In terms of cost, hotel phones are like restaurant wines: simply the proprietor’s way of hastening his early retirement to the Virgin Islands. Mobile phones, especially abroad, are equally ruinous. Nevertheless, a mobile phone is what I am using to keep in touch with the indispensable Frankie. He calls me as I am leaving the office in the Comune where I have just received their gracious permission to engage a bulldozer to search the ruins of my house for my buried personal effects. I am now on my way to the offices of the Forestale, where I need to obtain yet another permesso, when I answer my mobile on the steps outside. A fusillade of coughs identifies the caller. ‘Do you know who I mean by Leo Wolstenholme?’ asks Frankie eventually.‘No. Who’s he?’‘It’s a she. Leonora. Pretty famous here in the UK. Lots of tabloid interest in her various affairs, a boob operation that went wrong, etcetera, but best known as a regular presenter of Global Eyeball.
