First and foremost, Tot T has turned into a thief. He first confessed to me to "never, ever getting over stealing a candy from a shop at the age of 6", when he was forced by mother Lynne to return it (half chewed?) and apologise to the slumping teenager who worked there during the afternoon slots. Then, as if by miracle (and thanks to the intervention of a few large G&Ts), upon stumbling home he eyed a row of green rococo pillows lining a barfront not far from la casa.
Needless to say, before I could even realise, he grabbed one, shoved it under his t-shirt and walked home with the grin of a mouse who's eaten all the cheese.
The pillow has been named Madonna (the Pillow) since she too has a tendency to snatch stuff, mainly babies. Only the following morning, did the full reality descend into Tot T's brain. Yet, after a few protests that sounded very much like Adam's recriminations against Eve after HE ate the apple, he decided to adopt Madonna the Pillow, which is now as inseparable from his bum as... well as... erhm...
Other remarkable events include going to the Mix LGBT Film Festival of Milan, conveniently located 200 yards from la casa. The homosexuals have been spilling onto the square opposite Il Piccolo, the main prose theatre in Italy, for days now, moving in synchronicity to the sound of thumping house music and ready to face muscle-crunching squeezes through the theatre's narrow doors in order to see the likes of Antartica by Yair Hochner
or The Way I See Things by Brian Pera.
We, however, were not so lucky in our choice. We believed the hype, ignored all those alluring pictures of semi-naked men (what were we thinkink?!?!) and chose to go see Sally Potter's new flick Rage.
I rarely regretted a cinematic decision so much. In just under 100 minutes, Sally and her accomplices Judy Dench, Jude Law, Dianne Wiest, John Leguizamo, Simon Abkarian and Steve Buscemi bore us to death through an infinite series of interviews to fashion people involved in an obscure and silly series of events, which may or may not represent a conceptual metaphor for the meaninglessness of life.
It was one of those circumstances when you know there are a lot of intelligent people who've given too much thought to producing something terribly obscure which makes them feel all terribly interesting, but which in fact is a load of rubbish. Next time, I am sticking with the films advertised with naked men on the front.
Finally, we're doing the rounds of our local restaurants, in search of the perfect meal. Our luck in this chapter took a sharp dive when we trusted Time Out's recommendations and ended up at Ol's under the false promise of candlelight and large platters of meat.
What we actually found were thousands of teenagers and tweens (pre-teens) running around in packs, and heavily sweating waiters and waitresses from India and Eastern Europe respectively struggling to contain their enthusiasm for the end of the school year. We were also seated next to what appeared at first a stag night, but later appeared to be a motorcycling club for boys in their 30s. Much beer was drunk. Many references were made about loose women. And so on.
What next? A real fashion show? Thank god it's Friday and we're off to Tuscany for the weekend... as Tot T's clan descends onto Italy. Expect many more stories...
