Stop press. Stop press. It is apparently official, if any of you happened to be interested, George Clooney and his Italian girlfriend, Elisabetta Canalis, have split up. I’ve just seen it on the news. The summer news!
After June 21st (real summer) TV stops functioning as it does usually with the assumption that nobody is interested in anything serious any more. The normal line up of evening programmes is replaced with moonlit fashion shows on historic monuments, beauty contests, circuses full of naked trapeze artists and variety show rehashes of 1980s comedy in which men dressed as women and thought it was funny (Remember Dick Emery? That sort of thing)
Italy is not known for its great TV. It does lots of afternoon chat shows with flamboyant politicians and priests as guests who have to talk about the latest family murder or recipe and answer the probing questions posed to them by the scantily clad women who are conducting the shows. I suppose Italy really can’t be faulted on its scantily clad women.
Picture the scene: You’ve just arrived in your Italian holiday destination. Your hotel is lovely, it’s late and you’re tired. Before attempting to unpack, you flop onto the big double bed and switch on the TV. It’s always fun to watch programmes you recognise in foreign languages. Et voilà: Who Wants to be a Millionaire? Phone a friend, 50-50, it’s all there… but then a young semi clad blonde arrives and pulls herself across the young male contestant. He blushes and his girlfriend is shown smiling encouragingly from the audience. Another blonde and then a brunette follow suit. All dressed in the same, bunny girl costumes from the 70s seaside shows. All with exactly the same high cheekbones, swollen lips, long, long hair which curls perfectly at the end. We don’t need to mention the breasts as you can see what they’re like for yourselves, very evidently in view with absolutely no attempt at modesty at all. What time is it? Well it’s still quite early. Is it OK for the children to watch? ‘Don’t worry about the children,’ says Dad, we’ll watch this to see who wins and then switch it off. But then let’s face it we all want to know the summer gossip and find out which flavor ice-cream is fashionable this season (bet you didn’t know that in Italy even your ice cream has to be the right flavor!!) I wasn’t working today and so had the chance to watch lunch time news and pick up some really useful tit bits. This year you should buy your bikini one size too small, so that you show off as much of yourself as possible. You shouldn’t do your own nails (very vulgar) but get those lovely big plastic ones put on by a professional (large price range but it’s worth paying for the best you can afford because you notice the difference) Your ice-cream by the way should be absolutely sorbetto not chocolate or nut and (important summer advice) if you have an old granny to look after make sure she drinks plenty of water if it gets very hot, which it is already. Don’t let her go out between the hours of 11 and 16.00 and make sure she has lots of fresh fruit to eat.
The news lasts half an hour and after wasting five minutes skimming over such problems as the Italian government which is on the brink of collapse, Greece on the brink of economic collapse and Lybia on the brink of lots of horrible things it was nice to see George Clooney. Let’s hope he can find himself a nice girl and settle down.
