If my more or less regular seven readers, just to have a break in their Christmas celebrations (I won't get to the heart of this matter, now I don't see the need of that) will have the fancy to stop by these virtual pages, maybe they will  be  pleasantly intrigued by  an historical curiosity.

In a way it's suitable for this time of the year, even though I decided to avoid carefully all dissertations about the presumed lost spirit of Christmas and the fact that Santa, how he's iconically shown, is a relatively recent invention of Coca Cola Company.

We'll speak about music and in particular a very world famous song, which you can hear clicking here below.

It's " Auld Lang Syne". Probably many know that the lyrics are actually a poem by Robbie Burns, whom is called 'The Bard' in his Scotland. I think (but my so well educated seven readers, all of English mother tongue, will surely correct me) that 'Auld Lang Syne' means something like 'old long-ago'. This is not the point. I'd like to investigate about the melody, the music, not the lyrics, of which we know practically everything.

Burns in 1788 set his poem to the tune of a traditional folk song which was 200 years older. The composer of this melody, oddly, is an Italian. A very interesting character, Davide Rizzio (or Riccio…who knows exactly? The right orthography of a foreign name could be so easily misspelt in Scotland in 16th century…and not only then).

 He had a rather adventurous life and maybe one of these days I'll tell you something more about him. He was born in a small village, Pancalieri, near Turin, in Northern Italy. He had a certain talent as musician, composer and singers and a sure inclination to adventure and actually he ended to Scotland where he became a favourite of Queen Mary Stuart, no less! It seems he composed that music, which reminded him of an older folk song of his homeland and was very appreciated among Scots. 
He came to a very bad, awful end, but maybe I'll tell it to you another time, because it's another story….

I like repeating that personal rules are made to be broken, at least sometimes and randomly, or else breaking them becomes a rule at its turn and we get trapped in that spiral…

One of my rules or presumed ones is that –in this half hidden space of totally unnecessary erratic thoughts–I would never speak directly of myself.  I'm so scared of an apparent "Facebook" effect that I censor myself even when I might speak of something less banal than my uninteresting daily life.

But it happens, like in this case that sometimes from a little happening related to me I can find a pretext for a more general consideration. After all thinking over about things has never killed anyone…

I think to have more or less six or seven readers, who relatively regularly come to give a look at what happened in this virtual corner of cyberspace, which I like imagining like a little cosy café with a lot of free magazines and book at the clients' disposal.

The idea of keeping my virtual café open for them gives me a pleasant motivation.

So what were we speaking of? Ah, yes, this funny little episode which should lead to a more general and less funny reflection.

I receive a couple of days ago a proposal by email from an agency which wanted to insert various advertisings in this humble web site. It was not an automatic mail, like those which are sent to thousands and thousands of small websites, the url of which was captured by search engines in a way I can hardly imagine. It was a personalized letter addressed to my first name and with references to my website appearance and its content. They even proposed me to pay me regularly for that.

I wrote back to refuse politely, explaining shortly  that I hate advertising , which has started to pollute  nearly every website, and I'm perfectly happy to keep my small one in a blessed condition of advertising-free space.

Today the agency manager wrote me once again, insisting that maybe I had not fully understood and they didn't intend to put any advertising banner in my website, but their proposal was to include an advertising article in my blog as if I had written it myself.

Actually what she wrote was:

"Our advertising model uses text-based adverts. We aim to give you an article that would complement your existing posts and fit the theme of your site. We have highly competent writers that will create a custom article specially made for you."

And she was so generous to offer me 100USD for that.

I immediately wrote back, voluntarily in a slightly melodramatic way, that I was not on sale.

Then I started thinking over about all that. Obviously they have made the same proposal to a lot of niche small websites and very probably many of them have accepted. So that proposal was not so shamefully extravagant after all and several people might consider absolutely normal to sell spaces in their personal websites without any control on that and even accept to mix the posts of their blogs with articles written by others to promote items they don't care for.

I suppose advertising is a necessary evil to sponsor newspapers, concerts, shows and many other extremely expensive activities, which might be useful, educational, entertaining. But I don't see the need favour its proliferation in websites, which are not expensive to maintain.

Once again I don't feel either better or worse than a large majority, but I feel different.

In all cases, I refuse to make compromises with any site with an overdose of advertising. I will not get many visits here, but I'm honoured for the attention of my six readers and their existence is the best spur to keep on doing of my best.

If you're not scared of Friday the 13th, you should be scared of the word used to describe those who are: friggatriskaidekaphobics. 

For a superstition, the fear of Friday the 13th seems fairly new, dating back to the late 1800s. Friday has long been considered an unlucky day (according to Christian tradition, Jesus died on a Friday), and 13 has a long history as an unlucky number.
Many people may fall prey to the human mind's desire to associate thoughts and symbols with events.
If anything bad happens to you on Friday the 13th, the two will be forever associated in your mind; all those uneventful days in which the 13th fell on a Friday will be ignored.
The association may also be biblical. The Last Supper's 13th guest was Judas, who betrayed Jesus. His crucifixion was the next day, a Friday.
In reality, the Friday the 13th superstition is a relatively modern phenomenon indeed. Less than 100 years ago, the number 13 did not have this sinister meaning.  But its manifestations can be seen in a number of areas: High-rise buildings and hotels often skip the 13th floor, and hospitals often do not have a Room 13. Some airports and airlines skip a gate 13 or row 13, respectively.
Thinking over about superstitions can be intriguing and also illuminating. Often history is made of details, of apparently irrelevant little things.
Maybe I'll come back to this topic, which deserved more attention and space.
What is superstition after all? Some call "superstitions" the beliefs of others. But here we are approaching a very delicate subject rich of nuances.
A belief which leaves no place for doubt is not a belief; it is a superstition.
Bertrand Russell said: “Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom.” 

Personally I agree that laziness is nothing more than the habit of resting before you get tired. Nevertheless one of the very few rules of this half-hidden journal (another one is that it has not any fixed rule…) is that I'm not supposed to speak directly about myself and my surely uninteresting daily life. If I considered worthy informing a large audience that I broke one of my nails I could create an account on Facebook. So far I can happily live without.

So my purpose is starting from particular to get open, if it's possible, to more general considerations.

My topic doesn't intend to be my personal praise of laziness. I have a kind of reverential admiration for all the people who are ready to run and jog every day with all kinds of weather. They gloriously sweat in summer and bravely face the icy wind in winter. They usually run alone, all concentrated in their own surely rewarding effort. Sometimes energetic mothers include in their healthy activity also their unaware babies, who are installed in technological strollers, probably made of tungsten or some other mysterious material and are pushed at high speed nicely shaken by all the ground bumps. Maybe they like that, probably they do. Babies like to be shaken, well, with moderation anyhow.

A common feature, which practically all runners and joggers share, is that they carry an iPod or an  iSomething, well, shortly, a reader of music files and they have their ears well plugged by the earphones of the little omnipresent device.

They are in a private world full of their own music, probably loud, and they run, indifferent to the sound and the noise of the real world which surrounds them.  You know what I mean, banal boring sounds like the song of the wind in the leaves, the cries of seagulls, the call of  hidden little birds, the pastoral symphony of cows' bells ( sorry, this is just a Swiss matter, I'm afraid). In a word all what make the environment vibrant and real and make you feel part of that with all your senses.

Also running mums wear earphones. I saw one, crossing the road, a few days ago, beautiful and fit she run at a speed that I could keep only for 5 metres, and only when I feel in particularly good shape and she seemed to barely touch the ground. Her baby, comfortably installed in   his stroller, looked in front of him, because he was turned that way, considering probably his mother like an engine which he could neither control nor see. The baby bumped lightly when his stroller was pushed over a little imperfection of the road, his little head followed the rhythm of the run. Nobody spoke to him, but fortunately he didn’t wear any small earphones. I'm sure that the birds' songs were a good company for him.

I feel comfortable writing in this relatively secluded virtual space.  I can add whatever I feel like in this immaterial writing pad, knowing that it's under the eyes of very few adventurous visitors which have arrived her just by chance, but will never find their way again, who knows? It's amusing not to know…

Definitely I didn't stop thinking of Great Garbo yet since yesterday. One of the proofs that I'm getting really older is the huge quantity of memories I have of the past years of my life, which often come to surface because a casual concatenation of thoughts. Several (or some?) years ago I went to Sweden with my mother, without any particular reason. I knew a Swedish gentleman  living near Stockholm ( the way I had  got in touch with him is not fundamental ) and he kindly offered to come to our hotel to take my mother and I for a tour. He owned and old collection Rolls Royce, which he used to rent occasionally for wedding or to drive some important personality around and he was so kind to surprise us arriving with that impressive white Rolls. I felt a bit uncomfortable, but my mother was absolutely delighted. It was, I remember, a gorgeous day. One of the precious sunny days of autumn on Scandinavian countries.

 Inside the Rolls there were little Persian carpets at the place of usual small rubber carpets which are under the feet of passengers in normal cars. He told us that only few weeks earlier he had taken around for a tour the Queen Mother and one of her lady friends. My mother became instantly a queen as well. She felt totally at ease in the role.

I will not speak of all the places we visited and all what we did. At a certain moment our host and chauffeur told us that we were arriving to Hårby, a large estate which belonged to Greta Garbo and he explained to us that it was not open to public, but we could see the building from outside and give a look at the gardens. 
Actually, when we arrived it came out that the mansion had been rented for a celebration, I have not any idea about what it could be, maybe an official reception. The doors were all open and there were people carrying big boxes and a van which seemed to be for the catering service. 
Our arrival on a white Rolls Royce was not unnoticed, but, as it often happened, people were impressed by those apparent signs of social status. I tried to pretend to be a shy secretary to justify my casual outfit, while my naturally smart mother was perfect in her presumed role. 
I don't know exactly what our Swedish friend told them (obviously they were all speaking Swedish with each other) but then he come to us telling that we can get inside to look all around. I felt a little paralysed, and I felt like an intruder peeping   through a half-open window and I refused. I said I would have walked in the garden and I would have waited for them by the car. But my cheeky mother was enthusiastic and she got in to the house with our friend. By the way he could speak Swedish and English, while my mother only French and Italian, but mysteriously they managed to communicate.

After a long time, when I already thought they had been arrested by security guards or something like that, they appeared again and my mother was happy and started telling me she had been everywhere and the furniture was magnificent, and she had been in Greta Garbo's bedroom as well and there was nobody there, because all those people were arranging things at the ground floor. Then with a whimsical light in her eyes ( I think my mother was already over 70 then) she  confessed that she felt the need to go to toilet when she was there and  she noticed a door in Greta Garbo's bedroom, she pushed it and she found a bathroom. She giggled like a little girls and enthusiastically told me: "I peed into Garbo's flush toilet!". 
Sic transit gloria mundi

Old black and white movies have a charm that is not easy to find again in nowadays, sophisticated films in full colour, overfilled with amazing special effects. This is a topic I would never be tired to treat, so, exactly to avoid the risk to be tedious, I put limits on myself. Self-censorship is the only acceptable form of censorship after all. Among many other I'm thinking now specifically of a film called "Grand Hotel", a 1932 American drama. In this movie, among all the other famous actors there is also the charismatic presence of Greta Garbo, who plays the role of a Russian dancer, Grusinskaya. She pronounces one of the most memorable movie quotes of all time: "I want to be alone; I just want to be alone".
This quote remained stuck on her like a label, because Garbo had always been very reserved and had avoided all public appearances as much as it was possible.
In reality Garbo declared about   her private life, that she never said, 'I want to be alone'; she only said, 'I want to be let alone'. There is a world of difference.
If compared with the fever of incessant self-promotion which seems to be present in all social spheres nowadays, when people try hard to put themselves in the limelight by all means I think Garbo's attitude was of sublime elegance.

Titus Livius, as you might remember, was a Latin historian, whose only surviving work is a huge history of Rome " Ab Urbe Condita" which means "From the town foundation", where he describe the complete history of  the city of Rome and its empire, from its foundation to the death of Augustus.

But  giving a few unnecessary biographic notes of  information on Titus Livius  is not my purpose at all.

What intrigues me today is mentioning a specific little episode which Titus Livius wrote about, among so many others, because it might be rather thought-provoking, if we try to see it in a larger context. This is one of the peculiar values of history; it helps us to see contemporary happenings much clearer if we compare them with the experience of the past.

Someone said: “If you don't know history, then you don't know anything. You are a leaf that doesn't know it is part of a tree. ”  And I could not agree more.

Let's go back to Titus Livius. He wrote, in his monumental book, that one of the main military battles in the history of Rome happened by chance.

 In 168 BC, during the third Macedonian War, there was a fundamental battle in the plain of Pydna, which marked the final destruction of Alexander’s empire and introduced Roman authority over the Near East. At first the leading members of the two armies hesitated to declare the attack. They were reluctant to do the first move and preferred to study the adversary.

The decision at their place was taken, paradoxically, by an unconscious Roman donkey, which ran away from the Roman camp and started galloping by pure chance toward the Macedonian lines. A few Roman soldiers decided to chase and catch it. But the Macedonians thought it was the beginning of the attack, they gave the alarm and soon the general battle started.

Very probably the battle would have started in all cases, but we cannot be quite sure of that…

The History is full of many "rebel donkeys" which play the role of the uncontrolled and unpredictable variable in a series of events. Maybe we would keep that in mind, for the little we can…

I like legends. All the legends. There is something enlightening and fascinating and they are an important part of our cultural backgrounds, even when we ignore them.
Many people feels the need to believe in their legends , as if knowing that what they described was a part of reality could make them worthier.
I don't want to be dragged into this kind of polemic, it would be for nothing.
People who claim that their beliefs are based on reality, while others' beliefs are based on legends are exactly the same people who call superstitions the moral principles and the beliefs of others.
I prefer to see legends as a projection of our past and a sign of our intellectual development.
Symbols are important if we realize they are symbols of something, not the thing itself.
There are ancient story which I find more appealing and fascinating than others.
The story, or the legend, of that Nepalese prince, born in the sixth century B.C., whose father had made him living a totally secluded and protected merry life, is one of my favourite.
The young prince, who we might like imagining handsome and inclined to reveries, ignored reality, prisoner in his parallel universe of beauty until the day he left his palace and discovered the existence of suffering and the miserable human condition.
He was deeply touched by these sights, and decided to leave his kingdom to lead an ascetic life, and determine a way to relieve the universal suffering that he now understood to be one of the defining traits of humanity.
For several years he made all efforts, endured pain, fasted nearly to starvation, and refused even water to find a spiritual answer, deleting nearly totally the role of the material body
Whatever he tried, he could not reach the level of satisfaction he was looking for, until one day when a young girl offered him a bowl of rice.
As he accepted it, he suddenly realized that corporeal austerity was not the means to achieve inner liberation, and that living under harsh physical constraints was not helping him achieve spiritual release.
From then on, however, he encouraged people to follow a path of balance instead of one characterized by extremism. He called this path the Middle Way.
Of course you have already guessed the name of the prince, who inspired also a great novel by Herman Hesse about the spiritual journey of self-discovery.
I don't mean to speak about religions.
I love the legend of Siddhartha Gautama.

Do you see the two pictures here? One was by Monet and represents the Waterloo Bridge in London, it’s a pastel and it was part of a series which Monet dedicated to this bridge during his stays in London. There would be many interesting details to tell about the experience of Monet in London and why he sketched also pastels, besides the oil paintings, but this is another story. The other picture represent a “Harlequin’s Head” by Pablo Picasso. No-one will ever see them in reality anymore. They are gone, forever. They were burnt together with other art masterpieces which had been stolen on the 16th October 2012 from the Kunstahal in Rotterdam, Holland.

The responsible for this act of pure idiocy is the mother of ringleader of the thieves, a Rumanian woman called Olga Dogaru who wanted “to protect” her poor son, her gentle child, Radu, who had not been able to sell to little scrupulous private collectors his loot. 

So he was arrested for the suspicions hanging over his head and his loving mother tried first to hide the stolen paintings in a cemetery of the small Rumanian village of the improbable name of Caracliu or Carcaliu (reality is so often more absurd that imagination), then, when she realized that the Police was inspecting accurately the area, decided to put all the paintings together with old paper and old shoes into a large stove at her home and burnt all merrily.

 “What a good mum I am” she probably thought, relieved to have a chance to defend her boy ”I make all that rubbish disappear, so nobody will have any proof against my son”.

What makes stupidity really insufferable is that it is forever in action - idiocy knows no rest

“Verus amicus amore, more, ore, re cognoscitur”.

“You can recognize a true friend from affection, behaviour, words and deeds”.

This Latin proverb concentrates in a few words the noble and fundamental value of friendship, a deep and strong relationship which is based on shared thoughts, shared feelings, shared projects and needs a constant mutual empathy for each other’s sorrows and joys.

Nowadays we live in an age of somehow aseptic and exasperating individualism, emotional distance, and incapacity of speaking with others in the context of a real communication from person to person. No problems! The social networks are there to fill this gap and to help us to build up easily an immoderate number of “virtual friends”. Just a few clicks and we are able to multiply our friends and with another click we can get rid of friends who have become obsolete. We don’t need to work regularly on our friendly relationships, to keep them alive, to make them grow stronger…Just a further click on the button “I like” and it’s enough.

I’m awfully old-fashioned, a real dinosaur, but I’m still faithful to the Latin approach…