Of trains and magazines

I love to indulge in 19th century modern pleasures, such as reading magazines on a train. This is why I read with great pleasure – from my window seat in my living room – Tyler Brûlé’s most recent Fast Lane column on the FT last weekend.

To be honest, one needs to be discerning in picking trains and press. The German combo highlighted in the article is one of the most satisfying. I can’t resist the temptation of stocking up on Brand Eins, Dummy, Der Spiegel, WiWo when I am in a Bahnhof, be it Munich, Berlin or Frankfurt, thus making my tote bag with Monocle, The Economist and Wired definitely bursting at the seams. And no matter what my German friends say, I still find ICE trains quite above EU average!

Eurostar crossing the channel for me is synonimus with Tatler, Vogue UK and L’Officiel. But this is more like browsing magazines, not really an immersive experience. These magazines remind me more about work, so they are not so relaxing as they used to be 10 years ago, when I was sipping advertising, not tasting it while thinking about the competition’s advertising strategies. And to be honest they just look all the same.

Getting through Brand Eins needs definitely more focus since for me German is not a language I can browse through. I have to embrace the text, dive into it, abstract from everything else. And mark with my purple PILOT pen a few newly minted German words which I will then add to my vocabulary.

Trains and good press. What a fabulous way to connect and disconnect at the same time. To reach a destination without jumping towards it. Reading, not browsing. And conversating with a total stranger on a train retains such a magic that no blog, forum, facebook will ever be able to convey.

The train, sublime social networking platform, leaving in 4 minutes from platform 3!

Photo: www.seat61 .com

Vintage?

From the credit crisis to the debt crisis…let’s hope this pattern does not goes out of fashion and right into the realm of vintage.

Al recente vertice di Davos l’ economista americano Nuriel Roubini se n’ è uscito con una frase che ha irritato il ministro Tremonti al punto da farlo reagire stizzito. In parole povere ha detto che i paesi a minor crescita, Italia tra questi, nei prossimi anni potrebbero dover lasciare la zona euro. Non è scontato, ha aggiunto, ma non è nemmeno improbabile. (Repubblica, February 2006)

the invasion of the ultra-screens

At the airport. Difficult to find a seat not facing one. At Stazione Termini, aligned by the dozen along the rails and blurring the information on departures. In the underground, vomiting hideous advertising. In any trattoria, restaurant, fast food, sandwich bar. At the hairdresser’s. At a public hospital, a giant version, while the rest of the infrastructure is crumbling down. In the ikea-cosy lobby of a doctor, a discrete version but even more dangerous, percolating Maria de Filippi. And immediately after, in a patisserie, a bigger version trickling down quiz and afternoon games on innocent maritozzi, brioches and montblancs.

Flat TV screens are everywhere in Italy. They have invaded all public, semi-public, private, commercial places as well the usual non-places. It’s good there are not yet flat TV screens in the offices!! Safe haven!

That’s why we eliminated TV from home. It’s true, it would be nice sometimes to have a look to a nice movie, a reportage by France 2 or the news from ZDF to check what was the weather like in Berlin.

But in Italy there are too many screens. Even if you don’t look for them, they will find you. We are surrounded. We need detox.

Gogol Bordello

A few days ago The Economist published a divertissement called Redrawing the Map. The map is the European one, and the one pasted above is the result of the Continental Drift.

The article is as usual provocative, enjoyable and enjoué. Yet I would still move some countries around a bit more.

Ukraine and Romania should definitely be relocated in the Mediterranean. Thousands of Ukrainian and Romanian women work in Italian families, leaving behind children and traveling in white vans on the Italian autostrade when going back to Kiev or Macron. Being closer to Rome and Salerno would make life easier for these women in supporting their families. And maybe would make the Italians realize that Italy wouldn’t simply get going without them. So let’s put Ukraine in the middle of Italy, just to remember who keeps the country together (yes, it’s women, as usual, and in this case women from abroad!). And Romania? next to Rome, where else?

Poland fully deserves its insular, Atlantic status, histoire oblige. Opposite France, that makes sense. But then send Belgium next to Catalunya. From an architectural point of view, Gaudì and Horta could go well together – they are so organic. Let’s move Belgium next to Spain then. Patatas bravas and moules et frites. And beer. Good.

Germany and Greece. Ah-ha! Here we are…Swap them, subito! Before May 9th! In order to avoid costly rescue plans and nEurosis, let’s leave the Greeks enjoy their baby retirement in the middle of the Central-European mist and rain. And let the Germans work deutlich until 67 with a little help from sun and sea. Retirement age gap will narrow for sure! Germany, together with Turkey, should then become an epitome of the bridge to Asia. A truly Eurasian bloc of about 150 million people, the new Eastern Mediterranean power. And of course Berlin should face Istanbul, between two seas. Two Divided Cities Reunited. Pergamon Altar restored to its original Mediterranean temperature, on  Museum Island.

England sits pretty opposite Porto – it is where it belongs. Someone forgot about Iceland. I suggest swapping Iceland and Switzerland. That will give something to do to the Swiss Navy – I heard it exists – and will teach Icelanders dealing with neighbors (and railways, trucks and tunnels). Maybe Icelanders will come up with a new, out of the box, approach to logistics?

I am tempted of floating Hungary on the Stock Exchange, sorry, in the Western Mediterranean, but then it would not work. Hungary without the Danube is inconceivable. Better move Finland next to Hungary. Green pastures will match and  that mysterious Ugro-Finnic linguistic continuum will be restored, in Saunaland.

From Triest to the Baltic, I’m afraid, everything has to be re-thinked. Borderland should be this vertical country linking the two seas, where the Slavic, German and Adriatic- Hanseatic influences would keep on mixing, complaining, analyzing their dreams and yes, successfully trading along a new channel linking the two seas.

And what about France? I agree, it’s too heavy to be moved around. But Denmark should be set in the middle of it. To teach the Parisians that windows are precious items and should be decorated, cosy, considered as part of the home and expression of the taste of the inhabitants, whatever that may be. Not gray-ish, dusty “holes” on a building façade.

Illustration: The Economist