It is forbidden to take a mobile phone into the polling booth, on pain of quite severe penalties. The numbers selling their votes, and proof that they have voted 'correctly' being required by photographing their ballot paper before leaving the booth, has forced the ministry of the Interior to act. Phones must be left outside the booth.
The newspapers are suggesting taking two phones into the shower, sorry polling station, and leaving one outside.
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21 comments:
So it is. But when I told the Carabiniere outside the polling station that I had a cellular phone with embodied camera, he said; "Never mind, as long as you do not use it in the booth."
I insisted that the law prohibited taking the phone into the booth, and he added "All right, make sure you switch it off".
Unconvinced, I got in and I told the President of the polling station, who had failed to ask me to surrender the cellphone, that I had one. He said "Leave it here if you like" and I did, thus making sure I would not be liable to 300 to 1000 euro fine or 3 to 6 months in jail if denounced, should my phone ring in the booth or make the noise of photography.
Pfew! Hard to comply with the Italian law, unless you forcefully insist.
You have passed too many years in England and are now imbued with the ridiculous carrying-rules-to-excess that is the bane of England's relations with the European Union and EU regulation. Of course they looked at you squinty-eyed; after all, the whole village knows which way you vote, in the face of death you will vote as you have, (as well as knowing, en passant, your blood cell analysis, triglyceride score, and your wife's mother's maiden name except they can't cope with the spelling).
Though I'm glad we didn't risk facing up to a thousand euros fine or up to six months in prison.
Ha ha! That does sound very English of Mr HG! Spanish officals are the same, they look at you quizzically when you try to comply with the law.
I bet the French are the same, L. What is it that makes us so over conscientious? Admittedly there is always the chance that a law, a rule, a regulation might be used against you, but usually there is an over all common sense prevailing, except in England. There anti-terrorist laws are used to make sure your three year old isn't profiting improperly from a nursery place. English people aren't usually averse to taking a bet. What is it?
Uptightness?
It's the Germanic in us.
Arriving in Chop one Friday evening, Mr HG found himself in this kind of rule difficulty. He had to leave the Soviet Union because his marche route required that he should leave the soviet Union before midnight. He wanted to go to Budapest but had been told he could obtain a visa at Chop but what he was not told was that this was only the case Monday to Friday, 8am - 5pm. He got there at 6pm. Whoops.
He was told he had to wait until Monday but the Soviets said he must leave and the Hungarians wouldn't let him in. Fortunately Czechoslovakia as it then was, had a frontier in Chop too. They had office hours until 7pm. A kind Hungarian immgration officer suggested refuge with the Czechs, to avoid detention as an illegal in the Soviet Union.
He says he did some business in Prague instead and ditched what he was suppoed to be doing in Budapest.
Who knows what changes were made to the history of the world by the flutter of his butterfly's wings?
A lot about Italy in the Press HG, some of it concerning the Northern Alliance. It sounds an appalling system to me but you have to be wary of plucking ill-digested parts fo a country out for direct comparison.
So, along with dodgy mozzarella, "olive oil" made out of engine oil,
Wine made with hydrochloric acid, fake designer clothes, and Berlusconi's dyed hair, is anything in Italy genuine?
Has leaving phones outside the booths anything to do with elections being about ringing the changes?
There is a short primer here
(for those averse to totty, prepare to avert your eyes when visiting the rest of Theo Spark's blog)
Rules to excess indeed. The anti-terrorist RIPA act, which enables snooping on private citizens, is being used by local councils to spy on dog-walkers who do not scoop their dogs' poop. Oh Freedom!
We have a spate of new £1000 fine for dog poop notices all around Frome, on the major dog-walking routes. Have they also put up bins for us to dispose of said bags? No, they haven't. It is one authority responsible for the notices, another for the bins.
Alice in Wonderland? Alice in Blunderland? We are living in some sort of nightmare, methinks, and watching for the first time a week or 2 back, "The Lives Of Others", I kept thinking - this is Gordon Brown's wet dream. As it is. Not only is he reducing the economy to East German levels, he is re-engineering our society to that model as well.
I hope he dies before I get old... (said statement, I am pretty sure, results in my third banning by the Guardian Cif moderators. Can't recall my first handle, but that I changed to "CommentIsStifled", then wahen they stifled that, "GordonsAGoner" and now "GordonsAGurner". You can't keep a good man down.
Mr Weasel. This is a very old society; they have done everything and got the t-shirt. Nothing can be written, carved, painted, invented, declared, ruled, lost, shamed or honoured that Italy has not done. It's quite, quite eery.
England isn't old like here at all, and still reasonably undamaged if the European nightmare is stopped even this late. Somehow the English remain very English and themselves, with their centre of gravity sometime in the 100 years between 1650 and 1750 (centre of gravity, not amazing achievements that have influenced everything, obviously they come both earlier and later).
Italy is simply worn out, no matter what could be done they've done it already. So everything's a copy really.
ND, Is that a thought crime you have pointed at?
And they missed out the coffee corrected with infinite variety of substances.
I offered my mobile to the person on the desk, Nomad, and another invigilator leaned over and sneered at it. "You couldn't take a decent photo with that anyway; give it back to her.'
That still left me open to fining for it ringing in the polling booth but I was too put down to protest, so I broke the law. Mr HG is tougher in getting his law keeping rights than me.
Pig probably digs a hole half way through the Earth and buries it Elby, so you're safe from the snoops.
I followed the instructions from the telly carefully N, though there was a moment of panic when I couldn't find the Party on the Senate voting paper; the parties were in a different order from one voting paper to the next so I was carefully comparing which way round hammers and sickles were facing and doing botanical comparisons on various trees, twigs and daisies.
Hatfield girl,
I liked your site. Would you be interested in exchanging links with my site:
UK bubble
http://ukhousebubble.blogspot.com
I have added a link to your site on my blog.
Alice
Odd headline on the BBC site yesterday.
Berlusconi "wins" Italian election.
Say no more...
Verification - drhrbbul
- Dr Herbal?!
Unlike cats, dogs don't seem to bury their poo. But they do on the whole like to scuttle off a wee way to perform. What you do see is poo bags left hanging on this, that and the other.
Joined up thinking. You know it makes sense. And now, on a lovely April morning that started with a frost, we must take our morning constitutional.
Hello Alice. Your blog is fascinating , if scary. I keep getting a failed link but will sort that shortly.
Hatfield girl,
Thanks for the link. Unfortunately, we are living through a scarey time.
Good luck with your blog, and I promise to visit it regularly.
Alice
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