A week of dysfunctional systems. I was going to write a post about the artisans I met in Florence but my idiot computer resolutely refuses to load the images. If any of you are feeling you need to help my pitiful state, a new laptop would be great. Ta very much. This fits in well with my idiot body which has been turning against me for the last couple of weeks. So, instead of the uplifting and edifying world of handmade, artisanal products, I will treat you to a glimpse of the frankly insane and ridiculously frivolous  world of high-end design. I receive lots of missives from companies making bespoke products and catering to the 0.001%; tiles at £5000 per sq m, yawn, handwoven Pratesi  2000 thread-count bedsheets at £600 a pop, so 2010.

Occasionally though, I receive emails which are so astounding, I have to pick my jaw off the floor. All the items featured in the images are suggested Christmas presents. I particularly love the Boca do Lobo safe that’s so expensive, presumably you need to keep it in another safe. I haven’t included the prices of these products because, really, why bother? I will tell you though that both the Van Cleef & Arpels pen and the 24K gold loo paper are roughly the same price: £780,000. Don’t you just love synchronicity. This is truly a perfect world.

Before you sneer at the purchasers, firstly let me be clear. All 0.001 percenters are heartily welcome at AlaraApothecary, and please buy at least one each of our products  and tell all your friends 🙂 It is so obvious that this is not what Christmas is all about, I don’t think I should have to mention it. I think most of us know that though, so just marvel at the beautiful workmanship of the people who have made these products (apart from the loo roll. Really, words fail me. Apparently you get a bottle of champagne thrown in with every purchase. Probably LIDL’s house Cuvée). And besides, that Mont Blanc pen is outrageously lovely. Someone has to keep the producers of gold bras and rhinestone-studded loo seats in business. 0.001 percenters everywhere, we at AlaraApothecary send you a big festive hug. To the rest of my people out there, please don’t forget the Homeless charities this winter.

( photos: Marte Omas pen; Toiletpaperman.com.au; Victoria’s Secret; Mont Blanc and Van Cleef & Arpels; Baron safe, Boca do Lobo)

See Rome and die. To which I say two things: firstly, it’s a misquotation, and secondly, let’s not get carried away. I liked Rome well enough but I have to say I was a bit underwhelmed by the city. It is possibly the least ‘Italian’ place I’ve ever been to in Italy. Quite a large proportion of the city that I saw could just as easily be in Barcelona, Paris, the Square Mile, even the Upper East side of New York. At first I thought it was because it was a large city compared to say Florence or Siena, but Milan is also a large city and every inch of Milan is Italian. This is undoubtedly reinforced by the fact that Milanese policewomen wear high-heeled shoes and the police smoke while on duty. If that’s not Italian, I don’t know what is. Milan must be a shoplifter/pickpocket’s paradise. What with the high-heels and incipient emphysema, a fleet-footed thief can show a clean pair of heels.

And yet, and yet. Suddenly we’d turn a corner and there would be the Colosseum or the Circus Maximus and Bam!, you’re transported back a couple of millennia. It didn’t help that I am reading St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans at the same time.I have only experienced that spatio-temporal dissonance in one other place – Jerusalem. You’d be tootling along and suddenly your mind would start screaming – The Mount of Olives! The Garden of Gethsemane! Calvary! Jesus walked here!. It was completely disconcerting – in a really good way. The Sea of Galilee and Capernaum totally freaked me out. I think it must be similar to Stendahl Syndrome – the mind going ‘can’t compute, can’t compute’; maybe I’ll start calling it the Palatine Syndrome.

 

I have to confess that I didn’t spend enough time in Rome so this is pure injustice on my part. I suspect Rome is probably purely Roman– entire of itself because of its antiquity, rather than Italian. Our trip wasn’t helped by the incompetence of Norwegian Airlines which encourages you to check in online and receive your boarding pass by SMS. Two wasted hours and much freaking out later, we found many angry online forums telling us this is not actually possible even though their idiotic website says it is. The actual airport check-in and flight were flawless. So, excellent staff, idiot management. Twas ever thus.

It was also a major disconnect to leave a city that was pretty much shut down because it was Sunday, and arrive in London to the Lord’s Prayer row. It’s gratifying for a Christian to be told that a mere recitation of the prayer is so powerful, children must be protected from its brainwashing capacity. Ultra-violent adverts for vicious video games, heavily-sexualised imagery being used to sell everything from popcorn to chocolate – perfect for 12 year olds, just what they need. The Lord’s prayer? Why, they will all leave the cinema immediately and congregate, holding hands and singing ‘Kumbayah’. Having just left a place where Christians were used as human torches and slaughtered in the Colosseum and the Circus Maximus for the entertainment of baying crowds, my mind truly boggled. A brave new world, that has such wonders in it, to misquote William S.

I can’t wait to go back and experience Rome properly, deo volenti. By the way, the picture above that looks like dots in the sky? That’s every bird in Rome fleeing south for the winter. Was it cold? Was it heck. It was taters, as we mockneys say. The city is so beautiful, it was still worth it!