Last Friday took me and a colleague to Milan, Italy, for a Crash Test. Ooh, that's nice: Milan. We saw nothing of Milan - taxis, airport lounges, hotels, and forgotten industrial estates filled our journey.
The taxi picked us up at 4am from Southsea. We arrived at Heathrow Terminal 2 for the 7:00am Alitalia flight to Milan. We landed and took a taxi for the 35-40km to Bollate and the CSI test facility where, instead of glamorous ballistic investigators and coroners, we were greeted by a receptionist whose charm, personality, physical mass, and (probably) smell, owed more to Jabba the Hutt than any sense of politeness. If body language could be spoken, his was saying, "Screw you."
Neil: Scusi per favori.
Man's Body: Screw you.
Neil: Neil Cater e Mark Owen, Autoliv, Daniele Gervasini, Crash. (handing in the details with who we are and who we want to see)
Man's Body: Screw you.
The same attitude is transposed to driving in Italy. Within 2 minutes of the taxi journey I was relieved that we'd decided not to hire a car. The two lanes on dual carriageways are, I believe, advisory, assume there are three. Traffic lights, stop signs, give-way signs, and roundabouts all appear to be optional. If there's a corner, cut it. Before the expansion of Europe into the former Eastern Bloc countries, Italy led the way for road death tolls. The Italian Highway Code was first introduced in 1912, the year The Titanic sank. Four times as many people lose their lives each year on Italy's roads than were lost with Titanic. The fog on the way back to the hotel for 9:00pm meant that whatever danger was out there couldn't be seen - there were no icebergs to sink our journey.
The flight back to the UK was at 7-ish again. The shuttle bus picked us up at a time in the morning that preceeded breakfast. Coffee, croissants, and the Alessi gift range kick-started my day. And then my day stalled. There were so few people on the flight that, by the time the "Boarding" notice was announced, there was a call for Mr Owen and Mr Cater to proceed immediately to gate B27. We were last on and why can't airline caterers make a tasty sandwich. I fell asleep in the taxi on the way back at 9:30am. Apologising for my lack of conversation, I slumped against the head-restraint wondering when was the last time I dozed off in a car.
Neil - has bilingual body-language
