Casa di Giulietta , Verona

Perhaps the strangest thing we encountered on our recent visit to Italy was La Casa di Giulietta in Verona. The house originally dates back to the 13th century but has been modified over the years including a 1930's reconstruction of a renaissance balcony. The original owners of the house were the Dal Cappella family and their coat of arms is over the arched entrance to the courtyard. The similarity between the family name and Capulet, led some to surmise that they may have been the inspiration for Shakespeare's story, however, it was during the inter war depression that the legend really came into it's own. The City Council, or what passed for the tourist board in the 1920's turned the property into a museum, began advertising the new attraction as Juliet's House in the hope that the increase in tourism would kick start the local economy, and create a few jobs. However, it has taken on a life of it's own. Visitors flock from all over the world to touch the right breast of the bronze Juliet statue (for luck) and leave messages asking for Juliet's help in matters of love. These notes are stuck to the walls in the entrance archway by means of gum which has been chewed by both partners in a relationship for maximum effect. Not to be outdone the 13th century convent of San Francesco al Corso, which by 1935 was controlled by the Civic Museums, was opened at the site of Juliet's tomb. Even here the walls are graffitied with messages and requests for help in matters of love.

Okay I confess that I paid money to go into the tomb, but I should say that the convent complex has been turned into a nice little museum/gallery and was in itself worth the three euro entry fee. However, the museum are cynically perpetuating the racket by virtue of having one room, a restoration of a complete set of mural decorations rescued from a riverside palazzo's that was demolished to make way for flood defenses, which is hired out for wedding ceremonies.

I suppose what I find most disturbing about this is that this is another example of people not being able to separate fact from fiction. Just as the Da Vinci Code has visitors flocking to Roslyn many of who are convinced that it has links with the Priory of Sion (which doesn't exist) and the Freemasons (who exist but apparently have nothing to do with Roslyn), the house and tomb have people visiting who are so blinded by their own fantasy that they not only want a fictional character to be real but they also want this figment of a dead playwright's imagination to fix their broken hearts and relationships. From an anthropological view it is interesting as this is effectively the creation of a saint/goddess together the associates pilgrimage and ritual, but on the other hand it could also be said to be a study of just how gullible people are.

Password thief about

It seems that someone is making a concerted effort to break into my blogs. Three alerts from blogger in the last hour that someone has been requesting the password for the various blogs. Now it could be someone who has got the name of their blog wrong, but given that I have three blog accounts and there has been an attempt on all of them makes that unlikely. The other alternative is that someone is trying to hack into random account and I've been unlucky, which makes slightly more sense. The third, and most paranoid, option is that someone is targeting my accounts to either see what is being said about them, in unpublished posts, to make statements in my name to make me look bad, or to lock me out of my accounts altogether. Given that someone was actually stupid enough to suggest they they could, or rather they could get someone else to, hack into my server, despite doing so is a criminal act, you can see why I could be forgiven for the paranoia. Anyway the passwords have been changed, so the accounts should be safe.

I'm almost officially a student!

Today I received my offer of a place on the Edinburgh MBA, which I am very pleased about. What I'm not please about is the mess up with funding, so I might have to defer a year because of that, which is not a very pleasing prospect. Hopefully I'll be able to work something out but having just had the expense of a long break in Italy there isn't much left in the way of savings.

Sorry doesn't cut it anymore.

I'm getting to the point where I am ready to give up on humanity. Just as I think that I've got rid of the scheming, mixing, sickos out of my life, they reappear, don't accept being blanked and then play at being innocent and wounded that you would think badly of them. If that's not enough they start putting the blame onto the very people that they have gone out of their way to hurt.

Honestly, people like that should be locked up for the safety of the wider society, because their malevolence clearly knows no bounds and like a cancer they will spread their viciousness out to the wider world infecting and destroying all that they come into contact with.