La dolce vita a testa in giù

They're not making the Alpha Romeo like they used to;

Something else has convinced me that the reputation of Italian men as womanisers who constantly cheat on their women is unjustified. Every week I read Questioni di cuore (Matters of the heart), the advice column in La Repubblica newspaper's Friday supplement. It is entertaining but also, from a sociological perspective, somewhat enlightening. The letters are answered by Natalia Aspesi, a well-known journalist who has become an agony aunt. Many of them come from men, often sad or bitter about their treatment by cheating women.

Just last week I read one from a single lonely man who thought he had met Ms Right. She had told him that she too was single and lonely, and that her ex had moved to the US. He soon fell in love, only to discover that her ex was not an ex and that he had not moved to the US. She had been living with him all along and had just wanted a bit of extramarital excitement, leaving the letter writer disillusioned and heartbroken. My point is that letters like this come from men as well as from women.

Incidentally, among the Italian couples I know who have split up for reasons of adultery, the unfaithful partner has often been the woman.

Due per ballare il tango.