Elevating thoughts

(or: pensées de l'ascenseur)

Update (4.10.2008): The interactive story featured in this article has been declared the winner of the "Most Creative - Personal" category in the Flypaper contest.

In December 2006 we were planning to ride the Transsiberian Railroad from Moscow to Vladivostok. We arrived in Moscow on December 23rd, and were bound to leave the capital the following day. As we had instructed the travel agent to deliver the train tickets to the hotel, we expected to have a stroll through the city and a good night's sleep before boarding the train on Sunday 24th.

When we arrived at the hotel, the tickets were nowhere to be seen.

A couple of phonecalls later, it emerged that there was a bit of a mixup (really?), and that we could pick up the tickets - after the weekend of course. Missing our train in the process. Leaving us with an undesired weekend in Moscow (cold, holiday season, not much going on, that kind of thing).

Thus we extended our stay in the Hotel Ukraina, one of the Seven Sisters; they were built in the 1950's in response to the American skyscrapers: massive neo-Gothic highrise buildings which remind of Fritz Lang's Metropolis.

Not a dwarf.

The Hotel Ukraina today is a strange mix of old Soviet style (pompous, glorious, impressive pieces of architecture) and post-Soviet characteristics (souvenir shops, advertisement, beautiful ladies "sitting in the lobby"). Especially the invasion of Christmas paraphernalia would make the commissioner of the Seven Sister cringe where he around to witness it.

A choirboy, once.

Between a bowl of borscht and a glas of small water we took to explore the vastness of the hotel; more precisely, we rode the elevators. Exciting? Hardly. Interesting? Very much so. Have a look for yourself:

Elevator and viewpoint images can be found here.

Thanks to Christian and Michel for artistic advice. Any remaining shortcomings are my own.

If you've read until here, please leave some feedback below.

Italian Bureaucracy Explained - Part I

This is the first installment of a multi-part series on Italian bureaucracy; every part will examine a specific bit of bureaucracy and the reasons behind it (if any). It is a loose series; topics will be treated whenever I come across them, or on request.

Recently a mail from Human Resources landed in my inbox, explaining that the company could no longer accept resignations in free form, but that starting on March 5th, 2008 an official form had to be used; more specifically, resignations had to be registered with the Ministry of Work, which in turn would make available a certified resignation letter for use with the employer.

At first glance this sounds ridicoulous: why complicate such a simple matter as a resignation by introducing a layer of bureaucracy?

As it turns out, this procedure makes sense.

Italian labour law is quite rigid, and gives a lot of the power to the employee; for example, it is very difficult for an employer to fire an employee, and can be done so only in specific circumstances (an employee is extremely negligent, a restructuring plan has been approved by the Ministry of Work etc.). In a regular (i.e. unlimited) employment contract most of the power goes to the employee, and very little to the employer. The employee can switch jobs at any given time, yet the employer cannot fire the employee without a "just cause".

From the employer's point of view this creates a huge disadvantage: once an employee is taken on board, he has to be retained forever. Thus some employers have adopted a dubious practice: as a condition for hiring an employee, a signed (but not dated) resignation letter is required. Therefore, the employer "regains" the possibility of firing an employee.

In order to stop this practice, the Ministry of Work was forced to introduce a safeguard: resignations are only valid if they are logged and certified by the Ministry.

Another possibility alltogether would be to reform the labour market, and allow for more flexibility in the workforce. This has been attempted in 2002, sweetening the pill by conceding every laid-off employee a compensation of 2 year's salary - the reaction of the Unions? A general strike. Needless to say that the reform fell through.

If you've read this far, please leave a comment below.

Thanks to Rosario and Mario for providing bureaucratical enlightment.

Velodrome in Rome

The Velodrome in Rome has been built in the Southern quarter "EUR" for the Olympic Games in 1960. For its time it was an architectural masterpiece, nicely integrating with the area (at the time it was in the middle of nowhere as is clearly visible in the image below, but it fitted with the overall architectural mood of EUR).

In the good old days.

Soon after the games the first stability problems appeared. Water drained away the foundations on the south-eastern side towards Viale della Tecnica (I've had my office just on the other side of the street, and the entire building was leaning towards the street - a symptom of the same problem).

A rescue attempt was made in the mid-sixties by injecting concrete into the foundation, and it successfully stopped the movement.

A couple of years later all of a sudden the structure began to incline again - the water had made its return, and was still gnawing away at the foundation.

Thus it was decided that further investements were not worth it.

The last official race in the Velodrome took place in 1968, when the Cycling World Championships were held in Rome. Subsequently the Velodrome was used for another couple of years as a training ground for both cycling and field hockey.

At the beginning of the seventies it was shut down, and completely forgotten. Homeless people used it as a shelter, and nature began to take over again.

In 2006 I decided to take a look around the Velodrome, and I was fascinated by it's beauty: it is a rare example of nature being allowed to freely go about it's business in a man-made structure in what now is a densly populated area.

To better appreciate the transformation I've imposed the new pictures on a photograph of 1960. Click on the arrows to show/hide the recent photos (the orange arrows are panoramic views):

All the photos are available here, except for the historical one which can be found here.

In the meantime it has been decided that the Velodrome should finally go and be substituted - can you guess it? - by a supermarket. Thus it has been blown up on July 24th, 2008. La Repubblica has some photos of the day before the explosion, and videos of the bang are available here and here.

If you've read this far, please consider leaving feedback below.

HOWTO: Transform a Cat into a Lamp

How to transform a cat into a lamp in three easy steps:

1. Acquire cat and go live in a high-rise building;
2. Let cat roam;
3. Collect cat from vet.

Done!

Let's examine the steps in detail:

1) Acquire cat and go live in a high-rise building:

Getting a cat is easy: acquaintences could have kittens to give away, or your local cat sanctuary might have an opening. For the sake of redundancy we took two:

Telnette (left) and Chiocciola (@ in Italian).

The high-rise building is a bit harder to come by, but make sure that is on the fourth floor or higher (note to Americans: US 1st floor = EU ground floor, US 2nd floor = EU 1st floor etc.). For this experiment we've chosen the following location, with a convenient balcony-to-pavement distance of 25m:

Launch pad is at the very top.

2) Let cat roam:

Unless you're inclined to trail it wherever it goes (or "they", in the case that you've opted for the redundancy variant) there's not much of a choice really.

The other night we got a bit alarmed when the same cat showed up over and over again, and #2 was nowhere in sight. We set off for a search, and soon enough we discovered @ on the pavement. The subsequent forensic inquiries allowed for the following analysis:

• @ got distracted (by the neighbour's cat) while roaming on the balcony sill;
• during the fall @ used her tail in a helicopter-like fashion;
• after two seconds, or on the height of the (European) second floor she reached feline terminal velocity;
• after that, she relaxed for 0.3 seconds and hit the ground at 100 km/h:
  

Pseudo-scientific diagrams add credibility.

3) Collect cat from vet:

Apart from a bit of water in a slightly shattered lung (to be expected after hitting the proverbial wall at 60 mph) the only injury @ sustained is a cut of the paw (forensics are still trying to establish the exact source - the head of the guy in the previous picture has been ruled out):

Pwned paw.

Much to the chagrin of @, this minor injury had far-reaching consequences. Much to our delight, we now have a new lamp illuminating our home:

@ as the "Living Lamp".

Needless to say, @ is rather less pleased than the rest of the family.

If you've managed this far, please leave a comment below - it'll be forwarded to @.