If you want to minimise or extinguish your tax liability, engage an Italian tax advisor.  Italy’s income tax advisors must be some of the best in the world and Italy’s tax advisors are real ‘value for money’ professionals too. Expert Italian tax advisors will have you declaring either nothing or next to nothing while you live in a ten bedroom mansion, employ a few Indian (Indians seem to be popular as domestic staff in Italy) servants and cruise the streets of Italy i... Read Full Story

Italy is extremely democratic really.  Just about anyone can become a politician here. Indeed, in amongst the motley crew which inhabit, or have inhabited, Italy’s upper and lower houses of parliament you’ll find: former models, porn stars, cruise ship crooners, social networkers from Sicily, convicted criminals, family friends, etc. etc. Imagine you want to obtain that most coveted of all full-time jobs in Italy: a politician – a job which comes with an unjustifiably high s... Read Full Story

I’ve long been a fan of now long defunct punk rock group The Clash.  I found Clash songs powerful, hard edged and catchy, and I love their titles too.  It is the titles of Clash songs which, I have noticed, are rather appropriate to Italian Prime Minister Berlusconi’s current woes. Perhaps the best Clash song title is ‘Should I Stay or Should I Go Now?’, which is the question Silvio Berlusconi might be asking himself at the moment.  Certainly some of Berlusconi’s... Read Full Story

Silvio Berlusconi, Italy’s richest man and current prime minister, must be totally and utterly terrified of Italy’s forces of law and order.  Such is his fear that he is going to enormous lengths to keep himself out of Italy’s courts, and, presumably, Italy’s prisons. Gomorrah Author Roberto Saviano After one such attempt to keep Silvo Berlusconi out of trouble, the Lodo Alfano, met with the disapproval of the highest court in Italy, Silvio shouted, screamed and kicke... Read Full Story

A Church in Italy When mention is made of Italy, mixed in with thoughts of pasta and wine will be the Vatican and, the mafia. With regard to which springs to mind first, Vatican or mafia, I have no idea, but it does not matter really, as both are intrinsically Italian. Yet the Vatican champions the morally right, while the mafia certainly does not. In theory the Vatican should be constantly and highly critical of the mafia, or, for that matter, any other organisation which encourages human... Read Full Story

Christmas is a coming, and the little one has asked Santa for a guitar.  Don’t tell him, but Santa picked up a guitar for the little fellow this weekend.  This Santa likes guitars. Santa Likes Guitars To obtain a guitar one, generally, heads to a guitar shop, and there is one I know down in the centre of Milan.  It’s always looked well stocked to me, and  its window is crammed full of glorious Gibsons and fabulous Fenders, just as any self respecting guitar shop should be.  Quite... Read Full Story

Our son started primary school in Italy this year, and he seems to be loving it.  Our six year old’s appetite for knowledge seems insatiable, I’m happy to say.  His progress has been, well, one could say, ‘colourful’. In fact he seems to be demolishing coloured pencils at an alarming rate.  If I were a tree, I’d be afraid, very afraid. Every evening his pencil case comes out, and either mother or father spends ten minutes in the intimate company of a pencil sharp... Read Full Story

Our son started primary school in Italy this year, and he seems to be loving it.  Our six year old’s appetite for knowledge seems insatiable, I’m happy to say.  His progress has been, well, one could say, ‘colourful’. In fact he seems to be demolishing coloured pencils at an alarming rate.  If I were a tree, I’d be afraid, very afraid. Every evening his pencil case comes out, and either mother or father spends ten minutes in the intimate company of a pencil sharp... Read Full Story

Seeing as I’ve been out of action for a while, I thought I’d kick off with a brief  post-flu round up of what has been in the news in Italy recently. To be honest, there is not much which is all that new.  It’s all variations on old themes really. Theme 1 – Berlusconi Let’s face it, Italy would be a dull place without Silvio Berlusconi. Berlusconi has weathered quite a few scandals remarkably well, which is more than can be said of transsexual prostitute frequent... Read Full Story

Seeing as I’ve been out of action for a while, I thought I’d kick off with a brief  post-flu round up of what has been in the news in Italy recently. To be honest, there is not much which is all that new.  It’s all variations on old themes really. Theme 1 – Berlusconi Let’s face it, Italy would be a dull place without Silvio Berlusconi. Berlusconi has weathered quite a few scandals remarkably well, which is more than can be said of transsexual prostitute frequent... Read Full Story