Dining in Rod's footsteps

Last night in Taormina finds us supping at the same hostelry where Rod Stewart had dined, the pictures of him and the host go to prove it, plus Rod's naff inscription in the guest book. A new meaning to Dyno-Rod.

The Poodles or Barboncini came as little shrimps and return as plump cannelloni.

The Inner Birdy

We read so much of The Inner Child nowadays, as in "I'm so hungry I could eat my inner child". But what of the The Inner Birdy? He's the one that says " I must have some of that sweet cake and that Cassata, fata in casa."

This leads me seemlessly to the information I read in Time Out magazine that it is common in Argentina amongst middle class families to arrange for their dogs to receive cosmetic surgery so as to resemble the older family members. I can see no reason why this might not lead to the family members having reconstructive work done so as to resemble their older pets.

It's a big old goofy world and stranger by the minute. Chinese astronauts when asked what their favourite music listened to in space was, opined that it was The National Anthem.

Here in Taormina the variably (for obvious reasons) 3,300 metre Mt Etna soars magnificently like a broody hen over the valleys below. Her peak is sugared with snows and she is wreathed in perpetually swirling clouds. We watch for the signs of eruption. The last two big ones were in 2001 and 2002 although the last earthquacke on its slopes was only two weeks ago.

To be a pure tourist is quite liberating . We, of course, are all tourists on this planet.

Wind, Cheese and brittle teeth

We hear reports of fierce weather in Irlanda. I write this from the indoor terrace of Villa Ducale, perched high above Taormino. Outside I see the town and country lights as if from an aeroplane. I also hear the fierce winds that swirl around the villa....very unseasonal. We are not sure whether to venture out tonight, it involves a climb down of 738 steps and back of course after the poodles have been at the trough. Last night we chose the vegetarian dinner at the Restaurante Duomo...a five courser which consisted almost entirely of cheese. The main course, secondi piatti, was 'hot and cold cheese' which was one cheese fritter surrounded by vast slabs of cold cheese. The dolce courses were three fifths cheese as well. There was a severe danger of constipazione.

Much worse has been going on for Mr Poodle though. It gnawed on a very hard block of chocolate and lost a filling.....since then constant pain and a wait till Monday for dentisti. At the moment clove oil has been introduced into the muzzle with some relief ensuing. The moral is horribly clear. Mr P's fangs are not up to solid blocks of cioccalata. What lies ahead is an interesting investigative thrust into the soft underbelly of the Sicilian Dental Services, starting with attendance at a free clinic at the suitably named village Castelmola, itself perched on a 500 meter above sea level rocky excrescence remarkably denture like.

Bad Light stops play

The Lipari Islands remain unvisited due to pouring rain and cloud at the departure port of Melazzo. The price was steep beeing a taxi fare to and from there but I did manage to visit the bridge of the hydrofoil to ask the comandatore about the metereological prospects, via an interpreter of course. On the way back the later pointed out the hilltop village where 'Godfather 2' was shot.

This afternoon we visited the Greek amphitheatre on the cliffs of Taormina. It looks towards Mt Etna and seems to have perfect acoustics. In the summers the likes of Boccelli, Elton John and Diana Ross have performed there. This is one chic town with shops from all the world's capitals lining the main thoroughfare. Rumour has it that the place is safe due to the patronage of local underworld sorts who launder money in the big businesses. Be that true or not it is hard not to like the local people who are fond of your tourist money but couldn't be more agreeable.

We stay here for the next 4 days and then make our way to Palermo to take flight for a reportedly very frosty Ireland. Please feel free to comment via the button at the bottom of these posts.

Maxims from The Irish Bar, Taormina and a local church

"He who drinks beer lives for 100 years, he who drinks wine lives forever".
O'Nelly.

Apart from being patently untrue who the hell is O'Nelly?

More benign, a sign at the entrance of a local church:
"Come any faith in God you have and please offer a minutes silence to 'someone' for life gift".

Ship all over the world

This is a sign in art gallery on the main drag of Taormina, Via Umberto. Within are some hideously kitsch pictures which leads one to believe that there is a mispelling in their notice. The P should have been a T.

The Capers of Lipari

It is now imperative to write a jig with the above name, it would fit right into the canon of Irish tunes. It is suggested by our tour guide of the day who on hearing of our planned trip to the Aeolian or Lipari Islands informed us that the main export of Lipari, the largest island, is capers. We will report on their succulence and in the meantime start humming. The main purport of the excursion is to view the active volcanoes on the islands of Volcano and Stromboli. Mrs Poodle is also very keen to be immersed in hot mud and then scrubbed down in thermal springs. Mr Poodle looks on with indulgence and trepidation, mainly concerned about the fragrance of sulfur clinging to him for some time. It might leave more room for seating on planes and trains though.

The tour alluded to above was to Mt Etna. It was worth the visit but a little disappointing due to the extreme cold near the summit and the biting wind. It would have been possible to climb to the top crater but we were not thermally equipped. 1,000 meters down it was 4 degrees celsius with high windchill. But from this spot one could see the 2001 and 2002 craters along with the literally hundreds of others below some of which had reeked havoc, I use that spelling advisedly, over the centuries. The active volcano has both given and taken in terms of giving employment to a thriving tourist industry, and ski amenity, and destroying towns and villages with loss of life. All was quiet up there today.

Tomorrow, Friday, we think of the gig of The Fields in the Albert Hall. They open for the Jules Holland Band and are responsible for one of the best and most original albums of 2005. They comprise Mark Flanagan on guitars, Jimmy Bergin ditto and Barnes Goulding on drums. Find out more on markflanagan.com

Luna di miele

The winterpoodles are now on their honeymoon, hence "Honeypoodles", and are presently staying at Taormini in Sicily having visited Venice in the North of Italy. The access to Taormina was via nightrain express , a 17 hour journey in a wagon lit which was fine and dandy apart from the lack of sustenance available on board. No dining car but the attendant was able to produce a highly homogenised and preserved ham panini that had been assembled in June (it now being late November). The poodles are non carne types so the dead pigs bottom had to be extracted and the resultant salty mush was consumed reluctantly. This might have contributed to the difficult nights sleep but what a joy to awake in Calabria and cross the Straits of Messina on the train on the boat, reminding me of a song about being "on my pony on my boat" by Lyle Lovett.

Building a patois menu

We are on the lookout for additions to the current dishes available here in Italy:

Toast with Stuff
Scrawed Fruit
Boiler Eggs
Parmesan with speak in the roast
Fillet of calf
Cost of pork
Spaghetti with Sea Hurchins
Spaghetti with cryfish and gourgettes
all washed down with Wodka Tonic and breadcrubs

The Mystery Tourist

A riddle has presented itself.

How come that within every gaggle of tourists, especially on a guided tour or large lift ascent or descent, there is always one tourist who looks like this: male of sallow to dark complexion, between 50 and 70 years old, shorter than average, with glasses and wearing a beret? He is European and probably Spanish or Italian but occasionally French. There is a somewhat academic or even artistic aura to him. He is sometimes accompanied by a female version dressed in black with silver jewelery and hair. We have spotted two already since being in Venice only three days.

Yesterday we visited the Peggy Guggenheim collection on the Grand Canal. She certainly lived in one of the most beautiful spots on earth, well at least in a city. Her one storey home is now a shrine to her collection of modernist art. In no particular order we were excited by "The Secret Garden" by Paul Klee, a superb cubist piece by Jean Arp, a sculpture in rusting iron, two columns about 15 feet high, by Giuseppe Spagnuli, a very early Morandi and a great collection of Italian futurist work starring Balla, Severini, and above all Boccioni.

WALKING is the great pleasure of a visit to Venice, we feel as if in a film set lit by the greatest lighting camera man. The famous plaster crumble is ubiquitous in every variant of sienna, umber and degraded pink. The November light is sharp and the temperature is brisk to firm. The canals are suitably murky green or as Camille Souter once described a colour "piss left in a milkbottle overnight".

Last evening we attended a choral concert near San Marks square of Venetian music played by a local string quartet with piano and a soprano and tenor. The tenor boasted a volume that would sink a battleship, initiate tinnitus and drown out a string quartet with piano. He also exhibited all the neccessary ham acting as did the slightly more constrained soprano, but only slightly. I found it hard to look at her because of the intense eyebrow work and coy come ons that she directed at the tenor who was 20 years her junior. He responded by kissing her hand and manhandling her bare shoulders as he towered above her. Musically it was rather wonderful and certainly highly skilled but the genre is so demonstrabbly fatuous that it is hard to keep a straight face. Straight faces have been on thin side anyway.

We float on a bubble of all the good wishes we received at the Leslie wedding event and Thank our Lucky Stars and ye, our dear family and friends.

"Toast with Stuff"

This is available in the Trattoria by the Ferrovia in Venice.

We are three days now in the pink and gold city and experiencing the memories of life in a medieval city....the walls of houses on opposite sides of the street are often touching and the alleyways can sometimes permit only one person at a time. Above all there are NO CARS and the sounds are just human and canine, apart from the chug of a water taxi or vaporetto. Today we spotted a black poodle encased in a pillar box red knitted coat, to the extent that the only bits of poodle visible were head, paws and private equipment. He was accompanied by a lady in a turquoise coat and was well documented on digital film by the human poodles. Watch this space in December.

Castle Leslie, Elvis Presley, Leslie Leslie, Presley Presley

The new Hare Krishna Mantra has been released for 2005 in honour of the Poodlefest held on the 10th November in Co Monaghan. The newlyweds are on the hoof at present so the fully illustrated report from Castle Leslie won't be available till mid December.

At present we find ourselves at Brook Lodge, Macreddin Village, Co Wicklow, planning a trip to Venezia and places South (Siciliy maybe). The walls of Venice are a magnet not to mention the chance of some sea mists on the lagoon. The sweetest smells of Araby are not noted for their prevalence in Venice but at this time of year the Poodle's acute sense of smell (one thousand times greater than that of humans) should be relatively unscathed. What is 'scathed' by the way?

If 'immaculate' is 'unspotted' is 'maculate' 'spotted' as in 'spotted dick' (the dish you understand).

The OS/B show opened on Sunday 13th and remains open until 30th of this month. Closed only on Mondays and Tuesdays. So far there has been an enthusiastic response and healthy sales. Some favourite works still unsold though.

Pink is the new black, 2

The joys of icecream and jelly are clearly visible in this summertime snap of Mr Poodle in a cafe at Buttevant, Co Cork. The pink is close to the anti-psychotic wavelength alluded to below. The poodle is as well. Did you know that a recent survey concluded that poodles are the most intelligent dogs, one up on collies. So why the parlours, psychiatrists, diamond collars and fluffy holdalls that are part and parcel of the poodle brigade? Probably the spreading influence of L.A. (Hell A, as the late Bill Hicks names it). Reading his book 'Love all the People' at the moment. It's a searing indictment of the WASP culture of North America. Its sacriligous, profane, vulgar, obscene but pithy and enlightening. Good reading for pinko peace queers who don't pay their taxes. Tally Ho. Here's a quote , at random (ish) from the book:

" Satan's goona have no problem on this planet, cos all the women are gonna go

'What a cute butt!'
'He's Satan.'
'You don't know him like I do'
'He's the prince of Darkness'.
'I can change him.'

And I bet that's true. I wouldn't put Satan- give Satan a snowball's chance in Hell against a woman's ego, man. He'd ride the earth for a day, a week later we'd see Satan out cuttin the lawn.'