Sicilian Diary

Since our friendly neighbourhood petition has had such immediate results with the local police, we thought we had better get a counter-petition going, so that those who frequent the borgo could lend their support to all the bars and restaurants here. Mio marito's article about running a restaurant in the borgo also was published in the local paper and suddenly he has become quite famous, locally! Since he can express himself quite well, the other bars and restaurant owners are happy that he has undertaken the role of spokesperson. He is also practised in the art of diplomacy and so, less likely to blow his top when he comes across challenging situations, in the form of local authorities etc ... (The other restaurateurs might not manage to keep their volcanic temperaments in check). One bar-owner in particular, however, maintains that he is wholly disinterested in the entire affair. He thinks the petition is all about making money (this comes from someone whose family got rich by...

We are having the hottest summer of the last fifty years in Italy (rivalled only by the summer of 2003). June brought the first Saharan anticyclone, called Scipione , after the Roman General Scipio Africanus, who defeated Hannibal in the Second Punic War. That heatwave had barely ended when anticylone Numero 2 - Caronte - came along. Caronte, or Charon in Greek mythology, was the ferryman of Hades who transported souls of the newly deceased across the rivers Acheron and Styx that divide the world of the living from that of the dead. In Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy, Charon is the first named mythological character that Dante meets in the Underworld, in the third Canto of Inferno . Now, hot on the heels of Caronte, comes Minosse , the third suptropical Saharan anticyclone of the summer (Minos, son of Zeus and Europa, judge of the dead of the underworld). Temperatures will reach the mid-forties in Sicily. Too hot to be outside. Too hot to stay inside.

Now that summer is here, the police have started to frequent the borgo, as usual. Last Saturday a carabiniere came by in plainclothes at 1.35am, and stopped the music. It was an amicable encounter and the policeman even seemed to understand the difficulty of our situation - that no one comes up to the Borgo at weekends until well past midnight. So we end up paying the DJ and the hefty SAIE taxes (Music Performing Rights Society) all for one hour or so. At weekends, diners stay from 9.30pm to midnight, and the younger crowd come for drinks and the so-called movida from midnight until around 4am. In the summer there is little else for young people in Milazzo to do, apart from a disco by the sea on Friday nights. Many go to Messina or Capo D'Orlando, but that means taking the car ... Last night the Finanaza (tax police) came by to check us out - but all was in order. Later, three poliziotti came by at 1.42am and stopped the music. Mio marito had already asked the DJ to stop the musi...