Nearly there now...

...and just thinking about the first one for Monday evening. Something that kicks in straightaway. A glass of fizz would be fine and there's plenty of that in the cellar. However I am leaning towards the above, shot when the days were warmer. A cracking get-you-up-there drink that washes away a month of penitential suffering. I wonder if The Intrepid One will fancy one too after a month in the desert but he'll probably demur and demand a huge glass of Barbera d'Asti. Plenty of that too.

Only in Italy...

Meet Mike Bongiorno. Mike was the stalwart of Italian television. He was the game show king. He came over from America light years ago, changed his name and got on the box and never really left it. Towards the end of his TV career (he died in harness in 2009) there would be his rheumy face dragging out questions to some old bag at half past three in the afternoon in front of a catatonic audience both in the studio and at home. I can't think of a comparable figure on Blighty television, perhaps Brucie but without the height, hooter, talent and sense of irony. Anyhoo, he fell off his perch at the relatively young age (for an Italian) of 85 and in a display of staggering bad taste of which only the Italians are sometimes capable, he was given a State Funeral, his procession lined with thousands of weeping old biddies and arm-twisted schoolchildren endlessly texting each other for want of something better to do.
In an exquisite twist to the story, yesterday somebody nicked Mike's coffin from the family tomb near Novara up towards Milan. The family are awaiting the ransom request.

31 Days

It's that special month again when the very serious corkscrew is put away in the cutlery drawer and that special pourer gadget that means not a drop of wine is spilt onto the exquisite Irish linen tablecloth is placed reverentially on the gadget shelf.
January is a long, long month dear reader.
Normal service should resume when The Intrepid One pitches up in his Land Rover, fresh from more African Adventures. Predicted arrival date is January 31st.
There are some upsides to this ghastly annual ritual but for the life of me I can't think of one.