Wayne Rooney and George Bush made separate visits to Italy. Rooney got married; Bush’s visit will be remembered for making it impossible to get a mobile ‘phone signal in central Rome.Confusion continues in Venice where militant pigeon lovers rowed into St Mark’s square from the lagoon and scattered bird seed in defiance of a city ordinance aimed at reducing the damage caused by the birds. The protesters also draped the Bridge of Sighs with a banner saying ''Venice Without Pigeons Is Like (Mayor Massimo) Cacciari Without His Beard''. Health officials are reported to be urgently checking Mr Cacciari’s facial growth.
A new tax on windfall profits by oil companies will be called the ‘Robin Hood Tax’ after the outlaw who made the poor pay more for their petrol.
Tuscany has 564 homemade ice cream shops, an increase of 26% over 2007. 134 of these are in Florence.
A series of designer jail cells went on show in Turin for an exhibition of prison architecture. Eleven architects' studios from countries including the United States, China, Iran, Libya, Japan and Italy are showing off their designs.
Doctors at the private Santa Rita clinic in Milan are suspected of conning patients into unnecessary operations, killing at least five. A further 20 suspicious deaths are being investigated.
Tuscany has 564 homemade ice cream shops, an increase of 26% over 2007. 134 of these are in Florence.
A series of designer jail cells went on show in Turin for an exhibition of prison architecture. Eleven architects' studios from countries including the United States, China, Iran, Libya, Japan and Italy are showing off their designs.
Doctors at the private Santa Rita clinic in Milan are suspected of conning patients into unnecessary operations, killing at least five. A further 20 suspicious deaths are being investigated.
Catholics pray to Santa Rita in ‘impossible cases’
A TV show which secretly took swabs off 50 MPs’ foreheads and tested them for recent drug use has been found guilty of ''deceitful and fraudulent'' behaviour by The Cassation Court. The tests showed that one in three had taken cannabis and cocaine in the preceding 36 hours.
A TV show which secretly took swabs off 50 MPs’ foreheads and tested them for recent drug use has been found guilty of ''deceitful and fraudulent'' behaviour by The Cassation Court. The tests showed that one in three had taken cannabis and cocaine in the preceding 36 hours.
The anticipated prosciutto crisis has been averted after Italian pig farmers scaled down a nationwide strike.
Italy has made the world's top ten for spending on primary schools, the Save The Children organisation has reported. The tables were led by Luxembourg and Switzerland.
62% of Italians between the ages of 14 and 29 read three or more books a year (excluding school textbooks) compared to 43% of young people in Spain, 48% in France and 61% in Germany, according to a new survey. Only Britain pipped Italy to the post, with 65%. The number of young Italians who read a newspaper at least once or twice a week has risen in the last four years, from 60% in 2003 to 78% in 2007.
Germans are apparently not keen on Euro notes from the PIGS countries (Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain, more politely known as the Olive Belt). The numbers on German notes begin with an X, French with a U whereas Italy’s begin with an S.
Interestingly, if you add up all the numbers on your note, and then add together the digits of that number, an Italian note always comes to 7 whereas a German note comes to 2.
If you’re interested in the numbers on bank notes, try to get out more.
The new Speaker of the House, Gianfranco Fini will take action on the ‘pianists’ – MPs who put up both hands to vote, covering the absence of a colleague. His preferred solution is an electronic one, requiring both hands to make a single vote, making the proceedings even more like a game show.
After Silvio Berlusconi’s successful attempt to block Finland hosting the EU food standards agency, on the grounds that the Finns didn’t even know what prosciutto was, but ate marinated reindeer meat, a Finnish restaurant chain has produced a reindeer meat pizza, calling it ‘The Berlusconi’.
A new trick for money laundering has been discovered in Savona, where fraudsters pay for a mass for fictional dead relatives with counterfeit 100 euro notes, receiving the change in good money.
Naples will raise a task force of helpers to clear up the streets, which will be called ‘angels of rubbish’. The city is at present sending 700 tons a day to Hamburg by train at a cost of 250 euros a ton. I thought the northbound trains had got dirtier.
The first parish church in Rome to celebrate Mass entirely in Latin for nearly half a century has been inaugurated with a service attended by over 500 worshippers.
Interestingly, if you add up all the numbers on your note, and then add together the digits of that number, an Italian note always comes to 7 whereas a German note comes to 2.
If you’re interested in the numbers on bank notes, try to get out more.
The new Speaker of the House, Gianfranco Fini will take action on the ‘pianists’ – MPs who put up both hands to vote, covering the absence of a colleague. His preferred solution is an electronic one, requiring both hands to make a single vote, making the proceedings even more like a game show.
After Silvio Berlusconi’s successful attempt to block Finland hosting the EU food standards agency, on the grounds that the Finns didn’t even know what prosciutto was, but ate marinated reindeer meat, a Finnish restaurant chain has produced a reindeer meat pizza, calling it ‘The Berlusconi’.
A new trick for money laundering has been discovered in Savona, where fraudsters pay for a mass for fictional dead relatives with counterfeit 100 euro notes, receiving the change in good money.
Naples will raise a task force of helpers to clear up the streets, which will be called ‘angels of rubbish’. The city is at present sending 700 tons a day to Hamburg by train at a cost of 250 euros a ton. I thought the northbound trains had got dirtier.
The first parish church in Rome to celebrate Mass entirely in Latin for nearly half a century has been inaugurated with a service attended by over 500 worshippers.
The inaugural Mass, at the church of SS Trinita dei Pellegrini near the Campo de’ Fiori was presided over by Fr Joseph Kramer, an Australian priest.
A deer resembling a Unicorn has been discovered in a Tuscan wildlife park. Small and bone-headed, they are wondering who to call it after
A deer resembling a Unicorn has been discovered in a Tuscan wildlife park. Small and bone-headed, they are wondering who to call it after
No comments:
Post a Comment