Sport, sportsmanship and other sporting words.

 Good morning.

I started this post by staring blankly at the page for a little while. I guess I opened it because I wanted to speak to somebody but did not know who to and about what, so here goes, I speak to a blank internet page.

Yesterday was a night to remember for many reasons, almost the least important being Italy crowned as the champions of Europe for the second time.

Yesterday, to me, was a day like any other but spent with some of the people I care the most about in this little island we call Britain. It was weird being the "odd one out", everyone celebrating the 2 minute goal, everyone excited to see England in a major football final since the 60's, everyone maybe thinking "yeah, mate it's coming home". But I watched and winced and celebrated my native country as I should, hoping that at some point football would change its mind and instead of wanting a bit of fish and chips, it'd settle for a carbonara (settle... I'd kill for a proper carbonara right now) and instead come and learn a bit about Roman architecture once more. 

Anyone that watched the final knows how it went and I am not here to talk about it. I don't even care that much about football, but lately Italy has been on a high in any international events and, if you know me, I am definitely someone who is proud of where they're from. I might even have a blue passport, but I am definitely way more Italian than I am British (whatever my friends and family back home say about me!).
Italian teams and Italian athletes have been excelling in many sports, I even ended up watching the Wimbledon final knowing absolutely nothing about tennis.

I've grown up with the idea that international sport should be something that unifies a nation, millions of eyes staring at the same screen feeling like the achievements of those athletes are also your own; but it is what it is... a sport.

Sport is entertaining, stressful, nail biting. But it's a game, in the end. Taking yourselves too seriously can only lead to heartbreak.

Sportsmanship, on the other hand goes a long way. The endless chants of "it's coming home" were the least of my problem in the week leading up to the semi-final and the final. What concerned me is the amount of racial abuse, destruction and just unsporting behaviour shown by fans (either side of the pitch, I swear, I am only more aware of what happened in the UK for obvious reasons, like the fact that I haven't been to Rome since 2019).

It all started with the crying German girl: the amount of abuse I have seen online aimed towards an innocent child was horrendous. They called her Nazi, slut... and other words I shouldn't even repeat. 

Then they went on to Denmark. The Danish fans spoke about racial and physical abuse they had to endure whilst leaving Wembley. 

And then... the final. This is where I got more "involved", having discussion with British people on a more... personal level.

I have to say, watching the game with 4 British people, I did not feel at all left out, with one of my friends even apologising for cheering at one of the penalties! The politeness of the Brits, right?

But it's what happened in the background, or on the internet, that really upset me. First things first, hiding behind a keyboard is always easier, but getting to the point of calling people names and insulting them for a game of football? A little too far.

Things like this really rub me up the wrong way. 

And it didn't just happen towards Italian players, it happened to English players as well. The ones that were being sung as the new saviours of the country, became the target for racial abuse as soon as the referee blew the whistle for the end of the game.

I know these fans are a "loud minority" but until we all condemn their actions and try to make football a safer sport for all minorities, the idea of the graffiti-writing, property-destroying, name-calling football fans will stay.

Can't we learn from sports like rugby? 

To vax or not to vax?

Good morning and look at me going! Flexi furlough really is boring when the weather is as miserable as it is lately, even if today the sun is shining.

With all the chaos in the news regarding Covid, the vaccines, the blood clots, the contraindications, the blown out of proportion stories about what happens when you get one.

This comes after the day I was booked in at 4.42pm (a very exact time, I know)  my first jab of the Covid vaccine. Firstly, don't know why I have been offered it. I received a text from my GP saying they had slots and I could call in to book an appointment.

I don't think I ever pressed on a number so quickly, not even when I was trying to get through the Italian embassy to renew my passport and I had to keep calling because the line was always busy. I could not believe, and still possibly can't, that a year into the pandemic people have worked tirelessly to produce a vaccine that is, now, been given to everyone free of charge (at least in the UK) and that could help us go back to normal some time in the near future.

For this reason I, personally, don't understand no-vaxxers. There is so much scientific evidence against their claims.

Be it that I grew up in a family where science beat almost everything, be it that I always thought that not getting vaccinated was even an option; Ihad no issues with letting someone from the NHS prick my arm with a syringe.
I have been having a flu jab for the past few years, had my MMR booster some time ago and I think I am probably due a tetanus shot as well. If my GP called me right now to remind me of some other vaccine I forgot, I'd take that too. And it's not because the NHS is free so flip it I'll take the lot, but because I believe in the work of science and if something has been created for the greater good I will trust the researchers and the medical staff.

Luckily, in my close group of friends, I haven't had many encounters with no-vaxxers but I have seen so much disinformation and misinformation on the internet.

Do I consider myself superior because I don't let conspiracy theories affect my judgement? No.
Do I seriously believe that Bill Gates, China and Google are out there to chip me and follow me around? No.
Do I know anyone that does? Possibly.

Honestly, anyone who owns a smartphone is already under a constant watchful eye and, as I have nothing to hide, I wish Bill Gates enjoys me watching Gilmore Girls almost every day during my furlough week.

Talking about side effects, I still don't have 5G coverage in my house, neither have I grown and extra limb, or head (which my friend suggested I should name Margaret). There is quite a long list of side effects that anything between less than 1 and more than 1 in ten people get. I personally have only been fighting with a pounding headache which honestly, in the fight against covid, seems to be like the most miniscule of inconveniences.

My personal advice is take the vaccine, when it gets offered to you. Why? Because even if you think you won't be affected because you might be young or healthy (which has been dimonstrated to be worth bugger all anyways), you could pass on the virus to someone who is immunodeficient, or have just come out of cancer treatements or simply would love to be vaccinated but can't for a health reason or another.

If there is anything I wished this pandemic had thought us is to be more thoughtful about others and be a lot more selfless. Unfortunately, that hasn't been the case for most people.

 

The Pandemic a year on

 Hello everyone! It's been so bloody long since I actually sat down in front of this blog, almost 5 years to the day, actually, looking at a draft I started on the 16th of March 2016.

What has changed? Quite a lot. What has stayed the same? Me. 

Let's start with the easy part: me. 

After graduating in London I searched high and low for a job in my field of study. As it happens for most people my age, my search was completely fruitless. The inability of being able to afford internships and still live in London was a big setback, but it also meant I ended up doing something completely different with my life, something I hadn't expected at all when I stepped off my flight now almost eight years ago.

I ended up moving out of the city, to Hertfordshire, working in a visitor attraction first as front of house and now back of house. Yes, it isn't the job I wished I had when I was growing up and, yes, it's not where I see myself forever but it pays the bills and allows me to enjoy things outside of work. 

I, myself, haven't changed much. 30 is just the number I use to reply to "how old are you?", but inside I am still the silly, joke-loving, bad-humoured person that moved here after finishing my Triennale at Roma3.

The most drastic change I have endured in the past few years (ignoring the worldwide change of the global pandemic) is the fact that I now live in Stevenage, in my own house (with a lot of help from family, because who the hell can afford property in this day and age?), I have a car, I have a cat, I have a Jack. I have completed my census with time to spare and I get excited at the ide of getting a new sofa. Basically, I am an old lady and I love it.

People have come and gone, my surroundings have changed and I have found myself in a more "British" way of life. I also gifted the government a good £1300 to get a citizenship (AH! You can't get rid of me even if you try) and have found myself having a lot more English friends than I ever imagined I would. 
Don't get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with British people, or at least most!, but when you're in London you tend to be surrounded by people from a heap of different cultures and rarely the locals.

I believe I have integrated quite well and I do love it here (not Stevenage in particular) . It's my home now and I think I wouldn't change much if I had the opportunity to go back in time. Sure, I don't feel as accomplished as I thought I would be by age 30, but I guess it's a feeling most people in my age bracket have.

Now, onto the matter at hand. What has really changed for everyone since 2020? The dreaded P-word.

I remember looking at what was happening in Italy in disbelief. This can't be real, I thought. It can't be that bad. I remember telling my mum I still planned on flying in April if I were allowed to. 

In hindsight, I was being really naïve. I was believing that, maybe, we would be lucky. Yes, the situation was bad but it wouldn't take too long to get out of it.

Then March 2020 arrived. The visitor attraction I work at decided to close the doors early on, before the government had realised that the herd immunity wasn't going to work. Then my place of work closed. I remember thinking it won't be that long, we'll be out of this soon.

Then the furlough. If there's anything I can praise the UK government for is the JRS, or Job retention scheme, where the government decided to help companies in the UK to pay for staff who couldn't work from home.

During this period, Jack and I only left the house for shopping and for walks. The "novelty" of it rubbed off for me quite early on. It was nice to be able to say you were doing your part when you were spending most of your time at home watching Netflix, playing games or just sunbathing in the garden; but then the days became weeks, and the weeks months. There seemed to be no end in sight.

The wonders of technology, being able to talk to people far away through video calls and being able to still have your "social sessions" soon ran out too. I started to have enough and I was aching to get out of the house.

I only did so when I was called back to work and I kind of haven't stopped since. Working, I mean. Luckily we've survived a lot of ups and downs, with opening and closing, and opening and closing again. Today marks a year since I sat down on my sofa and thought "damn, no work tomorrow" and it seemed fitting for me to try and express what it felt like to live the pandemic, for anyone who wanted to listen.

Most people that know me know I am not a Tory by any extension of the meaning. I don't agree with their policies, I don't agree with the way they have handled the pandemic and I personally never liked Conservative parties. So, naturally, my impression of the way the Government reacted to the pandemic left me quite baffled. 

I watched, confused, as Dominic Cummings made his public apology (if we can call it that!); I watched in horror as the poor NHS, one of the best British inventions, was overrun, underpaid and sent to fight a virus with insufficient and unsuitable PPE; I lived through the Brexit deal being still concluded even with slightly more important things going on in the world; I watched, confused, as the British public clapped for carers instead of doing something more meaningful, like donating money to the NHS, volunteering or simply just staying the fuck at home.

I wonder if anyone who has lived through major historic events has felt as powerless as all of us during this pandemic; I wonder how doctors, nurses and people who have lost loved ones feel during this year. I wish I could have done more, I wish I had done more. 

In addition to the Pandemic, this year has been a year of unrest. And a year of discovery. With the BLM movement and, more recently, the women rights vigils happening in the country. If I can take anything positive from 2020 is that firstly, I am safe, my family are safe and my friends are safe; then I liked having the opportunity to reflect on my own actions and how they affect, directly or not, the wellbeing of others. It's been a great year for working on the way I use language, or the way I address people, or the way my innate prejudices affect my way of being.

All in all, 2020 has been horrible, in many ways, but I wish people actually started using it to take a good look at their lives and work on becoming their best selves.

This feels like a really long rant, so thanks if you've stuck up with it till the bitter end. It's good to be back.

PS. It's been a year, put your nose in that bloody mask.