Human Traffic

Venice isn't short of street entrepreneurs trying to separate you from your money.  Let's take a look at some of them.

A man of uncertain occupation enjoys a gelato

The Bag Men. Street vendors selling imitation Louis Vuitton bags. It's illegal, of course. Sometimes you see them packing up their wares at speed and high-tailing it, and occasionally the police will have a bit of a crackdown, but on the whole nothing very much seems to get done about them. They don't actually hassle you, which is nice, but laying out great rows of their wares leads to the creation of artificial corridors which make navigating narrow bridges and alleys more of a pain than they ought to be.

The Crap Merchants. During the hours of daylight they attempt to sell you a rubbery ball with eyes and feet which, when dropped, splats itself into a gelatinous puddle before miraculously reconstituting itself. Over the course of twelve months I have seen perhaps two people actually stopping to buy these (and a tired-looking American tourist in a bar, trying - and failing - to replicate the effect for his son). And yet they're everywhere. After dark, the "splatty" things are replaced with a sort of flashing gyrocopter device which can be fired into the air from a catapult before slowly floating back to earth. The Crap Merchants are a pain in the arse. It doesn't matter if you are a middle-aged couple going about your business. You will still get hassled to buy a splatty rubber ball. And yet, strangely, the the minute there's a bout of heavy rain, The Crap Merchants transform into Useful Merchants who will try and sell you umbrellas. Now that's not a bad idea, which leads me to wonder why they don't just try and sell you useful stuff all the time?

Men with Roses. You used to see these guys in the UK. Typically if you're stopped for a drink or a bite to eat, a man with a bunch of roses will approach and try and get you to buy one for your partner. He won't take no for an answer, the idea being that sooner or later you will start to feel like the worst husband in the world for not buying one. Many people crack. I, however, am made of sterner stuff. We were out for a disappointing curry the other week and a Man with a Rose stopped at our table and practically watched us eat. I thought he was going to pull up a chair at one point but, after I'd handed back the tired-looking plant he dropped on my side plate he gave up and wandered off to the next table.

Buskers. A mixed bag. The chap who plays the lute on the Accademia bridge in the evening is worth a euro of anyone's money. At the other extreme there's The Worst Busker in the World, a dapper elderly gentleman who saws away tunelessly at an ancient violin on the Rio Tera Foscarini. He's recently reappeared after the winter break (in fact, we were a bit worried he was gone for good) and seems to have learned a different tune, bringing the number in his repertoire up to two. He's unfailingly polite, though, and in his own strange way he's also worthy of the occasional euro.

And then there are Those Who Don't Really Do Anything. For example, there's a chap who dresses up as Charlie Chaplin and hangs around the environs of the Accademia bridge. And that's it. He doesn't actually do anything apart from dressing up as Charlie Chaplin. Oh yes, he's a master of twirling his cane and standing in a vaguely Chaplinesque way, but that seems to be it. Presumably he must be making some money, but I can't help thinking that it's not what you'd really call an act.

Most cryptic of all, perhaps, is The Petition Against Drugs. If you have been to Venice you have probably encountered them, typically a small group of people who hang around Campiello San Vidal or Campo San Salvador. Initially you're asked if you speak English. If you answer yes, they ask you to sign a "petition against drugs". Now, most people in this situation will probably think that's a reasonable enough request, and will put their name down. At which point, having engaged you in conversation, they'll ask you for a donation, by which time you feel a bit embarrassed to say no and walk on ten euros lighter.

If you stop and think about it, a "petition against drugs" is so vague as to be meaningless, and how much weight is a petition signed almost exclusively by foreigners going to carry? It's the equivalent of those spam emails against drink-driving that circulate around the internet. If it's a scam, you don't want to part with ten euros; and even if it isn't, you'd be bankrupt within a month if you stopped and signed every time.

So what is it?  Well, contrary to internet rumour, no, they're not going to pick your pockets while you sign. A Venetian acquaintance, whilst vague on the details, tells me that it is actually legitimate and related to some sort of drug rehab charity, even if their method of dragging you in is rather sharp practice. On the last occasion, hard-headed businessman that he is, he suggested to them that surely it would make practical economic and social sense to legalise all drugs. Since then, he has not been hassled further.

It's almost impossible not to get accosted by them. We've tried switching to Italian before the moment of contact. We've tried not speaking at all. We've repeated "signed, already" in both languages (and, in my case at least, through the medium of mime that I typically use for asking for the bill in restaurants) so many times that one of the girls now gives us a cheery wave and a Ciao.  And then, last Sunday, we walked straight past them without even an Excuse Me or a Do you speak English. Never mind the Codice Fiscale, never mind the ID card, never mind the Tessera Sanitaria. We felt, at last, as if we truly belonged here. For we have walked unaccosted past the Petition Against Drugs people.

Picasso's Revenge

More CLIL then, and, wonderfully, I find myself teaching classes in Art History. This is possibly my dream job.

The Professoressa suggests I start with a lesson on Picasso's Guernica, as they've already studied it in Italian. She asks me to use some extracts from Simon Schama's Power of Art as well. This, I think, is a little bit ambitious, but I manage to find a version with English subtitles which will hopefully help them a bit. Schama's Picasso documentary was also one of the less confusing ones in the series, more or less free of the irritating visual gimmickry that spoilt his episode on Caravaggio, where discussion of the paintings was frequently interrupted by shots of fierce-looking beardy men twirling swords and shouting ARRRGGHHHHH!

So I start off by talking about the Spanish civil war, the Republicans, the Nationalists, and Franco. I ask them if they know who supported the Nationalists.

"Germany", somebody volunteers.

"Very good", I say, before pausing and adding, sotto voce, "...and Italy".

I show them some video clips. As I thought, a lot of it is over their heads, but the clips of the aftermath at Guernica interspersed with images of the painting gives them a general idea.

I start describing each element of the painting - if the horse represents the Spanish people, then perhaps the bull represents Franco. That sort of thing. Then I move to the figure in the foreground.

"So what this?"

"It's a man, prof"

"That's right. Perhaps he's one of the innocent people at Guernica. Now what's this?".

(I'm starting to think a laser pointer would be really cool at this point, but I do my best with a pen).

"Una spada, prof?"

"That's right, in English we call it a sword. What else?"

"It's broken".

"Good...it's broken...what does that mean?"

"Defeat?"

"Exactly, the broken sword is a symbol of defeat. Now what's this?"

"A flower"

"A flower - signifying...?"

"Hope?"

"Exactly! The figure is next to the sword which signifies defeat, and the flower which signifies hope".

This is going better than I thought. I move on.

"Now...let's look at his arm...and his hand. What's this mark in the centre of his hand?"

Silence.

I try again, "It's a wound - una ferita - in the centre of his hand. What do you think that means?"

Silence.

"OK. Think of religious art. What do we call a wound in the centre of the hand?"

Silence.

Time for Plan B.

"OK then. Where did Picasso come from?"

"Spain?"

"Spain. And where was Guernica?"

"In Spain?"

"In Spain. Now, what religion are the people of Spain?"

Silence.

"Do they have the same religion as Italy?"

Silence.

This is like pulling teeth. The Professoressa is staring at them in disbelief.

"What religion are the people of Italy?"

Silence, and then a wavering voice, "...Catholic?"

"Catholic, yes! The same as in Spain. So Picasso knew, if he showed an image of a hand with a wound in the centre, people would know exactly what it meant...and that is...?"

Silence.

I consider adopting a crucifixion pose, but something tells me that might be a step too far. I throw them a bone instead.

"Right, in English, we would call it a stigmata. Who does that make you think of?"

Light dawns. "Jesu Cristo!"

"Jesus Christ!!", I manage not to shout. "Exactly, it signifies the martyrdom of Jesus Christ".

And so, blessedly, we move on. Picasso, I think bitterly, might have thought the symbolism was obvious but he clearly never had to deal with a class of 13 year olds.

Liberazione

April 25th is not just St Mark's Day, but, more significantly, La Festa della Liberazione : the final end of Nazi occupation, and the fascist ventennio.

A number of events are planned to mark the occasion, one of which is the percorso della memoria : a walk around the city, to remember some of those Venetians who were martyred during the struggle.

There's a good turnout. There are banners there from the Partito Democratico, the Socialist Party, the Communists, and various trades unions. And, for once, all the various factions seem to get on together in a properly comradely manner, and nobody shouts whatever the Italian word for Splitters! is.

We get issued with red carnations, and a songsheet (yes, a songsheet); and then we're off. The sheer number of people makes it a bit difficult at times. It's a public holiday, the sun is shining, and the streets are packed. It's a bit difficult to get everyone down some of the narrow calli. There are a number of musicians in the party. I feel particularly sorry for the keyboard player who has to set up his stand and his speakers at each stop, prior to dismantling them and hauling them along, with all the speed he can muster, to the next. It reminds me of the film in which Woody Allen appears as the only cello player in a marching band.

A wreath is hung over the commemorative plaque at each site, a few words are spoken in memory, and the Last Post is played; following which the crowd sing one of the partisan anthems. It's very moving, and very stirring. It feels humbling to be part of it.

The walk finishes in the Getto Nuovo, with speeches by the great and the good (the mayor is there, along with the leader of Venice's Jewish community), and a concert by local schoolchildren. Caroline tells me she feels like a proud mum, as she's taught a number of the kids. And some of them - a young violinist and clarinettist in particular - are really very good indeed. She tells me they were her star pupils. In fact, they're so good that the conductor feels able to pop off for a ciggie break and leave them to it at one point.

Then she points out the Awkward Squad, all of whom have made a bit of a half-arsed effort at looking smart for the occasion. While the good kids get solo spots, the bad lads are at the back, plonking out chords on guitars. The bass player (part Kurt Cobain, part Shaggy from Scooby Doo) noodles around behind them, occasionally pausing to make minute adjustments to effects pedals and amplifiers. I'm not 100% convinced it's actually switched on.

The concert finishes and Caroline says hello to a few of them. I consider having a stiff word with the stroppy ones, but it's a been a lovely, memorable morning and it would be churlish to spoil it. Besides, some of them are bigger than me. And anyway, part of me is a little bit pleased that the guitar is still the rebel's instrument of choice. Less "this guitar kills fascists", more "this guitarist annoys English teachers", perhaps?

Britten in Venice

It's a big year for anniversaries in the classical world, but the celebrations for Benjamin Britten's centenary - in Italy at least - are being rather overshadowed by the bicentenaries of Verdi and Wagner; summed up perhaps by RAI 3's season "Tutto Wagner, Tutto Verdi" which sadly doesn't stretch to a "Tutto Britten". And that's a bit of a shame. Britten loved Venice. Peter Pears refers to him almost having to be dragged away from the city. Curlew River was written here, The Turn of the Screw was commissioned by La Fenice, and, of course, his last work (which might have hastened his death) was an adaptation of Mann's Death in Venice.

Benjamin Britten and friends, resolutely ignoring the "no sitting on bridges" rule.

Still, our maestra admires 20th century English music, so, in our modest way, we're marking BB's anniversary with a performance of his St Nicolas cantata ("St Nicholas just after Easter?", said a friend, "what are you doing for Christmas, a Passion?") at the Frari.

It's fun doing works in English, as I get used as the Authority on Pronunciation. This isn't always so easy. I've still got a bit of a Welsh accent which isn't what Britten would have written for. In the end, if there's any doubt, I find "What would Ian Bostridge do?" to be a useful rule of thumb.

The Frari's a challenging space for concerts. The sheer size of the space means there's always a risk that individual words will just get swallowed up. On the plus side, there's no denying that the acoustic generates a big, big sound; and the effect of having two separate ranks of female voices hidden away up in the organ galleries works well.

Cantori Veneziani, in front of Titian's The Assumption

As to the concert itself : there's a feeling afterwards that this one really was a bit special. I have a bit of a claque this time around (well, three people, but these things take time....) : our Australian friends Peter and Lou are very complimentary and treat me to a spritz; while Caroline, not usually a great fan of Britten, goes as far as to describe it as "brilliant". I'll settle for "quite good", but that's for you to decide. The whole concert can be accessed by the links below.

Introduction



The Birth of Nicolas



Nicolas devotes himself to God



He journeys to Palestine



Nicolas comes to Myra and is chosen Bishop



Nicolas from prison



Nicolas and the Pickled Boys



His piety and marvellous works



The Death of Nicolas

I (still) don't like Mondays

...or, why I owe the Italian train service one euro...

It's that rarest of Mondays, one that dawns without any prospect of rain. It does, however, bring with it a transport strike (only older readers will remember when British people were allowed to go on strike, but they're not that uncommon over here), meaning restricted hours of service on all vaporetti and buses in the area.

Which is why I find myself in Mestre at 8.30 in the morning, for a class that starts at 10.15. It's a chance for a leisurely breakfast, I suppose, but, try as you might, you can't really linger over an espresso and a croissant. Still, it's a chance to get some photocopying and a bit of prep done, and morning lessons go pretty well.

Monday afternoons normally see me heading over to Spinea for some after-school classes, but they've been cancelled due to the strike. And there's no point in trying to get home as the amount of time it's likely to take will mean I'll be needing to head out again as soon as I've stuck my head round the door.

So, the afternoon to kill in Mestre. Poor, unloved Mestre. Truth be told, it's not all that bad, and parts of the town centre are actually quite nice. But I don't think it's going to keep me occupied for the whole afternoon, so I decide to plan out my route home after my evening class. The tech where I work is a fair way out of town so, if I'm going to have to walk all the way to the railway station, I want to have the route clear in my head as there are parts of Mestre you might not want to linger for too long after dark.

It takes a bit of working out, but eventually I get it sorted. It's not too bad a walk, the only slightly tricky stretch is the underpass near the station. I'm probably being paranoid, but, given I've just picked up my month's pay - in cash - I'm a bit twitchy about walking around lonely, unlit areas. After a busy March, I find myself with a veritable bella cifra of cash in my wallet. It would be a really, really bad day to get mugged. Still, I console myself, one of my nice students will probably give me a lift.

Ah. So you're all going in different directions then? Nowhere near the station? Not possible to make a modest detour? No? No, no worries, I'll be fine, don't worry about me. Just count yourselves lucky I'm not the one marking your exams...

So off I stride, with as much confidence as a man in a cardigan with a "man bag" is able to project. Down Via Miranese. Under the flyover. Towards the station and...there's the underpass...and...there's no-one else around. Deserted. Or is it? I try to keep the words of The Jam's Down in the Tube Station at Midnight out of my head as I round an ominously blind corner and then, yes, I'm up the other side and I can see the welcoming lights of the station in the distance. I've made it. All I have to do now is pass through the red-light district that covers this stretch of road without making eye-contact with anyone and I'll be nearly home.

At the station, and I find the ticket office is closed. As is the newspaper stand that sells tickets for the Mestre-Venezia route. I find a  machine but it's out of order. There must be another one, but there's a train at the platform now, and I'm going to miss it unless...oh sod it, they never check on this stretch, just get on it, you'll be fine.

So I settle into my seat for a read of the paper when a movement in the next carriage catches my eye. A guard is making his way inexorably through the carriage, checking tickets. This was, I suppose, inevitable. I've been working all day, it's pushing 11pm, and now I'm going to be fined god-knows-how-much for the sake of a one euro ticket.

I feel like Robert Donat in The Thirty Nine Steps.

Of course, Robert Donat extricated himself from the situation by hurling himself upon an unsuspecting Madeleine Carroll. I take a look around the carriage. The only other occupant is a bored-looking street vendor with a bag full of fake Louis Vuittons. He doesn't look like Madeleine Carroll. Even if he did, I think any sort of hurling would probably end badly.

I make my way to the next carriage down, heading away from the guard. And then the next. And the next. The Mestre-Venezia journey only takes ten minutes. Time passes as a glacial pace, but, blessedly, we arrive before I run out of carriages. Huzzah for the Italians and their extremely long trains! I feel a bit bad about not paying, but it's not as if there's an honesty box or anything for me to deposit a euro in.

A few people are waiting at the number 2 vaporetto stop as, apparently, there's been a sporadic service during the evening. A bus home now would be a welcome treat, so I decide to hang around a bit just in case. After about fifteen minutes someone vaguely official-looking arrives and tells us there'll be no more buses tonight. It has, of course, started to rain in the meantime.

It's a modestly soggy walk home, but I'm on the last stretch and then...and then it turns out there's been an unexpected bit of acqua alta and Calle della Mandorla is flooded. If I was thinking straight, I would realise that there's a stretch of passarelle that I could use just round the corner, but I'm not thinking straight. I am, quite successfully, working myself into A Bit of a State. This is karma, obviously. I've defrauded the Italian train service of a euro, and now I'm going to have to pay. I roll up my trouser legs and stride forth...

It's about 11.30 by the time I squelch back into the flat. Caroline is long since asleep. I plop my soggy socks into the laundry basket, and pour myself a large, large glass of red wine. Next Monday, I tell myself, next Monday will be better.

One Year On

"To live in Venice is one of the supreme pleasures that this world can offer" - Jan Morris.

"I didn't expect it to be difficult" - Caroline.

There is, of course, a bit of truth in both these statements.

Stating the bleeding obvious, it's not like being on holiday. No matter how well you think you know a place as a visitor, it will be different as a resident. No matter how well you think you know the language, there will come a time when you feel stymied because you can't think of the word for "bleach" or "dishwasher tablets" or "printer cartridge". Nothing sums up the initial frustrations of shopping as much as the time we dithered for ten minutes over which type of grapefruit juice was the best one to buy. Grapefruit juice. Ten minutes. Repeat for every item on the shopping list.

So we're not always doing lovely things or having an exciting time. It's perfectly possible that a week will pass without doing anything more exciting than working or preparing for work. "New Life" is, in some ways, very similar to "Old Life".

Except it's not. Not really. When I get the boat to the Lido, and look back and see the Alps towering over the city, it reminds me that nothing about this experience will ever, surely, seem quite normal. And if it does, if the day ever comes when we walk over the Accademia bridge without looking left or right...well, maybe that'll be a sign that we finally, truly belong here.

Work, surprisingly, was never that much of a problem. Or maybe the old adage is true, that nothing generates work as much as being in it. Caroline got sorted out with a proper contract fairly quickly, and as soon as I had a couple of jobs under my belt, work rolled in steadily. We were lucky though, in that we ended up with professional organisations that paid properly and on time. There are horror stories out there about teachers not being paid for months, and if that had happened to us we might well have considered cutting our losses and going back to the UK.
 
However, it has to be said that Caroline has not found life at the chalk face a whole lot of fun. The trouble is, I had the chance to learn my chops with nice adult students in one-to-one lessons. She got thrown straight into the circle of the Shouty Kids from Hell, where, unfortunately, she has found herself stuck ever since. This was just the luck of the draw. Still, it looks like she'll be getting more private lessons so, hopefully, things will get easier. I hope so. Because when I get back home and bound through the door (and I've become good at 'bounding', something I never, ever did in my IT days) and find that, well, her day has not been quite so great...then it's a bit tough. I'm having the time of my life. I wish she was too. But the schools will be finishing soon, and if there is any summer work going - well, I'll do it, and let her have some quality altana time instead.

If there is one piece of advice that I could give, it would be this : your enjoyment of the experience will be in direct proportion to your knowledge of Italian. To be honest, you can get by without very much in a city like Venice, but you'll never really feel at home without it. I arrived with an attitude of Robespierresque severity : everything, from the date of arrival, would be in Italian. Newspapers, books, radio - all in Italian. Nothing in English. Except for The Archers. And Doctor Who. Oh, and Forbrydelsen, but given that was in Danish with English subtitles, that didn't count. This was probably a bit over-the-top. It doesn't do any harm to read an English paper or watch a bit of English telly once in a while.

Which leads me back to Caroline, who says, categorically, that not only can she not speak Italian, but that she now actually speaks less than when we arrived.  I have done my best to point out that this is manifestly High Bollocks...

- Look, you had a  perfectly fluent conversation with a waiter the other day about the new pope...!

- That doesn't count, I'd had a negroni first. I was a bit pissed.

I briefly considered that this might be a solution to the teaching problem as well, and that a pre-school stiffener would be the solution to problems of both language and nerves. But then she starts work at 8am on Tuesdays and, even in Italy, the breakfast negroni is generally frowned upon.

Still here we are, one year on, and signed up for another year in the same flat. I feel rather as if we've run across a busy road and got away with it. Because there was never any guarantee that this would work. Oh, I thought there was a reasonable chance it might, but I was prepared for the fact that we might not be able to find jobs at all, in which case we would just have to treat the whole experience as a year off before looking somewhere else in Italy. Or, in the worst case, come crawling back to the UK and do whatever it is that de-skilled middle-aged IT workers do in the middle of an economic crisis. Instead of which, we're here for the foreseeable future. And one thing that strikes me is that one year would not have been enough. It's only now that we're starting to make friends. Leaving now would feel frustrating, incomplete, a tale half-told.

Part of me regrets that there will never again be a feeling similar to waiting for the flight from Heathrow, and realising that for the first time in my adult life I no longer possessed a key for anything; or waking up to the sound of the bells of the Carmini the the following morning, with the future seeming full of infinite possibilities. On the other hand, I feel no nostalgia at all for the four horrible days of frenzied packing and panic that preceded it. And let us not even mention the Van Full of Shite...

We enjoyed our Easter break in the UK, but perhaps it was good to be reminded of where we really wanted to be. It was late evening when we arrived back at Marco Polo, and the air felt just that little bit warmer, as if spring was finally arriving. The capitano on the Alilaguna boat back into town was a cheerful fellow, listening to opera as he drove us down an almost-deserted Grand Canal. I thought what a nice job that must be at times. Two tourists were excitedly leaning out of the windows as far as they could, taking photographs, and exclaiming at everything.

I envied them. They were seeing it all for the first time.

Mondays

Mondays are slightly hard work at the moment.

I leave the house at around 8.30AM, and don't get back until 11 at night. I'm not going to complain about too much work but, for some reason, the weather gods have decreed that Mondays shall henceforth be known as Rain Days. Because it seems that it rains all the bloody day. And there are few things more depressing than emerging from a nice warm classroom into the rain, putting a cold and soggy hat on your head, and realising that you are still 8 hours from the nearest pair of dry socks. There was at least some blessed relief the other day when it decided to start snowing instead, which somehow seemed marginally less wet.

Like I said, Mondays are slightly hard work. Still, the job itself continues to be good fun. I've been teaching a lot of CLIL lessons recently. CLIL, or Content and Language Integrated Learning, is a variation on conventional English teaching in that you teach a subject as well as the language. So in the past few weeks I've taught lessons on apartheid, nuclear physics, the economic crisis, and the Italian women's movement - all in English - to classes of Italian schoolkids. It's hard work as it takes a lot of prep, but it's enormously interesting and enjoyable.

Anyway, I was asked to give a lesson on fossil fuels. Now this is something that I actually know a little bit about, as - among the many sins of my past life - I've spent some time working for Big Oil. And many years ago I found myself working with a very interesting chap who'd worked on the investigation into the Piper Alpha disaster.

This seemed like a possible idea on which to hang a lesson. Instead of the usual "renewables good / fossil fuels bad" dichotomy, I thought I'd talk about the human cost of fossil fuel extraction.

I explain a little bit about what went wrong, and describe the consequences..."so the platform is wrenched apart by the force of the explosion...oil is pouring into the sea...what happens when oil and water mix?"

"The oil floats, prof"

"Good, it *floats*...now, what happens to oil at a high temperature??"

"It burns, prof"

"Excellent!", (and I'm hitting my stride here), "...so imagine this : you're on a rig in the North Sea...a storm is raging...the platform is falling apart...flames are jetting 300 ft into the sky....the sea is on fire..."

Pause for effect.

"...and the nearest help... is.... 200...kilometres...away."

Silence. Earnest nodding of heads.

After the class I speak with the Professoressa.

"Marco was very quiet today", I say. "And he's usually got lots to say."

"Ah well", she smiles, "maybe it's because his father works on an oil rig..."


Oh well. You live and learn!

Right, we're taking a short break back in Yr hen wlad, where, I gather, the weather is even worse than here. More updates, hopefully, when we get back...