Coronavirus in Sardinia and the UK

I must confess that, until about three weeks ago, I was guilty of not taking the coronavirus outbreak as seriously as I might have done. It seemed to be something mainly confined to mainland Italy, especially the north, and with Sardinia being an island (albeit an island larger than the whole of Wales) and no positive cases having been reported here I wasn't very concerned. Then, first there were a couple of positive cases in Cagliari, and a researcher (and her partner) returning to Nuoro from a conference in Udine tested positive. After that, horror of horrors, a dozen or so health workers at San Francesco Hospital (about two miles away from us) tested positive. I found this distressing on several levels. Aside from the risk, especially to older people and those whose health problems have weakened their immune systems, there was the problem it created for the hospital in functioning normally, especially with the risk of further infection. I have a personal interest in this because in 2012 I had a mild heart attack and was treated at San Francesco Hospital where the treatment I received was excellent. Furthermore, I have given private English lessons to three of the doctors who work there, all of whom were extremely nice people. It's easy for some people to sneer and crack jokes but when you realise the pandemic may be directly affecting people you know personally, it's a different matter. Now the whole of Italy has been in lockdown for over two weeks and, strange as it may seem, I'm somewhat relieved and not at all bothered about staying at home most of the time for the time being, however long that might be.

My wife took early retirement at the end of the last year and since then we've very much been taking things at the gentle pace for which, by and large, Sardinia is renowned. However, we have had to put on hold our daily outings for coffee and aperitives at our favourites bars, Nobel 26 in ExMe and Caffé Tettamanzi among others, and it's been cappuccino and caffé normale (or 'espresso') at home instead since Tuesday 10th March. 

How hard Italy has been hit by the coronavirus has made the news globally and now I'm beginning to cast an anxious eye towards the UK because I still have so many friends and relatives living there. There was widespread astonishment here and elsewhere at the initial response of the UK government at how to deal with the spread of the virus. The idea that the British could 'take it on the chin and create 'herd immunity'. 'La roulette di Boris Johnson. Il Regno Unito ha una strategia molto rischiosa per contenere il coronavirus' said the Italian press (Boris Johnson's Russian roulette. The UK has a very risky strategy for containing the coronavirus). Especially shocking to the Sardinians was the idea that this might mean the premature death of, at the very least, 250,000 of the elderly and more vulnerable members of society in the UK. One member of my wife's extended family was moved to write the following about it:- 'Boris Johnson has no shame in communicating to the entire world that his country's economy is more important than the life of his elderly co-citizens and that they can be sacrificed for the sake of GDP. In Sardinian culture elderly people have always enjoyed special consideration because of the knowledge and wisdom they can bring. Moreover, a society that venerates appearance and wealth and has zero consideration for the lives of its elderly is inevitably condemned to decline.' I myself was disappointed but not surprised by the headlines in some British newspapers,  including this monstrosity in the Daily Telegraph (sometimes described as the Boris Johnson fanzine).

A pathological incapacity to even try to be impartial seems to be a prerequisite for anyone wishing to write for that particular publication! How dare anyone question the government's 'herd immunity' strategy! We're British! We know best! We don't need to take any notice of those strategies that have been successful in slowing down the virus in other countries! They can't compete with our British exceptionalism! (They appreciate sarcasm in Sardinia.) Fortunately, the UK has been forced to change it's strategy by models created by a team at Imperial College, London and displaying the folly of the original strategy (and the idiocy of some who write newspaper headlines). Even so, as I write, just after the UK went into 'full lockdown' last weekend, there still seems to be a lot of confusion with regard to what 'full lockdown' actually means and who key workers are. On social media some of my friends are saying not much seems to have changed!

After the aforementioned outbreak of COVID-19 at San Francesco Hospital in Nuoro there were exhaustive tests done on the other health workers and 120 tests returned negative results and Sardinia is still one of the least affected regions. As of yesterday there were 421 positive cases and, sadly, the fatalities on the island numbered 15. In Nuoro there were 26 positive cases and in the last few days the number falling victim to the virus in my home town of Bristol has overtaken the number in Nuoro. Now do you understand why I worry about my friends and relatives in the UK? Here, people appear to be taking the lockdown a lot more seriously. They are observing the recommended distance for social distancing. If my wife or I have to go out for any essential reason we always wear gloves and a mask and I always wash my hands immediately when returning to the apartment after having been downstairs to check the post or take stuff out for recycling. Some may be a bit blasé and claim the virus only has about a 3% fatality rate and some people experience mild symptoms or no symptoms at all. That may be true but it's not the point. The point is that the coronavirus is extremely contagious and those who are asymptomatic can pass it on to the elderly or those living with pre-existing health conditions for whom it can be deadly. Be sensible. Be responsible and keep others safe as well as yourself.

Nuoro And Its Poetry

Before I got sidetracked by Brexit, and the needless anxieties it has brought, I was using this blog to write of my experiences in Sardinia. As my Italian improved I started to do Italian translations of my posts along the original English text (although I have to thank my wife for checking my translation work and making quite a number of corrections!) In recent years I've written far less, as my initial enthusiasm for the project waned, but there are quite a lot of experiences that I have had here that I do wish I had written about. Oh well!

Anyway, a few days ago I came across this rather excellent blogpost, from one of our "madrelingua" English teacher friends here in Nuoro, which perfectly captures how it's such a likeable town to live in and yet frustrating at the same time. Congratulations to Lisette for such a good piece - Sardinia for the soul - Nuoro no est Italia. It actually reminded me of a poem I wrote about Nuoro the first year I was here:-

 
Nuoro

So here I am in Nuoro,
this untidy mess of a town
which is nonetheless endearing.
"Il comune non fa niente!"*
is what I keep on hearing.
Sun scorched scruffy weeds
and dirt and litter adorn
the uneven pavement
while some have sought
to see to feline needs
with a plate or two of fish-heads
left out for the strays;
the buildings blighted by graffiti,
beautiful and ugly in equal measure
and cars parked curiously
at strange angles from the kerb.
And then the gems, the treasure:
the stunning vista of the mountains
from Via Aspromonte
and the valley between Mt Ortobene
and the edge of town;
how Via Corso Garibaldi
comes to life on summer evenings,
the bars packed and thriving,
the Nuorese of every generation
walking up and down
with youth, beautiful and tanned,
showing its propensity
for elegance and style;
the museums displaying
the cultural heritage of a town
that gave us Nobel Prize winning writer
Grazia Deledda and poet Sebastiano Satta
and artists and sculptors
whose charming works beguile.
Nuoro is like a woman
whose potential beauty sometimes delights,
occasionally astounds and also frustrates
wrapped up in the frumpy clothing
of habit and convenience
that draw attention to
the lines upon her face
but seldom have I known
people of such warmth and generosity
inhabit any other place.

Geoff Davis © 2010

* The council do nothing!

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Revoke Article 50? No Way, Says The UK Government

It's rather curious watching the odd goings on in Westminster from faraway Sardinia. Like many other UK migrants living in EU countries, I signed the online petition to revoke Article 50 and allow the UK to remain in the EU. Many remainers were getting very excited about how it was gathering momentum at the time I was writing my previous post What Brexit Could Mean To A Bristolian In Sardinia (Three years On). However, the UK Government have decided not to let some people build up their hopes too much and have sent a most odd email response to all those who signed the petition. Well, actually, the email is from the Department For Exiting The European Union. Here it is in full (or how it should be - haha):-


The Government has responded to the petition you signed – “Revoke Article 50 and remain in the EU.”.

Government responded:

This Government will not revoke Article 50. We will honour the result of the 2016 referendum and work with Parliament to deliver a deal, no matter how bad, that ensures we leave the European Union.

It remains the Government’s firm policy not to revoke Article 50. We will honour the outcome of the 2016 referendum and work to deliver an exit which benefits everyone (even though, frankly, that's impossible), whether they voted to Leave or to Remain.

Revoking Article 50, and thereby remaining in the European Union, would undermine both our democracy and the trust that millions of voters have placed in Government and their very close friends, the mainstream media, whose exceptional capacity for objective reporting has alerted us to the dangers of the wrong kind of bananas and the fact that euro banknotes can make men impotent.
The Government acknowledges the considerable number of people who have signed this petition. However, close to three quarters of the electorate, all of whom were very well-informed about the issues involved thanks to the impartiality of newspapers like The Sun, the Daily Mail and the Daily Express, took part in the 2016 referendum, trusting that the result would be respected. This Government wrote to every household prior to the referendum, promising that the outcome of the referendum would be implemented. And no Government has ever broken a promise. 17.4 million people then voted to leave the European Union, providing the biggest democratic mandate for any course of action ever directed at UK Government. It is true that the 3 million EU citizens living in the UK, many of the 1.3 UK citizens living in the EU and young people under the age of 18 were ineligible to vote. However, we do not need to consider them even if the result of the referendum was likely to have a more adverse effect on them than most other groups.

British people cast their votes once again in the 2017 General Election where over 80% of those who voted, voted for parties, including the Opposition, who committed in their manifestos to upholding the result of the referendum. Please don't say that they had little choice. Had they wanted to leave the EU they would have voted for the Liberal Democrats or the Greens whose parties dwarf the size of Labour and the Conservatives.

This Government stands by this commitment as no Government has ever gone back on any commitment ever before.

Revoking Article 50 would break the promises made by Government to the British people, disrespect the clear instruction from a democratic vote, and in turn, reduce confidence in our democracy. This is despite the present Government's overruling of a democratic decision reached by Lancashire County Council with regard to an application for a fracking site. As the Prime Minister has said, failing to deliver Brexit would cause “potentially irreparable damage to public trust”. It is imperative that we trust the integrity of the Prime Minister as well as such political, social, business and intellectual giants as Boris Johnson, Michael Gove, Nigel Farage, Dominic Cummings and Arron Banks. We must maintain a hostile environment at all costs. It is imperative that people can trust their Government to respect their votes and deliver the best outcome for them. If the best outcome means 20 mile traffic jams to and from Dover, food shortages at supermarkets, fruit rotting at harvest time, frustrated car manufacturers suffering excessive waiting time for car parts to be delivered, horribly long delays going through passport control at airports, EU citizens in the UK and UK citizens in the EU losing a lot of their rights, young people losing an easy opportunity to work, study and live abroad, then so be it!

As the winning team would say: "Suck it up buttercup!"

Department for Exiting the European Union.

What Brexit Could Mean To A Bristolian In Sardinia (Almost Three Years On)

Although I was concerned when I wrote this blogpost What Brexit Could Mean To A Bristolian In Sardinia just after the EU referendum in June 2016, I consoled myself with the thought that perhaps very little would change come the UK's exit from the EU. How naive I was. When I wrote in that post that "there will always be winners and losers" I had no idea how much I was likely to lose out myself. I have since discovered that because foreign properties are taxable in Italy, and properties outside the EU are taxed much more severely than those inside the EU, it could cost me around £1,000 per annum. Now, with very little time to go and the possibility of the UK crashing out of the EU without a deal, I'm faced with the prospect of my driver's licence and insurance no longer being valid as well as losing reciprocal rights regarding health care. As I wrote in the earlier post, I voted remain mainly for personal reasons. Now, I have much stronger feelings about the whole debacle and the extent to which those EU citizens living in the UK and UK citizens living in the EU have been ignored as if we are of no consequence.

To be honest, I had not researched the EU in any depth at the time of the referendum and, although I've learnt a lot more about it since, I still don't consider myself an expert. Many people, most of whom are only familiar with a handful of EU laws and procedures, do consider themselves to be experts. Among those are people who have gleamed a lot of their information from the British gutter press, seeking anything they can find that is negative in order to feed their cognitive dissonance. It's well worth reading this tompride blogpost See 20 years of FAKE NEWS about EU by UK press in which many myths about the EU are debunked. Before anyone firmly in the 'Leave' camp wishes to dismiss it, it's well worth reflecting on the contrast between the language used. The British tabloids tend to use intemperate and hysterical language while the reponses from the European Commission would appear to lay out the facts, as impartially as they can, in language that is moderate and sensible.

Nevertheless, some of my reservations about the EU, which I wrote about in the aforementioned blogpost, still stand. I can accept that EU rules on fishing quotas may have had consequences for the UK fishing industry and that many sub-post offices may have closed, directly or indirectly, as a result of EU law insisting on making postal services more competitive. Furthermore, I am also uneasy about the influence that the European Central Bank has had with regard to overseeing polices like austerity in dealing with member states that were in difficulties, like Greece. Although, it must be added, that the austerity measures in the UK were introduced by the Conservative and Liberal Democrat Coalition Government and the the EU had little or nothing to do with it.

Any reservations I may have about the EU, however, are dwarfed by the concerns I have about how disruptive Brexit will be to so many people's lives. Of course I am thinking about myself and the worry and uncertainty that this wretched situation has created. I am also thinking of other UK citizens living in the EU and EU citizens living in the UK. Most of us made the decision to move in good faith and with the belief that our rights would not be affected. Suddenly, a great many of us are faced with a minefield of troublesome bureaucracy to deal with which for years, in some cases decades, were of no concern. Many have far worse problems to deal with than I have and among the UK citizens living in the EU there are those whose livelihoods depend on freedom of movement, as Laura Shields of British In Europe, the group that lobbies far our rights, articulates far more clearly than I could.

 

It should be emphasised that freedom of movement is not just about the movement of people which, in some people's minds, should be restricted in order to "keep the immigrants out". It is also the freedom of movement of goods, services and capitol. Ending freedom of movement will have a hugely negative effect on industries like the music industry as extra controls, delays and tariffs will discourage British musicians of all kinds from organising European tours as the overheads will mean that such tours are no longer financially viable. 

You may or may not remember Ciaran Donovan the van driver, who gave Jacob Rees-Mogg such a difficult time on an LBC phone-in programme, when explaining how the removal of frictionless borders could destroy businesses like his. He also spoke from his own personal experiences of the difficulties and the enormous inconvenience he had to suffer when crossing over into Switzerland. An article that he wrote for the Daily Mirror, and that was quoted in Somerset Live, is quite illuminating. Many leave supporters dismiss talk of how Brexit could disrupt just-in-time supply lines, and cause huge damage to businesses and the economy, as mere fear-mongering. They seem to overlook the fact that these concerns are not being voiced by politicians with an agenda or an axe to grind, but by people directly involved in industries that would be most affected, such as Britain's biggest supermarket retailers and those in car manufacturing. This conversation  that James O'Brien of LBC had with a fruit and vegetable buyer for a major supermarket, about the huge problems that would result should the UK leave the EU with no deal, is very revealing. The stories of falling investment, the number of firms moving their operations from the UK to other EU countries, as well as those closing their existing plants in the UK, have been so widely reported that I hardly need to mention it here.

To a certain extent I can understand people having ideological objections to the way the EU operates. While I don't personally believe that the EU is a neoliberal project, it has aligned itself far too closely to the kind of neoliberal policies that millions of people are uncomfortable with. Having said that, in my opinion the EU is no more corrupt, bloated by bureaucracy, dictatorial or less democratic than the British Government is in its present form. And as more information has come to light over the last three years it should be clear to anyone who tries to remain objective, and base their opinions on fact-based research, that the practical benefits of staying in the EU far outweigh those of leaving. Leavers continue to talk about a betrayal of democracy if the referendum result isn't respected, but it's a strange kind of democracy when millions of those most likely to be adversely affected by the vote - EU citizens living in the UK, many UK citizens living in other EU countries and young people whose opportunities to work, study and live in other parts of the EU will be made far more difficult - weren't eligible to vote in the first place. 

When leavers bring up the subject of democracy remainers often respond with, " yes, but 'Leave' lied." Well, it's certainly true that their leading campaigners gave lots of false assurances about 'the easiest deal in history' and 'all your rights, all your privileges will be respected'. Take a look at this video of Michael Gove in this twitter post. "All your rights, all your privileges, are carried on and are respected," he says. I don't think it will feel like that for many EU citizens in the UK who have had to suffer a significant increase in racism and xenophobia and told that they will have to apply for settled status, including some who have been settled happily in the UK for decades. 

With the possibility of the UK leaving the EU without a deal becoming ever more likely, the public have latched on to the phrase 'no deal' and many leavers are insisting that is what they voted for. I am sorry to disappoint them but had they read what was written on the Leave Campaign leaflets before the referendum took place they would realise that they voted for no such thing.

Remainers are fond of pointing out how the Leave Campaign were fined for breaches of electoral law but, to be fair, so were remain, although considerably less. Far more concerning is the misuse of personal data that Leave.EU were fined for. Furthermore, there is the mystery surrounding the source of the huge sum of money donated by Arron Banks, the Leave Campaign's largest personal donor, and the fact that Theresa May, when she was Home Secretary, may have blocked an investigation into Banks in the run-up to the referendum. There are a huge number of unanswered questions, even if nothing is proven, as yet.

In the previous blogpost, that I link to in the first paragraph, I wrote that: "For me the saddest thing about the whole affair has been the divisions created by the hyperbole, scaremongering and exaggerated claims by both the Remain and the Leave camps." That was written at the end of June 2016. Things have got far, far worse since then. In fact, read any comments thread on Brexit and before long the exchanges become increasingly toxic and hysterical. What surprises me is how many people post comments, about subjects on which they're rather ignorant, without doing any fact checking whatsoever. I wrote about this in another post in this blog with regard to quite a different matter: houses for sale for just €1,00 in Ollolai (if you were prepared to commit to spending around €20,000 to restore them), a town not all that far from where I live in Nuoro in Sardinia. The comments linking to articles in Yahoo and the Daily Mail Online on this issue were astonishing in their ignorance and stupidity. As I live in Sardinia I am far better placed to know that it is not the home of the mafia and it is not situated on an earthquake fault line! But to return to Brexit, leavers tend to come up with the same well-worn clichés and soundbites when being abusive towards remainers. Remainers delude themselves into thinking that being arrogant and condescending will somehow get their point across to leavers, while being equally abusive. There is a sense of people not listening and not wanting to listen. Whatever you may think of Caroline Lucas MP, at least she had the courage and courtesy to visit areas that mostly voted leave and listen to their reasons for doing so. Is it really so hard to be civil towards people that you disagree with? If we have exchanges of opinions they should be civil and based on assessing information as impartially as we are capable of. Yes, I voted remain. Yes, I would vote remain again if there were another referendum. Yes, I still cling to the vain hope that the UK won't leave the EU, because it will make my life so much simpler. However, I know people that I like very much who voted leave and I am not going to fall out with them because of a difference of opinion over Brexit. When we allow such things to damage our family relations or our friendships then we need to question how intelligent we are in terms of emotional and practical intelligence. We all need each other. There is a unifying force that can create something new and far better. It's called listening.

Deadlines For Houses In Ollolai On Sale For €1,00

Ollolai is a small village about 40 minutes drive away from where we live in Nuoro. I have never been there although I have been to nearby Gavoi and Lodine many times. I had heard of the scheme of selling about 200 abandoned houses in the village for €1,00, with the condition that the properties were refurbished within three years at an approximate cost of €20,000 to €30,000, although I hadn't taken much notice of it until earlier this week when the mayor declared that there was now a seven day deadline for applications and the story was subsequently all over the British and American press. I have a few email addresses but my Yahoo email address is the one I use the most and so, by chance, when I was about to read my emails I saw this article about the Ollolai scheme on the Yahoo page. Having lived in Sardinia now for just over eight very happy years, and having really taken to the Sardinian people, what shocked me was the nature of the comments below the article. That the moderators are not doing their job is more than obvious when you witness the appalling geographical and cultural ignorance, not to mention the crass stupidity and mindless bigotry contained in so many of the comments. There were lots of dreadful comments but this one from "Justin" really took the biscuit:  "Let’s send the muslims there. Then nuke it and pretend it didn’t happen." ???????!!!!!!! That the comment was voted up by nine people is utterly astonishing. Who are these sub-human automatons, shorn of any normal or genuine human feeling, who write and approve of such dangerous and insensitive nonsense?!

The Facebook Page Do The Brits Know Sardinia posted a link to a Daily Mail story on the same subject. Sadly, while not quite as bad, many of the comments below the Daily Mail story were full of the same sort of ignorance and stupidity. No, Sardinia is not situated on an earthquake fault line. No, Sardinia is not the home of the mafia. No, Sardinians are not all so fanatically religious that they hate all gay people. While homophobia exists it's also true that, certainly in Nuoro, there's a great deal of tolerance and acceptance of gay people. Pretty much like most of the UK really.

 A taste of traditional Sardinian culture from Ollolai

To return to Ollolai and the houses for sale for €1,00. It seems to me that the only catches are the ones that you would expect there to be. While everyone I have spoken to tells me that it is an incredibly pretty place, they say that the main reason for its depopulation is the lack of work opportunities, especially for young people. There is also limited public transport and a lack of facilities so private transport is essential. But this is true of many villages and small towns in Central Sardinia. The people living there will usually have to travel to Nuoro for hospital and other services. It is certainly not the right life for everybody but for some it could be a life-changing choice that they will never regret.

Finally, it may be worth noting that the actor and former champion bodybuilder Franco Columbu is originally from the town. Indeed, his fellow actor and more famous friend Arnold Schwarzenegger was made an honorary citizen of Ollolai!

A Bristolian In Sardinia (in English) is An Englishman In Nuoro (in Italian)

In May of 2015 I started to write an account of the experiences I've had in Sardinia since I arrived in November 2009, and I gave it the same title as I have given to this blog. On average I did about 90 minutes work a day on the project for about four days a week until I finished it in February of 2016. It ran to about 50,000 words which in book form would run to about 200 pages. I must confess that from time to time I used all or parts of some of the posts in this blog, such as Day out to the Valley of Lainattu, Meeting Zola, Optimistic Sound and Day Trip to the Maddalena Archipelago. However, the vast majority of what I have written is new and for reference I relied more on the page a day diary I keep rather than the previous posts in this blog.

On completion I didn't know quite what to do with it and I had to agree with a friend of mine who expressed doubts as to whether any publisher would be interested. Anyway, towards the end of February 2016 I decided to start work on a translation into Italian of "A Bristolian In Sardinia", initially giving it the title "Un Bristoliano In Sardegna", but then deciding that "An Englishman In Nuoro" might be a more appropriate title for the Italian version as it's a bit of a pun on that famous song by Sting, Englishman In New York, and also because most of the Sardinian people that I have got to know think of me as English first and Bristolian second. Anyway, finally, just over a week ago on Friday 22nd September (almost 19 months to the day after I had started) I finished the Italian translation and later on in the day, as she always did, my wife checked my work for grammatical errors, spelling mistakes and for any semi-anglicised phrases that just don't work in Italian. I published the first chapter, in both English and Italian, earlier in this blog as well as the second chapter in English. However, after that I decided that it would be better not to publish any more for the time being as a lot of friends' and relatives' names are mentioned and some people are somewhat uncomfortable reading pieces that mention them by name. However, I have tried to avoid using surnames wherever possible and I was very careful not to write ill of anybody!

So, after spending between an hour and three hours a day working on the translation several days a week for such a long time, and constantly checking to try to see if I'd got the feel and the context of the translation right by using websites like Reverso Context and referring to my huge English/Italian dictionary, I did feel some sense of achievement at having finished such an undertaking, even if someone bilingual in English and Italian from birth might have completed a similar task in under a couple of months! I am sure that there may be friends and relatives who would be interested in reading "A Bristolian In Sardinia" (in English) or "An Englishman in Nuoro" (in Italian) and I would be quite happy to send anyone, especially those that think they're likely to have been mentioned in this masterpiece, an attachment with the file in. Just let me know!



A Bristolian In Sardinia (in inglese) è An Englishman in Nuoro (in italiano)
Nel maggio 2015 ho iniziato a scrivere la storia delle mie esperienze in Sardegna da quando sono arrivato nel novembre 2009 e le ho dato lo stesso titolo di questo blog. In media ho fatto circa novanta minuti di lavoro su questo progetto quattro giorni alla settimana fino a quando l'ho finito nel febbraio 2016. In totale ho scritto circa 50,000 parole, pari a circa 200 pagine nella forma di libro. Devo ammettere che ogni tanto ho usato alcuni post di questo blog, come Una giornata fuori alla valle di Lainattu, Il mio incontro con Zola, Optimistic Sound e Una gita all'Arcipelago della Maddalena. Però, la maggior parte di quello che ho scritto è nuova e per referimento ho usato il mio diario invece che i post di questo blog.

Quando il lavoro è stato finito non sapevo cosa fare con questa storia ed era facile essere d'accordo con un'amica che aveva i dubbi se una casa editrice sarebbe stata interessata. Comunque, verso la fine del febbraio 2016 ho deciso di iniziare una traduzione in Italiano di "A Bristolian in Sardegna" con il titolo preliminario di "Un Bristoliano in Sardegna". Però, dopo ho deciso che il titolo "An Englishman in Nuoro" sarebbe stato più adatto perché per la maggior parte dei Sardi che mi conoscono io sono inglese prima di essere Bristoliano. Inoltre, è un gioco di parole sul titolo del brano famoso di Sting "Englishman in New York". Comunque, finalmente, dieci giorni fa nel venerdì 23 settembre (quasi precisamente 19 mesi dopo che ho iniziato il progetto) ho finito la traduzione in Italiano e dopo quel giorno, come ha sempre fatto, mia moglie ha controllato l'ultima parte del lavoro per gli errori di scrittura, gli errori grammaticali e le frasi anglicizzate che non funziano in Italiano. Ho pubblicato il primo capitolo, in inglese ed anche in italiano, e poi il secondo capitolo solo in inglese, qualche tempo fa in questo blog. Però, dopo quello ho deciso che sarebbe stato meglio non pubblicare più per il momento, siccome molti nomi di amici e parenti sono menzionati e qualcuno è scomodo quando legge qualcosa che è scritta su di loro. Tuttavia, ho cercato di evitare di scrivere male di chiunque!

Quindi, dopo che avevo passato tra un'ora e tre ore al giorno parecchi giorni alla settimana per così tanto tempo, ho sentito un senso di realizazzione quando ho finito, anche se una persona che è bilingue in inglese ed italiano dalla nascita poteva completare un compito simile entro due mesi! Ho controllato costantemente quello che ho tradotto, usando i siti come Reverso Context e anche il mio dizionario (italiano - inglese) enorme, perché volevo tradurre il senso ed il contesto in modo il più corretto possibile. Sono sicuro che ci sono amici e parenti che sarebbero interessati a leggere "A Bristolian in Sardinia" (in inglese) o "An Englishman in Nuoro" (in italiano) e sarei molto felice a mandare a chiunque, sopratutto voi che pensate che è probabile che foste citati in questo capolavoro, un allegato con il file. Fatemi sapere!

Zanky's - Sardinian Food Comes To Bristol

For the most part I have used this blog to decribe my experiences in Sardinia but last month, on our annual return to my native city of Bristol, we were keen to experience a bit of Sardinia that arrived in the city earlier this year. It was several months ago that a customer at the Post Office where my wife works in Nuoro mentioned to her that his brother was about to open a restaurant in Bristol with his partner. Obviously we were rather curious about this venture and we wanted to find out more. All we knew was that the restaurant was to be called Zanky's and that it would be opening shortly. With Bristol being a city that has a population of around half a million inhabitants I wasn't expecting to discover that the restaurant was situated within 10-15 minutes walking distance of the bed & breakfast where we usually stay. We also found out that Sara Cucca, who runs the restaurant with her partner, the cook Fabio Dindi, was the niece of Mario Cucca the proprieter of the pizzeria and restaurant La Spiaggia delle Barche in Santa Lucia near Siniscola, Sardinia where Optimistic Sound, the band with whom I was a singer, had done two or three concerts. Fabio, Sara e Mario are all from Nuoro originally.

After the restaurant opened in the winter months of 2016-17 we were eager to check on its progress and regularly read the reviews on Facebook and on Trip Advisor to see what their customers thought of it. It came as no surprise that the majority of the customers gave it a five star review because, just as the beauty of the parks and green open spaces are among the things I've missed the most about Bristol after having moved away, I've always said that I would very much miss the quality of the food if I was ever to move away from Sardinia! There was also a very good review from Mark Taylor of the Bristol Post.

So, we were very much looking forward to visiting Zankys on our annual return to Bristol at the beginning of July. In fact, we'd already booked before leaving Nuoro for an evening meal with friends there on Saturday July 1st, the day of our arrival, and for lunch the following Tuesday when some of my relatives were in town. Nobody was disappointed and everyone spoke very highly of the quality of the food and the service. For me it's a wonderful thing that Bristolians can now taste two of my favourite pasta dishes, malloreddus and culurgiones, which aren't too easy to find in the UK. Likewise, mirto is a delicious liqueur not easily obtainable outside Sardinia but it's available at Zanky's and, for me, a glass of mirto is the ideal way to end to an evening out in any Sardinian restaurant. Maria Rita and I were so taken with Zanky's that we ended up going there four times during our ten day stay in Bristol. Highly recommended to everyone!

Maria Rita and I (front) with Fabio and Sara at Zanky's in Bristol