Thursday 17 July 2008

A Boofhead Guide to Coping With Global Warming

Antarctica melting? Pffft. Polar Bears overheating? Pffffffffft.

Selfless Boofhead that I am, global warming only enters my consciousness when it impacts on me in general and my stomach in particular.

Aside from the two-legged dogs, my most important food source is the neighbours, Marina and Lorenzo, not to forget their figlio, Vittorio.

Luckily, thanks to the foresight of some long-dead Italian architect or builder, I have my own dining table between the two properties:

That's Marina and Lorenzo. That's me standing on the dining table. What's a Boofhead to do when no one thinks to supply a chair?

Anyways. The dining table is the metal lid of a very old cisterna, a very deep water receptacle. The difference between a cisterna and a pozzo (Italian for a well) is that a pozzo has its own natural water supply while a cisterna is filled with water from another source, like drained rainwater. But enough of the semantics of water receptacles.

The Modus Operandi is simple. I sit on the cisterna and look hungry. The neighbours feed me.

Last night it was Chianina beef from the BBQ. The other day it was fegato (liver) and a mortadella sandwich. Sometimes it's even pizza.

Let not the words overweight Boofhead enter your consciousness!

Which is okay in Spring. And Autumn. The metal lid of the cisterna is a bearable temperature. Not in Winter. The cisterna lid is - 26 C in Winter. Too cold for even a Boofhead's botty. Particularly one paranoid about piles.

Summer? Summer is an altogether different case of burnt Boofhead botty when the temperature of the cisterna lid climbs to more or less 197,000 C.

It's okay at night, after the sun has gone down:

But at lunchtime? In the blazing heat of the middle of the day?

I park my Boofhead botty in the cool of the garden bed in the shade of the olive tree.

Is my middle name Ingenious?

So there you go, Polar Bears. There's your answer to Global Warming.

Find a garden bed in the shade of an olive tree and quit grizzling.