LA DOLCE VITA  AND LIBERATION DAY IN ITALY 

The other night, gone midnight, there was a bit of a fracas at my office, which is a bar in a town called --------------------- near Milan , two cats were having a row nearby, it was a bit like two Italian hooligans for ages, lots of name calling then suddenly all hell broke loose.Great fight , lots of blood . The White cat won against a kind of ginger cat .

My office is the table on the terrace outside the bar, next to the only external electric plug, to which I connect my computer. It keeps me online to a  few of my cockney mates in London who do stuff with me .

And at least in my town  there are not wanky Englishmen wearing panama hats lurking behind every oleander bush or cypress tree, if they wear anything they wear mod style trilbies (me, the only one)

But Italy has always been a total nightmare to live and work in –swingeing taxes, arbitrary justice system, stultifying bureaucracy and growth-destroying workplace laws.  for six long years now, Italy has been mired in the worst economic depression anyone can recall, with no exit in sight thanks to the straitjacket of the single currency.

The latest statistics, published last week, confirm that Italy is the sick man of Europe, and that it is once more back in recession, for the third time since 2008, with negative GDP growth in the first two quarters of this year. 

So when I read the other day that there are houses for sale in Sicily for one euro, I did not think: “Go for it!” No. I just thought: “Conosco i miei polli [I know my chickens]. Just forget it.”

Yes, Sicily is drop-dead gorgeous, but these particular houses are roofless hovels miles from the sea in a hilltop town called Gangi, near Corleone, birthplace of the most powerful and bestial Mafia family of the post-war period, and the name given to the Mafia family in Francis Ford Coppola’s Godfather films.

To make matters worse, I hear, once you buy your one-euro Sicilian hovel, you commit to restore it in accordance with Sicilian rules and regulations. 

In the early eighties , I came to Italy chasing a dream. Now I have been forcibly woken up. 

 I did live some kind of dream for a good few years.

Then came the Great Recession and the eurozone crisis, which began really to hurt in Italy roughly three years ago, and which just keeps on going from bad to worse.

Nearly 90,000 British expats abandoned Spain last year – 25 per cent of the total – because they could not take it any more. I have no figures on how many expats have abandoned Italy, but I know of many in snazzy Chiantishire who are desperate to sell their lovely old stone farmhouses, despite their gold-plated pensions or whatever it is that gets them through the night.

Peter Mayle’s 1989 bestseller, A Year in Provence, about doing up a French farmhouse, which prompted so many to try to follow in his slipstream, begins with the words: “The year began with lunch.” Fine, maybe, once. But these days who can be bothered with lunch? What is there to talk about any more?

The statistics illustrate Italy’s pitiful state. This year, Britain’s GDP is estimated to grow by 3.2 per cent, while Italy’s, after those two disastrous first quarters, is estimated to end up at zero minus something.

Meanwhile, unemployment in Italy is at a record 12.6 per cent – 3.5 million people – and youth unemployment is at 45 per cent. But the true unemployment total is much higher because hundreds of thousands of Italians employed by failing companies are paid by the State to remain employed and to do nothing. Italy’s public debt is now 2.1 trillion euros and 135 per cent of GDP (the third-highest in the world after Japan and Greece as a percentage of GDP). Yet public spending continues to rise, as do taxes – 53 per cent of Italy’s GDP now goes on taxes, according to latest figures – which means that the tax burden is the highest in the civilised world.

I earn great money in Italy and it has made my fortune but I am one of the lucky few . I used to receive crap euros a month net but decided that if you are going to live the Dolce Vita you have to have money.-So yeh Im still living the Dolce Vita and Italy is the place for that. I am always moaning about Italy but I love it deep down inside.

 . But it is still a great place , great looking women, great food and great cat fights .