8. Another sausage, Herr Visitor?

I notice on international weather forecasts that London is enjoying some rather fine weather at the moment. I can’t say the same for Naples. However, the rain continues to prevent the evening ritual of ‘burning the rubbish’. Mind you, Premier Berlusconi was in town today and the centre suddenly became clean – I gather it’s been shipped out to the suburbs. Anyway, if you were in London rather than Naples, you might have worn today’s featured sunglasses the Spy Optics Abbey sunglasses. Find out more about them at rsm.com.

The examining continues to be unremarkable. I’ve had a load of low level candidates the past few days, which means that if I say, “What colour is this?” one more time my brain will fuse, melt and then slowly dribble out of my nose. The recent highlight was when one eight year old, clearly bluffing it, backed herself into a metaphorical corner and admitted that she had a pet dog when she didn’t. We were then trapped on a course we couldn’t possibly deviate from:

Ben: What’s your dog’s name?
Candidate: Er... ‘Lucky’.
Ben: And how old is Lucky?
Candidate: Er... 52.
Ben: Goodness. He is lucky, isn’t he?

Onto a more pressing matter, cakes and lunches are not forth coming. Must be because I’m in the city. I’m back out in the provinces next week, so hopefully there’ll be some rural hospitality to write about there.

With a little spare time in the late afternoon, I thought I might try a little sightseeing and what with the weather, I thought I might venture underground. And this is where it gets a little interesting. In the IVth century BC, when the town was in its infancy, the Greeks excavated tufa stone from the deepest, darkest underground to build the city walls and buildings [as our picture shows]. These quarries became tunnels and then aqueducts, filtering two rivers into, or rather under, the city to supply the residents with water. With Emperor Augustus, the tunnels continued, creating 400km worth of aqueducts, some of which are 40 metres below the streets of Naples. Closed in 1884 because of an ill-timed outbreak of cholera (when is it well-timed?), they were opened again in 1942 for the locals to use as air-raid shelters when the allies thought they’d bomb the city a bit before ‘liberating’ properly. I say ‘a bit’, but the helpful guide informed me that Naples was the 5th most bombed city in Europe (Can you guess the first four? Answers on a postcard and a winner to be announced later).

The tunnels are a mix of wide, cavernous spaces for water storage and quite narrow, yet high, passageways (40 cm wide but seven metres high in some places). For a fit, dashing young man like myself, this didn’t pose a problem, but it was the large German gentleman in attendance who may have been to one too many Oktoberfests and eaten a few hundred too many sausages that faced a bit of a squeeze and was, I believe, swearing on more than one occasion as he struggled with his widened girth through the subterranean route. You can see such passageways in the picture. A bit tight, no?

But onto the English-speaking guide for the underground tour. There are regular English language tours, which was helpful for me, but not so helpful for the other eight on the tour, all of whom were German. Thank goodness we didn’t lose the war. The guide, Alex, picked me out early on as an English speaker (not hard as I was the only one) and proceeded to tell me how, when younger, he’d lived next door to a visiting family from Brighton, which was when his interest in English started. He’s a university student whose goal is to work and live in London – how the grass is always greener - who’s actually studying English accents and dialects. He told me he was trying to write a thesis on Scouse English, but he was having trouble understanding what the genteel folk from Liverpool were saying. I could only empathise and offer my commiserations on the chosen topic.

Alex was keen, chatty and enthusiastic, making the perfect guide. While being terribly enthusiastic, he did have a problem with volume and personal space, as I’ve noticed some people here do. While quite keen to engage in conversation before the start of the tour, I couldn’t help but notice that unnecessary attention was being drawn to us by his loud discourse style, even though he was standing so close to me that I had to crane my head back just so I could see him clearly. The problem was that the quieter I spoke, to try and avoid notice, the louder he got in attempts to compensate. As a wall prevented me from backing away any further, I gave up, and quietly mumbled my way through the conversation, although I fear I may have come across as being sullen as opposed to just trying to be inconspicuous. Anyway, he was a nice chap who was graced with a fine, imposing Roman nose – unfortunately, the nose didn’t match the rest of his face which was a little smaller in proportion, thus rendering the nose not a little out of place. Still, damn fine guide for a wide, open space above ground.

When returning from the tour, I noticed one of the many religious alcoves / shrines that dot the walls of the old town. This one struck me as being particularly graphic as you can see. While we have Christ on the cross, we also have a scene including perdition’s flames lapping around the unrepentant in eternal damnation in a subterranean hell. Don’t you just love the Catholic Church? Trying to identify the four figures in flames is rather like a religious version of identifying the figures on the Sgt Pepper’s album cover. While there’s definitely no Elvis or Marilyn Munroe, I’m sure that’s Mao on the far left. To be honest, Jesus doesn’t look too happy about his location either – must be to do with that rather inconvenient situation about being nailed to a cross.

Anyway, delights to look forward to in the next blog include survival tips when using the Naples underground and the local examining troupe I’m having dinner with.