Four sketches from Florence

One
I am standing near the Duomo in the centre of the city. An extremely rotund woman approaches me (This reminds me of a t-shirt I recently saw sported by a rather corpulent man. The following slogan was emblazoned across its front: I beat anorexia). She has long, lank dark hair and, visible under her top, pendulous breasts hang like sacks of flour. There are two things I want to say to her. A) Wear a bra B) Failing that, for the love of God, do not wear clingy, diaphanous t-shirts.

She is holding a plastic cup. She points it in my direction. She wants my money. Here, as with her choice of apparel, we differ. I do not want to give her my money. She addresses me in a language I do not understand. In my own language, I demur. She'd like to give me an opportunity to reconsider. She continues to talk, in staccato bursts. Again, I say 'no'. Her speech continues, rapid-fire. I look away, hoping this will discourage her. She keeps talking. What the fuck is she saying? Am I being treated to a disquisition on the gothic architectural style of the cathedral behind me? No? Is she holding forth on the poignant, elegaic qualities of the last Johnny Cash album? Recommending restaurants for my stay in Florence? Trying to explain how Dublin threw away a seven point lead against Mayo the previous day?

Still she talks. 'I'm not giving you any money,' I say. And that's my final offer. I am irritated by her continued presence now. She makes the sign of the cross. Three times. So, what, I'm possessed now or something? She issues a renewed plea for my money, more lugubrious than before, as if my failing to drop a euro in her cup will precipitate a nervous breakdown.

She changes tactics. Mercifully, for a moment, she stops talking. Then, suddenly, she thrusts her cup into my chest, giving me a start. 'Fuck off,' I say.

She blesses herself again and leaves.

Two
My girlfriend and I are standing outside a restaurant called 'Harry's'. She is reading the menu. It is mid-afternoon and the restaurant is closed. Inside, visible through the window, an elderly, white-haired Italian man, possibly the owner, is performing some duties behind the bar. He sees us outside. Or rather, he sees my girlfriend. For ten seconds he stares at her (count to ten; this is a long time to stare at a person).

He looks at me. He makes a gesture of lascivious approval. He has been openly checking my girlfriend out and now he is making me complicit in his lechery. I am stunned. He's about eighty! It's astonishingly shameless. It's hilarious.

He comes to the door and opens it. He informs us that the restaurant is closed. Then he says, to both of us, "I look, not for business, just for the eyes". Harry's? Yeah, Dirty Harry's.

Three
It is the opening evening of a medical conference. A reception has been laid on for the attending medics in a kind of courtyard inside the fortress complex where the conference is being held. Many of the doctors have not attended the opening lecture and are loitering in the balmy evening air as the catering staff ready the wine and finger food that will be served. The medics, scattered about the courtyard in little clusters, eye the food and drink hungrily. A few approach the catering staff and enquire if they may partake of the repast before them. No, they may not.

For around half an hour, the food and drink sits tantalisingly on the long tables that have been set up. The doctors cast longing glances towards the tables, initially furtive, then increasingly open. So do my girlfriend and I. On several occasions, a renegade GP breaks from her or his party and makes for the tables. Hopes rise among the other medics. They are like hungry lions trapped in a cage and surrounded by wildebeest. Every time, the intrepid doctor is rebuffed by the implacable phalanx of catering staff watching over the food and booze.

Then, someone, somwhere gives a signal that the stuff may be consumed. All hell breaks loose. It is like the start of a marathon.

Four
Sergio is the owner of the hotel we are staying in. He is the most avuncular hotelier I have come across. He is so avuncular you almost expect him to slip a tenner in your pocket when no one's looking. He speaks English quite well, with one rather endearing idiosyncrasy. He addresses his male, English-speaking guests as 'Mister'.

'Good morning, Mister. Would you like a capuccino?'
'How was your meal this evening, Mister?'
'Please Mister, let me take your bag.'

I wonder how many years Sergio has been addressing his presumably amused guests as 'Mister', thinking it is a polite form of address in English, as it is in other languages. Clearly, no one has informed him to the contrary. And I'm glad.

On tour as a doctor's wife

The scene: entrance to a mediaeval fortress in Florence, where a medical conference is being held (sadly not a mediaeval medical conference: no leeches here). I am an 'accompanying person' and am to be conducted on a walking tour of the city along with other 'accompanying people', while my girlfriend attends the conference (it's the first day of her first conference; by the second day she has learned that the trick of attending conferences is not to attend them at all).

The assembled doctors' wives, for this is what they are, await their guide. I feel uncomfortable. I feel like a fraud. I sheepishly join the fringe of the desultory group of around 20 and inquisitive glances are cast in my direction. It is true that I do not look like the other doctors' wives (I am six foot one, I have sideburns). I might belong in a doctors' wives freak show with other inordinately tall, facially hirsute medical spouses. Not here. There is no one here within 15 years of either side of my age. There is no other male, apart from a ten-year-old boy here with his mother.

Our guide, Marco, arrives and leads the party away. We approach a zebra crossing, which in fact closely resembles the pattern splashed across the cotton trousers sported by the doctorwife immediately in front of me (I am at the back, keeping to the shadows, shunned by the other doctorwives). The normally dependable zebra crossing has a quite different effect on the Italian motorist: like that, say, of a red rag on a bull, or, I don't know, a green traffic light. Marco boldly raises a hand to signal our crossing to oncoming vehicles. "It's ok," he seems to say, "they're doctors' wives!" The drivers magnanimously spare our lives by bringing their vehicles to a halt. The doctorwives blithely cross the road.

As the tour progresses, a motorcyclist whose way is blocked by the group in a narrow street honks loudly. I move aside. I am not in the business of incurring the wrath of strange men on motorcycles. The other doctorwives proceed on their way unperturbed, as complacent as the pigeons that strut around the Duomo. "Fucking doctors' wives, blocking the streets!" hollers motorbike man. At least that's what I infer from his vigorous body language.

San Lorenzo, the Medici family church, is our first stop. A site of huge historic significance, it is almost entirely invisible behind a shroud of plastic sheeting and scaffolding. Marco's phone rings. He begins speaking Italian to a colleague. Some of the doctorwives find this amusing. Funny little Italian man. They titter as he speaks, apparently because he is speaking in his native tongue. At this juncture, Mrs Zebrapants leaves the group to join another guide's party. She has already directed one alarmingly truculent question at Marco and was evidently unimpressed by his response. Doesn't he know she's a doctor's wife?

I am being regarded with increasing suspicion by the other doctorwives by now. Partly perhaps because I am taking notes and writing things about them. Perhaps I have grown taller and more hirsute in the last 20 minutes. In a way, I encourage this suspicion by not wearing my accompanying person name tag. It feels foolish.

A doctorwife who is not staring at me( sorry, the doctorwife who is not staring at me) engages Marco in animated conversation about the cathedral. Subsequently, she questions him between stops, nodding furiously as he answers. She responds to Marco's comments to the group as if they are part of a particularly engaging private conversation. She nods. She raises her eyebrows. Sometimes, in a virtuoso display of interest, she does the two simultaneously whilst giving a little clap of delight. She is the most energetically affirmative person I have ever seen in my life.

"Hmm," she murmurs at the foot of a sculpture.
"Ah," she nods in the shadow of a city hall.
"Yes, yes," she affirms under Brunelleschi's gigantic dome in the cathedral.

I christen her Noddy. Meanwhile, Marco, when he's not talking to Noddy, is a veritable oracle of interesting information about Florence. The fresco on the ceiling of the Duomo (the largest fresco in the world) was counter-reformation propaganda. Michelangelo was celibate. Achilles won a wrestling match by grabbing his opponent's crotch a la Vinnie Jones on Paul Gascoigne (not strictly about Florence, granted). This Achilles story comes up as the group stops at a sculpture of Achilles engaged in the act itself. Marco's eyes twinkle as he waits for the image presented by the sculpture to register with the doctorwives.

"Notice anything about the statue?" he asks. Oh, Marco! You devil! It's a nudey man grabbing another nudey man's privates! The doctorwives cannot contain their glee. Imagine!

This is the undoubted high point of Marco's engagement of the doctorwives. However, something that's not on the tour engages them much more. Marco announces that a street we pass leads to the main designer clothes shopping district. This revelation elicits purrs of interest from the doctorwives, tickling their fancy infinitely more than Brunelleschi's dome or even Achilles' opponent's member. Not counting Noddy, who, of course, is passionately interested in everything.