This could be subtitled ‘Essential words when you come to Italy’.

In this case there are two. Cazzo and Vafanculo. I hear them quite often. They are not such polite words but, it seems, essential to daily life here.

At least in my office. The Commercial Manager, in whose office I reside, came back from a three-day trip yesterday. He normally sprinkles most sentences with the odd cazzo and, very occasionally, the odd vafanculo.

But, yesterday, once Si had left, he needed to find some documentation. He couldn’t find it. I have never heard so many cazzos and vafanculos in all the time I have been here, as I did in two hours yesterday afternoon.

At one point, every other word in the sentence was cazzo. Really, I mean it.

I shouldn’t really take against it so. After all, my language is not squeaky clean, as people who know me will attest to, but, really.

It also seems that, last night, for some very strange reason, he switched round the battery cables on his car resulting in a burn-out of at least one of them. Something to do with his daughter – so maybe he was trying to get her car started. Anyway, he’s not in right now (hurrah) and the damage will, apparently, cost him €500.

It couldn’t happen to a nicer guy!