A Coach and a Gentleman

When it comes to football, human beings are meant to be inclined to lose some of their basic social skills. In a sport that tends to focus on the result over than anything else, it is quite easy to get more concerned with pushing the ball into the goal and not on showing ‘a virtuous character’. In fact, for many people ‘virtue’ probably means ‘winning’.. Italy is not exception: rather, Italy is probably one of the main examples of this kind of approach to the ethics of football. We tend to get quite extreme (some would say simply ‘passionate’), though we are surely not too extreme.

So, what happened on last sunday during the Ascoli-Reggina match came as a surprise, and initiated an ongoing debate about what is right or wrong in football. At some point during the match, one player on Reggina’s side got injured: everyone, as it usually happens in cases like these, stopped playing so to let the guy come back on the pitch. However, one of Ascoli’s player, allegedly not noticing what was going on, kept running with the ball towards Reggina’s goal. He did not encounter any opposition from his opponents (the ref had not stopped the game though), so he carried on, and once in front of the goal he passed the ball a teammate, who scored. Reggina was not very happy with that kind of behaviour: a fight between the players started immediately after. Nonetheless, the ref validated the goal (which was, in fact, a valid goal).

But here is the coupe de theatre: after this dodgy goal, Ascoli’s coach, Bepi Pillon, told his guys to let Reggina make a goal, so to equalise the score. Thus, to the dismal of Ascoli’s supporters, the Regginians moved easily through Ascoli’s defence, the keeper did not move, Reggina scored. 1-1. A video of this surreal match is here.

Unfortunately this display of honesty did not help Ascoli win, and the match ended 3-1 for Reggina. Still, we were left with a somewhat refreshing message about the value of fair-play against what Weber called “the disenchantment of the world”. This was especially significant in this case, given that Ascoli is fighting to avoid relegation in Serie C and now, after this defeat, is closer to the abyss..

In fact the media are celebrating Ascoli’s act for its display of ‘fair play’. Even the Herald Tribune today dedicated an article to Pillon, suggesting he should be awarded the FIFA Fairplay Prize 2009. The only ones who were not delighted by Ascoli’s gesture were, unsurprisingly, Ascoli’s supporters.. Actually, they seemed to have been quite upset by the choice of letting Reggina score. When asked whether he would do it again, a sad Pillon replied “I don’t know”. Then he continued: “In Italy people make too much of these things. When I went abroad, I saw a different kind of football. Here, everything is so exasperated, too many interests, and too many situations that turn playing into pain, instead of joy.”

However, in a sport where you can qualify for the World Cup by openly cheating with your hands, and then pretend to be sorry, the case of Ascoli, a small team fighting for survival in Serie B, is to be praised.

Yet, I admit being happy that I am not an Ascoli supporter.. But I’m much, much happier, that I am not French.

Yes Berlusconi Day

Yesterday it was the No Berlusconi Day. An event organised through Facebook by a group of italians, it quickly gained popularity so that in many cities around the world, citizens (mostly italians) gathered to protest against Silvio Berlusconi and officially ask for his resignation as Prime Minister. Sydney, New York, Toronto, London, Edinburgh (a few, but strong!), Paris, etc., with the biggest event hold in Rome. Some images of the event in various cities can be found at this link .

The key to the protest (which was completely peaceful) was the colour purple. Purple was supposed to be the only colour allowed – it’s neutral, it does not refer to any political entity, it therefore suits very well a protest which is supposed to be completely Party-less. Not a protest against the Government (not this time..), but against one person. A plea for making him accountable for his actions.

Unfortunately things turned out differently, and in Italy there were loads of political flags. Mainly the red ones of the communist party, but also those of IDV (Italia Dei Valori), a party founded by Antonio Di Pietro, an ex-magistrate. A lot of political members from the Left (Note: Left is a very vague word in Italy, so don’t take it to mean anything particularly, especially not as in “contrary to the Right”..) decided, at the last minute, to take part in the event. The media immediately used that as a sign that the whole event had been orchestrated by the Left (again, let’s say the a-Right) to make the Government fall. I have just watched the news on Internet, and got the impression of an own-goal . Of course, what happens on the italian media should never be considered even close to the truth. But I really don’t understand why Italians cannot abandon the football-like approach to politics, and just go in the street to ask for the resignation of a person who is not doing the interest of the country.. It is a bit disappointing because, in my view, the No B-day lost a lot of its meaning once the colour red started popping out..

At the same time,  while people were marching in the streets and mafia bosses were saying in the courtroom that Berlusconi used to be their best mate, the Italian police arrested, just today!, two apparently very important mafia bosses. With an incredible timing, this event  took over (and rightly so) a big chunk of today’s news. It has also offered Berlusconi the stage to defend the work the Government is doing against the mafia, and to reject “all the rubbish said by completely unreliable individuals against the PM”..

I am afraid the final score of the No Berlusconi Day is 2-0 for him.

Spatuzza

(infophoto)

At the trial against Marcello Dell’Utri, the Mafia witness Gaspare Spatuzza has confirmed in front the judges what he had previously told the prosecutors:

“Graziano told me that we had got everything thanks to the reliability of the persons that carried out the deal. Two names were mentioned to me: that of Berlusconi and that of Dell’Utri. (…) Because of the reliability of these persons, the country had been basically put in our hands”.

Info in english can be found here, here and here.

Cosa Nostra

This blog seems obsessed with Berlusconi. It is, in fact. I would rather write about other stuff, but the actuality still puts the Italian Prime Minister under the spotlight.

Berlusconi’s reluctance to deal with the courtroom is well-known. The blog has already devoted a few posts to describing his constant attempts to avoid charges, escape questions, delegitimize judges and decriminalize a series of once-upon-a-time illegal practices. Every time the judges make some threatening sound towards the PM, they face public uproar on the media. “Giustizia a orologeria!” (“Clockwork justice!”), is the mantra that all the members of PDL repeat constantly on TV and on the press. This aims to convey the warning that the judges – being (according to the PDL) communists- are constantly plotting against Berlusconi to make him fall. In the past days, more warnings for ‘clockwork justice’ are being sent over the italian media: the judges are getting too close again. We need to stop them! This time though, there is less reason to feel simply depressed, almost bored by another episode of the soap opera Berlusconi-Law. This time, a word has been mentioned, a word that is heavier than ‘corruption’, ‘anti-constitutional’, ‘immoral’. The word is mafia.

Look at this man:

His name is Marcello Dell’Utri. As the picture shows, he’s very good at climbing the ladder. To the point that, from his humble origins in Sicily, he’s climbed up, up, up till the Parliament, where he now sits in the Senate, with the PDL. For a very telling biographical sketch of Dell’Utri, click here. In 2004, Dell’Utri was condemned to 9 years imprisonment for complicity with the Mafia. The verdict was based on the following motivations:

“ The number of activities carried out by Dell’Utri, given his causal role in them, amounts to a concrete, voluntary, conscious, specific and precious contribution to the maintenance, consolidating and strengthening of Cosa Nostra, which was also offered the opportunity, still through Dell’Utri’s mediation, to get in touch with relevant economic and financial groups, thus being able to pursue its illicit ends, both the merely economic and the political ones“. (translated from it.wikipedia.org). Dell’Utri today is still a member of the Senate. He has appealed against the verdict.

This story starts from here. The trial against Dell’Utri is still running, and tomorrow an important witness is due to talk: the mafia boss Gaspare Spatuzza. Spatuzza is facing a life sentence for the killing of father Pino Puglisi, a priest who was preaching against the mafia. Also, he has been sentenced to life for being the material executor of the terrorist attack in Florence, on 27th May 1993, in which a whole family died and more than 40 people were injured. That happened during the years 1992-1993, when the mafia carried out a series of dramatic attacks in Italy.

On 23rd May 1992, Cosa Nostra blew up an entire chunk of a motorway, to kill the judge  Giuseppe Falcone. Look at what they did:

Two months later, 19th July, they blew up an entire street of Palermo to kill the judge Paolo Borsellino:

Both massacres happened in Sicily. In 1993 though, bombs went off in the mainland of Italy as well. One in Rome, in May; another one in Florence; a third one in Milan, in July. Why was the mafia causing all this mayhem along the country? What did they want?

It was a message to the State. After the big scandal that (temporarily..) wiped out most of Italy’s political class, the Christian Democratic Party (DC) that ruled for 50 years (see the movie Il Divo for a great portrait of Italian politics under DC rule) lost control of the country. The Mafia too lost a valid ally: at the same time, after the killing of Falcone and Borsellino, the Italian Government enacted a series of policies to block Cosa Nostra’s attacks against the institutions. One of these was the Article 41bis, a rule prescribing harsh treatment in jail for (among others) those charged with mafia crimes.

After the third 1993 attack, in Milan, another bomb failed to go off, in Rome next to the Olimpico Stadium. Had it gone off, it would have killed around 100 Carabinieri who were standing outside the stadium. The official explanation was that the bomb’s mechanism, luckily, had failed. The unofficial one was that the attack had been called off at the last minute. The ‘pact’ between Cosa Nostra and the State had been reached.

Gaspare Spatuzza has chosen to speak to the judges about those years. He has become a ‘pentito’, a state witness. Under interrogatory, he has revealed that in 1993 he was told by the Graviano brothers (the two mafia bosses whose leading role he took over after they were arrested) of the possibilities of a ’pact’ with the State. The Gravianos first told Spatuzza to organise the attack at the Olimpico stadium. On a second meeting, in 2004, they told him that the pact with the State had been reached. “Graviano was very happy -Spatuzza told the prosecutors. He said we’ve got the full deal, and that these were serious people, not like those loser socialists (possible reference to the previous Italian PM Bettino Craxi).” Spatuzza says he was told that those “serious people” were “the one of Canale 5″ (one of Berlusconi’s tv channels) and “a countryman of ours”, namely Marcello Dell’Utri. He has clearly made the names of Berlusconi and Dell’Utri as those with whom Cosa Nostra was making a deal 16 years ago.

In 2001, Berlusconi won the elections for the second time, thus becoming (for the second time) Prime Minister. In spite of his alliance with the Northern League, he received full support from Sicily’s voters. Full means full: 61 candidates were elected in 61 constituencies. 100% success. Quite remarkable.

A year later, during a football match at Palermo stadium, the following banner was exposed by a somewhat strangely quite group of football supporter:

“United against Article 41 Bis. Berlusconi forgets Sicily.”

The Article 41 bis is still in place. Mafia bosses have started talking to the judges (their natural enemy), about (and against) Berlusconi after 17 years. Are they giving up the hope for a change?

Spatuzza is due to speak tomorrow at Dell’Utri’s trial. Stay tuned.

Alex & Silvio

The Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi went to Belarus yesterday to pay a visit to the country’s President, Alexander Lukashenko. The event gained relevance on the news worldwide, for it was the first visit of a Western leader to a country which, since 1991, had not had friendly links with the West. This visit is meant to represent a reopening of good relationships between Belarus and the West. A fuller description of the meeting can be found here, and here .

This is Lukashenko:

This guy is an interesting character. Some called him “Europe’s last dictator“. He supported the coup against Gorbachev, in 1991, and then succeeded in being elected President of Belarus in 1994, a position he has kept since then (incidentally, Berlusconi was elected PM, for the first time, in the same year. Mere coincidences.) A fuller biographical profile of Lukashenko can be found here. He has been widely criticized for making comments in which he seemed to imply that Hitler was an example of a great politician. Particularly, he is criticized for a too authoritarian regime, serious human right violations, violent repression of dissent and – allegedly- the ’suppression’ of some opponents.

Berlusconi, on meeting Alex the Great, highlighted how Alex is loved by his people. Belarussians “love you, which is shown by the elections,” Berlusconi told Lukashenko. More than a meeting, the event became a competition for the best compliment. Did Silvio fall in love?

I wonder why Berlusconi chose such a controversial character to visit, given all the mess that is already going on in Italy at the moment. The italian news report the two reached agreements on the adoption of Belarusian children by Italians: definitely worth a trip to Belarus. Silvio will have time to deal with his own country, later.

Roberto Saviano Writes to Berlusconi

Roberto Saviano is an italian writer who gained worldwide popularity after writing Gomorrah, a book that reveals how criminal organizations in the area around Naples (the “Camorra”) have complete control of the economic and political apparatus. The book also became a movie last year. Since the book was published, Saviano has had to live under constant police protection, since the Camorra has promised he will pay for mentioning their activities and, most of all, their names. This is Saviano’s website (many sections are in english too).

Saviano has become an icon of the fight against the dark side of Italy, that of mafia, illegality, corruption. In keeping with this fight, Saviano has written a public letter to the Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, asking him to withdraw the plans of changing the legal system by shortening the statute of limitations of the criminal trial (see previous post on this blog).

The Italian newspaper La Repubblica has launched a petition to support Saviano’s appeal. The link (in english) can be found (and signed) here.

On Marrazzo, and Italian Prisons (again)

The blog has suffered from a technical failure in the past week, so it’s had a hard time in keeping apace with the events. While I’m still waiting for a new battery for my laptop, I think there are two important updates that at least should be mentioned.

Some time ago, the blog covered one of the latest scandal in Italy, about a(nother) prominent politician, Piero Marrazzo, involved in a story of drugs and prostitution. The prostitute he was found with at the time, a Brazilian transsexual called Brenda, was found dead yesterday. The news arrive in coincidence with the Transgender Day of Remembrance, which makes the all story even more upsetting.

This is Brenda:

Brenda died suffocated by a fire in her house. The unofficial version has it she got drunk, and fell asleep. She was taking antidepressants, and some friends from the transsexual community said she was thinking about leaving Italy. The house door was locked from the inside; doctors found no signs of violence on her body; it is not yet clear how the fire started. The only thing which is certain is that Brenda does not live anymore.

And cannot talk anymore.

Another sad follow-up to an earlier post on this blog. On last 6th November, Giuseppe Saladino, 32-year old from Parma, breached the house arrest to which he had been sentenced for stealing coins from parking meters. He had been condemned to one year and two months prison. It is somewhat surprising that the Prime Minister did not highlight the judges’ incompetence in jailing people in this case.

It seems that, on the eve of the 6th November, Giuliano breached the terms of the house arrest. He did not go anywhere far, in fact he went for a walk. Immediately the police caught him, and brought him to jail. That’s very bad for him, because the house arrest, if breached, is automatically turned into jail arrest.

Fifteen hours later, the mother receives a phone call, informing her that Giuliano had died while in prison. He had spent ONE night there. That was enough to kill him. A more detailed account of this story, in Italian, can be found here and here. Unfortunately, the death of Giuliano does not seem to have made it through the media abroad.

Here’s the only picture of Giuliano I managed to find:

Inquiries are taking place for both cases. Maybe, it will turn out that they were both cases of suicide. Most likely, in the case of Giuseppe it will turn out that the drug killed him, or anorexia: as it happened with Stefano Cucchi. As it will happen with the next one. An interesting discussion from The Guardian is here.

No one should get too worried about these incidents though. Let us always remember that Italy is still the country of freedom.

Short! In the Name of Law!

It’s hard not to talk about the last proposal from the Italian Government to reform the judicial system. The legal apparatus represents the core of the present Government’s concerns. The Italian PM has always made clear that he intends to fight, wholeheartedly, against what he sees as the pathology of our society: namely, the judiciary. One of the main faults of the Italian legal system is that there are too many trials, too much money is spent on them, and most of all, they last for too long. This is a serious problem for Italy. So, here is the solution: make the trial shorter! If the accused is not definitely proven guilty after 6 years, the trial ends (with an acquittal, of course) due to the statute of limitations. A full account of this bill can be found here , here, and here. 

There are different ways to explain this governmental policy. Some (probably judge-related) people say it is the umpteenth act of a man who seeks to avoid the legal consequences of his illegal conduct. Some offer a medical explanation for this new bill (see this interesting blog.) Rather than going into the details of this new law, I think it is important to focus on the Government’s effort to make the legal system “better”.

Berlusconi, as I said, has been the leader of the crusade to extirpate the cancer of legal justice from Italy. He’s been doing this for 15 years. He’s the William Wallace who screams “Freedom!” against the judge who orders him to confess. We should give him credit for this.  

 I think it is important to offer a brief summary of Silvio’s strenuous effort to reform the legal system. (This is going to be a very short selection.) 

 In 1994, Berlusconi has just won the election. Yet, he already knows who his enemy is. Thus, he decides to take action immediately against the worrying number of arrests in Italy. This happens just after the scandal of Bribesville has just wiped out  the italian political class (so to speak: they all, minus one, came back later). The Minister of Justice (at that time), Alfredo Biondi, then proposes a bill  to avoid pre-trail arrest for some crimes, including corruption. Incidentally, the brother of Berlusconi, Paolo, is under charge for corruption.

In  2001, the second Berlusconi Government prescribes that rogatory letters are not be considered valid evidence at a trial. It is a coincidence that this law makes it harder to investigate some dodgy story about Cesare Previti, the (at the time) lawyer of Berlusconi, who is accused of corrupting some judges in Rome. A few months later, another strategic move to fight the judges’ interference with the life of the good citizens: the depenalization of account business fraud. A side-effect of this bill is that Berlusconi’s  involvement in three trials for account fraud is put on hold. 

Later in 2002, the Cirami bill  allows defendants to ask for the transfer of their trial to a different court, when there is ‘reasonable suspicion’ that the judges are biased. Now, it seems that this bill may be a cause of the extreme lengths of criminal trials in Italy and that, therefore, it goes against Berlusconi’s effort to make the legal system go smoothly. Nevermind. Also, as an effect of the Cirami bill, Berlusconi’s trial for bribing judges in the SME affair move towards a quick conclusion.

In 2004, judges are still threatening Italy’s health, trying to put politicians under charge. Hence, the Schifani bill declares the immunity for the 5 highest figures of the State, and the immediate stop to any legal proceeding they might be involved into. The 5 are: the President of the Republic, the President of the Senate, the President of the Chamber, the Prime Minister, the President of the Constitutional Court. When the bill is proposed, only the Prime Minister has (several) legal trials to deal with. Nonetheless, it is clear that the law is meant to be to the country’s benefit. Unfortunately, the judges manage to prevail again and the bill is rejected for violating the Italian Constitution.  

At this point, the strategy becomes clear: we need shorter trials. Hence, the ex-Cirielli bill is issued, with the aim of halving the status of limitation. Again, as an effect of this law, many of the charges Berlusconi is dealing with are cancelled. Also, Cesare Previti, his ex-lawyer, seems to benefit from the bill, to the point that some ignorant still call it ”Save Previti Law“. 

The truce does not last for long. Italy is still ill, the pathology (the judges) is still dragging it towards the abyss. Thus the Government makes a new attempt to cure Italy. This is the famous Alfano bill. This law is very similar to the previous, unconstitutional,  Schifani bill, yet it has a crucial difference: it holds not that the 5, but only the 4 highest figures of the State are beyond the law. (The poor President of the Consitutional Court can, instead, be charged for illegal behaviour. Probaly, Alfano must have thought  “That’s why the previous bill was unconstitutional! Gotcha!”). Like with the Schifani bill, when the Alfano bill is proposed the only ‘figure’ who’s got (lots of) trials to deal with is the Prime Minister. This time too, the blindness of the Consitutional Court rejects the bill as violating the principles of the Italian Constitution.

The Italian Government must, at this point, realize that the only effective way to fight the judges is to go back to the attempt to shorten the trials as much as possible. A strategy that seems to have been more successful than trying to establish immunity. Notice that the principle behind the latter idea was “we’ll charge them later”. Now, the policy seems to shift to “we charge them now, briefly and that’s it”. With some provisos, of course.

In fact, the new statutes of limitations would apply only if one has a clean record. Does it mean that those who have not been condemned in the past because of statute of limitations are covered by the law? Yes, it means that. Does it also mean that, if (for example) I’ve been previously found guilty of immigration, the new bill will not apply to me and I will have to go to the whole length? Yes, in the name of law.

But what if I have corrupted judges, yet have not been condemned because of the statutes of limitations? Then I’ll be covered by the bill. Which means: if someone wants to put me under trial now, they’d better be quick. Very quick.

The Virtuous Rulers

Some Italian politicians are quite outspoken. In spite of a common opinion that wants them rather submitted to the main power, they can prove that, when they need to speak up for their ideals, they do not hesitate.

The last 24 hours have offered two displays of the virtue of political praxis. Both regard issues already appeared on this blog, namely the European Court of Human Rights ruling for the removal of crucifixes from Italy’s public schools, and the mysterious death of Stefano Cucchi in prison.

Yesterday, during the TV program “Domenica 5″, the discussion focused on the issue of crucifixes. Among the main participants, the president of the Islamic Centre of Milan, Ali Abu Schwaima, and the leader of the Right Wing Party “The Right”,  Daniela Santanchè. When confronted on the crucial issue of multiculturalism, she eventually decided to speak up, and display her political virtue:

“Enough with talking about equality and respect! – she bursts- Should we not admit that Mohammad was polygamous , since he had 9 wifes, and was a pedophile,  for one of them was 9 year-old? The ECHR should rather be concerned that in Saudi Arabia young girls are given to sheiks! Mohammad was, for our culture, a pe-do-phi-le!!” She looks around, to convey the message clearly to the audience, as she utters these words. “We are not interested in listening to those who worship a pe-do-phi-le!”

Moments of confusions follow. The Muslims who are in the room get quite angry. An old lady shows her support for Santanchè by shaking her head constantly for 12 minutes while the Muslims try to speak. People clap hands to praise Santanchè’s courage to speak up. When the order is partly reestablished, the anchor lady, Barbara D’Urso, says time’s off, sorry Abu Schwaima we need to stop before you can reply. However, there is time for her to attack the ECHR’s decision, and to say proudly: “From this TV studio, from my dressing room, no one is going to remove the crucifix!”. More details of this confrontation can be found here, and a video of it is here.

This is Daniela Santanchè:

She is famous for her campaign to liberate women. Her programme comprises the defeat of two main symbols of women slavery:

a) Prostitution. In order to emancipate women from the slavery of selling their body in the streets, Santanchè says we need to start legal brothels.  In them, women will (presumably) rather make love, and also have some freshly made tea or coffee. To those who point out that this is not much of a liberation from being used as a commodity, and that Santanchè seems concerned simply with ‘cleaning the streets’, she (virtuously) replies with no hesitation:

The second branch of the project for women’s liberation from slavery is to abolish the burqa. The latter, for Santanchè, is a symbol of oppression imposed by men. She refers to article 152 of the Penal Code, from 1975, which forbids “taking part in public events, in a place open to the public, wearing helmets, or with part or all the face covered in any way that can make it difficult to identify the person.” 

On this second part of the project, things got a bit rough for her on last 20th September.  Santanchè organised a protest in Milan in coincidence with Muslim celebration for the end of Ramadan. She claims to have been physically attacked by Muslims, apparently enraged by her attempt to take off the burqa from a woman taking part in the celebration. This caused outrage throughout Italy, to what was seen as the proof of Muslims’ unwillingness to integrate in Italy. (The meaning of “integration” being, as it normally happens in cases like these,  ”abandonment of one’s own culture”.)

Some say that the aggression never took place and that, in fact, Santanchè made the story up, for propagandistic reasons. Those who hold this view must surely be polygamous and pedophile. Readers can test whether they are polygamous and/or pedophile too, by looking at the video-footage of “the aggression” and judge if Santanchè did make it up or not.

So much for the lady. A brief note about men.

Carlo Giovanardi is the Deputy Minister from PDL, the Right-Wing Party actually ruling Italy. By looking at his website, I discover that, with reference to the issue of the crucifixes, he deems the ECHR’s ruling “worth a laugh”. In fact, “in all public offices there is a picture of the President of the Italian Republic”, and no one sees in that a violation of any right.

To be honest, I think I would have felt violated if, when I was at school, I had had to look at this picture everyday:

Oh, and by the way, this is Giovanardi:

His picture would have probably done even more damage.

Anyway, this is not the point. This morning Giovanardi was on Radio 24. He too felt he had to show his political virtue and make his view clear to the public. Hence, he gave his verdict about the story of Stefano Cucchi, who died after being arrested, while still in police custody, a few weeks ago. Giovanardi pointed out that Cucchi died because of anorexia. He (Cucchi) was a drug dealer, and a drug addict: also, he weighed only 47 kg. That’s why he died.

One thing should be said, following from Giovanardi’s comment. If you have any friend with anorexia, please don’t abandon them. Otherwise, they might end up like Stefano, killed by anorexia.

We should look at these as two examples of cases in which politicians do indeed stand up and make their voice heard. Enough with saying that there is no real freedom of speech in Italy. Both Santanche’ and Giovanardi’s cases show that, when the stakes are high, no italian politician will accept to shut up.

Visit our country

This blog has been quite critical of Italy so far. I am afraid people abroad may start thinking that Italy is a bad place not worth visiting. So, I feel I should invert this trend, and try to make justice to Italy’s beauty.

Yet, I find myself to be still in need of the right words, the right skills. I therefore appeal to Francesco Rutelli, Rome’s ex- lord mayor and, most of all, Berlusconi’s strenuous opponent in the 2001 election as Prime Minister (he lost), to inspire would-be visitors. This is Rutelli:

What is he looking at? No one can tell.

Listen to him, and then go pack your bags.