on Italy

What is the fatal charm of Italy? What do we find there that cannot be found anywhere else?
I believe it is a certain permission to be human, which other places, other countries, lost long ago. E.J.

The story of my life in a few pictures.

This really summarizes what people think, who ever thought about it really hit the nail on the head.

Click on photo to enlarge. 

an institution in Canada

I was reading today an interview with Hubert Lacroix President and CEO of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the CBC. In March the Federal Minister of Finance will table in the House of Commons the Government's budget for the year, we are told that very deep cuts are coming and the CBC as the State Broadcaster is facing a 10% cut in its budget.  This time around Mr. Lacroix says that after this most recent series of cuts the public will notice some drastic changes in the way CBC's radio and television network operate. The cuts are so deep that either the French Radio Service could disappear or the English Service or 2 full days of television broadcasting. It is unlikely that one or the other of the radio service would disappear completely for reasons of Canadian National politics but this illustrates the seriousness of the matter.

Since we returned to Canada in August 2011 we have already noticed how the CBC is not the way it use to be, the programming has suffered and it is certainly not the same standard it once was as the premier broadcaster and the image of Canadian Culture to the world. The CBC and Radio Canada was lots of great radio and television programming, many famous hosts known across the country by listeners a National following from coast to coast. The CBC brought us Canadian content and told us about our country Canada like no private broadcaster in Canada could. Currently the CBC receives about 1.1 billion dollars annually from the Federal Government not exactly a fortune given their mandate spanning the airwaves of the second largest country in the world.

Currently a lot of our politicians appear to have no time for the CBC and do not seem to know of its contribution to the Nation or they think it is passé, belonging to another era, would anyone call the BBC passé? There is no debate about the CBC's future or debate is stifled under the speeches of fiscal constraint, it appears that talk of deficit and cuts and being responsible is the only talk in town, it has been whipped up into mass hysteria, though on the other hand we are also told how sound our banking system is and how good our financial position.

How much of these speeches is manufactured for cynical political aims remains to be seen. I suspect like many Canadians that the fact that the CBC as a broadcaster cannot be controlled or dictated to by the politicians is the real reason for the trouble. Though with the disappearance of this great National institution or its belittling we as Canadians loose.

The promotion of our National Culture is one area where private industry cannot replace the role of a State Broadcaster looking after Canadian interest as the CBC-Radio Canada has done so well since 1920. A private company has no interest in promoting arts and culture because it never makes money and private broadcaster are not interested in broadcasting outside their market area. The CBC- Radio Canada is recognized as our greatest National Cultural Institution.

Unfortunately despite having lots of friends supporting the CBC, our government has decided otherwise and is not listening. Private industry will do it all for us apparently, I have heard private radio and seen the re-runs on TV and it is not worth the time of day. We live in sad times in Canada. To quote Graham Spry of the Canadian Radio League who testified in Parliament in the 1930's, the founding of the CBC was a choice between private interests and the people's interest, it should be the same today.

Dialecto Italiano

Many years ago we were in Venice at a wonderful restaurant in a small hotel near the Accademia.
The restaurant is located in the garden of the hotel with wonderful old wisteria and old vines making a roof over our heads. At a table near by a couple was being entertained by the lady owner of this small hotel. She was a native of Venice and had spent all her life in the city. The gentleman was doing much of the talking and it was a very general conversation on Venice, suddenly his female companion chirps up, she wanted to know if their host spoke Italian or dialecto, the hostess was a little surprised by the question because the implication was that she was not educated and spoke only Venetian dialect and not Italian. We thought this was a very rude question, but as we learned years later, dialecto is spoken in Italy by many Italians and they will often know the typical dialect of their region and speak the common language Italian. The two are very different, one of the difficulties of Italian unification 150 years ago was to get everyone to speak Italian and abandon their dialect. How can you unite a country if no one understands what the other fellow is saying. Per example in Canada many Canadians of Italian origin speak dialect and not Italian, this is why often they are shy to speak with me so as not to give away the fact that their Italian is not perfect.

The hotel owner in Venice did answer the question of her guest, she told her that in Venice with other Venetians since it is their common language and same for the Veneto, but with Italians from other parts of Italy then its Italian which is in fact the dialect of Tuscany which was adopted as the common language. In Rome, there is Romanesco, in all more than 30 dialects exist and are used in the different regions of Italy. This is not so strange, until unification in 1860 most of Italy was a cluster of little principalities and Duchys and some under the Papal State.    

So when you visit Italy and you hear people speaking but you do not recognize what they are saying it is because they speak dialect. 

Tricentenaire de Frederic II de Prusse, 1712-2012

I read a few years ago a very good biography of Frédéric II of Prussia by Giles MacDonough, I use here the spelling of his name in the French manner, the way he liked it. He was a great Francophile, he exchanged correspondence with Voltaire for 50 years and Voltaire did live in Potsdam for a while, but it was a stormy relationship, Voltaire found him to militaristic and questioned Frederic's acceptance of the ideas of the Age of Enlightenment, after all he was an absolute monarch. Frederic liked coffee made with champagne instead of water, hated beer and anything German, he is despite that fact a popular figure in Germany, maybe because he was such a character. He spoke French fluently and bad German all around. Loved his Italian Hounds, he is buried at SansSouci with them in the garden as per his wishes, he was a great reformer of government, instituted public schooling for all, abolished the death penalty and instituted religious tolerance in his Kingdom, many French Huguenots came to live in Prussia and several French aristocrats found position in his government. He introduced the potato to Prussia and this is why it is featured prominently in German cuisine to this day. The story goes that he cultivated potato plants in his garden, made sure the population knew about it and he had the patch where the potatoes were guarded by day by his feared Grenadiers, the soldiers went away by night so the people would come and steal some potatoes to try this exotic vegetable reserved for the table of the King.  He was also a musician composing 100 pieces of music for the flute, he was a friend of the Bach family, he appointed  Carl Philip Emmanuel Bach as Court composer and he is remembered mainly as a brilliant military strategist, his army was feared though it was not the largest in Europe. His favourite colours where white and gold or green and gold and black and gold, dominant colours in his palaces.

When he recognized the USA as a new country in 1786, he inserted into the treaty establishing diplomatic relations, that prisoners of war between the USA and Prussia would be treated with care and kindness, this was a first for his era an unheard of idea for the time. He was also involved in supporting Britain during the Seven Year War (1757-1763) which had a profound impact on Canada, troops from Hesse were sent to Canada to fight alongside the British troops against the French. It was a Swiss-German Commander in the town of Sorel near Montreal who with his wife introduced the tradition of the Christmas tree to Canada.

                                      Born in Berlin 24 January 1712, died at Postdam 17 August 1786

If you visit Potsdam this year you will see some wonderful restorations of buildings from his era. Many have been rebuilt or are under reconstruction, such as the City Palace and the Garrison Church.
This web site in German only gives a good idea of what is being worked on in Potsdam,
http://garnisonkirche-potsdam.org

His family Hohenzollern is also closely related with our own Royals in Canada, they are first cousins. Queen Victoria was the grandmother of Kaiser Wilhelm II.

Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, Official Diamond Jubilee portrait 2012.

Accession Day 6 February 1952

On this day King George VI died in his sleep at the age of 56 and his daughter Princess Elizabeth was proclaimed Queen of Canada.  She would later take her Oath of Sovereignty upon her return to London from Kenya where she was with Prince Philip. Today is the 60th anniversary of her Accession to the Throne, the beginning of the Diamond Jubilee year. She is the only Sovereign I have known in my life and I met her twice.

King George VI and Queen Elizabeth in Ottawa on the steps of the Peace tower of Parliament taking the Royal Salute one month before the beginning of World War II in 1939 on a tour of Canada.

Elizabeth II, Queen of Canada, Official portrait of the Diamond Jubilee (1952-2012)

We as Canadians can be very proud of our Sovereign and all her achievements, devotion and sense of duty.
God Save the Queen!

Snow can be romantic

It's funny how a snow storm can be romantic in one city and cause people to curse in another city. How can this be I wonder, could it be the beautiful century old buildings, the parks and landscape or simply the image we have of Rome. The snow is falling all over Italy and it is simply romantic and beautiful.

The great gates of Villa Borghese in Rome in front of Piazza Flaminia

Oh my! they have not taken the tacky Xmas decorations down at Piazza San Pietro.

Taken from inside a passing car, the staircase leading to the Campidoglio with Castor and Pollux looking down from the Capitoline Hill.

Looking down Via della Conciliazione towards St-Peter which has disappeared under the snow storm.

The doorman of the Embassy of Canada to the Holy See in Rome cleaning the snow off.

As I was saying to the Holy Father this morning as he was gazing out from his apartment window down unto St-Peter's Square, we should go skiing.

on the street, where is everyone?

The beautiful cathedral of Siena under the snow.

No one at the Caffé today

un bello ragazzo

How I miss it all, as Puccini said, you will never see anywhere in the world a city has great as Rome.
I have to agree.