bobble

Where your hairline meets the side of your face. Where the top of your ear attaches to your face. There is a slight indent above the jawbone. Squeeze the skin gently at that point. See what happens.

Being back in London with a headcold, perverse bus drivers on the 344 and the air being so grey you can taste it has convinced me – stangely – that I want colder weather. I thought that I would be yearning for the blue skies, tranquil green waters and chin-wetting gelati of an Italian Summer [...]

Get your fix tonight at 21.00 with the new series of Grand Designs on Channel 4. As a rule I hate these kind of programmes, but even my architectural lecturers watch this one. The connection? The new series is set ‘abroad’. The first episode is from Puglia and I even know the town they are [...]

Italians have some very peculiar ideas about appropriate behaviour. Especially when connected to the weather. Things that you should be doing at certain times of year are stuck to rigidly, for example, if it is between June 1st and August 31st then it is Summer and you may go to the beach. Regardless of the [...]

As I sit here with a heavy throaty cold – surely guaranteed by my return to colder shores and nothing to do at all with science and viruses – I am contemplating today the state of the Italian psyche with regard to illness. There are more products on the shelves there for self-medicating than any [...]