Category Archives: living in Italy

Is Football Worth It? The Cost of Stadium Violence in Europe

February 7, 2003 Deirdre Straughan Leave a comment

^ carabinieri arriving for a soccer match at Milan’s San Siro stadium

I used to believe that spectator sports were a way of channeling the mob’s inherent violence into vicarious forms of conflict. “Supporting” a team means joining a sort of artificial tribe, comprised of that team’s fans. You signal your membership in the tribe by wearing the team colors, chanting the team chant, and despising rival tribes. The teams on the field play out a ritualized battle in which one side wins and the other loses, with more or less actual violence and possibility of injury, depending on the sport.

Unfortunately, nowadays the tribes no longer leave the battle to the teams on the field. While in England for my MBA residential school, I had time one evening to do my usual hotel thing: flipping channels on the TV. One program showed a town’s preparations for a football (soccer) match. A trainload of fans were met at the station by mounted police in riot gear – even the horses had plastic shields over their eyes. The crowd was escorted off the train, with mounted police leading, and more walking alongside. The road from the station to the arena was lined on both sides with police, standing shoulder to shoulder in flourescent yellow jackets; the visiting fans had to walk straight along the road to the arena.

Inside the arena, a police chief remarked to the TV crew that there were 100 seats unsold for the match, so they would be able to create a buffer zone between the opposing fans. I didn’t stay with the program to see what happened, but later on saw footage of rowdy fans (faces electronically blotched out) being dragged away by police.

Some games in Milan involve similar preparations: busloads of police arrive well before the match begins, and are presumably dispersed throughout the stadium to maintain order. For games when certain nationalities of foreign fans are expected, the mayor orders all bars nearby not to serve beer after a certain time.

If I were a housebreaker, crime boss, etc., I’d be delighted to know that I could get on with my trade in peace during football games, when the bulk of a city’s police force are busy keeping the fans from killing each other.

However, I am only a taxpayer, wondering how much all this is costing me. Is football worth the cost to society, even for those who care about the sport? A few years ago, in an effort to curb stadium violence, the then-minister of sport in Italy threatened to have the games played in empty stadiums, viewable only on TV. How is it “sport” when we must go to such lengths to prevent the audience getting hurt?

The whole concept of “supporting a team” seems very artificial to me. I can understand rooting for one’s national team during the Olympics or the World Cup – at least you have a passport in common with them, and perhaps a language, culture, and history (although the increasing phenomenon of athletes migrating, to countries where they can be better supported for an Olympic bid, or get a spot on a less-exalted team, calls that into question). In a sense, you are cheering your country’s ability to produce good players – there are worse national traits to celebrate.

But it’s rare for a “local” professional football team to have a single player from the city that they supposedly represent – many of the players won’t even be from the same country. So, when we cheer for AC Milan, what are we applauding? Berlusconi’s ability to buy good players? Given the mysteries shrouding the origin of his personal fortune, this is not something that makes me cheerful. Still less do I feel that football is worth getting violent about, unless maybe I could beat up Berlusconi.

Feb 9, 2003

I wrote the above a few days ago, inspired by the TV show I saw in the UK. Today Milan’s two home teams, AC Milan and Inter, are playing each other in Milan’s famous San Siro stadium. We saw six large buses and assorted other vehicles full of police heading that way. Then, as we entered the metro station at Piazzale Lotto (closest stop to the stadium), we were suddenly confronted with several dozen riot-geared police. We had had the ill luck and bad timing to arrive just as a subway train pulled in, carrying fans of both teams. To avoid trouble, they had been put into separate cars, with police escort. The police cordoned off the station so that one group was forced to wait while the other group exited, each side singing rude songs and shouting slogans at the others. The rowdies were, predictably, young men, but the groups included women, and some confused and frightened looking children. The rest of us stood and waited until both packs of idiots had left the station.

living in Italy

Cars

March 30, 2002 Deirdre Straughan 2 Comments

Speaking of air pollution: What is it about cars, anyway? Personally, I’m not fond of them. Because I went to high school in India, I did not learn to drive at the usual American age of 16. By the time I did learn, I had already been involved in two spectacular accidents (someday I’ll tell you about the Fabulous Flying Jeep Trick), so I am a nervous auto passenger, let alone driver.

However, Austin, Texas, is one of those American cities designed on the assumption that everyone drives, so when I transferred to university there, it was time for me to learn how. It was a triumph when I got through driving school and actually earned a license. I lost a few points on the road test for poor parallel parking, and was surprised when the driving instructor told me: “I thought you’d get 100%.” I didn’t know then that this is actually easy to do in the US!

I inherited my grandmother’s ancient AMC Hornet and began cautiously to drive it. Within a month or two, I accidentally ran a red light in a fit of nerves while trying to get onto Interstate Highway 35 (which has some of the worst-designed entrances and exits ever to grace a highway), and ran head-on into someone else’s car. That was the end of the Hornet, but at least no humans were hurt.

After that, I had few opportunities to drive, and even less desire to. My college roommates both had cars, and were kind enough to ferry me around when needed, in exchange for cooking or helping them study for exams.

During my college study abroad year in Benares, we all rode bicycles, and I travelled across northern India by train and bus. I do not recommend bus travel in the Himalayas: after a harrowing trip from Simla to Mussoorie, I understood why so many of those buses end up plunging down mountainsides!

When I began my working life, in Washington, DC, I was able to rely on the subway. But then I moved out to suburban Virginia. After several months of valiantly trying to do everything on bike and foot (even in the snow), it was time to face that car thing again. My boss let me borrow his Pontiac Fiero to practice on; I didn’t tell him about the time I accidently made it spin out on gravel. <grin> When I finally felt ready, my dad accompanied me to look for a new car. We bought the first thing we saw, a Dodge Colt (actually manufactured by Mitsubishi), on ruinous financing terms.

The Colt and I got along all right. I never wrecked it, but neither did I drive it long distances (I let Enrico do that). We gave it to his brother when we left for Italy, and it went on to sturdily face winters in the northern US and Canada.

I have never yet driven in Europe. That would mean getting an Italian driver’s license, which is hard – people routinely fail the written exam several times. I could probably handle the traffic in Milan, when it moves slowly (the other drivers would hate me, because I’d be moving even more slowly). Stopping, however, would be a challenge, since it requires parallel parking in spaces only ten centimeters longer than your car, or head-in parking with half the car on the sidewalk. I’ll stick to public transport for now. It’s the ecologically responsible thing to do.

living in Italy

Smog Days: Italy’s Pollution Problem

February 1, 2002 Deirdre Straughan Leave a comment

When I was a kid in Pittsburgh and Connecticut, waking up to find snow on the ground was always exciting, because it meant the possibility of a snow day – a day off from school due to dangerous road conditions. I’d crouch over the radio, holding my breath for the longed-for announcement that my school district was closed, so I’d be free to play all day in the wonderful snow.

It snows very rarely here in Milan, never enough to close the schools. But in January we almost had an analogous phenomenon: smog days.

Northern Italy normally gets enough rain in the winter to wash away the poisons belched into the air by oil-burning heating systems and far too many cars. But not this year: we went nearly sixty days with no rain at all. As we enjoyed the sunshine, the poisonous gases and particulates accumulated to dangerous levels. After the air quality had been officially “terrible” for nine days in a row, environmental laws forced many communities to close their streets to traffic. In Milan, we had several Sundays of no cars at all, which was very pleasant; the streets were delightfully quiet. However, this was not likely to have much effect on the smog, because many Milanese go out of town on the weekends anyway and do their driving elsewhere.

The next solution tried was four days of “alternate license plates” – on even-numbered dates, only cars with even-numbered license plates could be on the road, and vice-versa for odd dates. This meant that many more people were forced to take public transport, so, to lighten the load on the buses, trams, and subways, the regional government also decreed that all middle- and high-school students would start school at 10:00 rather than 8:00. (The kids, of course, were heartbroken.) There was even the threat of a no-cars Friday, which would have meant closing all city and state government offices and schools, but then it rained just enough for a last-minute reprieve.

We’ve since had enough wind and rain to clear the air thoroughly, but the lesson gets clearer as the air gets murkier: Italy has a serious, long-term pollution problem that we can’t depend on the weather to solve. Real, long-term solutions in sight? Few. For now, as for so many years, hopes of truly effective change appear to be lost in a sea of political wrangles, while more and more cars continue to squeeze into Italy’s smog-choked cities.

living in Italy

Ringing in the Euro

January 21, 2002 Deirdre Straughan Leave a comment

So now the euro, as a currency we can use at the cash register, is three weeks old, and we’ve all had time to get used to it.

The changeover really hasn’t gone badly, even in famously disorganized Italy. There were long lines at highway tollbooths and banks the first week (the holiday peak travel season and a bank strike did not help). There were some long lines at stores, especially in smaller stores with older customers. The supermarkets seemed well-prepared, with cashiers already trained and special “euro informants” wandering around armed with calculators to assist the euro-confused. To avoid problems of conversion and change, many more transations were made with credit cards and ATM cards than had been the norm for Italy.

My only gripe so far is that the coins are not designed for optimum usability. Shopkeepers who know me commented: “You’re American, so all this cents stuff must be familiar to you.” The calculations, yes, but not the actual change. The euro has three denominations of copper coins (1 cent, 2 cents, and 5 cents), then there is a range of brass-colored coins (10, 20, 50), then 1-euro and 2-euro coins (silver with a brass rim and vice-versa).

The copper coins are too similar in size and appearance; we all spend a lot of time picking through coin purses and tills trying to make correct change. (Everyone assumes that the 1-cent and 2-cent coins will rapidly drop out of circulation. They apparently were created mostly for the changeover period, to stop merchants profiting too highly when recalculating prices and rounding.)

The smallest bill is 5 euros, which is irritating; the smallest lira bill was 1000 lire (roughly 50 cents in euros or dollars). Now we have to carry coins for these smaller denominations – and they’re heavy. When I go to the UK and have both euro and pound coins, I will have to carry my wallet in a backpack!

In spite of the wide availability of small coins, there have been many complaints about excessive price increases “excused” by conversion. Restaurants and coffee bars are particular culprits; in some cases the price of an espresso has gone up 20 or 30%.

Still, it’s fun having a new currency, and being part of this grand experiment. Supposedly we’ll see long-term benefits such as Europe-wide price alignment an all sorts of goods.

Now if only we could attain worldwide price alignment. I am heartily sick of things like software costing more in Europe than in the US. A few months ago I thought I might need an expensive tool for creating Windows online help files. The same software, purchase from the manufacturer’s site, cost several hundred dollars more if bought in Europe than if bought in the US. I wrote to their sales address to ask why. They replied that the English-language software was identical in Europe and the US, but gave no explanation as to why I should pay so much more to buy it in Europe. I asked again for clarification on this point. No reply. Guess whose software I didn’t buy?

living in Italy

Exact Change Required

November 1, 2001 Deirdre Straughan Leave a comment

One thing that baffles me about Italy is the inability of retail establishments – or anyone who has to take cash payment – to make change. This in a society where most store purchases are made in cash! Automatic teller machines give out 50,000 and 100,000 lire notes (NB: At current exchange rates, one US dollar is worth about 2100 lire), but this isn’t a factor; no matter what size bill you’ve got or what your total is, shopkeepers somehow never have enough coins and or smaller bills, or, when they have them, they don’t want you to use up the whole supply! You pull out your “large” note, and watch the cashier’s face fall as she or he plaintively asks: “You don’t have anything else?”

Lack of change usually isn’t a disaster – if one shopkeeper can’t do it, he or she will run and get change from a neighboring shop. Or, if you’re in a shop where they know you, they’ll say: “Pay me next time.” Amounts up to 200 lire are simply shrugged off by either party. (There were 10 and 20 lire coins – made of aluminum – in circulation when I first came to Italy, but no longer.) It can get problematic, however, if you take a taxi late at night (pay a taxi by credit card? Unheard of!) or are shopping in an unfamiliar place.

I have grown so accustomed to this that I routinely count out exact change, or as close as I can get, everywhere I shop. Italian shopkeepers are always grateful, and don’t flinch at the extra math involved in figuring out the difference between what I gave them and what I owe. But this behavior causes cashiers in the US to stare at me in resentful bafflement: they rarely deal in cash at all, and some have a hard time figuring out how much change to give.

Back in Italy, just think what fun we’ll have in January, when we all have to start using euros! The transition from lire to euros is supposed to take two months, but no one seems to know yet how it will occur. If I pay in lire, do I get euros in change? If so, some fancy calculating will be involved – the lire-to-euro rate is not a nice, round number (it’s 1936.27 lire to the euro). The wheels of commerce are likely to grind very slowly for a while…

Mar 15, 2007

As I revisit this topic, six years and a new currency later, not much has changed.We now pay in euros, and there’s been a huge upsurge in the popularity of credit cards, but making change is still a problem.

Just today I stopped at a small supermarket near the office to buy a few items, for a total of 6.87 euros. I’m always happy to clear heavy coins out of my purse, so, standing there right in front of the cashier, I opened my wallet, pulled out a five-euro note, and then opened the coin flap to see if I had enough change to make up the remaining 1.87. I didn’t – I was about 40 cents short. I shrugged apologetically, put the five away, and pulled out the next-smallest bill I had, which was a twenty.

The cashier’s face fell.

“Don’t you have anything else?” she asked mournfully. “Two euros? I’ve been making change all afternoon.”

Sweetie, you’re a cashier – surely that’s part of the job description?

Countries Beginning with I

Category Archives: living in Italy

Is Football Worth It? The Cost of Stadium Violence in Europe

Cars

Smog Days: Italy’s Pollution Problem

Ringing in the Euro

Exact Change Required

Deirdré Straughan on Italy, India, the Internet, the world, and now Australia

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Deirdré Straughan on Italy, India, the Internet, the world, and now Australia