Pie charts are circular charts divided into segments which represent percentage. They are most commonly used to visually illustrate statistics of any kind. You can find them anywhere on the internet and lately it seems as though people have found a way to make them funny. So because of their popularity, we collected the 10 funniest pie charts on the web, and here they are:

1. Well this first pie chart is quite clear.

2. I, on the other hand, am too sexy for this blog.

3. You just got Rick Pie-Charted!

4. I don’t think he did, did he?

5. As real as it gets.

6. Afro is back in style.

7. The resemblance is uncanny.

8. Who would have thought.

9. Capiche?

10. I pity the fool!

Frank Sinatra nasceu em 12 de dezembro de 1915, descendente de italianos teve o seu nome várias vezes relacionado com a máfia,  também era ator e ganhou um Globo de Ouro e  um Oscar de ator coadjuvante pelo filme From Here To Eternity e fez filmes com Gene Kelly, Rita Hayworth e Elvis em seus bons dias.

Foi o primeiro Danny Ocean, de Ocean’s Eleven de 1960…  Posteriormente o papel passou para George Clooney e temos então Ocean’s Eleven de 2001.

Veja aqui o video de Frank Sinatra ganhando seu Oscar em 1954 ****

Possui duas estrelas na Calçada da Fama, uma por seu trabalho na música e outra por seu trabalho na TV americana. É considerado um dos maiores intérpretes da música no século XX. Teve três filhos: Nancy Sinatra, Frank Sinatra Jr. e Tina Sinatra.Foi casado com Nancy Barbato e posteriormente com as atrizes Ava Gardner e Mia Farrow, e com a socialite Barbara Marx, com quem terminou seus dias.

Mas eu quero falar do outro lado de Frank… O lado cantor. E não vou dizer, vou só mostrar.

Seus principais sucessos são “Fly me to the moon”, “My Way” e “New York, New York”. Sinatra também cantou com o brasileiro Tom Jobim. Na oportunidade, “Girl of Ipanema” brindou o grande encontro, porém na minha mais humilde opinião o melhor momento desse encontro foi esse… Change Partners

Lililililililili-lindo demais! Vou dançar isso no meu casamento…. aiai… MAS VOLTANDO..

Strangers In The Night - Killing Me Softly - I Won’t Dance - I’ve Got You Under My Skin

E ouçam também The Way You Look Tonight que eu infelizmente não achei um video decente.

So, how are you, Blue Eyes?

**** O filme The Godfather (1972) explora a história, mostrando que na verdade o ator teria sido “convencido” pela máfia a desistir do papel, para que Frank Sinatra pudesse interpretá-lo em seu lugar, pois na época o cantor estava em baixa.

Depois eu vou postar um top-top.

Cya, guys

By Bunga Pakma

It’s a pleasure to come to the keyboard to confect my thousand words for the Hornbill Unleashed this week as every week.  I am proud to be in such distinguished company and to have such discerning readers before whom I can set my thoughts, whatever they are worth.

The American comic writer S. J. Perelman, a stringent perfectionist in his strange little fictions, hardly produced 1k words per week.  His motto was “Easy writing makes hard reading.” While I do wish writing were easier—among the other pains of writing is having to sit in one place for hours—I will never allow anything but my best to hit the Web, and that means work. There’s no other way. As another writer says, “You can’t fake quality any more than you can fake a good meal.”

Every occupation has its peculiar difficulties. I’ve been fortunate to avoid Writer’s Block, yet each week I face the other bugaboo that plagues us scribes: What on earth am I going to write about? I won’t write garbage, but the secular garbage has been piling up outside my door.  I ask you, what can one write about garbage? Today my offering may be merely ornamental but perhaps I can turn this common complaint into a theme.

The past few weeks have furnished the newspapers with an exceptional abundance of their twin staples, politics and disasters.  Malaysia politics stand side by side with the dreadful reports from Indonesia. In one column we hear about old men squabbling about who gets to be the capo di tutti capi (to use Mafia terms) of their race-based parties, and in the next column we read of thousands of fellow human beings killed, hundreds buried alive, families broken, their homes destroyed. What do you feel when you read one story, then the next?

Human beings are a funny lot.  I read that Indonesian children threw stones at RMAF planes carrying rescue-workers and aid.  Does the supposed theft of a Balinese dance-style excite more passion than mass death?

I admire writers like our own SKY and Apang and others in the print media who discuss politics from long, deep, practical involvement.  They have the simple advantage of knowing many, many things that the rest of us don’t.  They’ve been around. They know the principal players personally and they have many friends who are unknown to the public but who nevertheless walk the corridors of power and are not blind and deaf to what goes on around them.  RPK shows us what astonishing marvels networking can accomplish.

These worthy commentators approach their subject with the patient passion of dedicated scholars. Scholars’ work is hard and tedious.  They faithfully plough through statistics, compile data bit after tiny bit, read hundreds of books not in themselves worthy of being read to fulfil their object of giving us something that is indeed worthy to be read and which may enlighten us or help us to better lives. It’s Nobel Prize season as I write this.

Your Bunga Pakma does not belong to this breed.  The reason? Malaysian politicians are SO BORING! I confess it; though politics do indeed affect my very own life for ill and potentially for good, I can’t be bothered to keep straight who’s who and does what.  Their actions are too convoluted for me to follow, their manners disgust me, and as human beings—at least in public—they come across as dull as ditchwater.

Grave issues loom over the Malaysian polity. The issues are so clear, large and alarming that I need not list them.  The politics themselves are not about issues but about personalities.  God forbid for the sake of UMNO supremacy that issues be examined, discussed and that conclusions lead to action!  This desperate course would lead to the collapse of Life As We Know It.  Keep people focused on the buffoonery in the Circus and the ritual slaughter in the Arena and thinking is disarmed.

If the Clowns made us laugh we might pardon them.  Malaysian politicians do “say the darndest things,” but the smile those words raise on me is like the smile on a man poisoned with strychnine.  If the Gladiators fought with skill and courage we might find something to admire in the bloody spectacle.  The Americans have discovered that pretty women in t-shirts wrestling each other in mud can be interesting to watch.  Malaysian politics is ugly old men throwing sh*t at one another.  These ugly old men are too feeble to punch or cut throats.

The current PM runs the country through an ad-agency, and not a clever one. “1Malaysia” can be understood as an obvious fact or as a cynical irony, while “Guinness is good for you” speaks a truth everyone allows.  The penultimate ex-PM Dr M remains a loudmouth who, on the rare occasions he has attempted to comment on significant issues, unfailingly reveals his ignorance of and contempt for facts.

What about the lesser fry? these Khirs and Taibs and Ongs and Chuas and Isas and Samys and Muhyiddins and Hishammuddins…? I have to drag their names off the Net, as the only way I can distinguish between them is by their functions.  In their newspaper photos they all look the same.  They are stumblebums the lot of them, graceless and often plain rude in manner, slovenly in thought and language, and craven. They can’t make decisions and act because they have no principles to guide them. There’s not a moral fibre in their collective bodies.  And these are the kind of people we have been electing—to our shame—for decades!  What does this say about what we value in a servant of the people?

Nobody’s perfect.  There was a time when strong, charismatic, and principled rulers enjoyed both the support of the rakyat ( look the word up—–originally it means a flock of sheep ) and much liberty to excess.  The common people tolerated and supported a king who was great. Because he was great.

Here’s my advice to you, you colourless, gray, bloodsucking, tick-like politicians of this country. If you must be a gangster, don’t be a street samseng, be Don Corleone.  If you must be a conqueror, take Napoleon—-who spread liberal ideas—and not Hitler for your model.  Louis XIV, France’s greatest king, was a bigoted autocrat, but he had France’s real interests at heart, and he had taste.  Versailles makes Putrajaya look like a cheap shopping mall. Where are the royal gardens? Any French person could enjoy the superb gardens laid out by André Le Notre at Versailles, and the ambitious Louis’s megalomania bequeathed a permanent treasure to the French people, and is enjoyed and cherished long after the Bourbon dynasty is gone. I venture to guess that in 20 years Putrajaya will look like a concrete ruin. The moral is, do it right—even if you are a creep. Duh.

Läser i Svenska Dagbladet om “Svenska motståndsrörelsen” som sprider flygblad som varnar för dömda pedofiler. I en artikel i samma tidning säger deras företrädare Mikael Skillt att:

Ett sådant här brott kan man över huvud taget inte sona. Det handlar inte om att vi dömer och det handlar inte om att vi vill att de här människorna ska lida i all oändlighet. Det handlar om att föräldrar har rätt att veta om saker som utgör ett direkt hot.

Jag ser flera problem med rörelser som denna liksom medborgargarden och liknande. Man kan kalla dem parallella rättssystem. Dessa urholkar förtroendet för rättsväsendet. Om jag blir drabbad av ett brott, varför ska jag gå till polisen? Jag kan lika gärna vända mig till Svenska Motståndsrörelsen, Hells Angels eller varför inte Don Corleone?

Ett annat problem är just det som nämns i citatet ovan; att brottslingar inte anses kunna sona sina brott. I alla fall inte pedofiler enligt Mikael Skillt som själv är dömd för flera brott. Jag tror på att även pedofiler kan bättras, de kanske inte kan sluta tända på barn. Men de kan fås att inse att de inte kan leva ut sin läggning i praktiken och då är de inte längre en fara för någon. Precis som man kan behandla narkomaner, våldsbrottslingar och spelmissbrukare.

Hur ska man behandla dem som kört rattfulla och skadat personer? Eller dem som rånat banker och skadat kassörskans psyke för livet? Eller alla som fifflar med bidrag /jobbar svart och urholkar skattesystemet så gamlingar inte får den vård de behöver? För att inte tala om allt elände knarklangarna sprider omkring sig. Det blir långa listor i varje grannskap som ska sättas upp… Själv känner jag inte mina grannar så väl att jag vet vad de eventuellt gjort sig skyldiga till. Jag vill inte veta heller, om man kände till all skit som folk har för sig skulle man ju inte våga gå ut!!

Nu har en åklagare, Bertil Månsson i Västernorrland, beslutat att åtala Mikael Skillt för förtal. Det är bra! Jag läste nånstans om pedofiler i USA som tvingas leva i skogen eftersom de av domstol har förbjudits att leva inom en viss radie av några barn över huvud taget. Märkligt, så vill i alla fall inte jag ha det i Sverige!

Despite my Germanic last name, culturally I connect most with my Italian roots. My mother’s family is Italian (roots in Naples) and I grew up with Italian food and drink and the dismal Italian-American alteration of the Italian language. After studying Italian and becoming relatively fluent, I always wince  at some of the pronunciations. For example, some food and drink names:

Campari  became “Gambar.”

Prosciutto is made to sound  like “Brojzoot.”

Capicolla has been turned into the frightening “Gabaghoul” a meat best eaten at Halloween I guess. (Nobody pronounced “Gabaghoul” better than James Galdofini on The Sopranos. I loved when he would stick his head in the fridge and call out, “Carm, where’s the Gabaghoul?”)

Waiting for "Gabaghoul"

Since once of my cats is named Cannoli, I can’t help but flinch at how it is pronounced by my mother and her generation: “Ganawl.”  For a crash course in Italian-American food pronunciation, I invite you to the superb Court Street Bakery in Brooklyn during Christmas or Easter for a lesson in Italian pastry pronunciation.

How about a delicious "Ganawl?"

Yes, the gorgeous vowels of Italy seem to have been tossed away when my ancestors settled into New York after arriving at Ellis Island. On the other hand, I love the way sausage is pronounced “Sauseege.”

"Sauseege," I want the kind he had.

The Feast of San Gennaro

 If you are a New Yorker you know about the Feast. For a week in September what is left of Little Italy is filled with outdoor stands offering sausages and peppers, zeppole, brasciol, clams, over-priced daiquiris and other tasty bits. Games of chance abound, and for a dollar you can attempt to throw what feels like a small cannon ball into a basket to win an iPod – the stakes have been raised, because when I was growing up the prizes weren’t nearly as nice.

You can also buy lots of souvenirs at the Feast. Here’s where I am going to go off on a bit of rant. Italian culture is not what the souvenir stands are about. Yes, you can buy an Italian soccer team jersey, an Italian flag or a statue of Saint Anthony – “Saint Antnee” where I grew up. But you can also buy some real gems like a shirt with Don Corleone, Tony Soprano and Tony Montana on it, stenciled on like some unholy trinity. If you are paying attention you will have rightfully pointed out that Tony Montana shouldn’t have been on the shirt since he was Cuban. Fear not, there were also shirts with John Gotti’s beatific gaze on them.

One size fits all

How did we come to this? Now I know a Tony Soprano t-shirt is a lot more fun for some than, let’s say, a t-shirt with Dante’s picture on it – I mean Dante the poet, not Silvio Dante the Soprano’s consigliare. I fear a couple of things are happening. I’m not going to get all weepy because the Feast of San Gennaro was never a celebration of great Italian culture. Paperbacks of Petrarch, Mirandola and Machiavelli never were sold at the various street stands. CDs of Verdi and Puccini do not outsell Jimmy Roselli CDs. Fair enough.

But did we have to actively promote TV and movie mobsters as the sole representatives of Italian culture? What concerns me is what the tourists think. There are probably more tourists from Europe and exotic places like Iowa at the Feast than people of Italian heritage.  I know what my culture is really about and I can overcome the stereotyping. But I don’t like the fact that some grandmother in a tasteless sweatshirt and fanny pack visiting from Indianapolis goes home thinking she has experienced real Italian culture.

Dante?

Or

Dante?

All that being said, I love the Feast. I ate sauseege, flipped through the Vic Damone and Jerry Vale CDs and spent time trying to win that iPod. But I also put things in perspective and went home to read some Tasso while eating zeppole. Tasso and zeppole, Cannoli approved.

Cannoli

The hatred erupting from Fox News and Fox Nation is only growing with time.

Check out this image to see the latest hate coming from this right-wing propaganda machine of anger.

Jag har aldrig känt mig så ledig som idag. Don Corleone får en hjärtattack medan jag smuttar på ett glas Chill Out. Jag läser dagens Expressen och fastnar för Jenny Östergrens krönika, samtidigt som jag äter gigantiska oliver från delikatessen. Jag spetsar dem med tandpetare på studsmattan.
Gräset är nyfriserat, tvättmaskinen har tystnat och diskmaskinen piper på övervåningen.
Jag behöver inte göra någonting. Men jag vill göra någonting. Det är stor skillnad.

Matchmaker, Matchmaker make me a match.

Some of you may not have heard but there was a big roundup of conterfeiters, rabbis, politicians and organ smugglers. (see here and here)  It seems one part of this bust was around a group who would find people down on their luck in Israel, give them $10,000, bring them to the US for surgery and then sell the kidney to an American for $160,000.

Under 1984 federal law, it is illegal for anyone to knowingly buy or sell organs for transplant. The practice is illegal just about everywhere else in the world, too.

But demand for kidneys far outstrips the supply, with 4,540 people dying in the U.S. last year while waiting for a kidney, according to the United Network for Organ Sharing. As a result, there is a thriving black market for kidneys around the world.

One rabbi was at the forefront while others laundered money from this operation and others through their charities.

Two things come to mind while reading about this.

1.  Do we allow the open selling of organs?  IE if I have a healthy organ and I want to sell it to make money, it is my body shouldn’t I be allowed?  I say NO.  Just as in this case, there were many “volunteers” who were coerced.  I think it ends up doing more harm than good.

2.  How could someone who says they are religious get involved in this?  My feeling is that any group you find, there will be the righteous, the average, and the not so righteous.   I don’t care if they are religious or not.  To which some will say that the religious are then hypocrites.  No…you can’t stereotype every religious person based on the actions of a group of them.

Follow me via TWITTER updates. or you can…

This morning I received a comment from an American reader of Sicilian descent who finds what I write about Sicily to be racist. Crikey!To him, and to anyone else who might feel the same, I apologise as that was never my intention. (I’d also recommend not watching Bruno at the cinema.) However, I do reserve the right to be open about what I observe when I travel. The whole point of visiting different countries is to experience cultural variances, such as I found in Sicily, so if some of what I’m trying to figure out about locals is related to the Mafia’s reputation in such a place, then I will write about it. I won’t be the last to do this, besides which, to pretend that the Mafia have no influence in Sicily’s history is like writing about Silicon Valley and not mentioning Bill Gates. 

To kick off, The Irate Reader asked me why I went to Sicily? That’s simple. Sicily is an island of tremendous contrasts – in landscape, in people and in history. Its culture never ceases to fascinate as it has been occupied at different times by Ancient Greeks, Carthaginians and Catalans and more. This creates a jigsaw of influence, both genetically as well as in its architecture, art and food. Far from feeling a fish out of water in Sicily, I love it there. If I’d found it to be a disappointment on any level during my first visit, I would never have returned and I hope to go back in the future.

On my first visit to Sicily, the presence of the Mafia barely featured, apart from occasional mention in anecdotal form by our Sicilian guide, my Italian tutor or his Sicilian friends. This time, I was keen to learn more about the influence of the Mafia on the locals. So I read The Last Godfathers and visited Corleone. The latter had a negative impact and, as I wrote in my Corleone post, I felt that the people there have had enough and just want to be left alone. This is an observation, not a criticism. I just felt awkward for having joined the Mafia trail in such a stereotypically tourist manner, because Sicily has so much more to offer the traveller than bottles of tourist-quality liquor with Don Corleone’s face plastered all over them.

But the Irate Reader was not done with me yet. No siree. He called me a WASP who would feel more comfortable in Nordic countries where everyone is blonde and blue-eyed with pointy features. Sounds to me like something from a puppet movie like Dark Crystal. As for calling me a WASP, well, that’s akin to the pot calling the kettle black, no? Fair enough. I am white. But the -ASP bit is quite inaccurate. I’d also point out that some of what may have offended was tongue-in-cheek commentary. Ah, well. I’ll have to be more serious in future, lest such humour falls on deaf ears.

To the Irate Reader, I would only say: please calm thyself. There are many more posts about Sicily on their way. They’ll cover the ancient site of Agrigento, the dreamy seaside village of Cefalu, the glistening Cathedral of Monreale, the hill-top town of Taormina with its Greek Theatre and friendly cannoli man with windows filled with postcards from his fans, not to mention lip-smacking gelati and the glorious views of a snow-capped Mount Etna.

On reading matter, it might interest Irate Reader to learn that once I’d finished The Last Godfathers, I moved onto di Lampedusa’s classic called The Leopard. Then, thirsty for more background on this fascinating island, I ploughed through Midnight in Sicily. After that came Peter Moore’s Vroom by the Sea and a charming tale of village life in Sicily called The Stone Boudoir. Perhaps once he’s read a little bit more of what I find so fascinating about this island and its occupants, he’ll realise that I’m not such a “pathetic miserable thing polluted by (my) own racist hate and bigotry”. Then again, in the interest of freedom of speech, he’s entitled to his opinion.

Here’s the full comment from Irate Reader:

I am a Sicilian American and find your remarks quite racist and insulting. Why did you go to Sicily? Apparently you went just to degrade, insult and condemn its entire people as criminals and murderer. You are the typical WASP racist. You cannot see the difference between the good and evil because all Sicilians to you are evil. Why, because they are racially different from you. Before WW2, most Anglo nations, Australia, New Zealand etc. strictly forbade any immigration from Sicily, or any non-white country, because in fact the Sicilians where classified as Blacks and thus totally unacceptable. This racism is now veiled by racists like yourself as “mafia’ remarks and labeling. Apparently you are a pathetic miserable thing polluted by your own racist hate and bigotry. The Mafia is a criminal group that makes up a tiny percentage of the Sicilian population. Its negative impact on the good people of Sicily and of all Sicilians worldwide is not from its bad deeds but from all this racist literature and other media that feeds the racist appetite of whites like yourself. Racism and bigotry is an evil worse that any “mafia”. Your next trip go to Sweden or some place like that where all the people have fair skin, blond hair, blue eyes and those pointy northern European features that people like you worship. I am sure you will not make one remark about them.

 

On the subject of ‘Anglo’ countries not admitting Sicilians prior to WWII because they were considered ‘black’, I was shocked enough by this claim to look into it further. To be fair, New Zealand only has a population of around 4 million people and has never had a hefty influx of Italian immigrants, so I couldn’t find much about this. As most foreigners moving to New Zealand tend to be our Polynesian or Pacific Rim neighbours, the issue of skin colour preventing anyone from crossing that border, Sicilian or otherwise, makes me wonder about the accuracy of this claim.

Conversely, across the Tasman in Australia, there is a very lively Italian community, including a sizeable population of Sicilian descent. Their presence in Australia dates back to the 19th Century. Nowhere could I find reference to Sicilians being turned away from Oz based on the colour of their skin. However, if the Irate Reader would care to share such information with me, I’d be most interested to check the facts.

In the meantime, here are some interesting articles about Italian (including Sicilian) migration to Australia.

Factsheet on Italian (including Sicilian) immigration in Australia

The Sting of Change: Sicilians in Sicily and Australia

More history of Italian (inc. Sicilian) migration to Oz

Reading list for books about Sicily – warning! Some include Mafia references. Hell’s bells.

I had the opportunity to vote (in 2008) for the best ten films in ten different categories (in a survey conducted by the American Film Institute) and think that all of the 100 winners are worthy, as are many of the other 400 nominees. For whatever reasons, there was no category for WAR films. Here are my ten favorites, listed in alphabetical order:

1. All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)
Business Lesson: The trust, respect, faith, and loyalty of youth must never be betrayed.

2. Attack (1950)
Business Lesson: The potential damage that toxic leaders can commit is incalculable.

3. Braveheart (1995)
Business Lesson: As Sun Tzu suggested (and Don Corleone concurs), “Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer.”

4. Paths of Glory (1957)
Business Lesson: When involved in a corrupt culture that you cannot leave, at least for a while, do what you can to protect those for whom you are responsible from toxic leaders.

5. Full Metal Jacket (1942)
Business Lesson: Recognize and avoid the “breaking point” of every person for whom you are responsible.

6. Platoon (1995)
Business Lesson: Extreme pressure does not develop character, it reveals it…for better or worse.

7. Saving Private Ryan (1991)
Business Lesson: However vast and complicated an organization may be, the importance of each individual in it must never be underestimated.

8. Spartacus (2001)
Business Lesson: A positively engaged worker is the organization in which she or he is actively and productively involved: “I am Southwest Airlines!”

9. Twelve O’Clock High (1950)
Business Lesson: As Full Metal Jacket also demonstrates, it is very important to recognize and then take into full account human limits.

Note: Stress in the workplace is inevitable and, for some, a serious problem. Supervisors must be very alert to early-warning signs of it and respond appropriately in a timely manner.

10. Zulu (1964)

Business Lesson: The best way to earn a competitor’s respect is to demonstrate professional competence, moral courage, and personal commitment.

It is possible to stretch correlations between the battlefield and the business workplace and yet the fact remains that in both, leaders must possess a combination of professional competence, impeccable character, respect for everyone involved (including opponents), and the trust and respect of those whom they are privileged to lead.

You can check out the wealth of resources provided by the American Film Institute and the Internet Film Database. Here are links to their Web sites:

http://www.afi.com/

http://www.imdb.com/

Comments? Please share.

The Mafia were constantly in my thoughts as we travelled around Sicily. This may have had something to do with the book I was reading at the time, John Follain’s The Last Godfathers, which was so cram-packed with gruesome murder and body disposal methodology that I was finding it hard to look at an oil barrel without calculating its remains-dissolving acid capacity in litres. My new obsession was probably also due to the men of a certain age with cashmere coats slung casually about their shoulders, flashing gold from their wrists and forming the centrepiece of an all-male entourage of muscular, besuited Ray Ban-wearers. Our arty tutors may not have deemed it appropriate to go Mafia chasing on my previous visit to this dark isle, but now I felt it a vital part of my education to visit Corleone, the town that bred such a feared clan of dons that its mere mention can encourage an impromptu move to Brazil. In case you think it sounds familiar, this is also the town that gave its name to Francis Ford Coppola’s ‘Godfather’, Don Corleone.  

Negotiating the traffic on our way out of Palermo was frustrating, especially as the road signs were more confusing than ever and we really needed a proper road map to be sure of not wasting any more time on severely pot-holed back roads. This is where Sicilians can be pleasantly surprising  - for the way I speak Italian, you’d expect a certain black-eyed, unshaven service station attendant in grubby boiler suit to pull a crowbar out of nowhere, cleaving it through my skull with a single thwack , blood and brains all over the forecourt. Instead of which, when we stop to try and buy a map, the same service station attendant wipes the grease off his hands and slowly, kindly, patiently explains to me that no, they don’t have maps but if we continue down the road we will find another couple of places where they should. He wants to be sure I’ve understood his directions and, once convinced, waves us on our way. You see? I’ve been watching too many Mafia films and that Follain book has been doing me no good. Next time we pick up holiday reading at an airport, Monsieur says he’ll make me buy Heidi.

Map eventually in hand, we follow a winding road into the Sicilian hinterland. The temperature drop is tangible as we snake our way up to cloud level. Driving past an abbey perched on a rocky outcrop, we zig-zag through a picturesque village, where, in spite of the pretty buildings and market square, the locals stare into our car, eyes dark with suspicion. I want to cross myself. Then I remember what it said in our guide: that Corleone’s residents are keen to dispell their Mafia associations in favour of more godly connections. Nowadays it sells itself as the city of a hundred churches, promoting its various saints. This was going to be one fascinating way to experience the co-existence of good and evil in one, small community.

It was market day in Corleone when we drove into town. Leaving the Cappuccino Wagon just behind the stall-lined main street, we wandered our way through the crowd. The first stall of note sold cacti of various shapes and sizes. In Feng Shui you tend only to use sharp plants for thresholds and doors to the outside world, as they’re supposed to ward off intruders. I began to wonder if Feng Shui had reached Corleone, or if cacti were some new weapon of choice.

Further along, we found a long, covered stand selling all manner of knives – cutlery, steak, kitchen, pocket, and oh, was that a meat cleaver? The more disturbing knives were businesslike switchblades and those with fiercely-serrated edges for hunting; whether destined for animal or human prey I couldn’t be certain, but disembowelling wouldn’t take long with one of those babies.

On we went, past the flapping arrays of fake pashminas and spreads of cheap, rash-inducing jewellery to a little square. Once more, the eyes of burly men bore into us as we, the interlopers, walked on. No, Corleone wasn’t the most welcoming of towns to visit.  Now, where exactly were these hundred churches?

A grocery shop made the most of a prime corner window to promote its stock of Don Corleone, some sort of local liquor with Marlon Brando’s face etched into each label. Across the street, a vegetable barrow stacked with giant examples of local produce, was busy with local trade. But the merchant’s frontage that really stopped me in my tracks was that of the local butcher. Through the window, we spied strapping great men with watermelon-sized biceps, wielding bone-cracking cleavers as they hacked into sides of meat. Blood was smeared all over their white aprons as various sections of former livestock (PlanetRoss – Should that be ‘deadstock’?) swung from hooks all about them. CARNE (meat) was written above the door, prompting me to think of CARNAGE. Only in Corleone.

So far, so cliché. The weather was sombre. The market’s cacti were as prickly as the Corleonese. The knife stall chilled me, and now we were stood gaping as bloody men tore into hefty hunks of flesh. Was I the only visitor to find this scene more than a little Mafia-esque?

To counteract all this negativity, albeit in an overactive imagination, it was time to find some of these hundred churches and light a candle or two for the common good of Corleone, which has had such a murderous past that at some points the locals were accustomed to daily killing on their streets. Alas, wouldn’t you know it? It wasn’t even time for the Corleonese men of the cloth to lunch, yet every single church we found was firmly locked against us. There’s probably good reason for this: no more murder in the confessional because the priest hands out one too many Hail Marys, or to prevent the chalice from being nicked for the umpteenth time, but people of Corleone, listen up! If you want to promote yourselves as a god-fearing town of 100 churches, then  you’d better open their doors so we visitors have more to look at than Don Corleone-branded goods.

Monsieur and I were now keen to track down the Anti-Mafia Centre, but all the signs led us on one wild goose chase after another, until we found one pointing up a dead end, having been painted over to disguise the outline of the carved letters spelling its name. In the local museum, we checked out the glass cases filled with fragments of ancient finds from local digs but thankfully no human mandibles of recent decades. With more time on our hands, the museum staff would have taken us on a free tour of the town, but we were keen to reach Agrigento that afternoon, so we didn’t stick around.

On the way back to the car we stopped off at a point from which to view the vista of the valleys below Corleone. The panorama was certainly stunning, but the viewing point was somewhat unattractive, as it was located next to a couple of large, municipal bins, one of which was largely melted in the sort of way that suggested bored teenage thugs playing with matches after dark. Then, turning a corner, we saw a tiny old woman watching us through lace curtains. White hair pulled back into a bun, dressed all in black, she was a walking Italian grandmamma stereotype. A picture of her would have been a star in my album, but I couldn’t bring myself to take it. In spite of her thumbelina size, the look in her eye told me she’d chase me out of town with a broomstick, should I dare to point my camera in her direction, and fair enough. If someone did the same to me, I’d be off after them with a broomstick, too.

And so, with no further a-do, we left Corleone, a little disappointed by what we’d found. We’d tried to visit three museums, only one of which was open. Not a single church stood unlocked, not even the 14th Century Chiesa Madre that had ’given the world two saints’. Admittedly, there were some little alleys affording pretty views of pastel-painted houses dropping gently down the hillside, and I did manage to find some terrible postcards for my Tacky Postcard Collection, including a nice black rectangle of ‘Corleone at Night’, and some bad Mafioso stickers for my journal, but apart from that Corleone was a dark little town. The locals gave off an unmissable vibe that outsiders were unwelcome, which is a shame given their current attempt to re-brand themselves as saintly. Even the world’s best gelateria wouldn’t tempt me back in a hurry.

As we drove out of town, I could imagine the locals cheering at our backs, farewelling another couple of unwanted Mafia trail-followers. Having said that, it occurred to me that I hadn’t seen a single local smile the whole time we’d been there. The air in Corleone crackles with misdeeds and grief. Perhaps it was wrong to visit this town, for over the years its people have been bullied into extreme wariness and now they just seem to want to be left alone. After what they’ve been through, who could possibly deny them that? For the above reasons, I won’t be going back to Corleone; not even for the best cannoli in the world. And for a girl called Epicurienne, that’s saying something.

Tiny Timmermans(70) is wereldberoemd in Eindhoven en omstreken. Daarbuiten is hij zeker berucht binnen de KNVB die hem desondanks het Gouden Prikkie heeft opgespeld. En wellicht kent de (zaal)voetballiefhebber hem als de grote animator van zaalvoetbalvereniging Sport Peti en hun roemruchte toernooien tijdens de jaren ‘80 in LLoret de Mar. Inderdaad die Nederlandse enclave, waar zowat ieder vroegrijpe voetballer vakantie vierde. Iemand heeft ooit bedacht dat zaalvoetbal zogenaamd meer fut sal krijgen. Wie met Tiny praat, wat inhoudt dat je slechts luistert, zal ervaren dat er vroeger heel wat meer fut in zat.

Maar je kunt ook zijn boek lezen, want T.T. heeft, al racend door zijn leven, het nodige aan het papier toevertrouwd. Nu schrijft tegenwoordig iedere jandoedel een boek, dus so what? Nou, heel wat dus! Want de gehele winst die het project oplevert, komt ten goede aan KWF Kankerbestrijding. Verwacht geen literair hoogstandje. En of het veelbewogen leven van deze dekselse Don Corleone het opschrijven waard is, laat Voetblah gaarne aan uw eigen oordeel over. Maar afgezien van het goede doel, is alleen al de cover  uw geld dubbel en dwars waard! Geniaal! Ook al ziet Voetblah meer gelijkenis met  Jack Nicholsons Batmancreatie van The Joker.

Voetblah was aanwezig bij de boekpresentatie in café De Verlenging van het PSV-stadion. En snoof de ouwerwetse, nagenoeg teloorgegane geur op van ouwe, échte voetbaljongens onder mekaar. Waar Tiny als speler de nodige treffers tegen het net had gewerkt, zo bleek die avond dat netwerken zijn tweede natuur was geworden. Van laag tot hoog, maar nooit met de kerk in het midden. Helaas heeft ie John de Bever, als grootste cultzaalvoetballer ooit, niet kunnen porren voor een optreden. Maar zelfs Erik van Muiswinkel had ie gestrikt. Dachten wij…  Het bleek evenwel degelijk Harry van Raay himself te zijn! Voorwoord ter plekke én geboekstaafd. Als deze Godfather ter persiflage u niet over de aanschafstreep trekt, dan weet Voetblah het ook niet meer!

ps(v) 1. Het bestelformulier voor het boek is nog in de maak, houd daarvoor de website in de gaten. Maar doneren kan natuurlijk altijd.

ps(v) 2. Onze Nederlandse Lance Armstrong, Thomas Benjamin Zijlma, deed een indrukwekkend verhaal over zijn gewonnen strijd tegen de kanker en legde dit bovendien vast in het boek Fiets voor je leven.

ps(v) 3.  Pikantopvallende comitéleden ter aanbeveling: Stan Valckx, Erwin Koeman en Huub Stevens. Zouden die nog een bijeenkomst hebben belegd..?

ps(v) 4. Voetblah stond zij aan zij met Jan Renders, die hier tezamen met de oudste Koeman wordt geëerd.

ps(v) 5. Wij hopen dat Tiny - na talloze gesigneerde exemplaren te hebben toegezegd en weggegeven aan o.a. 11(!) broers en zussen, talrijke vrienden en sponsors – nog boeken ter verkoop op voorraad heeft…

Varadero: história.

Na Cuba comunista de Fidel, há uma ilha que nasceu americana, cresceu com os americanos e há-de “morrer” segundo as regras do capitalismo americano. Varadero não é só a vila menos cubana de Cuba, é também um paraíso à beira de se transformar numa das estâncias balneares mais concorridas do mundo inteiro, que já não sabe nem quer viver sem tudo aquilo que as “verdinhas” podem comprar e oferecer.

De certeza que, ao realizar a trilogia do Padrinho, Francis Ford Coppola nunca pensou ver o nome de Don Corleone associado a um prato de lagosta servido num restaurante onde viveu Al Capone.

Era compreensível que a cena se passasse nos Estados Unidos ou em qualquer outro destino capitalista onde a imaginação é o único limite para atrair turistas. Mas, na Cuba comunista de Fidel Castro?!… O restaurante, que já serviu de casa de férias a Capone, é uma das atracções turísticas de Varadero, a cidade mais americana de Cuba e um dos poucos sítios no mundo onde se pode deliciar com uma lagosta à Don Corleone, uma pizza diabólica ou uma sopa mafiosa. E tudo isto porque o antigo retiro privado do gangster, no qual foram selados os negócios mais escuros da história americana, é agora um dos mais luxuosos restaurantes de Varadero.

Seja como for, só fica admirado quem não sabe que esta ilha caribenha, a roçar o trópico de Câncer, foi aproveitada como um centro de férias dos americanos durante os governos dos ditadores Socarras e Fulgêncio Batista ou que Varadero foi, nos anos 40 e 50, um dos destinos predilectos dos maiores criminosos do mundo e que serviu de retiro a mafiosos e a outros nomes ilustres, como é o caso de Ernest Hemingway, que elegeu Havana como a sua segunda casa. Foi também assim que Varadero, a apenas 211 quilómetros dos Estados Unidos da América, do outro lado do estreito da Flórida, se encheu de caras famosas, casas luxuosas e praias privadas numa época em que o lema “”beber muito e dormir mais”" ainda não era utilizado (Varadero era, então, uma catedral do jogo, onde os americanos descansavam e se divertiam até altas horas da noite).