24hour cops

You've heard of a sleeping policeman?
Sure you have.
So what do you think this is?
A Darlek.
No, don't be daft..
It's a 24 hour cop. That's what it is...that's what they call them. No, That's not true, that's what they probably would call them if they thought about it, which I'm sure they don't. It's what I call them, maybe it'll stick.
But they are sprouting up everywhere. In towns, outa town, some blue, some orange, some red but all innocuous.
What they do is film you as you drive past (thinking they are just waste bins)... well, you might until you get a speed fine in the post. Yep, any speed over 50KPH and you're done for













And this little piece of living participatory street art below is entitled ' An assasinated 24 hour cop'
Wasn't me what dunnit, honest, but the artist, whoever she was, has the full support and gratitude of most of us locals ( except maybe the town policeman, the human one )
You'll find it on the road to Macerata just north of Sarnano.
Hoot as you pass.

Synchronised divinity

I was going to write a blog about synchronised swimming (see sketch below with me on left teaching my 2012 Olympic hopefuls) at the lake at Fiastra..











......but a friend told me that he had a water diviner coming round to search for water on his land, and..well... I've always fancied myself as a bit of a hot shot water diviner, but I'm always willing to take a step back and learn from others...so I zoomed over to friend's restored mill near Mogliano and met Paulo, the water diviner. Oh, you know, we shot the breeze about our divine experiences, compared twigs, the sort of things we diviners do together when we meet, which is about every half century.
Just kidding really. But I did have crack at it when I lived in Tuscany and after hours wandering aimlessly over swampy fields, I did discover that my twig was twitching, called the digger and we dug two metres down and woosh, out it suddenly came and the well became the water supply for my wondrous veggie patch.
Paulo taught me more than these remembered basics however. You talk to your diving stick (in your mind he said) and it tells you where to go and shoots back when a source of water is found. That day he found two underground streams converging and chose to locate the future well at that point. He said the water is 50 metres down but I find that hard to believe because my inner voice said 10, but we'll see when they dig. (if they ever do, because the source is unfortunately in the neighbours field, bad luck that)
I asked him how he knew the depth to be 50 metres. Same process, he said, I just ask the stick at every stage, 10, 20, 30 metres and so on and it says yes when it's the correct depth.
Does it ever trick you I asked?
Only when it's in a bad mood, he said.

I'm thinking 'I believe the song and not the singer'
Hmm


Paolo at work.... great job, great job.