I attended a vehicular funeral last week. My friend Totò, a bright-eyed and sprightly septuagenarian, had a maroon Alfa Romeo which was, basically, made of sticky tape. I don’t mean trashy thin stuff, I mean the top quality wide, brown parcel kind. By the time I had seen his car enter the final, declining years…
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Can you smell that pong of broken glass? A really rubbishy blog post
My town has 56,339 inhabitants. This morning, when I opened the window, it smelt as if every single one of them had just farted. The noxious gases billowed in and tinged the kitchen air a mustardy pea green. The whiff was coming from the local sewage works, whose manager feels that complying with health and…
21 Mafia arrests and 2 Mafia murders in my town last week
They arrested 21 Mafiosi in my little backwater of a town last week. All of them had been very high profile players in international organised crime. Along with the 21 arrests, the police also recovered 30 million Euros in cash, buildings, businesses, supermarkets, and other varied loot. The men had been engaged in drug trafficking,…
Would you marry your cousin? All about inbreeding, and very small elephants
A lot of Sicilians would. In fact, a lot of them do. Of course Albert Einstein is the Poster Boy for cousin marriage. Not only were his parents cousins, but he also went ahead and married his own cousin. His wife was either his first cousin or his second cousin, depending which parent you trace…
How did YOU find this blog?
I have been rummaging through the statistics for my blog today. When I was new to this blogging lark, I did it obsessively. Nowadays I just take an occasional look at the search engine terms which have brought new visitors to my blog. One of the strings typed into Google that immediately jumped out at…
Sicilian Women Are Scrubbers
Honestly. They spend more time scrubbing, washing and generally sanitising things than they do in any other activity, save possibly ironing. This year, I am joining in the spirit of things by spring cleaning early. I didn’t want to, but my Mother-in-law made me. I admit the place has become a little grimy but, frankly,…
Wildfire, Deaths and Tomato Sauce Everywhere: A day in Lercara Friddi, Sicily
I posted some photos of the hair-raising electrical wiring in Lercara Friddi last week. I feel I should do the place justice by showing a more complete picture… so here goes. Hubby and I went there shortly after the annual festival celebrating the town pie, the pantofola. Pantofola means slipper. They still had some left…
Sicilian Electrical Wiring and other Health and Safety Issues
I’ve been meaning to write about Sicilian electricians for a while. I needed to accumulate a good set of photos, though, as pictures speak louder than words. Sometimes, in fact, they scream while shuddering all over, with their hair standing up on end, fizzing with 240 volts. While I was taking this photo, the resident of…
The Black Madonna of Tindari
Yesterday we went to Tindari in Eastern Sicily, famous for its statue of a black Madonna with a black baby Jesus. Like most of the “black Madonna” statues from places where the majority of the population is white, she is carved out of wood, and so was originally light-skinned. Wood darkens over time so, eventually,…
In Praise of America!
1492 was a great year for food. That was the year Native Americans discovered Christopher Columbus lost at sea. They fed him, made him wash his armpits, and gave him tomatoes. He eventually limped off home with the juicy red loot. At last, people all over Italy smacked their taste buds in delight. They named…
Fancy going to a Mafia Wedding?
People sometimes ask me how, and more often why, I became a Sicilian housewife. It is all my husband’s fault. This is the story of how I met him. +++ “Fancy going to a Mafia wedding in Sicily?” my sister asked, one drizzly English afternoon. Who could turn down an invitation like that? Certainly not…
Crony Capitalism: The Sicilian Disease goes Global
The Americans and British are doing a lot of talking about Crony Capitalism. The economic woes of Italy, Spain and Greece are blamed on the cronyism they seem addicted to. Meanwhile the indignant Americans and British are gradually realising that their own politicians and businessmen are chronic cronyists too. In the UK, being one-time Labour…
The Italian Legal System and How to Evade it
Italians are a bunch of scofflaws. They think the laws apply to everyone else, but they personally are a special exception. All of them think that. Which explains Italy, really. Sicilians take this to a whole new level. For a Sicilian, any rules, in any context, are created purely for you to see how many…
Sicilian Builders and their Bottoms
I have a mild dispute going on with my husband. He wants to get a sun-roof constructed over the open-air roof terrace, so we can have barbecues up there without getting slow-roasted in the sun before our food does, and developing skin cancer before lunch is over. I don’t. My reason is simple: it would…
The Villa of the Monsters in Bagheria
We have a very bizarre tourist attraction in our town. Villa Palagonia has been nicknamed the Villa of the Monsters locally for centuries. It is absolutely crammed with caricature stone sculptures of bizarre creatures, deformed little men, goblins, and ugly hybrid “manimals”. It was visited in the 18th century by multi-talented German writer, politician, lawyer and…
Do you iron your socks?
Sicilian housewives do. They iron all their towels and underpants as well, apparently. My mother-in-law, aka The Godmother, dropped in yesterday afternoon. Despite our tense relationship, we have found an uneasy truce, based on the fact that she finds ironing so relaxing she is willing to do mine when she has run out of her…
The Villa Romana Del Casale, Piazza Armerina
This post is about a UNESCO world heritage site in Sicily! Classy or what? There are altogether 44 UNESCO world heritage sites in Italy. The criteria are that World Heritage Sites can be “natural” or “cultural” places of general wonderfulness. That’s my handy summary of a long and tedious paragraph. Interestingly enough, the UK only…
Manna from Heaven? Or from Sicily?
This summer we went for a day trip to a town called Castelbuono. If you speak Italian you’ll know that this means “good castle”. The place is well named because there is a castle there, and it is pretty good actually. It’s medieval, huge, has a scary portcullis and a massive dungeon, a secret undergroud…
A Terrible Boob
After returning from our exciting trip to England, I have to admit this Summer has dragged somewhat. To break up the monotony of my little boy’s three-month school holidays, I used ice cream. Do you think I’m a bad mother? We’ve been to the beach and got sunburn, we’ve collected every size and shape of…
Questionnaire: How Sicilian are you?
I have been delighted over the summer to learn how many Sicilians are enjoying my blog. It seems those who live here, and the expats who have fled to the USA and other places, are equally happy to be mocked mercilessly. Some of them have indicated that they now straddle two cultures and feel nostalgic…
A De Luxe Day in Luxurious Sciacca
Well, we’ve got so much to catch up on. I think, this time, I’ll tell you about the lovely sunny day we had at Sciacca with my sister-in-law and her family. My brother-in-law is the manager of a Rocco Forte hotel – oops no, I mean luxury spa and resort – which sports two exclusive…
The Dangerously Truthful Diary of a Sicilian Housewife 