Tuscan Reflection

My weekend break to Bologna was the result of the expedition of a long-held wish of travelling to Italy and, in particular, the supercar and Ferrari territory that is Maranello. This long and eagerly awaited trip to this very beautiful part of the world was prioritised and organsised, rather precipitously, in the last few weeks and on the basis of hardly the most honourable of causes.

I'm really not very proud of having to admit that I allowed myself to be drawn into a silly game of one-upmanship in respect of a pilgrimage I had ranked very highly in my life. Moreover (who still uses words like that nowadays? we should campaign for their return!), its not just that I put such a mission on the line for so pathetic a reason and took the risk of tainting my first visit to Mecca with unnecessary negativity, but more the fact that I should have risen above and ignored the taunt (was it even actually a taunt?) by one so unworthy (to me) of my holy cause.

Now, on my way home, sitting on yet another delayed plane (of course its Iberia!), I can reflect on a game played, and won of course, but not without noting a vague and general dissatisfaction with the basis for the whole experience.

It has to be said, before you think me totally insane (and on the basis of events on Saturday, I may well be), that although getting to Bologna turned out to be a complete fiasco, the fact that I had to cancel the two lunch and dinner reservations I had made at symbolic restaurants and that we only made it to our country house at nine thirty, the weekend was far from ruined.

The Lodole country house, just beyond Monzuno in Bologna was a real find. A 17th (?) Century country house, recently and lovingly restored was set in the hills of the beautiful tuscan valley. Upon arrival, our host informed me that she had very kindly made a reservation for us in the best restaurant in the nearby town of Loiano, Benvenuti! Bags dropped, we made for the restaurant in our Fiat Panda, parked right outside the restaurant in charming Loiano and had possibly the best meal of my life so far (full description upon request but only whilst eating, it would otherwise be unbearable). A bottle of Lambrusco later we returned to our room, bolstered and ready for the following day.

Sunday we head to Maranello, arrive finally at the place where the magic happens and it feels great. We have a lovely lunch watching a terribly boring race where Ferrari get trounced and yet, I'm still concerned I might never want to go home. Mclaren's decimation of Ferrari isn't enough, surprisingly, to put a dampener on my spirits. Ferrari going to be ok without Schumacher? Schumacher IS Ferrari... And I hope I'm wrong about that.

Head to Modena, lovely place, tutto chiuso cos its Sunday and then back to Monzuno for a shower and dinner in town at Trattoria Mulini. Had it not been for the pasta we'd ordered, I would have eaten just the crescentine, a regional specialty. My good God, how little I knew about eating well and about truly good food!

Back to today, and we're shortly to arrive at Madrid and so we're stretching and warming up for the 400m dash that is the catching of our connecting flight! Its been a great weekend, but short. Its been really bad at times, amazing at others. It has, however, also been perfect in one single way. It has been perfect in confirming what I suspected and being so that I now know I will return for a complete tuscan adventure. Once more will not be enough, and, if necessary, I'll run the gauntlet and fly Iberia again to get there.

Ciao Bologna, ci rivediamo!

Lastminute.com - hell no, not if the Spanish can help it!

Useless! A word which, while instructive, falls far short of expressing the level of sheer apathy and complete disregard for customer service the Spanish nation (in fact, they don't even deserve my taking the time to capitalise the first letter of the name of their country) considers appropriate.

Today I'm not so much blogging as I am venting. I fear that if I don't vent like this, and I mean right now, I stand a good chance of developing some kind of bi-polar psychological disorder in later life, much in the way of Jim Carrey's character in 'Me, myself & Irene.' The spanish nation, ably represented this morning by Iberia airlines, is 100%, wholeheartedly, unremittingly, fundamentally and to its very core, incompetent and disinterested with it. They absolutely do not care in the slightest bit about the mild inconvenience of losing seven hours out of a two-day city break to Maranello Italy for an out of control Ferrari nut like yours truly.

It doesn't matter, does it, that you skipped sleeping to be at the airport on time at 5.00am. That a good friend also did the same to ferry me to the airport. Its perfectly ok, isn't it, for the airline to make my departure an hour and forty five minutes late, compromising my connection in such a way that I have to make like Linford Christie on steroids through the ugliest airport terminal Madrid has to offer,to the connecting flight only to find that '[sorry sir], the gate closed two minutes ago and we're unable to re-open it.' Words in square brackets mean, in the context of this post, that which should have been the first words spoken but which, of course, were beneath the very friendly staff at the capital's airport.

I now wait, fuming, to board my flight to Bologna. I know that I should rise above this, and, eventually will. Right now though, I question how they ever made it into the EU and how exactly they've come this far. Its certainly not been a matter of pride in what they do, dedication to the (s)panish cause. If I never see an Iberia plane or Spanish airport again, it'll be too soon.

Am I certifiable?

For years now I've wondered what it takes to get admitted to a mental institution and and how close I may be manouevering the (red) 2-man raft I call my life, to that particularly unpleasant wind.

I say this because I am only too aware of how fickle, at times insanely so, I am when it comes to certain things in life, particularly cars. My relationship with cars over the years is something that I think warrants putting in writing and sharing with the world. I'm firmly of the belief that if by committing these matters to the world and saving at least one person, it will have been worth the self-flagellation this post will surely turn out to be.

So fickle am I however, that I'm sat here wondering how this post actually will end. Right now, in the time it takes me to press the right combination of keys in the correct sequence to complete this sentence, my opinion of how I should conclude this post has changed at least four times, such indecision rendering it that many times harder for me to formulate the sentence correctly! Although I'm pretty certain that to put myself out there like this, in writing, is a good idea, I am also, aware, right now, of the smallest, almost imperceptible foetus of a thought in the back of my mind that will probably militate in favour of this post actually not being a good idea. Watch this space...

When I returned home from my studies and got my first job making £10,000 a year, I borrowed £10,000 to buy my first car! I started as I meant to carry on. I made £700 a month and blew £200 of that on the finance, but boy was I a happy chappy. In October 2003, blinded by the excitement of a new job and a new house, it felt right to blow £15,700 (which of course I'd have to borrow) on a new car I had only momentarily been 'in love' with. It wasn't really love to be honest, that much I realised about two weeks after driving out of the dealership with it. It was more my fickle nature getting the better of me. My first car, now two years old, had developed its first fault and needed a new electric window motor. That was it! "Enough of the bloody faults with the bloody car (remember: first fault). Its unreliable and has to bloody go!"

So after screwing that up and landing myself in a family car, I resisted only for about six months before selling that on at a loss of about £3,000 and getting myself one of my genuine dream cars of the time, a car I've dedicated a post to as I sincerely believe it deserves that much attention. I eventually owned that car for four months short of three years, the longest I've owned a car. The ownership experience wasn't without its hardship but it was sufficiently amazing that I held on to it through thick and thin and managed to stave off my continual longing for other cars. There were always rock solid arguments to get rid of the RS and then rock solid arguments for keeping it AND buying a second car!

Finally in January, after a protracted marketing and sale process, I sold the car, for peanuts, to a monkey incidentally (if you accept peanuts, you'll inevitably be selling to a monkey) and blew a full and quite ridiculous amount of stupid money to buy the car I own now. Which I have just sold, I think, tomorrow, for a good price, maybe... My apologies to my dear partner and to all those of you who may know someone like me. Its not malicious, we really know not what we do...

Over the years, I've been trying to work out what the problem is, and I think I know what it is... but can't be bothered to type anymore so look out for my next post!

Scooter for a Helmet

Browsing through my daily internet haunts, a list of which I'll shove on the end of this post for the sake of completeness, I allowed myself an indulgence and clicked through to the Ferraristore website. This is always a very bad idea. In fact, it ranks all the way up there with letting a woman drive the space shuttle, but I was feeling a bit frisky with the whole thing and decided to have a look.

The Ferraristore presents an amazing range of products, all of which are emblazoned in one way or another, whether subtly or in an Italian in your face kind of way, with the Cavallino Rampante, one of the world's most evocative symbols and Ferrari's logo since the early 1930s. Umbrellas, t-shirts, ties, caps and belts feature amongst memorabilia and components of championship winning cars auctioned through the website.

Stopping short of blowing almost $4,000 on a rear-wing endplate of the champion F2001 F1 contender, I stumbled rather happily across their sports accessories section where I found the most attractive helmet I have ever had the good fortune of laying my eyes upon.

A simple and elegant open face design in Ferrari's sexiest of red hues with an attack-helicopter spec wrap-around visor and a bold decal of an elongated italian flag on a white background along the centreline. Smaller yet just as delicious as the decal on the raw F360 Challenge Stradale and its soon to be launched but officially non-existent F430 CS successor.

So fantastic is this headgear that it brought about the resurfacing of an old (and by this I mean no more than three months) dilemma I recently got over. Whether to buy a full on bike, or a high end scooter. The argument had gone in favour of neither of the two as a project that a.) involved the spending of money I didn't have at the time; b.) didn't fancy borrowing; and c.) something more beyond my already risky approach to hobbies that might precipitate my premature, motoring induced demise.

The decision has now, however, made itself. I'm getting a scooter. After some research, a Gilera Nexus 250 to be precise. In red, with the red helmet. OR, it could be in black with the equivalently coloured fashion accessory doubling up as protective headgear. Now all I have to do is to try and sell my car, again, and then campaign and persuade those who need campaigning and persuading but shall remain nameless, that being 100% debt free would simply be too boring.

Mind you, I'm going to have to spend alot of money on the bike to get it sounding anything like the Challenge Stradale the helmet reminds you of, and if it ever sounds like that, i'm not going to be very popular on the estate in the mornings!

Daily internet haunts:

www.itv-f1.com

www.planetf1.com

www.f1.com

www.telecinco.es (for a laugh) (I love Lewis Hamilton for putting Alonso in his place)

www.hotmail.com

www.gmail.com

www.yahoo.com another email)(don't be fooled, i'm not that popular, I never have new mail)

www.ferrari.com

www.blogger.com (recent addition)

news.bbc.co.uk

http://selwyn.figueras.googlepages.com/ (this is just a test site with little on it)

www.e90post.com

Anti Money laundering seminars - god help us

This now being my first proper blog entry, I thought I'd grace it with an air of importance, severity and seriousness.

I was at a seminar this morning being addressed by a guy who had been a career money launderer for about ten years to 1990. He told us all about how he had become involved with drugs traffickers in Miami and how he had decided that he would become their money launderer. He told a fantastic tale of how they'd board Lear jets and fly out to Anguila and deposit large suitcases of money into accounts with banks on the remote carribbean island. The ten years he spent doing this were good years but he was eventually apprehended and sentenced to 25 years in prison, hardly a joke. Having served about 6 months of his sentence he was approached by law enforcement agencies to assist in a joint Swiss-American operation targeting money launderers on both sides of the pond. For collaborating, his term was reduced from 25 to 2 years.

It was amazing to hear him talk of these things as someone with real experience of being on the wrong side of the law and particularly as someone who is now making (I imagine) a fair bit of money talking internationally about all the illegal transactions he organised and conducted himself!

Unfortunately for me, this post turned out a whole lot less interesting than I thought it would and if that's how I'm feeling, I shudder to think of the effect it may have had on anyone reading it. I think that's where I'll leave that one.

Introduction to blogging

Well, this is it, my first blog ever. My first foray into writing for the sake of writing, keeping a record of my life from this point on and making it available to the public at large. Mind you, at this time, i'm pretty sure very few people are actually going to be interested in anything i may have to say. I've also got to say that this first line is coming out really easily! I suppose this might just be the very outlet i may have been looking for for some time.

I like (love, maybe?) to write and do alot of it for a living. I'm a lawyer you see, and one that will not (for the time being anyway) get to see the inside of a courtroom, something i really enjoy. That is, of course, unless something goes horribly wrong or impatience gets the better of me and i rob a bank to buy my Ferrari.

So i suppose that for my first blog i should really set out who i am, what i do, what tickles me, what i'm passionate about, my dreams, my ambitions, etc. But i'm not going to. I'll do that when i'm inspired.

Watch this space, or not. Whatever floats your boat.