Italian man prefers jail cell to Granpa’s house

An Italian man, under house arrest and ordered to live with his grandfather in Rome, recently fled the home and ran to a police station where he turned himself in and begged to be arrested.  He had been sentenced to six months of house arrest at his grandfather’s home after a run-in/scuffle with the police.

He pled with the officers to cancel the house arrest and put him in jail, claiming he couldn’t stand living with his grandfather.

The court was unmoved, however.  They returned him to Granpa’s, and added another 80 days to his sentence for the escape.

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Cell phone radiation = the new caffeine?

Since Italians spend about 30% of their waking hours using cell phones, it’s not surprising that Italian neuroscientists have taken up studying the effects of serious telefonino usage on the human body. Now they find that cell signals “excite” brain cells. This stunning news apparently has no practical application whatsoever, though, since no one knows yet whether that is “good” excitement or “bad” excitement.

In the meantime, better stick to text messaging (also an Italian addiction) and keep that phone away from the little grey cells, okay?

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Priest says no to bellybuttons in church

Outside a church in a town near Milan posters were displayed, reading, "God already knows everything about you without you reminding him: Don't show your bellybutton in church on Sunday." Or, "God knew your bellybutton before you were born–there's no need to show it to Him every Sunday."

These posters got a lot of media attention, prompting another ironic poster directed toward the journalists. The priest responsible for the notices refused to be interviewed, explaining that the point of the posters wasn't for publicity or attention, but rather a way to send a message to his parishioners without having to preach a sermon on bellybuttons.

Apparently it worked. There were no exposed midriffs in church yesterday.

Link (Italian) 

It’s raining euro!

A young man on a motorino dropped his backback on the street.  As it broke open, the drivers behind were greeted with a surprise as twenty-thousand euro worth of bills began fluttering to the ground.

The motorists jumped out of their cars and began stuffing money into their pockets, joined by the distressed owner of the backpack.

He ended up finding 7 thousand–less than half of what he started with–and various drivers took off with the rest.

To top off his already bad day, the police arrested him and confiscated his remaining seven thousand, after he was unable to give a satisfactory answer as to where it came from and why he had it.

Link (Italian) 

Grandpa’s girlfriend is seventeen….

Today in Rome a seventy-year-old man was charged by the carabinieri (Italian police) for having seduced a seventeen-year-old girl.  Apparently the girl had 'fallen madly in love with him' and he had easily been able to persaude her to come live with him.

Her parents, horrified, contacted the police, but when the police confronted him, he denied everything.

To clear things up, they accompanied him back to his appartment, where they found the devoted, um, girlfriend.  She was ushered back to her parents.

Link (Italian) 

A pint of Roman beer, at 990 euro a pop

A tourist from Hong Kong spent a quiet evening in a Roman pub in Via Veneto this week. He had a pint of beer and ordered a flute of champagne for two 'young ladies.' Unfortunately, the 'charming locals' handed him a bill for 990 euro (about $1250.00).

Ah, the romantic Italian vacation.

Link (Italian)

200,000 euro ‘vanish’

It was business as usual at Palazzo Pitti. The museum workers bagged up the money from the museum revenues, amounting to about 200 thousand euro. They then waited for the armed guards and truck to come pick up the cash to take it to the bank.

The guards, dressed in their impressive uniforms, arrived and picked up the money bags.

The only problem was that about ten minutes later the real guards arrived.

There is no trace of our mysterious imposters or their loot–only the certainty that they will go down in lore as brazen and daring criminals.

Link (Italian)

Florence cracks down on locking lovers

Nearly every tourist knows the tradition: when you and your loved one go to the Ponte Vecchio in Florence, you're supposed to write your names on a lock, attach it to the railing, and throw the key in to the Arno River. This will symbolize your eternal love and commitment, as well as your susceptibility to recent traditions invented especially for tourists.

Anyway, Florence has recently seen quite an uptick in people locking their symbolic love to Ponte Vecchio, and the mess has begun to irk the venerable statue of Benvenuto Cellini (who, if you've read his autobiography, is much more venerable in bronze than he was in real life), not to mention the city leaders. So they've hacked off the huge metal lovers' knot, and now policemen will slap a 50 euro fine on any twitterpated couples foolish enough to break the new rules.

Link (en)

Lobster abuse: it will cost you

A restaurant owner in Vicenza has been fined 688 euros (870 dollars) for mistreating his live lobsters, but we're not talking about mistreatment in terms of "boiling and eating." No, he merely kept his lobsters in a tub on ice. He was found out after a Greenpeace activist alerted authorities at the Italian Animal Protection Agency.

He plans an appeal, but meanwhile his restaurant is enjoying a lot of press attention, which if nothing else advertises his fresh seafood.

Link (Italian) 

Berlusconi consoles himself with a new villa

He may not have won the election, but he and his family won’t let that get them down. His mother-in-law (76 year-old mother of the ex-actress-turned-first-lady Veronica Lario, Berlusconi’s second wife) dropped a couple million francs on a villa in S-Chanf in Switzerland, near the Austrian border.

The villa boasts 8 bathrooms, a ten-car garage, and many bedrooms.

Not bad for the woman who worked as a store clerk before her daughter’s marriage to the infamous B.

Apparently there is a certain law which restricts the number of villas a foreigner may purchase. Berlusconi himself already has too many, poor man. Fortunately his mother-in-law could help out.

Devotion and piety? Or does the mafia boss still have something up his sleeve?

The poor ‘big boss’ of the mafia has been asking repeatedly for his Bible since his capture. Bernardo Provenzano had his Bible with him at the time of his arrest, and really wants it back. However, his jailers have refused to comply. Instead, he’s being kept under twenty-four hour surveillance as he awaits his first hearing. Currently his communications between himself and his people are being studied, though the word is they are written in an extremely complicated code and have provided little information.

Link (Italian)

Unusual “school” busted up on Roman bus

It was a small school — four apprentices under the age of 30. Their 'professor' was a 50-year-old man with lots of experience, quick fingers, and a twinkle in his sunglasses. Their classroom shifted from bus to bus on the streets of Rome. Their curriculum: lightening the pockets of commuters and tourists.

Looks like they failed their final exam. Police spotted the man (apparently recognizing him from past encounters) and followed him for a few hours, waiting for him to make a false step. The men were equipped with sunglasses, magazines, and maps, pretending to be tourists. The four students would wait at stops with everyone else, while the instructor waited at a distance. When the bus arrived, and the doors opened, the four pretended to get into an argument, distracting and obstructing the passage of the others waiting at the stop. The teacher would then relieve the innocent spectators of their wallets. Police realized it was a veritable school after the fifth man reprimanded the others and gave them pointers after failed attempts.

Police nabbed the men (not Italians, but of an unspecified nationality) after they robbed an old lady by the Colosseum and stopped to celebrate and divide the plunder.

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Lara Croft’s bust size makes national news

Not actually Italian, we know…. But leave it to the Italians to keep Lara on the front page of Google News Italia–for several days, at that. Apparently it's caused quite a stir that for her starring role in the newly-released Tomb Raider: Legend game, Ms. Croft has 'visited the plastic surgeon' as the news story puts it. The sharp-eyed analysts claim she's at least two sizes smaller.

Sorry, I guess we thought you'd had enough of coglioni.
Link (Italian)

Dognapping?

A fifteen-year-old boy in Padova had a broken scooter. He needed 1500 euro to fix it. The solution? Obviously, steal his uncle's dog and make anonymous calls asking for ransom.

Unfortunately for the boy and his accomplice-friend, their 'foolproof' plan failed. The military police-Carabinieri-discovered them and rescued poor Stella.

Link (Italian)