Renting an apartment is Rome is not like renting an apartment elsewhere. Or maybe it is; I only have experience of renting in Canada (easy-peasy) and London (OK, but ...). Apartments here are either furnished, which generally means an odd assortment of granny's faux antique cast-offs. (As an aside,...

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The sensible thing would have been to buy, say, 40 or 50 strong cardboard boxes. All the same size. Preferably with little cut-out handles. Then I would have taken my time and sorted through my worldly goods and packed the stuff worth packing. All of it, all at once. Then I would have hired a van, l...

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My fan will have realized that posting here has been worse than sporadic lately. There are many reasons, but for the sake or argument lets assume that the fact that I am in the middle of moving house is the main one. It is, really, in that I have had no leisure time in which to write, no facilities...

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[Open Brackets] http://www.openbrackets.com/article/629/le-business has a thoughtful piece about linguistic imperialism: English-speaking companies that force workers (in France) to learn English. I sometimes have the reverse desire. Although the place where I work is in Italy, with lots of native...

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There's lots I can't write about recently; too bitter and twisted, too work oriented, too plain dull. So rather than dump my crap, I share some of the non-crap that's at least given me pause, and, indeed, elicited a wry smile if not an outright guffaw.

Obituaries are the new pornography, that's fo...

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