from nowhere.

I screamed ‘C**T!’ and settled in for hours of joyless grind, unlocking levels and racing racing racing.

Quite why it is that software manufacturers think it’s acceptable to charge people for a computer game and then lock up half of it is beyond me. Certainly, the advanced features on my mobile were not only available after I’d spoken for ten hours and texted my thumbs off.

The real joy/anguish is, of course, on-line multiplayer mode against others worldwide. You might think that games like ‘medal of honour’ online are frustrating where you might as well name your character ‘respawn’ because at least you’d get to see your name, a lot – but that’s as nothing compared to racing round a charming and lovingly rendered cartoony racing circuit against a French kid, who beats you. I spent the entire weekend alternatively punching the air with joy or screaming abuse at foreigners.

Like an child, I have banned myself from playing during the week. Otherwise, when would I be able to watch telly and, you know, eat.

This morning at the Krispy Kreme stand

Because I’m so regular in my habits it borders on autism, when I visit the Krispy Kreme stand for breakfast (coffee to jump-start the heart, lard to sooth the effects of the coffee) I always get the same order – an original glazed and a medium latte. They now know better than to try and tempt me with more stuff. This morning the woman in the queue in front was buying four doughnuts (and three coffees, so I presume it wasn’t all for her). This being the case, the smooth-tongued dougnuteer behind the counter was trying to convince her to buy a half-dozen as, even though you spent more, you got a better deal per doughnut. This is an argument that regularly results in people leaving the stand with a double dozen, one coffee and a bemused expression.

The chap behind the counter was explaining that ‘I am only trying to save you pounds’, the woman retorted ‘and I’m trying to save these pounds’, patting a flat stomach. I thought that sort of pun wasn’t bad for that time of the morning. I wonder if the woman, petit, blonde and with immaculate make-up, was taking the doughnutty goodness to the nearby stall serving the unlikely purpose of promoting ‘The Sun’ crossword by having page three girls there to help you with the clues.

What does a page three girl look like with her clothes on? Well, pretty much like any other young woman actually, except for their hair – I’ve never seen hair like it on a human being, so…big. I think it’s the result of having your hair professionally done every day.

What the girls are going to look like at the end of the day is anyone’s guess. They were wrapped in sweatshirts and puffa jeckets trying to keep warm and, of course, you can’t smoke in the station. Denied this usual mode of model sustenance, I wonder how many trips to the KK stall will be made today. Who knows, the result could be that, at last, some real sized women finally make it into the world of glamour modelling.

I want to live in Bedford Falls

Don’t get me wrong, I know just how lucky I am. Where I live we have a mini-supermarket, we have a great little hardware store, we have a bakery, a butchers and we have a newsagent. We don’t have a bookstore but we do have a wine merchants. And a timber merchants. We have broadband and mains water and electricity and gas. To the people of 50 years ago we’d have looked like we live in the lap of luxury. To the people of 100 years ago it would make us look like gentry. To the people of 200 years ago it would make us look like witches.

Modern life in the west is amazing. If the people that stitch together our training shoes and cheap jeans could lift their heads up long enough to actually see just how much great fucking stuff we have, then let’s face it, anywhere where the economy is based on things with hooves would be empty as everyone got the first bus, train, mule or pig north.

And after a few months, they’d probably be as frustrated as the rest of us – welcome to civilization.

That’s why when we escape, we don’t do it on a donkey, we do it through a camera lens. And that’s why I’ve been thinking about where I’d live if not right here right now. Bedford Falls seems like a pretty sweet place.

But there are other places to visit. Fort instance – for dinner, I fancy ‘O’Reilleys’, the Irish Italian restaurant in the film ‘return to me’. Apparently it’s a real place, called the Two Anchors – a restaurant in Chicago. But no matter how good the food, it would be a let down if you didn’t get true love for desert. Just as it would be grim if you didn’t get contentment with your coffee at the diner that Bill Murray eats at in ‘Groundhog Day’, when he has a moment of self-realisation. That’s why, as a diner, it edges the other great movie diners – from ‘Superman II’, ‘Midnight Run’ and ‘Diner’.

Of course, the best place to stop on the road for something to eat was a layby café I visited many years ago, or a little chef on the road out from Aberystwyth. Probably not even there any more, it’s not preserved on film, just in my memory. That, and a place in Italy where, as a child, I had my first glass of wine. I’ve been trying to recapture that feeling for a long time now – in my experience the wine near the bottom of the bottle tastes the most like how wine used to taste – must be the sediment.

Other places that only exist on film that one should visit? Rick’s Café American obviously for cocktails (although the hotel in ‘to have and to have not’ is a close second). As for beaches – it should be the one Bo Derrick runs along in ‘10’ except that the beach at Monterey is better and the beach at Holkham is better still.

Let’s face it – unless you live somewhere where armed men ride around in the back of pick up trucks, you are probably in a pretty decent part of the world. If you do, however, see the brand ‘toyota’ and ‘AK47’ more than three times a day, jump on the next hog out of town and start acquiring a resentment of kids on scooters – it’ll save time for when you eventually have the energy for petty resentments.