Category: Featured

Through a friend I got a job as a body double for Liev Schreiber on the set of a movie adaption of Hemingway‘s last novel Across the River, into the Trees.

There are some scenes where the protagonist rows a Venetian boat, but Liev hadn’t managed to learn the technique sufficiently well.

With a bit of makeup, a haircut and letting the beard grow we do look alike a bit. He looks older then me. He isn’t.

So far so good. I was to go and do some rowing scenes instead of Liev, and I’m not somebody to let go of a chance to fool around in a boat in a movie, so I accepted.

The boring part

Then came the boring part.

Or rather, the boring parts, because overall working as a double on a movie set is immensely boring.

They kept calling me for all sorts of non-rowing things. I spent days going around knocking on doors searching for something nobody ever told me what was. Lucia, the double of the female lead in the movie, drove me up and down canals in a vintage motorboat for days on end.

They would summon me for the most inconvenient hours, sometimes at 6am, other times at 8pm. Costume and makeup, that’s a couple of hours, then to the set in a motorboat.

On the set I would sometimes spend ten to twelve hours doing nothing whatsoever, dressed up as a 1950s US Army colonel. Some days they would have me do something, most often as a stand-in, but other days I would do absolutely nothing.

The most interesting days were with the second crew doing B-shots. At least I was doing something rather than just hang around.

After a few weeks I realised that they only called me three days each week. They had everybody work 12-14 hour days, so after three days they’d have to pay overtime. That’s after 40 hours weekly here in Italy. The trick was of course to have us work a full week, but only pay us for three days.

Kind of clever of them, but not exactly endearing. In the end we did very long days for much less than minimum wage.

Finally, finally we arrived at the scene where I would be rowing, and they told me to be at base at 6am. I was on the set at 8am, and sat there until 5pm. When they eventually got to the rowing part, Liev wanted to do it. I had to wait even longer before he gave up.

The rowing scenes

Another month passed before we got to the final rowing scene.

This was up in the northern lagoon, and I had to get up at 4am so they could pick me up in a car at 6am, and the days were just as long.

The first day up there I did nothing. What they did didn’t actually involve any rowing, just the boat as a stationary prop.

The second day I met a young man on the boat who proudly told me that he was going to row in the movie.

The fools had forgotten why they’d called me in the first place, and had called in somebody else. We didn’t anything all day, as the camera crew didn’t show up. They hadn’t been paid.

I spend the day fooling around in the boat, followed by a fairly good lunch. The next day the other guy didn’t come, and I got do the rowing bit.

Then, when I thought the ordeal was finally over, they asked me to go to Trieste for another scene there in a car on a road overlooking the Golf of Trieste.

The Aftermath

The Italian production company behind Across the River, Into the Trees hadn’t paid anybody for two months, and there was a lot of grumbling on the set the last few days.

That’s why the camera crew didn’t show up one of the last days.

The company kept promising, and kept not keeping their promises. Their lawyers even sent formal letters with promises that weren’t kept.

In the end I had to threaten repeatedly to withdraw the permission to use my image in the movie to get them to pay. They only paid me in September.

I was on the set a bit in December 2020, then a good deal in January and February 2021, and a few days in March.

They didn’t pay friends of mine, who manage places where the second crew stayed and ate, until later still.

Needless to say, I’m not going to run around looking for movie sets. It’s probably the most boring job I’ve ever done, and my first job as a teenager was washing dishes.

The movie Across the River, Into the Trees

The movie is still in post-production. I have no idea when it’ll be out, or even where.

I don’t think my name will be in the credits, but I’m at a point where I frankly don’t care.

The shots where the colonel is seen from the back or in the distance will most likely be me rather than Liev, though I know he did some distant shots too.

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I thought it a good idea to send my bicycle by train from Copenhagen to the Brenner pass, and then do the rest of the trip to Ancona in the Marche in central Italy by bicycle.

Everything worked out, and soon I was on the main road towards Bressanone/Brixen which I reached an hour later.

That were sixty kilometres and a change in altitude of about 1000m. The road had hair pin turns, went through long tunnels and across tall bridges, but I moved at the same speed as the cars on the road.

I had never done anything like it. The sense of excitement and achievement was immense.

That was some thirty years ago. I was in my twenties. The thought that a twig on the road could have sent me hurling off a tall bridge or into a deep ravine never crossed my mind.

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Last August my father-in-law was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.

After several periods in two different hospitals, the doctors gave him two months to live and they sent him home.

We decided that we could care better for both of my in-laws if they stayed with us. Thankfully they accepted.

My father-in-law stayed with us for five months. A group of doctors and nurses came to our home several times each week, so we had support, but all the day to day care was on us.

It was a slow protracted decline. My mother-in-law who has always had severe mental health problems flanked by dementia, went downhill alongside her husband.

I don’t think either of them really understood or accepted what was happening.

In January his health was so poor that we struggled to provide sufficient care for him. Even if we didn’t want to, we had to ask for a place for him in a hospice in Venice.

We didn’t have to wait for long, and he was moved by ambulance to the hospice on a Saturday morning.

He was there. He interacted with the nurses. He even made jokes and thanked us for having provided such a nice room for him.

The nurses told us to sleep at home, and get some rest. We would need the energy later, they said, so we went home.

The next morning, when my wife returned, he was hardly there anymore. She called me, and put the phone to his ear for a salute, but we don’t know if he heard me.

That afternoon I prepared our bags to stay the night there, and we settled in expecting a long wait.

Around ten his breath became irregular, then sporadic, then it stopped.

It was peaceful, my wife held his hand and spoke to him between the tears.

I had never experienced anything like it. The sense of sadness and impotence was immense.

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Death has been with us since, and looking back, also before.

Two weeks later my mother-in-law died in hospital, most likely of Covid19, as she had all the symptoms.

We’ll never know for sure, however, as there were no tests available at the time.

We spent the next three months in lockdown. The news were little more than about many were infected and how many had died each day.

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Death is always with us, even if we choose not to notice.

Looking back after what we’ve been through this last year, and I see things that I chose not to see back then.

Four years ago I had a stroke. It wasn’t that serious, and in little more than a month I was back kayaking and rowing. It would have had to much different, though, for it to have been the end.

Two years ago a idiot headbutted me, and broke my nose. The fracture was uncomplicated and didn’t leave any permanent scars. However, I still remember the suppressed fury of the doctor at the A&E when he told me that had the blow been ever so slightly different I would have been dead on the spot.

Further back, memories of near accidents on a motorbike, kayaking in 3m waves because the wind suddenly turned, screeching brakes as I raced my bicycle across the road on my way to school as a child.

We choose not to see, because the consequences are too huge to comprehend, but even in the most boring of human lives, there will have been hundreds of similar situations.

This morning a huge cruise ship, the MSC Opera, lost control in the middle of Venice city, hit the quay and a moored ship.

Four persons are hurt, but non seriously.

This must be the end of these monsters in the city of Venice. Ships that size do not belong in the lagoon.

Below are a handful of videos which show the dynamics of the accident from several different sides. After the videos I’ve tried to collect what information is available on the accident, the dynamics of it and its causes and effects.

Video taken from the Giudecca island

Video taken from ashore

Video taken from the ship

Video taken from passing ferry

The aftermath

Where did it happen?

It happened around 8:30am very close to the San Basilio vaporetto stop, which the MSC Opera very nearly hit.

The map below shows the route of the MSC Opera within the lagoon and through the city, until the point of the accident.

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It appears obvious that if the accident could happen there, it could have happened earlier on the route as well, like just in from of St. Mark’s square and the Palazzo Ducale.

This accident is no small matter. Venice was very lucky today.

What happened?

While the final story will only be determined later during the inquest which must be made, some statements have been made.

Apparently the MSC Opera had an engine malfunction, which caused it to go full speed ahead in a very narrow space for a ship that size. Not being able to slow down, they also lost control of the direction, and the ship veered to the right, hitting first the quayside and then the moored River Countess (a river cruise ship quite a bit smaller than the MSC Opera).

The cruise ships have one or two tugs attached, one front and one back, to help the ship turn the sharp corners on the route through the city. The ship advances under its own propulsion, and the tugs pulls it sideways front and back to turn.

The tugs did what they could to stop or divert the MSC Opera, but they were no match, and at some point at or after impact one of the tug lines snapped.

Apparently the MSC Opera moved at more than six knots at the time of impact, having accelerated from about 5 knots earlier in the Canale Giudecca.

After having scraped along the quayside for a bit, it hit the River Countess in a way as to push the smaller ship away from the quay, breaking the moorings.

The MSC Opera them came to a halt where there was a corner in the quay. The River Countess ended up on the outside of the MSC Opera.

At impact a few persons fell or jumped into the water from the River Countess, and the impact shook the River Countess badly, causing many to fall. Two or five persons were taken to hospital (accounts vary) but nobody was seriously hurt.

There were some 130 persons on board the River Countess, and up to 1700 passengers and 450 crew on the MSC Opera.

Both ships stayed afloat. The MSC Opera has damages to the bow and from side. The River Countess has most of the bow destroyed. The quayside probably sustained the most damage.

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While this is all bad enough, had it all happened just a few hundred meters earlier, it would have been far worse. The MSC Opera would have hit a fondamenta (a sidewalk facing the water) and it would probably had destroyed the vaporetto stop at San Basilio, where people would be waiting for the boat.

Afterwards

Cruise ships arrive one after another in Venice, with about 30 minutes intervals. When the accident happened, others cruise ships were already entering the lagoon, and they had to stay put in the middle of the city for hours, while the two damaged ships were towed away.

Removing the two ships has taken a good deal of the day.

The Regata della Sensa and the Festa della Sensa, ancient annual Venetian celebrations, were scheduled to start half an hour after the accident, and most of the participants were already in the Bacino San Marco, when the entire event was called off. Nobody was told so, however, and the participants of the events only found out on social media.

Many performed the celebration anyway, without the participation of the local authorities.

Cruise ships in Venice

The presence of cruise ships in Venice has been contested for years. Such large ships cannot manoeuvre in the tight spaces in the lagoon, as need of tugs to turn the corners show.

However, the harbour is a state harbour run from Rome, and the major of the city is an industrialist with a sensitive ear for the needs and wishes of local industry, so nobody has paid any heed to the many grassroots movements who have warned about this for decades.

Thankfully there were no casualties in this accident, bit it must lead to a stop of the monster ships entering the lagoon.

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The initial response of the major of Venice, Luigi Brugnaro, was that ships will have to enter the city by another route, which requires the dredging of millions of m3 of heavily polluted mud and sediments to open up the Canale Vittorio Emanuele II for the cruise ships.

There are other suggestions which could keep the ship completely outside the lagoon, at sea where they belong, but lots of vested interests are opposed.

Some of the issues with the alternative routes are discussed here and here.

Last Tuesday I placed the most difficult signature of my life on the most unwanted piece of paper ever.

I signed away the life of our Penny.

Penny came to us thirteen months ago. She was in a horrible condition.

Months of neglect has reduced her to shadow of herself.

Down to half her former weight and seriously dehydrated, her eyes sunken in to be almost invisible behind dark shades on her skin, some kind of infection around her eyes, mouth, nose and ears leaving a hard black crust. Even if she looked at us, it was like she wasn’t there.

A walking ghost in search of somebody who wasn’t there any more.

We took her in so she could die in a warm home, on a soft pillow, and not in a cage in the cold amongst strangers.

The vet gave her a month, maybe two.

Penny was stronger than that, though. She came back.

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Once we figured out what she liked, she started eating. She drank lots of water. She put on weight.

We took her for short walks every day. Just a few hundred meters. It was all she could handle.

There was grass and dirt. She didn’t know what it was initially, having lived entirely on the paved alleyways of Venice, but she soon found out that it was nice and interesting for an old dog, and she willingly walked there twice every day.

There was a bar like the one where she stayed so often with her previous owner, and after a strenuous walk to the grass and back, she would rest between the tables, asking for treats with her characteristic double “vouf-vouf”.

After a while everybody knew her, just like where she lived before.

The hardest part was the stairs up to our second floor apartment, and she would often resist leaving the bar to confront the many steps up to her pillow.

When it was too hard, we would give her a helping hand, or even carry her which she enjoyed immensely.

She put on to much weight, so we had reduced her portion, of which she definitely didn’t approve.

Her eyes came back alive and almost ceased watering, the black shadow healed, and the black hardened stuff on her nose, in her ears, around the eyes and her mouth disappeared.

We brushed and gradually her fur became fitting for a beautiful collie, rather than the dense carpet it was when she came to us.

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However, you can’t turn back time, or even halt it.

As the months passed, she became slower and more tired. She needed more help on the stairs. We stopped trying to take her for longer walks. She needed longer breaks at the bar.

In the hot summer she suffered the heat. She could hardly breathe. We bought an air conditioning unit, and she slept just in front of it all summer.

She continued to lie down in front of it, even when it became less hot and we turned it off.

We thought it was old age, arthritis and general weakness.

During the last few months there was a marked deterioration of her health. She was very short of breath, and would stop every few steps to breathe. She was very tired.

Last Saturday we spend the entire day on the Certosa island, where my company has its office. We took her along, even if the walk was a bit longer than she would normally do. She was tired, but has a good place to rest and still wanted scraps of food.

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On the return trip her luck ran out.

Stepping off the vaporetto to the platform, a wave moved the boat, and her hind leg got caught between boat and platform.

We got her free, and on the platform, but she couldn’t stand. Her leg gave way, and she was bleeding profusely.

I carried her to a safe spot, and we started phoning all the vets we could find a number for. Our own vet didn’t answer initially, and we were very scared. Penny was bleeding copiously, but didn’t complain and remained conscious and responsive.

I carried her in my arms, best I could, the 6-700m to our vet.

She had lost lots of blood, but was still responsive and didn’t complain.

The X rays showed a fracture of her heel bone, and the blood was from skin wounds, deep but not life threatening.

I carried her home, and we started searching for a veterinary orthopedic. It was a Sunday, and the worst emergency was over, so we were asked to call again Monday.

The best clinic is in Thiene at the foot of the Dolomites, 90 minutes drive away. Living in Venice we don’t have a car, and need to take a vaporetto towards the mainland, so it became a three hour journey.

We set off at 6am, and arrived the in a friend’s car at 9am. Penny was in a plastics crate from a bicycle trailer, and handle the journey well. She slept most of the time.

Once at the clinic she was visited by a vet, an orthopaedic, a neurologist and an anaesthetist. They took a blood sample.

We then waited for several hours. Penny was very tired, but she slept or at least rested as long as we were close besides her. We couldn’t leave as she would get very worried, twisting and turning to find the one missing.

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When the anaesthetist came back with the results of the blood test, it showed that Penny was very anaemic, and it wasn’t just because of the blood loss on Saturday evening.

The only way to figure out if they could do the operation on her fractured heel safely, was to do a full body CAT scan.

To do the CAT scan they would have to do a full anaesthetic, and they couldn’t guarantee that she would survive that.

It wasn’t easy but I signed the papers and we sent her off for the scan.

They told us we had half an hour to get a quick lunch.

They called us back exactly half an hour later, and the news were devastating.

An entire lung was one giant tumour, and the other lung was half full of fluids. No wonder she was so tired and short of breath.

There was another tumour on the liver, so the cancer had probably metastasised.

There was no hope. We tried to plead for any kind of way out, but all alternatives would only cause Penny more suffering.

The fracture on the foot would take months to heal, but the lung tumour would kill her in a matter of weeks. When she died, it would be of slow suffocation, potentially taking hours of pain and agony.

We cried our eyes out, but tears won’t heal her, so there was no alternative. Every other option was unbearably worse for Penny.

We went to see her one last time.

She was still under full anaesthetic, strapped into the CAT scanner, with a huge green tube in her mouth for breathing.

I don’t know if it was a good idea to go and see her, because I now have that image of poor Penny, strapped into that machine, empty eyes and that big, green tube in her mouth, but we couldn’t just walk away.

After a while outside crying, we went in to pay the bill and sign the final papers.

Putting my signature on the euthanasia permit is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do.

Her departure had left us devastated.

She is now reunited with her first owner, Claudio, with whom she spent her first thirteen years. He died six months before we adopted her.

I hope there are grass and bars and plenty of treats where she is now.

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She has been a part of our life for over a year, and she had given us so much.

In the night she would come into our bedroom several times to make sure we were still there, and sometimes she would fall asleep just outside the open door. We always left a fleece cover there for her to sleep on.

In the early morning when Martina got up to go to work, she would be all sleepy, but wag her tail and wanting to be cuddled before falling asleep again.

Later in the morning when she wanted to go for a walk, she would do her “vouf vouf” continuously following me around as I got up. She would even check up on me in the bathroom to make sure I didn’t somehow escape without taking her along.

Our walks were usually about an hour each, but as soon as she had done her necessities she would head straight for the closest open bar, where she would lie down between the tables and beg for treats: “vouf vouf”.

At home she had her pillow in our living room where she would spend most of her time, but as our home also became her home, she started wandering around and rest wherever she felt like.

We tried to take her out for longer walks, but she got too tired. Her favourite place was no doubt the local bar, similar to the place she went every day for thirteen years with Claudio.

She lived fourteen years, ten months and twenty nine days. She spent just a tiny bit at the end with us, but she made us smile, laugh, and be happy.

She loved us and we love her, and we always will.

It wasn’t out of malice. On the contrary, I kind of liked the man. I wouldn’t have saved him because of mental slowness, and a lack of preparation. When the therapist intervened, I still hadn’t understood the gravity of the situation. I was in a kind of confused state of mind, that yes, something wasn’t right, but I couldn’t quite get my head around what, and not understanding, I didn’t act. Thoughts of “drowning” and “death” still hadn’t crossed my mind. I only understood afterwards, when the therapist was already in the pool. How long would the poor man have had to wait for me to save him? I hope not for long, but honestly I don’t know. Maybe he would have drowned there besides me. Nobody else in the pool had noticed anything. If it hadn’t been for a bright and alert therapist, he could have died there in the hospital pool. Simply by extended an arm I could have touched him. I didn’t. I didn’t because I didn’t understand. Drowning is not a violent, dramatic and noisy event. One drowns in silence, immobile, sometimes metres from who could save you.

The challenge of the association Poveglia per tutti of collecting enough money to beat the other bid for the island, failed. The association arrived at €420,000 but that was not enough, as the unknown other bidder had offered €513,000 for the island. Second battle lost, then. The war is not necessarily lost, though.

The next steps

After the online bidding round on last Tuesday, which saw no raised bids, a technical commission of the Demanio di Stato (the body managing state owned properties) has 30 days to examine the winning bid, to decide whether it is in conformance with the conditions set out in the offer to sell the island, and whether it is in the state’s interest to sell at that price. If the Demanio refuses to sell at €513,000 we’re back to square one and all options are open as before.

The winning bidder

The winning bid was made anonymously, but at the end of the bidding process it was revealed that the person behind the offer was Luigi Brugnaro. Brugnaro is a well know figure in Venice. He is the president and main sponsor of the very popular Reyer basketball team, the owner and founder of the company Umana Spa and ex-president of the Association of Industrialists in the Veneto region. The popularity of the Reyer team hasn’t rubbed much off on him, though. He is generally disliked. He is not Venetian, but comes from the small town Spinea on the mainland, so he is seen as an outsider, a non-Venetian. Umana Spa which made him rich, is a jobs agency, helping people find work in return for a share of the wages earned in a period afterwards. Neither this as made him popular. The company is seen as a parasite, exploiting the desperation of the many jobless. He is perceived as having gotten wealthy on the back of common people’s misery. He also has a concession for 40 years on the Scuola Grande della Misericordia. It is a huge building in Cannareggio, formerly used as a municipal sports facility, but very much in disrepair. To save the building, the city has given it in concession to Brugnaro, in return for restoration. Brugnaro, however, lets the building rot while renting it out to private parties and company events. The net effect of this is that a public good has been turned over to a private citizen, with no return benefits to the public. Most people expect this to repeat if Brugnaro gets hold of poor Poveglia.

The city of Venice

On the sideline is the city of Venice. The city council has an option in these cases, of buying the island in front of the winning bidder, at the price established by the auction. Therefore, if the Demanio decides that the island can be sold 99 years for €513,000, then the city can get the island for that price. The city can also get the island if the Demanio decides not to sell at the price offered. In that case the island can be devolved to the city. There is therefore a real chance that the city of Venice will be able to acquire control of the island, one way or the other. There will be local elections next year in May, exactly one year from now. If the city council lets Brugnaro have the island, when they had options to prevent it, they will pay at the next elections. Considering the ability of the Poveglia per tutti association in mobilising thousands of Venetians and others for a common cause, it would be a rather stupid decision of a not very popular city council to not try to get hold of the island, and it that case, not to let the Poveglia per tutti association run it. On the other hand, if they manage to secure the island for the Venetian public, there might be an electoral reward around the corner. So, in spite of everything, there’s still hope.