Grant Benson - My New Hero

Grant Benson - il mio nuovo eroe

In my new life as an English Language teacher I find myself having to do a lot more driving than I used to.

Back in Croydon I commuted into London each day on the train, but here you can't live without wheeled transport. I'll be doing up Thunderbird 7 for the summer, but right now I bomb around the countryside in a battered Fiat Bravo.

Over the weeks I've sampled a lot of radio stations, but I quickly settled on Milan's Radio Number One as my favourite. Partly because the playlist mixes new tunes from Italy and elsewhere with decades of classics and a good slice of euro-cheese, partly because the reception is good from Verona down to Castagnaro, but mainly because of the show Gli Inaffidabili and one of its hosts: Grant Benson.

Grant Benson at Radio Number One

Gli Inaffidabili ('The Unreliables') is on from 9am till 1pm and reminds me most of Radio 1's morning show in the UK when I was stacking Wonderbras for Topshop in the early 90's. Grant may be from Watford, but he presents the show in Italian alongside long-time friend and sparring partner Luca Viscardi. It's just that his version of Italian is nothing like Luca's and ...a lot more like mine! Even his biog on the Radio Number One site reads "He says he's been here 30 years, but it sounds more like 30 days."

What's more, the most loveable thing about him is his presenting style. For here we have old-school, Smashy & Nicey don't-crash-the-vocal-mate presenting at its finest: Just in Italian.

Left: not Grant Benson
Right: not him either

Wikipedia reveals that before working in Italy he broadcast on pirate radio in the 80's; first in Israel and then on Radio Caroline. This might go some way towards explaining his on-air personality, with so many of the Hairy Cornflake-era and beyond starting out in the same way.

GB in his Radio Caroline days

I reckon it's because he's an expat. Not that I'm one to talk, because:
a) I'm one, too and
b) Not a very good example because I'm fresh off the boat
But I get the impression that he's taken what he was used to and kept it pretty much the same whilst joking along in his second language. The result is a charming, left-field time warp. The Captain America back story in a corduroy jacket.

Cord jacket to keep out the mountain air? Check.
Mic in top pocket? Check. Catering? Check.

Luca keeps him on the straight and narrow on their show, gently taking the piss whilst Grant goes off on long linguistic tangents trying to make off-colour remarks that will never be funny in Italian about some chart-topping starlet in hot pants. He keeps trying. They banter.

Then as the intro fades up, the mighty Grant Benson times his "...sul Radio Number One!" perfectly. He doesn't crash the vocal and you can hear him smile.

Fog

La Nebbia

Today was a really foggy day.

The fog here in the pianura veronese is legendary: the folks from around here talk about it with a furrowed brow and in hushed tones ("Of course it's not as bad as thirty years ago..." "We had to drive with our head hanging out of the window to hear the cars coming in the other direction..."); those from the city, when they hear where we are, say "Oh, you're living down in the fog...".

Well today Verona had fog too. It's unusual for it to stretch all the way up to the city but there it was, bathing the buildings in a murky, Dickensian light.

Verona's Piazza Bra, bathed in the nebbia at about 3pm

"You must be used to this, coming from London", they say.
Um... no. Since the clean air act, my city hasn't had another 'pea-souper' for muggers to hide in.

Driving out here in the countryside it's like a David Lynch movie: the road stretching ahead just a few metres before merging into the milky grey.

Midnight in Isola Della Scala last November.
Thick fog and heavy floodlights create a cinematic end to our night out  at the Festa Bollito e la Pearà

I quite enjoy driving in it - for now. Put it down to this being my honeymoon period with my new surroundings, but I love the sense of space but no space that thick fog brings.

It's not without it's perils. This afternoon someone had broken down on a long, fast stretch of road: Had I been travelling at my usual speed, I'd have had the tiniest moment to swerve to avoid him. My sister-in-law couldn't drop my nephew home last night: the lane that leads to his house has a deep ditch on either side and no road markings.

His dad had to come to collect him on foot: I must ask how he felt on the ten-minute walk back in the milky silence (and remember not to mention John Carpenter till he's a bit older).

"Carole-Ann!!"
(Actually, my nephew running ahead on the same night out)

GP2 | 1-2 | Il Duce

Benito spacca Giovanni Paolo

This excellent Guardian article, published on 1st January, reminded me of a recent experience close to home.

We had dropped into the local newsagent for a paper (l'Arena) and some bus tickets.

Whilst my wife spoke with the newsagent about the possible money to be saved by buying a book of 10 or a season ticket, I noticed the 2013 calendars on display. There was one each for:

One Direction

Rabbits (the cute but eatable variety)

Padre Pio

Pope Giovanni Paolo II (nothing for the current Pastore Tedesco)

Juventus (currently the leading team in Italy, so I guess that's normal but disappointing to not see one for Hellas Verona)

...and two for Il Duce: Mussolini

A 2012 Calendar, taken from the publisher's site mentioned in the Guardian article from New Year's Day

I don't want to make this blog political (whilst remembering my favourite Skunk Anansie tune…), but it seems strange to me - a newly-arrived outsider - that there's a demand for a choice of calendars featuring a disgraced dead fascist dictator. Perhaps Alexei Sayle has set up a money-making sideline faking new poses: draped across the bonnet of the new Fiat Cubo, staring down the lens knowing he's the second ugliest subject in the shot; seductively licking a liquorice, lemon and morello cherry gelato at Lake Garda, the flavours subtly arranged in the form of the German flag to signify concord with the legion of Bavarian holiday-homers, raised right hand caught in a salute as he beats away a wasp... OK, enough.

One of the calendars was half-hidden behind the cutesy, tasty rabbits; the other proudly flanking One Direction. Make of that what you will!

Of course, the nearer you get to Rome, the more common and open this apparent nonchalance and admiration seems to be. Here, I've noticed Italians make a habit of talking down their country when talking with me - they complain that Italy is 'behind the UK', not as 'advanced' or 'free'. I've also heard it said more than once that things were better in the 1930s. 'It was the last time the country made any progress' was the last opinion shared with me at a dinner party. Hmmm.

There's a sort of rose-tinted and inverted 'what have the Romans done for us?' attitude displayed by some: 'Sure Il Duce was a fascist and did some evil and unforgivable things, but he gave us a post office on every corner, the trains ran on time,...'. 

It's a cliché that still rings true. Either that or I still have a lot to learn.