Talking Italian

Just a few days till we depart for our Italian holiday....hooray! By some strange yet happy coincidence, this past week I've been working on a clinical report for a client that ran some trials in hospitals in Italy. In a moment of that infinite wisdom that is held in reserve for the most inept (or possibly bowing to budget cuts), the client decided not to get the patient data listings properly translated in their entirety, but to rather bang together a shoddy collection of common Italian medical phrases and words plus their English equivalent, thereby leaving us writers to trawl hundreds (and thousands) of pages of data to match up Italian phrases with the English, as we attempt to describe what actually happened to the patients and whether any of it is of clinical significance (di rilievo clinico).

Consequently, over the past few days, my grasp of the Italian language has come on leaps and bounds ... I'm not entirely sure how useful it will all be in the holiday context., but some of the following phrases would definitely put an authentic Italiano slant on the conversation....

testa e collo - meaning "head and neck"....as in I love the sunshine on my head and neck

fuori dalla norm - "outside the norm", could be teamed with many other phrases...say, di rilievo clinico...perhaps in response to the waiter's polite query if "everything was all right?"....The food was outside the norm, but don't worry, it's probably not clinically significant

diarrea and crampi addomiali - "diarrhoea" and "abdominal cramps"...I take back what I said to the waiter, must have been the prawns

aumento volume naso and aumento volume mani e piedi - corresponds to "increased volume of the nose" and "of the hands and feet"...clearly a literal translation, yet still a slightly alarming situation to be describing, possibly a consequence of too much sun or chianti...I felt my nose/hands/feet had increased in volume [wonder if there's one for stomach?]

senso di gonfiore - refering to "a sense of swelling"....endless possiblities, some probably best kept for the bedroom...

ispessimento generalizzato - or "generalised thickening"...see above

frattura ii dito piede destro - possibly a little too specific, unless I have the misfortune to "fracture the second toe on my right foot"

sindrome depressiva - literally "depressive syndrome"...probably most apt at the holiday's end, when we're about to head home to dark and gloomy days... I feel depressive syndrome coming on


[With apologies to all Italians and anyone fluent in Italian]

Retail Therapy

This past weekend, B and I had a marathon shopping session. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a big fan of shopping...crowds, screeching children and (typically) overheated shops do not bode for an enjoyable experience.But if I hate shopping, B abhores it (as in detests vehemently). Getting him to step foot inside a shop (weekly grocery shopping included) is an effort in itself and I usually do not subject him to the "torture"...or myself to his tortured looks, eye rolling, tutting and general grumpiness. However, there comes a time (every couple of years) when he realises that he is going to have to face his demons...usually around the time his butt starts hanging out of the seat of his worn-out jeans. While he buys everything possible on the internet, clothes shopping by mail order has never been that successful (and I have tried!).

So, we resigned ourselves to a day of hell at the mall (mkone to be precise)...we were up early to (a) get a free parking spot close to the mall entrance and (b) be there as the shops open, before the crowds descend....something both our sets of parents advocated way back in our youth (you know you're turning into your parents when....), and we would scorn them, as at that time (when we were laid back and unphased by crowds...and mainly didn't really have the cash to spend on anything, so going to the shops was pretty much null and void anyway) having a lie-in on a weekend was top priority (to sleep off a hangover and 4 am bedtime ).

Apparently, half of middle England had the same idea as by the time we got there, the free parking was rapidly filling up and the mobbing masses were already migrating up the mile-long walkway that runs from one end of the shops to the other. We were going in with a pre-determined Battle Plan: get in and get out in under 2 hours....with a completely new wardrobe for B, the bulk of the Christmas shopping and a new cocktail dress for the upcoming Christmas parties for me...yeah, right! Six and a half hours later, we dragged our sorry bodies back to the car, arms at least 5 cm longer from carrying the 6 massive bags we'd acquired....but we got almost everything we went there for, including lots of Christmas presies and this dress for me....

It's rare that I find  a dress that actually fits without my unmentionables falling out and that falls flatteringly to hide the tum 'n bum. I found a black, silk floaty cardi to go with it too, so all set for the "party season".

B reckons he's not going shopping again until he's 90 though....we'll see!