Isakat

You should come down to Rome Patty, we can commiserate together with some wine.

Patty

I wish i could Isakat - but I'll send you virtual cheers instead


am off now to the fridge to get my new favourite thing........lemon sorbet
drowned in limoncello - its yummy
( i go to bed smiling)

Capo Boi

Hope you both cheer up a bit. Talking of Floyd. 'Stirred but Not Shaken' is quite a good read although not to be taken too seriously. It was written just before he died and he does embellish a lot of his stories. At his peak, he was a very talented chef and his ingredients were well thought out and his cooking quite precise. A big influence on the likes of Marco and Rick Stein who incidentally really got his big break after appearing on 'Floyd on Fish'.

Patty

Thanks Capo - but after this mornings fuss with my card i feel really miserable today. (have to admit to having a little weep - always happens at this time of year when I'm stuck here and haven't been able to get home for a visit)
Never mind - stiff upper lip and all that ey. things will look better after a bottle of vino

Capo Boi

Do they do Aperol spritzers in Turin? Always my summer favourite.

Patty

Yes they do - and I've even taught myself to do them at home - yum yum
(but the best I ever tasted were in Venice - they do them with Prosecco and they are just the best!)

HADENOUGHPIZZA

Thursday night someone used my credit card in a Walmart store somewhere in Italy .The sms at 2 in the morning and five minutes later the card security service blocked my card and also sent an sms . on Friday they phoned and asked if I wanted the card unblocked or completely stepped down . They were very efficient I was quite taken aback . I have been to the Carabinieri to do the ' denuncia ' and they were also very kind and efficient , even the bank branch has been good and have organised a replacement card . I keep wondering what the catch will be .......

MarkRD

Walmart in Italy?

Had a similar experience some years ago, with someone trying to use it for quite a large sum in the USA. The cc people sent me a telegram would you believe but anyway it was all done very well. I blocked the card by sending a fax. Got a new one within short time. Don't think I had to go to the carabinieri though.

HADENOUGHPIZZA

No , I got that wrong it was Walmart .Norman ( near Oklahoma ). the denucia is to get back the cash that was deibited before the block kicked in . There was a woman waiting her turn at the Carabinieri who had seen 8 debits go across her account before her bank did anything about it but they were in shops locally so maybe it didn't trigger suspicion ?

MarkRD

Yes the cc 'police' work a lot on that kind of evidence.

Mine actually didn't allow the credit to go through, so I was OK.

Sadly it did happen once that they cloned a prepagata which we'd used on a trip to London. I didn't realise at first because I didn't check on the movements.
Went to the polizia postale for the denuncia - wot a laff! . .got money back (about 150 euros) in the end from the bank but it was hard work. They said they did it as an act of 'goodwill' cos it was just before Xmas ... How good of them.

HADENOUGHPIZZA

How did your car boot sale work out ?

Juvefan

and here lies the paradox

most people will say the great things about Italy are The Food, the culture, the history "the friendliness of the people"

if the people are so friendly, then why are they not friendly in the stores?
or are we all just ranting about a very few italians and a very few establishments?
I mean afterall, you can not tell me you never received bad service in the UK

Lorna at Vicenza

Yes, there is bad service in the UK too, but I think what we moan about here is not always bad service per se, but the complicated, convoluted, excessively bad ways of providing a service - or lack of. And then the grunts and unecessary comments when you genuinely look at them in disbelief and say "ma sta scherzando" after you've just been told that Joe Bloggs has a stack of stamping machines in his office but you have to travel to 6 different offices to get the one you need because he doesn't do that one.

Other bad service here is returns and money back. Much of the attitude here is "you bought it - tough shit - live with it." Nobody would ever dream of bringing home 5 different outfits here and taking 4 of them back to returns tomorrow !!!!

MarkRD

Ha! I did seriously consider it as I was at home sorting out stuff although I got a bit bogged down with tidying the study. Don't think it would've been a success anyway.

Isakat

I contacted the call centre at GSE to check why the 'scambio sul posto' was not done for last year for the photovoltaic system.
The email was sent on June the 20th and I got a reply today, almost 3 months later.
At least they have done their job( we shall see....)