Tuscan Tony

Tuesday Quiz

2009-12-15T06:02:00.001+01:00

OK, what happened here in 1854?

Bamopoly

2009-11-30T17:54:00.002+01:00

Col. Lewis L Millett

2009-11-20T12:28:00.003+01:00

Hill 180 - a painting by the Colonel.

An extraordinary man. Not often the Tuscan laughs in amazement on reading an obit, but he did with this one.

RIP, sir.

World's Mellowest Man

2009-11-14T22:56:00.004+01:00

Hat tip: Sam Gamgee.

Eight Calming Minutes

2009-11-04T15:31:00.003+01:00

From 2:00 to 2:20 is awesome. In a sandy sketchy kind of way.

Hat tip: West London Man.

Barnes Wallis

2009-10-30T11:30:00.003+01:00

He died in Surrey 30 years ago today: the Tuscan pater promised to take your host to meet him, but sadly it never happened.

A rare man and a true hero.

Why the Tuscan Failed At Life

2009-10-27T10:41:00.001+01:00

Your host urges you to read this article and to savour the comments.

Views Of Florence

2009-10-26T20:35:00.002+01:00

An occasional series.

Thought For The Day

2009-10-22T07:45:00.004+02:00

Reading an article in the Times this morning that refers to the conversion of 400,000 Protestants to Catholicism as "one of the most dramatic developments in...christendom since the Reformation" which one suspects is in reality just another of Christianity's death throes, it reminded your host of a straw poll he conducted recently amongst friends asking why those who went to church did, and why those who didn't, didn't. The overwhelming conclusion was that the former attended for the singing, incense and socialising despite the rather annoying intrusion of a mythical sky pixie into the proceedings, and the latter would have liked to attend for the singing, incense and socialising but the oppressive god-bothering nonsense was all too much for them.

The Tuscan is therefore considering holding religion-free services at the Towers soon, a sort of Florentine Jonestown. Or perhaps not.

Tall Tree Story

2009-10-13T16:40:00.003+02:00

Hat tip: Bambi Killer.

Life Imitates Art - Boyzone Edition

2009-10-12T08:40:00.002+02:00

"...choked to death on vomit". RIP Stephen Gately (whoever you were).

1:30 onwards for the time-poor.

Friday Caption Competition - Gordo Verne Edition

2009-10-08T01:08:00.002+02:00

No comment...

Water Car

2009-10-07T08:11:00.002+02:00

I would like one of these.

RIP LSD

2009-09-29T07:36:00.003+02:00

The Tuscan would like to apologise profusely for the juxtaposition

of the two stinking flakes alongside the subject of this post.

The girl with the kaleidoscope eyes pegged out in King's Lynn, Norfolk yesterday. RIP, Lucy.

Labour Saver

2009-09-28T10:29:00.003+02:00

Tailor-made for the party conference in Brighton right now.

Tough On The Feet...

2009-09-20T18:00:00.002+02:00

...is the fine city of Florence. Taken today (Sunday)

Talk Like A Pirate Day

2009-09-19T14:51:00.004+02:00

The Tuscan has his Facebook language set to "Pirate" 365 days a year in homage to this holiest of holy days, the 19th September.

Harveuurr gruit doi, larrdds un wunches!

Update (courtesy of AntiCitizenOne): pirates are responsible for the maintenance of low global temperatures, as this graph clearly shows:

Tuscan White

2009-09-17T12:40:00.004+02:00

The first youtube upload by your host (arriving kicking and screaming into the 21st century at last) - a jolly little drive in the country near Aquileia, NE Italy last month. Much to the chagrin of others, including the nearby hapless and (subsequently sugar frosted) farmer leaning on his fork , the Tuscan achieved 80mph on this narrow track running alongside a small water channel on the marshes.

RIP Puff

2009-09-17T09:52:00.005+02:00

The Tuscan would like to apologise for this mawktastic video.

Mary's had her last puff - and is now off to see the magic dragon.

RIP M'am.

Duck Wit

2009-09-16T14:21:00.003+02:00

A woman brought a very limp duck into a veterinary surgeon. As she laid her pet on the table, the vet pulled out his stethoscope and listened to the bird's chest.

After a moment or two, the vet shook his head sadly and said, "I'm sorry, your duck, Cuddles, has passed away."

The distressed woman wailed, "Are you sure?"

"Yes, I am sure. The duck is dead," replied the vet.

"How can you be so sure?" she protested. "I mean you haven't done any testing on him or anything. He might just be in a coma or something."

The vet rolled his eyes, turned around and left the room.

He returned a few minutes later with a black Labrador Retriever.

As the duck's owner looked on in amazement, the dog stood on his hind legs, put his front paws on the examination table and sniffed the duck from top to bottom. He then looked up at the vet with sad eyes and shook his head. The vet patted the dog on the head and took it out of the room.

A few minutes later he returned with a cat. The cat jumped on the table and also delicately sniffed the bird from head to foot. The cat sat back on its haunches, shook its head, meowed softly and strolled out of the room.

The vet looked at the woman and said, "I'm sorry, but as I said, this is most definitely, 100% certifiably, a dead duck."

The vet turned to his computer, hit a few keys and produced a bill, which he handed to the woman. The duck's owner, still in shock, took the bill. "£ 250?" she cried, "£ 250 just to tell me my duck is dead?"

The vet shrugged, "I'm sorry. If you had just taken my word for it, the bill would have been £ 20, but that's the price with the with the Lab Report and the Cat scan."

Hat tip: 45govt

Mike Bongiorno

2009-09-13T09:51:00.008+02:00

The Tuscan is (was, when resident in England) one of many for whom part of the Italian holiday experience was cooking with the TV on, simultaneously chopping garlic whilst being absolutely boggled mindless at the bizarre yet oddly riveting inanity of the offerings of Mediaset, Silvio Berlusconi's sprawling entertainment empire.

Mike Bongiorno, who croaked in Monte Carlo on the 8th September, was the compere of much of the topless housewife nonsense that then formed and indeed still remains the staple early evening diet here, a man who managed to make Bruce Forsyth and the Generation Game seem like David Attenborough and Life On Earth.

His state funeral (yes, really!) was held on the 12th September.

Mike, you brought many a tear of laughter to the Tuscan eye, RIP sir.

Life Coach

2009-09-07T20:28:00.003+02:00

The Tuscan posts this pic taken a newsagent's window in Reigate, Surrey, without feeling the need to add anything.

Feel free to take him up on his offer at your leisure.

Dumb and Dumber

2009-08-26T09:21:00.004+02:00

The Tuscan tears himself away from toil this morning to bring you a spot-the-difference competition. In the orange and blue corner, Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels. In the burgundy and sludge tartan corner, Fergus and Judith Wilson.

Reading the story and looking at the pics, your host suspects it was luck rather than judgment lifted the Wilsons' boat...

Sargasso Blog

2009-08-24T18:42:00.005+02:00

Apologies from the Tuscan eyrie for the eerie silence and the general air of malaise about this blog: aside from the new arrival and the fierce heat of the Ferragosto sun, the Tuscan pater has just left and more to the point left behind him an absolute skinful of hilarious episodes which will be trickled out onto these pages over the coming weeks. The old fellow is of a most amusing political persuasion, a tribal authoritarian socialist (bit like Gordon's new pretend mate, now ex-mate Ghadaffi in fact).

Normal service should resume next week (inc the results of the book compo).

Club Med Malaise

2009-08-14T08:29:00.004+02:00

A quick note before disappearing off to the mountains for some walking.

This article in today's Telegraph is an object lesson in how to misread statistics in Italy. Whilst the economy in that country is only mentioned in passing, the implication is one of disaster and joblessness. However, your host spends a lot of time immersed in the real world of real small business here, and has yet to meet one business person (repeat, not a single chap or chapess) who has been anything more than marginally affected by trading conditions. A typical exchange is as follows:

Tuscan: "so, how's business, I presume your turnover's down".

Business

Person: [embarassed silence]

Tuscan: "its that bad, then?"

BP: "well, actually, to tell the truth we haven't noticed anything - of course it must be appalling as the newspapers are full of the problems but they don't appear to have affected us, things are going rather fine in fact"

Interestingly the building trade here seems to be quite buoyant: less turnover for agents from property sales of course (your host's highly placed insider source in Rome advises notary transaction volumes are down 20%), but general repair and upgrading work is going ahead very nicely.

The Tuscan ascribes this to:

(1) the huge and definitely under-reported size of the black economy here: when things get bad, the cutbacks are in business run through the books that attract the local equivalent of VAT etc. - the off balance sheet stuff is cash trade, and appears completely untroubled.

(2) the fact that the Italians generally pay for things when they can afford them, and don't borrow or max out their credit cards to do so (credit limits here are miniscule, on arrival here 8 years ago and preparing to transfer over money and plastic, the bank manager refused to believe that the credit limits on the Tuscan's fistful of cards was between £10k and £ 14 k per individual card, and these weren't especially high limits either. The Italian replacement cards had limits of € 3,000 - a bit of a comedown)

Anyway, there you go. Right, off to the mountains for some refreshing breezes (not Bacardis though)