A conversation at work yesterday between myself, a Welsh colleague and an Italian colleague. We tried to explain how we had ended up moving to Italy and what our experiences of Italy were before moving out. At this point I really struggled. The accusation was that all we knew about Italy was football players and apart from that we knew nothing.
We searched for ideas and agreed that it was pretty much only Italian football players and Berlusconi that we knew before moving over. And now, we still only know about football players and Berlusconi.
We thought for a while and we came up with a quite stunning list:
Football players
Nancy Dell'Olio (doesn't really count as she is famous due to being a football manager's wife)
Gio Compare - the comedy opera singer from the Go Compare adverts)
Tutti Frutti - an Italian game show from the 1980s
Joe Dolce - singer of late 1980s comedy song Shaddappa ya face
Gino Ginelli - ice cream brand from the 1980s
And that was it. Nothing else. What a sorry state of affairs that is and I don't know if it is my fault, or the fault of the Brits in general.
So let us consider this fine list in a little more detail.
Nancy Dell'Olio: Strange looking and acting woman, famous for being the ex of Sven Goran Eriksson, ex-England football manager. Recently appeared on Strictly Come Dancing and was seen coming out of a coffin and was paired with Anton Du Beke, a rather unpalatable South African (reminds me of a very famous Spitting Image song http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v439zTOJVho I won't comment further...).
Gio Compare: An advert character for the website Go Compare. Catchy theme song actually made him famous and able to perform and tour, as well as having a series of popular adverts. Of course, he's not actually Italian, but i guess is supposed to look a little like Pavarotti, or a generic Italian opera singer.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvqzx1bA488
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJdjCVhHUog
Tutti Frutti: I believed that this was an Italian game show, I was wrong but kind of right, more to follow. As young kids, well I guess around 14 or so we would go to David's older brother's house to babysit and watch horror movies (at the time I was really into horror books - Steven King, James Herbert etc and we watched a lot of hard horror films - I must say that I couldn't care less now). David's brother had a very nice house, and also had satellite TV in the time when noone had satellite TV. Actually there was one other person who had satellite TV that I knew, I will not name any names, but his father was a modern languages teacher and one time was found watching purn on it, and stated that "he was monitoring it for suitability" - a wonderful riposte! Anyway, whilst not watching horror movies we watched a game show called "Tutti Frutti" - the premise was very odd. Couples would come on and answer some questions, do a striptease(!) and if some questions were answered correctly or the dance was good then some of the, better words fail me so I shall call them dolly birds, would take their tops off. This demands more explanation. Each of the dolly birds represented a particular fruit - strawberry, banana etc, and wore an outfit to resemble that. If they got the points then they would show their breasts. Wow. And you can imagine to young kids this was pretty amazing. There was no internet in those days, so the only time we had seen such things was when we found a magazine in the woods. I never knew how they ended up in woods - but they did! A couple of years later we would develop to watch pretty hardcore films, and some snuff too, of course, going via soft stuff like Young Lady Chatterley. It's all good. Anyway - the premise was, random game show, flash of breast. And that was what I remembered of Italy. I have done a little research and discovered that I have got it completely wrong - the game show was actually German, so I will have to take this off the list! However, it turns out that the German Tutti Frutti was actually based on an earlier Italian game show called "Colpo Grosso" - "Big Score" which had "ragazzae cin cin" which I think translates to "cheers girls". Lovely stuff!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tutti_Frutti_(1990_TV_series)
And the Italian "cin cin" here.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOOCECXSLIY&feature=related
And here an example of the contestants (not the pretty girls) stripping!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYMVn7ENMec
I can't say that Italian TV has really changed that much. There are still lots of strangely attractive and done up women on the TV, and since Berlusconi controls much of it there is no great surprise about that. The TV is still a mystery to me sadly. I watch MTV a lot, as there are a lot of english language programs on there, but generally we do not watch TV but watch movies and series on the PC, and spend a lot of money with Amazon. In fact, I am now used to watching series in one sitting and would find it impossible to wait a week for the next episode!
Joe Dolce: I think I've spoken about this guy before. A late 1980s comedy song called "Shaddap you face" about an Italian boy called Giuseppe song in a comedy Italian accent by an Australian. Disgraceful. Disgraceful yes, but extremely successful, number one in fifteen countries and it remained the best selling Australian song for 31 years!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Dolce
Here is the song:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-BKcKMS748
Gino Ginelli: This was a brand of ice cream from the 1980s. What is it about TV and TV advert nostalgia that brings us all together so much? There are so many "Top 100 ..." programs talking about how great stuff was 10 or 20 years ago. It really goes for TV and TV adverts, and I do fear that after having been here for 2 years I have missed out on a large part of my culture. Although there are people who don not own TVs, but I am definitely never going to be one of them! Some of the Italian jingles and adverts on radio are quite catchy "gli esperti siamo noi" - "we are the experts" an advert for a mobile phone company (http://www.expert-italia.it/) and the catch line for RTL 102.5 which is a radio and music tv show that is always on in the gym (http://www.rtl.it/). Anyway, Gino Ginelli was a make of Italian ice cream from the 1980s. Super catchy tune, but clearly the writers had never been near Italy!
"Italian chic, Italian style, Italian verve, Italian cool. Tutti Frutti oh what a cutie, take a Gino home with you." All sung with a mild and slightly ridiculous Italian accent (not as bad as Joe Dolce though!).
And here is the original advert:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Wu-aNr7v0U
And whilst I think of it - remember the classic cornetto advert from the 1980s?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=biL6zAMkOQs
"Just one cornetto, give eeet to me, delicious ice cream, from Italy" - my next door neighbour, who lived in the UK for two years over 20 years ago, can still sing this word for word. Of course, this is based on a real italian song "o sole mio". Actually it is not strictly Italian, but is originally in Neopolitan dialect
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%27O_Sole_Mio
And then Boddingtons came along and completely made it triple legendary with this advert.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGg4uhGfgB0
"By 'eck luv, it's gorgeous"
And so, where does all this end? Well - what was I thinking? I knew nothing about Italy before I moved over. Nothing at all. It reminds me of an episode of Relocation Relocation (or whatever it was called). A young couple (approximately 31 years old) from somewhere scummy in Scotland had decided one day that they wanted to move to Tuscany. They had no money, barely any jobs, and had never been abroad I think, certainly never to Italy. They went through the whole process, and finally were getting their sht together and almost ready to do it, although there was resistance from their families. There was no final part, but as the credits rolled a voice over came on saying that John had suffered a huge stroke after filming the program and was ill. This was pretty damn shocking.
So, where does that leave us? We're still here, in a country teetering on the brink of collapse, getting paid very little money, in a city where it is impossible to integrate. Really don't know why we're here. The wine is nice but Dawn doesn't really drink, so it is a mystery. Cycling is great for me, but I am working too much to do much and we are both getting fat.
We shall see....
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