Italy is a bit strange

1. The nearest supermarket to me (discounting the scabby cheap one which sells wholesale meats) is called "Pam". They rarely have many staff on the tills so the wait is always long, and they have well-stocked shelves next to the little conveyer belts for those last-minute impulse purchases. (When I worked at M&S I was amazed at just how quickly those shelves empty.) But I noticed that as well as chocolate and chewing gum, at one such till it is possible to buy votive candles decorated with garish religious images, while at the next you can buy those plastic vibrating Durex rings in a nasty shade of purple. (The ones with the disturbing advert where the Tilda-Swinton-like-woman opens the gift and then smiles with Lynx-style sexy gratitude as if to say "Darling! You've noticed that the sex is crap! And you've spent a few quid on a buzzing plastic thing to sort it out!") Anyway, this has boggled my mind somewhat. Wouldn't chocolate and chewing gum be a more remunerative thing to put in that space? Surely the number of people who are in a mind to buy either religious equipment or sex-toys at a supermarket is small? Plus presumably there is little overlap between them; are they hoping people will put themselves into the right queue? I'm not at all convinced by this retail practice.

Furthermore although I know I'm way behind the times now that Ann Summers is on every High Street, I do feel that there is potential for a huge amount of inter-familial embarrassment here. When by myself, suddenly encountering sex toys among the Ferrero Rocher and Kinder bars doesn't much fase me, and I doubt it would fase my mother either; but if the two of us encountered them together I should think the resulting embarrassment bouncing back and forwards between us would be like a feedback loop on speakers, quickly rising to a painful and overwhelming degree.

2. To get to "Pam" I walk past the local park, "Parco di 11 Settembre 2001", complete with children's playground and mini funfair. Now, I know that we have plenty of Diana memorial gardens in England, but Diana wasn't just about the death. Diana was about campaigning against landmines, and having a cuteoverload puppy characteristic named after her, and although it seems trivial now it really was pretty taboo-breaking when she actually touched people with AIDS, because at the time it was like they had the ultimate disease. But there's not a lot more to September 11th than mass, horrific death; followed by horrendously depressing ventures into the Middle East by Americans which we were all forced to go along with for some reason we don't understand, resulting in huge and complex suffering which we seem to be powerless to affect. Do Bolognese mammas say to Bolognese papas, "Honey, let's take the bambini to play on the merry-go-round in the Park of September 11th"? Though the Italians do have a fondness for naming things after dates, and maybe if I were less ignorant of modern history I would be unable to pass without a sigh through the Piazza 20th August where the Bologna Saturday market is held.

3. I can't walk home without passing at least one gelateria, and sometimes as many as three. Recently it's been necessary to wear a hat and gloves as well as a scarf outside; it's been quite painfully cold. I like the cold weather, myself, and am dreading the Bolognese summer, but many Italians can be seen absolutely cocooned in furs or those Michelin-man-style duvet coats, but nonetheless they congregate around gelaterie, eating frozen cream from a little spoon. The ice-cream is excellent. I am eating far more ice-cream than I would usually eat in February, or indeed any month. My current flavour is called something like Beast in the City, though I'm not sure why. It's a swirly mix of hazelnut, chocolate and vanilla, with chocolate crunchy bits.