5th: A 'Rich Tea' Royalty?

I start today’s blog with a couple of reminiscences from today’s examining (picture of me and cakes at break), in the lengthily titled, Santa Maria Capua Vetere,

home of the second largest ampiteatro in Italy (after Rome’s coliseum). One candidate was telling me about her annual trips up to Milan, where there’s a “great castle – the bubonic built the castle”. Lightly concerned about the health of the northern region of Italy and the source of its wealth, I soon managed to piece together that the ‘bubonic’ was in fact the ‘Bourbon kings’ – not a empire of biscuit royalists, but royalty opposed (generally when with the support of others) against Napoleon in the 18^th and early 19^th century. I can’t really comment on the girl's pronunciation, mind. While waiting for my train back to Caserta this afternoon, I attempted to order a beer in the station bar and made such a hash of it that you couldn’t possibly imagine that the Italian for ‘beer’ is the incredibly similar sounding ‘berra’. I’m thinking the barman was just so taken aback by debonair manner and inherent sophistication that he temporarily became hard of hearing.

Napoleon features in the second examining instance. It was near the end of the day and my mind had long since given up the ghost by the time one lad comes in telling me that the topic he’s going to talk about is his hobby, ‘reading’. Marvellous. One of the points on a prepared form to us to talk around is his favourite book. Fine. Another is Mickey Mouse and comics. Gee, swell. The final point is ‘my future dream’. Given the kid likes reading, I’m guessing he wants to write a book. Lo! And it is his future dream. Ensuring I take an interest, with the view of reliable examining, I ask him about the topic of his book. “Napoleon” replies the lad. I sit up, interest suddenly aroused, my mind turning back on and the lights behind my eyes starting to flick back into life. Readers will know of my interest in the period and, especially in ‘The Immortal Memory’ and wondered if he would feature in a book about Napoleon. Thinking this is the time when I can stretch exam timings under the guide of confirming my exam decision, I probe further: “Is the book about the time when Napoleon was a soldier, first consul or emperor?” I ask. “Emperor”, rejoins the youth. A good period. Eager to learn more, yet knowing about the drier period of Napoleon and the Bourbons with their eponymous biscuits, I press further. “Is it about his brother becoming king in Italy or the decisive battles of either of the two wars?” The boy, perhaps taken a-back by my line of questioning, looks a little crest-fallen, saying, “Napoleon. No more. Stop”. Turns out, it’s a book he wants to write about in the future. While I didn’t mean to ‘out-history’ the lad with verbal bludgeoning, I at least hope I’ve given him a few ideas to think about for his future research...

Back in the non-examining world, it was the weekend! Huzzah. The first thing to say here is that no matter how much people may criticise British public transport, be thankful it’s not Italian, and especially southern Italian. I’ll spare the details of the this blog’s first entry and suffice by telling you only of cancelled last trains of an evening, rail-replacement bus services which are then cancelled, a lack of anyone in a fluorescent jacket to direct questions / disgruntlement at, crowded buses (a different occasion to the cancelled replacement one), near run-over-ings, under-staffed ticket desks and a succession of broken-down trains. Still, all fun of the fair when overseas and all the more time to read the book you’re sooooo glad you’ve got with you. All of this actually mildly fun as I didn’t have anything but some sitting in the sun reading a book to do anyway, so sitting in the sun at a cafe or at the station reading made little to no difference - witnessing the local passengers’ gestures getting exponentially more passionate was almost a reason to have planned it this way.

Amongst the weekend events were a trip to the Castle San Elmo and attached monastery with an old friend (see Emi and me in the pictures), a particularly good lobster dinner and the forced night in a central Napoli hotel (on account of the cancelled train). At 55 euros, I can’t complain; the orange decor and questionable bread role for breakfast was really icing on the tiramisu. Another highlight was a Sunday trip to the Teatro San Carlo, the oldest surviving theatre in Europe, for a Beethoven, Albeniz and Prokofiev piano recital – pretty cultured, huh?

All sumptuous and quite the ticket. My thanks to Emi for sorting it out, and lucky for us that it fell between two strikes relating to cut-backs in state funding for the arts (apparently the theatre folk are looking at a 40% drop in pay).

But hey, it could be worse. It could be Greece. Or even a premier-less democracy with just as much debt...