Next year’s annual Mobile Phone Throwing Championships may have some high profile Italian participants, judging on recent events dominating the news. Justice Minister Roberto Castelli, Governor of the Bank of Italy Antonio Fazio, and the President of Genoa football club (Italy’s oldest football club) Enrico Preziosi may all be queuing up to hurl a telefonino […]

Thankfully, the voices speaking out against the comments made by the ‘moderate’ President of the Senate, Marcello Pera, have been numerous. Amongst those criticising Pera’s warnings against a ‘mestizo’ nation, were former Prime Minister, and one time leader of the Democrazia Cristiana party, Giulio Andreotti. “The President of the Senate has his merits. Last year […]

Those left-wing, pinko-liberals will tell you that Italy’s military presence in Iraq [about 3,150 personnel] is part of an illegal occupation force. They’ll tell you that it’s all about oil, or somesuch [the Italians just happen to be based in the Nassiriyah area, securing an area with a gigantic oil field for which the Italian […]

Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all convictions, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity. [W.B.Yeats – […]

The View from Bologna, like many Italians, returns to work today after the traditional August vacation period. Bad weather coupled with uncompetitive prices appear to have hit the domestic Italian tourist market yet again, while a report in the weekend’s press suggested that Italians in the North of the country have started shopping in Switzerland, […]

Possible issues that may provoke an impassioned bout of (publicity generating) letter writing, on the part of an Italian Catholic Bishop:

• Italian participation in ‘peace and democracy’ waging in Iraq, that has, to date, resulted in the killing of an estimated 9,270 civilians by coalition forces
• Third world debt cancellation and trade reforms, not delivered by the G8, of which Italy is a member
• The exploitation of illegal immigrants, creating sweatshops and virtually slavery within Europe, and Italy

The Lega Nord, in the person of headline-hungry Roberto Calderoli, have reacted to Thursday’s bombing in London with a proposal to introduce a motion in Parliament effectively declaring a state of war. As with most of the Lega‘s recent initiatives (castration of rapists, re-introduction of the Lira to name but two), it’s one that appeals […]

There’s one* fundamental problem with Live 8. It’s not, as some seasoned (and ever so slightly embittered) activists would have you believe, the use of celebrity to spotlight the issues of world poverty. Sure it’s galling that Bono has a bigger audience than Noam Chomsky. Galling, but true. That Bono attempts to use his celebrity […]

Bologna may have been relegated, but it’s not all doom and gloom in the world of football. Inter Milan President Moratti responded positively it would seem to the Zapatista challenge to a game. Moratti’s reply to Subcommandante Marcos, and the balaclaved Zapatistas response seem to have had little coverage in the Italian press, having been […]