Tackling the epidemic

My good friend Fabio is Milanese. As a native of the great city of Rome, I tend to think of Milan as South Austrian. You know, things happen on time, the streets are clean, and where there is bustle there is also a sense of purpose. None of these charges can be levelled against Rome.

Rome to me is the essence of Italy. Milan is northern Europe.

Still, I suppose technically Fabio is, nonetheless, Italian. And as a resident of the region of Lombardy, he was already subject to the coronavirus lockdown even before the Italian government extended it to the entire country. The “situation,” he wrote to me, “is surreal. Unimaginable.”

Top left: deserted arcade in Milan. Bottom left: Fallas crowd in Valencia
Right: two women fighting over toilet rolls in an Australian supermarket

Certainly, if Milan maintains its sense of purpose – as I’m sure it does – the bustle is gone. Places usually thonged by crowds of both locals and tourists are now deserted. The atmosphere must be eerie, to say the least.

Most recently, Fabio has gone still further, calling for the deployment of the army. Why? People have been breaking curfew rules, kids have been getting together out of doors to have drunken parties, the lockdown isn’t being respected.

I have to say that this doesn’t entirely surprise me, and it may strengthen the sense that the Milanese are, after all, truly Italians. One of my college lecturers was Catholic and she told me of a conversation she once had with an Italian bishop.

“Why,” she asked him, “does the Pope issue instructions that are so strict it’s almost impossible for English Catholics to follow them?”

“Ah,” he replied, “The Pope is Italian.”

This was the time before we started to get Popes from other parts of the world.

“The problem with England,” the bishop went on, “is that its culture is Puritan. This even affects the Catholic community. They try to follow Papal instructions to the letter. But the Pope’s Italian, and he knows Italians will ignore 90% of what he says. So he deliberately makes his decrees particularly strict. I can see how this makes for problems in England.”

As with spiritual instructions, so it seems with government ones: total compliance isn’t the first reaction of all Italians.

Still, it seems Fabio’s plea didn’t fall on deaf ears. He tells me the army is indeed being deployed. Maybe, with bad grace, and under the baleful stare of men with guns, more Italians will now begin to take the lockdown seriously.

Meanwhile, where we’re living, near Valencia in Spain, we’re in the runup to the great fiesta of the Fallas. Celebrations are already under way, with thousands of people thronging the streets. Rather like the marches for International Women’s Day at the weekend. It’s hard not to admire such a tenacious attachment to traditions, particularly to joyous ones. On the other hand, we’re now up to 1600 infections across the country, 10% of the total in Europe. That’s still far behind Italy, with over 9000, but we’re catching up…

Some are beginning to question just how responsible our devil-may-care attitude may be.

Interestingly, it was announced only today that the Fallas would, even at this late stage, be cancelled. Or at least postponed. I haven’t asked Fabio, but I suspect I know what his reaction would be… For my own part, I wasn’t going to be going to any of the major events.

It strikes me that we need to take the epidemic seriously. Which isn’t the same as panicking about it. The women fighting over toilet rolls in an Australian supermarket strikes me as at best an over-reaction. At worst, it’s a reversion to the worst instincts of man.

But claiming that nothing much is happening, as Donald Trump has? Or not cancelling major public events? Or simply not keeping contact between people to the minimum absolutely necessary? That doesn’t strike me as healthy either.

The Italian government’s action may, as Fabio says, create a surreal atmosphere. But I really can’t see how else you limit the spread of a virus.

The saddest aspect of all this? It’s the lack of an internationally coordinated response. In a time of nationalism, individual countries seem to have decided that they must simply do their own thing.

That’s a pity. Although I was encouraged to see a suggestion that the virus itself might provide a solution to the problem. Will Hutton, in the Observer, the sister paper of the British Guardian, argued that the infection might drive us to improve what globalisation means.

Meanwhile, Fabio, hang on in there! This won’t go on for ever. And, unimaginable though the short term results are, the actions of the Italian government may well turn out to be the most effective response to the problem.

I certainly hope so.

Brief contacts

There’s something invaluable about those occasional moments of contact we have with strangers, however brief. When they go well, they leave precious memories.

Some weeks ago, Danielle and I went for dinner in a small restaurant in Alcalá de Henares, near Madrid. We ordered too much food, including ‘patatas’ which we thought would be a side dish of potatoes. It turned out to be a near tray-sized plate of chips. Fortunately, a bunch of students came in and we gave them the dish, virtually untouched by us, and they devoured its contents with great joy. And speed.

Not just a side dish of chips
Food for a whole bunch of students

To my amazement, we discovered that despite the excellent Spanish of the student who talked to us, they were in fact Americans. And, what’s more, from the deep South – Alabama.

I was so astonished by their apparent mastery of Spanish that I wondered whether they’d perhaps spent time in Latin America. Unfortunately, I chose the wrong way to frame my question.

“Do you know Mexico?” I asked.

“Mex… Mex… Mexico?” answered the principal wag amongst them. “Do you know, the name rings a bell.”

I decided to reply in kind.

“Yes. You know the place. Long wall along its border.”

“Not yet!” they all chorused immediately and together.

I thought if young people, even from the deep South, could be so keen to establish their opposition to Trump, there was hope for the US yet. And for us all. It was a good moment. An encouraging moment.

A couple of weeks later I was in Milan on business and decided to have lunch in a small restaurant which looked fun. It wasn’t upmarket – in fact, it was surprisingly cheap – but it seemed cheerful and attractive.

In the more expensive places, once you’re at a table, even alone at a table for four, no one else joins you. Not so at this place. Only a few minutes after I’d arrived, the waiter brought a young couple over towards me.

“Do you mind if these people have lunch with you?” the waiter answered, but in a way and a tone that made it clear that the answer “no” wasn’t an option.

With my unexpected lunch companions in Milan
Much more entertaining than a Kindle

They weren’t from Milan but had moved there recently, for work. But they enjoyed the city. However, they also knew Rome, the city where I was born. We had fun comparing the two. Rome is known for its corruption and its inefficiency, to the point that anger is beginning seriously to boil these days: there are too many potholes in the streets, too much rubbish uncollected, and there are even three stations on the underground system closed for repairs with no sign of them reopening.

Milan, by contrast, is brisk, efficient, wealthy, well-kept. But, to those of us who know and love the capital, just a tad soulless. I always regard it as a city of Austria’s deep south, rather than of Italy’s north.

How much corruption, how many potholes, how much ineptitude is it worth putting up with for the greater warmth and relaxed attitudes of Rome? I don’t know the answer to that question. But I think it’s worth pondering, because I don’t think the answer is “none at all”.

As I write this, I’m in a plane on my way back from Wiesbaden in Germany, a city I didn’t know and which astonished me by its beauty. No wonder the Americans chose it as a major centre for their occupation forces.

I’d been warned that there wasn’t much accommodation available, so when I logged onto a hotel booking site I was ready to take whatever came up. A message flashed up on screen to say that an apartment had just become available near the park in the city centre; I jumped at the chance and booked it at once.

I landed at Frankfurt airport and rang the number I’d been given.

“Welcome to Germany!” said by soon-to-be landlord. “How do you plan to get to Wiesbaden? Don’t take a taxi!”

“You suggest I travel by train?”

“Surely. The station is right underneath the airport. Ring me when you get to Wiesbaden and I’ll come and fetch you.”

“Are you sure? Isn’t that too much to ask of you?”

It turns out that he regarded it as a pleasure. And, as it happened, he was already at the end of the platform when my train pulled in.

The flat was fine and I told him so, which seemed to please him. Then I asked what I should do with the key when I left.

“Don’t worry,” he assured me, “there’s no tenant after you so you can leave your things in the apartment until the afternoon, and I’ll come and meet you and run you to the station.”

I was astonished, but he seemed keen so I accepted the offer with pleasure.

There was only one minor hitch in the arrangement. I told him I would meet him at “half-two” on the day of my departure, forgetting that in German that means half-past-one. They call 2:30 half-three. But he was unfazed by the problem.

“No problem,” he said when he rang to ask where I was, “I’ll come back.”

He was as good as his word. But he had an announcement to make.

“Before I take you to the station, I will make a detour so you can see something special. Our Russian Orthodox cathedral with its golden-roofed spires. Built by a prince in mourning for his Russian princess wife, who died in childbirth.”

When we got there, he suggested I get out and wander around, even taking a look inside. I was a bit worried about missing my plane and said so.

Russian Orthodox cathedral in Wiesbaden
Quite a tribute from a widower to his lost wife

“Oh, no. You must see the place.” He thought a moment. “It’ll be no problem. I’ll take you to the airport.”

Which he did. So I got to see the cathedral. And make it to the airport on time.

My host in Wiesbaden, Karl
“Charlie. No one calls me Karl.”

Which explains how it happens that I’m writing this on the plane. And also why. Because there’s something special about these brief moments of friendly contact with a stranger.

Cities of an emerging nation

Curious country, Italy. It’s where I was born. And it’s taken a while to become a country at all, though it does seem to be emerging as one now.

One of my college lecturers told us that immediately after the Second World War, only 50% of the population was bilingual in dialect and Italian. The other 50% was monolingual in dialect.

Today, however, although I don’t spend much time in the deep South, it’s my impression that wherever you go people are fluent in Italian, which has emerged as truly a national language. That’s why I feel that the country is becoming, at last, a real nation.

Even so, some of the great divisions continue to exist. As if to prove the point, after travelling to Turin on Sunday, on Monday I went to Bolzano – or Bozen. Why two names? Because it’s in the Alto Adige, way up in the Alps, but that’s also called the Südtirol, the south Tyrol. The Tyrolean Tyrol is, of course, an Austrian province.

In other words, the Alto Adige – Südtirol is a traditionally German-speaking region which was once part of Austria. There are, indeed, still local movements calling for the province to leave Italy and rejoin Austria.

Bolzano, or Bozen, flies the Italian flag alongside the region's
And has the sense to feel proud of being in the EU, too

Even so, when I was there, I heard Italian spoken in the street at least as often as German, and I’ve not yet met anyone up there who can’t speak Italian if they need to. Moreover, as in other parts of Italy, the national flag flies proudly alongside the region’s and that of the EU on public buildings.

Still, Italian unity remains slightly out of step with local emotions. There are Milanese who are clear that Africa starts at Rome. For my part, I’m convinced that Austria starts at Milan.

Perhaps I should declare an interest: I was born in Rome.

In any case, so far am I from disliking Milan that it was with great pleasure that I arrived there on Tuesday evening. It’s a spacious city, with great avenues and fine buildings, the new alongside the old testifying to the continued dynamism of the place. A dynamism reflected in the people themselves: there are crowds on the streets, laughing, chatting and enjoying themselves. It is truly a joy to visit.

It’s just that, like Austria, the city seems to lay a little too much stress, for my liking, on order and efficiency. And some of those structures are rather more imposing than completely charming. At least to my taste. I feel that some buildings in Milan or Vienna weigh rather heavily on the Earth. They’re more impressive than elegant.

Rome isn’t quite as clean as one might like, the streets aren’t quite as free of potholes as one might hope, and the atmosphere is just a little more chaotic than an Austrian, say, might wish.

It’s also pretty corrupt. That has nothing to do with whichever party’s in power. Every party that ever secures the governance of Rome can be sure to have scandal pour down on its head within a couple of years or so. And, to my knowledge, always with justification.

But, boy, does Rome have soul. And charm, too. Taking the edge off the awe.

I realise that I may be alone in regarding Milan as Austrian. You may, in fact, find it slightly odd, because I view Bozen, which some residents want to make Austrian, as turning increasingly into Italian Bolzano. And, I have to admit, it isn’t just because a city’s in the North of Italy that I strikes me as Austrian. That’s the discovery I’ve made in Turin, a city that seduces me more every time I go there.

One of the many arcades in Turin

It’s a city of gateways and arcades. And along the arcades are cafés, restaurants and shops, each rivalling the next for charm and elegance. Where Milan seems focused on modernity and a pressurised existence, Turin preserves an older, quieter, more relaxed and, above all, more lived-in style. Lived-in, I should add, by people who know what it is to live pleasantly and in comfort.

One of the many gateways

And it has its amusing paradoxes too. Though it belongs to a country which has long been a Republic, it clings on at least in name to its royal past – after all, this was where the kings of Italy came from when the country still had kings. For instance, I had a wonderful cappuccino in the ‘Cafeteria del Re’, the King’s Cafeteria, complete with the symbol of a crown.

The king's cafeteria
Attractive place. Good coffee too

It’s not clear to me that a King would ever have frequented anything quite as common as a café, especially one that calls itself a cafeteria, but hey, something that’s royal in name only, with no king in sight, it’s precisely as royal as I like things to be. But then I’m a republican, as well as a democrat, a statement I hope will cause some confusion among my American friends.

Anyway, I was happy to be back in that fine city and confirm yet again that there is real charm in the north of Italy. A different kind of soul, more discreet and self-possessed than Rome’s, but soul nonetheless. It’s lovely. Perhaps my second favourite Italian city – Venice and Florence naturally being in a class of their own.

The taxi driver who brought me in from the airport told me that Turin was the most French city in Italy. Perhaps that explains my preference. Because France is the country of my second citizenship, whose passport I’m proud to hold.

And, I have to admit, I prefer it to Austria…

Italy: African, Austrian, neither or both?

Africa, Northern Italians tell me, starts at Rome.

Ah, my native city. English though I am, I always feel a certain sense of homecoming when I return to Rome. But I can see what the Northerners mean. The streets are potholed, the pavements are filthy, the traffic noisy and congested. There are certainly aspects of Rome that feel more appropriate to, say Lagos.

Of course, Romans say that Africa starts at Naples. I don't know what Neapolitans say. I can't really say I know that noble city. Perhaps, with no obvious metropolis south of them, they say that Africa starts at the African coastline, which would be less amusing though it would have the merit of displaying more geographical sense.

For my part, I'm always inclined to say that Austria starts at Milan.

Just to clarify, I realise that Austria is a fine country, with glorious Alpine scenery and gem-like cities set in it at one end, the majestic if slightly ponderous city of Vienna at the other, with the Danube - not, to be honest, really all that blue - flowing through it. But my comment about Milan is more about certain other characteristics: a degree of self-satisfaction, a shortness of self-deprecatory humour or, to put it another way, an inclination to take oneself too seriously, to say nothing about a somewhat impersonal efficiency a little short of warmth.

Of course, Milan's a lot further south. So in a sense, it's rather like Austria with better weather, the same remark I frequently make about Australia and England. Not that the Australians thank me for it, and I don't expect the Milanese would either.

Passport queue at Milan's Linate airport
As seen by Gianfranco Repetto (@gfr70)
who suffered even longer than I did

My latest trip to Milan challenged both my beliefs about the city. In some respects, it's very much in Italy. Though, on this occasion, I found the weather far from Italian: I turned up to cold under grey skies, with rain bucketing down. Honestly, I could have stayed in England and it would have been no worse. It was a relief to get inside the terminal building at Linate airport, though that's where the city began to show itself to be far more Italian - or perhaps African - than Rome ever is. Fiumicino airport outside Rome works well. Passengers move rapidly from plane to passport control to baggage retrieval. It's a smooth process. The Austrians would be proud.

At Linate, I found myself in a twenty-five minute queue to get through passport control. Now, that's partly my own country's fault: if Britain in its xenophobia hadn't refused to join the Schengen area, we would have been able to enter Italy without even showing a passport, so I'd have sailed through to the baggage area.

But even without the Schengen benefit, there are other European nations which have passport-reading machines in place. In a rather wonderfully African way - I've had some epic adventures trying to cross African frontiers - we just stood in a queue that was glacier-like in its movement, while the two policemen on duty methodically, systematically and ponderously checked two or three hundred passengers' passports one by one.

The baggage hall was a mess, too, with much of its ceiling down and a great deal of scaffolding up, all part of a major refit, apparently. I wonder if they're going to instal passport readers?

Several carousels were out of service. It came as no surprise when I couldn't find my case on any of the few still running. I went to one baggage information counter, only to be told to go to another. Where I stood and waited for a further unconscionable time, even though there was only one person ahead of me in the queue. The woman behind the counter was full of goodwill, but her computer system wasn't that functional, and she seemed to have to record much of the information on paper.

What made it worse was that the man in front of me was Norwegian. Neither he nor she spoke particularly good English, which made it particularly entertaining to listen to a long conversation about just how to record one of the letters in his name, the distinctly Scandinavian ø.

Fortunately, however, she turned out to be friendly and helpful, as I discovered when it was finally my turn to be helped. In fact, after a few questions to establish the basic facts, she asked me, "are you sure your bag's not there? The system shows that it was on the plane."

I went back to the carousels and - picture my joy - there was my bag at last! It was a matter of moments to go back and thank the lady for her help, before getting a taxi to whisk me through the sodden streets to my hotel and a meeting for which I was, in the end, only a few minutes late.

The scene outside the hotel - as wet as England

The hotel was full of strangely dressed people. Elaborate hairstyles. Eccentric clothes. Heavy makeup. I wondered for a moment what sort of a hotel I'd drifted into. But it turns out that it was Milan fashion week. What I was seeing wasn't people preparing for a Halloween-themed fancy-dress party but the chic classes in what I suppose one has to call creations.

An elegant lady heading out into the rain
of Milan Fashion Week

Since fashion, like football and the English hallmark warm beer, is something that has rather passed me by, the elegance left me more than a little cool. I just felt sorry for anyone who, having spent so much time and probably no insignificant amount of money to make themselves look that way, had to go out into the rain to get to the next show they were visiting. It was amusing to see how difficult it could be to get through a revolving door with an open umbrella. I hoped for their sake that they'd find their taxi journeys more Austrian than African (I've had some memorable taxi trips in Africa too), since I had now seen how Milan, as I had now learned that Milan as well as being Austrian in weather, could also be African in service efficiency.

Although, to be quite honest, I do have to qualify what I said about my missing case. It does occur to me, in retrospect, that it may have been on the carousel the whole time. That I just didn't see it in my flustered state after the frustration of the passport queue.

But, hey, I'm not going to admit that. It'd spoil the story.

The Italians: more in common than I thought

One of the many features that I like about the job I’ve been in since last November is that it takes me to Italy from time to time.

While my roots are unquestionably English, I was born in Italy – specifically in Rome – and spent my first thirteen years there. Each time I return therefore feels like a homecoming. That’s true even when, as on my latest trip, I travel to Milan.

The trouble with Milan is that it isn’t really in Italy. That’s a proposition vehemently denied by most of its inhabitants when I put it to them, but since it’s not unusual for them to assure me earnestly that “Africa starts at Rome” (one told me on this occasion, “a long way north of Rome”), I try to impress on them in turn that Milan is, essentially, in southern Austria. It’s far better organised than most of Italy, cleaner and wealthier, but also – in my experience – just a tad more standoffish and sure of its superiority.

The Milan Duomo: fabulous but just a touch Austrian?

Romans, by contrast, have more of a devil-may-care attitude about them. “Yep,” they seem to say whenever they do something egregiously inappropriate, whether it’s do a U-turn in heavy traffic or litter the streets, “in another, better life I might not do that, but I’m a mere mortal and have none of the purity or the remoteness of the angels.”

Still, as I begin to get to know the Milanese better, I’m beginning to enjoy being with them more. Not that I haven’t enjoyed Milanese company in the past, I hasten to add. My wife and I have a good friend from the city who first introduced herself to us as a ball-breaker, because at the time she was doing life sciences research which involved crushing mouse testicles (not usually while they were still attached to a living mouse, as I understand it). With such a beginning, how could the relationship be anything but a warm and close one? And these days I have an excellent Milanese colleague who always contrives to make visits rewarding and cordial.

What was new on this visit was that I also had some good contacts with complete strangers. One was in the taxi that took me to the airport, which was particularly gratifying as my first encounter with a Milanese taxi driver ended with badly because, as I explained that I needed to get to a hotel near the airport, he decided it was all too much a bore for him to deal with, made a gesture of impatience and drove away leaving me at an empty taxi stand in the middle of the night.

On the latest occasion, on the other hand, we had a perfectly cordial explanation. He explained to me that he wanted to catch up with a friend and colleague of his who was at the airport, but at the part that deals with private planes. I assured him that I was taking a scheduled flight.

“Oh, I knew that, from the start of the trip,” he assured me, and then broke off, clearly concerned that he might be offending me.

I decided that he didn’t mean his statement that way. That, if anything, his comparison between me and most private plane users was likely to be favourable towards me rather than the contrary.

“The private plane types tend to be a bit arrogant?” I asked.

“Exactly right,” he told me. “Why, I had to drive one to a meeting 70 kilometres away. He decided to stop on the way for a meal, and left me kicking my heels in the car park while he had his excellent lunch.”

I made some appropriately sympathetic response.

“The worst of it,” he went on, “is that he was from a bank which we’re baling out of trouble right now. My money. Flowing to a bank which is being rewarded with public funds for running itself into the ground. And the money I’m paying allows a man like him to keep eating fine meals while keeping people like me waiting for him the car park. It sometimes makes me wonder why IX bother to vote.”

A man after my own heart. I too feel upset at the privileged existence of people who see themselves as entitled, and are perfectly happy to have us finance their entitlement for them. It’s reassuring, though not surprising, that at the opposite ends of Europe, ordinary people face the same problems and react to them with the same resentments.

What saddens me is that though we should be making common cause against the arrogance that abuses its power this way, we in Britain have decided that we should cut our ties with those like my Milanese taxi driver. “Bring back control” our Brexiters say, but we’re simply reinforcing the control over our lives of the people who cause this injustice, in England as in Italy. United we might stand a better chance against them; by separating ourselves off, we make the task far harder.

Ah well. We all have our problems. In Italy, it’s to know where Austria ends and Africa begins. In Britain, it seems to be an inability to decide that we’re not a global power – and that illusion is far more dangerous.

Coming down to earth

If Christmas is a family time, we did it right this year. We saw my mother and my brother; we had our granddaughter with her parents in the run up to Christmas; and at various times over the Christmas and New Year period our other two sons and one of our charming daughters-out-law.

It was only on Monday that our daughter-out-law left, to start a new job in Madrid, proving that jobs can be found in Spain despite the much trumpeted unemployment. One son went on Wednesday, the other on Friday, so the wind-down after Christmas has been tapered, not brusque, making the transition back to work, which I found painful this year, easier than it might have been.

Now, though, we’re back to our own devices, with little to show for the festive period but a large number of bottles for recycling and some kilos to lose.

One lasting legacy of the family visit is a recommendation my son Michael made to listen to a great podcast series: The History of Rome by Mike Duncan. This is the internet at best: somebody who has nothing to gain by it has simply prepared and delivered a history of Rome in dozens of bite-sized episodes, with just the right level of detail to be informative while remaining entertaining. 

Listening to this excellent series I was particularly struck by the history of Etruria. It was the home of the Etruscans, a nation of extraordinary wealth and culture. And indeed power: in the early years of the city, Rome was ruled by Kings and the last of these were Etruscan.

Many centuries later, in a struggle with another and equally ruthless imperial power, Benjamin Franklin would tell his fellow revolutionaries, ‘We shall hang together or we shall hang separately.’ The Etruscans were hanged separately. They wouldn’t bury their differences and they paid the price. 

Take Veii, once their wealthiest city, their jewel, not ten miles north of Rome. Never heard of it? Nor had I, or if I had, I’d forgotten. Today it’s part of a village in the Rome municipal area. With some fine ruins. 

I can imagine the scene, just before the slaughter of the population when Veii fell to the Roman siege (the soldiers broke in through the sewers, demonstrating that for all their love of honour, Romans valued success still more). I picture a worthy citizen, not realising that he would meet a violent death within a few hours, declaring ‘Veii has always stood proud and wealthy, the greatest of the Etruscan cities, and we’re certainly not giving up our independence to them, far less to those upstarts from down the road who’ve had the temerity to send an army against us.’

The rest, as they say, is history. Etruscan has vanished as a language. The people of Etruria were completely assimilated into Rome, speaking Latin and playing their own part in Roman life within a few generations.

Veii: not a lot left. The price of standing aloof?

Over the Christmas period, the British Conservative Party moved ahead of Labour in the opinion polls. 

That statement may seem unrelated to what came before, but bear with me: I shall explain.

That Conservative lead is particularly bad news for Labour. In mid-term, an Opposition needs to be building up a good lead in the polls if it’s to win the next election: there tends to be a swing back to the incumbents in the final stages, so the Opposition needs a cushion. Being behind is pretty desperate.

What caused the Conservative surge? 

On 10 December the Daily Mail referring to a historic moment the day before, told us ‘Defiant Cameron stands up to Euro bullies...’ This was the historic moment when Cameron vetoed changes to EU treaties so that the whole organisation could get behind attempts to solve the Eurozone crisis.

Others less inclined to see Cameron as a latter day Titan taking on the erring gods have taken exception to the word ‘veto’. Usually a veto, as they point out, stops something happening. This veto meant that 26 countries would go ahead and do it anyway, but without Britain. 

I sometimes wonder whether Cameron only realised that afterwards. Because as soon as he’d cast his vote, he told our EU enemies, sorry partners, that they couldn’t hold their discussions in EU buildings - you know, ‘if you’re not going to play by my rules, I’m taking my ball away.’ Later on, Britain backtracked from that position - civil servants, who are professionals after all, probably pointed out that this might not be the best way to make friends and retain some influence among people whose support we might need again some day.

But the virulence of Cameron’s initial reaction does rather suggest that he caught himself by surprise, doesn’t it? I can see him saying ‘well, you can’t do that because I’m saying ‘no’, so there, now what you are you going to do, eh, don’t look so clever now, do you? What do you mean? You’re going to go ahead and do it anyway? What without us? You’re going to ignore my veto? Well - if that’s the way you want to play it, you can’t use these nice offices then...’

In Britain though we tend not to think about the after effects of this kind of gesture but prefer to concentrate on the gesture itself. People loved it. ‘Standing up to to the Euro bullies’. Wonderful stuff. And it got him a tick up in the polls. Ahead of the opposition. Brilliant.

That got me thinking of other times in history when people have struck out on their own and told their partners to get stuffed. The Italian city states, for instance. Our daughter-in-law, when our granddaughter’s family came to stay with us, gallantly stood in a queue at the National Gallery for four hours so that we could all go and see an exhibition of paintings by her long-time favourite, Leonardo da Vinci. 

I particularly liked the pair of fabulously beautiful portraits of Ludovico Sforza’s wife and mistress. I often wonder how each of them must have felt about the other picture. And I can just imagine Sforza saying ‘Milan isn’t just an Italian city. It’s a proud and powerful centre with a long history of its own. We’re not going to be sucked into some kind of bogus unity with the rest of the peninsula.’ But while Leonardo was there, the French turned up and sacked the place, and over the next few centuries, Italy was regularly the playground of invading armies.

Leonardo's Lady with an Ermine: Ludovico Sforza's mistress
Culture, wealth, sophistication - but they were no protection against the French

One of the places I particularly liked in Alsace, where we used to live, was the Haut Koenigsburg, a fine castle beautifully and inaccurately restored by the German Kaiser Wilhelm (Alsace is like that: what country it’s in depends not just on geography but also on history). Why did the castle need restoring? Because it had been overrun a Swedish army. Swedish for crying out loud. Why the Swedes? Because until all those little German princedoms finally got together and sank their differences, Germany, like Italy, was a wonderful place for other countries to fight their wars.

Like Veii and the other cities of Etruria, the proud little Italian and German States were hanged separately because they wouldn’t hang together. 

Well, the Conservatives have drifted back behind Labour again. Not by much, but still behind. It’s as though after the excitement of the veto that never was, cold reason has reasserted itself. Ater all, nothing has changed. The French and the Germans haven’t surrendered to us. The economy is still dire. Unemployment is still rising.

It’s a bit like us taking out our empty bottles and resolving to lose those extra kilos. After the warm glow of the festive season we’ve had to come back to earth. Reality once more exerts its sobering influence.