mirandola: città chiusa

Like all sensible people, Italians love an excuse not to work. This is not due to laziness, simply a refined appreciation of the spiritual value of sitting at home in one's dressing gown, eating, getting stoned and watching schmaltzy crap on TV. To this end, shops are closed at lunchtime, and on Sundays, Monday mornings and Wednesday afternoons, and there is of course a wide selection of public holidays so that you can watch such televisual delights as C'è Posta Per Te in the name of the Lord. One such public holiday occurred yesterday, reducing Mirandola, a wheezing old bag of a city at the best of times to utter, post-apocalyptic stillness. I'm not even sure what the holiday was in aid of, but the Mirandolese were having their day of rest and that was that. And not just one day. It's traditional (a fine excuse for irresponsible behaviour in any situation, as trick-or-treaters, Old Etonians and Freemasons everywhere will concede) if a public holiday falls on a Thursday, to skive off work on Friday too, thus forming a ponte (bridge). But yesterday was Wednesday! What of our traditional ponte? This dilemma has spawned the finest word in the language - not gnocchi, or cazzo (fine words both) but MAXIponte! It is a fair tribute to the industriousness of the Mediterranean skiving effort that there actually exists a word to describe a Thursday and Friday on which one skips work because the one-day public holiday unfortunately fell in the middle of the week. And it's great fun to say, too.

Viva MAXIponte!