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  • Artful Sleuthing

    Artful Sleuthing

    11th November 2009 | 0 comments | 0 votes yet, click here to agree or disagree

    Italy has a plethora of law enforcement agencies. In fact, there are eight separate ones:  Arma dei Carabinieri (military police), Polizia di Stato (state police), Guardia di Finanza (financial and customs police), Polizia Provinciale (provincial police), Polizia Municipale (municipal police), Corpo Forestale dello Stato (forestry police), Guardia Costeria (coast guard police) and Polizia Penitenziaria (prison police).  Reputedly Italy’s most elite law enforcement body, the Carabinieri are the police force that...

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  • Sleeping with Sharks

    Sleeping with Sharks

    4th November 2009 | 0 comments | 0 votes yet, click here to agree or disagree

    There are probably few parents out there who at least once in their lives have not thought, just for a split second, of throwing their little darlings to the sharks. A sure solution to a massive tantrum. They would never do it but, instead, they can do something much more positive and fun for their kids. When in Genoa, a port city in Liguria, they can take them to a...

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  • Mobile-mania

    Mobile-mania

    29th October 2009 | 1 comments | 0 votes yet, click here to agree or disagree

    Now, don't get me wrong. I love Italians or else I wouldn't live in their beautiful country. But sometimes they, like most of us, have maddening manias. One of them is for their telefonini or, as we know them, mobile phones. According to the European Union Italians own more of them than any other Europeans. It's a national love affair. They combine a skill they excel in, namely, talking, together...

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  • A Stranger at their Table

    A Stranger at their Table

    22nd October 2009 | 1 comments | 0 votes yet, click here to agree or disagree

    You have been invited to dinner by an Italian family during your stay in Florence. They are friends of your next door neighbours back home and, thank goodness, they speak English as your Italian amounts to grazie and quanto costa. So, how should you behave? What are the rules? Well, they're not too different from those anywhere else in the world.
    First, arrive on time - never early and never more...

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  • Cool on a Stool

    Cool on a Stool

    15th October 2009 | 2 comments | 1 person likes this

    It was aperitivo time in Florence – but, then, when isn't it? After meeting her Italian friend, Donatella (no relation to THE Donatella), the two of them perched ourselves on two of those impossibly high stools in a glossy bar off one of the city's main piazzas. It was then freshly off the plane Susan made her fatal error. She ordered before Donatella had a chance to speak or before...

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CONTRIBUTOR

Deirdre Pirro

Deirdre Pirro

International lawyer and freelance writer, Deirdre Pirro recently published a book called 'Italian Sketches: The Faces of Modern Italy' and is the author of a regular column in The Florentine, the bi-monthly English-language paper in Florence, Italy (www.theflorentine.net) where she has lived in the shadow of the Basilica of Santa Croce for more than twenty years. Still trying to fathom out some of the local customs and Italian politics, she compensates by overeating the country's delicious food and drinking too much of its unique wines. But, on the theory that she must have picked up something during all this time, she wants to share a bit of what she has learnt and, maybe, even find a few new answers along the way.

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