Melancholy marked him for her own

Here's an interesting story. An Italian minister called Carlo Malinconico had a holiday at Porto Ercole paid for by a suspect property developer.

Not so interesting, you may say: this sort of stuff has been going on for years, hasn't it? But there are interesting aspects to it.

What Mr. Melancholy (which is what the word means and is, now, somewhat apt) says is that he went off to Porto Ercole in good faith, running up a bill of nearly €20,000 (it was a 5 star hotel) and imagine his surprise when he found that the bill had been already paid.

Well, it could happen to any of us.

But this was a while ago. Malinconico was working in the last pre-Berlusconi Government, under Romano Prodi. He was appointed rather than elected, and a Knighthood was procured for him (Cavaliere di gran croce dell'Ordine al merito dell Repubblica Italiana). He held two jobs with Prodi, with whom he is pals.

Mario Monti, unelected Prime Minister, is pally with Prodi, too: they were European Commissioners together and Prodi became President of the Commission.

So we still have the grubby old friends network running Italy, a funny handshake here, a title there, dodgy dealings and a ministerial car in every case.

This time it was supposed to be different.