This month's best advertisement in Italy stars Christopher Columbus

Christopher Columbus in TIM mobile ad. Framed by Antonia Scott.

Another great mobile phone commercial has just hit our screens here. View here. It's the second phase of Italian mobile phone company TIM Mobile advertising campaign which presents the history of Italy according to TIM Mobile.

The first series featured Leonardo di Vinci, which I blogged about in one of my earlier entries. The second stars Cristoforo Colombo, aka Christopher Columbus, who many will know as the man who discovered the Americas and is often thought to have been Spanish given the resulting Spanish colonisation of the area. 

In fact, Christopher Columbus was indeed Italian, born in the great naval city of Genova. This TIM mobile commercial highlights this most inopportune moment in Italian history, after Cristoforo Colombo has appealed to Genova and Venice and Portugal to finance his great voyage of discovery, without success and turns to Queen Isabella di Castiglia of Spain. 

In Tim Mobile's version of the encounter, Queen Isabella is most hesitant to help Christopher Columbus as she has spent all her fortune on mobile phone calls. Christopher Columbus suggests she change mobile phone provider to Tim Mobile to save money and finance his trip. History tells that she did finance the Italian explorer's trip that resulted in the discovery of the Americas.

Once again I really like this advertisement not only because of its sheer beauty, the colours, the old sailing ship, the costumes all make you feel like you've stepped back into a majestic old age world. I also love it for the  juxtaposition of the old and historic with the new and technologically advanced, while joining both Christopher Columbus and TIM Mobile together with a subtle sense of pioneering spirit.

Waiting for Mr Fix It to arrive at no fixed time

Here's one question to really get an Internationista's knickers in a twist: Why do we always have to wait around for the maintenance man to arrive?

Whatever country I've lived in the situation with the plumber, electrician or general "Mr Fix It" is always the same. They never give an exact estimated time of arrival. Instead it's usually something like "any time between 8 and 12 or 2 and 5 - either way it's half a day off work.

While most professions require time management with exact timings scheduled for appointments and meetings: team meeting 9am; copy deadline 2pm; international conference call 4pm; for some unexplainable reason the Mr Fix Its around the world have been made exempt from having to adhere to meeting exact set timings.

I can imagine it now. Two older wise looking fellows in flowy white robes and hair, perhaps one with the aged face of Simon Cowell and the other Piers Morgan, flipping over one profession card after another and separating them into piles of those who have to keep exact time and those who don't: "lawyers - yes; cleaners - yes; journalists - yes; politicians - yes; butchers - yes"... and the yes list gets bigger and bigger until...

"Doctors?" Piers pauses and turns to Simon.  

"Look, to be completely honest with you", starts Simon, "we can't be seen to be playing favourite so Doctors should also be expected to keep exact timed appointments."

"Absolutely", nods Piers in agreement before placing Doctors into the "yes" pile and turning over the "Mr Fix It" card. Piers shakes his head.

Simon nods in agreement, "that's a 100 per cent "no" from me too Piers". And down goes Mr Fix It - the only card sitting in the "No" pile.

So while everyone else has to keep exact time Mr Fix it does not. Aside from the ruling of Simon and Piers why is this so?

Surely, the cost of keeping some people out of work for the time they have to wait around for Mr Fix It would in some cases outweigh the entire costs of the job. So from a global economic perspective this exemption doesn't seem to make much sense. Why do we all allow this loss of productivity for Mr Fix It but for no one else?

I appreciate that some maintanence jobs may run longer than others and things may have to be prioritised and rescheduled, just like all jobs and just as happens now with Mr Fix It when he is unable to make his "anytime between 8 and 12" appointment. But this still doesn't explain why they can't start off with an exact scheduled time like everyone else.

As I wait for my Mr Fix It to arrive sometime between 2pm and 4pm today(after he rescheduled his first appointment, spent 5 minutes on the second before letting me know he'd have to go and get a spare part but wouldn't be able to come back until the following week) I realise I have spent 1.5 days away from work. It seems the only one working hard is Mr Fix It - if only he could fix his time management then so could the rest of us.

Greece and the fragile eurozone impact on the Internationista

While Eurozone finance ministers wait out the decision to loan 12bn euro ($17bn; £10bn) to Greece, the power of the euro is dancing around. As an Internationista you don't have to be involved in shares, bonds and all those other important jargony things that go on at the stock exchange to be effected.

When your simple run of the mill expenses, income and investments eg: university fees, salary, mortgages, savings and credit cards are all occurring simultaneously in different countries a big hit to the economy that delivers your cashflow and a strengthening of the economy that absorbs your outgoings can result in a pretty rotten day.

So for all those Internationistas with international finance activities here's a simple currency conversion of the Euro from 11am 20 June, 2011.

Euro
€1 - £0.88 (down)
€1 - $US 1.4 (down)
€1 - $AU 1.35 (up)

Lost and found

The state of the Internationista is somewhere between lost and found. A state of losing one's identity before adopting another. It's first and foremost cultural identity but the lost and almost found cultural identity in turn affects one's personal identity.

The state of lost and found is most strongly experienced when ones natural instincts or their socialised norm is challenged.

Here is one case in point: tonight on Italian TV we were watching a human interest programme called Invincibles where a host, in front of a sympathetic live audience screens a collection of packaged stories on the lives of individuals who have displayed a type of invincible act before having the person on the coach for a one-to-one interview. The programme goes for three hours. This is my first lost and found experience.

Media trained in Australia and worked in the UK and US I am aware of the attention span rules of communication - average attention span of an adult is 20 minutes - so why have a human interest TV programme go for 3 hours? You end up losing most of your audience after the first story. As a result of the strain on my attention I find myself doing housework in order to keep my mind busy, irritated that the programme goes for so long against what is known by scholars to be an affective broadcast time.

Second lost and found comes with the content. Three hours of broadcasting features amazing individuals who have undoubtedly faced and conquered incredible feats making them invincible. The element that unsettles me though is that out of the six stories, five are stories of unknown individuals who have overcome or are excelling with a physical disability; the other individual is Nelson Mandela. Nelson Mandela? While all stories are truly inspirational and display invincible behaviour, I feel like I am taking part in a "spot the difference" game. Four physically handicapped people and one black revolutionist, the South African president to be elected in a full representative democratic election who spent 27 years in prison because of his ideology and recipient of the noble peace prize. My old identity makes me seethe with fury; by putting Nelson Mandela amongst this group could this programme unintentionally be saying that his physical disability is his colour?

Sure the one thing he has in common with the group is that he is invincible but why not showcase some other politicians, revolutionists or even able bodied people amongst this group. Don't get me wrong I'm not trying to say that Nelson Mandela is anyway better than this group; I am simply saying that his story doesn't fit into this group of physically disabled people.

This leads to a lost and found moment when I am arguing with people in the house. I automatically feel like this show, contrary to its intension, discriminatory. Discriminatory against race not disability. While the rest of my household scoff at me saying Nelson's story is a story of invincibility and so fits (most of whom I may add are checking their face book pages as they lost interest in the programme 2 minutes in).

It's not sweet and right to die for your country.

Horace. Internationista, Antonia Scott.

"Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori", once wrote leading Roman lyric poet Horace, "It is sweet and right to die for your country".

It is a belief held by many still today but one which is impossible for the Internationista to accept. For the Internationista, whose identity transcends manmade international borders and not faithful to one country alone, this idea which is based on the assumption of absolute affinity with one country alone fails.

Let me give you a couple of examples as to why it is difficult, albeit impossible, for an Internationista to support war in order to defend one's country.

Every year in Australia on the 25 April Australian celebrate ANZAC DAY. In practice this means attending dawn services in remembrance of the ANZACs (Australian and New Zealand Army Corp) in World War I, and the hitting the pubs to drink and play two-up - a betting game where two coins are tossed up into the air on a stick with bets places on the coins landing on heads or tails. It is the only day that this betting game is permitted as it was played by the ANZACs in the trenches in North Africa as they battled against the Germans and Italians.

As an Internationista who grown up in Australia the problem I have with celebrating and remembering the ANZACs is that my Italian great grandfather was involved in this battle but on the other side.

In England every year, on the 11th November, the UK celebrates Remembrance Day (also known as Poppy Day, Armistice Day or Veterans Day). It remembers the British killed in World War I and World War II. I was born in Scotland so and by birthplace and blood British but my Italian grandfather, the grandparent I spent most time with growing up, fought against the British in World War II with the Italians.

In essence, given that all three sides of my heritage, Australian, British and Italian have tried to eradicate the other throughout the last century, I'm lucky to be alive.

This is why Horace's long held belief, which is still upheld by many today, makes no sense to an Internationista. With affiliations to more than one country we have a past where our grandfathers fought each other. We have a present where to fight on the side of anyone of my affiliated countries would mean attacking my own. It is senseless to believe in an ideology which would see our own sons, brother verses brother (or sister), fight against each other in the future.