bitful

Mmph. Fell asleep in front of the TV last night before 9 (on the floor, due to the temporary couchlessness of my living room) and missed this programme about violence in the streets of the favourite city (town? Overgrown village that used to go dark and shut down at 5pm?) I've ever lived in - [...]

The final prize for the winner of the BBC's Fame Academy is a recording contract for an album, plus "all the glamorous accessories associated with a celebrity lifestyle" for one year.

Does that include an unlimited supply of drugs, free fist-fights with top photographers, and the unique privilege of being sued by strangers who claim they're [...]

Wales 2 - Italy 1. Ha! I feel a perverse kind of pleasure thinking that the people I've left behind are now contemplating taking up macramé as a national sport.

This can't be a good day. Not when you wake up and The Ketchup Song (Asereje) is in your head, and it won't budge. Someone give a life sentence to the person who had the unfortunate idea to introduce the track into this country. In the meanwhile,

aserejé ja deje
dejebe tu dejebe
deseri iowa a mavy
an [...]

I have a confession to make: I've started smoking again. I managed to stay quit for almost two weeks, and went through what I considered the first few tricky situations (going out, packing and moving, job interviews) without lighting up.

Then one Monday evening at Compton's (I think sometime between the fifth pint of beer and [...]

When my flatmate and I moved into our new apartment a little over one month ago, the movers had to leave both his settees on the pavement because they did not go through the door (even after unscrewing the frame to gain a few inches). The following evening a couple of hot Australian neighbours (I [...]

Tom has linked to an Italian article on weblogs on the online version of Il Sole 24 Ore and was wondering what it meant.

As I am currently working on a translation from English into Italian (some instruction manuals for a multi-room, multi-media, multi-remote-controlled system), I took a short break from it, put my brain into [...]

I have always been fascinated by the BBC's mission of providing a service to the public without adverts. You have to pay a license to RAI (Italian national TV), but you get exactly the same shite as the other channels, interspersed by handfuls of ads and infomercials between and within the shows themselves).

So far I [...]

What is Christina Xtina Aguilera's problem, wearing rubbery/leathery chaps on CD:UK, with a sticker saying "dirrty" on her bum? Is that the kind of image we want our nation's youth to see at 10am on a Saturday? Put the genie back in the bottle, girl. (Now, if J. from 5ive was wearing the same outfit, [...]

Kylie and Madonna must have asked gay men what they'd like to see in their new videos, and the answer was probably a chorus of: "More Kylies!" and "More Madonnas!". That is why in Kylie's video for Come Into My World there are several Ms. Minogues walking around happily through the streets of Paris, and [...]

I am convinced that watching television is bad for you. Or that it's bad for people who are prone to addiction. Ok, let's face it, it's bad for me. (Note: while typing the previous sentence, in twice out of three occurences, I typed "good" instead of "bad" - Sigmund Freud / Analyze this).
So I have [...]

One of my favourite reads is away and has one of his closest friends guestblogging for him. If you enjoy The Search for Love in Manhattan, go check out Upside-down Hippopotamus too: equally sharp and witty, just as many laughs (and the same exact design, which can be quite confusing at times if you switch [...]

The Italian word for FULL is PIENO? Then imagine being so FULL you have to sit on a PIANO. (What?)

According to this language-learning method (associating images as a way of memorizing words in a foreign languages) David could learn up to 600 Italian words before he sets off for Bologna on Monday.
I must say I [...]

The flu (now finally turning into a mild cold and a nasty cough) has enabled me to watch both the Beeb's Fame Academy and ITV's Popstars: the Rivals. Lucky me.

Fame Academy: triple yawn. I got so bored that I went into my room to read, and then I realized I had missed the first half [...]

Isn't it ironic? Dontcha think?
It's official: I have come down with a flu. It is highly unlikely that I'll be able to go and see J. in his play tonight. I feel some sort of perverse satisfaction in the fact that this time I'm the one cancelling out, although this hardly compares to that time [...]

Is there life outside this week's top 40?

Working from home lately, I've started listening to the radio, but can't be bothered to go through the dial to find an appropriate station and stick to it, so I randomly choose one of those that are already stored (probably by my flatmate, although I doubt it, because [...]

Why oh why, of all people, do I have to share the same three initials with "the UK's favourite interior designer"? There's another of my domain names down the drain then.

Powercell my (hairy) arse!

I knew it as soon as I gave the pound coin to the guy who was quickly packing away his collapsible cardboard stand outside Tottenham Court Road tube station as he saw the police approaching. One pound for 16 (sixteen!) AA batteries? I thought what the hell, even if they don't last [...]

Last night I've beaten a personal record for the shortest date in my (very short and very recent) dating history. There was absolutely no reason to cut it short on grounds of dislike or, worse, deception ("eew, so that's what he looks like in daylight!"), it's just that I must have caught that nasty cold [...]

Was anything the matter with blogger? I haven't been able to access their site (nor any site hosted at blogspot) between last night and late this morning.

It felt quite odd, as I could access Yahoo but not Google; bitful and plasticbag were fine, but not diveintomark and notsosoft; overyourhead and garoo got through, David was [...]

I am going to see J. perform in his latest play on Friday night, and probably joining him and the whole cast for drinks afterwards. I am very, very curious to finally see him on stage, and even more so to see him interact with other people. So far, we have always met on our [...]

My nightlife is turning out to be a cheap Jules Verne-inspired porn spoof titled Around the World in 80 Shags, and last night it was "New Zealand: twelve points - la Nouvelle Zélande: douze points". All in the comfort of the swanky 5-star Le Meridien hotel in Piccadilly.
No wonder that when I took the "what [...]

Another Sunday with exceptionally gorgeous weather in London. My flat is flooded with light and quite warm (if only it also were tidy…).
We are being quite spoilt with all this October sunshine, I wonder what kind of grim and rigid winter mother nature has in stall for us.
Now please excuse me while I go lie [...]

Sainsbury's has a "Be Good to Yourself" and a "Taste the Difference" food range. Both imperatives that harshly push you to eat sensibly and treat your tastebuds to a feast of flavours.
Why is it then that other, equally worthy of attention, products do not get a chance to scream about their own qualities? What about [...]

Does anyone know if there are any plans to introduce a ".blog" domain extension in the future?

Am I the only one thinking that "Winnie the Pooh" sounds very much like "We need a poo"?

J. was 40 minutes late for lunch, but abundantly made up for it. After lunch.

I got a job today. It's a translation from English into Italian and it's only for a couple of weeks, but it pays well, I get to work from home and I can get my hands again on QuarkExpress, with some help from David if necessary.
I got the lead from a friend of a friend, [...]

Parlay-vous françay?
3am. Can't sleep, won't sleep and, since I've recently had my land line connected, I'm freely roaming the interhighweb from the comfort of my humble abode. I've finally got round to catching up with some blog-reading from my list of links on the right.
While Googling bitful searching for links to it, I stumbled upon [...]

The first encounter.
Our first date.
Our second date.
The time I cooked for him.
I'm having J. for lunch later today. No, let me rephrase it: I'm having him over for lunch today, but this time I'm not going to spend the whole day cooking, for the meal is not the reason I've invited him over. In fact, [...]