When Down, Trumps Up

Every so often, usually for no discernible reason, optimism and cheerfulness are abruptly extinguished by an opaque fog of numbness.

Limbs become sluggish in movement, as if encased in setting cement, and a band of nausea pulls tight with every breath.

Suddenly even the simplest tasks present insurmountable difficulty; and before long, the neglect of personal space and personal hygiene begin to testify to the previously undetected mental maelstrom.

Undetected from the outside, that is…

Inside, the brain whirs faster than usual but little of note gets done: it is  hard to build anything worthwhile from disjointed thoughts and negativity that probe the mind like invasive fingers, kneading perception and logic into a painful mush.

But effort has to be drawn from somewhere; for avoiding other people becomes of utmost and paranoid importance. Avoiding other people in a way that does not rouse suspicion, requires effort.

Waving, nodding, smiling, understanding, talking: they are all so difficult to fake. Cracks could be spotted at any time, and once spotted, bring forth that dreaded flood of concern:

“Are you ok? What’s the matter?”

What’s the matter? The matter is that I feel as if I have been flayed alive: the most delicate parts of myself laid wide open to the rawness of the elements.

The matter is that my own mind has taken against me, leaving me struggling to function on any level – physical, emotional, mental…

The matter is that I cannot stop imagining myself fleshily peeling away from these cumbersome limbs; tearing the essence of me from the torturous confusion of my brain and setting it free.

“Nothing. I’m fine.”

Because you know that if you sit tight, if you keep patiently telling yourself – this too will pass – then it will.

You do what you can, forgive yourself what you cannot and allow your mind to weary itself with its flights of fancy, safe in the knowledge that eventually it will pass.

In a day, or a week, or a month, it will pass.

Slash and Burn for Running Paw

status viatoris – being ‘on the way’/being in a state of pilgrimage

Time spent with Cyril the accident-prone sparrowhawk (written about here), reawakened my – admittedly never very dormant – desire to seek volunteer work with a local conservation outfit. But although potentially interesting wildlife-orientated contacts were made thanks to Petronella the pipistrelle (remember her?), repeated offers of an extra pair of hands came to nothing.

And then life, as it has a nasty habit of doing, got in the way anyway – there is nothing like renovations and Bastard French Notaries for obliterating all notions of free time and replacing selfless intentions with stress-induced narcissism.

So when my ex-landlady/friend/neighbour/lady mayoress mentioned that she was in talks to donate a piece of communal land to be used as a rehabilitation centre for injured wildlife, it seemed too fortuitous to be true.

Indeed, bureaucratic cogs in Italy move frustratingly slowly, especially when un-greased by wealthy interested parties – of which conservation attracts far too few. In fact almost a year elapsed before we were summoned to a dinner/talk given by the organisers of the initiative, in which it was at long last confirmed that it would be going ahead.

Which how I came to spend last Sunday in the company of Italian veterinarians and conservationists, up to my elbows in recalcitrant plant life; yanking, snipping, wrenching and sawing for all I was worth in order to reclaim the chosen site from Mother Nature’s tanglesome efforts to do the same.

Man vs Ivy – let the fight commence!

Even Pooch came along to join in the fun, although having expended enormous amounts of energy in digging a large hole, he was inadvertently bonked on the head by a stray branch and had to be whisked off home to the safety of the sofa for the purpose of recovering his spirits.

A blur of rather pointless activity…

A  stroke of good fortune provided us with the most glorious of sunny days to aid  in our endeavours, thus allowing for the incineration of the relentlessly defeated ivy which filled the air with atmospheric winter smells (and my lungs with ashy crud).

Après le slashing, le burning.

Following no less than 5 hour’s work – Ivy is to be admired for its tenacity…

It was time very enjoyably spent, and I find myself quite giddy with excitement at the prospect of putting to good use the years of helping my parents nurse bitterns, buzzards, bats and badgers back to health and subsequent freedom.

Not to be sniffed at either is the rare opportunity to rub shoulders with people who share the same interests and concerns as I do. Circumstance, location, sloth and shyness (yes really) have up until now made such a possibility distant at best, and to have it land so unexpectedly on my doorstep is nothing short of miraculous.

To new beginnings…

So let us raise our glasses to the brand new association Zampa che Corre, to the perseverance of the veterinarians and conservationists, to the generosity and string-pulling of a very special mayoress, all of whose combined efforts have managed to bring it from thought, to deed.

This is Status Viatoris, enjoying the aching muscles and the bleeding scratches that tell of a job well done and a lot more to look forward to besides, in Italy.

And the flip side…

SV coming back to her illegally parked car after about 40 minutes to find the traffic police have ticketed her.

Fiddlesticks! (and worse).

One officer sees her stomping up to the car and walks over.

SV starts to quake in her dog-walking trainers (yes, she does like to be uber-smart when going into town).

PC Ploddio: Which one of these is your car?

SV (debating whether to deny all knowledge of any automobile and just keep walking): This one.

At which point PC Ploddio reaches out, grabs the ticket from under the wipers, and silently rips it up before sauntering off.

Now I have never been one for uniforms; but for a brief moment, ravishing him over the bonnet of my illegally parked car seemed like a perfectly desirable thing to do.

The Hunt for the Elusive Medic

status viatoris – being ‘on the way’/being in a state of pilgrimage

There is a very blink-and-you-miss-it quality to much legislation in Italy and my most recent example of its fickle nature ran along the following lines:

Sometime in early December whilst visiting the local Azienda Sanitaria Local (ASL) in order to sign up with a general practitioner in the hope of getting some of my asthma medication subsidised (currently paying 70€ a month for just one of my inhalers)…

SV (taking a number):  197, the board says 160, so only 36 people between me and my goal. Great!

40 minutes later

SV: 197, the board says 179, only 18 people between me and my goal. Hrrumph.

35 minutes later

SV: 197, the board says 197. I guess that means it’s my turn. Unfortunately I seem to have lost the will to live.

ASL woman: I’m afraid rules for EU citizens have changed. You can no longer sign on with a doctor unless you have a work contract. If you do not have a work contract, you must go and sign on at the unemployment office and bring us the unemployment certificate in order to be put on a doctor’s list. We can then send you to an asthma specialist.

SV: Ok.

Sometime in early January (Yes, yes. It always take me a little while to get round to things) whilst visiting the local Centro per l’Impiego – Ufficio di Collocamento as was – in order to sign on…

SV (peering about her): There are no signs, no numbers and nobody to ask. I wonder if I’m in the right queue.

45 minutes later

Centro per l’Impiego man: I don’t know why ASL have sent you here, they’re not supposed to send people here anymore. Go back and tell them they shouldn’t have sent you here.

20 minutes later in the local ASL offices…

SV (taking a number): 207. 153 on the board. That would make it 53 people between me and my goal. I should have brought a book. War and Peace, perhaps.

70 minutes later

ASL man: I’m afraid rules for EU citizens have changed. You can no longer sign on with a doctor unless you have a work contract, even then, you will only be covered by the Italian healthcare system for as long as your work contract lasts. If you do not have a work contract, then you will have to pay for everything even if you are signed on at the employment office.

SV: Ok.

***

Well, what else could I say? I don’t currently contribute to the Italian healthcare system and haven’t lived here long enough to account for any significant contribution in the past.

I understand: public financial resources are not infinite, as we are all discovering to our cost, I JUST WISH THEY’D MAKE UP THEIR MINDS!!!!

This is Status Viatoris, for whom Pooch has valiantly offered to give up his dog biscuits and live entirely off scraps and titbits from the local shops and bars so she can afford her meds. He is sooooooo self-sacrificing that boy

Things To Do With Words part 1

status viatoris – being ‘on the way’/being in a state of pilgrimage

In my quest to find more Things To Do With Words that may one day enable me to pay some modest bills, I signed up months ago for two online courses with the London School of Journalism.

“Novel Writing” seemed fairly straight forward, although my experience with fiction is, thus far, limited to a handful of half-finished tales that clog up my computer memory whilst failing to provide enough inspirational impetus to reach any satisfactory conclusion.

I have therefore decided to try my hand at a rather more formulaic writing tactic – at least until my inner Maggie O’Farrell, Umberto Eco or Marian Keyes leaps out to make the transition from wishful thinking to reality – and have a stab at a Mills & Boon.

So for the next few months, accounts of heaving buzzooms, quivering members and those oh so infuriating misunderstandings that throw kinks in the journey to Troo Lurve, must pour from my fingertips if I am to finish the book before the course ends and enlist my tutor’s help in approaching the publishers.

Luckily I am fairly well-versed in the romantic genre, having been lured from the path of highbrow literature in my early teens by a dear elderly neighbour.

A church-going primary school teacher, brown owl extraordinaire, mother of three, grandmother of nine and locally renowned pillar of respectability; she harboured a secret passion for bodice-rippers which she managed (with very little difficulty given my fanciful nature) to pass on.

Visits to her would almost always lead to sneaking back home, suspicious rectangles of ill-disguised trashiness under my jumper or shoved down the back of my jeans.

But as I have since discovered, we are surprisingly numerous us secret devourers of Mills & Boon. A veritable army of educated, well-read, even intelligent women, young and old, who cannot resist the lure of the perfect romance with just the right amount of unbridled lust.

Deprived of a special handshake, and adept at creeping unseen around the dark corners of charity bookshops, we have no way of identifying ourselves to each other but by accident.

Friend spies book on shelf:

“You read Mills & Boon?”

“God, no! My…ummm… grandmother gave it to me.”

“Oh.”

“Why, do you read Mills & Boon?”

“Ummm… yes. Sort of. Sometimes.”

“Me too, actually. Love them.”

“Thank goodness! So do I! Read any really good ones lately?”

That is not to say that I think Mills & Boon always get it right. In fact it would give me a lot of pleasure to be able to read, let alone write, a romance in which the hero is something rather more attainable than a self-made gazillionaire, and where the heroine is a woman I could identify with, as opposed to a  youthfully chaste – but breathtakingly gorgeous, natch – pauper.

With real-life grandes amours and actual coups de foudre being on a par with hens’ teeth in the rarity stakes, reading about them is as close as many of us will ever get. So why not make them just that little bit closer to home?

This is Status Viatoris, fired up with enthusiasm about spreading the luuuurve, in Italy.

34 or 64?

status viatoris – being ‘on the way’/being in a state of pilgrimage

At the hairdressers for pruning and re-doing of roots purposes…

SV (peering at herself in the mirror): How nice! My natural colour seems to be getting lighter.

Hairdresser: It’s all white.

SV: It’s better than alright, it’s great!

Hairdresser: No. Your hair is lighter because a lot of it is now white.

SV (putting on her glasses and peering a little closer): Oh.

This is Status Viatoris, thinking she should probably dispense with the glasses and just stick to the fanciful blur, in Italy.

We’ve Gotta Green It Up, Baby

I know, I know; this lazy plagiarism has got to stop.

And it will, I promise.

It’s just that this email landed with a fortuitous thump in my inbox only a matter of days after I had been cussing fit to bust over the amount of plastic packaging surrounding one miserable curtain rail, and begged noisily to be shared…

…

“Checking out at the grocery store recently the young cashier suggested I should bring my own grocery bags because plastic bags weren’t good for the environment.

I apologized and explained, “We didn’t have this green thing back in my earlier days.”

The clerk responded, “That’s our problem today. Your generation did not care enough to save our environment for future generations.”

She was right about one thing — our generation didn’t have the green thing in “Our” day.

So what did we have back then…?

After some reflection and soul-searching on “Our” day here’s what I remembered we did have….

Back then, we returned milk bottles, soda bottles and beer bottles to the store. The store sent them back to the plant to be washed and sterilized and refilled, so it could use the same bottles repeatedly.

So they really were recycled.

But we didn’t have the green thing back in our day.

We walked up stairs, because we didn’t have an escalator in every store and office building.

We walked to the grocery store and didn’t climb into a 300-horsepower machine every time we had to go two blocks.

But she was right. We didn’t have the green thing in our day.

Back then, we washed the baby’s diapers because we didn’t have the throw-away kind.

We dried clothes on a line, not in an energy gobbling machine burning up 220 volts — wind and solar power really did dry our clothes back in our early days.

Kids got hand-me-down clothes from their brothers or sisters, not always brand-new clothing.

But that young lady is right. We didn’t have the green thing back in our day.

Back then, we had one TV, or radio, in the house — not a TV in every room.

And the TV had a small screen the size of a handkerchief (remember them?), not a screen the size of the state of Montana.

In the kitchen, we blended and stirred by hand because we didn’t have electric machines to do everything for us.

When we packaged a fragile item to send in the mail, we used wadded up old newspapers to cushion it, not Styrofoam or plastic bubble wrap.

Back then, we didn’t fire up an engine and burn gasoline just to cut the lawn. We used a push mower that ran on human power.

We exercised by working so we didn’t need to go to a health club to run on treadmills that operate on electricity.

But she’s right. We didn’t have the green thing back then.

We drank from a fountain when we were thirsty instead of using a cup or a plastic bottle every time we had a drink of water.

We refilled writing pens with ink instead of buying a new pen, and we replaced the razor blades in a razor instead of throwing away the whole razor just because he blade got dull.

But we didn’t have the green thing back then.

Back then, people took the streetcar or a bus, and kids rode their bikes to school or walked instead of turning their moms into a 24-hour taxi service.

We had one electrical outlet in a room, not an entire bank of sockets to power a dozen appliances. And we didn’t need a computerized gadget to receive a signal beamed from satellites 2,000 miles out in space in order to find the nearest pizza joint.

But isn’t it sad the current generation laments how wasteful we old folks were just because we didn’t have the green thing back then?”

…

Now I’m “only” 34, so these memories are not entirely reminiscent of “My Day”. Although cloth nappies, fountain pens, one television in the house (and that only arrived when I was four or five) and endless hand-me-down clothes all formed a part of my childhood.

But life today moves at such a lickety-split pace, that sadly, and despite my relative youth ( ), I can already put together a short “My Day” list of my very own.

- Pills that came in recyclable glass bottles as opposed to hundreds of aluminium strips.

- Milkmen who visited practically every home in the British Isles to take away used glass milk bottles – returning them clean and full the next day – as opposed to plastic bottles or practically un-recyclable cartons from supermarkets.

- Electric appliances that used to last 15 or 20 years, are now so cheaply made (in order to comply with unrealistic consumer expectations) that they have to be thrown away and replaced every couple of years.

- Drinking water in Mallorca provided in huge glass bottles, which could be returned and re-filled – I am not sure if that is still the case there, but certainly plastic throwaway containers rule supreme in most of the rest of Spain.

Added to all of the above is the simply absurd amount of packaging that seems to accompany almost everything one purchases nowadays: the use of a hacksaw would not  go amiss in the releasing of some items from their prisons of layered plastic.

It certainly is enough to make one ponder where all this “progress” is heading, and what price will ultimately be paid for our blind insistence on “convenience” and our greedy and unsustainable demands of everything for, if not nothing, at least very little.

I am very much looking forward to hearing accounts of all “Your Days”, and hope that your memories stretch a little further back than mine – yesterday’s lunch is already lost in the mists of time…

Frederick Forsyth’s open letter to Angela Merkel

This is an open letter originally published in the UK newspaper, The Daily Express on the 13th of December by the British author Frederick Forsyth. I’m sure many of my British readers will have seen it already, but it escaped my attention until now.

I know absolutely nothing  about finance.

Nor do I understand an awful lot about the inner workings of the Eurozone.

What I do know is how violently and vehemently the French always defend their own financial and commercial interests – indeed, it is a trait I have rather admired in them in the past.

But it is precisely this single-minded self-obsession,  this aggressive disregard for the art of compromise, that makes Sarkozy’s recent vitriolic posturing so utterly absurd and really begs the question: why on earth is France still co-steering the helm of the Euro-ship?

Anyway, just thought I would share Forsyth’s words with those of you who have not yet seen them.

Feedback and opinions very welcome!

Dear Madame Chancellor,PERMIT me to begin this letter with a brief description of my knowledge of, and affection for, your country. I first came to Germany as a boy student aged 13 in 1952, two years before you were born. After three extended vacations with German families who spoke no English I found at the age of 16 and to my pleasure that I could pass for German among Germans.

In my 20s I was posted as a foreign correspondent to East Germany in 1963, when you would have been a schoolgirl just north of East Berlin where I lived. I know Germany , Frau Merkel, from the alleys of Hamburg to the spires of Dresden , from the Rhine to the Oder, from the bleak Baltic coast to the snows of the Bavarian Alps . I say this only to show you that I am neither ignoramus nor enemy.

I also had occasion in those years to visit the many thousands of my countrymen who held the line of the Elbe against 50,000 Soviet main battle tanks and thus kept Germany free to recover, modernise and prosper at no defence cost to herself. And from inside the Cold War I saw our decades of effort to defeat the Soviet empire and set your East Germany free.

I was therefore disappointed last Friday to see you take the part of a small and vindictive Frenchman in what can only be seen as a targeted attack on the land of my fathers. We both know that every country has at least one aspect of its society or economy that is so crucial, so vital that it simply cannot be conceded. For Germany it is surely your automotive sector, your car industry. Any foreign-sourced measure to target German cars and render them unsaleable would have to be opposed to vetopoint by a German chancellor.

For France it is the agricultural sector. For more than 50 years members of the EU have been taxed under the terms of the Common Agricultural Policy in order to subsidise France ‘s agriculture. Indeed, the CAP has been the cornerstone of every EU budget since the first day. Attack it and France fights back.

For us the crucial corner of our economy is the financial services industry. Although parts of it exist all over the country it is concentrated in that part of London known even internationally as “the City”. It is not just a few greedy bankers; we both have those but the City is far more. It is indeed a vast banking agglomeration of more banks than anywhere else in the world. But that is the tip of the iceberg. Also in the City is the world’s greatest concentration of insurance companies. Add to that the brokers; traders in stocks and shares worldwide, second only, and then maybe not, to Wall Street.

But it is not just stocks. The City is also home to the “exchanges” of gold and precious metals, diamonds, base metals, commodities, futures, derivatives, coffee, cocoa. the list goes on and on. And it does not yet touch upon shipping, aviation, fuels, energy, textiles. enough. Suffice to say the City is the biggest and busiest marketplace in the world.

It makes the Paris Bourse look like a parish council set against the United Nations and even dwarfs your Frankfurt many times. That, surely, is the point of what happened in Brussels . The French wish to wreck it and you seem to have agreed. Its contribution to the British economy is not simply useful nor even merely valuable. It is absolutely crucial. The financial services industry contributes 10 per cent of our Gross Domestic Product and 17.5 per cent of our taxation revenue.

A direct and targeted attack on the City is an attack on my country. But that, although devised in Paris , is what you have chosen to support. You seem to have decided that Britain is once again Germany ‘s enemy, a situation that has not existed since 1945. I deeply regret this but the choice was yours and entirely yours. The Transaction Tax or Tobin Tax you reserve the right to impose would not even generate money for Brussels . It would simply lead to massive emigration from London to other havens.

Long ago it was necessary to live in a city to trade in it. In the days when deals can flash across the world in a nanosecond all a major brokerage needs is a suite of rooms, computers, telephones and the talent of the young people barking offers and agreements down the phone. Such a suite of rooms could be in Berne, Thun, Zurich or even Singapore . Under your Tobin Tax tens of thousands would leave London . This would not help Brussels , it would simply help destroy the British economy.

Your conference did not even save the euro. Permit me a few home truths about it. The euro is a Franco-German construct. It was a German chancellor (Kohl) who ordered a German banker (Karl Otto Pohl) to get together with a French civil servant (Delors) on the orders of a French president (Mitterrand) and create a common currency. Which they did. It was a flawed construct. Like a ship with a twisted hull it might float in calm water but if it ever hit a force eight it would probably founder. Even then it might have worked for it was launched with a manual of rules, the Growth And Stability Pact. If the terms of that book of rules had been complied with the Good Ship Euro might have survived.

But compliance was entrusted to the European Central Bank which catastrophically failed to insist on that compliance.
Rules governing the growing of cucumbers are more zealously enforced. This was a European Bank in a German city under a French president and it failed in its primary, even its sole, duty.

This had everything to do with France and Germany and nothing whatever to do with Britain . Yet in Brussels last week the EU pack seemed intent only on venting its spleen on the country that wisely refused to abolish its pound. You did not even address yourselves to saving the euro but only to seeking a way to ensure it might work in some future time.

But the euro will not be saved. It is crumbling now. And since you have now turned against my country, from this side of the Channel, Madame Chancellor, one can only say of the euro: YOU MADE IT, YOU MEND IT.

Status Viatoris Blog – 2011 in review

I would like to extend the biggest of thank yous to all those who have contributed to these statistics, I very much hope that this blog brings a little chuckle into your lives from time to time.

My aim for 2012 is to publish my book “An English Fandango” on Kindle and other downloadable mediums. But in order to publicise it more successfully, I will need to be reaching an awful lot more people via Status Viatoris blog, so please spread the word to whomsoever you think might be interested in the Italian goings-on of SV and Pooch. My gratitude would know no bounds!

A VERY HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ONE AND ALL!

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

The concert hall at the Syndey Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 11,000 times in 2011. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 4 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

Can It Really Be That Time Again?

status viatoris – being ‘on the way’/being in a state of pilgrimage

I’m afraid so.

Snootzer - temporarily replacing Blitzer during his spell in rehab.

Yes: yet another year has managed to sneak on past, astounding those of us who suffer from the malady commonly known as: “Crisping cowpats! Where has the time gone?!”

(I am told it is an age-related thing I shall eventually come to terms with; possibly in much the same way I have resigned myself to rarely remembering what I came into the kitchen to get, or the occasional mad hunt for glasses that are already perched on the top of my head.)

Twinkling Terrazza

So Christmas 2011 has been and gone, and we are now a few short hours from the ushering in of 2012 – and the end of the world if those enlightened spokespeople for superstitious bonkersdom are to be believed.

And other than an on-going list of piffling illnesses (to which laringitus, mouth ulcers and a yeast infection can now be added), I have to admit that the last week or so has been all I could have wished for and more.

Fibre optics spreading a little festive cheer...

Admittedly it got off to a rather chaotic start, with the harrying of the builders from a (still half-completed) apartment in order to install my much longed-for French furniture.

But amazingly (movers grumbling at 54 steps-induced respiratory difficulties notwithstanding)  the whole endeavour was gloriously hitch-free, and having met the removal lorry in My Little French Village at 8h00, by 14h00 I was already elbow-deep in dust and suds getting my newly furnished Italian home scrubbed up to mothership standards…

…for she was due for a docking the very next day and there is nothing I enjoy more than the challenge of a tight turnaround.

Cosy just ain't the word!

Thus, 24 frantically busy hours later, and I was racing – late, comme d’habitude – to Nice International Airport to collect  Mother who, by failing to recognise my car at the Kiss, Bye, Fly collection/drop-off/ speedy drive-past, almost caused a fatal tits-upping of the entire enterprise.

Luckily our stars eventually collided in a flurry of waves and shrieks, and we were able to stage a triumphant return to My Little Italian Village; snuggling in for the duration amongst the merry twinkle of Xmas decs, and in the company of a most delighted Pooch.

When only tooth and claw will get the job done.

We spent the evening of the 23rd enjoying a typically chaotic and noisy  dinner with my adoptive famiglia (being now utterly inured to Italian decibels, it took Mother’s wincing visage to remind me just how loud they can get), and rather rashly decided to return the favour in the form of an “apero-cena” on the 24th in order to show off the now furnished apartment, and obtain forgiveness for opting out of the Christmas Day meal in a local pizzeria.

Contrary to all expectations, and with the rallying round of these excellent folk with polpette (little meat balls), Argentine empanadas (savoury mince and egg pastries) and a torta di formaggio (savoury cheese tart) to add to the salamini, parmeggiano, insalata caprese, olives and smoked salmon already littering the table, the evening was a roaring success.

Pandoro joins an otherwise rather British Xmas

With all the most pressing social engagements behind us, we were therefore able to spend a peaceful and guilt-free Xmas day at home with Pooch and my favourite Kiwi friend, contemplating the bottoms of rather too many bottles of prosecco and demolishing a roast chicken and apple crumble feast tipsily prepared by yours truly.

Boxing Day brought yet more delights in the shape of a classical concert in our local church. The repertoire was rather ambitious for a small brass and woodwind orchestra, with Grieg, Tchaikovsky, Verdi and Dvorak providing some serious meat to accompany the more light-hearted carol veg.

A gentleman of my acquaintance rather aptly described the performance as “well-meant”, but although parts of it could certainly not be called technically masterful renditions, it was a truly delightful concert delivered with a joy and enthusiasm that was uplifting to behold.

"Ho.. ho... how the floating pooh sticks am I going to get back up there after all those delicious mince pies that SV was so incredibly touched to receive?"

Thus I slide, well-fed, contemplative and still a little snotty, towards the dawning of a brand spanking new year.

And on that note, I would like very much to wish all Status Viatoris readers, their families and their friends, oodles of health and happiness for 2012.

 ”Dance as though no one is watching.

Love as though you’ve never been hurt.

Sing as though no one can hear you.”

And, most importantly:

“Live as though heaven is on earth.”

Because that is precisely where it is.

This is Status Viatoris, extremely hopeful that 2012 will see all French notaries being rounded up and repeatedly slapped with wet fish in a public place, in Italy.