Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Carnival owl

A newspaper billboard is called in italian "civetta", which is literally little owl, but also means coquette, flirt or tease. So these devices are commonly referred to as "civette" because their purpose is to entice the passer-by into buying the actual paper (quote from Livorno Daily Photo, thanks Vogon Poet and Trillian).

Trieste is buzzing with the carnival and today is the grand finale with a lot of partying and major drinking binges. A few, however, obviously decided to get a head start and begin the fun on Sunday; and here is yesterday's "civetta" of our local newspaper, Il Piccolo, with the scandalous news "Alcoholic night. Ten minors (girls) admitted to the Burlo" (the children's hospital).

The Latin saying semel in anno licet insanire (
once a year it is acceptable to be mad) must apply to minors too, don't you think?

2 comments:

VP said...

Very funny post, pity it is not easy to translate the name of a hospital called "Burlo"!

Thanks for the quotation.

abc said...

Once a year from January to December :-)
I didn't know that excess drinking by minors was widespread in Italia. But I guess it's the same as almost everywhere else these days.