Summary
MONDAY
I HAVE been in Italia for the past fortnight, checking that the pasta is still made by Al Dente, chef extraordinaire. Italia, dare one say it, was bella, full - I kid you not! - of Italians and Japanese, who, mercifully, have supplanted the Yanks as the world's great wanderers. The Yanks remain conspicuous, not least because they're bigger and louder than everyone else. We found a brace in the Giubbe Rosse cafe in the Piazza della Repubblica in Firenze, one male, t'other not, making more noise than the Dustbin Quartet. The Not Male was called Victoria, so-named perhaps because she drank like a sponge. The name of the Male was not broadcast. When another Yank hove into view the Male engaged him in loud banter, the basis of which was that if he was thinking of picking him up he'd better think again. Lest there be any doubt about which way the Male swung, he oozed a few drops of testosterone from his oxters into his Campari. The new Yank seemed bemused, but not unduly. Doubtless he'd witnessed such behaviour before.See the full content of this document
Extract
Monday... [Derived Headline]
What the natives make of all this is hard to tell. The waiters in the Giubbe Rosse, dressed in their traditional bright red jackets as if for a fox hunt, look as if they wouldn't bat an eyelid if Mussolini walked in and ordered a bowl of porridge. They do things a wee bit differently in the mountains, 40 or so miles to the east of Roma. On our first evening we dropped into one of the little...
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