Come on, Gazza!

Reading about Paul Gascoigne being sectioned for three months under the Mental Health Act is distressful for any football fan, but for those of us who saw him play it is positively heartbreaking. His sheer commitment and joie de vivre on the pitch was a joy to behold. He was in my opinion, apart from being one of the greats at the game, Mister Entertainment himself.
When he played for Lazio here in Rome, he was adored, his antics (footballing and non) talked about in the bars and cafés all week. If he was fouled, Paul thought perhaps the other player wanted his shirt so he’d take it off and hand it over, much to the amusement of the fans, or if he was the culprit, he’d simply apologize and then rush to shake the ref’s hand. He’d make faces at the camera. He brought laughter to the stadium.

When he left Lazio to return to England, I remember the barman of a supporters’ café wearing a black armband, his eyes welling with tears as he spoke of life without his beloved ‘Gazza’.
Now the lad from Newcastle is in serious trouble, his main problem possibly being the lack of competition in his life, the charge of adrenalin he felt every time he pulled on his football shirt and ran out onto the pitch to the roar of the crowds.
Don’t tell me Gazza has nothing left to offer the game. Why can’t one of the Premier League’s top teams make him a coach at their youth academies, have him pass on his exquisite skills to the next generation? Surely he could glean vicarious excitement and his need of competition by watching his charges race up and down the field, the ball at their feet, the goal in sight.

There are obscene amounts of money in the sport today (its players paid outrageous salaries); let's put some of it to a decent use.  How about a different kind of profit?  Like a feel-good profit.
Gazza gave football so much; it’s time football gave some of it back.

Read All About it: English Girl Saves Her Dog

I woke up this morning to a series of phone calls and messages from friends to tell me that Edie’s daring rescue of Lola was in all the papers (La Repubblica, Il Tempo, Il Messaggero...). I immediately raced out to buy the various newspapers and, sitting at a pavement table in the Campo enjoying my cappuccino and cornetto, read all about our au pair girl's heroics. Apart from spelling her name ‘Eddy’, the articles were really complimentary.
How modest can you get? Edie hadn’t told us the half of it. Speedboats, divers, a high speed ride home in a Fire Brigade's rubber dinghy, crowds of onlookers… Her escapade was far more touch and go than she had let on, almost as though she were embarrassed by all the fuss. Don’t be so modest, Edie; you saved my dog! And for that I shall be forever grateful.

I read some of the articles to Lola, who didn’t even raise her head.
“Want to go for a walk, Lola?” Edie called out from the entrance hall. “Come on!”
That got Lola’s attention; her head shot up and off she went.
“Stay away from water, Edie!” I called out moments before I heard the front door shut.

Lola Does It Again

“Don’t forget my cigarettes, Daddy,” my little daughter shouted out as she raced into the school.
“I won’t,” I shouted back. What? Buying cigarettes for my baby? No! She needed them for her school play the next day, as a stage prop, so I promised I would buy her a pack of chocolate ones. She was delighted. Little did I know what that promise would entail, how difficult it would be, and how many cafés and sweet shops I would have to visit.
However, while I was out scouring the city for chocolate cigarettes, unbeknownst to me Edie was bravely fighting to save Lola’s life and her own!
She had taken Lola for a walk along the banks of the River Tiber, the perfect place for such an exercise. Well, Lola loves water (as the photo of her on the right testifies) and an insignificant little detail like ‘collar and lead’ wasn’t going to stop her going for a swim. Somehow she broke free of Edie and leaped straight into the river, the currents quickly carrying her away. Edie ran about half a mile, slid down a muddy bank and, after some very scary moments, managed to grab Lola, but was unable to climb back up again, the slope far too slippery. Before her strength ebbed completely, one hand stubbornly preventing my dog from floating away again (to who knew what fate), a passerby spotted them and called the Fire Brigade, who pulled them to safety watched by an applauding crowd on the bridge above.
The first I knew of it was, when returning home proudly clutching the chocolate cigarettes (already wallowing in my daughter’s hero-worship), I bumped into Edie and Lola, both looking as though they’d been dragged through a very muddy hedge backwards!

My chocolate cigarette escapades paled in comparison.

Edie, my hero.

Eternal...

When the children left for school this morning, it was raining hard enough to imagine a repeat of Noah’s universal flood. But, as nearly always happens, the rain proved to be yet another reminder from the gods that we who live in Rome are spoiled, that sunshine is a gift to be cherished and not to be taken for granted (as we often do). In fact, the rain stopped and the sun came out to chase away the few remaining clouds, and bathe this extraordinary city in the most brilliant light, the signal for locals and tourists alike to come out and luxuriate in its eternal warmth.
Though I was in a perfect mood to work, I too succumbed to the pull of the atmosphere outside. I abandoned my computer, put the leash on Lola and off we went to be a part of it all, the cobblestones still wet from the earlier rain.
After it has rained, everything looks so much sharper, cleaner and brighter, like the street vendor’s flowers, the packed pavement cafés, the statues, the buildings, the colours, the faces at the windows, mothers walking their toddlers…
I like to imagine that when Samuel Johnson, the eighteenth century English diarist, said “When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life…” he was also referring to Rome.

P.S. Just as the cobblestones were drying, the heavens opened up again, and it hasn't stopped raining since.  Oh, well...

Is Anyone Listening? Does Anyone Care?

Yesterday, Roma and Inter Milan played football matches that decided the outcome of the Serie A, the Italian equivalent of England’s Premier League. Had Roma won and Inter, who went into the game one point ahead, either lost or drawn, then Roma would have been crowned champions. Their opponents, respectively Catania and Parma, had to avoid defeat to escape the drop into the lower division.
The matches ended with Inter winning and becoming champions, which condemned Parma to the drop, while Roma drew, with Catania scoring the equalizer five minutes from the final whistle, a fact that saved them from going down, the second near escape in as many years.  Great news!
In fact, Catania was so happy to have avoided the drop, their substitute players and staff first insulted the Roma bench on hearing that Inter Milan had scored, and again when Catania equalized. After the game, the Catania fans were so happy that their team would be playing in the top flight again next season, they celebrated by going on the warpath against the police.  Again?  'Fraid so!
These people have the smallest brains and the shortest memories, and clearly no shame; their fans were responsible for the death of 38-year-old police officer Filippo Raciti during crowd violence at the end of the Catania-Palermo derby on February 2, 2007.  Just fifteen months ago...

Exploitation

I was sitting at the wine bar enjoying a late morning cappuccino, and the surrounding beauty and atmosphere of the Campo de’ Fiori: the pretty girls in their summer frocks, the smiling, laughing faces, the colours of the market, the lovers walking hand in hand, the shouts of the vendors, the myriad languages of the tourists, the busker singing ‘O Sole Mio’, the pastel colours of the buildings, the restaurants preparing for the lunch invasion, the sun worshippers sitting at pavement tables, their faces turned up to the sky… Perfect.
Perfect until a little girl, she can’t have been more than eight years old, came up to me with her hand out and begged me for money, her practiced eye already sweeping the other tables for potential hits. My answer was an immediate and irrevocable ‘no’, as strong as my contempt for her parents. Not even remotely affected by my refusal, her expression uncaring, unchanging, she moved on to the next target – a table of elderly foreign tourists. And just as her parents knew they would, the tourists (motivated by kindness and, no doubt, a touch of guilt) gave the child a handful of change. I cursed the child’s parents (probably sitting in a Mercedes around the corner ready to collect their pimp earnings) for depriving her of her childhood, of an education...
Don’t give these children money; it just encourages their parents to keep them on the street, exposing them to danger and abuse. It’s no wonder when you look into their eyes you see nothing, the child long gone, hopefully (if you believe in reincarnation) to a far better place.

So Much Beauty

We sped across the Ponte della Liberta (with Venice in the near distance) to the docks to catch the ferry to the Lido, which was due to sail in about ten minutes. What great timing! Hopefully there’d be room for our car.  The ferry in sight, just a couple of hundred yards to go… and suddenly a traffic cop appeared out of nowhere and waved us to the side of the road. “Just a routine check…” he started.
“No! You’ll make us miss the ferry!” I interrupted.
“Oh,” he stammered, possibly taken aback by my effrontery and my English accent. “Uh… when does it leave?”
“In ten minutes,” I said as I whipped out my drivers licence, the gesture meant to placate his ego. You don’t shout at cops; I couldn’t believe I had.
He studied my licence, casting the occasional glance toward the ferry. “Mmm… expires 2010…” We could see he didn’t want us to miss the ferry, but neither could he just let us go. Then Fate lent him a hand in the shape of another car coming up behind us.  He handed me my licence and waved us on, his dignity restored.
“Thank you,” I smiled, as I put the car in gear and raced away.
Standing on the ferry’s gently humming deck as we sailed up the Canale della Giudecca, I stared in wonder at the wonderful sights – the Molino Stucky Hilton (an old flour mill), Le Zattare, where Venetians like to sunbathe and enjoy their ice cream, the Punta Della Dogana, the Bacino di San Marco with its bell tower, the Palazzo Ducale, the church of San Giorgio, the Riva degli Schiavoni, the Biennale….
I was woken from my reverie by an angry blast of the ferry’s horn, a warning to a smaller craft that was drifting into our path as we approached the Lido.

No Room At The Inn

It was a glorious sunny day, perfect conditions for a six-hour drive to Venice – via Florence (the dome of the Santa Croce cathedral visible in the distance), Bologna and Padova. Nice easy drive, the traffic not too heavy.

Halfway into the trip (to deliver a friend’s furniture to his apartment on the Lido), Andrea and I decided we’d like a slap-up meal (with a good bottle of red wine) to celebrate the start of a three day sojourn from reality (work, bills…). So, turning our noses up at the motorway grills, their greasy fare way beneath our sophisticated palates, we ventured onto secondary roads in search of culinary delights.

Following sign posts proudly indicating the name of a restaurant in the commune of Malalbergo, we got there to find it had just closed (the village, too), like every other restaurant within a fifty kilometre radius. It was too beautiful a day to be discouraged, and we were in no hurry. What we hadn’t taken into account was that, once out of the city, village restaurants do not serve food at all hours; they don’t conjure up enough business.
Hungry (cannibalism a distinct possibility), thirsty, on the verge of collapse, we eventually found and surrendered to the Bar Nirvana (?!?) situated at the end of a long, winding dirt road out in the middle of nowhere (how we got there, neither of us can remember). Andrea had a sandwich with ‘something’ unidentifiable between what he swears were two slices of bread, and I had what bore a distant resemblance to... Could it have been a hamburger?  Thank God for the beer!
On the return trip, will we subject our ‘sophisticated palates’ to a little greasy motorway fare? YES, YES, YES!!!

Singing Nuns...

Apart from having the extreme good fortune of living in Rome, the eternal city, I wake up every morning to the sound of the most exquisite harmonies coming from the terrace opposite my bedroom window. The apartment is inhabited by Spanish nuns who, weather permitting, gather on the terrace to say their prayers and sing a couple of hymns. Religious or not, you can’t help being moved. It makes you want to go out into the world and conquer new horizons.
The atmosphere here is already so romantic: the sun-drenched roofs and ochre coloured buildings, the window boxes filled with flowers, the shouts from the market, a cat sunbathing on someone’s sill, the towering palm tree in the courtyard below, the young couple sitting at a table drinking their morning coffee, the laughter and voices from people unseen, even the washing hanging out to dry…
The singing is the icing on the cake.
You get the feeling that God, when creating the Earth, lingered here, possibly reluctant to leave...

Chalk That One Up To The Black Cat

There’s a rumour going around, actually it’s more than a rumour, that Figo, Inter Milan’s Portuguese star, deliberately ran over a black cat, a resident at the team’s training grounds, because he and some other members of the team blamed it for their current string of bad results, which has allowed second placed Roma to move within just three points of them in Serie A – Italy’s first division.

In Italy, the sight of a black cat - considered the harbinger of bad karma - has everyone running for cover, so there’s no love lost, but Inter fans are incensed that one of their players could do such a thing. Figo vehemently denies the accusation, and is threatening legal action, but his accuser is unrepentant and only too willing to see the ex-Real Madrid footballer in court.
However, the cat’s untimely death has done nothing to end Inter’s run of bad results. On the contrary, Figo was injured in the next match, and today’s game against Siena ended in a 2-2 draw, allowing Roma, who won their match against Atalanta, to come within one point of Inter, who must now win their last game or lose ‘lo scudetto’ - the Serie A championship - and if that happens I know one black cat who’ll be laughing his head off, albeit in cat heaven.

Ammazza Quant'é Bella!

It was a beautiful day, the Campo de’ Fiori basking in warm sunlight, the market awash with colour, people strolling this way and that and weighed down with bags of fresh produce, the cafés packed with tourists (their faces turned to the sun; can’t go home without a serious tan) and locals alike, all enjoying coffee, wine or whatever. Smiling and knowing how lucky I was to have this to look forward to every morning, I sipped my cappuccino and returned to my newspaper.
“Ammazza quant’é bella!” a male voice suddenly cried out. ‘Wow, she is so beautiful!’
I looked up in time to see a man walk straight into one of the Campo’s handful of lampposts. I laughed, thinking it only happened in films. Then I noticed a group of men staring in the same direction. I turned to look and… No! It can’t be!  As star-struck as the rest of the Campo’s male population, I got up and walked over to get a closer look.   It really was her.  Gwyneth Paltrow! Listening to director Dennis Hopper (they were shooting a commercial), she happened to glance my way, see me and smile. Yes, all right, the smile was probably induced by the place, the atmosphere, and was meant for all the men there, but I smiled back, fantasizing for the briefest of moments that her smile was meant for me...

... and me alone.

Don't Be Late, Daddy!

“Don’t be late, Daddy!” my little girl reminded me as she tore into the school.
“I won’t be. Don’t worry.” I watched her until she ran up the stairs, turned the corner and was gone, and then headed to my café for my eagerly anticipated cappuccino and cornetto. Then home to do some writing. I was working on a fictionalized TV series about the Foreign Legion, and at the moment was in the middle of writing a love scene between legion Captain Marcello Guida and his Arab sweetheart, Fatima, whose father was a chief, a very violent man, who wanted Marcello’s head.
I worked all morning and into the early afternoon when, halfway through a battle scene, I switched off the computer, and Stella and I walked to the school to watch our little girl’s end of term play.
She was playing the lead role of the Whale, which had entailed some sleepless nights while putting the costume together. Actually, it wasn’t bad; not as good as Alberto’s Portuguese man-of-war costume, but we were proud nonetheless. Alberto was the brainiest child in the class – his parents both being scientists – and didn’t have a shy bone in his body. And he was in love with Becky. Some days the phone would ring off the hook: “Buona sera, may I speak to Becky, please?” Alberto would ask. Time and time again. It got to the point when a frazzled Becky, who hated to lie, would beg me to tell Alberto that she was out visiting her grandmother, and wouldn’t be back for two or three hours. This usually gave us a respite, but sometimes Alberto, having lulled us into a false sense of security, would ring before the time was up and say: “Could you tell Backy I called, please, and ask her to ring me back, please?” YES, ALL RIGHT! He was always very polite.
Stella and I took our places in the school’s tiny theatre and settled down to be entertained. The curtain opened, and we were presented with a pretty good cross-section of marine life, from Becky’s Whale to a Swordfish, to a Hammerhead Shark… We Mums and Dads smiled proudly. I even noticed a Mum and Dad shed a tear or two. It’s impossible not to be affected. The children are so serious up there, their faces working overtime as they strive to remember their lines, and looking at whoever had to speak next.
Well, we weren’t long into the play (a sort of impoverished version of ‘Finding Nemo’) when Marco, the little boy in Becky’s class with Down Syndrome, who was playing the Turtle, lost his way and started wandering aimlessly around the stage. Without hesitating, Becky took Marco’s hand in hers and for the rest of the play led him around the stage, whispering the occasional word of encouragement. He smiled at her and, confidence restored, even echoed some of her lines. The entire audience sighed in unison.  It was an extraordinary moment, felt by us all.
Marco’s parents turned and smiled their gratitude at us. I returned the smile on behalf of that wonderful little girl on the stage.
The play came to an end and I shoot to my feet (the only parent to do so) and gave Becky the Whale a standing ovation, my voice drowning out all others.  "Brava!  Brava!"
Becky smiled at me and, shaking her head, mouthed: “Oh, Daddy!”

☺ ☺ ☺ ☺ ☺

I Don't Cry Often

Yesterday morning, after the children had gone to school, Stella to work and Edie...

(Our au-pair girl)

... had set off on her daily Roman 'walkabout', I sat down to write, with my dog Lola curled up at my feet, and found a child’s tooth sitting atop my computer. Had to be my son’s; it was too big to be my little daughter’s. ‘Oh, no!’ I immediately said to myself. The Tooth Fairy obviously hadn’t dropped in to swap my son’s tooth for a little surprise under his pillow. How did I know that? Because, like most Dads, I’m the Tooth Fairy, Father Christmas and, on occasion, the Big Bad Wolf.  How the hell had I missed it? Did he tell me? I couldn’t remember.

And not a word of reproach from him at breakfast.

Normally, his mouth stuffed with cereal or bacon and eggs, he proudly holds up the Tooth Fairy’s five or ten euro note for all to see, with a special ‘gloat’ for his little sister, whose baby teeth are still solidly embedded in her jaw, a reality that she sometimes regrets.

 (Usually when her big brother gets a visit from the Tooth Fairy, and he waves the money in her face)
Things have been particularly tough of late...

(Join the club, right?)

... caused mainly by people not paying for work I have done. Money has been scarce, which creates all sorts of dilemmas.

(The bank getting on his case about the overdraft, the credit card company demanding he pay a well overdue debt, the list goes on and on)

But no matter how depressing things might become, my wife and I have always tried our hardest to keep it from the children. Why should they be burdened with their parents’ worries? They have their own.
Yes, the pretense can be exhausting - the fixed smile, the games and jokes, helping with their homework, being Mum, being Dad…
But sometimes we forget, or simply overlook the fact that children are sensitive, that their radar can pick up our moods, that their little ears hear a lot more than we think they do, that they ‘know’ Mum and Dad better than anyone else.

(Love is a powerful detector)
I had to make amends, so last night I slipped into my sleeping son’s bedroom and slid a ten euro note under his pillow, which made me feel much better.
Well, you can imagine how I felt at breakfast this morning when he pulled out the money and gently placed it on the table beside me. “It’s all right, Daddy,” he said simply, a loving smile on his handsome young face. “Right now you need it more than I do.”

I don’t cry often.

☻ ☻ ☻ ☻ ☻

Remember me? Uh...

I imagine the vast majority of us want to be immortal, or at least be remembered - through our families, careers, contributions to the lives of others, charity work, medical or scientific life-saving discoveries, being funny, through good example, whatever.  Some try harder than others.  Some succeed:
“Et tu, Brute?” Julius Caesar, while being assassinated in Rome in 44 BC.
“All free men, wherever they may live, are citizens of Berlin. And therefore, as a free man, I take pride in saying the words Ich bin ein Berliner!” John F. Kennedy, speaking to the people of Berlin during the Berlin crisis in 1963.
“Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.” Winston Churchill, honouring the pilots of the Battle of Britain in 1940.
“Imagine all the people sharing all the world.” John Lennon, lyrics from ‘Imagine’, 1971.
“C’est magnifique, mais ce n’est pas la guerre!” A French general’s remark on witnessing the charge of the Light Brigade during the Crimea War (1853-1856).
“You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.” President Abraham Lincoln speaking at Clinton in 1858.
“There is plenty of time to win this game, and to thrash the Spaniards too.” Sir Francis Drake, while finishing a game of bowls before sailing off to defeat the Spanish armada off the coast of England in 1588.
“Nuts!” General Anthony McAuliffe’s response to a German command, that he and his troops surrender or face annihilation, during Battle of the Bulge in 1944.
“The Times they are a-changin’.” Bob Dylan, 1964, from the song of the same title.
“I remember the first time I had sex, I kept the receipt!" Groucho Marx.
Magnificent, funny, inspiring...
And then we have:

"There are no homosexuals in Iran." Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, at NY's Columbia University in September, 2007, when asked about the brutal treatment of homosexuals in Iran.

"Read the Black Book of communism and you will discover that in the China of Mao, they did not eat children, but had them boiled to fertilize the fields." Silvio Berlusconi, Italy's newly elected Prime Minister at a rally during the 2006 election campaign.

And on a more humorous note:
“Go ahead and score like Napoleon at Waterloo… He had five great nations against him, but with strategy, clear ideas and strength, he made Waterloo his masterpiece.” Luca Luciani, Italian communications executive, while urging staffers at a conference to be inspired by the French general’s ‘victory’ over Wellington, April, 2008.  Uh, Luca... Napoleon lost that one, had his ass whipped rather badly in fact.

❑ ❑ ❑ ❑ ❑

Darling, They've Stolen The Scooter

“Amore, mi hanno rubato il motorino!” Stella informs me over the phone. ‘Darling, they’ve stolen the scooter.’  Not again! I let rip with a string of curses that would make a football fan blush, but Stella interrupts me.  “Amore, I can’t leave the office; can you go to the police and report the theft, please.  And tell the insurance company.”
“I am trying to write,” I protest, though I don’t know why; the news of the scooter theft has dried up my creative juices.
“It’s important.”
“Oh, my writing isn’t?” This is pride talking here.
“Of course you’re writing is important. You know I think you are a wonderful writer. Please, amore.”
“Oh, all right,” I agree, my ego appeased - moderately.
And off I go.
My cell phone rings just as I reach the police station. I check the display. Stella. Now what?
“Amore, as I don’t have the scooter, could you fetch the children from school?”
I groan. “Yes, all right.”
I enter the police station and spend the best part of an hour describing the scooter, trying to remember its licence number (resolved after phone calls to Stella, who couldn’t remember either, and the insurance company, who expected to see me after the police were through with me), where it was stolen from, etc., etc… Was this the same scooter that had been stolen three months earlier (the time Stella left the key in the ignition)? Yes. The same one that had gone missing five months before that? Yes.
“You are not having a lot of luck with this scooter,” the police officer says with a smile.
“No, we’re not,” I respond. Without the smile.
“Keeping us busy, too,” he adds with a hint of reproach.
I nod, my expression an apology.
After the police station, I pay a visit to the insurance company with a copy of the ‘theft report’, and they promise to pay me a scant percentage of the scooter’s worth. I don’t bother to argue about it.
Next stop: pick up my daughter at school. She is overjoyed to see me. Not wanting to spoil the moment, I decide not to tell her that I had to come because the scooter has been stolen. Let her think it was a spur of the moment decision. We head home hand in hand, with my little one skipping along happily at my side and telling me all about her morning at school. I tell myself that I must do this more often, her attitude helping me forget, albeit briefly, the bloody scooter.
After leaving my daughter at home, I go pick up my son, who sees me and makes a face. “Where’s Mamma?” He wants to spend the afternoon at a friend’s house, and his mother would have said yes without question. “We’ll do our homework!” he promises in response to my inquiry. I agree, plant a kiss on his squirming head – “Not in front of the school, Daddy!” – and set off for home again.
On the walk - crossing Piazza della Rotonda, Piazza Navona, Campo d’ Fiori, Piazza Farnese - I fail to take in any of the city’s beauty. I am still too angry about the scooter, an anger that remains with me all afternoon and leaves me unable to write a word. Okay, the theft of a scooter isn’t one of life’s tragedies, but all the same; I just don’t like people who steal. Getting a new ‘second-hand’ scooter will require an outlay of funds, money we don’t have. Oh, well…
My cell phone rings later that afternoon. It’s Stella. “Ciao, amore,” she starts, surprising me by sounding calm and happy. “I’ve found the scooter."  She laughs.  "I’d forgotten where I’d parked it!  I feel so silly! Have you already been to the police? Otherwise you’ll have to go back and tell them it hasn’t been stolen."

Aaaaaahhhhh!!!

“Amore, are you still there?”

♨ ♨ ♨ ♨ ♨

Help!!!

Do I ever yearn for the past? No. Do I regret any of my life’s major decisions? Not really; I might have done a few things differently, but the end result would probably have remained the same. I should have worked harder perhaps, taken more advantage of some of the very nice opportunities that have come my way, that will continue to come my way. Is there anything I miss from my days as a footloose and fancy-free bachelor (apart from peace and quiet, the occasional lie in, eating whatever I like without being told I’m getting fat, that I ought to diet, that I should watch my blood pressure…)? YES, THERE IS! There is something, a simple right that is frequently denied me. I really miss going to the loo, and sitting there for as long as I like without being interrupted, going to the ‘library’, as my father called it, with the newspaper or a book. Reading is one of my favourite pastimes. Some of my greatest, most enjoyable reads have come while sitting on the loo.
Now whenever I go to the loo I am always on edge, unable to relax, afraid that at any moment the door will burst open and in will walk my wife, or one of the children, or both children, or all three together – their excuses ranging from make-up, hair, washing teeth... Perhaps if they knocked it would remove the element of surprise, ease the tension. Oh, for a second bathroom.
More often than not I now sneak to the loo in the middle of the night, sure in the knowledge that I will not be disturbed, though there are those moments when I think (probably my paranoid mind playing tricks on me) I hear a sound and imagine the whole family bursting in on me.
“Boo!”
Let’s face it; sitting on the loo isn’t exactly the most elegant position to be caught in, especially if in the middle of actually… you know.
One day, my mother-in-law came round to bake a birthday cake for one of the children while they were at school and Stella was at work, and our Rumanian housekeeper still hadn’t arrived; perfect conditions for a visit to the library. I called out to her that I was going to the bathroom. She replied that I was not to worry, that I was to take as long as I liked (Ah, I thought, a person after my own heart).
I went to the loo, this time to work on some notes for a story I was writing. It was coming along very nicely, I was relaxed… To say I was enjoying myself might sound like an exaggeration, but you know what I mean; to poop in peace is a luxury in my house.
The phone rang.
“Don’t worry, Robert,” Stella’s mum shouted. “I’ll get it.”
I mouthed a silent ‘thank you’.
I heard her muffled voice...
Silence.
Then the bathroom door burst open.
“It’s for you,” my mother-in-law said as she handed me the phone…

✆ ✆ ✆ ✆ ✆

Rome, The Eternal Drug

Rome is a drug, a very difficult habit to kick. And, like a beautiful woman, this city can also break your heart. There’s something in the air, in the light, in the colour of the buildings. She demands a reaction; good or bad, it doesn't matter. Indifference doesn’t enter the equation.
But, above all else, Rome feels safe. There is no underlying current of tension, of imminent violence, that one feels on the streets of some cities abroad. Recently, my beloved London was likened to Soweto, South Africa, apparently the most violent place on earth. I read this somewhere. How true it is, I don’t know, but it hurts.
In Rome, you don’t feel that someone might mug you at any moment. This is a priceless treasure. Yes, there are some rougher areas on the outskirts of the city where, if it’s trouble you’re looking for, you’ll find someone only too happy to oblige.
When I first arrived here, I thought what better place than ‘Hollywood on the Tiber’ to fulfil my childhood dream of becoming a film star? No, not actor; film star! If you are going to dream, dream big. My first celluloid immortalization was in a spaghetti western (I loved strapping on my six gun and playing a cowboy) directed by Damiano Damiani called ‘Un Genio, Due Compari, Un Pollo’ (A Genius, Two Friends And An Idiot). The scene starts in a saloon/whorehouse with the star looking off camera at a girl singing a hymn. I am playing poker with other ‘gunslingers’ at a table, my hat tilted back, awaiting my big moment. No, I wasn’t nervous. I was scared witless. On ‘ACTION’, I was supposed to frown – my quizzical reaction to the girl singing a hymn in an unholy dump like this – stand, approach the star and say (I loved it, the line was so ‘cowboy’, or so I believed at the time): “Now don’t you go getting yourself hoodwinked by this hymn, fellah, this ain’t no church, it’s a whorehouse!” Sounds easy enough, doesn’t it?
“Action!” the director shouted.
I swung my head to the right, with what I assumed was a convincing frown… and my eyebrows went wild, shooting up and down like crazed venetian blinds. And I couldn’t stop them.
“Cut!” the director screamed.  I cringed in fear, expecting to be fed to the extras.  But instead of chewing me out, he came down hard on the poor Italian actor playing the sheriff because of his atrocious English.  Survival of the fittest being the name of the game, I heaved a huge, dog eat dog sigh...

It didn't help.  We repeated the take again and again - the poor sheriff the brunt of the director's rage each time -until, magically, my eyebrows finally settled down and we got through the take without further mishap.  I had aged twenty years.
Luckily for me (and the movie audiences of the world), my film acting debut made it clear to me that I wasn’t cut out to be an actor, and so I decided to try my hand at music and became a disc jockey in a night club. That didn’t last long either; and not because I wasn’t any good at it. No. I just couldn’t stand some of the songs people kept asking me to play (over and over again!), songs that still today resurface in my mind and I find myself singing them. And I go momentarily crazy.
So I turned to writing. No, I haven’t won the Nobel Prize for literature or an Academy award for Best Screenplay, but at least writing allows me to pay the rent, and to live in this amazingly beautiful city. The rest will come.  One day.

✍ ✍ ✍ ✍ ✍

Thank You, James Taylor

“Hello?”
“May I speak to Mister Booth, please?”
“Speaking,” I answered, while thinking ‘Oh-ho, official-sounding voice, someone wanting money.’ I was right.
“Good morning, Mister Booth,” said the anonymous voice.  From the bank.
“Good morning,” I stammered.
“Will you be putting any funds into your account in the near future?” In a word: NOW!
“Uh…” My ‘uh’ seemed to go on forever. “Yes,” I finally blurted out. It was true, too. I had been working months for one person who owed me enough to cover the overdraft. And he was supposed to pay me this week. Thank God.
“When?”  Are bank people allowed to be that nosy? Can they interrogate you like that? Aren’t they supposed to take your word as gospel? Isn’t the customer always right? And the answers are: yes, yes, no, no!

“Uh, by the end of the week.”
“Very well. We’ll be keeping an eye on your account.”
“Thank you.” Thank you?!
As soon as he hung up, I grabbed the phone and dialled the character who owed me enough money to cover the overdraft;
“I can’t pay you, Robert, I don’t have the money.” Just like that. No apology. Nothing. I freaked, told him to go to hell. Unbeknownst to me, my children overheard and immediately came running to give me a kiss and a hug.  When your children feel sorry for you...
I still had two or three other calls to make – people who owed me money for work I had done. It wouldn’t cover the overdraft, but it would keep the bank off my back for a while. I made the calls. The answers all had the same central theme.
“Uh, Robert… I can pay you half at the end of next week, the rest at the end of next month…”
“I’m a little short at the moment, Robert, but I have another job for you…”
“If all you can think about is the money, Robert, then perhaps you aren’t the sort of person I want working with me…”
I finally put down the phone. I felt awful, so miserable. I’M OVERDRAWN! DOWN ON MY LUCK! BROKE! ON THE VERGE OF BEING HOMELESS! Someone try asking my landlady if I can go without paying the rent for a few months, or ask the power company to hold my bills, or see if the supermarket will give me credit so that I may feed my children. We all know what the answer would be. A big fat NO!
I don’t know why, but I have this habit of attracting losers, people who don’t pay. No, I’m not running a charity, though sometimes I suspect I am. My (real) friends often ask if any donations to me would be tax deductible? They have a point.
The phone rang. Oh-ho. No, it wasn’t the bank again. It was Stella. “Amore, I can’t come to the James Taylor concert this evening. I have to work late.” I was feeling too down to complain.
I had completely forgotten about James Taylor; not that I was in the mood to go, but the tickets had cost good money, which was at a premium, not to be wasted. I made a few calls to friends, but no one could come with me.
So I went alone. On my scooter. And it poured all the way.
I took my seat just as the lights dimmed and James Taylor walked onto the stage to thunderous applause…
And then he started to sing ‘When you're down and troubled, and you need a helping hand, and nothing, oh nothing is going right... You’ve Got A Friend!’ and the bank was pushed to the back of my mind, and I remembered that life is indeed beautiful, even with my hair dripping rainwater.
Thank you, James.

✌ ✌ ✌ ✌ ✌

Berlusconi Wins Again

“Daddy, Daddy, Daddy!” my little girl shouted at the top of her voice.
I tried to ignore her, to shut her out by wrapping the pillow around my head. To no avail.
“Daddy, Daddy, Daddy!”
It’s Saturday morning, for God’s sake; why won’t they let me sleep? There’s no school today.
“Daddy, Daddy, Daddy!”
“Ask Mamma,” I groaned from beneath the pillow.
“Mamma’s working with the pretty models.”
Ah, right. My wife wasn’t coming home this weekend; she was preparing the groundwork for the new show in Milan. Since the fashion house she worked for had closed its Rome operations and moved north, she spent more and more time away from home, and my life had changed radically, my role in life trading back and forth between screenwriter-English teacher-tour guide and struggling father-cum-mother-cook-housekeeper…
“Daddy, Daddy, Daddy!”
“What?!” I didn’t mean to shout, but...
“Can Harry switch on the TV?” she asked, oblivious to the tone of my voice.
“No.”
“Please, please, please!”
“No!”
“Please, please, please!”
I groaned, poked my head out from under the pillow and looked at my beautiful four year old daughter standing beside my bed.
“Did your big brother send you?” I asked.
“Yes, Daddy,” she replied, smiling sweetly at me. Of course he did; he always sends his little sister when he wants something he strongly suspects I will say no to. He knows she can wind me around her little finger. “But he told me not to tell you.”

"What does he want to watch?"

"Oh, uh... A pitolic... potic... poli-ti-cal de... bate," she succeeded in saying, delighted with herself, probably quoting her brother.  "Mister Berlusconi fighting Mister Prodi..."  Again, she sounded very proud of herself.

Political debate?  I was impressed.  “Oh, all right.”
“Is that ‘Oh, all right, my big brother can switch on the TV’ or what?”
“It’s ‘oh, all right, your big brother can switch on the TV’.”
She jumped on top of me and planted a kiss on the top of my head. “I love you, Daddy.” She then raced out of my room, shouting: “Daddy said yes, Daddy said yes, Daddy said yes!”
Moments later, the TV boomed from the living room. Too loud. Too bloody loud.  And it didn't sound like Berlusconi and Prodi either, more like Triple H taking on the Undertaker...

▢ ▢ ▢ ▢ ▢

Some Mothers Do Have Them!

My God, I could hear wedding bells! “I’m getting married in the morning, ding-dong the bells are going to chime!” I sang in my head.
(In his head! Ha! He was singing at the top of his voice without realizing it, oblivious to the looks he was getting from everyone else in the café)
A final pull, and Stella took possession of the sugar bowl, turned her back on me, and sweetened her cappuccino.
"Allora lei piace lo zucchero," I said in my worst accented Italian.  'So you like sugar.'
(Groan)
Stella didn't even glance my way, just drank her cappuccino and left without so much as a backward glance; probably knew she’d do something crazy if she were to look at me again. I had to admire her strength of character, her self-control.
(It’s all his mother’s fault; Italian Mums raise their boys to believe they are God’s gift to the opposite sex)
The excitement over, everyone in the bar went back to what they’d been doing before, and I... I was in seventh heaven. I ordered a second breakfast of cappuccino and cornetto…
(Don’t forget me)
… to celebrate the momentous occasion. Oh, boy! “The hills are alive with the sound of music…” I bellowed. “She likes sugar!” I declared to the bar.
“She likes sugar,” Mayo echoed minutes later, pokerfaced, his mouth full of cappuccino and cornetto.
(Hey, guys, what about me?)
“Wow!” We were sitting at a table outside.
“Yes!” I exclaimed, still on a high. “Isn’t that amazing. We definitely had a shared moment there. We bonded. SHE SPOKE TO ME.”
“Wow.” This ‘wow’ was said with even less enthusiasm than the first. He did not appear to share my excitement.
(No, but maybe he'd like to share HIS cornetto.  I'm certainly not getting any joy from you)
“Why are you so sceptical?”
“Blame it on the nerve connecting my eyes to my anal passage,” he said as he stared at a buxom girl walking past our table. “I bet you didn’t know we all have this nerve connecting our eyes to our anal passage, did you?”
“No,” I answered with a chuckle. “I did not know we all have a nerve connecting our eyes to our anal passage.”
“It’s called the anal optic nerve. Medical fact. Not everyone has one, and the experts can’t figure it out. Apparently, the nerve is responsible for giving people a shitty outlook on life.”
I laughed.
“You don't believe me?”
“No.” I answered.
“No?” he echoed, enjoying himself.
“No!”
“Well, try pulling a hair out of your ass, and see if it doesn't bring... tears to your eyes!” he choked, laughter getting the better of him.
I laughed with him. In the mood I was in, I would have laughed at anything, the sugar bowl experience with Stella still uppermost in my mind.
(Well, I hope she’s a better cook than he is!)

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

Pass The Sugar, Please

I was in the café with Lola enjoying a cappuccino and cornetto…
(Hey, where’s mine?)
… and daydreaming about my momentous first encounter with Stella, that particular moment when she raced away to avoid throwing herself at my feet…
(Uh, Robert… that’s not exactly how it went. I was there; you tripped over and fell at her feet. Oh, what’s the point?)
"Excuse me. Would you pass the sugar, please?" a girl's voice asked, her tone soft and pleasant.
(!?!?!?)
… I imagined Stella and I alone, hands entwined…
“Pass the sugar, please.” The same girl’s voice, but not quite as soft and pleasant as before.
… whispering sweet nothings to each other, Stella telling me that I was the man of her dreams, of her life…
“The sugar!” Now she sounded decidedly impatient.
(WAKE UP! HELLO! ROOOOBEEEERT!  IT'S HER!)
Do you, Stella, take Robert to be your lawful wedded husband? My God, I could almost see it, feel it!
(I bit him. I felt awful doing it, but I had no choice. He quickly forgot the pain anyway)
“Ouch!” Lola bit me. I couldn't believe it. The nicest dog in the world bit me. Why? “My dog just bit me,” I said to Stella.
"Good for him! Please pass the sugar," she repeated.
"Yes, of course."
Stella?!
(Welcome back, pal!)
STELLA! Talking to me! Stella and I. Side by side. In the café! Bonding! I just stood there, the sugar bowl in hand, and gaped at her.
"Thank you," she said, reaching for the sugar.

A brief tug-of-war ensued, as I stubbornly hung on to the bowl.
(He didn't know he was still holding it.  Look, he was hopelessly in love, so think kindly of him)
My heart soared.
(Let go of the sugar bowl!)
"Let go of the sugar bowl," Stella growled through clenched teeth.
"Yes," I replied, grinning from ear to ear.
(He had no idea what she was talking about)
"The sugar!" she shouted.
"Yes!" I shouted back. "Two, please!" I was in seventh heaven, her every word poetry to my ears. I had stopped taking sugar years ago, but if Stella wanted me to take sugar, I’d take sugar with my cappuccino or whatever else she wanted me to take sugar with. She was talking to me. Who knew where this might lead?
(I'll tell you where it WILL lead if you don't LET GO OF THE SUGAR BOWL!)
I pictured us strolling out of there hand in hand.
(The incurable optimist - with the sugar bowl between them)

She was mine.

(Che sarà, sarà, whatever will be, will be... But I still didn't get a cornetto!)

☺ ☺ ☺ ☺ ☺

Lucky Encounter

I had just got out of the car with Lola...

(That's me, his dog. If you're interested, there's a shot of me on the right somewhere)

... when I heard the sound of approaching high heels. I turned to look.
(Oh, well…)
She came walking towards me, her glorious, wavy, dark brown hair swinging from side to side. I stopped breathing. Her intensely passionate black eyes emanated a luminous radiation, an inner strength, the air around her so clear, so incredibly intoxicating. Then she smiled and lit up the street.  Thinking this was perhaps a case of mistaken identity, I turned to see if someone were standing behind me. No! I turned back.  She was smiling at ME.
(Doubtless amused by the idiotic look on his face)
I almost burst into song, but managed to stop myself in time.
(Didn’t want to frighten her off)
I wanted her. I wanted to do all the things people in love do. I wanted to propose marriage, make her happy, raise a small army of children…
Raise a small army of CHILDREN?! Now wait a minute! What was I thinking? Separation! Divorce! Visiting rights! I made a serious attempt to resist this flood of emotions. It was a lost cause. Throwing caution to the wind and wanting to dedicate the rest of my life to her, I took a step forward and tripped on the edge of the curb to land spread-eagled at her shapely high-heeled feet.
She dropped to her knees. “Si é fatto male?” she asked.  'Had I hurt myself?'  Never had the Italian language sounded so harmonious, so poetic, and so intensely rich with promise.  I looked up at her, at this angel of mercy, at every detail of her lovely face, and noticed that she had a broken nose. But rather than detract from her beauty, it enhanced it even more.

I felt the pavement vibrate, my heart swell, and imagined the world standing still, thousands, no, tens of thousands of volts of electricity coursing through my veins, myriad hosts of celestial choirs singing our praises, millions and millions of people the world over stopping whatever they were doing to look towards the heavens and wonder what extraordinary event, what miracle, had occurred.
(Yeah, well, don’t forget he’s half-Italian; he can get carried away…)
“Si è fatto male?” she asked again.
“Wkjkjfuygkqlkplblxmjgkhlka,” I responded.
Her smile never wavered.
(God bless her)
Thinking perhaps that I had hit my head when I fell, she patted my hand as one would a wayward child and made a move to stand, but I hung onto her, tried to at least. I didn’t want her to go. Let’s not forget, this was the woman I meant to spend the rest of my life with.
(!?!?!)
Unaware of my plans for her future, she continued to smile kindly while she wrestled her hand free and stood up.  Overwhelmed, I struggled to my knees and watched her walk…
(Escape)
… to the end of the street. And then she was gone. I wasted precious seconds frozen to the spot. A lifetime later, when I had finally recovered and raced to the corner, alas, Stella had vanished into thin air.

♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡

Roman Bureaucracy Strikes Again

The phone rings.
“Hello?”
“Amore!” It’s Stella, my wife. “You forgot our appointment at the Anagrafe (Rome’s City Hall, Hall of Records, whatever). Bring some ID with you.”
“I am writing,” I try to point out. In vain.
“You have to verify that I am who I say I am.”
“I what?”
“Just come, hurry, and don’t forget your ID,” Stella reminds me before hanging up.
Living in Rome’s old centre means you don’t have too far to go to get anywhere. And the Anagrafe (City Hall, Hall of Records, whatever) is no exception, though going there always makes me break out in some kind of nervous rash. I wonder what adventures await me today.
I walk in and immediately see Stella standing at one of the clerks’ desks. She waves and I join her. Without further ado, I hand the clerk my British passport.
He looks at it, stares at it, studies it at length, at my photograph, turns it over and over, and finally pronounces his verdict: “But you are not Italian.”
“No, I’m not,” I agree, thinking we have a live one here. “That is a British passport you are holding.” But the blood is already pumping, boiling, suspicion rearing its ugly head. Here we go again!
“Then you can’t verify that the lady is who she says she is.”
“The lady is my wife!” I respond, ignoring the look on Stella’s face, the look that always says: ‘Calm down. Losing your temper won’t help.’
“You are not Italian!”
That does it! “I am the lady’s husband,” I say, enunciating each word carefully, thinking he might not understand. But he understands only too well. He responds with an upward jerk of his chin while simultaneously making a ‘tut-tutting’ sound, which basically means “Too bad, it’s the law, that’s life, and there’s nothing you can do about it!”
I knew I should have stayed in bed this morning. “My whole life is in this building,” I very nearly shout. I’m sorry, but stupidity does that to me. “Marriage certificates, residence papers, work permits, my children’s birth certificates, MY WEDDING CERTIFICATE!”
He doesn’t budge. I look at the two mandatory cops standing beside us, but before I can say another word – they’ve obviously been listening – they mimic the ‘chin jerk and tut-tut’ gesture.
Suddenly, my anger evaporates, and I laugh, feeling a little foolish. They almost fooled me. “All right,” I ask the clerk. “Where is it?”
“Where’s what?” the clerk responds.
“The candid camera!”
The clerk and the two mandatory cops look at me as if I were quite insane. Maybe I am.
“Look, sir, there’s no point going on about it,” the clerk insists. “You cannot verify that this lady is who she claims to be.”
“SHE’S MY WIFE!” I shout.
“But you are not Italian.”
I look at the two cops again, and again get the ‘chin jerk and tut-tut’ gesture. So I look around, see two men (total strangers for God’s sake!!!) and inquire if they are Italian. Yes, indeed they are. Then would they mind verifying that my wife is the woman she claims to be? No, they wouldn’t mind at all.
I look at the clerk and at the two mandatory cops. “These two gentlemen don’t know my wife from Adam,” I point out.
"Yes, but THEY are Italian!" the clerk responds, ending it with a ‘chin jerk and tut-tut!’

☹ ☹ ☹ ☹ ☹

Ben, the Marquis & Anna Maria (Part 8, The End)

In the café, the solemn proprietor pauses to refill everyone’s glass prior to raising his and making a toast. “Ai sposi, Anna Maria e Ben!” he cries out. ‘To the bride and groom, Anna Maria and Ben!’
“Ai sposi, Anna Maria e Ben!” we all echo before knocking back our drinks.
“E il loro nipote, Robert!” he concludes. ‘And their grandson, Robert!”
“E il loro nipote, Robert!”
I smile, moved by their immediate acceptance of me.

On May 9th, 1945, one week after the war in Europe ends, the entire population of Arienzo flocks to the village church to attend Ben and Anna Maria’s wedding.
Thanks to some not so subtle looting of Allied stores by a few of Ben's troops, a huge wedding reception is enjoyed by all.  In the streets.

I am standing there in a sort of warm glow, in an atmosphere of friendship and kindness, my glass being refilled by the café proprietor, when an elderly gentleman walks into the café and apologizes for being late.
Watched by a smiling audience, he kisses me on both cheeks and waves an admonishing hand at me. “Quanti anni sono passati!” he says. ‘So many years have passed!’ Everyone nods in agreement and looks at me with kind reproach. “Perche non sei venuto prima?” the elderly gentleman continues. “Tutti questi anni.” ‘Why didn’t you come sooner? All these years.’
Puzzled, I cock my head. Yes, there is something familiar about the old boy, but… “Mi dispiace, ma…” I start. ‘I’m sorry, but….’
“Sono tuo pro-zio,” the elderly gentleman interrupts. ‘I am your great-uncle.’
My mouth drops open. “Pipotto?!”
Pipotto nods.
“But… they took you away… I always thought you were...” I stutter.
The café proprietor steps forward to tell me that he had omitted this ‘little detail’ of the story’s end, because he and everyone else felt Pipotto should be the one to tell me.
Pipotto nods and begins…

As Ben and Anna Maria kneel before the priest, a skeletal figure limps into the church, his clothes little more than rags.
The entire congregation turns to stare.
The image of suffering and deprivation, no one recognises him, not until Tecla gasps and, tears streaming down her cheeks, leaves her pew and, followed immediately by an equally stunned Mario, hurries up the aisle whispering his name again and again: “Pippotto!”
The seven of them - Mario, Tecla, Pippotto and his four sisters - stand in a teary, highly emotional embrace in the aisle for what seems an eternity.
The congregation starts to applaud, a spontaneous explosion of joy, a release from the war years of misery and grief.  So many have lost sons, brothers and husbands that Pipotto’s totally unexpected survival is a victory to them all. It is almost as though he has brought back a piece of all those who will never return. He belongs to the entire village that day. A triumph to be shared.
Happy that his only son has returned home, Mario positively beams as he gives Anna Maria away. He even gives Ben a warm embrace, which is cause for further sustained applause. However, he stops short of giving him a kiss on the cheek.
Ben and Anna Maria lead a happy congregation out into the open air, and the party begins.

My eyes brimming with tears, I step forward to embrace my grandmother’s brother.
Most of the café customers pull out handkerchiefs and blow their noses. Some even look away to allow great-uncle and great-nephew a moment of intimacy.
“Gol!” Pasquale Guida suddenly shouts as he comes out of his death-like stupor, startling us all, oblivious to the café’s emotion charged atmosphere. “Gol!”
I smile, glad the old boy is alive and still living his greatest moment. The goal he scored to give Italy her first football win against England is probably what keeps him ‘young’, and I’ll bet it’s the goal he’ll keep on scoring for as long as he lives, and beyond.
Happy, I kiss my great-uncle on both cheeks.  I’m not alone, not anymore.

♔ ♕ ♔ ♕ ♔

Roma-Manchester United 0-2

“Go f..k yourself, you piece of s..t!!!” the man beside me screamed in Italian. “S….. …. … ……. …… …. ………!!! You, your mother, your grandmother and your sister!”
I was sitting in the Olympic Stadium with my son watching the Roma-Manchester United Champions League quarterfinal game. The target of the man’s hate was Cristiano Ronaldo, the English team’s star winger, considered the greatest footballer in the world today. The young Portuguese player was running rings around Roma’s defenders. Okay, you might say, nothing unusual about that; isn’t that what he's supposed to do?
But what was driving this particular fan insane was Ronaldo’s blinding speed, his skill, his pure talent, his trickery – the stepovers, the feints, the body twists.  And he wasn't alone.  All the Roma fans, the Roma team, and midfielder David Pizarro in particular, considered Ronaldo's teasing tactics disrespectful and unsportsmanlike.  Later, Pizarro said that when the two teams meet again in Manchester next Wednesday to play the return game, he will have something to say to the arrogant Ronaldo.  A word of advice, David?  Concentrate on improving your own game.  Ronaldo is a great entertainer - the crowds love him, and wish there were more like him in today's game.
Now I am pretty sure my twelve year old son has heard swear words before, but I will bet Rome to a brick he hadn’t heard anything like this before. But the man beside me was nothing compared to the woman sitting a couple of rows behind us. I began to feel sorry for the United players because their masculinity, their birth, their mothers, their everything was being questioned by this woman. The referee fared only a fraction better.  She strung together a series of expletives that was pure poetry, way beyond anything I could dream up. I won’t attempt to quote her, not for fear of offending anyone who might read this, but because there is no possible way I could do her justice, not without having recorded her.  It was nonstop.  Pure gutter Shakespeare.  And my son heard every word of it.  Oh, well.
In fact, it was her ‘poetry’ that prompted him, an ardent Roma fan, to whisper: “Daddy, don’t speak English!” Being surrounded by hostile Romans, he feared for my life.  “Speak Italian,” he warned.
“With my awful accent?” I questioned.
He hadn’t thought of that. A moment’s deliberation and then: “If anyone asks, say you’re Italo-Australian.” He looked so serious, I almost laughed.
Then Ronaldo scored to put United ahead, the goal cause for a fresher, louder barrage of vitriol, the young player too busy lying on the ground catching his breath and being congratulated by his teammates to care.  However, it must be very intimidating to have seventy thousand souls roar at you, over and over again: "Devi morire!  Devi morire.  Devi morire..." 'You have to die...'

But what really set the cat among the pigeons was the United supporter who - realizing he was on TV, his face appearing on the giant screens at either end of the stadium – raised seven fingers to remind the Roma fans of the score of last season's United-Roma quarterfinal: 7-1.
The lady shot to her feet to scream abuse at the giant screens. “M…. …. ……. .. … ….. …!!!”

☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂

Fast-Food Cook - Thinks He's A Writer

It’s going to be one of those days; I can tell. I am leaning on my desk, staring at the screen of my Apple PowerBook, and my mind is a blank, power zero. No ideas. Nothing. The children are at school, wife Stella is at work, au-pair girl Edie is out sightseeing and the apartment is silent. Perfect working conditions. I can’t even hear Madalina, our Rumanian housekeeper, getting the children's lunch ready for when they come home from school, famished after a long morning of maths, history, geography, geometry, scuffed knees and being screamed at.
My day started, as it does every morning, with my getting up at 6:30 to lay the table and prepare breakfast, which isn’t easy because my wife, children, and Edie have different tastes. I wake them up when everything’s ready and not before. It can take some time; getting them out of bed, I mean..
“Can I stay home today, Daddy?”
“No, Becky!”
“I don’t feel very well, Daddy!”
“Too bad, Harry, you shouldn’t have eaten all that chocolate last night. Now get up!”

"Uh, what time is it, Robert?" Edie groans from beneath her duvet, getting up the last thing on her mind.

"Time you got out of bed, Edie, and helped me get the children ready for school."

Another groan.  "Do I have to?"

"No, of course not.  Would you like to have your cup of tea in bed this morning?" I ask with a hint of irony.

"Oh, yes, please!"  Edie responds, missing the irony completely.  It takes a moment.  Then her head appears from beneath the duvet.  "You're joking, aren't you?"

I have already left the room.  I hear another groan and imagine her pushing back the duvet and falling out of bed.

Stella is the last member of the family I (try to) wake up.  Again, not easy.
“Robert, before I get out of bed, will you massage my feet please?”
“I can’t, Stella. The milk will boil over, the toast will burn and the eggs will stick to the ex-non-stick pan!”

Lola, of course, sleeps through it all.

(I wish!  If he didn't make so much noise...)

Far too early for her.

Depending on who gets up first, I shoot back and forth between the kitchen and the dining room taking his or her orders. Actually, it’s good training for when my writing career dies and I get myself a job as a fast-food cook.
SOMETIMES IT FEELS LIKE I AM RUNNING A RESTAURANT! ORDERS, PLEASE. SCRAMBLED EGGS, FRIED EGGS (sunny side up), POACHED EGGS, BOILED EGGS (soft, hard, three minutes, four minutes), TOAST (lightly done, and hot enough for the butter to melt), CEREALS (and they have to be Kelloggs, or high-grade Muesli, no suspect brands or hybrids), TEA (green, English Breakfast, camomile) COFFEE (black, white, weak, strong, sugar, no sugar), JUICE (and not just any juice; it has to be peach), YOGHURT (different flavours according to the likes and dislikes), AND ALL TOPPED OFF WITH THE VITAMIN OF THE MONTH (this month it’s Haliborange, a gift from Edie's parents in England).
Finally, off they all went, and I heaved a sigh of relief. Alone at last. Peace and quiet. But before I started to write, I strolled calmly up the street to my café, exchanging a few words with neighbours as I go, and ordered my ritual cappuccino and cornetto (the Italian cousin of the French croissant). Savouring the taste of coffee and cornetto, which is close to being my favourite moment of the day, I chatted with barman Marco about last night’s Champions League football game between Roma and Manchester United, who won. I am a United supporter, but can’t boast about it for fear of reprisals and the wrath of my son, who is an avid Roma fan.
Back to staring at my blank computer screen.  Something will come, I know it will; hopefully before the children get home for lunch.

✍ ✍ ✍ ✍ ✍

Hey, I couldn't help overhear...

I was sitting outside Giorgio’s Vineria in Campo de’ Fiori enjoying a pre-lunch glass of excellent red wine when two girls sat down at the vacant table beside mine. They were so taken by what they had to say, they made no attempt to keep their voices down. They didn’t care. The following is the gist of their conversation:

“He’s a shit.”
“Why?”
“Aren’t all men?”
This was followed by a moment of reflective silence.
“So what happened?”
“We went to dinner.”
“What were you wearing?”
“Black top and trousers, bare midriff, visible tattoo… My stomach was swollen.”
“Period?”
“I felt like shit, not in the mood to dress up. And my skin…”
“Where did you go?”
“A dump. The cheapskate. I don’t know what I see in him, and he dresses so badly.”
“Did you go to his place?”
“Yes, but I didn’t want to. I thought I should string him along more, play hard to get….”
“Who made the first move? You or him?”
“He started telling me his life story. Booooring!"

"Booooring!" The other girl echoed.

"And I’m thinking when is he going to kiss me? No, don’t get me wrong. Nice guy… Started to get late. Anyway, one thing led to another….”
“Where?”
“On the sofa. Comfortable three-seater; could stretch out nicely.”
“Where did you say he lived?”
“In the centre. Nice place, small, but neat.”
“Generous?” In other words: was the boyfriend well hung?

“No more, no less than any other guy.”
“Did you fake it?”
“No more than usual.”
“Position.”
“Missionary. Booooring!”
“Booooring!” Another echo. “Did you act stupid?”
“Yeah, but he pulled out in time.”
“Fuck! You’re going to get yourself in trouble one of these days. Why don’t you carry a condom in your bag?”
“Keep meaning to.”
“Did you stay the night?”
“No, I couldn’t wait to get out, to go home.”
“Has he called you back?”
“No!”
“What a prick?”

✫ ✫ ✫ ✫ ✫

Ben, the Marquis & Anna Maria (Part 7)

In the café, I notice that the pro-Ben and pro-Anna Maria factions are evenly divided, with both factions unwilling to give in to the other. A couple of old timers even threaten each other, but are quickly shouted down and told to grow up. Naturally, I am caught smack in the middle, unable to take sides.
It is astonishing that this story still evokes so much passion.
The neutrals contend that Anna Maria never had any intention of leaving Ben, that she was only putting him to the test, playing a typically female game of cat and mouse.
The discussion heats up and might have continued unabated were it not for the look on the café proprietor’s face.

Not long after the investigation, which sees no one sent to prison for the killing of the Ceylonese soldier, Ben is transferred to Naples, and Mario heaves a sigh of relief, convinced that absence will not, in this case, make the heart grow fonder, and that Anna Maria will soon forget Ben.
Providence decides to lend a helping hand in proving the Marquis wrong.
Ben has just driven into Naples when his van is hit by a ten ton American army truck, and he wakes up two days later in hospital with a broken jaw, a dislocated hip, myriad cuts and bruises, and minus a few teeth, the only survivor of the crash, his life saved perhaps by the fact that he was fast asleep at the moment of impact.
As coincidence will have it, he shares a ward with six other officers, each with the same injury, their teeth wired together so they can’t move their jaw. At meal times, there is an awful slurping sound as they suck their mostly liquid food through their teeth. Ben is lucky because, ‘thanks’ to losing a few teeth in the accident, he is able to get slightly larger pieces into his mouth.
On hearing the news, Anna Maria feels instant guilt for having treated Ben so badly. She must go to him.
Despite all Mario’s threats and futile attempts to stop her, Anna Maria has the time of her life winding more than one gullible British Army truck driver around her little finger. They can't resist her charms. If Allied transport hadn't been so tied up chauffeuring her and her chaperoning sisters back and forth between Naples and Arienzo, the war might have ended a lot sooner.
As soon as he recovers, Ben calls to arrange a meeting with Mario, which, to Tecla, Anna Maria and her sisters, can only mean one thing: Ben intends to ask for Anna Maria’s hand in marriage.
Excitement sweeps through the house. And the entire village.
How will Mario react? He keeps his thoughts to himself, and will make no decision until he has heard what Ben has to say.
But he isn’t thrilled.
He locks himself in his study for two days, refusing to see any member of the family, his meals left on a tray outside his door. In truth, he is searching his conscience for any excuse that will stop Ben taking his little girl away.
The day of the meeting.
Ben shows up, and is led to Mario’s study by an apprehensive Anna Maria, whose earlier confidence has taken a serious plunge, despite Tecla’s reassurances.
Mario opens the door for Ben, then closes it in the faces of his wife and daughters.
A sense of gloom settles over the house.
And the village.
Tecla, Anna Maria, the sisters, friends and the domestic staff sit in silence awaiting the outcome of the meeting. One can hear a pin drop.
During the meeting Mario does his utmost to regain macho control of his life, taking his role as head of the family with great seriousness. However, in spite of all the obstacles he thrusts Ben’s way, the young Englishman’s every response is right on the button. He is such a gentleman, his intentions so sincere, that Mario finally admits defeat.
Aware of the proverb ‘If you can’t beat them, join them’, Mario gives Ben permission to marry Anna Maria. But, because of British military law, they will not be able to do so until after the war. Mario’s only condition is that they not get married until the return of his son, Pippotto.
On hearing of this condition Tecla tells Mario to stop being an old bore and to let Anna Maria and Ben get married whenever they wish. There’s been no news of Pipotto since the day he was taken away, and Tecla has resigned herself to his death, has mourned him in private. Delaying Anna Maria and Ben’s happiness will not make things any better.
Again, Mario is forced to capitulate.

MORE TO COME