Dreamer

“I often hear people saying, ‘You live in your own fantasy world, while you should instead ground yourself in reality!’ So what? It’s the dreamers who build and innovate the world, not those who stare at their feet.” – Daniele Michelini [photo is © copyright by Josh Gordon on Unsplash]

Memories of a watermelon-filled summer

I’m savouring a crunchy and juicy morsel of a slice of watermelon. Looking at the glistening red fruit the memory takes me back to my carefree childhood: there was a stall a short distance away from where I lived where they sold watermelons and sweet melons/cantaloupes. It was often set on a grassy aisle between […]

To be fat is a taboo

“The only taboo in the western world is a fat belly. One can be unable to read, but it’s imperative that he shows the washboard waist of a top model.” – Carlo Calenda, Italian manager and politician. In fact, it’s true. You can be a criminal, be as ugly as sin, be a complete moron, […]

The uncanny mystery of Generation Y

If I didn’t know better, I would think Generation Y is the title of a sci-fi movie. Instead no, it refers to a demographic of people born in a period between the early 80s to the late 90s. They are also known as Millennials. Why am I writing about a generation that follows mine, the […]

Food, glorious food

I have a tongue-in-cheek topic that might ruffle feathers, in vernacular terms expressed as ‘stirring shit’ [smile]. Here we go. Diets. There are hundreds, each claiming to be THE panacea for a better living and a long life. All of them different from one another, but all agreeing on one single statement: “You’re fat. Do […]

African Life

“Why did you move to Africa?” – some compatriots asked me way too many times, their voices betraying a veiled disdain, as if I had committed high treason to king and country. Twenty years after relocating at the southern tip of the African continent I keep asking myself the very same question to which I […]

The Art of the Game

Grifters. Con Artists. Scammers: plenty are the definitions associated to persons whose sole purpose in life is to relieve us from our money and possessions. In the realm of fiction, countless are the books and comics, TV series and movies centered on the figure of a grifter. Probably the earliest fiction con job was when […]

On Reading

I meet some people from all walks of life who give reading a book the same disregard and anguish as they would to the thought of crossing the Sahara Desert with no food or water. Reading is far more than just a ‘boring pastime’ — as a young fellow once pointed out: it’s a way to […]

Fiction versus Reality

In the first episode of The O.C. – a TV series from the early 2000s – we meet a wealthy family living on the Californian coastline and the character playing the part of the forty-something years old father and businessman. He wakes up – a beautiful and warm sunny morning greeting him through the partly […]

Meeting friends. Or not.

We realise we’re getting older when things that were supposed to be simple turn out to be extremely difficult instead. Take something like meeting friends for a coffee or a meal: when I was younger, it was a simple matter of picking up the phone, call one friend or another (or, a whole group of […]