Dob-log

Prayer for the Dead and an actual Dilemma

2012-02-07T20:09:00.001Z

prayer.. (Photo credit: aronki)

Two unexpected things happened today. The first is a prayer request from an unexpected person over at James' blog:

New Friend said... - I know we often disagree but you might, as good Catholics, spare a little thought in your prayers tonight for the dead, those still missing and all affected by the 6.9 earthquake we had here yesterday. It was my first ever and it was pretty scary. We suffered no damage but we are 60 km from the epicentre which is in a remote rural location, where the communication has been cut off, bridges destroyed and landslides block roads. The final death toll will be much higher than currently reported as there are lots of downed buildings yet to be entered.

This is a commenter at James' blog. He lives in the Philippines and writes mostly to opine that Catholics should change their thinking on many issues, in particular because of the problems which result in places like the Philippines. He certainly doesn't seem to believe in Christianity per se, but evidently thinks our prayers are worth asking for at some level. So I'm sure he'd appreciate your prayers as well. Perhaps if I were holier I'd post more prayer requests.

Please pray for them.

It also started me thinking about a topic which I've apparently never got round to blogging about: prayer for the dead. I did blog about the intercession of the saints a few times, but the other way around, no.

Before I became a Catholic, I don't remember having an opinion on the subject, but I think that I believed that little could come of prayer for those who had already died; they had lived their lives, and what became of them depended on how they had lived in the time that they had been given.

Looking at it now, this seems to me like a strangely pessimistic attitude for a people who are called to live in the light of the risen Christ, as well as being strangely cold-hearted; even this man who views our religion with suspicion has an intuition of the propriety of prayer for the men and women who are no longer with us. Do we have nothing to offer beyond an exhortation to "seek the Lord while he may be found"?

It seems, in fact, that Jesus would have prayed for the dead himself. Jews pray for the dead now and seem to have prayed for the dead from the time of the Maccabees; it's reasonable to assume that Jesus too prayed for the dead, though the scriptures clearly don't address the matter directly. Interestingly, a relevant passage in the book of 2 Maccabees (12:40-46) actually justifies prayer for the dead on the basis of their future resurrection.

But apart from that, I don't think we have enough information to reject a natural desire to pray for the dead in any case. Intercessory prayer is a great mystery; who understands the relationship between our prayer and the will of God? Not you, that's for sure. And what does it mean to God, if people have "already" died?

Before the mountains were born
or you brought forth the whole world,
from everlasting to everlasting you are God.
[...]
A thousand years in your sight
are like a day that has just gone by,
or like a watch in the night.
- Psalm 89(90)

and

With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. - 2 Pet 3:8

God doesn't run according to our schedule: he's eternal, and the creator of time. Perhaps I'm missing something, but it seems to me that, if you bear this in mind, it really makes a nonsense of the thing. It's easy to see that you won't get anywhere by praying for rain yesterday, but there's a whole spiritual reality which we are only somewhat dimly aware of in the past as well - who's to say what God would make of prayer for the conversion/salvation of someone in the past from our perspective?

And that's without bringing purgatory into it. I see I haven't blogged about purgatory either, but I'll leave it for the minute. You could do worse than reading about it at catholic.com if you're interested.

The Intercession of the Saints
The Intercession of the Saints pt. 2
The Intercession of the Saints pt. 3

The second unexpected thing is the arrival of a dilemma. An actual dilemma, as I write in the title, because people tend to use the word quite loosely. I refer especially to moral dilemmas - when you know what the right thing to do is, but you don't want to do it, that's not a dilemma. Just for the record.

So, anyway, my dilemma is a proposal by a work colleague. He works in sales, but writes novels on the side, published novels even. It seems that his last novel at least hasn't been published in English, because he asked me whether I thought I could translate it today. The obvious question is "When?", but it would really be a shame to pass up an opportunity (on a plate) to translate something significantly more interesting than car manuals and potentially have a work in print on my CV.

Decisions, decisions...

Woes which have betided and which are currently betiding us

2012-02-04T21:26:00.000Z

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The more astute of you may have noticed that, apart from a brief thought on 21 December, I hadn't blogged since 12 November. Perhaps you assumed that I'd found a way to make more effective use of my time - as if.

The fact is that I'm here on my own in Sassuolo, whereas my wife and daughter are down in Offagna. For a couple of days, that'd be fine, but we've been apart for almost a week now, and it's much too long.

I'll start from Christmas. Christmas itself was great, it was great to see my family, and it had been three years since I was in England, which is pretty weird. Noemi met two uncles that she didn't know she had and two great grandmothers. She even met Will and Rosie, who came up to see us. We had a whale of a time.

It took a sour turn towards the end though, when Noemi got a temperature and started vomiting, emitting snot in copious quantitites and, at the beginning, had loads of gunk in her eyes. We were just in time to get to a GP on Friday to get prescriptions for the requisite antiobiotics and drops. It was the most ill Noemi had ever been; it was good to be with my family, but on the other hand, it was a little bit awkward trying to manage the thing outside of our own house and our own control. Those of you who are parents will know that it's no picnic giving medicine to babies, still less lots of different medicines at regular (regular like having to get up in the middle of the night) intervals. This all started when we needed to think about packing to go back. We were feeling a bit ill ourselves by the time it came to make the journey back.

Well, the journey was very tiring and stressful for obvious reasons, and the less said about that the better. We still had a fair few days of the whole medicine routine ahead of us and then, when we went to our actual paediatrician after the course had finished because Noemi obviously wasn't 100%, she gave us some more. I think it ended up being about another two weeks in all after coming back, so we were pretty exhausted. The one who always suffers the most is Monica; I don't believe I'm exaggerating when I say that she's told me that she's tired every single day since Noemi was born, something which she definitely doesn't need to tell me any more, but which I do certainly appreciate - being a mum is really taking it out of her. It's a tough job.

The Sassuolo division of the Dobson family on Noemi's actual birthday

One of the high points in this bloody difficult first month of the year was Noemi's birthday. We had intended to go down to Offagna before Christmas, but called it off because Noemi wasn't too well then either. Then we were planning on going down sometime soon after Christmas instead, only she was more dramatically ill. Her grandparents took matters into their own hands and invited themselves down (lovely as it was to see them, I can't help but feel that I should have been consulted, but they are Italian relatives after all...). Anyway, the celebrations were limited, but it was nice.

So what's next after illness? Earthquakes of course. There were a couple of earthquakes in Northern Italy, both near Parma I think. We're a little way from Parma. Apparently the geographical characteristics of our area dampen the effect of earthquakes from up there, so some people didn't even notice the first one; I was at work, and the people who manage the complex where our offices are told us to get out of the building, so we all bundled out in the cold. Bit like a fire drill really. This being Italy, no-one said anything about when to go back in, so people wandered back as seemed best to them.

The second earthquake came a few days later, and this time we definitely felt it. Monica certainly felt it in our flat on the third floor, and was sorely troubled, which is reasonable; I daresay I wouldn't have liked it much myself. I should mention that our building is quite solid though - the main problem with earthquakes in Italy is old/inadequate (illegal) buildings. I remember our landlord talking about the reinforcements when we arrived here back in the day; it means you can't get a good UMTS system.

We decided, when Noemi was taking her afternoon nap on the following Saturday, that the best thing for Monica's piece of mind was a temporary separation - it would play merry hell with Noemi's already quite messed up (from the illness) bedtime routine and be difficult for Monica and for us as a couple, but all things considered better than Monica worrying about when the next earthquake was coming (it never did incidentally, but they were talking about there being possible further earthquakes so it did make sense). We managed to get an awful taxi driver who drove badly to start with, got lost on the way to Modena train station and started driving even worse out of panic. I felt quite nauseous at the end, because I hadn't been feeling quite right for a few days anyway, and it scarcely helped. So we left on Saturday afternoon (4 hour journey) and I came back on the Sunday afternoon, so I didn't have much time to sit down that weekend.

And then came the snow; I had asked for Friday off so I could be back with Monica sooner, but by the time Friday came, there were stories on the news about people being stuck in the fields on trains without all mod cons for 6 hours, so it wasn't really on the cards. I'm stuck here. This was meant to be the weekend that we celebrated Noemi's birthday with Monica's (extended) family, but from what Monica said to me, not even people from Offagna can manage it.

And finally, now Monica's feeling ill and hasn't eaten all day, and in the afternoon Noemi started vomiting - 6 times now apparently. With all the snow, Monica's worried about not being able to get medicines if she needs them.

It's been a bit of a crap start to the year really. My poor wife.

So, yes, I can blog, I can watch Italy vs. France and I can have a cooked breakfast tomorrow, but it's not going to make up for the fact that my wife and daughter are much further away than they should be, and we don't know when we're going to be able to see one another.

Sigh.

Psalm Tones for Night Prayer: Psalm 15(16) - Tone I

2012-02-02T19:40:00.000Z

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And we bring you the good news that what God promised to the fathers, this he has fulfilled to us their children by raising Jesus.

He whom God raised up did not see corruption. - Acts 13

Before getting stuck in to this tone, this might be a good moment to summarise how we're getting on with learning the tones for night prayer:

Day	Tone	Tone for 2^nd Psalm	Nunc Dimittis
Sunday 1	VIII	VIII	III	At last, all-powerful Master...
Sunday 2	VIII	He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High...	III	At last...
Monday	II		III	At last...
Tuesday	VIII		III	At last...
Wednesday	I	VIII	III	At last...
Thursday	I	Preserve me, God, I take refuge in you.	III	At last...
Friday	V		III	At last...

All the MP3s are here, and this is a one-page PDF summary of all the tones. I didn't post it earlier to avoid scariness, since it all looks more daunting in a lump like this. Here is the LLPB's Psalm Tone Distribution Table as well.

Here's tone I. There are loads of terminations to choose from, but I have a recording with termination g, which seems relatively straightforward:

This time the mediant has two stresses (but with no preparatory syllables), and the termination only one stress (but two preparatory syllables). Remember that the neume for the stressed syllable in the termination means a lower note followed by a higher note on the one syllable. So here is our text for Psalm 15, marked appropriately:

Preserve me, God, I take refuge in yóu.†
I say to the Lord: 'Yóu are my Gód.*
My happiness lies in you alóne.'

I will bless the Lord who gíves me cóunsel,*
who even at night directs my héart.
I keep the Lord ever ín my síght:*
since he is at my right hand, I shall stand fírm.

And so my heart rejoices, my sóul is glád;*
even my body shall rest in sáfety.
For you will not leave my sóul among the déad,*
nor let your beloved know decáy.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again; I think it's a good idea to read the text through first, paying attention to the stresses. I'd do that before listening to my version. The whole point, as far as I'm concerned, is to have tones which you can use to sing any psalm (or canticle) you care to mention, as an aid to meditative, scriptural prayer. And that means thinking about the words first and foremost in any case.

Well, having said that, here's how I reckon it should sound. First I tried singing the flex by starting with the tenor on "you" then dropping down, but it sounded really lame, so instead I just decided to treat the lower note as the stress - much better. Lots of stressed final syllables in this text, so it ends up being rather melismatic, but that's fine with me.

Now, with two psalm tone posts in a row, I'd better take a little break. I think I'll try and memorise the whole psalm, get the whole deal down...

P.S. It's a bloody nightmare getting a table into a blog entry, and the blockquoting leaves something to be desired too. I guess that's why they did a new interface; guess I'll have to switch.

Psalm Tones for Night Prayer: Psalm 90(91) - Tone VIII G & G*

2012-01-31T20:50:00.002Z

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Then the devil took him to the holy city and set him on the pinnacle of the temple and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written, 'He will command his angels concerning you,' and 'On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.'”

Jesus said to him, “Again it is written, ‘You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.’” - Mt 4:5-7

So, back on track with a psalm tone which is recommended for all the Sunday psalms (Sunday I and II can be recited on any day) as well as Tuesday and the second Psalm on Wednesday.

(N.B. According to the 1968 Enchiridion of Indulgences hosted at ourladyswarriors, the second Psalm on Wednesday - De Profundis - has an indulgence attached. If you learnt the tone it might help you to remember and recite the words. Another indulgenced psalm is the Miserere, for which the suggested psalm tone is VII, but it'll be a while before I get to that one.)

That's convenient, but also perhaps a bit boring, so I'm going to do two versions of the tone this time. I see that there are three alternative terminations, but two of them are very similar indeed. I'll do those two now and come back to look at the third termination another time. This time lets look at the tone first:

You can see for yourself that the mediant and the terminations are based on a single stress, and in both of our terminations there are two preparatory syllables. So here's the text:

He who dwells in the shelter of the Most Hígh*
and abides in the shade of the Almíghty
says to the Lord: "My réfuge,*
my stronghold, my God in whom I trúst!"
[..]
Upon you no evil shall fáll,*
no plague approach where you dwéll.
For you has he commanded his ángels,*
to keep you in all your wáys.

They shall bear you upon their hánds*
lest you strike your foot against a stóne.
On the lion and the viper you will tréad*
and trample the young lion and the drágon.

It so happens that there's no flex written for Psalm 90(91), so I put one from another psalm in at the end. From Psalm 142(143) for Tuesday:

I muse on what your hand has wróught†
and to you I stretch out my hánds.*
Like a parched land my soul thirsts for yóu.

MP3 here.

Now, if you look again at the terminations:

...you'll see that only the final neume is different; instead of a one-note neume, it's two notes, returning to the note of the stress. You can hear the difference here. I think it sounds somewhat more monkish. Anyway, it gives you another option.

I think by now I shouldn't need to go into detail about the mechanics of it anymore. If I'm wrong and you'd prefer me to explain something, let me know in the comments. In the meantime, I can finally get on with learning the next one for Wednesday and Thursday!

Plutocracy

2011-12-21T13:00:00.001Z

I don't have a Word of the Day or Thought for the Day feature. Never mind.

Word of the Day
plutocracy - Government by wealth or by the wealthy. Also, a State governed in this way.

Thought for the Day
I wonder why people aren’t using the word "plutocracy" more, in the current economic/political climate.

11/11/11

2011-11-12T02:58:00.001Z

So, yesterday was November 11. On Facebook I read noble status updates about Remembrance Day (the timing's a bit different here, so nothing doing on that front.

Meanwhile, in our office, the weakest premise for a cake that I can recall has been adopted. At 11:11, the call goes out:

These ~~Romans~~ Italians are crazy! I shouldn't complain; there was even spumante. I note that they sought to render it a less arbitrary cake with a reference to the feast of St. Martin of Tours. You're fooling no-one!

Those things under CHE are meant to be maroni:

Che (due) maroni! - What (a pair of) chestnuts! - What (a pair of) balls! - What a pain in the arse!

Funny thing language...

Psalm Tones: Psalm 143(144) - Tone VI

2011-10-11T21:14:00.000+01:00

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You may already know that there are two different ways of numbering the psalms, one based on the Septuagint and one on the Masoretic text. Eastern Orthodox translations use the numbering of the Septuagint (Greek), Protestants the Masoretic (Hebrew) and Catholics tend to put both numbers.

Why do I mention this? Because this little factoid has confounded my modest plans. I assumed that the Lutheran Liturgical Prayer Brotherhood's Psalm Tone Distribution Table would use the Septuagint numbering system. Why? Mostly absent-mindedness I think, but also because I think all the links I've seen about how Martin Luther believed a heap of things that only Catholics (and the Orthodox I guess) are supposed to believe put the notion that Lutherans are probably pretty trad in my head. Plus, a "Lutheran Liturgical Prayer Brotherhood" who sing using the traditional psalm tones? Sounds pretty tradder-than-thou to me - it'll be like High Anglicanism right? Silly me.

So I learnt the words for Psalm 90 (91) by heart (a Psalm for Sunday Night Prayer, which means you can also sing it any day of the week, you see) but with the "wrong" tone. It's not the end of the world; it seems to work okay, and I'm pleased, with my rubbish memory, to have committed some scripture to memory, but this Prayer Brotherhood probably had a good reason for choosing their tones, so I was planning on following their suggestions.

Anyway, this tone isn't listed for any of the psalms in Compline. So I just picked a psalm I liked that it is listed for:

Blessed be the Lord, my róck†
who trains my árms for báttle,*
who prepares my hands for wár.
[...]
Reach down from heaven and sáve me;†
draw me out from the míghty wáters,*
from the hands of alien fóes
whose mouths are fílled with líes,*
whose hands are raised in pérjury.

To you, O God, will I síng a new sóng;*
I will play on the ten-stringed hárp
to you who give kíngs their víctory,*
who set David your servant frée.

I've just taken some select verses, making sure to leave in a couple of flexes (joined lines) and dactyls (it means "finger" and is a metrical foot - scansion, you couldn't make it up!) to keep it interesting. I cheated and only copied the stresses which are relevant for this tone; in any case, like last time, I suggest you read it through, stressing the stresses, aloud or in your head.

Now here's the notation for the tone:

(This might be a good point to look back at the last instalment, since I'm going to use the same terminology that I did there.)

There are two differences from the last tone that I should mention. First is the termination; in tone III there's one preparatory syllable before the final stress, here, there are two. So in the third line you sing the tenor until you drop down on "hands" and sing "for" on two ascending notes (that's what the two-note neume there means) before you sing the stressed "war". So in addition to reading through the text for the stresses, you'd be well advised to look for the two preparatory syllables in the lines that contain the termination (without a † or * at the end). The second is a reminder that the intonation is usually sung only on the first line; "Reach down from heaven" should all be on the tenor for example.

I deliberately didn't mention something last time, but I'll mention it now. There's a little problem with these tones; they were written for use with Latin, and English (you will have noticed) isn't Latin, so essentially they don't quite work. But the good news is that it doesn't really matter - just fudge it! Apparently there are lots of competing methods for adapting these tones for use with English, but there's no official way and there never will be, so just do what works for you.

My version is here. If I didn't have a 9 month old daughter I would probably record a few takes until it sounded better. Meh.

Take the first line, for example. Finishes on a stressed syllable. Very common in English but very rare in Latin; that's why whoever wrote the psalm tone assumed that there would be another syllable (perhaps even two) after the stress of the flex (first on the left). What I do is pretend that the lower note is the stressed syllable. Sounds fine to me, whereas the other possibility of singing the stressed syllable on two notes sounds a bit iffy so far as I'm concerned.
For "lies" and "song" (mediant), I think it sounds better to just sing the note of the stress and forget about returning to the tenor (reciting) note until the next line
Similarly, there should be a syllable after "war" for the termination at the end of the third line. Here, I nonchalantly sing it on two notes; same with "foes", "harp" and "free".

Fratelli d'Italia pt. 6

2011-10-06T21:21:00.000+01:00

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Hmm. Been a while.

Wot, no beer? - Everyone knows that Italians know about food and wine, what I don't understand is the blind spot when it comes to beer. Obviously they find wine much more appealing, but I can't get my head round the fact that they have no interesting beer on their supermarket shelves. Obviously they don't have to be as interested in beer as we are, but it seems odd that they're not more bothered about it when they can be so anal about other comestibles.

White Bread and Sandwiches - Again, this is odd because it doesn't seem to tally with the tendencies of the Italians themselves. In addition to being more bothered about food than we are, Italians seem to be more interested in their health too. Now, we all know that sensible grown-ups eat brown bread because its better for you, and young whippersnappers are the ones who will only eat white bread and even have special hybrid bread made for them to tempt them away from the white variety. But if you go into an Italian bakery, you'll see heaps of white bread, and if you're lucky you'll manage to make out some brown stuff in the corner. Monica tells me that it's something to do with the fact that brown bread has historical associations with poverty (a phenomenon that was widespread much more recently in Italy); that's fair enough, but talk about old habits dying hard!

Then there's sandwiches. Monica doesn't like English bread; it doesn't meet her expectations, which is easy to understand if you buy normal bread in Italy, it's much more hard, so English bread seems, well, half-baked, which apparently is bad for the digestion or something (made of flimsy stuff these foreigners, eh?). Well that's fine by me; different strokes for different folks and all that. What confuses me is that when you get a tramezzino (sandwich) it always comes in this ridicuolous plasticy white bread without crusts which seems to me to be the epitome of poor quality.

Bidets vs. Shit Toilets - In Italy, everyone has a bidet. That's just how it is. The Italian abroad is generally in want of a bottom-cleaning device and surprised (possibly somewhat disgusted) to see the rest of the world getting on without them. However, while this area of fundamental hygiene seems so important to them, their spotless domestic bidets stand in stark contrast to their wretched and rare public toilets. Woe betide the hapless wayfarer who dares to do their business out of doors. You usually have to pay, they're sometimes of the hole-in-floor variety (the country that gave us aqueducts now wants us to wee on our shoes?), there's never any bloody soap, an electric hand dryer is a rarity and the paper towels have usually run out; then of course they're mucky and full of graffiti. Hold it in, that's my advice.

Ridiculous Names - I've noticed that Italians seem to have a disproportionate number of outlandish surnames. Some examples: we bought our clothes rack from the Bastardi (yes, bastards, obviously) round the corner, the rt. hon. Bocchino (blowjob) is a well-known politician and another Bocchino earned Italy 8 points in the Rugby World Cup with conversions this year, I've seen reports on channel 7 by a Chiappaventi ((arse) cheek-winds) and an "and finally" story about people who go by the unlikely name of Mastronzo ("stronzo" literally means "turd", but Italians use it in much the same way as we use arsehole, of a person, only it's ruder).

Psalm Tones for Night Prayer: Nunc Dimittis - Tone III

2011-07-05T06:16:00.000+01:00

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While Monica was pregnant, I was thinking a bit about my prayer life, and how I could make it easier to pray with my daughter (and indeed my wife) when she came onto the scene. I thought of Compline; I like the liturgy of the hours but don't often manage to pray it and the fact that, ideally, it's a sung liturgy should be helpful, I thought.

'The sung celebration of the Divine Office is the form which best accords with the nature of this prayer. It expresses its solemnity in a fuller way and expresses a deeper union of hearts in performing the praises of God'

- Instruction Musicam sacram

[M]any of the parts, especially the psalms, canticles, hymns and responsories, are of a lyrical nature and are given their full expression only when sung.

Singing in the Liturgy of the Hours is not to be regarded as something merely ornamental or extrinsic to prayer. It springs from the depths of the person praying and praising God[.]

Jewish and Christian Tradition confirms that the psalms are closely connected with music. To understand many of the psalms fully it helps a great deal to sing them or at least to regard them from a poetic and musical point of view.

- Introduction to Morning and Evening Prayer, Anthony B. Boylan, Secretary Liturgy Commission, Bishops' Conference of England and Wales

So I did a bit of googling. I think I already vaguely knew that there were traditional psalm tones, so I tried to find some references I could use and did, but I think I'll have to be more systematic to learn them and be able to use them by heart. So, rather optimistically, this should be the start of a new series to teach other people (with the aid of specific mp3s because not everyone, myself included, can read music, let alone chant notation) the 8 + 1 traditional psalm tones, starting with the only one that I have managed to learn by heart so far.

I'm going to try and explain the principles but don't let that put you off. This is harder to write and about and read than it is to do; it's actually based on natural speech, so if you can talk, you should be up to the challenge, despite any offputting terminology you may encounter. Also, this blog entry might be quite long, but if you persevere with this one, all the other ones should be quite simple. I suggest that, if at any point, it sounds too complicated, listen to the MP3 I made rather than struggling with text on a screen.

As I say, it's based on speech; if, like me, you ever wondered why the text of the office is marked the way it is, you'll soon see why. The starting point is the text. I'm starting with the Nunc Dimittis for the good reason that it's a text to be sung at every Compline, so if you learn a tone for that, you have something you can sing for the Office every day:

At last, all-powerful Máster,†
you give léave to your sérvant*
to go in peace, according to your prómise.

For my eyes have séen your salvátion*
which you have prepared for all nátions,
the light to enlíghten the Géntiles*
and give glory to Israel, your péople.

Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Hóly Spírit,*
as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without énd.
Amen.

The psalm tones are divided (essentially) into two halves. The asterisk that usually comes at the end of every other line marks the point at the end of the first half. The dagger, on the other hand, joins two lines, indicating that they should be treated as one. There's a little more to it than that, but more on that later. Anyway, here you can see that by joining the first two lines together, it makes a stanza of three lines into a stanza of two lines (tone in two halves). So that's the basic structure.

You remember I said that these chants were based on speech? That explain the accents. Perhaps you didn't notice them at a glance, but they're there, over some select vowels. Before tackling a psalm, you need to think about how you would say it. If you read the text above (aloud or in your head), you should see that the accents correspond to natural speech stresses. Try reading it through a couple of times, over-emphasising the stresses; obviously you wouldn't normally need to do this - it comes naturally - but to sing these tones, especially using texts that you haven't sung before, you need to be particularly aware of where the stresses fall. I put the accents into the text of the Nunc Dimittis myself since, in my copy of the Office, they're only marked on the psalms proper.

Now, we need a tone. This would be a good point at which to give a hat tip to chantblog; I basically found all the resources I wanted through that site. The author already did the same thing that I'm doing in this series, but I hope to make my one slightly more accessible. Through that site I found the Lutheran Liturgical Prayer Brotherhood's Psalm Tone Distribution Table, which takes all the effort out of selecting an appropriate tone. They say tone number 3. Fine by me. I'm going to show you (one version of) what it looks like on paper, but if at any point you think it's all getting too abstract, try listening to the MP3 first:

I cut out some detail which is unnecessary for our purposes, and I don't think you should worry about the dotted lines and empty neumes (thats what the little blocks are called) for now. Even if you've never attempted to read music before and this is all Greek to you, you can get an idea of the structure by looking at the symbols. Below the stave are the dagger and the asterisk we saw before; like I said, the asterisk marks the end of the first half. The dagger marks a point where two lines are joined together to form one line, but you can ignore it if there's no dagger in the text; it would be as if all the notes in that section were on the same line. The bit at the top right is the end of the tone (termination). It's not intentionally separate. If I had a bit more spare time I would have joined it to the rest of the tone.

I left in a little terminology, because it's related to the structure. A practical guide to the meaning of it would be as follows:

Int(onation) - Beginning
Tenor and Flex [†] - Singing on the same note (with the exception of [†] where applicable)
Mediant - Middle
[*]
Tenor - Singing on the same note
Termination (not written) - End

You start off by singing the intonation; the first syllable on the first neume, the second syllable on the two (ascending) notes of the second neume. Then you can look at the accents above the stave; the accents are your cues:

At last, all-powerful Máster,†
you give léave to your sérvant*
to go in peace, according to your prómise.

The first accent that you see is for the flex (Ma-ster). If there's no dagger, there's no flex. In fact, if you want to make life really simple, you could just leave it out anyway and sing one long line without having to think in the middle of it.

The first syllable of 'Mas-ter' is the same note as the tenor note, then you drop down for '-ter' and return to the tenor ('tenor' comes from the Latin tenere, to hold - it's a note that you hold on to) until you head up on 'leave' then down again until you head down on the 'ser-' (it's two notes on the same syllable) of 'servant' then back to the tenor note for '-vant'.

Slightly more trickly is the termination, after singing the second tenor part; that's the unmarked part at the top right. Here you need to drop down on the syllable before the accent then return on the accent before descending (again, two notes on the same syllable) - "your pró mi-se".

And that's it bascially; you sing it like that, repeating the two-line pattern of the tone over the text, following the accents until you come to the end.

MP3

Here's another version of the tone. It lacks some of the detail of the other version but, being more essential, I find it's easier to read.

Last time I deleted the various choices of termination leaving just one of the simplest ones (a). For most of the tones there are a few alternatives, of varying complexity.

I should also say that, usually, you only consider the intonation at the start of the tone and begin the 3rd, 5th, 7th etc. lines by jumping straight to the tenor, which makes life a little easier. However, the gospel canticles, including the Nunc Dimittis, should apparently be sung repeating the intonation.

Hopefully that should be all that you need to enter the world of Gregorian chant for the Office! Please let me know if you have any questions or it's otherwise unclear. I'll do my best to make it intelligible.

Internet's back (sort of)

2011-07-01T17:13:00.004+01:00

Back in May of 2009 I made a query on Wolfram|Alpha. They didn't have any info. I asked them to let me know when they did:

We have received your feedback regarding Wolfram|Alpha.

The information you were looking for is now available on our website. See:
http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=catholicism

Please let us know if you have any other questions.

Thank you for helping us improve Wolfram|Alpha.

Best wishes,

Lindsay
The Wolfram|Alpha Team
www.wolframalpha.com

As I believe they sometimes say in North America - neat.

P.S. In W|A, typing two things should give you a comparison - "christianity islam", for example.

Design

2011-05-14T06:50:00.001+01:00

Image via CrunchBaseOnce upon a time, when this blog was called An Anecdote Free Zone and I had a student's free time, it was hand-coded. Then one day Blogger introduced a template designer. I wanted to try it out and ended up losing my blog design, so I bodged together the one that's been doing the business for the past few years, trying my best to recover the little tweaks (personalised blog entry styles and images, not that you'd know) that I had invested modest quantities of time in.

I've finally become fed up enough with the stupid column width of this site (and why, I wonder, do Blogger think that we want about a third of the page with no content exactly?) to do the same thing all over again.

Just so you know.

Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him.

2011-05-13T17:54:00.002+01:00

Image via WikipediaSometimes it can be easy to get a particular idea in your head about passages of scripture, making it less easy to look at them in another way. As a convert, this is one of those passages:

The Jews quarreled among themselves, saying, «How can this man give us his Flesh to eat?» Jesus said to them, "Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him. Just as the living Father sent me and I have life because of the Father, so also the one who feeds on me will have life because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven. Unlike your ancestors who ate and still died, whoever eats this bread will live forever." These things he said while teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum. (Jn 6:52-59)

Copyright © Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, USCCB

It's easy to think of it as a "proof text" for the real presence, just as Matthew 16 is a "proof text" about the papacy. So I appreciated dailygospel's meditation for today by Pope Benedict, which helps to render it more devotional, and less controversial:

In the Gospel discourse that we have just heard he says, "He who feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him". How is it possible not to rejoice in such a promise? However, we have heard that at his first announcement, instead of rejoicing, the people started to murmur in protest: "How can he give us his flesh to eat?".

To tell the truth, that attitude has frequently been repeated in the course of history. One might say that basically people do not want to have God so close, to be so easily within reach or to share so deeply in the events of their daily life. Rather, people want him to be great and, in brief, we also often want him to be a little distant from us. Questions are then raised that are intended to show that, after all, such closeness would be impossible. But the words that Christ spoke on that occasion have lost none of their clarity: "Let me solemnly assure you, if you do not eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you".

Pope Benedict XVI, Homily for the Italian Eucharistic Congress, 29/05/05 (© Libreria Editrice Vaticana)

Fratelli d'Italia pt. 5

2011-04-29T16:24:00.002+01:00

Image via WikipediaDriving and the death wish - I wonder what I was going to write down about this, all those months ago? We're talking about obvious stereotypes here. All very banal - Italians drive like maniacs etc. etc. etc. Nonetheless, it intrigues me. My Dad reckons I'm exaggerating, and he knows a thing or two about driving, but I feel significantly safer on the roads in England. We don't have a car, but I think it would take me some time before I felt at all happy driving here. Probably the crux of it is this: quite a lot of people die on Italian roads. A good many lives are wasted, and the fact that even I know this suggests that it's adequately reported. So why doesn't this translate into more cautious driving? Is it that they think they're invincible, or is it that they don't mind dying so much as we do?
Child safety - Very closely related is the following. I came across this (Italian) article through work. Once more unto the sterotype breach - Italians love children (there, that wasn't so bad was it?) but the article claims that "63% of Italians don't use child seats", based on 7 cities studied, "thus showing little love for their own children". The best city was Mestre, with a paltry 53% of children properly strapped in, a veritable safety paradise compared to Naples - 17%. A list of lame excuses follows: "it's only round the corner"; "the child seat's in the other car"; "it's fine - he's sat on the back seat anyway"; "he cries if I put him in the child seat", "I prefer the seat belt". It says that there's a tendency to use child safety devices in the first months, because it's more convenient, then they tend to get forgotten about. The disconnect between the depth of feeling on one hand and the actual care taken over children is, it would seem, incredibly profound.
School Textbooks - They have a different system for school textbooks over here. I guess that doesn't sound particularly earth-shattering, but in fact, it means that school textbooks are pretty much an annual news story, because the system is this: you buy them. Good news for the publishing industry, which can release a stream of different shiny new textbooks every year, bad news for parents, who have to fork out. It's a bit like for us at university, when you find, just by chance, that the course textbooks are written by your lecturer. The thing that I find strange is that they've been complaining about the system for years, but they haven't got round to doing anything about it. What naturally comes to mind is that they could copy us, and say that it's the school's responsibillity to pay for textbooks. Then we'll see if publishers can talk schools into buying a new textbook every year! I remember using a lot of dog-eared school textbooks, but somehow I still managed to get educated. In fact, I often wonder in general why governments don't copy more legislation off each other. Don't Sweden do renewable energy better than us for example? Can't we just copy some ideas off them then? I suppose politicians prefer to look original (apart from the Tories nicking the free schools idea).
Interrogation - I’m not sure what I should call this one really. In Italian it’s interrogazione, and it might not be so bad as it sounds, but it’s still pretty bad. I learnt about it when I was helping an Italian relation (my wife’s cousin’s daughter – you can’t get any closer than that) and some of her peers with their English for school. Apparently, every year, or term or something, as a test, every pupil has to stand at the front of the class and get quizzed on whatever it is that Italian schoolchildren are supposed to know. Horrible! I’m glad I didn’t go to school in Italy! I wonder what the idea is; it probably does have some positive aspects in fairness. Monica said that she observed that the English were hopeless at giving presentations at university, but I think that particular problem probably goes deeper. Anyway, the idea makes my skin crawl.

The Alternative Vote

2011-04-20T12:07:00.001+01:00

Apparently Mr. Darcy wants us to vote yes to the Alternative Vote. I'm with the Firth on this one; I'll be disappointed if there isn't a yes vote and I'll tell you why.

I don't see it as "a step in the right direction", if by that we mean a step towards proportional representation. I'm not sure I'm convinced by that idea. Strong government and a local connection to Westminster are two important things.

On the other hand...

Something needs to change. We've been locked into a left-wing/right-wing slanging match for about a century, and it's doing us no good. I'm definitely left-leaning, but the labour government has frequently made my blood boil; it represents many of my interests, but doesn't give a flying fox about many others. I was so fed up that I even toyed with the idea of voting c*nservative. If Mark Dobson feels an inclination to vote conservative, there's definitely something amiss with the voting system.

I understand that some people view the yes vote as an anti-political vote. That's nonsense. It is anti-status quo however, and that's a good thing. As it is, both the labour and conservative party have an arrogant, intransigent attitude which is holding the country back. Part of the reason that we have a con-dem coalition is because of the labour party's refusal to work with the liberal democrats. The labour party have probably won out thanks to that (who wants to be in power at a time like this?), but the country hasn't.

I wouldn't expect to see drastic, immediate changes if the AV system was adopted, but I think it would open up a significant political space to smaller parties which do deserve greater representation because of the support that they have at a national level. This might develop in time into a significant number of seats, and perhaps further coalition governments. I think it's a mistake to write off coalition because of the present shambles; it is a conservative majority after all. In a mature democracy, cooperation and consensus should not only be enabled, but encouraged.

With AV, one of the classic excuses for voter apathy (my vote won't count) is mitigated. Voter apathy is something we should do something about. Tactical voting is another; we should be able to express out voting preferences based on what we want, not what might happen in our constituency. I heard a senior labour politician saying that he opposed AV on the basis that in a democracy, people should have one vote. This sounds sensible, but it only makes sense with a direct voting system e.g. if we voted for party (not members of parliament) or prime minister. As it is, democracy is distorted by tactical voting, and AV is a positive way of compensating for this.

As for the people who say that voting would be too complicated, I don't think I'll lose any sleep over the votes of people who can't state a few preferences in numerical order.

Michael White of the Guardian has the impression that people will be using the referendum to punish politicians, depending on whether they like Cameron or Clegg the least (a tricky choice). Anyway, don't do that – vote for a small, but significant break from the status quo.

Fratelli d'Italia - A Constitutional Interlude

2011-04-13T22:00:00.201+01:00

Image via WikipediaI almost have another instalment ready, but first I wanted to do this post, for a couple of reasons. Firstly, Zosia seemed to think that this was just a series in which I criticise Italy (until what, they stop?) and I wanted to look at something more positive. Secondly, it so happens that something constitutional has been in the news recently.

Edit: The Guardian just provided me with this amazing graph of Italian public spending. They forgot to put in a figure for the money that goes to the various mafias, but it's still pretty good.

Perhaps if we start with the sensational news story. Here's an article from near the end of the Italian constitution:

TRANSITORY AND FINAL PROVISIONS
XII.
The reorganisation, in any form, of the dissolved fascist party is forbidden.

Not, you might think, a bad idea. The Italian constitution was drawn up in the aftermath of the Second World War. They needed one, because, like a lot of European countries, they decided that monarchy wasn't really doing it for them. In Italy, the monarchy bore some of the blame for Mussolini's rise to power, which didn't help.

Well, if you want to constitute a republic, as a majority of Italians voting in a referendum apparently did, you'll find that a constitution comes in handy. Naturally, in light of recent events, the constitution contained elements intended to make sure that fascism, or something similar, never happened again. This makes it puzzling to me that Berlusconi gets away with such a flagrant conflict of interest in his combination of political office and media network ownership and control; it seems they left out some sorely needed safeguards against propaganda which might have created a less problematic relationship between the state and the media.

Anyway.

The news story is this. A group in the senate (like the house of lords, but I'd hope that was obvious) mostly made up of senators from Berlusconi's PdL (if I haven't got my wires crossed) put forward a motion to remove the above article from the constitution! Apparently the time has come to rethink the ban on the PNF. Really, it's amazing the things you can get away with as a politician in Italy. Political suicide in every other country I should think. Just think what it says about Catholics too; perhaps we'll see a fascist party back in Italy before we see the Act of Settlement repealed. There'll be no need to become an albino monk to give people the willies if that happens. How do you say "We're more scary than fascists" in Latin? It might come in handy.

So, moving on (but returning to complain about Berlusconi a bit later on), Italy has this constitution. I come from a kingdom, painstakingly constituted through centuries of history, not on paper, so it's an intriguing concept for me, and it's part of my wife's national identity and a future part of my daughter's national identity. I wanted to have a look. My father-in-law Carlo also wanted to have a look, because he went to a talk for the recent 150th anniversary of Italian unity which presented the Italian constitution as something to take pride in (national pride is not to be taken for granted in Italy). Coop produced a little booklet containing the complete text of the constitution and some archive photos and historical notes for €1, so I picked up one for me and one for Carlo.

To me, it seems pretty good. Maybe if we get round to ditching the monarchy we could nick some bits from it. One of the things which I found interesting is that it defines the responsibilities of the state, and this is where that man comes in; a common, and obvious, complaint about Berlusconi is that he only cares about saving his own skin – laws ad personam, they say here. This is exemplified by the (repellent) approval of the processo breve by the chamber of deputies (like the commons). He's decided that legal processes take too long apparently, and the best thing to do would be to set a time limit and cancel any cases that are dragging on a bit. It so happens that this means that he won't stand trial for a particularly tricky case of his - who cares if a heap of people are denied justice and the innocent are not absolved? But the Italian constitution actually indicates the responsibilities of the state, which makes his failure/refusal to deal with the real problems of Italy a constitutional matter.

Fundamental principles

Art. 1
Italy is a democratic Republic, founded on work.

Art. 4
The Republic recognises the right to work of all citizens and promotes the conditions which render this right effective.

This is probably the most common form of (political) complaint about Berlusconi and his government. He doesn't seem particularly interested in people who are losing their jobs. For a long time, the position of the Italian government on the international financial crisis is that it didn't affect Italy. B*llocks, obviously. I couldn't tell you the ins an outs of it, and Italy has probably been significantly less directly affected by the crisis than the UK, but people have lost and will lose jobs because of it. There's not much effective right to work for women either; obviously there's equal right legislation, but what does legislation mean? When Monica was looking for work, we knew that it was illegal to for them to ask personal questions about marital status and number of children, but they did at every single interview, to sift out women who might inconveniently excercise their right to bear children.

Edit: In the Guardian's graph, lavoro (work) is the little purple box just next to the very bottom right.

Art. 3
[...] It is the task of the Republic to remove obstacles of an economic and social nature which, effectively limiting the freedom and equality of citizens, prevent the full development of the human person and the effective participation of all workers in the political, economic and social organisation of the Country.

RIGHTS AND DUTIES OF CITIZENS

TITOLO III
ECONOMIC RELATIONS

Art. 35.

The Republic safeguards work in all its forms and applications.
It attends to the the training and professional advancement of workers.

Here I might again note the long-term problem of precarietà (unstable work situations, especially among the young), and how this 'effectively limits the equality of citizens' and 'prevents full development'. I haven't noticed the Republic paying a lot of attention to that recently.

Edit: In the Guardian's graph, formazione (training) is the little (olive?) green box at the bottom right.

Fundamental principles

Art. 9
The Republic promotes the development of culture and scientific and technical research.

Mmm. Culture. Well, I'm hazy on the details, but I recall that there was a big hoo-ha about the government's neglect of Pompei. I also proofread an article recently that said that only one of the many artistic residences available in Italy, only one was open to Italians; a sort of charitable concession by an American institution I can't remember the name of. Then, as for research, well... in addition to the governments much-contested (futile) cuts to the education system, a long-term problem here goes by the name of la fuga dei cervelli (the flight of the brains. An Italian rapper (Caparezza) recently released quite a good song about it, featuring Tony Hadley, of all people. Italians who make it through the university system don't find a research infrastructure that can take them. Italians are doing important research around the world; unfortunately not so much of it is done in Italy. The Republic is effectively exporting its talent through neglect, and losing out in the process.

Edit: In the Guardian's graph, cultura (culture) is the yellow box towards the bottom right and ricerca (research) is the higher of two little blue boxes at the bottom right.

RIGHTS AND DUTIES OF CITIZENS

TITOLO II
SOCIO-ETHICAL RELATIONS

Art. 31.
The Republic facilitates the formation of the family with economic measures and other provisions [...].

I think that it's worth mentioning precarietà again here. How is a young person expected to start a family when his job could simply disappear in a year? This is at least part of the reason why Italians marry so late and have so few children, a demographic issue which creates not a few problems.
Interesting again is how little notice is taken of these obligations. To me it seems that using the constitution as a stick to beat Berlusconi with is an obvious course to take for the opposition, but it doesn't quite seem to register. It's not as though the subject never comes up (in fact, Bersani was quoting the constitution yesterday on the telly) but it doesn't seem to be a popular appeal. Perhaps it's because every Italian government has been failing to address these issues, so it doesn't seem too clever to single out the PdL.

Perhaps it's just that the constitution, so far, seems too good to be true.

Moving House!

2011-04-03T13:07:00.001+01:00

Hello,

Two in one day! You lucky people. Anyway, this is just a quick note to give some good news. As I had rather been hoping, a larger place in the same complex of apartments is becoming available. Our landlord knew we were looking (and we're wicked tenants, obviously) so he asked us if we'd be interested. We had a look, and apparently 7 extra square metres makes a hell of a difference, because it seemed pretty palatial to us! So we said yes.

We should be moving around the beginning of July. Not such good news for my parents coming over for Noemi's baptism in June... but there's an extra bedroom, room to swing a cat in the kitchen and it should be cooler in the summer. Woo ha!

Daily Gospel

2011-04-03T12:54:00.003+01:00

...or Vangelo del Giorno if you prefer. I like the liturgy. I like the fact that if you go to mass daily for three years, you will hear the vast majority of the bible (something like 80-90% apparently). So I've got that Universalis banner at the top of the blog and lachiesa.it's liturgy script in the sidebar. It'd be at the top if I could CSS it into a better format, but I fear that I can't.

Anyway, I wanted to plug Daily Gospel, because it's a well made site that does exactly what I wanted. I wanted to read the gospel for the mass of the day at work. It was the first site that came up when I typed "vangelo del giorno" into Google. You can subscribe by e-mail, and for working days only if you like (thumbs up). Not only do you get the gospel reading, you also get very good and relatively varied meditations, the kind of thing you can get something out of, but still feasily find a moment for. Recently, from the Byzantine and Eastern liturgies for the Great Lent , a prayer by Saint Ephrem the Syrian for example.

Not only that, but in addition to being able to visit the site directly, they provide an RSS feed and a customisable PHP script for integration into other websites. The latter looks to be simple enough for me to use, and I know almost nothing about PHP. Plus the mandatory mobile (standard, Android and iPhone) versions.

Well done Evangelizo.org.

Fratelli d'Italia pt. 4

2011-03-24T07:04:00.001Z

Image by marc e marc via FlickrI'm on a roll, and these ones shouldn't take me too long.

Banks - I often felt that in England, the banks were rather lacklustre in their customer service. I worked all week, and had the day off on Saturday. Why did they usually close early? So I wasn't too pleased to find that it's even worse here. They mostly seem to be open in the morning even on weekdays and I think some days they're just closed, like bars. Bloody skivers. One time I had a cheque to pay in, so I had to pop in before going to work; how rubbish is that? I seem to recall hearing that Italian bank charges are among the worst, if not the worst, in Europe. Service please.
Tobacconists - This one's not annoying, just intriguing. Where do you go to buy bus tickets? Why, the tobbaconist's of course. Silly me for not thinking of that.
Prices at bars - I was opining about this one at work the other day. You can never see the prices in Italian bars. They're legally required to display them I think, but basically they're usually "on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying 'Beware of the Leopard'." What I don't get is why. Surely a bar with reasonable prices which advertised them better would get more customers. No?
Display of opening hours - It happens that since I made a note to write about this, I've seen a lot more opening hours, but still - quite a lot of the time you have to guess when shops/offices are going to open. For a native it's not too hard to guess, unless they're gratuitously unpredictable (and sometimes they are: mon-wed-fri in the morning and tue-thu in the afternoon with 2 hours on sat for special appointments, for example), but even then there's usually a margin of about an hour where you're not sure when you should go out. Is it too much like hard work to put a sign up?
Bus timetables - I'm a graduate. I find it hard to understand Italian bus timetables. They seem principally to be composed of a highly detailed grid of exceptions (not on holiday, mon-fri only, mon-sat only, only during term time, not from june-august). There's very little regularity, so every stop has an individual entry (not like the summary "every 1hr" kind of thing you get in Blighty), making the visual prospect quite daunting from the get go. They tend to be geared towards schoolchildren, so you have buses every 5 minutes in the morning and every once in a blue moon during the day. If you ask the little old ladies who populate Italian bus stops if they know what's going on, they'll tell you it's a mystery to them as well. No wonder everyone drives everywhere. I seem to remember that Thatcher woman justifying cuts in the public transport budget by suggesting that if you see a man on a bus over the age of 14, you're looking at a failure. Very Italian.

Feast of St. Joseph

2011-03-19T09:50:00.004Z

Image via Wikipedia

Today is the feast of St. Joseph, which means that it's Fathers' Day in Italy, so this is my first ever Fathers' Day - it's a nice feeling.

Luckily, none of the following will be expecting a card, but happy Fathers' Day to my Dad, my brother Adrian, who's also a new father, my brother-in-law Lorenzo, whose little girl turned 1 recently, my father-in-law Carlo, and me mate James, with his two wonderful little girls and a further wonderful child in the oven.

Unfortunately it's a day mixed with sadness in Offagna. A father of two little girls took his life tonight.

To you, O blessed Joseph,
do we come in our tribulation,
and having implored the help of your most holy spouse,
we confidently invoke your patronage also.
Through that charity which bound you
to the immaculate Virgin Mother of God
and through the paternal love
with which you embraced the Child Jesus,
we humbly beg you graciously to regard
the inheritance which Jesus Christ
has purchased by his Blood,
and with your power and strength
to aid us in our necessities.

O most watchful Guardian of the Holy Family,
defend the chosen children of Jesus Christ;
O most loving father,
ward off from us
every contagion of error and corrupting influence;
O our most mighty protector,
be propitious to us and from heaven assist us
in our struggle with the power of darkness;
and, as once you rescued the Child Jesus from deadly peril,
so now protect God’s Holy Church
from the snares of the enemy and from all adversity;
shield, too, each one of us by your constant protection,
so that, supported by your example and your aid,
we may be able to live piously, to die holily,
and to obtain eternal happiness in heaven. Amen.

(Ad te, beati Ioseph, an ancient prayer to St Joseph)

Fratelli d'Italia pt. 3 - 150 Year Anniversary Edition

2011-03-17T08:15:00.004Z

Image via WikipediaToday, as fate would have it, marks 150 years of Italian unity. Hurrah! A lot of Italians aren't sure it's worth celebrating, but most people will be enjoying the day off to think about it. Anyway, it's nice timing for resurrecting my series on Italian quirks:

Extravagant waste - This would be another thing to do with Striscia. It's a funny sort of programme; does a little bit of lots of things. One of the things it does is a bit like Watchdog, but it doesn't limit itself to consumer affairs - it deals with dodgy affairs at a political level too. One of these is wasted public money. Local councils, regions or whatever, pay to develop schools, hospitals, parks, you name it, which are then instantly abandoned. It's not too hard to explain in itself, just common or garden corruption. What I don't understand is how no-one ends up in prison for it. It's clearly a crime people aren't particularly afraid to commit, because it keeps on cropping up on Striscia, but why on earth not? It might be a bit tricky to pursue the mafia, but local politicians have offices; they're in the phone book and everything. And then, it's spectacularly obvious. It's public money wasted in a gratuitously extravagant way - in bricks and concrete, and whatever one uses these days. I mean, short of building a Wasted Public Money Memorial Hospital and then driving through the streets in one of those van with loudspeakers shouting "I am pissing away your taxes!", I'm not quite sure what you'd have to do to get arrested around these parts.
Precarietà vs. Cushy Public Sector - I'm rewriting this one, apparently at a distance of 5 months from the first attempt! Here's a funny thing; in the world of work, Italy has two diametrically opposed problems at the same time. Monica tells me that part about the public sector is improving, but anyway. Chronologically, the first problem is that, apparently, public sector workers are practically impossible to fire. Perhaps this says more about employers not wanting to go through disciplinary procedures, but I couldn't tell you. Anyway, they can, by common consent, get away with murder and keep their job for life. Tim Parks told an amazing story about a woman who apparently clocked in at the office, left her coat on her chair and prosituted herself all day for years until someone decided to check what the hell she actually did. The other, more recent problem is precarietà ("precariousness"), the term that Italians use to indicate that someone is on a short term contract, like practically everyone in my office for example, and especially the young. The disastrous social effects of widespread precarietà are obvious, with workers struggling to find the stability that they need to settle down, something which helps to explain why the average Italian waits so long before marrying and having children. How the hell can a government not intervene in a matter like this? Anyway, not much use waiting for Berlusconi to do anything about it. He's too busy trying to save his wrinkly (no matter how hard he tries) skin.
Facebook - Now, seriously. Facebook is all well and good. I like Facebook; I use it. But it's not news. Something to do with an Italian love of gadgets I expect (apparently they're second only to us in wasting time on mobile phones), but every so often there's a story about Facebook on the news, about Berlusconi being annoyed about the groups that criticise him (thousands, obviously), groups that offend people with Downs syndrome, FB-based lobbying groups (as much of a waste of time here as anywhere else, I assure you). Then of course, every programme has a Facebook group, and one of our biggest clients insists on trying to do viral marketing through FB apps - trust me, it would take a seriously compromised immune system for that particular virus to take hold. Get a grip! Who gives a cazzo volante? It's only a chuffing website.
Strikes - So... why do Italians strike? I fear the answer can only be because they like striking. I'm definitely in favour of the principle of worker solidarity and striking, and Italy, like us has a long history of socialism and collective action. But here it's so futile; it's devalued currency. I can only really see it as a day off. Apparently the bus drivers strike every year, to coincide with the new school year. But how did it get this way? What happened to the Italian left that they complain so much and achieve so little? Anyway, wiser heads than mine have been trying to answer that question for a loooooooong time.
Scusa, ma... - I like this one. If you were translate this literally, it would be "Excuse me, but...". The perfect starting point for a quintessentially British phrase right? Such as "Excuse me, but I appear to have become enveloped in flames. Unfortunately the pain is exquisite. Could I possibly borrow some of your water?" In Italian, it's quite another story; there's no apology going on, it's a popular way of preparing the interested party for criticism. To take it to the extreme (as it might be understood on television for example, in one of the many 'healthy' debates), you might translate it as "Pardon my frankness, but I'd like to explain why you're a moron...". It's not always so pronounced of course, but in any case, sorry doesn't always mean sorry. Quite often it's the prelude to a thorough takedown.

A Fly Lands on Ambrose's Nose

2011-01-30T11:37:00.006Z

There's a nursery rhyme that Gabriella has been singing to Noemi. Apparently it's very old, and I couldn't find it on the interweb, but we like it.

I decided to set myself a challenge and translate it into an English version that you can sing to the same tune. I don't think I did a bad job! ~~Perhaps I'll do an MP3 later~~. Done: ambrose.mp3

«Oh, perbacco» diceva Tommaso,
«Se mi viene la mosca sul naso
Io di certo qui dir non saprei
In tal caso che cosa farei.
Che ne dite amici miei?
È una cosa che fa pensar,
che fa pensar.»
Ad un tratto la mosca pian piano
Sul nasin di Tommaso posò.
«Povero naso!»
esclamava confuso Tommaso:
Ohilì, Ohilà!
A farsi furbo così imparerà.

"Oh, my goodness" said Ambrose,
"What if that fly came and sat on my nose?
In that instance I couldn't tell you
What on earth I would venture to do.
What's the solution according to you?
It's a thinker and no mistake,
and no mistake."
The fly suddenly chose to repose,
Gracefully perched on the nose of Ambrose.
"Oh my poor nose!"
cried a baffled Ambrose:
Hey here! Hey there!
That'll teach him to think with more flair.

Noemi Natalie Dobson

2011-01-16T11:35:00.000Z

God Save the English Part 2

2010-11-24T17:46:00.001Z

Image via Wikipedia

Food: This is like shooting fish in a barrel. I shouldn't talk about English cuisine. Let's just say that after 4 years in England the only English food I really liked was apple crumble. I like cottage pie too but with an Italian touch.

I remember the first time I saw my English flatmate opening a can and pour the contents into a plate. To me it looked like cat food but as far as I knew she didn't have a cat. Then to my horror she started eating it. I had a look at the can. It said spaghetti hoops. It was just horrible and disgusting to me. Cat food is more appropriate.

But England never failed to surprise me every day. I found out that you also put spaghetti in cans. This is just mental. There ought to be laws. You should not put spaghetti in cans. Never. For any reason. It can't be done. It's against nature. Italians know that of all the kinds of pasta, spaghetti requires special care in cooking. It's very easy to get the timing wrong and then you can't eat them. As soon as they are cooked they should be seasoned and eaten because otherwise they get sticky and horrible. So to put them in a can is out of the question.
But just when I thought it couldn't be worse than this, my then friend Mark told me one day he had ravioli on toast for lunch. What? I said with my usual horrified expression. He explained me that he opened a can of ravioli and poured it on toast. I almost fainted! Images of my mum and my nan spending afternoons making homemade ravioli came into my mind and a certain feeling of disgust and pity filled my stomach. Ravioli in a can? Why do you do such things England? Why don't you love your people enough to nurture them with proper food? That day I honestly felt pity for Mark who had never tasted proper ravioli and according to me never had proper food. Thank God I saved the man from English cans and opened to him the paradise of Italian cuisine and my mum's delicious lasagne.

Loose shoes: In England you seem to have very loose shoes that you can take off at anytime and everywhere. This is something else that really shocked me and my friends during the first weeks. Students would take their shoes off during the lecture, in the library, in the cafe, everywhere. But it wasn't just students, I noticed it in the town library as well as in other public places. Why? It's not as if it's that hot in England that you need to take them off all the time and then it's just not very nice to do it in public. This is something that made us quite uncomfortable, especially if we were talking to the person who suddenly took their shoes off. A very uneasy feeling. And yes Mark, quite unihygienic too, as your countrymen do like fiddling with their feet quite a lot.

God Save the English

2010-11-06T15:17:00.001Z

Here is my revenge Mark!

I lived in England for 4 years. No day passed without me thinking "What is this?", " How is it possible..." or "Why would anyone do that...", and very very often "Bloody weather!". I missed my country a lot. I missed the changing of the seasons; in England there's only one season, the rainy one. Obviously I missed the food, the sunshine, my family and friends and more generally the personal contact. But I stayed, and I 'm happy I did because England gave me the man of my life, my lovely husband, soon to be a lovely father.

Talk to your baby: This is actually something I came across a few days ago reading the Guardian online. But it provoked my usual reaction of "How is it possible? Why? What?". Basically, the article talks about the difficulty that English parents encounter in talking with their little ones. It starts with a question: "Do we need to talk to our babies?". And I say: "Do we need such a question?" Of course you need to talk to them, but most importantly, it's not a need, it's a pleasure to talk to babies. Apparently not for the English. They need to be taught, they need resources and materials from the National Literacy Trust to talk to their offspring. This left me quite bewildered as my husband would say. Personally, I just need my baby. I started talking to him when I was 4 months pregnant and I've carried on since then.

TTYB aims to help parents and carers to get
over the embarrassment factor – "I feel stupid talking to my baby" – by showing
how much difference such communication makes to emotional and learning skills
later in life.

I can't believe a parent could feel embarassed talking to their baby. After 4 years in England I can believe an English parent could feel that way. But it's still something beyond me.

"facing-baby" buggies. A simple idea, but one which – if well executed and
developed in large enough numbers – can have a disproportionate impact on
countless lives.

You can rotate the buggies as much as you like but you still need to talk to your babies. That's what makes the big difference. Good grief, how on earth can you find talking to your baby embarassing or even stupid? What can actually have a disproportionate impact on your babies is if you talk to them! Not if you rotate the bloody buggy! I simply can't get my head around it and this happened quite a lot during my stay in England.

Taps: Yes, taps. Cold water, hot water: that kind of tap. Let's talk about it. My dad coming out of my loo exclaimed: "Bloody hell Monica, am I back in Pakistan? Didn't progress reach this country?". Wise words dad, wise words. I wish I had an answer.

We had a mixer in the kitchen sink, but even with that I could tell you which side the hot water and the cold water were flowing out without mixing. Impressive! Why on earth you've got this separate taps business I don't know. Why? Why? Is it that difficult to make a mixer in England? In the morning I always had to decide whether to scald my face with hot water or freeze it with cold water because even if I decided to open both taps and mix the water in the sink, by some kind of English magic the water wouldn't mix properly. In England the hot and cold water are parted like the Red Sea. So very annoying! I wish someone could explain to me the existence of separate taps in the 21th century in a progressive country like England. To me it's a mystery.

Door opening etiquette: Well, this is something me and my friends found pretty annoying during the first few weeks in England. We got used to it in the end but it was still a bit/quite annoying. The very first week we slammed doors in the faces of many English people but we noticed that people opened doors for us, so we gathered that something was wrong. Hard to say what. So we applied the door opening etiquette. But it was annoying. Reminding yourself at any given point in the day when passing through a door to look behind you in case anybody was around so that you can leave it open. And there are such heavy doors in England! At least build lighter ones if you want me to keep them open for you every time I pass through them. Going to the library on rainy days was always a nightmare. You had to hold an umbrella and books and make sure to hold the heavy door open for the person behind you. Don't get me wrong (yeah, yeah - and the rest - ed.), it's not as if we enjoy slamming doors on people's faces in Italy. We leave them open if someone is really close or if someone has problems getting the door open. In England you leave doors open for people miles away from you! That's too much! I would enjoy it a bit more if you made lighter doors.

The Rinsing business: This is something that really shocked me and my Spanish, French and German friends. To find out that English people don't rinse when they wash up. Gosh, that's very very strange at the very least. And very unhygienic (it was only a matter of time - ed.) at the most. Do you realize, English people, that you are actually drinking and eating soap? The fact that after a bit the foam disappears from the dishes doesn't mean that they are clean! I just can't think about all the bacteria breeding on those dishes and I just can't think about how many times I've eaten and drank from those glasses. Before drinking or eating, I would make a mental (mental is right - ed.) sign of the cross and recommend my body to God. This is not just me being paranoid. All of my European friends agreed with me and they all had the same shocked face as I still have when I think about it. This again is something I can't get my head around.

Fratelli d’Italia pt. 2

2010-10-18T18:44:00.003+01:00

Image by marcoPapale.com via FlickrPart 2: we shift to television, as I said before.

TV Debates Generally - I already mentioned politicians arguing on televisions, but they're certainly not the only ones. On Striscia la Notizia they frequently draw attention to the phenomenon with a sort of chart called I Nuovi Mostri ("The New Monsters" - I believe it's a nod to something rather more cultural) where they basically run through the people who've made arses of themselves on TV in various ways during the week. Some people seem to get invited onto TV shows specifically to argue - if you didn't know that Berlusconi was behind Italian TV you might suspect Jeremy Kyle had something to do with it. The thing I really don't understand is the lack of intervention by TV presenters. There's a certain naivete about it all: when someone, either in the audience or properly in front of the cameras, is shouting over the top of someone else, so that the whole spectacle has become entirely farcical, a presenter might implore some dignity, a bit of calm, but the idiot somehow retains use of the microphone. Note to Italian TV people: when you take a microphone away from someone, it makes them harder to hear. Thank you.
Repetitive, Crap TV - The most obvious criticism that you can make about Italian TV is that it's lousy. I generally get told at this point that English TV isn't up to much at the minute, plus, you have to stay up later than I do to watch the good stuff. Fair enough. Bad television isn't strange in itself: what I'm curious about is the way in which it is bad. There's a spectacular lack of variety: a good number of programmes are on every working day, such as Renegade (old, American, shit, ugly protagonists with bad clothes) and Squadra Speciale Cobra 11 (silly German series about a special branch of the traffic police with implausible storylines and obligatory scene with cars exploding on the Autobahn - Monica reserves a special scorn for Germany's contribution to Italian TV). There are also programmes on every day which aren't bad, but there's simply no need to repeat them, such as The Simpsons ('Woo-hoo!' = "Mitico!" btw) and Who Wants to be a Millionaire?, which even runs on Saturday I think - basically, you can tell that it's the day of rest when even Gerry Scotti isn't on the idiot box. I was recently reminded of the extraordinary fact that the Mayans (before the Spanish decided to destroy their civilisation) believed that the sun would cease to rise if they ceased to offer human sacrifices. One wonders how such a situation could arise, but I suppose you start small. Perhaps in 100 years, Italians will believe that the sun will not set if they neglect to broadcast Striscia every single day of the week including Sunday (or Veline/Velone/Paperissima to appease the god of the summer hiatus), as is their current practise.
Films on really late - More of the same scheduling madness. Again, I am penalised for my early nights, but it seems a bit over the top to me. Some of the best films that I see in the terrestrial schedules begin at somewhere around 11:30, whereas the lousy ones (Big Mama is on at a watchable time this evening, for example) get the primetime slots. The way I see it, the films must cost the channel the same amount no matter when they broadcast them, though the revenue from advertising must be higher before midnight. So isn't it in their own interest to give us the best films in the evening, and the bollocks at night?
Veline
Apparently there was a feminist movement in Italy once. This explains why there is civil divorce and legal abortion. However, I frequently wonder what happened to all the feminists; there's still rather a lot of work to do. I allude in this instance to the veline, properly speaking a feature of Striscia, but representative of Italian TV in general. With varying degrees of sobriety, there are a lot of women on TV whose only purpose is to act as eye-candy. Striscia's veline, as the wikipedia article says "perform short dance breaks or stacchetti, always finishing up on the news anchors’ desk. They usually perform in swim-suits or tank tops and sing pop tunes as they dance." They do nothing else, except for the strange style of staged publicity that they have here for the shows' sponsors. Apparently the veline are meant to be a parody of the bimbos (strange use of Italian by us by the way - a bimbo is a male child) but I don't buy that story for a minute. Now, I have an ambivalent relationship with feminism (if you were to use the term "feminist literary theory" for example, I would immediately feel contempt) but I'd feel happier if they came back and addressed this outrageous affront to the dignity of women. As I say, this phenomenon exhibits itself with varying degrees of class: the most crass examples I'm aware of would be Ciao Darwin and Chiambretti Night, which I can't watch and the most tasteful Che Tempo Che Fa. But the last example is perhaps the most depressing, because it's a good programme, but they employ this completely superfluous Scandinavian woman. She may be elegant, she may have a reasonable amount of clothes on, but she's still purely decorative.

Update: I received, in response to the last part, a link to a documentary on the subject. And I see that there's even an English version.

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