See Naples and Live – 20: Bones and Blood

Bones of San Gennaro

The Christian martyr and patron saint of Naples – San Gennaro, or St Januarius – lost his head when the Romans executed him in nearby Pozzuoli around 305AD. But his remains have refused to die...

They were preserved for 500 years in Neapolitan catacombs (of which more in another post soon) until the body was purloined by the nearby rival city of Benevento.

The head, however, stayed behind in Naples and the body was finally returned there to join it in the 15th century. The remains of both are reckoned to be housed in the city's Cathedral  – along with phials of the saint's blood, collected by a devotee when the original decapitation took place.

The bones are – rather indecorously – displayed in a bin in the Cathedral crypt, while the skull is said to be contained in a bust of the saint, in a chapel off the main part of the church.

But it's the blood of San Gennaro that is the big deal...

On assorted holy days, the blood is brought closer to the remains of the head and the solid dark mass turns into liquid red blood. It pretty much happens without fail... and reassures the faithful of Naples that their saint is still with them and still capable of bringing about miracles.

I hesitate to be cynical about this – especially as I've just read The Mystery of Naples, a 1909 book by Edward P Graham devoted to debunking all the non-miraculous explanations for the liquefaction that have been forward by the many doubters. 

But methinks he may protest too much...

Bust of San Gennaro

See Naples and Live – 19: Brave Art

If you look at the picture below, you'll get some idea of the scale of the picture above – ie huge.

Street art like this is another of the factors that makes Naples a constantly surprising city. This gorgeous example featuring a couple embracing is actually painted on the back of a lift that can take you down from the top of the Sanita bridge into the heart of this most Neapolitan part of Naples.

The large wall (above) covered in a mysterious (to me anyway) painting is also in Sanita. It seems to include Mary and Jesus and some sort of exorcism/rebirth. Whatever it is, it stops you in your tracks.

As does the gargantuan double portrait (below), again in Sanita.

My favourite so far, though, is another double-header (below), dominating a street in the Universita area. 

None of these works are slapdash quickies – they've obviously taken a lot of planning and a lot of hard work. And that's why they give so much pleasure to so many – day after day.

Per Ardua Ad AstraZeneca – Again

After a lot of mind, body and soul searching, I decided to have a covid booster vaccination.

Perhaps not surprisingly (see this blog An Odyssey in the Second Year of the Plague – Per Ardua Ad AstraZeneca - 19 February 2021), this turned into another little odyssey that would last almost four weeks.

For brevity's sake:

17 November: Called NHS to make an appointment. "Why did you call rather than book online?" asked the apparently helpful callroom person. "Because I thought that dealing with a person would ensure everything would be definitely sorted out." I asked which vaccine I would get and was told to ring the pharmacy involved in running the clinic.

19 November: Called the pharmacy. Did they have AstraZeneca (because I wanted that for my booster, as I'd had no ill effects from the previous two)? Yes, they said, they had limited supplies but it should be all right.

23 November: I called again to double-check and was told again it would be all right.

24 November: Clinic visit 1: They had no record of any appointment booked through the NHS. Yes, they had AstraZeneca – but no, they wouldn't let me have it. They said I had to have Moderna. I explained I didn't want it and asked to see the manager. The manager said I would need a letter from my GP to get AZ as a booster. I told him about my two conversations with his colleagues, who had never mentioned anything about a GP letter. He asked for their names – which I didn't have. 

24 November: Called my GP practice. Someone would call me back next day. I couldn't take a call next day. Someone would call me on the following Monday.

29 November: A locum GP called and said she couldn't help at all, mainly because the practice's computer system had gone down. She suggested I call again next day.

30 November: Called the GP practice and got long, long message which ended by saying the system is down so call back tomorrow.

1 December: Same thing. In desperation I tried a bit later and someone actually answered. The system was back up. I pointed out that the answer machine was still saying that it was down and that people should wait another day. They'd change it. I was told a GP would call me back later. I explained that I wouldn't be able to answer a call between 130pm and 330pm, as I would be in a studio where there is no signal. I emerged at 330pm to find I'd had a missed call. I called the practice again and asked why someone would call me at the time when I said I wouldn't be able to answer. They didn't know, but a GP would call me straight away. No one called for a couple of hours. But finally a GP that I think really knows his stuff called and offered to help. Of course I can get AZ, he said and asked why on earth his time was being wasted on this when he was already under immense pressure. Anyway he said he was writing the letter as we spoke and I could come and collect it any time.

2 December: I collected the letter.

7 December: Clinic visit 2: The first day that I was able to get to the clinic. I went there and saw the manager, who said that the letter was fine, but they'd now run out of AZ. He said they should have some more in three days' time. He gave me his direct line number and suggested that I check with him before visiting again.

9 December: I called him and asked if there would be AZ tomorrow. He couldn't confirm and said I should ring back first thing next day.

10 December: I called first thing and the line was continually dead or cutting out after one ring. I gave up phoning and went to the clinic. Clinic visit 3: the queue for vaccinations was right round the block and I didn't have time to wait.

13 December: Clinic visit 4: I went to the clinic before opening time. The queue was even longer but this time I had time to wait. I called the manager from the queue. Did they have AZ? Yes. The volunteer on the door said I couldn't have AZ. The woman at reception said I couldn't have AZ. I asked to see the manager yet again. He checked my letter and said it was ok. I waited for a bit and finally got the AZ booster – which we are all, rightly or wrongly, being encouraged to get as soon as possible. It had only taken me 27 days...

See Naples and Live – 18: Sex and Dreams and Winning the Lottery

A Naples lottery office ©Nigel Summerley

In a city of superstition and where hope always seems to keep despair at bay, it should come as no surprise that a central pillar of life in Naples is its lottery.

Not only that but there is a clear and established code that will enable you to win it. Maybe...

The code is called La Smorfia and it assigns a number (from 1 to 90) to what you have been dreaming about.

The dream subjects listed are heavy on sex and religion... and sex.

No 6 Chella che guarda nterra relates to the female genitals, while No 32 O capitone is the male equivalent. Women's breasts are No 28 E zzizze, and buttocks (which are particularly associated with good luck in Naples) are No 16 O culo.

There are lots more, including No 27 O cantaro, loosely translated as the shit bucket (a popular Neapolitan insult), and No 47 O muorto che pparla, the dead man who speaks.

I've started using La Smorfia to win the UK lottery but so far my only prizes have been two free entries... Mind you, that's an improvement on past attempts...

See Naples and Live – 17: Street of Shame

 

©Nigel Summerley

Naples has quite a bit of previous when it comes to problems with rubbish.

In the 1990s and 2000s refuse disposal (or non-disposal) in the city and the surrounding area developed into a full-blown crisis. 

The scale of the literally toxic involvement of the Camorra in the waste business is covered in Roberto Saviano's excellent book Gomorrah (see this blog An Odyssey in the Second Year of the Plague – Gomorrah - 13 Jan 2021).

In 2010 pictures of uncollected rubbish piling up in the streets of Naples made international news.

Today in the city centre things are much improved and there are plenty of well-labelled recycling bins.

But you can still occasionally turn a corner and see something like the picture above. This was grotesquely awful but at the same time so apparently carefully arranged that it could have been some sort of art installation. 

And it's quite remarkable for the diverse range of foul objects gathered together on one short stretch of pavement. If you look closely you may be able to spot some empty beer bottles stuffed inside a disused toilet basin.

Naples doesn't do things by halves...

See Naples and Live – 16: Wonder Wall

 

©Nigel Summerley

As well as matters of life and death, Naples is rather good at mystery.

And if you're interested in close-to-unsolvable mysteries, you should go and stand beneath the facade of the great Church of Gesu Nuovo, where you will find yourself staring upwards and wondering what on earth it's all about.

For a start, the front of the church is covered with what is known technically as "diamond point rustication", or in simpler terms a lot of pyramids (as you will see from these pictures).

Why? It was a look that became fashionable in the Renaissance and Naples tended to outdo other Italian cities in this respect. It was seen as a way of "ennobling" a building, or tarting it up. Similar rustication had previously been used on castles, presumably to make them look as strong and powerful as possible, and this use of pyramids to project power spilled over into the design of large civilian buildings.

But the mystery of Gesu Nuovo is something else: because each of its pyramids bears its own peculiar engraved symbol (as you will see if you study them from below) and no one has ever been able definitively to explain why. 

One theory is that they are letters from an esoteric language casting a spell that would protect the building. 

The other is that they are from the Aramaic alphabet and represent notation for a piece of music which can be played by reading the notes from right to left and from bottom to top. I overheard an Italian guide explaining this theory to a party of tourists. "And why not?" he concluded. "Naples is a city built on the edge of rationality."

And I wouldn't argue with that.

©Nigel Summerley

©Nigel Summerley

See Naples and Live – 15: The Divine Maradona

 

©Nigel Summerley

A new biography of soccer legend Diego Maradona makes the point that his life might have taken a different turn if he had signed for Sheffield United (who actually did make him an offer) rather than go on to play so spectacularly for Napoli.

Sheffield or Naples? Difficult choice, eh?

But according to Guillem Balagué's book, Maradona – The Boy, The Rebel, The God – it was in Naples that the great man was introduced to cocaine. And that was the start of a slippery slope towards disgrace.

Despite his all too human failings, Maradona is still worshipped in Naples. So much so that there is a shrine to him, right in the heart of the old city.

You can find the shrine at the entrance to the Bar Nilo in Via San Biagio dei Librai. It includes all kinds of memorabilia, but at its centre is its most impressive component: a strand of hair from the head of the man himself. It is encased in a glass block, which you can see pictured here, just below the central portrait of Maradona.

In this city of holy relics, bones, skulls and superstition, there seems nothing unusual about what amounts to a place of religious devotion focused on a remarkable soccer player. This is how mere mortals have become saints...

See Naples and Live – 14: Sirens, Sirens Everywhere...

 

Ever since I set out on An Odyssey in the Year of the Plague (see this blog March-October 2020), I seem to have been beset by Sirens.

Maybe it's just something that goes with following in the wake of Odysseus...

But Naples has a huge connection with the Sirens, and it's difficult to spend some time there without being aware of the fact.

In the National Archaeological Museum you can even interact with a digital Siren, a tiny but seductive virtual fish/woman who sings requests (see below).

©Nigel Summerley

Nearby, the museum also has this large-as-life Siren (below) complete with fishy tail but lacking any other appendages

©Nigel Summerley

According to legend, the Siren called Parthenope (see this blog – An Odyssey in the Second Year of the Plague – Parthenope – 13 February 2021) cast herself into the sea after failing to seduce Odysseus, and her dying body washed up on the beach in front of what was to become Naples.

The caryatid (below) comes complete with arms, fishy tail and everything else a Siren should have. She stands by the sea on Via Partenope and is part of the 17th-century Fontana dell'Immacolatella.

©Nigel Summerley

This Siren from the Palazzo Sanfelice (below) seems to make up in the fishy legs department for what she lacks in arms.

©Nigel Summerley

Breasts, of course, are a prominent feature in depictions of Sirens... and nowhere more so than at the Fontana di Spinacorona (below) which depicts Parthenope (in the more classically authentic half-bird, half-woman form) squeezing jets of liquid from her breasts to put out the fires of Vesuvius.

©Nigel Summerley

And last – and most contemporary – is this transport of delight spotted just across the bay from Vesuvius (which is seen reflected in the bus window). Only in Naples...

©Nigel Summerley

See Naples and Live – 13: Bloody Weird

 

Scene from an Orgies Mysteries Theatre event

Just when you think that Naples can't get any weirder... it gets weirder.

When my good friend Z from Latina (whom I'd last seen during An Odyssey in the Year of the Plague – see this blog March to October 2020) joined me for some of my time in Naples, I suggested a visit to the Hermann Nitsch Museum (knowing that she was keen to see some modern art).

However, I had absolutely no idea what I was letting us both in for. 

It didn't start well. The doors were locked and the place seemed closed (even though I'd had it confirmed by email that it would be open). Fortunately, I went for a walk around the back of the building, spied someone in a kitchen, and – after a bit of hand signalling – he made it clear that he would come and let us in. There was no one else in the large three-storey gallery – just this young curator and us.

It almost felt like the beginning of a low-budget horror movie... and that's pretty much the direction in which things were about to go...

I was busy examining what appeared to be huge blood-stained pieces of wood and canvas (which is what they turned out to be) when Z nudged me into looking at the video screen above us. I watched a succession of naked young men and women led ritually before a crowd of onlookers to take up crucifixion-type poses and then have jugs of blood force-fed into their dribbling lips or poured over their genitals. 

This was all part of performance artist Nitsch's extraordinary decades-long oeuvre of what he calls his Orgies Mysteries Theatre – an explosive mixture of stripped human bodies, pseudo-religious ceremonies and copious quantities of animal blood and guts (literally) – or sometimes fruit such as strawberries and tomatoes (any colour as long as it's red).

The large bloody stains at my feet were the leftovers from one of these "orgies", themselves now artworks.

At this point I felt slightly sickened and if I had been there on my own I might have left. But Z has a more open mind than I do, and we both persevered. And I'm glad that I did. Because I came to realise that this is genuine art...

Nitsch knows exactly what he is doing in shaking up the spectator or visitor and making them face the question: 'What exactly do I think about this?'

Other pieces feature unnervingly neat layouts of little piles of tissues... and medical instruments that made one think of torture and suffering rather than surgery and healing. It is the stuff of nightmares... maybe Nitsch's, maybe our own.

Finally, we walked down an ominous and inexplicably awful subterranean corridor lined with large black and white abstract images and carefully arranged benches that looked as if they were waiting for bodies to be laid on them. It all induced a feeling that I had not experienced in quite the same way anywhere – apart from when I once visited the prison huts of Auschwitz-Birkenau.

If you want to get some idea of what Nitsch is all about – and have a strong mind and stomach – visit https://www.museonitsch.org/en/.

See Naples and Live – 12: Half Man, Half Fish

 

Strange figures abound on the streets of Naples – some so odd that there is not always agreement as to who they even are...

Just up the road from the apartment in which I stayed in the Universita district was the bas-relief of this intriguing character, adorning a wall.

Some refer to him as "the hairy man", as if he were a kind of urban Bigfoot. But the large dagger he carries has led to him being given more specific identities.

Some claim that this is a depiction of Orion – the giant huntsman who ended up placed among the stars by Zeus.

But most people – including me – prefer to see this as the much more fascinating Cola Pesce (or Nick the Fish), a legendary character bound up strongly with Naples and with Sicily, and also with the ubiquitous Sirens who once held terrifying sway along the Odyssean coasts of south-western Italy (of which more soon in this blog).

Cola (short for Niccolo) was a boy who spent so much time swimming that his mother said he might as well be a fish. And that's what he more or less became, spending most of his time in the sea. When he wanted to travel long distances, he allowed himself to be swallowed by a large fish – and then, when he reached his destination, he used his knife to cut the fish open from the inside and escape.

The king heard of Cola's prowess and used him to locate treasure in the Bay of Naples, and also to report back on how the island of Sicily was supported by vast pillars rising from the seabed.

To find out how deep Cola could go, the king asked him to follow a cannonball fired into the sea. Cola did as he was ordered and caught the cannonball way down in the depths... but then the sea mysteriously closed over him and trapped him there forever.

The image of "the hairy man" or perhaps "the wavy man" is said to have been found in the 13th century but it's been argued that it is much, much older.

It certainly looks like Cola, the boy who grew up to live – and die – in the sea.

But there are other depictions of the marine hero... See below for a more contemporary one, also from the streets of Naples.

See Naples and Live – 11: A Home from Home

 

Naples is certainly a place of dramatic juxtapositions... rich and poor, sacred and profane, the living and the dead... but surely none more bizarre than the house of US civil rights heroine Rosa Parks sitting in the courtyard of the Palazzo Reale?

It's such a weird transplantation that it somehow seems utterly normal. You have to do a double take or two before you can assimilate the fact that, yes, this is what you are actually looking at...

This white clapboard house used to stand in Detroit, where Parks went to live after her 1955 refusal to give up her seat on a bus made Alabama too hot for her.

In 2008 the house was due for demolition but Parks's niece bought it and gave it to artist Ryan Mendoza. After failing to get support to save the building, Mendoza took it to pieces and moved it to his studio in Berlin.

A plan to take it back to the States to be part of a civil rights exhibition fell through... and that's when Naples stepped in and offered space for it to be displayed, under the title Almost Home.

Perhaps it is the incredible nature of the journey of the Rosa Parks house that somehow resonates with the lives of all of us.

How on earth did we end up where we are? Is "almost home" as good as being home? Or is "almost home" the nearest we're ever going to get to a neat ending?

See Naples and Live – 10: Market Forces

Sometimes it's impossible to see a place that you really want to see... because it just isn't there any more.

Many things drew me back to Naples... but one in particular was the chance to visit the Piazza Mercato, the historic Market Square that I previously wrote about and featured paintings of in this blog (An Odyssey in the Second Year of the Plague – Street Fight in Naples – 19 January 2021).

I was prepared for disappointment (I knew that it was now all but abandoned) but not on the level that I was to experience it.

The piazza had once been the almost-theatrical centre stage of life – and death – in Naples.

The 17th-century Masaniello revolt had taken place here, going through every possible stage from euphoric celebration to the darkest violence.

It was a place of public torture and execution... and it was also a place of commerce and the joys of life... all played out beneath the backdrop of Vesuvius, the volcano that could erupt and wreak havoc at any moment.

Domenico Gargiulo made the most remarkable depiction of its heyday (see below). But when I finally walked out across that desolate space, I couldn't even manage to get a decent photograph to convey the terrible emptiness of it.

My picture at the top of this post is a mess... a picture of the hodge-podge at just one corner of the square. That obelisk fountain was one of two built in the 18th century – which added little to the place. The only common feature in my picture and Gargiulo's is the tower of the Carmine church.

The past is definitely another piazza...

Piazza Mercato by Domenico Gargiulo

How Journalism Works

I'd better declare my interest at the beginning...

Some time ago, when I was writing a music column for an evening paper, I received an advance copy of Waterloo by Abba. This was prior to their Eurovision appearance and I had no idea who they were. My review simply stated that this was without doubt a number one hit record. 

The rest is history... two master composers, two great singers, a band that rivalled the Beatles in producing pop music with universal appeal. What's not to like?

Abba's recent return has been a general cause of excitement. But today the Telegraph carries a piece by someone called Ed Power, basically using several hundred words to sneer at Abba for saying they won't be doing any more after their comeback album and ongoing hi-tech London stage show.

Ed Power suggests that this may be because their new music isn't very good – and that's why they are not contemplating doing proper concerts. The more likely reason why two divorced couples in their seventies (who now have completely different lives) might not want to go out on the road together seems to have escaped Ed Power. As has the fact that they possibly have nothing left to prove.

Strangely, exactly two weeks ago, someone called Ed Power wrote a lengthy positive puff piece for the new Abba show and album in the Telegraph.

What happened in between? Abba gave an exclusive interview to the Guardian... 

See Naples and Live – 9: Deeply Moving

Galleria Borbonica             ©Nigel Summerley

As I've already mentioned (see this blog 14 October 2021, See Naples and Live – 2: Going Underground), some of the most remarkable sights of Naples are below street level, one of the most unusual being the Galleria Borbonica.

This was originally a huge tunnel commissioned by the Bourbon king Ferdinand II in 1853. His aim was to have an underground link from his palace to the army barracks (and to the Bay of Naples). He lived in troubled times, and the tunnel would ensure that either his troops could come and rescue him and/or that he could escape from the city by sea.

The tunnelling hit so many technical hitches that the king never saw it properly completed.

But in the Second World War it came into its own as a vast air-raid shelter. And in the 1970s it became a municipal dump for abandoned cars and scooters (many of them still there today).

During the war it was fitted with electric lights and extremely basic toilet facilities for the crowds who had to live underground while bombs rained down destroying their city. They had swapped one kind of hell for another...

But one piece of graffiti that one of them left behind summed up their situation – and perhaps also the spirit of Naples.

It reads "Noivivi". Just one word that probably should be two: "Noi vivi". But even then it wouldn't be, strictly speaking, grammatical.

But what it translates as is "Us alive". It must have been a message of defiance and hope and positivity written in the dark and filth and despair of the tunnel. And it meant: "We are still here. We survive."

See Naples and Live – 8: You Couldn't Make It Up

"Do that mean what I think it do?" as they say in Tennessee.

Well, yes, it appears to. And it's not just the name of one of Naples' most popular nocturnal eating spots... it's also a franchise spreading across Italy.

Just a few doors up from where I was staying in the Universit
a area of the city, it's especially popular with students.

I didn't sample its wares, preferring to frequent more traditionally named eateries. But for some reason it always made me smile on the way home after a night out.

See Naples and Live – 7: Prints Charming

 

©Nigel Summerley

This is the phone in the workshop of Carmine Cervone in Naples... and it works.

But it's not the most interesting of his machines – at least not to a journalist who was a reporter, sub-editor and production editor going back to the days of typewriters, copy paper and hot metal.

Carmine has linotype machines. And although they look like museum pieces, they are actually there to be used for printing... posters, papers, books, whatever comes along.

"The problem with new technology," observed Carmine, "is that it can produce idiots."

I almost cried as he spoke lovingly of the joys of beautifully designed typefaces, slugs of metal, and the skill of reading type upside down and back to front – just as I had to do on my first newspaper in the Midlands and later in the final days of Fleet Street. 

Carmine is not just a tipografo but he is also a filosofo. He says that to him it is important to work no more than four hours a day: "Then I can have time just to think."

Carmine Cervone's workshop and small museum is at Strada dell'Anticaglia 10-12, Napoli; the number of that phone is 00 39 081 29 54 83.

The wonderful Carmine Cervone ©Nigel Summerley

Still in use... a linotype machine                 ©Nigel Summerley

See Naples and Live – 6: Oh Mercy

There are many strange images in Naples depicting everything from the sacred to the profane – and pretty much every possible mixture of the two.

But the picture of a young woman letting an old man suck her naked breast must be among the most remarkable. All the more so because it helps form the centrepiece of a church.

It's part of Seven Works of Mercy by Caravaggio and was commissioned to go above the altar of the Pio Monte della Misericordia. 

I'd seen pictures of the painting and, to be honest, wondered what all the fuss was about. It seemed to be a dark, disjointed and downright odd piece of work.

But when I walked in and saw the real thing, I got it straight away. It's big, bold and utterly overpowering. 

That breastfeeding covers two works of mercy (visiting the imprisoned and feeding the hungry) and comes from the classical Roman story of Pero, a woman who breastfed – and ultimately saved – her father when he was locked up and sentenced to starve to death.

The other manifestations of mercy shown are: clothing the naked, giving shelter to the homeless, giving drink to the thirsty, visiting the sick, and burying the dead. And Caravaggio brings it all back home to Napoli; as Peter Robb says in his excellent book Street Fight in Naples: "... the angels looked as if they'd parked their Vespa round the corner... Mary seemed about to lower a basket for a loaf of bread or a packet of Marlboro..."

There are other paintings in Misericordia, but they only serve to show how far Caravaggio was ahead of – and then an influence on – his contemporaries.

He basically dared to go where other artists hadn't dreamed of going.

See Naples and Live – 5: Beauty and the Mask

©Nigel Summerley

Readers of An Odyssey in the Year of the Plague (see this blog, March to October 2020) may remember this masked woman whom I photographed in the window of a Naples pharmacy last year. Like everyone around at that time, she was properly covered up.

A year on, she seems to be following the UK government's guidance (ie you don't have to do anything if you don't feel like it) rather than the rules in Italy, where carrying a vaccination certificate and wearing a mask is a fact of daily life. At Napoli Centrale railway station the other day I saw an armed cop remind the only person in the place who wasn't wearing a mask to put one on straight away...

Anyway, below is how Our Lady of the Pharmacy appears this week: maskless and fancy free.

It's might just be me, but I think she looks much more alluring with her mask on... doesn't she?

©Nigel Summerley

See Naples and Live – 4: Beyond Words, Beyond Pictures

©Nigel Summerley

The other day I talked about being lost for words – in the subterranean world hidden away beneath the centre of Naples.

But not long after that, I was somewhere where I was not only lost for words, but sickened by sights that I could not allow myself to even hold up a camera to. (The picture above is of one of the more wholesome exhibits.)

That's not to say that I wish I had not visited Napoli's Museo di Anatomia Umana; everyone should see what can be seen there – if they can stomach it.

This is definitely not light entertainment. As well as showing assorted bodies and bits to illustrate the workings of the human being, the Museo also has a collection of what can go terribly wrong with it – in the form of deformed foetuses that never made it into life, but have an eternal life here preserved in large jars in formaldehyde or alcohol.

There are more than 50 of these on show, and to see them is like being present at some mass atrocity – although the atrocity here has been committed by nature (or, rather, its failings).

I will not go into details any more than I am able to provide photographs.

But I do say: go and face these awful things – and realise how blessed you are to be alive.

See Naples and Live – 3: See Naples and Dry

 

©Nigel Summerley

One of the great delights of Naples – and there are many – is to be able to hang your washing out over the street, go out for the day, and return in the evening to find every bit of your laundry perfectly dry.

It also makes you part of the local community, since not only are all their clothes on display to you and every other passer-by (from mundane socks and knickers to sometimes exotic garments of uncertain roles), but yours are on show to them.

My favourite piece of laundry so far – spotted hanging from a balcony in the quintessential old Neapolitan area of Sanita – was a gigantic technicolour bedspread featuring the face of Marilyn Monroe. My humble effort, pictured above, could hardly compete...

See Naples and Live – 2: Going Underground

 

©Nigel Summerley

I am seldom lost for words, I'm told... But I was stunned into silence by the subterranean galleries of Pietrasanta, far beneath the very centre of Naples. Partly because of my Italian guide's limited English and my own limited Italian... but mainly because I have seldom been anywhere so awe-inspiring.

Here we were, going the equivalent of four or five storeys below ground, through a maze of tunnels and channels, where the local tuff stone had once been extensively mined and where in the Second World War Neapolitans had sheltered from the bombs raining down on them.

The galleries take you back to the times of the Romans and the Greeks and the ancient inhabitants of Naples... and really do stun you into silence.

©Nigel Summerley

©Nigel Summerley

See Naples and Live

Some Neapolitan philosophy

I fell in love with Naples last year – on my Odyssey in the Year of the Plague (see this blog from March to October 2020). But I was only passing through, so it may have been just a temporary infatuation.

I had to return to see if it was the real thing. Was it truly as alive and and as crazy and as exciting as I thought? No, it isn't – I find that now I'm back, it's even more so, in all departments.

I'm only here for a few days, but Marco – in whose place I'm staying in the old city – has given me a list of personally recommended restaurants and bars that could occupy every hour of the days and nights of my visit.

And I already have my own impossible list of amazing things that I want to see.

Another mini odyssey starts here...

Phil's Fills

 

I seem to be paying tribute to drummers on the way out... So maybe it would be good to honour Phil Collins while he's still performing – although not on the drums.

He is now literally incapable of picking up the sticks as a result of health problems. So he will be concentrating on singing on what looks like the last tour by Genesis.

Collins seems to provoke a Marmite-ish reaction, although it's not an even split – more people appear to dislike him than to like him.

I'm not clear why he arouses such animosity. I have little interest in his personal life or behaviour... and I hear him only as a man who has spoken with such a clear voice through his drums.

If he has come over as arrogant at times, he probably has some right to do so. Not only did he play one of the most monstrously good breaks of all time on In The Air Tonight but he came up with his own original sound for the drums.

The fact that he now cannot play at all is a real tragedy – whatever one thinks of him.

Solid Gone

A witty rock'n'roll friend from Tucson, Arizona, has written to me suggesting that I might submit my CV in connection with a vacancy that has arisen in the Rolling Stones. "You have that jazz background. And you’re in their age group," he observes.

In fact, I'm not quite that old... yet. And I can't say that the post appeals – even if it were on offer.

No one can really fill Charlie Watts's drumming shoes. Not because he was the "ultimate" or the "greatest" drummer, as the media and various tribute-givers would have us believe – but because he was the perfect man for the job.

Perfect, because he was happy to have a back seat and just take care of the business that was required.

That's not to denigrate his talents. But those saying what a brilliant drummer he was are really saying that he knew his place – i.e. keeping time and nothing too fancy.

He wasn't Ginger Baker or Keith Moon or Buddy Rich or Gene Krupa – genius drummers who actually defined and directed the bands that they played in. That's why the Stones will roll on and still sound pretty much the same.

Charlie Watts was a solid drummer who knew what he was there to do and did it. He also seems to have been a truly decent bloke. And in the world of rock'n'roll that counts for a lot.

Joey Jordison – Dead and Alive

 

Joey Jordison... man in the Slipknot mask

I confess to once buying a Slipknot album... but found only one thing about its intensely dark metal that impressed... the impossibly brilliant drumming of Joey Jordison.

It's truly sad news that he has died, aged only 46, after a musical career that probably inspired thousands of young drummers to pick up the sticks.

Jordison was a master of double-bass-drumming and mesmerising technique. The fact that he suffered from acute transverse myelitis, a disease that at one point robbed him of the use of a leg, was a terrible irony.

His determination to keep playing had helped him overcome even that setback, yet in the end it wasn't enough to keep him alive...

But, as with all of the drumming greats, he will live on in the playing of his successors.

An Odyssey in the Second Year of the Plague – Back to Black

It all started with unfathomable things happening in China.

Initially, no one in the West paid much attention to it.

It travelled via the trade routes and port cities.

It affected the poor far worse than the rich.

The authorities were at a loss to know how to deal with it.

Conspiracy theories regarding its cause abounded.

Doctors were at the forefront of being victims of it.

And then doctors began refusing to see patients.

Some people shut themselves away and avoided contact with everyone else.

Others just partied and didn't care about anyone but themselves.

Does any of this sound familiar?

This is all chronicled in the excellent Philip Ziegler book The Black Death. It's all about the 14th-century plague of course – but it's also about how humans react to such calamities – and perhaps how we have learned nothing at all...

An Odyssey in the Second Year of the Plague – 0 Out of 1010

Could the 1010 Labs story get any worse?

Of course it could. After chasing them with emails and phone calls, they finally sent me my test result... but they managed to send me my Day 2 test result for the second time, rather than the result of my Day 8 test, for which I had been waiting a week.

After yet another email to them, pointing out the uselessness of what they had just sent me, I finally got the Day 8 result... on day 16 of my 10-day quarantine.

It was negative – which was just as well, since I had given up waiting for it and returned to "normal" life.

It seems I am far from alone in my dissatisfaction with 1010 Labs.

The Telegraph reports: "Ninety-five per cent of its reviews on Trustpilot were rated 'bad', with one customer saying they were still waiting for their test result after two weeks. 'I am appalled that operators like this end up on a Government website, with the appearance of being recommended,' they said."

Absolutely. And we're paying large amounts of money for this shambles.

An Odyssey in the Second Year of the Plague – Test and No Trace

1010 Labs – the company that managed to send a quarantine testing kit to my address in the UK while I was yet to return home from Greece [see this blog An Odyssey in the Second Year of the Plague – Great Britain?] – seems to go from strength to strength.

I got the result of my Day 2 test from them a couple of days later and that was negative.

I posted my Day 8 test off on 1 July – and on 8 July (that's Day 15 of my 10-day quarantine) I was still waiting for the result.

So I emailed them - no response.

So then I phoned and spoke to someone called Asal who promised the result would be emailed to me that very day – and also that they would ring me back to tell me why I had had to wait a week.

They didn't phone – and I didn't get my result.

I phoned again and after queueing behind seven other callers (complainants?) I was told they had "been very busy". That didn't seem to cut it as an explanation for why I was still waiting for a 48-hour test result after seven days.

This time I was promised that I would have the result "by the end of today".

I asked the name of the call-handler. She said she wasn't allowed to identify herself. But why not? The previous call-handler had done so. We're not allowed to, she repeated. I asked for the name of the head of the company. She didn't know it. I asked for the address of the company. She didn't know it. I asked her where exactly in the world she was. She said she wasn't allowed to tell me.

So this is 1010 Labs – a company that has been charging travellers (who have had little choice) nearly £130 for two tests during a 10-day quarantine – or in my case, it seems, £130 for one test during a 10-day quarantine.

I'll write to the company, to the Department of Health and to my MP about this sorry mess. But I think we all know where this is heading... the same place as where the UK is going to...

An Odyssey in the Second Year of the Plague – Mail Bonding

I've been asked to report any unusual symptoms while in quarantine... The only one I've noticed so far is that I keep reading the Daily Mail and nodding in agreement...

After identifying with the complaints of Dame Joan Collins about the Covid Stasi [see this blog An Odyssey in the Second Year of the Plague – I'm with Joan Collins, 28 June 2021], I now find that I'm heartily in agreement with my former Oldie magazine colleague and Mail columnist Stephen Glover.

Like me, he is at home under quarantine, having returned from an amber list country. 

"It is practically ludicrous that I should be forced to quarantine since the current covid infection rate in Italy is less than five per cent of the UK’s, and in any case I am double-jabbed," he writes.

"Yet every day I am telephoned by someone from NHS Test and Trace who asks me whether I am quarantining at home"

Unlike Dame Joan and me, he has not yet had the knock at the door...

But what angers him the most is the long list of exemptions which means that we are the poor suckers who are having to obey the rules, while others don't. "How monstrously unfair that a government which has the gall to subject its citizens to this ridiculous palaver should arbitrarily exempt hand-picked business people and football grandees from its meddlesome restrictions," he says.

Quite.

An Odyssey in the Second Year of the Plague – The Maltese Sanction

A map... and a rather good one

Weird a place as it is, I've always had a soft spot for Malta... and so of course does the British government.

The latter says it's now fine for tourists to visit the former.

But hold on... Malta says it's only fine if they can prove they have had two vaccinations. And – here's the rub – the proof has to be in a letter, not on a smartphone. That's a piece of paper! Not some app-based thing.

Not possessing a smartphone, I made sure to take a letter with me to Ithaca this month.

Wouldn't it be rather wonderful if the ubiquity of the smartphone began to fade just a little bit?

We might then see tourists using maps instead of walking around staring at their phones... or looking about them at their surroundings... or even talking to local people to ask them the way.

Congratulations to Malta, which is reported as saying: “From 30 June 2021, all arrivals from the UK need to present proof of full vaccination (two doses). Only the paper version of the NHS Covid vaccination letter, with subject ‘Coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccination confirmation: two doses received’, will be accepted, not the digital app version, nor a printout from the digital app.”