Wasting Spring

soundtrack: Oliver Onions – Springtime in Rome

In the canteen of the European Parliament you get to registers after a dangerous path in which you’ve risked to crash about thirty times with you tray, given that you look all around instead of looking ahead, you know, it’s full of wonderful ‘female quotas’ working there, asthonishing in their high heels – mini skirts outfits, full triumph of female sensuality, and there you ask yourself why on earth it’s not women’s’ day every day, no, not only that, why men just do not give everything up to women and rest – enjoying the simple view of them working, and then no, you realise that’s a chauvinist though so no, no, better to be led by women, better to be submitted and obey them, and then, no, this is a fetishist femdom thought, and that far dream in which two twin sisters are dancing on your back with 12-cm heels, and there, there it’s time for you to consider whether it would be better to write to a good psychologist for getting an appointment instead of writing on a public column, and then it’s you there at the registers and hell, yes, full stop, breathe deep and get back the thread, we are not living into Joyce’s Ulysses.

After all, this is Off Topic, and not by chance.

Forget (if you can) the marvellous creatures of the Parliament (yes, even that brunette with the low-necked dress) and focus yourself on the bench for the registers where, before paying you get your napkin from the dispensers. And there, clear letters tell you not to waste anything, to respect the environment, to take only the napkins you need.

Ho ho ho, here we are with the topic of this column. Congratulations. Now let’s wait for laggards, you know they have been asking around for telephone numbers, and let’s start again. You, there, stop it, you’re married ha! Well I know, I saw her, but you can’t stop everything just for springtime.

Speaking of environmental protection (err, more or less), I found the Croatian initiative of sponsoring its water into the Parliament, quite weird: they were giving away bottled water. They were giving away plastic bottles, you know. Kilometer zero, where are thou? And you, green economy? After just one year, the 28th Member State of the Union is ready to contribute to global pollution…you know, if there’s a long legged Croatian girl at the booth, who cares about pollution. Still, not a very good thing…

This Off Topic is harder than usual, I know, but I’ve just survived Brussels – Strasbourg, back to back. 430 km by car, leaving on Wednesday and coming back on Thursday. I would have been better off collapsing on the couch. Yet I’m here with you, my dear aficionados.

Believe me, I’m getting closer to the topic again.

430km for each trip are about 129kg of CO2 into the atmosphere, according the emissions calculator (dunno if it’s reliable, dunno if I used it properly, still…), given off by my car only.

Now think about a simple fact: once a month, the same path is done by hundreds of cars and trucks heading to the prestigious – and totally unuseful – French seat of the European Parliament, damaging both the environment and our wallets (about over 200 million euro a year). Think about this: no email but tons of paper in 28 languages, which usually are left getting dusty and aren’t suitable even for filters; no cuts for MEPs’ wages, about 8,000 € a month to honourable MEPs such as Clemente Mastella, Iva Zanicchi, Barbara Matera – well, she’s worth much more, to be honest – and Magdi Cristiano Allam, but cuts for (almost) honest citizens…you think about this all, in front of the napkins dispenser next to the registers that tells you to avoid waste. And suddenly, your only desire is to put it on fire – and then run to save all those poor girls, unable to save themselves on their stilettos…

Well, I think about it, at least. Luckily, springtime is coming.

Have a nice week you all. Even if you think about Dawson’s Creek when I say Joyce.

Francesco @Ceskoz_ Cardarelli