VicenzaPiù - Notizie, Inchieste, Analisi su Vicenza e provincia

Life in the current economic climate is a struggle for many, although one doubts whether this applies to Diego Fontana, the disgraced chief of the council's decentralisation department, who despite hiding his second job, and lacking the requisite degree to be manager, still holds his position. The GDV, anxious to stay in with the mayor, Fontana's childhood buddy, ignored these misdeeds, when interviewing him about the failure of the council's summer holiday programme for pensioners to gain bookings.

Disillusioned with such servility, I sought inspiration in the oft referred to Corriere del Veneto this Saturday morning, also because the three copies of the GDV in the periodical room were already being read by the pensioners unable to go on holiday. Of note an article by a University teacher supporting the use of English language lectures at university. It seems there is a debate going on as to whether such lectures are good because they create graduates able to emerge in an international context, or bad because they implicitly accept the demotion of Italian to a language of only local importance. The teacher in question gives lectures in English, and says that in Northern Europe this is usual. On the whole I agree with the idea - a few hundred years ago we all had to know Latin, so why not accept English as current lingua franca, essential and no longer optional? In a small way, I like to feel I am contributing to the phenomenon - what feedback I get suggests that most of my readers are Italian.
Further perusing the Corriere, I see that Dalla Pozza's men in blue are unable to combat the alms-seekers. As many as fifteen of his bogeymen have the temerity to defy council law and ask visiting pilgrims for alms on entering Monte Berico. It seems that almsgiving solace is to be denied the latter, finally, with the reinforcements of the heroic Alpini - Italy's crack soldiers. Dalla Pozza's men unable to confront the fifteen social deviants alone will have the help of the corps usually in contention with the Taliban! They will be armed with cell-phones and organise ambushes for the beggars to be rounded up by the local law-enforcers in order to be relieved of whatever money they have on them. Are they subjected to a body search to see if they have secreted a five-euro note up their backside? It wouldn't surprise me.
Of some consolation perhaps to former Mussolini apologist Sorrentino, who can't let a week go by without complaining about something. A few weeks ago the young Communists had a good natured debate with the bishop's representatives, and agreeing to disagree about much, found a surprising amount of common ground in their shared social concern. The libertine former prime-minister's acolyte complains that Vicenza is in the hands of the ‘antagonistic' left, and expresses an incongruous solidarity with the Diocese. So far, I've not heard of the solidarity being reciprocated. As usual, one is at pains to understand what his point is. No complaints emerge regarding Variati's protection of cronies and backroom deals with the same people Sorrentino's boss Dr. Hullweck collaborated with, but instead we are treated to apocalyptic references to imminent waves of Stalinist violence fomented with the mayor's patronage. Variati the Anti-Christ!
Hoping for a chink in the wall of political connivance, I stopped for a chat with the IDV guys at the top of Contrà Monti. They seemed collectively so dejected that it was hard even to get them to speak about the referendum they were seeking. One old chap, with obvious cat-eating roots, muttered that they would be livelier if someone offered them a white wine.
It began to rain, so I sought shelter in the courtyard of Villa Trissino, where a free jazz concert was about to start. There was a nice introduction, and I waited in anticipation for the piece to come alive so I could tap my aging feet. And then the music stopped and some people clapped. The old IDV man's cat-eating panacea may improve things, I thought. It did, although there was a large crowd at Ostaria del Vicolo, getting alcoholically tuned up for the great freebie of the season, Elio e le Storie Tese. I returned homewards up Contrà San Francesco, in the company of two fellow imbibers, and still the crowds were pouring in towards the centre.
This Sunday afternoon I went to another freebie, more geared towards the Anglo-Saxon bourgeois intelligentsia whence I hail, a musical poetry-reading in English by black South-African poet Natalia Molebatsi at Viart in Contrà Monti. The place was crowded with unfamiliar faces, mostly young, and though the inevitable introduction by a young aspiring intellectual was a bit long, Natalya's haunting voice was captivating.
Despite the inclement weather, Corso Palladio was seething with families, and I stopped again outside Palazzo Trissino, where this evening's offering was really foot-tapping. This weekend the frequently moribund Palladian zeitgeist was given a new lease of life. May it augur well.

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