That’s the title of an article on the New York Review of Books blog by Tim Parks.

My laconic friend Luigi’s answer was “No”. Parks comes to much the same conclusion, but in support he adds a great deal of insight and historical learning, which I am sure Luigi shares, internally.

I’ve yet to read a dull word by Tim Parks, and when he says that Italy is a country for initiates, I know exactly what he means. Good piece, overall, and I wonder what my Italian friends think of it.

But here’s something very strange. I was going to quote a line from the article, but when I went to copy it from the source article, it had changed. What’s there now, is:

“Every Italian,” Giacomo Leopardi dryly remarked in 1826 “is more or less equally honored and dishonored.”

In the version I downloaded yesterday, it is:

“No Italian,” Giacomo Leopardi drily remarked in 1826 “is ever universally revered or despised.”

What gives? No explanation at the page. Did Tim Parks the translator take issue with Tim Parks the writer? And who changed the popular “dryly” to the less-favoured “drily”? The public demands to know.

Best version of this trope I’ve ever seen. Good old John Downer, still producing amazing footage, even if some of the edits are just a bit too obvious for my taste. The entire series of Earthflight might be worth watching out for.

I won’t say how long it has taken me to finally finish this video; too long. And having finally finished it, I went down to the river this evening to see the starlings, but I was too late, by about 5 minutes, and the weather was too bad, by a thunderstorm.

You can turn anything into a competitive endeavour, it seems, even the contemplative, mindful here-and-nowness of scything, which I have long loved.

I miss my scythes (yes, plural).

(And in case you were wondering whatever happened to Nettle Awareness Week, it has apparently been relaunched as Be Nice to Nettles Week and seems to be more or less moribund.)

The sign says, roughly, No admittance for the purpose of criticism to journalists from Gambero Rosso.

To the end of the line, in fact, where below a shiny modern bridge an antique pile of flotsam and a rusty piece of reinforcing mesh barred the path. I turned around, and made my buttock-bruising way back, over concrete incised with deep grooves that I am sure were designed deliberately to impede progress. The steps up by Castel Sant’Angelo, unlike the ones by Ponte Garibaldi, do not have a nice little gutter to wheel the bike in. So I had to heave it on my shoulder. Hey ho, virtue in spades.

Having negotiated the hordes clustering around the Vatican I was somewhat peeved to have missed my turn, and found myself struggling up the giant hill behind the pope’s gardens.  Eventually I found a tiny set of steep stairs down which the bike and I rattled. No virtue in that. And after a few more minutes there we were.

It isn’t the most prepossessing place, nor does it need to be; the crowd outside tells you you’ve arrived. Inside, even at 2:30, was a scrum. You gently and patiently elbow your way to the front — there’s no line, obviously — to be confronted by a stunning display of laden pizza. Make your choice, get your ticket, gently and patiently elbow your way back to the till, and pay. Then it is time to gently and patiently elbow your way back to the front, although this time waving the ticket parts the waters, and pick up your order, by this time reheated, if that’s what you wanted. Back through the scrum to the pavement, all the while trying to keep a suppli from rolling off the trencher.

I chose margherita, just out of the oven to avoid any benefits or drawbacks of reheating. And it was good. More specifically, the base, for which Pizzarium is known, was indeed very good; full of nice big holes and light despite its height. The topping was also good, but (and I know this is going to sound heretical) there was just too much of it. Indeed, looking at all the various combos on display, most of them seemed overburdened. I’m not saying pizza toppings should be mean. Rather that there is a right amount, which is not too messy and which sits well with, rather than suppressing, the base. So that’s my verdict. Good, but not great.

Would I go there again? Not deliberately, although if someone wanted to I’d go with. Maybe driving home from the country, although it is on the wrong side of the main road in. Is it manna from heaven? Not in my view. I can get slices of similarly long-fermented pizza base and delicious toppings from a world-beating pizzaiolo just a longish walk from here. And for a more standard thinner slice, there’s a place not too far away that I could tell you about, but I’d have to kill you. For sit-down, the local joint, Da Bruno a Quattro Venti (which I refuse to link to because its website autoplays a fatuous commentary) is way better than average. But for my money, when I want toppings to die for and a whole different attitude to the pizza experience, there’s only one place: La Fucina.