Wednesday, 19 March 2014. In order to avoid being publicly stripped of his knighthood, Silvio Berlusconi renounces the title, giving up one of his dearest nicknames as well as a highly regarded honour.
Anticipating the moves of the Italian Federation of Knights of Labour – they'll hold a meeting in a few days – Silvio Berlusconi has decided to stripped himself of the title of Knight of Labour, before being humiliated by a public and humiliating expulsion (he has already been expelled from the Italian Senate, and that was enough).
An old picture, taken when Silvio Berlusconi was still a Knight (source: Nonciclopedia)
The Order of Labour's ruled read state that knights must show “exemplary civil and social behaviour” and some people might have observed that a guy who is convicted for tax fraud, banned from running as a candidate for public office or travelling abroad, accused of paying for sex with an under-age prostitute (and abusing of his power in order to cover up his deeds), indicted of having bribed the witnesses of the proceedings trying to prove the latter, indicted of having bribed a bunch of Senators (the Senate of Italy is a civil plaintiff in the trial) and a few other felonies, malpractices, blunders and malpractices, might not be able to exhibit such a disposition.
Sunday, 26 January 2014. In order to differentiate himself from his young opponent Matteo Renzi, Silvio Berlusconi is switching to a new look. An older one.
Berlusconi as shown by the Sunday Times
For decades Silvio Berlusconi has been labouring on his external appearance, in order to look younger than he actually is (he turned 77 on 29 September 2013), by means of hair transplant, face lifting, changing his headgear into something newer and pictures tweaking.
He thus created a well known persona: the youthful, women lover, brilliant entrepreneur, who adores to enjoy life and organising bunga-bunga parties in his Arcore's villa, who has a girlfriend - Francesca Pascale - 50 years his junior (but many other girls boasted of having a relationship with Berlusconi, like show-girl Nicole Minetti and Miss Montenegro Katarina Knezevic).
Tuesday, 1 January 2013 (Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God). Waking up in the morning of the first day of the new year, Silvio Berlusconi finds out his Twitter account has gained 60,000 followers in one night.
@Berlusconi2013 Twitter account, before the miracle
It took some time for Silvio Berlusconi to get involved in the fast growing social media Twitter, being overtook by a generally traditionalist fellow politician, Pope Benedict XVI, with his @Pontifex, and competitor #1, member of the Senate of Italy and prime minister candidate Mario Monti, with his @SenatoreMonti.
But when he went into it, he did it with his usual vigour.
Starting in the beginning of December 2012, the account @berlusconi2013 had been attracting around seven thousand followers, until the new year's eve miracle: in one magic night Silvio's fan on Twitter grew to over 70,000. It's not a scandal, just a remarkable event.
According to some sources, 70 per cent of the... 73,504 fans (update: 4 January, 10:54 GMT) is a fake, and 80 per cent are South American and Arab accounts – perhaps not very interest in the political events of Italy. How many of them are women? Couldn't find any data about it, but we bet it's more than a few...
Pato and Barbara Berlusconi smile on Twitter
The former prime minister of Italy's Twitter account launched also a kind of “I don't vote for the Left” campaign, by introducing a @iononvotolasx user and ionovotolasx.com internet site (currently not available). These links seemed to have disappeared in the most recent hours, replaced by the ForzaSilvio.it link (“Go Silvio!”).
But The Kight is not the only member of the Berlusconi family to have discovered the tweets: in the meanwhile, also Silvio's daughter – Barbara Berlusconi – appeared on Twitter, publishing a photo just to prove that her relationship with former AC Milan's footballer Alexandre Pato is still on (even though her father sold the player to Brazil's Corinthians).
Some think that Silvio might be totally unaware of what's going on, and the initiation to the twitterati could really be a gift from the founder of the “Silvio ci manchi” (“Silvio we miss you”) club, the tycoon official fiancée Francesca Pascale.
What would be of the President (he has always been president of something) without his women?
(Update: On 4 June 2013, at 13:52 GMT, the Twitter account @berlusconi2013 has 59,290 followers. At the same time @Pontifex has been occupied by a Francis, apparently a migrant from South America. Where has Joseph Aloisius - aka Benedict XVI - gone? Anyhow, the account has now 2.5m followers... Finally, Barbara Berlusconi's last tweet dates back to 11 August 2012.).
Saturday, 19 February 2011. Italy's Capital historical centre. The Italian politician-entrepreneur meets up with the journalist, a relaxing moment with Silvio Berlusconi. Or is it?
Enrico Mentana, Director of TG La7
Silvio Berlusconi and Enrico Mentana (former anchorman of Berlusconi's TG5 and Matrix TV programmes and now news director at La7, Italian niche TV channel) bump into each other centre of Rome.
The Italian Prime Minister's armour-plated car is leaving Palazzo Grazioli, his residence in Rome. Mentana is strolling around with his family.
Silvio Berlusconi spots his former employee, stops the procession, gets out of his car to greet him. Big smiles, hand shaking (apparently they both forgot any previous conflict. And they did have conflicts*!), then the Premier starts a small talk with the youngest of Mentana's children, sitting on the journalist shoulders: «You're such a big girl, you shouldn't need to suck a dummy».
