The Siena Dream

Tim: Ok, I think this flu medicine is too strong because Siena slipped by me like a dream. We spent a couple of nights walking the Campo, the big square with the tower and horse race. We went to the Basilica twice, the second time because it closed for mass on Sunday morning. We had a quick lunch or two - we are trying to economise - and some okay dinners. It was sunny and bright, but dreamy; it all seems so vague. But the television, long standing friend, talks to me in a soothing language I can understand.




Watched the Italian
'Deal or No Deal' again. Impossibly, it sometimes goes for 60 minutes in primetime and has no ads. It is strung out by the host who struts around the set, talking on a megaphone, singing, dancing, sighing, but mainly talking and running his hands through his hair. When they want to offer a deal, the phone will ring, he will answer with 'Doctor?', talk for 30 seconds, argue a little, silently rub his chin then in a resigned manner offer the contestant a deal. When the contestant gets lucky there is barber-shop music and much excited strutting; when they guess wrong, there are funeral dirges on strings and close-ups of the tears. Polly tells me she would fail a media studies student who handed such hackneyed work in. Wouldn't miss it.

Later, I began to watch a debate on the state of Italian hospitals but began channel surfing up and down. I settled on someone singing, whilst acrobats in orange jumpsuits sprung around the set on bungy cords. Polly looked up and asked if this was still the hospital debate. I didn't know.

On another channel, women painted their breasts in bright colours, pressed them to canvases and the boyfriends had to guess whose canvas was whose. I turned the channel over; there were going to be no winners here.

Someone on another channel was singing badly as others did sychronised swimming in a round pool.

Polly : Oh, for a video recorder...my Year 11 unit on representations of women would be complete. So far they have been having orgasms whilst eating, buying cars and having furniture delivered. They show almost as much joy, but manage to keep most of their clothes on, when mopping the floor. Almost every show is hosted by a middle aged man with a spreading girth who is accompanied, it would seem, by his very attractive and scantily clad granddaughter. We wouldn't show such obvious double standards, would we Darryl...or Bert...or Ian Turpie.

And for a quick word about Siena itself...
We woke up on our last morning finally feeling that the worst of the cold was behind us. So we headed off to the Duomo. Now let me explain that I felt some reluctance here - i'm not at all fond of the idea of paying to enter churches. Let's face it - with the current state of Catholicism, they should be paying us to go to church. And I'm not just some Protestant tourist - I bat for the same team...I even promote them for a living. Anyway, my misgivings disappeared the moment I entered the building. It was glorious. In particular I fell in love with the room full of illuminated choral manuscripts from the 14th century.