In Another Place, someone recently asked for advice about buying an above-ground swimming pool. I suggested that, if he'd never owned a pool before, he might get a better idea of the work involved in maintaining a swimming pool as well as the posi
I'm not well-informed on how the photovoltaic loan and pay-back system currently works, but I can answer one of your questions. You ask if the panels produce hot water and the answer is no. What your geometra has proposed is that you install photvoltaic panels on your roof. These produce electricty (when the sun is shining) that is fed into the ENEL grid and the electric company then pays the producer of the electricity. Solar hot water is a completely different technology and installing such a system requires the use of a plumber, not an electrician. The cost-benefit analysis of the two systems is also totally different. As for whether it's all "too good to be true", opinions vary. I do know that we have Italian friends who put a 3kW photovoltaic installation on their roof three years ago, then decided last year that the pay-off was so good that they doubled the number of panels. Looking around, one does see some large photovoltaic systems in the area of Abruzzo we live in, but it's obvious that there are not nearly as many photovoltaic panels on roofs here as there are in, for example, Germany. Maybe that's because the deals on offer are not as good here as they are there. Maybe that's because Italians are generally suspicious (possibly rightly so) of getting involved with contracts with banks and ENEL. Maybe that's because - as the friends I've mentioned have suggested - a lot of Italians in rural areas would have difficulties sorting out such a contract because you have to be able to show that you own the house outright and there are lots of houses here where that's not completely clear. Al
Moruzzo, you're not clear on whether you don't understand the Italian text in Adriatica's post or you don't understand what the post as a whole refers to. If the latter, possibly I can help: ICI is Italian property tax. It was abolished for primary residences (the home where one lives most of the time, basically) a couple of years ago. Therefore, if you are resident in Italy and have only one home, you are not required to pay property tax at all. My reading of Adriatica's post is that, following the change in the law which meant commune could no longer collect ICI on primary residences, some continued to charge ICI on garages and outbuildings associated with primary residences. The Italian text explains why they can't do this. If your commune was trying to do this, you could take the text along to show them and get them to stop. If you are not resident in Italy, this post is irrelevant. If you are resident in Italy, have more than one home and pay ICI on garages or other outbuildings associated with that second home, the post is not relevant. It is relevant only if (a) you are resident in Italy, (b) you have only one home in Italy, and (c) the commune is asking you to pay ICI on a garage or outbuilding associated with that property. Al
I've never looked into international one-way car hire, but since doing this within the UK is quite expensive, I suspect the cost of doing so across borders will be substantial. I'll first mention that you only need to be concerned about rabies vaccinations and pet passports if you intend to take animals into the UK. I experienced no checks at the borders coming this way and I've never heard that anyone else was ever asked any questions when leaving the UK or entering continental Europe. Obviously, there are no border checks of any sort at the borders of EU member states these days. I believe there is a legal requirement in Italy to microchip animals, but I suspect only a minority of cats and dogs do have a chip. As far as dogs and harnesses in cars are concerned, there may be a law here on that but, if so, my observations suggest it's largely ignored. It does, however, seem only common sense to have dogs restrained in a car, no matter how calm and accustomed to car travel they might be. Cats are a bigger problem. In my experience, they are never good travellers and can be either bad or terrible companions on a car trip. The way I dealt with getting two cats to Italy from Scotland was to make a plywood box that fit in the back of my hatchback with compartments inside for sleeping, eating and a litter tray. I used carpet tiles to make sure they could get a good grip and ensured that there was a good flow of air through the box by using a 12 volt computer fan. Basically, they were locked in the box in Scotland and were released three days later inside their new house in Italy. None of us really enjoyed the trip, but they didn't seem hugely stressed by the confinement, mainly, I believe, because they had an enclosed, dark space where they could 'hide' from what was going on outside. I assume the diabetic cat complicates matters since you'll probably need to get access to it during the trip at least once a day. If so, then perhaps you should just get two reasonable-sized cat carriers, find hotels along the way where they accept pets, get lots of absorbent pads for the bottom of the carriers along with some disposable rubber gloves and resign yourself to doing a bit of cleaning at the end of each day's travel. If you do stay in a hotel, you might also consider how you'll extract the little blighters out from under the bed where they'll likely be hiding when you get up. Al
First, I agree with the comments Sprostoni has made. From what you say, it sounds like your connection is as good as it technically can be, but that's just not all that great. Our connection is supposedly ADSL broadband, albeit at only 0.5MB, but it's often much slower than that. What's more, our ADSL modem/router has a log which shows how often the connection is lost and reconnected. On average, we lose what's supposed to be an "always-on" connection about ten times a day. That's not a huge issue if all you're doing is web browsing and emailing, but it does screw up things if you're wanting to connect to media or play games. And it's definitely not the way things are supposed to work. I'm certain that there are no problems with the telephone wiring in the house (such as telephones being directly connected to the ADSL line) and I'm sure there's nothing wrong with the ADSL router we're using, since I've tried six different models from a variety of manufacturers. It's also noticable that the connection tends to be a bit faster and more stable during school hours. From this, I've concluded that the main problem with our connection is, first, that our house is rural and we're on the end of a very long piece of wire. In fact, I think we're just about at the limit of getting any sort of ADSL. Second, I believe our connection degrades significantly once kids come home from school and start downloading music and videos. If you have a 10 MB connection that degrades by 50% due to competition from other users, you might not even notice that unless you're viewing HD TV or something equally demanding, but degrading a 500 KB connection by 50% just about takes you back to the bad old days of analogue modems. In short, there's nothing we can to do improve our connection. I hope it will eventually improve as fibre optic lines are extended and the data-flow capacity to our local telephone exchange increases, but I'm not holding my breath. I'm sure my comments won't cheer you up, but I hope they might be of some interest. Al
Gala, you're a very bright person, so your apparent inability to see the parallel between the CEO of a company and the Pope suggests that this is an area in which you have far too much emotional investment to be totally objective. But that's fair enough, since it's difficult for me to express in measured, polite terms just what I think about the Catholic Church, those employed by the first (and probably still the largest) multinational enterprise and the organisation's mission statement. The main point of your last post seems to be that (1) people in all sorts of churches abuse children so it's unfair to point out that Catholic priests do so, (2) since other churches have concealed child abuse by their priests and ministers, it's not so bad that the Catholic church has done so and (3) everyone should respect the Pope because he's The Pope and he’s been very brave to admit that not everything is right in his organisation. The problem for a rational person is that the Catholic Church and the Pope claim to have a direct line to God and the first bullet point in their job description is something like: "Dictate to people how to live their lives in a moral way." Anyone who claims the moral high ground and preaches at the rest of us mere mortals about how we should act and what we should think would have to be a bit stupid to be surprised by people getting very annoyed when their own sinful and illegal acts are exposed. As for respect, I've done my best to give the Pope and the organisation he leads all the respect it deserves. I’m not a Catholic, so my experience of the Church and priests is limited. However, it happens that I know two women, one of whom was involved with a lecherous, middle-aged priest for many years prior to his death, while the other still is. Just in case you immediately want to assign the role of victim to the priests, I’ll say that in no sense are these affairs the result of a femme fatale targeting a poor, naïve priest. In one case, the woman was actually “picked up” by the priest while she was on a train journey. Since I don't have a disproportionate number of Catholic friends and my general circle of acquaintances is not that large, I find it very interesting that I personally know of two cases where priests have completely disregarded their vow of celibacy. That suggests to me that this sort of thing must be very widespread in the Catholic priesthood. What I find even more interesting is that one of the priests told the woman in the most emphatic terms that there was no need for him to mention their relationship in Confession. This from a priest who is - so it seems from anecdotes related by the woman involved - very well known and highly respected by members of the clergy resident in the Vatican. Still, while the two priests involved are fantastic hypocrites who do nothing but confirm my prejudices about men of the cloth in general and the Catholic Church in particular, at least one positive thing could be said about them: when they were messing around with mature women, they weren't inflicting psychological and physical trauma on children. Personally, I think the celibacy policy is ridiculous, has nothing to do with Scripture and is in profound conflict with the most deeply-rooted human drives, thus tending to create profound psychological disturbance. I also find it not at all surprising that the policy ends up attracting men to the priesthood who have very serious issues with their sexuality, who join the priesthood because they believe elements of their personality which they find distasteful can be repressed forever in such an environment and who then discover that this is actually impossible. However, the point is that Catholic priests do take vows to their God to be celibate and the fact is that this apparently means little to some (perhaps many or most) of them. If many priests choose to believe that they are free to do as they please and the rules set out for the priesthood by the Church mean nothing, it seems to me not all that surprising that some stretch a little bit more and convince themselves that there’s nothing wrong or sinful about them forcing children to perform sexual acts. All this is, of course, very much Off Topic and has nothing to do with the Original Poster's requests for ideas on what His Holiness can do on his visit to Britain. My suggestion is that could he rearrange his diary, stay home and concentrate on figuring out how to make his organisation more relevant to the modern world. However, given that he, like all those who rise to the top of any organisation, is a total Company Man, I'm confident (hopeful, actually) that this won't happen and the Catholic Church's influence on the real world will continue to wane. Al
The Queen is indeed the head of the Church of England; she's also the United Kingdom's Head of State. Just as she can't be blamed (or given credit) for anything a particular UK Government does, so she's not responsible - in anything other than the most legalistic sense - for what goes on in the Church of England. The Pope, on the other hand, is more like a Chief Executive of a company. While the Chief Executive of BP probably had very little directly to do with the decisions that led to the current oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the fact is that he is ultimately responsible for the disaster. One of the justifications for their huge reward packages used by people in such senior positions is that the buck always stops with them. The Chief Executive of BP bears some responsibility for the oil rig exploding in the sense that he was - say - the manager responsible for managing the people who managed the people who drafted the contract with the oil rig's current operators and those who managed the people inspecting their working practices. The situation would be much worse for BP's CEO if it should be discovered that, not only did he not bother to ask any questions about the company hired to run the rig and their safety practices, he was aware of concerns about the working practices of the contractors but he had done little to get his minions to investigate and sort out the problems. He would rightly be pilloried if it was found that, while he was in a more junior position in the firm and directly responsible for monitoring the working practices of contractors, he had come to have direct knowledge of unsafe practices by the contractors on the rig that has exploded, but he decided that the priority was to ensure that the BP brand was not tarnished, and so he took actions to conceal the problems from the governmental authorities responsible for policing health and safety laws. None but the most partisan (or blinkered) can believe that the problem with the Catholic Church is just a few bad apples. One element of the organisation's culture is clearly an attitude which places a high value on members protecting each other from the outside world. That's a common trait in all sorts of organisations, but the willingness of people at all levels in the Church to either actively participate in or to passively collude in concealing sexual abuse at the very least says something unpleasant about the thought processes and the moral compasses of those who were "enablers" rather than active abusers. Further, it seems to me entirely reasonable to ask if perhaps a significant motivation on the part of the enablers is the desire to ensure that their own abuse will be concealed should it come to light. Mutual back-scratching is, of course, another characteristic of organisations of all sorts. Al
I think it's entirely sensible to be sceptical (perhaps even suspicious) when it comes to quotes for Italian renovation jobs. As Penny says, a geometra will indeed be happy (for a fee, of course) to produce a set of nice CAD drawings of your renovated house and an itemised, costed list of the work that needs to be done. Unfortunately, it's possible the main value of this will be a grimly comic one when you come across it in your files after all the work has actually been done and paid for. Shortly after moving in to our house, I had a geometra produce drawings, computo metrico and apply for planning permission for the restructuring I wanted done. Since the bottom line indicated the project was affordable (around €50,000), I went on to the next step and agreed that the geometra should get builders in to give their quote. The builder's estimated cost was merely twice what the geometra indicated. Since it's an iron law that all building work costs a lot more than the estimate, I put the project on hold. Also, I didn't fully grasp until fairly late on that the result of the work would have been a structure far from habitable since it would still need windows, doors, electrics and floor, ceiling and wall finishing. I don't believe that all geometras are greedy and useless, nor that all builders in Italy will give a lower priority to working on a foreigner's project and do their best to fleece them, but I think it would be very blinkered to believe that all geometras and Italian builders are highly competent professionals. If you have the feeling that people are being cagey and deliberately vague about prices, it's entirely possible that this is what's going on and you are right to be hesitant. In any case, no geometra or builder - not even a good one - is going to sign a contract committing to completing a project to a set standard for a fixed price by a certain date. If you need that sort of certainty, perhaps you'd be better off looking for a house that you can just buy and move into as it stands. The idea of buying an Italian ruin and turning it into a dream home is very romantic, but the practicalities can be very stressful, can go on for much longer than originally planned and the result often makes little sense in terms of the final value of the property compared to the money and energy input. If you are determined to go the renovation route, I think it's an entirely reasonable idea that you will do some work and keep an eye on what the builders are doing, but it seems to me that anyone wanting to do this should have a very good grasp of Italian as well as a completely unflappable and very determined personality. As far as the legalities of such things as health care are concerned, Penny is right that it should be reasonably straightforward. Unfortunately, however, local bureuacrats in Italy have a lot of power to make life difficult or easier for supplicants. Therefore, just as is the case with the building project, I think it's difficult for anyone to say just how many problems you'll encounter when you go through the process. Al
"The hole in the bottom of the euro sink is bigger than the hole in the bottom of the sterling sink - at the moment. Just beware that Oil is priced in dollars!!" But isn't the hole in the Dollar sink the biggest hole of all? Al
Conventional wisdom is indeed that the currency markets (in other words, the lads who gamble on exchange rate movements) don't like uncertainty and so the opinion polls in Britain should be making them bet on Sterling falling. I've been assuming that Greece admitting its fiscal problems has caused them to concentrate their attention on much larger prey. I've never understood how the common currency was supposed to work when there was no common fiscal policy, but I put that confusion down to me not being an economist and so pretty stupid when it comes to such complicated matters. On a purely selfish level, I'm pleased with how things are going for the Euro at the moment. It will be interesting to see which of the PIIGS the speculators go for next, how long the uncertainty lasts and how close we get to the supposedly unthinkable fantasy of one or more countries withdrawing from the Euro. Or perhaps my economic ignorance means I'm seriously underestimating the sophistication of the currency gamblers and the true cause of the recent Sterling-Euro movements is that the speculators don't see much difference in the economic prospects for Britain no matter which party (or parties) form the next government? Al
Can't really comment on your dog's problems, but... "Every year in spring I now develope a tickly, dry throat that turns into a dry cough, that virtually takes voice away and is actually very uncomfortable for a couple of weeks. Blamed the yellow, rape like weeds but don't know." The stuff that you think looks like rape is very likely just that. I don't think it's grown much for oil here, but Italians do use the leaves as a winter salad. In any case, I think it's unlikely that it's to blame for your allergic reactions. Rape is an insect-pollinated plant, so it doesn't throw off loads of pollen. It has been suggested that large fields give off enough aromatic oils that some people nearby might react to them, but I'm not sure if that's ever been established as fact. Far more likely that what you're reacting to is pollen from something that's inconspicuous: plants that rely on wind-pollination - such as trees and grasses - generally have flowers that are not very obvious because they don't need to attract insects. It's also possible that you're reacting to more than one plant, since allergic reactions are cumulative. For example, I'm allergic to cats, but I can cope with them being in close contact for most of the year. During spring and early summer, however, our cats cause me major problems. If you find the reaction annoying, you might consider taking antihistamine tablets. The modern ones are much better than the older drugs which could also be used as a sedative and whose effects often didn't last long. At the moment, the antihistamine available in Italy which works best for me is one called Aerius. You should be able to get it in most chemists. A packet has 20 tablets and one a day is supposed to be sufficient, so a single box should sort out your problems for a year. Al
Comments posted
I'm not well-informed on how the photovoltaic loan and pay-back system currently works, but I can answer one of your questions. You ask if the panels produce hot water and the answer is no. What your geometra has proposed is that you install photvoltaic panels on your roof. These produce electricty (when the sun is shining) that is fed into the ENEL grid and the electric company then pays the producer of the electricity. Solar hot water is a completely different technology and installing such a system requires the use of a plumber, not an electrician. The cost-benefit analysis of the two systems is also totally different. As for whether it's all "too good to be true", opinions vary. I do know that we have Italian friends who put a 3kW photovoltaic installation on their roof three years ago, then decided last year that the pay-off was so good that they doubled the number of panels. Looking around, one does see some large photovoltaic systems in the area of Abruzzo we live in, but it's obvious that there are not nearly as many photovoltaic panels on roofs here as there are in, for example, Germany. Maybe that's because the deals on offer are not as good here as they are there. Maybe that's because Italians are generally suspicious (possibly rightly so) of getting involved with contracts with banks and ENEL. Maybe that's because - as the friends I've mentioned have suggested - a lot of Italians in rural areas would have difficulties sorting out such a contract because you have to be able to show that you own the house outright and there are lots of houses here where that's not completely clear. Al
Moruzzo, you're not clear on whether you don't understand the Italian text in Adriatica's post or you don't understand what the post as a whole refers to. If the latter, possibly I can help: ICI is Italian property tax. It was abolished for primary residences (the home where one lives most of the time, basically) a couple of years ago. Therefore, if you are resident in Italy and have only one home, you are not required to pay property tax at all. My reading of Adriatica's post is that, following the change in the law which meant commune could no longer collect ICI on primary residences, some continued to charge ICI on garages and outbuildings associated with primary residences. The Italian text explains why they can't do this. If your commune was trying to do this, you could take the text along to show them and get them to stop. If you are not resident in Italy, this post is irrelevant. If you are resident in Italy, have more than one home and pay ICI on garages or other outbuildings associated with that second home, the post is not relevant. It is relevant only if (a) you are resident in Italy, (b) you have only one home in Italy, and (c) the commune is asking you to pay ICI on a garage or outbuilding associated with that property. Al
I've never looked into international one-way car hire, but since doing this within the UK is quite expensive, I suspect the cost of doing so across borders will be substantial. I'll first mention that you only need to be concerned about rabies vaccinations and pet passports if you intend to take animals into the UK. I experienced no checks at the borders coming this way and I've never heard that anyone else was ever asked any questions when leaving the UK or entering continental Europe. Obviously, there are no border checks of any sort at the borders of EU member states these days. I believe there is a legal requirement in Italy to microchip animals, but I suspect only a minority of cats and dogs do have a chip. As far as dogs and harnesses in cars are concerned, there may be a law here on that but, if so, my observations suggest it's largely ignored. It does, however, seem only common sense to have dogs restrained in a car, no matter how calm and accustomed to car travel they might be. Cats are a bigger problem. In my experience, they are never good travellers and can be either bad or terrible companions on a car trip. The way I dealt with getting two cats to Italy from Scotland was to make a plywood box that fit in the back of my hatchback with compartments inside for sleeping, eating and a litter tray. I used carpet tiles to make sure they could get a good grip and ensured that there was a good flow of air through the box by using a 12 volt computer fan. Basically, they were locked in the box in Scotland and were released three days later inside their new house in Italy. None of us really enjoyed the trip, but they didn't seem hugely stressed by the confinement, mainly, I believe, because they had an enclosed, dark space where they could 'hide' from what was going on outside. I assume the diabetic cat complicates matters since you'll probably need to get access to it during the trip at least once a day. If so, then perhaps you should just get two reasonable-sized cat carriers, find hotels along the way where they accept pets, get lots of absorbent pads for the bottom of the carriers along with some disposable rubber gloves and resign yourself to doing a bit of cleaning at the end of each day's travel. If you do stay in a hotel, you might also consider how you'll extract the little blighters out from under the bed where they'll likely be hiding when you get up. Al
First, I agree with the comments Sprostoni has made. From what you say, it sounds like your connection is as good as it technically can be, but that's just not all that great. Our connection is supposedly ADSL broadband, albeit at only 0.5MB, but it's often much slower than that. What's more, our ADSL modem/router has a log which shows how often the connection is lost and reconnected. On average, we lose what's supposed to be an "always-on" connection about ten times a day. That's not a huge issue if all you're doing is web browsing and emailing, but it does screw up things if you're wanting to connect to media or play games. And it's definitely not the way things are supposed to work. I'm certain that there are no problems with the telephone wiring in the house (such as telephones being directly connected to the ADSL line) and I'm sure there's nothing wrong with the ADSL router we're using, since I've tried six different models from a variety of manufacturers. It's also noticable that the connection tends to be a bit faster and more stable during school hours. From this, I've concluded that the main problem with our connection is, first, that our house is rural and we're on the end of a very long piece of wire. In fact, I think we're just about at the limit of getting any sort of ADSL. Second, I believe our connection degrades significantly once kids come home from school and start downloading music and videos. If you have a 10 MB connection that degrades by 50% due to competition from other users, you might not even notice that unless you're viewing HD TV or something equally demanding, but degrading a 500 KB connection by 50% just about takes you back to the bad old days of analogue modems. In short, there's nothing we can to do improve our connection. I hope it will eventually improve as fibre optic lines are extended and the data-flow capacity to our local telephone exchange increases, but I'm not holding my breath. I'm sure my comments won't cheer you up, but I hope they might be of some interest. Al
Gala, you're a very bright person, so your apparent inability to see the parallel between the CEO of a company and the Pope suggests that this is an area in which you have far too much emotional investment to be totally objective. But that's fair enough, since it's difficult for me to express in measured, polite terms just what I think about the Catholic Church, those employed by the first (and probably still the largest) multinational enterprise and the organisation's mission statement. The main point of your last post seems to be that (1) people in all sorts of churches abuse children so it's unfair to point out that Catholic priests do so, (2) since other churches have concealed child abuse by their priests and ministers, it's not so bad that the Catholic church has done so and (3) everyone should respect the Pope because he's The Pope and he’s been very brave to admit that not everything is right in his organisation. The problem for a rational person is that the Catholic Church and the Pope claim to have a direct line to God and the first bullet point in their job description is something like: "Dictate to people how to live their lives in a moral way." Anyone who claims the moral high ground and preaches at the rest of us mere mortals about how we should act and what we should think would have to be a bit stupid to be surprised by people getting very annoyed when their own sinful and illegal acts are exposed. As for respect, I've done my best to give the Pope and the organisation he leads all the respect it deserves. I’m not a Catholic, so my experience of the Church and priests is limited. However, it happens that I know two women, one of whom was involved with a lecherous, middle-aged priest for many years prior to his death, while the other still is. Just in case you immediately want to assign the role of victim to the priests, I’ll say that in no sense are these affairs the result of a femme fatale targeting a poor, naïve priest. In one case, the woman was actually “picked up” by the priest while she was on a train journey. Since I don't have a disproportionate number of Catholic friends and my general circle of acquaintances is not that large, I find it very interesting that I personally know of two cases where priests have completely disregarded their vow of celibacy. That suggests to me that this sort of thing must be very widespread in the Catholic priesthood. What I find even more interesting is that one of the priests told the woman in the most emphatic terms that there was no need for him to mention their relationship in Confession. This from a priest who is - so it seems from anecdotes related by the woman involved - very well known and highly respected by members of the clergy resident in the Vatican. Still, while the two priests involved are fantastic hypocrites who do nothing but confirm my prejudices about men of the cloth in general and the Catholic Church in particular, at least one positive thing could be said about them: when they were messing around with mature women, they weren't inflicting psychological and physical trauma on children. Personally, I think the celibacy policy is ridiculous, has nothing to do with Scripture and is in profound conflict with the most deeply-rooted human drives, thus tending to create profound psychological disturbance. I also find it not at all surprising that the policy ends up attracting men to the priesthood who have very serious issues with their sexuality, who join the priesthood because they believe elements of their personality which they find distasteful can be repressed forever in such an environment and who then discover that this is actually impossible. However, the point is that Catholic priests do take vows to their God to be celibate and the fact is that this apparently means little to some (perhaps many or most) of them. If many priests choose to believe that they are free to do as they please and the rules set out for the priesthood by the Church mean nothing, it seems to me not all that surprising that some stretch a little bit more and convince themselves that there’s nothing wrong or sinful about them forcing children to perform sexual acts. All this is, of course, very much Off Topic and has nothing to do with the Original Poster's requests for ideas on what His Holiness can do on his visit to Britain. My suggestion is that could he rearrange his diary, stay home and concentrate on figuring out how to make his organisation more relevant to the modern world. However, given that he, like all those who rise to the top of any organisation, is a total Company Man, I'm confident (hopeful, actually) that this won't happen and the Catholic Church's influence on the real world will continue to wane. Al
The Queen is indeed the head of the Church of England; she's also the United Kingdom's Head of State. Just as she can't be blamed (or given credit) for anything a particular UK Government does, so she's not responsible - in anything other than the most legalistic sense - for what goes on in the Church of England. The Pope, on the other hand, is more like a Chief Executive of a company. While the Chief Executive of BP probably had very little directly to do with the decisions that led to the current oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the fact is that he is ultimately responsible for the disaster. One of the justifications for their huge reward packages used by people in such senior positions is that the buck always stops with them. The Chief Executive of BP bears some responsibility for the oil rig exploding in the sense that he was - say - the manager responsible for managing the people who managed the people who drafted the contract with the oil rig's current operators and those who managed the people inspecting their working practices. The situation would be much worse for BP's CEO if it should be discovered that, not only did he not bother to ask any questions about the company hired to run the rig and their safety practices, he was aware of concerns about the working practices of the contractors but he had done little to get his minions to investigate and sort out the problems. He would rightly be pilloried if it was found that, while he was in a more junior position in the firm and directly responsible for monitoring the working practices of contractors, he had come to have direct knowledge of unsafe practices by the contractors on the rig that has exploded, but he decided that the priority was to ensure that the BP brand was not tarnished, and so he took actions to conceal the problems from the governmental authorities responsible for policing health and safety laws. None but the most partisan (or blinkered) can believe that the problem with the Catholic Church is just a few bad apples. One element of the organisation's culture is clearly an attitude which places a high value on members protecting each other from the outside world. That's a common trait in all sorts of organisations, but the willingness of people at all levels in the Church to either actively participate in or to passively collude in concealing sexual abuse at the very least says something unpleasant about the thought processes and the moral compasses of those who were "enablers" rather than active abusers. Further, it seems to me entirely reasonable to ask if perhaps a significant motivation on the part of the enablers is the desire to ensure that their own abuse will be concealed should it come to light. Mutual back-scratching is, of course, another characteristic of organisations of all sorts. Al
I think it's entirely sensible to be sceptical (perhaps even suspicious) when it comes to quotes for Italian renovation jobs. As Penny says, a geometra will indeed be happy (for a fee, of course) to produce a set of nice CAD drawings of your renovated house and an itemised, costed list of the work that needs to be done. Unfortunately, it's possible the main value of this will be a grimly comic one when you come across it in your files after all the work has actually been done and paid for. Shortly after moving in to our house, I had a geometra produce drawings, computo metrico and apply for planning permission for the restructuring I wanted done. Since the bottom line indicated the project was affordable (around €50,000), I went on to the next step and agreed that the geometra should get builders in to give their quote. The builder's estimated cost was merely twice what the geometra indicated. Since it's an iron law that all building work costs a lot more than the estimate, I put the project on hold. Also, I didn't fully grasp until fairly late on that the result of the work would have been a structure far from habitable since it would still need windows, doors, electrics and floor, ceiling and wall finishing. I don't believe that all geometras are greedy and useless, nor that all builders in Italy will give a lower priority to working on a foreigner's project and do their best to fleece them, but I think it would be very blinkered to believe that all geometras and Italian builders are highly competent professionals. If you have the feeling that people are being cagey and deliberately vague about prices, it's entirely possible that this is what's going on and you are right to be hesitant. In any case, no geometra or builder - not even a good one - is going to sign a contract committing to completing a project to a set standard for a fixed price by a certain date. If you need that sort of certainty, perhaps you'd be better off looking for a house that you can just buy and move into as it stands. The idea of buying an Italian ruin and turning it into a dream home is very romantic, but the practicalities can be very stressful, can go on for much longer than originally planned and the result often makes little sense in terms of the final value of the property compared to the money and energy input. If you are determined to go the renovation route, I think it's an entirely reasonable idea that you will do some work and keep an eye on what the builders are doing, but it seems to me that anyone wanting to do this should have a very good grasp of Italian as well as a completely unflappable and very determined personality. As far as the legalities of such things as health care are concerned, Penny is right that it should be reasonably straightforward. Unfortunately, however, local bureuacrats in Italy have a lot of power to make life difficult or easier for supplicants. Therefore, just as is the case with the building project, I think it's difficult for anyone to say just how many problems you'll encounter when you go through the process. Al
"The hole in the bottom of the euro sink is bigger than the hole in the bottom of the sterling sink - at the moment. Just beware that Oil is priced in dollars!!" But isn't the hole in the Dollar sink the biggest hole of all? Al
Conventional wisdom is indeed that the currency markets (in other words, the lads who gamble on exchange rate movements) don't like uncertainty and so the opinion polls in Britain should be making them bet on Sterling falling. I've been assuming that Greece admitting its fiscal problems has caused them to concentrate their attention on much larger prey. I've never understood how the common currency was supposed to work when there was no common fiscal policy, but I put that confusion down to me not being an economist and so pretty stupid when it comes to such complicated matters. On a purely selfish level, I'm pleased with how things are going for the Euro at the moment. It will be interesting to see which of the PIIGS the speculators go for next, how long the uncertainty lasts and how close we get to the supposedly unthinkable fantasy of one or more countries withdrawing from the Euro. Or perhaps my economic ignorance means I'm seriously underestimating the sophistication of the currency gamblers and the true cause of the recent Sterling-Euro movements is that the speculators don't see much difference in the economic prospects for Britain no matter which party (or parties) form the next government? Al
Can't really comment on your dog's problems, but... "Every year in spring I now develope a tickly, dry throat that turns into a dry cough, that virtually takes voice away and is actually very uncomfortable for a couple of weeks. Blamed the yellow, rape like weeds but don't know." The stuff that you think looks like rape is very likely just that. I don't think it's grown much for oil here, but Italians do use the leaves as a winter salad. In any case, I think it's unlikely that it's to blame for your allergic reactions. Rape is an insect-pollinated plant, so it doesn't throw off loads of pollen. It has been suggested that large fields give off enough aromatic oils that some people nearby might react to them, but I'm not sure if that's ever been established as fact. Far more likely that what you're reacting to is pollen from something that's inconspicuous: plants that rely on wind-pollination - such as trees and grasses - generally have flowers that are not very obvious because they don't need to attract insects. It's also possible that you're reacting to more than one plant, since allergic reactions are cumulative. For example, I'm allergic to cats, but I can cope with them being in close contact for most of the year. During spring and early summer, however, our cats cause me major problems. If you find the reaction annoying, you might consider taking antihistamine tablets. The modern ones are much better than the older drugs which could also be used as a sedative and whose effects often didn't last long. At the moment, the antihistamine available in Italy which works best for me is one called Aerius. You should be able to get it in most chemists. A packet has 20 tablets and one a day is supposed to be sufficient, so a single box should sort out your problems for a year. Al