One of life's great unanswered questions:how come Italian women can spend all day grazing and still wear a size 8? They break every rule in the dietician's book. In the morning they run out of the house fueled only by a shower, a cigarette and an admiring glance in the mirror. First stop in our neighborhood is the Pasticceria Tonolo, for a full-cream cappuccino and the kind of doughnut that leaves sugar down the front of your black Armani.
I love to watch Italians drink coffee. The way they spoon up the foam and then wipe out the cup with the heel-end of their brioche. They may eat their breakfast standing at a bar in three-inch Ferragamos, but boy do they make a meal of it.
Then lunch, which is a complete rebuttal of the gospel according to Dr Atkins. Pasta, polenta, rice, what can I tell you. But by 4 they're feeling peckish again, so they're back at Tonolo for another slice of jam-filled pastry. Just enough to keep them going till the passeggiata hour of 6pm when they sit in their little leather skirts, hoovering up peanuts and casting a critical eye over any passing wide-asses.
Their calorific intake just doesn't jig with their waist size and frankly I'm sick of it.