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CAMILLA LONG

Oh dear, Mr and Mrs Firth, Italy is no place to try to keep an affair secret

The Sunday Times

Are you having an affair? If you are and would like to keep it secret, I’ve got a simple and easy-to-follow piece of advice. It doesn’t involve anything revolting, such as harnesses or Jim Davidson’s “area”. It’s something most people in this country should be able to manage. It’s this: don’t tell the Italian police.

If you can bear it, try not to involve the prancing, shimmying, pom-pom-carrying, gossip-mongering, idiot hairdressers of the Italian crime-fighting community. No one in the Italian police ever takes affairs seriously or keeps them quiet; on receiving news of a fling, an Italian policeman will regard it as his constitutional duty to instantly report it as far and wide as possible.

This is a country in which a woman can