I sat next to a charming man at a lecture yesterday – actually an ex-neighbour whose property value and spirits have doubtless both lifted since my departure. The lecture was about 3D printing of a Grinling Gibbons inspired picture frame (We know how to party) and he asked if I was planning to visit Italy this summer. I was reminded of an impossibly grand dinner I once attended in Rome (No, I dont know why I was asked either) and the very snooty Italian on my right informed me that he never went to his palazzo in Tuscany in the summer. ‘Nobody goes there then’ he sneered, ‘Except the English’.
And with a single leap we arrive at my latest idea to make loadsamoney without the indignity of working.
Road signs, readers, road signs!
How many times, bowling along the nation’s highways and byways, have you noticed a road sign warning of the imminent danger of a passing deer? And how many deer have you seen within a mile of a road, unless, like me, you live near one of the Royal parks? Answer, I venture, is none. Not even one.
England is home to millions of cows and I imagine that at some time since cars were invented two or three of them may have wandered into the path of a passing vehicle. But deer? Not since the time of Robin Hood. Indeed people pay thousands of pounds in Scotland to crawl through midge-infested heather just to catch a glimpse of one yet someone, somehow has managed to corner, nay flood, the roadsides with Deer Signs, and probably made a fortune in the process.
And thus, via two roundabouts and a B road we come to Italy where there are more road signs to the kilometre than olive trees. There are signs telling you the name of each river you cross – what, in case you are travelling by boat? There are signs telling you the length of each tunnel you enter. ‘Hmmm, I dont think I’ll take this route; this tunnel is more than 175 metres long.’ There are endless signs warning of falling rocks which, if I am brutal, are pretty useless even as signs go. The rocks are either falling at any given time,in which case its a bit late to do anything about it, or they’re not. So why have the sign at all? Even I can see the sense of signs about old people crossing or children or exceptionally sharp bends. Thanks for that useful warning, provider of signs. I will slow down or possibly speed up if I’ve had about all I can stand of the old, the young or life itself. But rock falls? Advice Signor Signio, prego.
Touring around America I noticed that every single bridge had a sign warning that it could be icy in winter and the (previously unsuspected) frugal part of me thought it would make more sense, economically speaking, to simply flag up those bridges which held no such risk. In Tuscany, an area not popularly known as a ski resort, there are signs warning of snow about every two hundred metres. When? Where is this snow? Two hours drive further north, I grant you that the possibility exists but in that part of Italy the only peril facing the snow sign was that the paint would peel off in the searing summer heat. The man who persuaded the locals to cough up for those deserves a medal or a title or both.
So creative chums, let us put our collective heads together and seek out those parts of the world where the deer sign has yet to appear. Let us unite to save Bambi and make a few bob. There’s money in them there roads, friends. Welcome to the venison-lined lay-by.