The Queen? The queen! No. No. No! How could I title the current wife of the ex-Prince of Wales The Queen?

I am no slavish follower of the UK royal family (although I still stop short at wishing to declare the country a republic) but this nomenclature has really disgusted me. Having been publicly present as a once loyal subject cheering Charles’ royal wedding and then, less than twenty years later grieving at Diana’s funeral I could never succumb to this absurd rewriting of history.

Not even that truly great royal Albert of Saxe-Coburg could be re-titled a king after his marriage to Victoria. No, this marvellous man who contributed so much to Britain’s standing in the world both industrially and commercially and who was himself a fine artist and an excellent composer was despised by so many.. No. Poor Albert. No king. Not even a proper prince! Just a Prince Consort.

And now in despite of the memory I have of a lovely lady who married my contemporary at Cambridge (in both academic year and subject read – social anthropology) I have to hear of one who never even gave the current monarch the means to continue the succession to the throne and who in looks is not a fraction of a wit anywhere near the radiant beauty of a true English rose but instead continues a well-worn tradition of the dowdy unspectacularity of the typical little-england female…

No, no, no.This will not do at all. But then why should I get so worked up about a member of a Brexitanian-positioned family who, after the dignified, indeed noble reign of a lady who in her own salad days was of equal beauty and grace and well beyond the faint praise of detractors and whose then-prescribed successor was the true embodiment of a classic English rose.

Anyway all I know is that I don’t have a real royal family. Should have known that years ago! Now let me listen to a song from a real Queen: Freddie Mercury!

No carnival is complete without attending a masked ball. Here’s ours, ‘La Pentolaccia’, at the local historic regency-style casino, complete with prize-giving for the best costumes.

The event was very well attended and, although the DJ’s selection was not to everyone’s taste we enjoyed ourselves in an evening passed in what must be one of the most spectacular ballrooms in our region.

But what is a ‘Pentolaccia’? It’s a game in which blindfolded participants try, one after the other, to break a pot suspended above, full of sweets and surprise prizes, with a stick.

In Tuscany it’s usually played on the first Sunday of Lent. It would have been a little difficult to play it in the elegant milieu of Bagni’s casino, the first public one opened in Europe, but it was great to realize that we were back enjoying a public activity which hardly a year ago would have been difficult to envisage in the awful plague conditions the ghastly pandemic had imposed on us.

May Bagni di Lucca continue to rise above the social austerities that have so beset our world in the last few years. After all, laughter is often said to be the best medicine!

With an ever expanding digital universe around us its a real treat to receive an item from an analogical age. The other day my local Lucca postman delivered the following envelope sent by an old school friend. Note the customs declaration and the late Queen’s portrait on the stamp. (Some might even remark on the postage cost…).

Inside the envelope was a copy of the monthly newsletter my friend compiles as editor of a long-standing organization in his part of London.

Note here how the newsletter is produced using a manual typewriter (remember them?). Here is the page of the publication which prints an article of mine.

I consider it quite admirable that there are still persons in the world happy to stick to well-tried technologies which some may find dated and unnecessarily inconvenient and consequently succumb to a word-processor and email. After all without people of the same ilk as our editor there would be no-one to fire up the steam locomotives which continue to grace our esoteric branch lines or remain to practice ancient country crafts or even enter and drive their Darracq in that veteran run. (Recall ‘Genevieve’?)

Incidentally the publication my school-friend edits is for a society dealing with history. Quite appropriate in that case would you say?

‘Che pasticcio’, meaning not so much a mess but an opera pastiche made up of arias taken from other popular works.

The Accademia Bizantina directed by Dantone with a panoply of the finest singers made sure we were kept on our seats’ edge in Vivaldi’s ‘Tamerlano’ at Lucca’s Giglio theatre last night.

Definitely a performance to remember for a long time to come.

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A recording of the evening’s performance is available on YouTube here https://www.youtube.com/live/AJ-Xqn2WEvc?feature=share

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Tamerlano was the final item in the 2022-2023 Opera Season of the Teatro del Giglio, and arrived on the Lucchese stage at the end of a tour in Emilia Romagna – starting from the Teatro Alighieri Ravenna – during which it enjoyed great success with audiences and critics. Expectations were therefore very high, and they were not disappointed.

The magic of Vivaldi’s music, masterfully performed by the six soloists – Gianluca Margheri, Filippo Mineccia and Delphine Galou (respectively Bajazet, Tamerlano and Asteria), Marie Lys, soprano (Irene), Federico Fiorio (Andronico) and Arianna Vendittelli (Idaspe) – and by Accademia Bizantina directed by Ottavio Dantone, a production with a strong visual impact – direction, sets and costumes by Stefano Monti – and the corps de ballet of the DaCru Dance Company, entranced the audience of Giglio, who utterly filled the theatre and followed the entire performance with resounding applause and cheers for a long time, at the end, with overwhelming involvement and participation.

Here’s the lovely little waterfall we pass on the way down the valley from our house. It carries the flow of a tributary of the Camaione stream.

We decided we would visit Valdottavo’s carnival.

Valdottavo’s multi-faceted carnival parade last Sunday showed how a local community will create an enjoyably good ‘carnevale’. If you’ve missed it there’s a repeat next Sunday. The procession starts from the paper mills by the road to Lucca and finishes in the town’s main square.

The Valdottavo carnival has a long history yet it was the first time we’ve participated in it! The depopulation of so much of the Serchio valley has happily not affected the continuation of the carnival here. Long may it bring fun and colour to future generations!

Here are six pet-hates my Italian-born mum nurtured about the UK after she married an English soldier and moved there in the late 1940’s in

1. The death penalty. (Finally abolished 1998, though last execution took place in 1964).
3. Sundays. (Trading laws finally eased in 1994 but still limited for larger shops).
5. Gaberdine raincoats especially if forming part of school uniform.
7. Hypocrisy (make your own examples for this).
9. Long time involved in much building works when compared with post-war reconstruction in Italy.
11. Loathing for some historical figures especially Henry VIII ( dissolution of the monasteries) and Cromwell.
12. 
    My mum’s pet-loves regarding the UK would include
14. Much less ‘mammismo’ with kids (being tied to mum’s apron strings) than in Italy where kids aged thirty could still be living with their parents.
16. Odd millinery for women and evocative hats (esp bowlers and boaters) for men.
18. ‘High tea’ (with cream cakes).
20. The northernmost part of the Kingdom (especially Scotland and Orkney).
22. Gothic cathedrals (especially Salisbury – although she loathed Westminster abbey as it was spoilt by all those monuments in it).
24. Her English husband (especially his practical know-how and do-it-yourself).

So there you are: six of one and half-a-dozen of the other.

We are usually, (and quite naturally), more affected by the circumstances of the deaths of a small number of persons than by large magnitudes involved.

Over twenty thousand people are accounted dead in the recent horrific Turkish-Syrian earthquake (that’s more than the population of the UK city of Newcastle) and the number is certain to rise to much higher figures. (Our thoughts are with those who have lost loved ones, who indeed have lost everything and who are now having to face an uncertain and freezing future this winter).

Again, Zelensky’s noble presence and stirring speech in London’s Westminster Hall yesterday reminds us that the casualties of this pointless aggression of a sovereign nation by one still enmeshed in an outdated realpolitik which should have been discarded with the collapse of the Soviet Union, now number in the hundreds of thousands and with no sign of an end to the slaughter.

Shades of the United Kingdom’s own struggle with Teutonic evil eighty years ago entered my mind. No more can I think that trench warfare, tank battalions, underground shelters, incessant bombings and fighter fleets have now become museum pieces: we are once again living through get another metamorphosis of that constant struggle between the forces of good and evil.

In the midst of these unimagined statistics relating to deaths through both the inevitability of (un)natural earth forces and the sheer stupidity of an ego-inflated m****c, two events involving far fewer deaths but not, because of their lesser figures, any less poignant, have greatly affected me.

The first is the suicide a few days ago of a young man in his twenties who plunged to his death from the top of the Guinigi tower in Lucca, that characteristic gothic structure in the centre of town capped by Holm oaks and part of the palace belonging to one of the greatest families of the city whose name will be for ever associated with Ilaria’s transcendent tomb in the cathedral.

On his FB page the suicidee left this message:

“I apologize to all those who are suffering because of what I have done. I love you all dearly and appreciate how much you tried. It’s not your fault, it’s never been your fault. Now, with finally a little peace in my heart, I greet you and wish you to think of only the beautiful things and the love and friendship that have been there. “

The second is the death of the Head of Epsom college near London together with the deaths of her seven year old daughter and her husband. The police stated that no others were involved in the incident and this made me suspect the worst that could have happened – and indeed did: the husband shot both his wife and daughter before turning the gun on himself.

Why, why, why did he do this? A beautiful family with proud parents in jobs they loved, with wonderful careers before them, living and working in the peaceful setting of one of England’s finest private schools? A little girl with a whole future ahead of her. How could this tragedy ever occur! Is there something we didn’t know, some terrible secret that obscured the lives of this otherwise model household?

Looking at their family photo I note that the husband was not only rather younger than his wife (but does that matter? I’m a few months younger than my own wife but, apparently that fact raised a totally irrelevant comment from my own dad…). I also noted that the husband was of non-european heritage: his features pointed to some place in central Asia: the vast steppes of Uzbekistan perhaps? Should that have been important for me? Are there ever any cultural features involved in occurrences of this sort?

So sad, so terribly sad! To comfort myself from these tragic events I went to seek refuge in my cellar den and played a favourite CD. It was a set of sonatas by Soler, that great but largely unknown Spanish composer who wrote for the king in the Escorial, a magnificent monastery just near Madrid.

It was our friend Gilbert Rowland who played them, indeed who recorded all 150 Soler sonatas on a Taskin harpsichord with performances that have won the highest praise. I was then reminded that Gilbert had been the keyboard teacher at Epsom College from 1969 to 2019 when he retired. Those wonderful pieces of music had indeed been recorded in Epsom College’s chapel….

May the souls of all those who have died rest in eternal peace!

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Are you carrying out your New Year’s resolutions and have you decided what to give up for Lent (making New Year’s resolutions?) – those forty days, beginning on Ash Wednesday (February 23rd this year – not only the happy date of my wife’s birthday but also, sadly, a year since the the eve of the commencement of the start of that awful conflagration afflicting the eastern part of our continent) and ending on Holy Saturday which Jesus spent in the wilderness resisting Satan.

Italy celebrates the time before Lenten abstinence by holding carnivals in many towns. The word ‘carnival’ comes from Latin ‘carne vale’ = farewell to meat. That’s why Mardi Gras – marking the last big feast before Lent starts – is the day before Ash Wednesday.

Carnival is a time for letting off steam and reversing traditional roles: subordinates become masters, partners are swapped, rules broken and masked balls take place . A useful Italian word to learn for this time is ‘veglione’ = all-night dance party. The previous way of doing things transforms into chaos and from this disarray a new structure arises, reflecting the burgeoning spring. (It’s no coincidence that ‘Lent’ comes from Anglo-Saxon ‘Lenten’ meaning spring).

Because of the carnival’s R.C. associations there’s been no similar tradition in the UK since the reformation. The North London Notting hill ‘carnival’ takes place in summer and is a misnomer since it’s actually a festival inspired by Caribbean culture. The West Country carnivals are protestant in origin and occur in November, the Guy Fawkes and gunpowder plot month. However, carnivals go back to pre-Christian times: the Roman Saturnalia and the Celtic Samhain.

Among Italy’s carnivals there are the famous ‘big five’. These are (with a short description of when they were founded and their principal characteristics):
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Putignano, Puglia 1394 Papier-Mache allegorical floats and the figure of ‘Farinella’

Venice Founded 14th century but suppressed by Napoleon and resuscitated in 1979

Wonderful baroque costumes and masks. A lot of cultural activities: arts exhibitions and music included

Acireale, Sicily Very, very old. Lots of fresh flowers decorating the floats

Ivrea, Piedmont Mediaeval in origin it’s the only Italia carnival with an unbroken tradition. Teems with folklore and tradition. Battle of the oranges (wear a red cap if you don’t want to get pelted) Particularly rich in Napoleonic costumes. Famous for ‘Mugnaia’. Beautiful floats

Viareggio, Tuscany Dates from 1873, the time of the town’s expansion as a major seaside resort World-famous floats designed by some of Italy’s greatest designers. First place to use papier-mâché in 1923. Great political satire. Lots of ‘veglioni’. Absolutely unmissable.

Rome had a carnival once (remember Berlioz’ overture and Goethe’s travel diary?) However, it was abolished in the nineteenth century because spoil-sports thought the horse race down the Corso had become too dangerous. What a shame.
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We will be at Viareggio’s unmissable carnival when the floats make their inaugural parade down the wide seaside promenade. The event will be quite stunning as always and the weather is set be cold but fine – important when the floats are made of papier-mache! There are three categories of floats and each category is separately judged. This gives a big chance for smaller float builders with fewer resources than the gigantic ones built at the ‘Cittadella’, a special site which opened for float construction and exhibitions in 2001.
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This year the Viareggio carnival celebrates its 150th anniversary. Naturally it has gone through several presentational changes. The original floats, for example, were made of wood and hemp. Since 1923, however, papier-mache has been used to create these amazing creations in which contributions from the country’s major artists have often been included. Automated displays were first developed at the same time and now, with the advancement in digitalization, form a major characteristic of the floats.

The Carnival of Viareggio continues to be considered one of the most important carnivals in Italy, Europe and the world. The allegorical floats, which are the largest and most elaborate in the world, parade along the Viareggio sea promenade. Through satirical allusions they address the great themes of the contemporary world: from national and international politics to the environment and society.

As a novelty to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the first Viareggio Carnival the masked celebrants (though clearly not bringing their giant floats with them) visited Lucca last Sunday. Starting from Porta Santa Maria the parade continued to the city’s other main gate at Ports San Pietro.

We were able to catch them above Porta San Donato:

There will be further events celebrating the carnival at Lucca as this poster indicates,:

We, however, are saving our energy to attend that extraordinary parade of giant floats along Viareggio’s seafront: This panoply of spectacle, jollity and colour will take place on the following dates:

Last but not least let’s not forget our own little carnival at Bagni Di Lucca on February 11th!