I must apologise for the length of time since my last posting but I have been recuperating for reasons that will become apparent later. Anyway, back to Sicily, where I found my way to the safe-house and read the briefing documents, or ‘Event manual’
My VIP (‘Target’ to you)turned out to be one of the party I had been sent to ‘guide’ which has its good and bad points. Good, because he’ll be close and I’ll have more opportunities. Bad, because I’ll be too close and less able to avoid the ‘after-event’ fall-out.
‘Safe-houses’ that you see on TV and in films are not really representative of reality, except that they are almost invariably located in areas that could only be called ‘safe’ if you drove through in a convoy of armoured Range-Rovers. The idea is that the people there are well-used to minding their own business and won’t call the cops if a few bangs and crashes disturb their night. Here on Sicily, things were a little different, as you might expect. The villa I was given was in a great location with lots of exits and good views down them all. I had a fair hike to meet the coach every day but I could do that mostly on the beach, so it wasn’t a hardship and it kept the driver away from my ‘villa’ which is no bad thing either.
Just the other side of town was the hotel where we picked up our party, a perfectly acceptable three or four star in the classic shabby-chic Italian fashion so beloved of romantic couples and so hated of these unromantic English people.
Yesterday afternoon had been an ‘acclimatisation’ for them, as we all met at the Hotel for coffee and introductions and then they had the rest of the day to explore Pozzalo, which is a very friendly place and has, as my ‘crib sheet’ told me and many of the guests confirmed, a harbour that has featured in some episodes of the series. I imagine that most of them avoided the lovely restaurants and headed straight there. They had opted not to have the extra expense of a tour manager so all their complaints, real or imaginary, had to be handled by the unfailingly polite reception staff. Those cheerfully pretty girls were, as is the way of post-recession Italy and Spain, most likely graduates and multi-lingual to an extent that they could insult people in many languages and do it cleverly enough to not be noticed. ‘Keith’s still inside’ muttered the first on the coach ‘Sorting out breakfast’ she smiled at the woman behind her ‘If you could call it that’. Ah, Keith Corduroy, as I called him, the party’s resident anorak and self-appointed expert. Leaving the rest to creak their beige-clad bodies onto the coach and fight for a favourite seat, I by-passed the always-dodgy revolving hotel door and used the porter’s entrance. There, at Reception, stood a tall man with an unfortunate jacket that clashed mightily with his blood-pressure complexion. After berating Gianni the night Manager , loudly and slowly over the quality of tea available at the breakfast and paucity of a decent ‘Full English’ he turned and murmured ‘Bloody Eyties, bloody useless’ smiling, as if I obviously agreed. ‘Well, can’t stand here chatting all day, let’s get cracking!’ I could have used a beta-blocker or two at that point to slow down my sudden urge to finish the’ jobette’ right there but, flashing an apologetic shrug at Gianni, I followed Mr. Cordury’s over-large trousers outside. You may think that I’m making him sound like a jingoistic stereotype but I assure you that people like this exist and indeed, seem to haunt me whenever I would really rather blend into the scenery.
Training manuals talk about maintaining your professional approach to a job but what they usually mean is ‘not giving someone a slap when they patently deserve one’ You can imagine that in my job and with my skill set the temptation to act with extreme professionalism can be overpowering, especially once I discovered that Keith was in fact, my ‘VIP’. With the prospect of a holiday as soon as he was ‘completed’ looming over me, I had to fight the urge to just throw him under the coach wheels and have done with it but that would not be very professional, now would it?
Our first stop is the Baroque town of Ragusa Ibla where we see various locations used in certain episodes. Keith knows exactly which.
Lunch follows at a restaurant that featured in the stories – not, says Keith, the original, since that has moved- and then we explore a place that retains its individuality in the face of onslaught by tourism. It also demonstrates one of the traits that entrances English visitors to Southern European countries, their relaxed attitude towards traffic law, health and safety.
In the afternoon it’s on to Porto Empedocole to see the town that author Andrei Camilleri lived in and which erected a statue to him in the main plaza.
Cue photo opportunities, more coffee and cakes in his favourite café and a mutiny when I suggest that we might like to see the wonderful temples in the Valley of the Kings on the way back – evidently not in the books, according to Keith. We are saving the best until last as we drop down into Marina di Modica and the location of Montalbano’s house. To add to the effect I ask our driver to play Keith’s CD of the theme music and the coach is rapidly, well, quite quickly, evacuated as the hallowed ground is reached.
Keith reveals to the party that the house is now a bed and breakfast and that we could have stayed here instead of that ‘squalid hovel’ I almost point out that most of the party would not make the five steps up to the entrance and that the shared breakfast table may have been a solitary affair for him on the second day, but resist my baser urges.
Montalbano is often pictured in the series swimming off this very beach and Keith tells me he is keen to try it. I remind him that the guide books advise against this due to rip-tides and currents but that the filming is done under controlled conditions and cut very cleverly to only show the Inspector at the point of entering or leaving the sea. This does not convince Keith, who poo- poohs my warnings, which I repeat, very loudly, to avoid any future arguments. ‘That’s just to keep amateurs away’ he insists, ‘Keith swam at county level’ chirps up his wife, ample bosom swelling with pride (But it might just have been wind).
My VIP (‘Target’ to you)turned out to be one of the party I had been sent to ‘guide’ which has its good and bad points. Good, because he’ll be close and I’ll have more opportunities. Bad, because I’ll be too close and less able to avoid the ‘after-event’ fall-out.
‘Safe-houses’ that you see on TV and in films are not really representative of reality, except that they are almost invariably located in areas that could only be called ‘safe’ if you drove through in a convoy of armoured Range-Rovers. The idea is that the people there are well-used to minding their own business and won’t call the cops if a few bangs and crashes disturb their night. Here on Sicily, things were a little different, as you might expect. The villa I was given was in a great location with lots of exits and good views down them all. I had a fair hike to meet the coach every day but I could do that mostly on the beach, so it wasn’t a hardship and it kept the driver away from my ‘villa’ which is no bad thing either.
Just the other side of town was the hotel where we picked up our party, a perfectly acceptable three or four star in the classic shabby-chic Italian fashion so beloved of romantic couples and so hated of these unromantic English people.
Yesterday afternoon had been an ‘acclimatisation’ for them, as we all met at the Hotel for coffee and introductions and then they had the rest of the day to explore Pozzalo, which is a very friendly place and has, as my ‘crib sheet’ told me and many of the guests confirmed, a harbour that has featured in some episodes of the series. I imagine that most of them avoided the lovely restaurants and headed straight there. They had opted not to have the extra expense of a tour manager so all their complaints, real or imaginary, had to be handled by the unfailingly polite reception staff. Those cheerfully pretty girls were, as is the way of post-recession Italy and Spain, most likely graduates and multi-lingual to an extent that they could insult people in many languages and do it cleverly enough to not be noticed. ‘Keith’s still inside’ muttered the first on the coach ‘Sorting out breakfast’ she smiled at the woman behind her ‘If you could call it that’. Ah, Keith Corduroy, as I called him, the party’s resident anorak and self-appointed expert. Leaving the rest to creak their beige-clad bodies onto the coach and fight for a favourite seat, I by-passed the always-dodgy revolving hotel door and used the porter’s entrance. There, at Reception, stood a tall man with an unfortunate jacket that clashed mightily with his blood-pressure complexion. After berating Gianni the night Manager , loudly and slowly over the quality of tea available at the breakfast and paucity of a decent ‘Full English’ he turned and murmured ‘Bloody Eyties, bloody useless’ smiling, as if I obviously agreed. ‘Well, can’t stand here chatting all day, let’s get cracking!’ I could have used a beta-blocker or two at that point to slow down my sudden urge to finish the’ jobette’ right there but, flashing an apologetic shrug at Gianni, I followed Mr. Cordury’s over-large trousers outside. You may think that I’m making him sound like a jingoistic stereotype but I assure you that people like this exist and indeed, seem to haunt me whenever I would really rather blend into the scenery.
Training manuals talk about maintaining your professional approach to a job but what they usually mean is ‘not giving someone a slap when they patently deserve one’ You can imagine that in my job and with my skill set the temptation to act with extreme professionalism can be overpowering, especially once I discovered that Keith was in fact, my ‘VIP’. With the prospect of a holiday as soon as he was ‘completed’ looming over me, I had to fight the urge to just throw him under the coach wheels and have done with it but that would not be very professional, now would it?
 |
Keith Corduroy, on his phone as usual, probably checking for continuity errors in episodes of Montalbano
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Lunch follows at a restaurant that featured in the stories – not, says Keith, the original, since that has moved- and then we explore a place that retains its individuality in the face of onslaught by tourism. It also demonstrates one of the traits that entrances English visitors to Southern European countries, their relaxed attitude towards traffic law, health and safety.
 |
| Keith wasn’t entranced, he was outraged, I think at home he would have called the Police immediately. |
Cue photo opportunities, more coffee and cakes in his favourite café and a mutiny when I suggest that we might like to see the wonderful temples in the Valley of the Kings on the way back – evidently not in the books, according to Keith. We are saving the best until last as we drop down into Marina di Modica and the location of Montalbano’s house. To add to the effect I ask our driver to play Keith’s CD of the theme music and the coach is rapidly, well, quite quickly, evacuated as the hallowed ground is reached.
Keith reveals to the party that the house is now a bed and breakfast and that we could have stayed here instead of that ‘squalid hovel’ I almost point out that most of the party would not make the five steps up to the entrance and that the shared breakfast table may have been a solitary affair for him on the second day, but resist my baser urges.
Montalbano is often pictured in the series swimming off this very beach and Keith tells me he is keen to try it. I remind him that the guide books advise against this due to rip-tides and currents but that the filming is done under controlled conditions and cut very cleverly to only show the Inspector at the point of entering or leaving the sea. This does not convince Keith, who poo- poohs my warnings, which I repeat, very loudly, to avoid any future arguments. ‘That’s just to keep amateurs away’ he insists, ‘Keith swam at county level’ chirps up his wife, ample bosom swelling with pride (But it might just have been wind).
The party disperse to explore the location, including the car park site which was used as a market or outdoor café as the script demanded. I keep a wary eye on Keith who is wearing his capacious rucksack, from a corner of which protrudes something that looks suspiciously like a hotel towel. Sure enough, the next time I see Keith he is heading semi-nakedly away from his wife (as most men in their right minds would have done long ago) toward the surf, budgie-smugglers, thankfully not corduroy, bulging ominously. I move back around the old watch-tower to where a rowing boat, prepared for the evenings fishing, sits on a launching trolley. Thankfully I look inside before running it down the slip-way as it feels suspiciously light and so it should do as it is a prop for the show.
One of the builders renovating the mediaeval tower calls down that he has seen Keith in the breakers and is calling the harbour-master at the marina. In the absence of anything bigger than the life-belt hanging on the Tower-wall, I lift that down, slide off my polyester tour guide jacket and chinos and plunge in after him. He hasn’t got far but is already in trouble, trying a stiff breast-stroke, head erect looking for all the world like famous Channel-swimmer Captain Webb on the old packets of matches.
Something tells me that a damp match would be a suitable metaphor for his swimming ability and I get close enough to throw him the life-preserver, holding onto the rope and keeping far enough away to escape his flailing arms. Too many well-meaning people have been drowned in the act of life-saving for me to risk getting within strangling range. He sees me and opens his mouth to shout something. With perfect timing water fills his airway. Whatever he was trying to say (probably ‘This never happened in the show’) Keith isn’t trying to put the belt over his head, but manages to loop the rope around his neck. I pull it, hard, inadvertently (!) cutting off his air supply and he adopts a starfish-like posture as I loosen the rope and put my arm around him in classic life-saving style, but a little tighter, just to be sure – you can never strangle someone enough. I can make no headway against the rip and so relax into it, floating us quite a way down the coast before I hear the buzz-flap, buzz-flap of a semi-rigid boat approaching at speed. I welcome this as Keith is not very good company. I am inclined to suggest that the Harbour Guard recovered both of us with characteristic Italian brio and flair but we probably looked more like a tonne of wet fish being pulled on board.
I immediately start the Kiss of life (No tongues and not much real air) and roll Keith’s white whaleness into the recovery position, but I think both the crew and myself knew it was futile. Mindful of the public’s predilection for filming any tragedy with a view to selling the pictures, I kept my back to the shore but it was largely deserted. The rigid steered around the back of a large cruiser (a Canteri di Pisa 77 footer for you yachteraks) and we pulled alongside the diving platform where I was helped up into the cockpit. Keith’s corpse I realised with a jolt, stayed in the smaller boat as it turned and powered away. I realised that up to this point no words had been spoken (especially by Keith) - Weird was not the word.
A blanket and a large coffee with a suspicious quantity of good brandy soon warmed me up which was good, as I needed to think. Bursts of radio chatter distracted me as the large boat got underway, not into the marina as I expected, where an ambulance waited, but out to sea. There was something familiar about the voice on the airwaves and I got a strange tickling sensation in my back, close to my old Sicilian wound.
A crewman beckons me to follow him down the companionway and I wait for the knock on the head or the silenced bullet that will confirm my worst suspicions. Instead I receive a surprise and an explanation, not necessarily in that order. It seems that Keith was one of those people who love to see their opinions in print and that he had quite a following for his holiday Blog: ‘Travel Traumas with Terence Truthful’ The District of Puglia had invested heavily in attracting tourism but one piece by Keith revealing the ‘Truth behind the Hype’ had destroyed their work overnight. It had taken the local tourist board here in Sicily a lot of work to secure the filming of a further series of Montalbano and they could not afford to allow anything, or anybody to threaten that, so called in some favours, which is where I came in. Evidently the newspapers would show, correctly, that Keith was a victim of his own stupidity but, alas, the heroic tour guide’s body would not be found for many months. Actually, the brandy-laced coffee was making me feel a little heroic, but then I needed-to, when I realised that the Head of the local tourist board, sitting decorously across a white sofa in the stateroom, was a certain Melissa Generossi.
Being a gentleman I have to draw a discrete veil over the next few weeks but needless to say I was in a state of permanent fear that I would end up in hospital either very dead or very exhausted.
In the end we both had to return to our lives but I know that Sicily will always have a special place in my heart and I think you should go, too. The Head of the Tourist Board insists…
One of the builders renovating the mediaeval tower calls down that he has seen Keith in the breakers and is calling the harbour-master at the marina. In the absence of anything bigger than the life-belt hanging on the Tower-wall, I lift that down, slide off my polyester tour guide jacket and chinos and plunge in after him. He hasn’t got far but is already in trouble, trying a stiff breast-stroke, head erect looking for all the world like famous Channel-swimmer Captain Webb on the old packets of matches.
Something tells me that a damp match would be a suitable metaphor for his swimming ability and I get close enough to throw him the life-preserver, holding onto the rope and keeping far enough away to escape his flailing arms. Too many well-meaning people have been drowned in the act of life-saving for me to risk getting within strangling range. He sees me and opens his mouth to shout something. With perfect timing water fills his airway. Whatever he was trying to say (probably ‘This never happened in the show’) Keith isn’t trying to put the belt over his head, but manages to loop the rope around his neck. I pull it, hard, inadvertently (!) cutting off his air supply and he adopts a starfish-like posture as I loosen the rope and put my arm around him in classic life-saving style, but a little tighter, just to be sure – you can never strangle someone enough. I can make no headway against the rip and so relax into it, floating us quite a way down the coast before I hear the buzz-flap, buzz-flap of a semi-rigid boat approaching at speed. I welcome this as Keith is not very good company. I am inclined to suggest that the Harbour Guard recovered both of us with characteristic Italian brio and flair but we probably looked more like a tonne of wet fish being pulled on board.
I immediately start the Kiss of life (No tongues and not much real air) and roll Keith’s white whaleness into the recovery position, but I think both the crew and myself knew it was futile. Mindful of the public’s predilection for filming any tragedy with a view to selling the pictures, I kept my back to the shore but it was largely deserted. The rigid steered around the back of a large cruiser (a Canteri di Pisa 77 footer for you yachteraks) and we pulled alongside the diving platform where I was helped up into the cockpit. Keith’s corpse I realised with a jolt, stayed in the smaller boat as it turned and powered away. I realised that up to this point no words had been spoken (especially by Keith) - Weird was not the word.
A blanket and a large coffee with a suspicious quantity of good brandy soon warmed me up which was good, as I needed to think. Bursts of radio chatter distracted me as the large boat got underway, not into the marina as I expected, where an ambulance waited, but out to sea. There was something familiar about the voice on the airwaves and I got a strange tickling sensation in my back, close to my old Sicilian wound.
A crewman beckons me to follow him down the companionway and I wait for the knock on the head or the silenced bullet that will confirm my worst suspicions. Instead I receive a surprise and an explanation, not necessarily in that order. It seems that Keith was one of those people who love to see their opinions in print and that he had quite a following for his holiday Blog: ‘Travel Traumas with Terence Truthful’ The District of Puglia had invested heavily in attracting tourism but one piece by Keith revealing the ‘Truth behind the Hype’ had destroyed their work overnight. It had taken the local tourist board here in Sicily a lot of work to secure the filming of a further series of Montalbano and they could not afford to allow anything, or anybody to threaten that, so called in some favours, which is where I came in. Evidently the newspapers would show, correctly, that Keith was a victim of his own stupidity but, alas, the heroic tour guide’s body would not be found for many months. Actually, the brandy-laced coffee was making me feel a little heroic, but then I needed-to, when I realised that the Head of the local tourist board, sitting decorously across a white sofa in the stateroom, was a certain Melissa Generossi.
Being a gentleman I have to draw a discrete veil over the next few weeks but needless to say I was in a state of permanent fear that I would end up in hospital either very dead or very exhausted.
In the end we both had to return to our lives but I know that Sicily will always have a special place in my heart and I think you should go, too. The Head of the Tourist Board insists…
