Four Italian families in 10 have abandoned the fixed line telephone and only use mobiles. In Italy there are 138.5 Sim cards per 100 inhabitants which suggests one third of people have at least two, both of which they use while driving.
Some 80 million bottles of spumante will be popped at the end of the year in Italy and 50 million bottles abroad, a 22% jump in value over last year. Almost half of the 300 million bottles of spumante produced in Italy every year are drunk between the middle of December and the middle of January.
Alitalia has sold lucrative take-off and landing slots at London Heathrow airport, some at record prices in order to bolster its balance sheet prior to takeover by AirFrance-KLM. Unions are concerned that the takeover will downgrade Malpensa, the airport near Como which RyanAir refers to as Milan, in favour of Rome.
4 people from Russia and eastern Europe have been sentenced to a year in prison for damaging the 'Barcaccia', the boat-like fountain in the Piazza Spagna, Rome
Roberto Benigni was voted by Italians as their Person of the Year. Benigni’s TV show ‘combines wicked satire with fervent Dante readings’. So that’s a ‘must watch’, then.
Second was Beppe Grillo, leader of the 'F*** off' rallies to eject MPs with criminal records. Silvio Berlusconi, an MP with....No,no,no.... was fourth, three ahead of possible general-election opponent Walter Veltroni.
The Catholic website Petrus said the Pope was drawing up plans to install exorcists in every diocese in the coming months so that 'possessed' people could get prompt treatment.
A decree has been approved allowing the expulsion of even legal immigrants from the EU who are deemed to pose a threat to society. A previous draft of the bill included deportation of gays but President Napolitano refused to sign it.
The website Wine News reports that unless there is a last-minute waiver, merrymakers this New Year will see a 2am curfew on alcohol sales in restaurants, night clubs and other places which offer entertainment. The ban on alcohol sales after 2am was imposed by a road safety law passed last October.
Firework-loving partygoers in Naples have named the latest addition to their New Year arsenal 'The Budget' because of its hard-hitting effect. ''It costs 250 euros and can blow up a whole building,'' said a doctor leading a prevention scheme in Italy's most firework-mad city. Other holiday crowd-pleasers like the Bin Laden, the Ratzinger and the Maradona Bomb, ''are full-blown explosives'', Dr. Mariano Marmo said
A 38-year-old Italian working at the Mount Lemmon Observatory in Arizona has discovered a new comet currently passing through the solar system. The Government has already taken steps to deport it if it carries on after 2am, and the Vatican plans to exorcise it, but there are alternative reports that it is merely a Neapolitan Firework called the Mariano Marmo.
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