“Homage to Catatonia” was, at least apocryphally, the title that clinched the commission of an article about pub crawling from the editor-in-chief of a middlebrow newspaper, whereupon the journalist went off to sample his usual boozers right up to the evening of publication. Seeing the article up on the screen, however, the night editor scratched his pate, remembered that George Orwell’s title was “Homage to Catalonia,” and corrected the typo in the headline. Thankfully, we don’t have a night editor.

The duty officer at the carabinieri station looked like Rembrandt in the famous self-portrait at Kenwood House, all noble lines and wrinkles, but appearances can be deceiving.  It transpired that he fancied himself a thoroughly modern man of the world, roseately au fait with the digital revolution, and it gave him evident pleasure to put me down as a country bumpkin because when he said emay, I said “What’s that?”