The Story of Stuff

A polemic is always more powerful, in my opinion, when it's presented with humour, which is why I love the video The Story of Stuff, by Annie Leonard. After watching this video, I no longer felt so ashamed and unhip to be wearing the same boots and jeans as I wore last Autumn, and I felt pretty damn proud of myself for the fact that I've owned the same mobile phone for two years and the same microwave since my student days 25 years ago! Though, ahem, I glossed over the disconcerting truths of my shiny new iMac and my even shinier new Fiat 500...because they were both essential purchases, right? Anyway, here's the video, and immediately afterwards is the same video dubbed into Italian...



This is the Italian version...



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Una polemica, secondo me, è sempre più potente quando si è presentata con umore, il che spiega perché mi piace tanto il video La storia delle cose, di Annie Leonard. Dopo guardando questo video, non mi sono sentita più vergogna e fuori moda per vestirmi negli stessi stivali e gli stessi jeans i quali mi sono vestita l'autunno scorso ed, infatto, mi sono sentita orgogliosa del fatto che ha posseduto da due anni lo stesso cellulare, e lo stesso forno a microonde da i miei giorni come una studentessa, venticinque anni fa! Sebbene io stia sorvolando sulla realtà sconcertante del mio iMac nuovo e brillante, e la mia Fiat 500 ancora più nuova e brillante...perché tutti e due sono stati gli acquisti essenziali, vero? Comunque, ecco il video, e subito dopo c'è anche lo stesso video doppiato in italiano...

English humour

Peter Kay is one of the UK’s most popular comedians, with a uniquely British sense of humour that is often completely lost on foreigners. Here is a montage of adverts that Peter did for John Smith bitter, which we Brits found highly amusing! Oh, and the accent is broad Lancashire, from the North of England! The transcription is below...

Peter Kay è uno dei comici più benvoluto in Inghilterra, con un senso del umorismo unicamente britannico, il quale è spesso mistificante per gli stranieri. Ecco alcuni annunci per la birra di John Smith, che noi britannici hanno trovato tanto divertenti! Oh, e Peter ha un forte accento di Lancashire, nel nord d'Inghilterra! La trascrizione è in fondo...



…Three divers to go then, and this is Darren Croll of Australlia. Oh, that’s a good dive! 642.2. And now Petit of Canada…oh, even better! This final really hotting up. And now the favourite, John Smith of Great Britain, what can he do? A running bomb…Oh, terrific! The crowd love it! And so do the judges! Top bombing!

Aye, you know what I mean…hold on here…aye up…
…hello, Sarah?
It’s the babysitter….what’s up?
OK, put her on….hello Britney…it’s daddy. You what? She’s having nightmares – about the wardrobe monsters. There’s no such thing as wardrobe monsters…it’s the burglars that break in through the window, that’s what you want to be worried about. Sweet dreams...
She’s gone…
Two more lamb bhunas here….what?

Come on mum, time to go.
Go, go where?
The old people’s home. They’ll look after you now. It’s for the best.
Are you mad? I’m 55…
I know, but I’ve had a word with them. They’ll take you. Come on!
Gerroff! Why should I go and live in an old people’s home?
Because I want to put a snooker table in your bedroom, and the kids are frightened of your moustache. Now come on, avanti!

‘Ave it! Oh yes…

Kids just grow up so quick these days, don’t they?
Aye, you’re not wrong there. I didn’t tell you did I? Our Britney, she’s only four, mind. She comes up to me t’other day, she says ‘Where do babies come from?’
What did you tell her?
I said well when a daddy loves a mummy very much, he inserts his erect penis inside a woman’s vagina, he ejaculates sperm which travels through the womb, yeah, fertilises the egg and develops into a baby over nine months….what now, what?

Sometimes words are unnecessary...

I love youTube, and have even found it useful in my Italian studies, as the site hosts some great Italian videos. It's a great way to pick up some new vocabulary...and to learn some useful hand gestures!

Adoro il sito youTube, e l'ho trovato anche utile per le mie studi, perché contiene alcuni buoni video italiani. É un buon modo in cui di imparare nuove parole...e qualche gesto utile!

Help a bald brother out!

It takes a seriously funny comedian to make an amusing and thought-provoking cancer ad, but that's just what Larry David has pulled off in this video. I liked it so much that I've transcribed it for any Italians who may have trouble grasping all of the words:

Hello, I’m Larry David, and I know what you’re thinking: ‘Hey, it’s Larry David, I bet he’s going to say something funny.’ Or ‘There’s Larry David, funny, funny guy.’ Or ‘Larry David is, in addition to being one of the pre-eminent social satirists of this, or any other, era, also uncannily brilliant and should strongly consider a run for public office’.

Thank you, that’s very sweet of you. But today I’m not here to say anything funny. Today I’d like to talk to you about something serious. I’d like to talk to you about …cancer.

Not so funny now, am I?

Cancer comes in many forms, and has many victims. I should know, for I am one. Now, I should clarify that I do not have cancer, but that does not mean that I have not suffered because of it.

Let me explain.

As you may have noticed, I am a bald man. A proud, naturally bald man. And as a man so afflicted, I should be entitled to sympathy, and the trappings that come along with that sympathy. A caring glance here and there, perhaps a free meal, and, once in a blue moon, some sympathy sex.

But do I get any of these? I do not. Because cancer patients, and their chemo-induced baldness, have stolen the sympathy that is rightfully mine. You see, cancer-bald is the badge of courage and honour, while bald-bald has simply become genetically defective. The chemo-bald Johnny-come-latelys have created a gutter class of the naturally bald, horned in on our gravy train and cast us out like common circus freaks. This must be stopped, must I say!

So what’s a bald man to do? Well, we are faced with two choices. Either we even the playing field by getting cancer ourselves, or we organise a worldwide effort to wipe cancer from the face of the planet, restoring the natural order and returning pathetic-ness, and sympathy sex, to their rightful owner – the naturally bald man.

I must be honest. Cancer doesn’t really look like that much fun. I vote we cure it. Help a bald brother out, would you? And maybe next year we’ll go after alopecia.