Anche quest'anno l'Amministrazione Comunale guidata dal sindaco Raffaello Gargano, in collaborazione con i ragazzi del Servizio Civile e tutta la cittadinanza, ha organizzato un calendario di eventi all'insegna del divertimento, della buona cucina e della cultura, che possono soddisfare anche le richieste dei turisti più esigenti, oltre che rallegrare i cittadini stessi di Torchiara.

Nella splendida cornice del Centro Storico sabato 5 luglio 2008 ore 20.30, avrà luogo la serata inaugurale, sulle note della musica cilentana del gruppo Rotumbè; la riscoperta degli antichi sapori é garantita grazie agli itinerari gastronomici a tema: "la melanzana" presso il ristorante "La Villa".

Non mancherà l'intrattenimento anche per i più piccoli con "Torchiara Città dei Bambini", musica, creazioni artistiche con palloncini e dipinti sul viso, per far divertire i più piccoli e rilassare i più grandi.

Tornano anche quest'anno le "Botteghe Turris Clara", spazio tutto dedicato all'artigianato e alle tipicità locali. Per tutti i mesi di luglio e agosto poi, negli angoli più caratteristici del centro storico, alcuni gazebo in legno esporranno prodotti tipici cilentani, dai liquori artigianali ai vini del Cilento, dalla ceramica ai pizzi e ricami, dal ferro battuto all'olio ed alle spezie.

Visualizza il programma completo della rassegna "Torchiara: solstizio d'estate 2008"

Per informazioni: http://www.comune.torchiara.sa.it/home.html

[Ouest France: Du grand jeu pour «Terre d'enjeux» - Foussais-Payré]

We arrived way too early, of course. One day we will get it right and arrive with everyone else....  It was another beautiful day, which was fortunate as the night before we had had the most enormous thunderstorm. It had apparently been rumbling around for a while, but when it landed on top of our house at 3am I thought the roof was going to cave in. Thankfully we survived the onslaught and the morning was fresher, but still nice and warm.

The lunch was served in the Salle Polyvalente near the church and the Hotel de Ville. We queued for our meal and spotted our dear old neighbours at a table. It was so nice to see them there and most unexpected - we have never seen them anywhere other than round the houses.

The meal was great value - €10 got us a a large punnet of moules, and one full of gorgeous chips (you can't beat deep-fried chips...), as well as a slice of bread, some cheese, a big slice of tarte aux pommes and a glass of rosé . The moules were the best we had tasted and the adults polished them all off. The kids filled up mainly on chips, as they do, so I ended up finishing their moules off, but nothing went to waste. They had clearly over-catered as well as they were coming round offering second-helpings to anyone who wanted them. By the end of the meal, topped off with a coffee, we were all pretty well stuffed and ready for a siesta!

Sadly a siesta was not on the menu as the kids had all headed off to the school to prepare for the "Spectacle". When they returned they all looked so sweet dressed in their costumes. The school takes children from as young as 3, so there were all ages there, right up to Molly, who will be 11 this week (although she is in a year below her age in order to catch up on her french). Each class did a number of songs and dances on the theme of the environment. It was a wonderful show and, once again, we were so proud to see our two taking full part in it. Joe even had to say a line of a poem on his own and I'm sure no-one would have known he wasn't french just by listening to him.  Interestingly, Molly looked really pretty in her "designer" dress made from recycled tin cans!

After the show, the stalls were opened and it was time to spend money :)    It was a good arrangement whereby the children could buy tickets on a piece of string and would trade the tickets for turns on the different stalls. There was a bouncy-castle, a football shoot-out, a fishing lucky dip, a wheel of fortune and a cake stall. Of course this was supplemented by a well-frequented bar as well...   We had turns on pretty much everything, winning various hats, t-shirts and other random prizes. Everyone thoroughly enjoyed themselves and as usual the atmosphere was so relaxed and friendly.

After a while it was time to draw the raffle. We had our eye on the gas barbecue - ours is still at my parents' house as we didn't have room to bring it when we moved over. If we could win one here it would save them having to bring it in the car next time they drove over. But sadly it was not to be. At school the next day they dished out the "lesser" prizes and we won a bowl and some salad servers - a nice accompaniment to a barbecue...if we had one.

The night was going to continue for a long time to come, but our gang were again getting a little restless by now, having spent all their money and bounced themselves silly, so we headed home.

It had been a really wonderful weekend and we really got the feeling that we were part of a great community, something we have never truly felt before. Here's to many more weekends like this!

6 giorni di festa

9 scene attraverso tutta la città di Marrakech completamente gratuite

Oltre 600 artisti popolari che rappresentano 39 troupe folk originarie del Marocco profondo

200.000 spettatori sono attesi per la 43a Edizione.

Per maggiori infos  www.marrakechfestival.com

We watched the children as they performed songs for the parents, Bubble in her third year at pre-school now has finally got to grips with the words. She was full of flourish today because she has her dance Spectacle this evening and she has been practising all week for it. She finally got to wear make-up last night for the dress rehersal and suddenly she sees herself as a professional performer and has come quite out of her shell.

Squeak and I sat at the back of the hall to start with, next to our Dutch friends. We commented on the fact that the teacher was playing the accompanying soundtrack from a new Apple laptop, the old cassette player had obviously been ditched. Squeak was very into the music and the clapping and singing and she decided that she wanted to move forward onto the baby chairs set out at the front for the little children. I sat on the floor next to her, and she rocked along to the music. Soon she was running back and forward to Bubble, giving her hugs and kisses, a beautiful and generous smile on her face, applauding and humming and generally being super-cute. She really stole the show. Somebody turned to me and said,

"Wow, she's happy today, what did you give her for breakfast?" to which I had to reply,

"Two chocolate biscuits."

I was stationed on the 'hook-a-duck' stall and after the frenzy of the first ten minutes, where I had to contend with a stampede of kids grabbing fishing lines and prizes left, right and centre, I settled down to watch the goings on around me. I watched Bubble with her two friends running up and down the playground, blowing bubbles from giant bubble-makers they had won on the tin-can alley. She hangs around with children from the lower year, her mastery of french more at their level. She never really made it into the 'circle of trust' of the girls in her year.

She often has been upset about being unable to make any real friends at school; her 'real' friend, who was English, went back to England last year and left a gaping hole in her heart, I don't think even now she is totally over him. But because they used to speak English to each other in the playground, her french really suffered in the first two years of school and her friendship with other children too. It was nice today to see her running and shouting with the other children, no longer an outcast at last.

Squeak insisted on stripping down to her nappy and frilly pants after she decided to take a quick dip in the hook-a-duck paddling pool. I couldn't stop her and didn't want to; all the other little children were getting wet too. I wouldn't have spoiled her fun. But I had no other change of clothes and she wouldn't even wear her hat, so I left her to play on the climbing frame. By this time it was 1.30 p.m. and the midsummer sun was the hottest it had been this year.

We sat to eat the food, which was terrible. This always shocks me, considering we are in France. Bubble had her face painted with a butterfly. Squeak wanted hers done too. By this time it was so hot that the face-painting lady was having kittens because all her face paints had melted. So I bowled in and tried to slap the last remaining bits onto Squeak's face in a blobby representation of a butterfly in flight. Soon both of them looked like their whole faces had melted, not just the paint.

After half-eaten ice creams and homemade cakes were left on the table, it was time to leave. I snuck away quietly, not wanting to face the teacher, who I hadn't spoken to yet about the fact that we were leaving school for good at the end of the year. Noone else knew. So I dressed Squeak and we left through the back gate.

So this was my last experience of small-town country school life - French style. I was still an outsider looking in on it all. Like they were strange distant fish in a goldfish bowl, getting on with their lives, at their uneventful school fete, I could only observe and speak my few stock phrases in my terrible french. The children didn't seem to mind though and laughed when I spoke to them. Many of the kids replied in English, but the adults would never have done so. Why should they? We are not in England after all.

Apart the from the language, it could actually have been any school anywhere in the world this afternoon: a quaint atmosphere, crazy children (including older boys who insisted on squirting everyone with water pistols), crappy food, lots of rubbish all over the floor and naff prizes. I remember school fêtes back in England following pretty much the same format when I was younger. But here it is different, I can step back and watch it from afar. I can view this slice of french life, which I felt quite honoured to be seeing, from the inside out.

But, just because I still feel like a stranger in my daughter's school after three years, doesn't mean to say that I will not miss it when we are gone.

On Friday it is the Fete de la Musique. This is a national event that was set up in 1982 by the French Ministry of Culture to help popularise music in France and the French-speaking world. The actual day of the festival is the 21st June, the day of the summer solstice, but in Foussais our event is on the evening of the 20th. It is basically a series of free concerts showcasing all different kinds of music and brining the community together to enjoy it.

The concerts in Foussais start at 8.30pm (like most things) and look like they'll be going on into the wee small hours.  The pupils from the local schools will be singing some songs, followed by various acts that I really know nothing about (!), including "Katell et ses élèves" - with the accordian and flute , the "Chorale du foyer soleil" and "Trompes de chasse". The evening draws to a rocking close with a series of bands called  "Maigre Souris", "Nadine is a groove child" and "The Fat Pandas", the last of which is billed as "British rock", though I'm not quite sure what that is supposed to sound like.

We have Lisa's mum and sister staying with us, so I'm not sure we will be staying too late, but it will certainly be nice for them to experience a little of the event and to see, hopefully, the community gathered together.

Another chance for a community gathering comes on Sunday when it is the Kermesse - the "summer fair" if you like - at Molly & Joe's school.   This event is another all-day job, starting with a meal of moules et frites, one of our favourite meals. There is then a show by the children, followed by a raffle, with a barbecue to round off the night.  It should be another chance for us to get to know people and hopefully enjoy the lovely weather - presently predicted to be sunny and 30 degrees!

Rest assured, there will be reports and photos of all the happenings next week.

I partecipanti potevano servirsi come "aiutino" solo di giornali pornografici o altri gioccattoli erotici, assolutamente vietato toccarsi. Più di dieci ore dedicate al sesso "fai da te", in cui al massimo si poteva trarre ispirazione dai compagni ma assolutamente senza avere nessun tipo di contatto diretto. Rigorosamente proibiti anche alcool, fumo e droghe; distribuiti gratuitamente te, caffè e bevande.

L'iniziativa, organizzata dalla sessuologa locale Pia Struck, è ispirata ad una kermesse analoga nata negli Stati Uniti, "Masturbate-a-Thon", che si tiene tutti gli anni dal 1998. La "Masturbate-a-Thon" è un'idea di due sessuologi: Dr. Carol Queen e il Dr. Robert Lawrence pensata per incoraggiare la gente all’autoerotismo come strategia per il sesso sicuro, parlare di masturbazione e abbattere i taboo che ancora circondano l’argomento, facendolo in un posto pubblico e “venendo” in un posto pubblico!

Alla manifestazione in Danimarca hanno partecipato fra gli altri, gli attivisti di "Fuck for Forest", volontari che vendono i video con i loro rapporti sessuali per finanziare la salvaguardia delle foreste.
Al termine, come ogni gara che si rispetti, si e' tenuta la premiazione dei migliori praticanti dell'autoerotismo.

Fonte: un mio amico e Dandystyle.net.

Giovedì 20 Marzo ore 21:00 all' Accento Teatro a Testaccio in Via Gustavo
Bianchi 12 (Roma) www.accentoteatro.com, andrà in scena il "Comici Liberi
Show". In questo spettacolo Sergio Giuffrida, Mago Mancini, Filippo
Giardina e Fabian Grutt daranno vità ad un divertentissimo varietà
composto da monologhi, Situation comedy, Magia comica, interazioni etc..
che lascierà il pubblico incollato alla sedia.

Per chiunque volesse venire potete scrivermi o chiamare al telefono
del teatro: 0657289812

Tras dos semanas de la feria anual que se celebra en las proximidades al Palacio Real, los espectáculos de calle recuperan su lugar.

La concurrida plaza del Dam, desde donde se puede contemplar el Palacio Real, Nieuwe Kerk, el museo de cera de Madame Tussaud o el Obelisco que recuerda a las víctimas de la Segunda Guerra Mundial (Nacionaal Monument), es un punto neurálgico de Amsterdam. El Dam, como dirían los Amsterdamses, marca el lugar donde se encontraba la presa original del siglo XIII del río Amstel que da nombre a la capital de los Países Bajos (Amsterdam literalmente significa la presa del río Amstel).

Comunicada con Centraal Station a través de la calle Damrak y muy cerca de las principales arterias comerciales de la ciudad como Nieuwedijks, Kalverstraat, Spuistraat o el canal Rokin, Dam Square supone una parada necesaria para cualquier turista que recorra las calles de Amsterdam, así como un punto de encuentro estratégico para sus habitantes.

Dam acoge todo tipo de eventos. Ferias de libros, exposiciones, conciertos o festivales son comunes, pero sus residentes más habituales son los artistas ambulantes. Músicos, malabaristas, escapistas, magos, actores, pintores y especialmente las personas-estatua encuentran en esta amplia plaza tan visitada un lugar idóneo para ofrecer sus distintas habilidades a los transeúntes a cambio de la voluntad.

El pasado 8 de octubre llegaba la feria a Dam, la más amplia y extensa, tanto en puestos como en duración, desde que el sol del verano dejara de estar presente. Multitud de tiendas, juegos y divertidas atracciones, tanto para los grandes como para los pequeños, se instalaban en la plaza para permanecer allí hasta el lunes 22 de octubre.

Durante estas dos semanas, la feria ha contado con cientos de miles de visitas. A pleno rendimiento, desde por la mañana temprano hasta la noche, las músicas de rifas y de las atracciones se oían e intuían por los distintos recovecos de la llamada “Venecia del norte”. También se podían divisar las atrcciones más altas, provocadoras de los más grandes temores y vértigos.

Con la llegada de la feria el Dam cambió su visión. La majestuosidad que desprenden los edificios que la rodean se vió por unos días eclipsada por las luces de colores, los sonidos propios de los premios y pérdidas de los que desean probar su suerte y, sobretodo, se caracterizó porque en esos días fue difícil localizar a los artistas ambulantes que con sus espectáculos de calle ponen un color distinto a este lugar.

La feria ha terminado. Después de un día de recogida y de ir viendo el proceso de cambio, ha vuelto el fluir diario a la plaza y, por lo tanto, también sus habituales. La Máscara, el Dios de los mares, las dos muertes, blanca y negra, que tan solicitadas están por los turistas, y tantos otros que pasan por allí cada día, vuelven a encontrar un sitio. Bienvenidos a casa chicos, se os echaba de menos.