Fame in Finland and a Nation holding its breath

I have no idea why, but apparently I became famous in Finland. Ok, famous is not the word, but the fact is that over the last two days apparently this blog was accessed three times from Helsinki, once from Kerava and once from Hakkila and it seems whoever it was, at least in two cases was looking definitely for me, as they came from google looking for "vcn" and "guido" (guido costantini in another case). Now, I do like being famous in that part of the world where scientists have predicted the last blond person of the planet will be born two centuries from now, but I'd be very curious about why so, my anonymous finnish reader (or readers), just in case, you can hit the "comment" link under this page and leave a line :)

But let's come to the news of the day, which can't be but one and one only. No, not the situation in Israel. No, not the sad news from Valencia's underground. NO! Not even the fact our cities are being blocked by a major taxi strike after the government announced they will remove every limits about taxi licenses. the news of today is, obviously, that the whole country is waiting for this evening, for Italy once again facing Germany for the semifinals of the world cup (if you need to ask "what world cup" you are either the american baseball person or Fox Mulder was right and aliens are among us).

Now, full books could be written about such a game that in the past has given some of the most emotional moments of football history and there are writers better suited, and more read, than me who will spend their talent over it. I will just mention that:

a) yesterday a Lufthansa captain disembarked 40 italian children, on their way to Manchester, in Hamburg in the pretense they were making too much noise.

b) yesterday the mayor (burgermeister, which doesn't mean the master of the hamburgers) of Dortmund, where the game is going to be played, has expressly forbidden any manifestation of joy in the street should germany loose... ergo, italians supporters can't cheer in case we'd win.

c) yesterday the always kind german newspapers have accused us italians to have asked the FIFA to intervene and have Frings, a german player, disqualified for the game after he hit with a punch in the face, live worldwide, an argentinian player. The fact the images were asked and broadcasted by german television first, that FIFA firmly denied any involvement of the Italian federation and that the german player did indeed and wthout any doubt show quite some boxeing talent while the whole planet was watching didn't stop the Bild, among others, to drop another avalanche of stereotypes and common places against italians.

d) a week ago the germans killed OUR bear.

e) what Der Spiegel wrote, which you can read summarized two entries before this one.

Now, considering a), b), c), d) and e) not to mention for the hundred of thousands of italians emigrants living in Germany and the ever going love-hate relationship that goes on between Italy and Germany since the time of the Holy Roman Empire a thousand years ago... I hope we are going to teach germans a lesson on the football field.

Forza Italia!