Italy Blog

OK, I admit it, I don’t know a fat lot about football, but even I could tell Italy’s performance in its inaugural 2010 World Cup match against Paraguay was uninspiring, and uninspired. An ex-champion himself, Marcello Lippi , Italy’s coach, blamed his team’s less than sparkling performance on the rain soaked slippery terrain, but his excuse won’t hold much water with Italy’s hoards of football fans.  After all, the pitch was slippery for both teams.

Original post: 
Italy Starts 2010 World Cup with Lackluster Performance

Minister for Legislative Simplification Roberto Calderoli has angered Italy’s World Cup footballers by suggesting that they should decline possible bonuses because of the country’s economic situation. Mr Calderoli called upon the FIGC [ Italian Football Federation] to reduce any bonuses that might be paid.

Read more here:
World Cup players should decline bonus, says Minister

This week during the political chat show called Ballarò , Italy’s flamboyant prime minister rang to call a La Repubblica journalist who claimed Berlusconi has encouraged tax evasi0n in Italy, a liar.  That was not all, Berlusconi also questioned the results of a poll which indicated that support for his government has fallen. After having made his point, Berlusconi abruptly hung up, without giving the journalist any opportunity to respond.  Nor was Nando Pagnoncelli , head of the independent polling company, IPSOS, allowed to reply.  Just Berlusconi’s intervention, Pagnoncelli did defend himself rather well, stating that IPSOS is quoted on the Paris stock exchange, and mentioned that if IPSOS stockholders believed the company had been fiddling its poll figures, he would be kicked out. In the Ballarò television studio at the time was Berlusconi’s finance minister, Giulio Tremonti , who kept silent, but looked to be squirming.  La Repubblica has published a video of Silvio Berlusconi calling for all to see.

Go here to read the rest: 
Silvio Berlusconi Calling

Any visitor to Venice can see how Venetian design has taken its inspiration from city itself; from the shapes created by the omnipresent canals, to all the bridges, light, and the colours of Venice.  Venice really is a unique city. It was during the Renaissance period that the Italian cities of Venice and Florence became renowned for their art.  Venice in particular built a reputation for producing items which were inspired by classical Greek and Roman culture

More here: 
Italian Design – Venetian styling

The Strokes, The Raconteurs, The Hives and Arctic Monkeys are only a few bands that pop into mind when hearing Les Fauves do their stuff.  That’s right, Les Fauves is now no longer the name of a short-lived group of impressionist artists from the early 20th century, nor has the Italian band got anything to do with the Auzzie band – THE Fauves. Nope, Les Fauves is now the name of a 21 st century Italian punk rock band .  The band seems to spend quite bit of its time playing gigs in venues around London in the UK. The band does all it can to reveal and show off the cool, rhythmic, and aggressive inner-selves of its members with its 21 st century version of punk rock.

Read the original post:
Italian Indie Punk Rock from Italian Band – Les Fauves

The Fiat themed bar, the Fiat Open Lounge celebrated the arrival of the summer yesterday evening.  At the summer season opening do in this upmarket Milan equivalent of a pub, was the gorgeous Spanish actress and model Laura Barriales , as well as Andrea Fumagalli , otherwise known as Andy, who is an ex-member of a popular Italian band called Bluvertigo . Barriales did her thing and looked beautiful, which is not something this glamorous young lady has any trouble doing whatsoever.  She smiled ever so sweetly when I turned my camera upon her.

Here is the original post: 
The Fiat Open Lounge in Milan Sees in the Summer

A strange and ever changing combination of punk, psychedelic pop, and garage-beat hits you when you put a track from Italian indie band The Calorifer Is Very Hot! on. It can be hard to figure out what to call their music and quite frankly that’s their fault, as they explain: “we started out without any idea what music we wanted to play, knowing only that we wanted to create our own identity

See the original post here: 
Indie Interview with The Calorifer Is Very Hot

Letter’s to Juliet is a new film which caught my eye because most of it has been filmed in and around Verona in Italy.  It looks as though Letter’s to Juliet, which is a light romantic comedy, with a hint of mystery thrown in for good measure, is creating something of a buzz, too. Letters to Juliet – filmed around Verona, Italy The film has earned itself a score of 6.9/10 on the movie site IMDb: Letter’s to Juliet on IMDb .  The stars of the film include Amanda Seyfried and Vanessa Redgrave , quite a number of Italians, a red Fiat 500, and, of course, Italy.

Read the original post:
Letters to Juliet – Filmed in Verona, Italy

Once again thousands descended upon Milan for this year’s Salone del Mobile international furniture design fest.  Attendance was 7% up on last year.  With 56% of the 2010 Milan design show’s exhibitors coming from beyond Italy’s borders, Il Salone Del Mobile is truly an international event. Italian Design It seems the Il Salone Del Mobile event becomes bigger and bigger with each year that passes. The 2010 edition boasted even more side-shows and feature-events than last year’s edition, each of which showed off a fantastic mix of products

View original here: 
Optimism at Milan’s 2010 Salone del Mobile Design Fair

For reasons unknown, I had never let my mind wander towards something like Italian indie music. I guess that to me the idea of indie music in Italy got lost somewhere in amongst football, pizza, and Eros Ramazzotti. One day I heard of an Italian indie band called LetHerDive, and had a listen.  I was pleasantly surprised and decided I had to take a closer look.  The more I looked and the deeper I dug, the more I liked what I heard and saw.  I realised that I shouldn’t have let Eros Ramazzotti (in spite of his vast talent) dominate my ear canals and disrupt my search for fresh Italian indie music

View original post here:
Independent Italy – The Indie Music Scene in Italy