BBC Children in Need is an annual British charity appeal organized by the BBC. Since 1980 it has raised £470 millions.
Each year since 1980, the BBC has set aside one evening of programming (in form of a Telethon) on BBC One, to show events aimed at raising money for charities working with children in the UK.
The mascot is called 'Pudsey', a yellow teddy bear with a bandage over one eye that represents children in need.
The other night my baby boy (15) offered to look after his baby sister (9) so that Tony and I could go to the pictures. And when a teenager offers it’s better not to let go, as it does not happen very often! Tony wished to see last James Bond’s movie but they won’t seen me dead in a James Bond with a muppet playing the main role! Anyway, I eventually managed to drag him to see “Brideshead Revisited” as I knew how much he liked the 80’s TV series.
I won’t trouble you too much with the plot. The movie, based on a very successful novel by Evelyn Waugh published in 1945, tells an evocative story of forbidden love and the loss of innocence set in pre-WWII England. It begins in 1925 at Oxford where Charles Ryder (Matthew Goode) is befriended by the flamboyant Sebastian Flyte, son of Lord and Lady Marchmain (Michael Gambon and Academy Award-winner Emma Thompson). Charles is quickly seduced by his friend’s opulent and glamorous world and thrilled by an invitation to ‘Brideshead’, the Marchmain’s magnificent ancestral home. Totally fascinated by his surroundings, Charles becomes infatuated with Sebastian’s beautiful sister, Julia, but as his emotional attachment to the young Marchmains grows, Charles finds himself increasingly at odds with the family’s strongest bond: a deep and abiding Catholic faith.
(in Venice, another marvellous setting)
Although the movie does not match the charm and opulence of the TV series, the cinematography is splendid and all in all it is an entertaining and pleasant experience. The casting is fine, the playing excellent, the period setting is handsomely recreated. The main male characters do not live up to the marvelous performance of Jeremy Irons and above all Anthony Andrews, but Emma Thompson steals the screen playing the role of Lady Marchmain, the strict matriarch who has forced her Catholic beliefs upon her children to such degree that their lives are more or less destroyed.
But the real star of the movie, even more now than 20 years ago, is the splendid setting of Castle Howard (which “plays” the role of Brideshead), 15 miles north of York, one of Britain's finest historic houses in Britain and still home to the Howard family who conceived, designed, and built it over three centuries ago.
"La Guerra di Piero" (Piero's War)by Fabrizio De Andre'
TRANSLATION OF THE LYRICS (Please excuse the imperfect translation, I thought it would be more interesting to read a rush translation than the original Italian words!)
You sleep buried in a corn field neither the rose or the tulip watch over you from the shades of the trenches, but just a thousand red poppies.
“Along the banks of my stream I want to see silver pikes swim not the bodies of soldiers carried down by the current.”
So you were saying and it was winter and like the others you were marching towards hell you kept on going with the sadness of those who must go whilst the wind was spitting snow onto your face.
Stop, Piero, stop now let the wind surround you let it bring you the voices of those who died in battle and gave their lives in exchange for a cross.
But you didn't hear it, and time went by And you kept marching through the seasons until you finally crossed the border on a beautiful spring day.
And while marching with the soul on your shoulders you saw a man at the bottom of the valley, who was in your very same mood only his uniform had a different color.
Fire, Piero, shoot him now and then one more time, shoot him again until you'll see him lie there on the ground covering his own blood.
“And if I shoot him in the head or the heart he'll have only time to die instead I'll have too much to watch, to watch the eyes of a dying man.”
And while you are showing him this compassion he turns, sees you, and he's afraid and bracing his gun he doesn't return the same courtesy.
You fell to the ground without a sound and realized in that moment that you wouldn’t even have the time to ask for forgiveness for all your sins.
You fell to the ground without a sound and realized in that moment that your life would end that day that there will be no return.
“My dear Ninetta, dying in May needs so much, too much courage, beautiful Ninetta, straight to hell I would have preferred to go in the winter.”
And while the corn was listening you held tight to your rifle, inside your mouth you held your words already too frozen to melt in the sun.
You sleep buried in a corn field neither the rose or the tulip watch over you from the shades of the trenches, but just a thousand red poppies.
Although during WWI Italy did not declare war on Austria-Hungary until 23rd May 1915, by the end of the war in 1918, almost 700,000 Italians were dead, 950,000 were wounded and 250,000 were crippled for life.
Italy was rather unprepared for this massive venture. After the declaration of war the army was nowhere near being on the appropriate footing, and money for armaments was scarce. Nevertheless, the Italian armies marched into Austrian territory in the northeast of Italy, with some success against armed forces who had their hands full elsewhere. However, a prolonged stalemate quickly developed which was not broken until the end of 1917. Then the Austrians and Germans, freed from the burden of the Russian front, attacked, inflicting a humiliating defeat on the Italians at the Battle of Caporetto.
The Austro-German armies moved south to threaten the peninsula; Italy seemed to be in grave danger, and British and French troops were sent to the rescue. The Italians, however, responded to the challenge with great fortitude and spirit. Before the arrival of the Allied forces, the greatly outnumbered Italian army halted the Austro-German advance on the River Piave - a military feat which has gone down in nationalist folklore, and which was celebrated in the patriotic song 'Il Piave mormorò ... non passa lo straniero' (The Piave whispered ... the foreigner shall not pass). By the autumn of 1918 the Italian and Allied forces were driving the Austrians back towards the north.
My great-uncle, Mario, was only seventeen when he joined the Italian army in 1915. He was a young boy full of ideals and captured by the words and speeches of the nationalist poet Gabriele D'Annunzio who encouraged his countrymen to free the Italian territories under the Austrian oppression. He fought in the first Battle of Caporetto and then was sent further to fight in the trenches on the Italian-Austrian border. His trench was near Monte Grappa, in Veneto:
Life in the trenches was rough on soldiers. They had to worry about rats, catching diseases, shellfire, and body lice. Food was also in short supply towards the end of the war. If you were injured, it could take a while until you were treated. Some injuries were so bad that they had to be amputated. Mario was not injured by an enemy bullet or a shell. On the 23rd October 1918 he suffered a bad attack of appendicitis. No doctor and no transport to a field hospital were available so in the morning of the 24th he died of peritonitis after hours of agonizing pains. He was buried in a field nearby. Few hours later his fellow soldiers launched a final attach on the Austrian enemy lines and broke through. On the 4th November 1918 an armistice was signed between Italy and Austria. The war was over.
My great-uncle did not die as a war hero. He was not awarded any medal. My great-grandmother just received a short letter that informed that her son was dead. She never saw his body.
It is now possible to visit the “ruins” of the trench where my great-uncle Mario died. My granddad never wanted to visit it. Neither did my dad. Nor will I.
Vigil Cima Quattro, December 23, 1915
An entire night thrown down beside a butchered companion with his grimacing mouth turned to the full moon with his congested hands thrust into my silence I wrote letters full of love
I have never held so hard to life
(Giuseppe Ungaretti, Italian Poet, 1888-1970 – in translation)
I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal." (Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., 1963)
("LA Peeps for Obama" by victoriabernal on Flickr)
For each vote of the foreseen 135 billions that will be cast in the US Elections today, McCain and Obama will have spent 8 dollars, for a total amount of over one billion dollars and without even taking into account the money spent to elect 35 senators and 435 congressmen. In 2004, Bush and Kerry spent “only” 5. And then some people say that the American housing market is declining. A billion dollars to rent the White House for four years seem quite an excellent deal!
Let’s hope it is worth it. May the best man win. Although it does not always end up like that…
One disadvantages of living abroad for me – a cappuccino addict – is to find where to drink a nice cappuccino. It is usually too watery, too weak, too bitter etc. For quite a long time I had to put up with Pret-a-manger and Starbucks, where cappuccino is not that bad but they give you those enormous cups and you usually get a decent taste only because they manage to hide their bad coffee taste with a huge portion of full-fat and creamy milk.
Then I discovered this beauty:
It is an old style professional coffee-cappuccino machine that was very popular in Italian bars in the 60s. My friend Ottavio (aka Otto) of La Bottega della Langhe (Langhe is the area near where I come from) bought it in Italy for a reasonable sum but then spent a lot of money to have it properly restored and the fabulous results have already paid up. The cappuccino is just perfect.
Of course I cannot go there every morning for breakfast like I used to do when I lived in Italy and like my friends still do before they go work. A quick cappuccino or espresso, a lovely jam-filled croissant and you are ready to face a long day of work! But it is still nice to know that if I have some spare time or just feel a bit down I can pop in and have my lovely coffee fix ….
….and there is even a corner with my favourite Italian sweets…
