Goats, Benches and the like

"sopra la panca la capra campa, sotto la panca la capra crepa"

This translated roughly means "On the bench, the goat lives, under the bench the goat dies"
It is an Italian tongue twister and has kept me equal parts confused and delighted all day.
Something about this language, I find it endlessly satisfying to speak. As a committed francophile that is a very hard statement to admit. It's not that I ever struggled with french pronunciation per-se, but rather I struggled with the way French people struggled with it. It's a sign of how much they adore their language that they will patiently stand there and correct you nine or ten times in a single sentence, but if you are trying to learn the language, it is nothing less than infuriating.
So Italian is satisfying to learn and the Italians are very satisfying in their ability to allow you to finish your sentence.

Il dolce far niente

So between working two jobs, learning Italian AND still trying to have a social life, I haven’t really had a chance to practice the above. But thanks to Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs and their inability to correctly calculate my taxes; I may finally be able to fund my trip to Italy without fear of having to sleep on floors and eat only left overs.

First stop shall be Bellagio on Lake Como, where sadly all the money in in the world won’t save me from sleeping on a mattress on Sara’s floor for a couple of months. But I’m willing to accept that in exchange for her mother’s cooking. Not to mention the fact that I’ll be working so much I doubt I’ll care where I’m sleeping.

Then to Milan where I shall make a point of trying the very special risotto alla milanese followed by the grand Milanese institution, the aperitivo. One quick flight and then I shall be in Rome, where I plan to spend a week, maybe two, eating gelato on the Spanish steps; sneakily attempting to take pictures inside the Sistine Chapel and generally making a nuisance of myself by getting lost on trams, and getting in the way of drivers on their mopeds. Not to mention the inevitable trip to Da Baffetto that shall have to made in order to try an authentic roman pizza. From there to Istanbul for a few days where I plan to eat my weight in Dondurma and Baklava, finally visit the Blue Mosque and my beloved Hagia Sophia before flying to Kyrenia in North Cyprus where I shall devour trays full of Lahmacun and meet up with my sister and her boyfriend for a final debrief and loll about on the beach before flying home to miserable old London.

Scrap that, I shall have no time to be idle, I’ll clearly be too busy eating…

Can't Get You Out of My Head...

I miss that feeling you get when you find yourself attracted to someone. Not that my life is a barren no mans land. There is after all the arrogant Italian, who even if he wasn’t gorgeous -as it seems all Italians are- I would still probably find attractive just for his attire alone. Then there is the adorable and adorably awkward but charming German boy who blushes every time I look at him like a bride on her wedding night. Finally there is as always a whole host of lovely French boys, and we all know how I feel about the French.

But I miss that butterflies in stomach, nervous, pink gooey feeling. Before I go any further I should clarify that I am a hideous, uncontrollable flirt. If flirting was a competition I would win medals in the sport. I will also pretty much try and flirt my way through any situation. Terrible, I know, possibly a-moral and my inner feminist must be in tears. But, if I can get a free coffee in the morning just by fluttering my eyelashes and smiling like I have no brain, I’ll do it, no need to ask me twice.

But I miss that feeling you get when you really like someone. That pulse racing, nerve wracking stage that happens early on. When everything is still very chaste plenty of stolen glances, loaded exchanges and the odd lingering look from across a crowded room. That is what I miss. When your so head-over-heels for somebody that the possibility of flirting doesn’t even occur to you because you’re too busy trying to recall how to breath, let alone speak.

Every outfit is evaluated before being worn and every sentence rehearsed six or seven times before it ever leaves your mouth.

Frankly, no amount of blushing youths and cocky Italians can really make up for that…

Gold nanoparticles could transform street-lights

Researchers in Taiwan have come up with the most perfect way of replacing your bog standard, ugly, inelegant and energy guzzling street lights. All of this shall be done by implanting their leaves with nano-particles of gold. This shall cause the leaves to give off a soft red glow which shall light the street for passersby below, without the need for electric power.
Not only would this cut down on carbon emissions, cut electricity costs and reduce light pollution, all this without in any way harming people by sacrificing the safety that street lights bring.

Like pretty much every great discovery before it, this one came about by accident, when aforementioned researchers were trying to lighting as efficient as LE D's without using the overly expensive and toxic phosphor powder that LE D's rely on. The gold nano-particles are shaped like sea urchins and are places into the leaves of Bacopa Caroliniana plants (that's the stuff you find aquariums) which causes the chlorophyll to produce a reddish luminescence.
This luminescence will cause the leaves' chloroplasts to photosynthesize, this as you will recall from your high school science classes will result in more carbon being captured from the air while the streets are lit. Their next step is to improve the efficiency of the bioluminescence and apply the technology to other bio molecules.

I for one, cannot wait.

The link to the article is Here