This year already looks like it going to be a year of Travel, just like last year was.

I have had a great visit to Venice where I met up with Renato Piccolotto the chef of the Cipriani and Barry Frangipane of Savory adventures in Venice. I've been to Milan, to Zurich, Lugano, Como, Pisa, Viareggio Lucca, London, Tuscany, Verona, Venice the list goes on and on. I plan a trip to Chile and South Africa to write on their fab wines in Summer. I have the web conferences from Paris to london and Rome.

What makes me do It? well apart from the opportunity to taste all that  great wine, food and culture which I'm facinated by, theres always new people to meet. Some I have known online from blogging and tweeting for years, and then get to meet them in person and thats always exciting, and some I simply meet along the way in the real world.

Twitter has put me in touch with thousands of people across the globe who have something in common with me and so far I have met 700 of them in person and counting.

Care to tell us why and where you travel?

Happy travels 

Wisequeen.

So few visitors see Italy as she is to her locals. I leave you with this rich cultural feast in dialect put up on a noticeboard outside the newsagents on my last visit to Tuscany. Its not all wine and roses here, although I may have led you to believe that. If you need a translation ask someone, or I'll  have to oblige.

let me know your comments on THE  REAL ITALY

 http://www.vernacoliere.com/edicola/locandina.gif

@wisequeen

I wrote this post on my iphone,. I have two iphones, and I cant imagine what the ipad could offer to make me spend another 700 dollars to watch clips on. I have a TV for that. I stopped carrying my Apple Mac book pro around to blog live on at conferences awhile ago. I went smaller and smaller, from my Mac Air which I love, to the iphone and that covers all my needs and is in my hand whereever I go.  * I have two to cover two countries.

So the IPAD, AM DESPERATE FOR  ONE? NOT SO MUCH AS IT TURNS OUT.

WHAT THE real people THINK OF IT.

Click here to see what it can replace

And for those of you who worship at the Techcrunch altar , a comparision

WISEQUEEN OF ALL SHE SURVEYS.

 I have one of the most common Names in UK and America. Donna Jackson is the English equivalent of John Smith, which is all good and well, but I don't live in USA or UK, I live in that loose association of countries and languages called Europe. Specifically in the Italian speaking part of Europe. High up the boot on the kneecap. 

My name is, almost every day, the subject of great debate and annoyance. I have to spell it out 100 times a day. I used to take Michael Jackson's name in vain and say "like Michael Jackson  you know".  Which didn't help at all because it just upped the wierdness factor. They couldn't write his name either, because  J doesn't exsist in the Italian language. Yes really. If forced, the Italians will refer to it as "I lungo" meaning the long I.

Then lets get to the real joke, my perfectly normal and common Christian name ( outside of Europe), Donna. What hilarity and confusion this causes. What kind of parents would call their child "woman" Don't you have a name? they say. "I can see you are a woman" when I repeat DONNA. This has been going on for a decade.

Wisequeen my handle in the online and blogging world, may be slighter better, but Germans have been known, in presentations I give,  to hear "Widescreen" instead, and go banging on about TVs.

Once Italians know me as Donna, they do everything in their power to change the pronounciation of it because they just can't believe anyone could have such a name. So I get Doner ( far to close to Donut) Dana, and so on.  It's DONNA  I repeat," just  like woman in Italian".  No use.

This week I was on a Swiss train as usual going to Zurich. A German man was checking my ticket I had forgotten my half price card, so asked him to check on the system. I handed him my passport which has my name written correctly on it, which he held in his hand while typing.

No he said, "Not on the system". Really, I said, Are you sure?. "Yes, nothing!" he insisted  and  he filled out a fine for me to sign. And as I looked at the name (which he copied from my passport), he had spelled it Danna. "You have spelled my name wrong" I said. "Then the passport must be wrong" he said. No I said, its right, so please  check again.  He did, and my card came up.

On Christmas day 2009 another Muslim planned to murder Americans travelling on a plane. Due to the courage of  the passengers alone, his mission failed.

He was on every watch list. What is more,  his own  father had warned the CIA that he was a risk.

Why was he not on the no visa, no  fly list? Why did intel not pick him up as he boarded?

As the president of USA had to announce to the nation,  "the human error was not complicated".

They spelled his name wrong..... and therefore the computers could not pick him up.

Really Yes. 

Computers will only give us what we ask for...

Please my  American and English speaking peeps. I ask you  stand with me and declare that the name Donna Jackson is perfectly common and popular!. I need your help! leave me a comment with your name on it, thats all.

Donna Jackson 

Wisequeen of all she surveys.

As the song goes "So this is Christmas, and what have you done?"

Well... A lot. This year has been an action-packed one for me, and this Christmas Eve  as I pack to go and celebrate Christmas with family in Tuscany and then go on to spend some days in the centre of the world, that is London; I'm very mindful of the fact that so many will not have food and the essentials of life this season. And so, instead of flashing the plastic and ringing up at the tills, I decided instead  to give the gift of food and education for the  orphans at the Kalinda Childrens Home in Zambia who have lost their parents to Aids.

A simple card with a message inside as to what you have gifted and why, is a great gift to give family and friends. It is something all of us can do, so the 20 -50 dollars or Euro that you blow on a few trinkets that get thrown in a drawer after the tree and decorations come down, this year can have far reaching effect on someone's life and future. So I ask you to consider it. You can give  after Christmas too.

 Just Think about it.... 

click on the link to go 

All funds are managed by a team (including doctors here in Switzerland who give of their time) and a school is being built on the land that was bought with the funds raised so far.

A blessed, peaceful, Happy Christmas to you and your families.

Donna Jackson

Wisequeen