Another Party, a Concert and a Fun-Fair

It took me until the following Wednesday to pluck up the courage to phone Giovanna. I was terrified that she wouldn’t remember who I was, or that she had deliberately written down the wrong number, or that she would tell me to piss off or …. 101 scenarios, each one worse than the last, played

Miracles

The duomo or cathedral of Naples, is the sort of church that makes Protestants, and my old friends the Jehovah’s Witnesses, very much ill at ease. Packed to the rafters with the sort of relics and images that lead to accusations of idolatry and even corruption, it has been known to make even hardened Catholics

Chickening Out of a Game of Soccer

“Hell’s Bollocks! How can you watch that stuff first thing in the morning, Roger?” I asked, gazing in horror at the TV screen in the corner of the kitchen. “Watch this bit!” said Roger biting cheerfully into a chocolate croissant. “This is my favourite bit; really disgusting! Watch!” “Good grief!” I turned back to the

A Boys’ Trip to Ischia

With the coming of the summer months came a changing of the guard at the school in which I worked. After months, years even, of threatening, many of the moaning minnies I had been working with over the previous year went back to the UK to find “proper jobs”. Both Pete and Jeremy left and

Here Comes the Sun!

Summer comes suddenly in Southern Italy. You go to bed one evening in your pyjamas, or whatever attire you may favour in bed, pull the sheet up to your neck and drift off to z-land, just as you do every other night, and then wake up at dawn to find that you have kicked the

A Neapolitan Election

Back in November, a high-profile election had taken place in Naples. The contest had been for the position of mayor and was fought between Alessandra Mussolini, granddaughter of Benito and former topless model, and a grey-haired Communist Party apparatchik by the name of Antonio Bassolino. Mussolini was a provocative character, fiery and defensive. Bassolino, at

A Difficult But Rewarding Teaching Job

With February safely out the way, my mood, along with that of my colleagues and the Neapolitans in general, seemed to improve almost tangibly. Not that the weather had improved much. It was still raining more often than not, but there was a general feeling that the worst had come and gone. To cheer me up

The San Remo Song Festival

San Remo turned out to be a song festival. Not just a song festival, but the song festival. Italian music. Oh dear. If someone were to ask me to list all the things that I hated about 1990s Italy, first place would be a close call between graffiti, litter, the national obsession with motorized vehicles, or the

A Nightmare of a Carnival

As February wore on, I started to feel lower and lower. The rain was relentless and I had given up any hope of continuing my exploration of the surrounding area. I had even confided in Jeremy, at the end of one dismal, rain-sodden day, that I was considering jacking it all in and returning to

The Island of Procida

Sitting nursing a cappuccino on the ferry the following day, I wondered whether I wouldn’t have been better off having a lie-in. The rain and the stress of recent weeks had been getting to me, and I could feel a headache coming on. But, mindful of the dire climactic conditions that Jeremy had foretold for