The Vipers of Milan

Dinner has been delayed from eight o'clock to nine.  The news (the news on Italian television!) is too absorbing to be diluted by passing the parmigiano, salt, potatoes, bread or anything else.

Last night Silvio Berlusconi had his video moment -

I wouldn't do this kind of thing. Me? Pay for sex with a woman?  Anyway I've got a steady.  It's all a political attack enabled by the  unbalanced  powers of the judiciary (and an unbalanced judiciary).

We munch on through an unhealthy pile of crisps and an unbalanced consumption of aperitivi.  The Milan prosecutors are declared to have no jurisdiction by Berlusconi's lawyers - Arcore  (where the relevant bunga-bunga was said to be going on in one of B's villas) is in the judicial thrall of Monza, not Milan.  But the major charge, the abuse of office, took place in Milan and lesser charges are subordinated to this.

The Speaker of the Lower House and leader of the break-away faction from Berlusconi's majority party calls upon him to face the magistrates.

"Shan't!" cries Berlusconi who has been given 3 dates next week to turn up; after that he has 5 days from the last date to give himself up.  It is unclear to me though probaly not to Italian lawyers, what happens then.  Bounty hunters?  Shooting on sight? Carabinieri in their spooky leather gloves and impeccable turn out helping him towards enquiries?

Meanwhile, the girl in question has declared she has never had sex with that man.  Which man we chorus, turning our attention to the guest lists at the villa in April when she was know to be a guest there herself.  If not him then who were you there for?  And what exactly is the status of the 14 young women lodged in Berlusconi's Milano 2 gated property development just outside Milan?

Such a novelty after UK political scandal - all this hetero-sexuality.  Some of us were beginning to wonder if we would ever again be able to empathise with current political history and its goings-on.