Italy News: 11.30.08

Some news from Italy for your Sunday reading pleasure:

• Okay, we all remember those seriously hot pictures of Italy’s World Cup winning soccer players in their Dolce & Gabbana underwear, right? Well, for this year’s D&G skivvies ads, they’ve chosen five guys from Italy’s rugby team. This may mean I have to learn something about rugby.
• Cash-strapped Italians have another way to make an extra few euro now that a right-wing political party in Italy has launched a campaign wherein they’ll give €1500 to any parents who name a child after either fascist dictator Benito Mussolini or his wife, Rachele.
• Ooh, there’s an Italian Soccer Oscars awards event – how fun… Too bad I can’t vote, because I’d totally give My Boyfriend a nod in the Best Italian Player category. I have to say, though, I’d hate to be up for Best Goalkeeper against Gigi Buffon. The other guys might as well not even bother to rent tuxes.
• The so-called “gentleman thief” made sure never to rob anyone when children were present and always spoke softly “so as not to scare staff” has been caught, but my guess is that he won’t get any more gentleman-ly treatment than any other thief.
• Y’know that much-touted Mediterranean diet that’s supposed to help us all live longer? Well, it’s supposed to boost sexual performance, too. Pass the olive oil, per favore.
• A Roman tomb that’s been out of the public eye for three decades is back on display again in Rome.
• Robin of My Melange can confirm that the old axiom, “all roads lead to Rome,” is in fact a falsehood.
• Italy’s TV listings are full of game shows and reality shows, most of which are horrid to indescribably bad, but one of the amusing ones has to be Scherzi a Parte (which is kind of like Candid Camera or Punk’d). The show plays jokes on Italian celebrities, including some of the country’s top footballers – and The Offside Italy has posted several of the best Italian soccer “victims.” Good stuff, whether or not you speak Italian.
• Milan is set to begin work on a Holocaust memorial underneath the city’s main train station, and it’ll be centered around the train track from which some of the more than 8,000 Jews deported from Italy during World War II left the country.
• Want another reason to feel like the two-week vacation you just took was really not enough? Check out this blog of a person walking from the northern border of Italy to the southern tip of the island of Sicily. Wow.
• The trial for accused murderers Amanda Knox (who was an American exchange student in Perugia) and her Italian boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito has been postponed from December to January.
• As a budget traveler, I can’t imagine ever forking over the money to stay in one of Italy’s many luxury villas, but if I did, the one near Lucca that’s on this list of luxury villas you can rent would certainly be worth considering.
• The controversial book “Gomorrah” about the Italian Mafia, which has riled up the Mafia to such an extent that its author was forced to flee the country in fear for his life, is also now a major motion picture which will be released in the U.S. on December 19th. Perfect holiday film? Okay, maybe not – but definitely worth seeing anyway.
• And speaking of the “Gomorrah” author Roberto Saviano, he’s apparently sharing notes on getting death threats with fellow author Salman Rushdie.
• Lufthansa had once been in the market to buy Alitalia, but now says that it’s going to start up a new Italian airline instead. So there. Hrmph.
• If you’re an artist or you’d like to become one, you could do worse than to check out this video about a painting course in Tuscany and Umbria. I’m not interested in becoming an artist, but perhaps I could bring myself to tag along and do some stick figures?
• Apparenly the Vatican is getting into the music critic business, as they’ve given the music of the Beatles a thumbs up.
• Italy just opened its first embassy in Moldova.
• Sara of Ms. Adventures in Italy took a trip to Sicily this year, and has recently put up her post (complete with lovely pictures) of Lo Zingaro Nature Reserve.
• ‘Tis the season – even in the canal city of Venice. Snow doesn’t often stick in Venice, but it fell last week and certainly makes for pretty pictures when it does.
• Famed Italian filmmaker Federico Fellini was also apparently a habitual doodler, and some of his sketches are now on display at Milan’s Teatro Filodrammatici.
• The first transgender Member of Italy’s Parliament has won another victory – albeit a slightly less prestigious one. Vladimir Luxuria won Italy’s reality show version of “I’m a Celebrity: Get Me Out of Here.”
• This is an interesting article about not just hiking in Italy’s Dolomites, but about the Italian hiking guide leading the reporter and his friends.
• Evidently it’s official – there’s a price freeze on Italy’s road tolls from now until the end of April.