bitful

Ho messo su quattro libbre in una settimana
I have put on four pounds in one week
Literally: '(I) have put on four pounds in one week'.
Three and a half weeks ago I decided to stop counting calories and to stop weighing myself every day.
I have put on five pounds during the first two and a half [...]

Saluti da Manchester
Greetings from Manchester
Literally: 'Greetings from Manchester'.
Well, I say Manchester but really it's lovely suburban Altrincham, which I think I've just realised is in Cheshire.
Walked around, looked at mansions, went to a pub, played a Robots-themed board game with our friends' child.
Having a rest now, dinner will be ready soon. It feels wonderfully pleasant [...]

Whenever I travel I always make sure I have enough stuff to do late at night or very early in the morning when everybody sleeps. I usually take my laptop and get some work done. Sometimes I even read a book - crazy, I know.
I am now at Dr B.'s parents only with an iPod [...]

Massive pillow fight in Leicester Square yesterday afternoon:

I had to join in, even if it means I almost dropped my camera. I also have some photos of the pillow fight on Flickr.
It was very pointless, yet exhilarating, and it put a smile on my face - until I thought of whoever would have to clean [...]

Today I decided to stop logging my food intake. I have done so on and off all my life, and without interruptions since August 2005.
This is a very big step for me, and there are three reasons behind it:

it is taking up far too much precious time to maintain it,
logging what I eat does not [...]

People often ask me why on earth, being an European Economic Area (EEA) national living and working in the UK, I am planning to apply for UK citizenship.
I usually ramble about how I plan to live in the UK indefinitely, and I consider this my true one and only homeland, and what would happen if [...]

A bit of a long story, and one where I don't come appear to be particularly bright. Bear with me.
During the Christmas break 2002, the friend I shared a flat went to see his family in Ireland and came back a captured leprechaun in a can for me:

I only had a vague idea of what [...]

Not so easy, this one, because of the memories involved:

In September 2002, when I moved into the flat I shared with a friend in Tooting Bec, a friend from NYC came to see us. He is an artist, and after an afternoon spent sightseeing he came back and gave me three postcards that I put [...]

Buon San Valentino!
Happy Valentine's Day!
Literally: 'Good Saint Valentine!'

People with a delicate stomach or sensitive to blood sugar imbalance, please turn away now.
Dr B. has been so good and generous to me lately, and I wanted to show him so much, how much I love him (so much), that I woke him up at 7 with [...]

Ho mangiato troppo a pranzo
I ate too much at lunch
Literally: '(I) have eaten too-much at lunch'.

My lunch usually consists of some chicken (pre-cooked and packed from the shop, or steamed or oven-roasted at home, no skin) and some cherry tomatoes (straight from the packet, unwashed, I probably have enough pesticides in me to kill all [...]

Ho un nuovo giocattolo
I have a new toy
Literally: '(I) have a new toy'.

Last Friday Dr B. received a substantial bonus at work and decided to change his plans and go crazy for my birthday present.
As a consequence, I am now the happy owner of an iPod Touch 32GB. No, make that the very happy owner. [...]

Oggi è il mio quarantunesimo compleanno
Today is my forty-first birthday
Literally: 'Today is the my forty-first birthday'.

Oh poo, I'm forty-one today. Forty was not that much of a shock, but forty-one, man, that's ancient.
Sono vecchio, ma mi sento giovane
I am old, but I feel young
Literally: '(I) am old, but to-me (I) feel young'.

Last September I got rid of half of my clothes. So howcome today I managed to select another third of what was left, to be given away too?
I did the same with footwear yesterday: I thought that last September I had only kept a few pairs, but I ended up counting 21, of which I [...]

This was a tough one, because I had very recently taken a lot of books to charity shops, so those that were left were probably there for a reason.
The reason was that they were gifts, and even if I had read them and was unlikely to read them again in the next ten years, I [...]

I was thinking of giving up something for Lent but nothing came to mind.
Then suddenly I saw the clutter that I let into my life and that I am not happy with. Clutter that I cannot get down to reducing because it is too daunting a task. Clutter that is completely useless and bothers me.
I [...]

Every now and then life's great tapestry reminds me of the reason why I left Italy and settled in the UK.
My eyes reacted badly to a new pair of contact lenses the other day, so I wore my glasses to work (I am so vain that I normally would not be seen dead in them).
Nobody [...]

Ti piace Harry Potter?
Do you like Harry Potter?
Literally: 'To-you is-liked Harry Potter?'

I cannot quite put my finger on why I have enjoyed reading all seven Harry Potter novels. I can see why they have such mass appeal, yes, but I thought I was immune to that. Plus, magic and wizards and shit? Yawn. A book [...]

Hello dear technically-inclined reader, I wonder if you could help.
I have been using email as my main means of capturing and storing information. Started with Outlook, switched to Gmail for a while (loved the tags and no-directory structure) but then went back to Outlook when I got an HTC Tytn II that syncs with [...]

Today's phrase is
Finalmente è venerdì
At last it's Friday
Literally: At last is Friday

It's been a short week (I worked on Monday, went out on Monday and Tuesday night, had a day off work on Wednesday and was back to work yesterday and today) but I'm very glad the weekend is here again anyway.
I have absolutely nothing [...]

Today's Italian phrase is
Ho comprato gli occhiali su internet
(I bought my spectacles online)
Literally: 'Have bought the spectacles on internet'.

I'm shortsighted, I hate wearing glasses (I generally can't stand anything on me: rings, wristbands, watches, sunglasses…) so I usually keep a crap pair at home to put on last thing at night and first thing in [...]

Yesterday morning we drove from London to Birmingham to spend Christmas with Dr B.'s parents.
I have been doing absolutely nothing for exactly thirty hours and loving every minute of it. Right now Dr B. is sleeping off the lurgy in his old bedroom, his parents are out, and I'm sitting watching telly.
The last few months [...]

December 9th is traditionally the date when Christmas starts in Dr B.'s family, as his brother's birthday is on the 8th and it would not be nice to steal his thunder.
So I popped into town to see if I could find a nice fake yet life-like tree to match my wallet. No, I did not [...]

I thought only a couple of friends knew about La Terremoto de Alcorcón and her YouTube Madonna spoof video 'Time Goes By (Con Loli)':

Last night at the Royal Vauxhall Tavern it appeared that the whole Spanish expat community knows her well.
It was a riot, with Spanglish banter and a handful of songs (Can't Get You [...]

So tonight I was coming home from work, totally absorbed by the book I'm reading (A Spot of Bother), I got off the train and walked along the platform to the exit, instinctively. A gesture you don't think about because you repeat it every day.
Most people were walking the opposite direction, so I realised I [...]

Air France, said the reservation. And the check-in counter, and the boarding pass.
And the crew's uniforms at the gate. One of them looked at my boarding pass, then projected "Le six" across the queue to her colleague entering boarding pass numbers into a machine.
So imagine my surprise when the terminal bus delivered me in front [...]

I owe you an explanation, don't I?
Weeks without a proper post on these pages, apart from Word of the Day, My Week on the Web and sometimes 7 Things I Did Not Know Last Week.
Not a lack of time per se, but rather a shift in priorities.
A new position at work that's briliant and absorbs [...]

When I heard Barclays was releasing a three-in-one Credit, Oyster (London transport) and OneTouch (cashless purchases under ten pounds by waving the card on a reader) OnePulse Barclaycard, I was the first in line to get it.
The accompanying leaflet showed the logos of some of the retailers that will be accepting OneTouch payments soon: Books [...]

I've had Yahoo! Mail account for as long as I can remember, and I've always been very happy with it.
I've also had a Gmail account since the time they were still only in invitation-only beta. I forward all my other mail to it so it acts as a searchable permanent reference. I also set [...]

I am trying to save the world, but they sure do not make my life easy.
The kitchen scales batteries had gone. It cost nine pounds to replace them. New scales, batteries included, cost as little as nine pound 99. I insisted in buying the batteries instead. Yes, I know there are scales that run without [...]

It was not without apprehension that last Saturday I set off to go visit my mother in Italy. She had been ill for a while, was taken to hospital for six weeks of tests last spring, but they could not find anything wrong. She was ill again recently, and this time the local hospital sent [...]