Italians

For a few years before coming to Italy, I lived in Paris and I cannot tell you the life-enhancing difference I felt as I crossed the frontier from France into Italy in my metallic burgundy Honda Prelude.

On arrival at the Italian motorway toll that stifling summer of 1998, I discovered I had no money and that the sun had melted my bank card which I had left on the dashboard. The charming young woman on the toll-gate simply gave me a form to fill in and waved me through with a smile. Isn’t this how we should run the world?

I remember once being stopped by two Italian police patrol cars in the dead of night when well over the limit. Instead of them breathalysing me, we started to have a discussion about the Mussolini biography I had written. ‘Mussolini was a very misunderstood man,’ I assured the Italian police. ‘Hitler gave him such a bad press.’