A message to all Italian women (and Italian men with a conscience)

I certainly hope that any of you who may have been so foolhardy as to vote for your current President, Silvio Berlusconi, will consider his comments as regards Eluana Englaro and demand his immediate resignation. Ms. Englaro has been in a vegetative state for over 16 years and her father has finally won a protracted court battle to allow her force feeding to be discontinued; thereby allowing his daughter to die with some dignity. Sr. Berlusconi has seen fit to pander to the Vatican, despite over 75% of the Italian population believing that she should be allowed to die, and has issued a fiat demanding that the order of the Italian Supreme Court not be honoured. The Italian President, Giorgio Napolitano, has refused to sign this imperial decree but Berlusconi is attempting to have the Italian Parliament ratify and nullify the court order.

However my outrage is not at Mr. Belusconi's blatant attempts to seize imperial power in Italy and go against the order of the court and the will of the electorate in order to placate Il Papa. My own position is in opposition to his. My outrage is at his comments to the effect that Ms. Englaro, despite having been in a coma for over 16 years, is "in the condition to have babies". Clearly any politician who holds the female citizens in such low esteem that he considers them little more than equipment for breeding deserves immediate retirement; and a shameful retirement at that.

I certainly hope that the women of Italy agree and see to it that he must leave his office; immediately and in disgrace.

A word of advice for the President Elect

Don't take any advice from Silvio Berlusconi. Just don't. Trust me on this OK?

A message for Il Papa

If there is a God, and there almost certainly isn't, She doesn't give a flying fuck about the fate of Alitalia. If She does She isn't God.

That is all.

Won't someone please think of the frog?

Museum officials in Bolzano, Italy are being pressured to bow the almighty will of God's representative on Earth, Il Papa, and remove a sculpture by Martin Kippenberger. The offending sculpture has been declared blasphemous by the infallible one as it portrays a crucified frog. Clearly the sculpture should not only be removed it should be burned or crushed or something lest it offend God and in Her anger She lets John McCain "win" the US election. Of course, this is nothing at all like Muslims getting upset about some cartoons!

It may take most people six steps to get to Kevin Bacon....

...but it only takes corrupt Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi one step to get to John Ashcroft. The former US Attorney General, who we only remember fondly now because of those who have followed him, famously spent thousands of dollars of US taxpayer money to cover the shameful nudity displayed by a statue of the "Spirit of Justice" in his office. Now the normally less bashful Sr. Berlusconi has had the has had the naked breast in a copy of the painting "La Verita Svelata dal Tempo (The Truth Unveiled by Time)" so that his status as a faux statesman is not muddied by his head sharing a camera shot with Truth's Tit when he gives a press conference.

It can only be a matter of time before some other equally idiotic player on the global stage finishes off the "Truth, Justice and the American Way" hidden breast trifecta!

Finally after 7.5 years Captain Codpiece and his evil minions get something right!

And then fucking go and apologise for it! After the White House gave out a biographic sketch of Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi, lifted directly from the Encyclopedia of World Biography, that quite truthfully states, and I paraphrase here, that Berlusconi is a sleazy and corrupt opportunist (with a fetish for giving himself immunity from prosecution as soon as he gets into office).

Well I have a few words for deputy White House spokesmodel Tony Fratto the bio that you released may not reflect the opinion of Our Great Leader or the US government but they certainly reflect the opinion of any American who has any grasp of what is happening in the wider world! You, Mr. Fratto, do not speak for me!

A message to the good people of Vincenza Italia

You have won a battle in your fight to prevent the US from hugely expanding its military base in or near your town. Now keep on fighting until you win the war!

Get out of jail free (at least for now)

One doesn't have to like Silvio Berlusconi's politics, and I certainly don't, to admit that the man has chutzpah.

Benvenuto in Italia

Captain Codpiece should expect a raucous but not rapturous welcome as the European leg of his Legacy '08 Farewell Tour visits Italy. I'm sure he will want to get out in the street and have serious discussions with those waiting to greet him!

What's the Italian for "nimbyism"?

Things continue to get testy in Napoli as The Great Silvio is moving fast to crush anti-rubbish tip protests.

I love the smell of rubbish in the morning...

...it smells like Napoli.

Il duce would be so proud (slight return)

As I noted the other day, with the return of Silvio and the Xenophobes to the helm of the state in Italy is drifting further and further to the far, far right. Now we have a (former) neo-Fascist as the new mayor of Rome and he was greeted with chants of Duce! Duce!. Time to reorganise my holiday plans I think.

Il Duce must be so proud

The return of Silvio Berlusconi to power in Italy, at the head of a rag tag nationalistic and xenophobic coalition may have turned one of my favourite country's into Europe's most right wing state. Strangely Italy is also home to one of the last functioning Communist parties on the continent. The good news is that, as it is Italy we are talking about, the government is unlikely to last for long.

I'm just off to Venice!

Harry's Bar is offering a 20% discount to Americans. Apparently the US dollar is worth shit these days and the owners want to ease the blow. Trust me - even with 20% off it still won't be cheap.

(Note: some Yank in London trivia. I was in Venice in 2005 and believe that I smoked the last fag ever in Harry's Bar. I was there for a friend's 50th birthday and we went to Harry's after dinner on 9 January. We were the last customers out the door, I was the last of the group and I was smoking a roll up at the time!)

But what about my insalata tricolore?

The latest food scare? Dioxin levels in mozzarella di bufala from Napoli.