Hearty Welcomes & Salutations! Originally an action-packed travel blog from a globe-trotting Scotsman, An Ache for the Distance has, over the years, slowed down (I post less often), mellowed out (domestic life has found it's way way on here) and become more of an expat/photo blog. Take a look around, leave a comment and share the love if you like something.
Stuart Mathieson, Lübeck, Germany

Saturday 6 August 2011

Italian from a Scottish perspective - Gola

How times change.  When I was younger I once put off joining a local football team for four months because of my football boots.  Golas just weren't cool.  Rather than risk social humiliation, I waited until Christmas.  Santa eventually came with a pair of Adidas boots and I was able to devote my Sunday afternoons in exotically windswept locations like Arbroath losing football matches (normally in double figures) safe in the knowledge that my social credentials were firmly in tact.

Of course, with hindsight, it was stupid to wait for four months.  I mean the boots were terrible, my best friend regulary took the piss because somehow they became shinier when exposed to mud,
but nowadays Gola is well and truly in.  I could have been a pioneer...Well maybe... Maybe in Milan I would have been a pioneer, in Dundee I would more likely have had eggs thrown at my windows.  That may sound like an unusual consequence but I knew how the system worked, I had thrown the eggs!

In Italy however you wouldn't get it in the neck for wearing Golas.  Not only because they're now cool and fashionable but also because Gola in Italian actually means "neck".  You have to wonder though whether Italians actually know of or wear the mighty Gola brand, I mean would you walk around with the word "neck" across your bag or shoes? Seems a bit daft, although people often have "Bench" etched across their collars despite it clearly not being a place to park your arse...

Either way, it's nice to think of Italians going to the doctor to complain about their golas...


1 comment:

gone to the beach said...

Hobbies...maybe we have this primitive need to be part of something. And being good at what we do...ready to sacrifice almost everything to get credit and success.
Like me, when I was young I joined in one scouting-group (there wasn't nothing wrong about that lifestyle but..)and soon quit after getting a scarf. Sometimes my family use to mention that as a joke. Not funny! Did it really happened that way, I am not sure:). I also start folk dance ---but I didn't quit after getting these dance shoes:) that's for sure. But when you are kid and want to try different new things - it's a bit shortsighted doing. If I have done it - I feel sorry for that. I think most of people have this kind of experience....I have been in karate too, thank to my best friend who respect his presence to take part of it and sweating there too...There I maybe learn that discipline what is really needed in real life:).Bye, you Italian, I am just jealous...how the h... you can be there in all of these different countries!!