Simple Minds saving Venice

Scottish rock band Simple Minds held a concert in St Mark's Square last weekend in favour of "SMS Venice". Proceeds from the concert and from video and audio recordings of the show will all go towards the fund aimed at restoring Venice's precious buildings.

The group's singer and mainman Jim Kerr owns a hotel Villa Angela and estate in Taormina in Sicily.

BSM chooses the Cinquecento

BSM, formerly the British School of Motoring, is ending a 16-year relationship with the company by swapping its basic learner vehicle from the Vauxhall Corsa to the much more modern and dashing Fiat 500.
Fiat will supply 14,000 cars to BSM over four years in a marketing deal that will attempt to inject a bit of Italian styling into a century-old British brand, boosting the motoring school’s image among its younger customers.
source: times.online
Another blow to 'Cool Britannia' and one more in favour of Berlusconi's "better" Italy?? Needless to say this news item was given ample coverage on Italian "TGs"!

New Caruso discovery in Yorkshire

Retired recording engineer Jim Pattison has discovered a set of 78s records dating back to the early 20th century on a visit to Brodsworth Hall, Doncaster, Yorkshire.
Among them, a recording of Italian tenor Enrico Caruso singing Addio dolce svegliare from Puccini's La Bohème with Geraldine Farrar (soprano) Gina Ciaparelli-Viafora (mezzo-soprano) and Antonio Scotti (baritone).
The recording, allegedly made on March 10, 1908, in a New Jersey studio, was captured by a single acoustic recording horn, resembling a gramophone horn.

Enrico Caruso's musical career spanned the years 1895 to 1920 but was cut short by a serious illness which eventually killed him at the age of 48.

source: guardian.co.uk - hear an extract here

Maccarinelli to retire

Italo-Welsh boxer Enzo Maccarinelli has told the sports press that he is to retire from boxing.
The former WBO World Cruiserweight champion, also known as 'the Big Mac' had said before his fight against the unbeaten Russian Denis Lebedev on 18th July that the contest represented “the last chance saloon” in terms of getting his career back on track, following 2 KO losses in his last 3 fights.
"That's it, there was nothing there on Saturday, that wasn't me," the 28-year-old said after the contest.

Macarinelli was born to Italian parents in Swansea in 1980 an attended the Bishop Vaughan Catholic school before taking up his career in boxing.

Italian lessons despite drop in language learning

Guardian.co.uk has recently launched it's "Learn Italian" series under the travel section. So far this internet-age phrase book complete with audio section has covered Culture & Sport, Food & Shopping and Travel and Accomodation. A useful 'Italian gestures' section is also on-line from the daily's website.
Sally Hunt, General Secretary of the UCU, has praised the Guardian for its efforts although informs of how British Universities are falling behind in foreign language teaching as a trend to close many language departments spreads.
"At a time when demand for fluency in global languages is rising, it is ironic that the University of the West of England, Imperial College and the University of Exeter are joining the ranks of universities to have massively cutbacks in provision of foreign languages," says Ms Hunt and adds "Without the students who could become our future teachers, translators and interpreters we will seriously damage not only our civil society, but how we do business with, and interact with, the rest of the world.

Berlusconi: "Italy better than Britain"

The Berlusconi family-owned daily newspaper Il Giornale has launched an attack on Britain claiming that Italy is better than UK "at everything"! The paper's editorial criticised Britain as "no longer great".
The attack comes after the free British press apparently sided with papers such as La Repubblica in giving details of Mr Berlusconi's presumed affairs. Mr Berlusconi also called The Guardian a 'small provincial newspaper' of little worth.

Italo-British asks the question: is it really all a question of one country being "better" than the other?

Italian Renaissance drawings in London

The British Museum has announced plans for an exhibition of Italian Renaissance drawings next summer. The exhibition will be in collaboration with the Uffizi in Florence with about half the drawings coming from Italy. The BM director Neil Macgregor stated that bringing all the drawings together will "allow a different reading of draughtsmanship from the period. It will allow a new engagement with this part of the Italian Renaissance."
source: guardian.co.uk

Vatican gives blessing to HP!

On the eve of the worldwide release of the new Harry Potter film "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" The Vatican's official newspaper has given it's thumbs up to the story by J K Rowling. L'Osservatore Romano praises the new film for its clear depiction of the eternal battle between good and evil represented by the struggle between Harry and his arch enemy, the evil sorcerer Lord Voldemort. It further added that "the search for immortality epitomised by Lord Voldemort" was wrong. The Vatican had previously criticised the series for encouraging interest in the occult amongst younger people. The paper's film critic also said that the "Harry Potter e il Principe Mezzosangue" is the best in the series so far.

Sarah Brown's G8 online

British PM's wife Sarah Brown gives her personal account of ther G8 in Italy this week via her blog and twitter updates.

She will be part of the 'G8 spouses' program which started in Rome. "I’m really looking forward to meeting up with the ‘other halves’ – some of them I have met before from last year’s G8 and the G20 in London" she said before the event.

On arrival at L'Aquila on Wednesday evening she reported to be "having nice cup of tea".

Pictures can also be seen on her flickr page. Here Sarah Brown (left) with wife of the Canadian PM, visits the Quirinale Presdential Palace in Rome, 9th July.

Berlusconi strikes back at Guardian

Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi has struck out against The Guardian after its article on Monday declaring that Italy's organsiation of the G8 summit this week in L'Aquila has been 'chaotic' and that "growing pressure from other member states to have Italy expelled from the group". The article by the paper's diplomatic correspondent Julian Borger was in turn criticised by Berlusconi as being "una grande cantonata di un piccolo giornale", a large blunder by a small newspaper. Italy's Foreign Minister Franco Frattini also hopes that "the Guardian is expelled from the great newspapers of the world".
The Guardian's claims of chaotic preparations were founded on a report by Richard Gowan, an analyst at the Centre for International Co-operation at New York University. The Guardian further reports that the US had taken control of G8 proceedings and that Washington organised "sherpa calls" (conference calls among senior officials) in a last-ditch bid to inject purpose into the meeting.
The G8 summit was moved from La Maddalena in Northern Sardinia (also home to a US military base) to L'Aquila in Central Italy after Berlusconi's ambitious plans to rebuild the city after major earthquake struck in April of this year.

photo: independent on line

Di Matteo at West Brom

Swiss-Italian footballer Roberto Di Matteo has signed a 12-month rolling contract to take over English club West Bromwich Albion, who were relegated from the Premier League under Tony Mowbray last season despite winning plenty of praise for their style of football.

"My philosophy is to play successful and winning football. We have our view on how we would like to achieve that success. I think that will turn out to be a positive style of football and we'll try to apply that to the Baggies this season."

source: guardian.co.uk

Ice cream advert banned

An advertisment fo an upmarket brand of ice-cream Antonio Federici Gelato Italiano, featuring a glamorous nun in her habit and a priest wearing a cassock in a clinch with the tagline "kiss temptation" has been banned in the UK by the Advertising Standards Authority. The ban follows 10 complaintsto the ASA who then banned the ad "as likely to cause serious offence to some readers.
The ice cream company defended the ad saying it was unlikely to "offend deeply"also considered no physical contact was shown and merely 'temptation' was implied.

The company relies heavy on its stereotypical Italian image in marketing its product which is 'inspired by a traditional homemade recipe first created in 1896..near Portofino and Rapallo'

source: guardian.co.uk