Friday, 4 April 2014. 67-year-old George W Bush portrays world leaders – among them 77-year-old Berlusconi – showing how retirement can be a nice period of our lives.
As a world leader George W Bush has collected a few critics (even though he won Mr Berlusconi's long-lasting friendship), here and there, but you have to admit that as a amateur painter he has a knack, as he unveiled an exhibitions of his works, dubbed “The Art of Leadership: A President’s Personal Diplomacy”.
Silvio Berlusconi, as seen by good pal George W Bush
There are 24 characters portrayed by the former president of the USA, like his very father George H W Bush, Russia's president Vladimir Putin, former UK's prime minister Tony Blair, the Dalai Lama and – of course - the disgraced ex-prime minister of Italy Silvio Berlusconi (currently out of work as a politician, due to his judicial woes).
Monday, 20 January 2014. Rumours has it Berlusconi's post of “chief clown” (and sleazy politician) of Europe might be at risk, due to François Hollande latest moves.
The rivalry between Italians and Frenchmen is not a novelty, but an escalation of the old competition might be expected... on quite new territory and high level. Mr Berlusconi – who is pretty a narcissistic person - has clearly been taking care that everybody (in Europe and in the world) know he is the biggest politician-womaniser ever. The pro-Berlusconi Italian newspaper “Il Giornale” likened him to JFK, one of the most famous roué in recent history.
François Hollande and his Italian-made scooter: is he stealing the show from Berlusconi (I mean Hollande, not the scooter)?
Berlusconi – and quite a few Italians, like Silvio's associate Giuliano Ferrara (and he showed it! Look at this...) – are evidently proud of it (I mean Italian machismo and chauvinism is in the news, everyday. Look at Berlusconi doing work on this video on our YouTube channel!).
And now this Frenchman, this François Hollande (they never liked each other, as you can see on this post...), comes up with a new sweetheart – an actress, Julie Gayet, 20 years his junior - who he has been meeting with for quite a while. And not only he is cheating on his current partner, journalist Valérie Trierweiler, but since the present First Lady was a concubine herself (when their love story begun, politician Ségolène Royal was Francois' lawful wife), well, that makes a pretty stunning performance, isn't it?
Tuesday, 25 June 2013. In the wake of the Rubygate sentence against Silvio Berlusconi , journalist and PdL politician Giuliano Ferrara together with other 400 odd people express they opinion that, all in all, we are all whores, women and men.
Giuliano Ferrara showing a cardboard Berlusconi and a larger-than-life Mubarak poster
The day before a court in Milan found Silvio Berlusconi guilty of having paid an under-age prostitute for sex services and having abused of his power as prime minister, and Giuliano Ferrara did not like it.
Thu,
7 March, 2013 (Saints Perpetua and Felicity, martyrs). Silvio
Berlusconi collects another jail sentence as the Unipol case ends,
even though the former premier's lawyers stated that «the evidence
against [SB] is insufficient.».
Not
long ago Silvio Berlusconi could boast of never being sentenced to a single day of prison in
spite of the number of trials – more than one hundred – where he
has been indicted, for a reason or another (but mainly due to the
aggressiveness of the left-wing magistrates, according to the former
prime minister of Italy).
One of Silvio's trials
This statement isn't true any more, since in October 2012 he
collected the first 4-year sentence at the Mediaset-trial (a decision that made him rethink his retirement from politics...), and in
March 2013 he managed to gain another year in prison, due to the
Unipol case (when an insurance company – Unipol – takeover bid by
Rome's bank Banca Nazionale del Lavoro in 2005 led to the
resignation of the governor of the Bank of Italy, Antonio Fazio).
Sunday,
February 24, 2013. Three half naked women try to prevent Silvio
Berlusconi from reaching the polling station, supporting rumours that
females “just throw themselves at him”.
The
sudden attack of three topless Ukrainian women caused some concern
amongst the law enforcement officers escorting
Silvio Berlusconi to the polling station (general election take place on Sunday 24 and Monday 25 February in Italy), but the former prime minister of Italy surely did
not find himself in a totally unusual situation (having dealt with an entire bunga-bunga army for quite a while), and he did not budge.
FEMEN activist grabbed by Berlusconi's escort
After
the first puzzlement, the half-nude women were quickly pinned down in
the falling snow, detained by police and then hastily dragged away
screaming, creating quite a chaotic scene (you can see it on the
video on our YouTube channel) as people stood in queue to cast their
vote at Milan's school building.
Monday,
December 17, 2012. Roberto Benigni, Academy Award winner actor,
comedian director and screenwriter, appears in state-owned TV Rai1 to host
a programme about the Italian Constitution, grabs the occasion and
mocks his favourite target, Silvio Berlusconi.
Roberto Benigni, wary about Silvio Berlusconi's comeback
Over
12.6 million viewers – a share of 43.9 per cent – watched Roberto
Benigni's “La più bella del mondo” (“The most beautiful in the
world”), a public television programme about the Italian Constitution, but
– as usual – Italian Academy Award winning comedian had something
to say about Silvio Berlusconi's comeback into Italian politics (the video very beginning of the show is on our YouTube channel).
The
director of the Oscar-winning tragicomedy "Life is Beautiful"
on the Holocaust is not new to such cultural happenings, he recited
Dante's Divine Comedy on TV on the past and sang (and explained)
Italy's anthem to viewers last year, on a programme celebrating 150
years of Italian Nation, last year.
But he
can't help being a comedian, and Silvio Berlusconi has always been
his favourite target.
"I
wanted to talk about beautiful things, but this December there were
two awful, catastrophic, news" quips Benigni. "One you know
it all, December 21 there is the end of the world, but that's not the
ugliest. You know, the end of the world, you can just get over it.”
Silvio Berlusconi at Canale5's Domenica Live
“Another,
really terrible, news has really smashed everyone, in a period when
so many Italians wish to retire and cannot do it. The only Italian who could really go and retire whenever he wanted if he just
wanted it, is not doing it.” continued Roberto Benigni “Silvio is
standing again, Lord pity us all”.
"He's
got nothing to lose” added Benigni gesticulating wildly as he was painting
a well known picture of a scandalous Silvio Berlusconi, “he's done it all now:
orgies, lawyers, minors. He already had a crazy time!".
During
the show Benigni also invited Mario Monti, the current Italian prime
minister (though he said we will soon resign, since Berlusconi's Peopleof Liberty party withdraw its support to Monti's government) to join
the TV programme and make a fake announcement that he will run in
elections just to stop Berlusconi.
Berlusconi was also in TV recently, most possibly in an attempt to please housewives and romantic women watching
TV shows on Sunday afternoon, Silvio Berlusconi declared he was engaged to 49 years younger Francesca Pascale on Canale5's Domeni Live show, but most probably Benigni's show was recorded previously, so he
did not mentioned nor commented the good news (we are sure he would have liked to), so he focused on bad news. [Added on Dec. 19: Benigni show was live, and he did comment the good news! See Chiara's comment for further details. Sorry for that, folks.]
Sunday,
December 16, 2012. On an interview aired by his own Canale 5 TV
broadcaster Silvio Berlusconi reveals he is engaged to 27-year-old
Francesca Pascale, half a century younger than him.
An all-smile Silvio Berlusconi announces his engagement, in December 2012
Sitting
in a couch at Barbara D'Urso's “Domenica Live” TV Show, Silvio
Berlusconi discloses being engaged to 27-year-old Neapolitan girl (just
like the anchor woman. I mean she is Neapolitan too, not 27-year-old) Francesca Pascale, a former show girl of a
local TV broadcaster, Telecapri.
"She
is 27 years old, with very solid values, beautiful on the outside and
even more beautiful on the inside.”, said the former Italian prime
minister, who also confessed the 49-year age difference between the
two is a “little bit excessive”.
Silvio drew a beautiful picture of his sweetheart, "She
is very close to me, she loves me very much and I feel the same.” he said with a voice almost broke by emotion. “My daughter Marina appreciates her and loves her very much too.".
During
the interview, Silvio would grab the opportunity to describe the Ruby
trial as an "incredible machination," he added: "It
was a justification to put in place a giant operation for defamation
against me and against the Italian government, including on an
international level.”. Barbara would just listen and nod, as Silvio Berlusconi story unfolded.
In the end, Canale 5 is family, isn't it?
Silvio Berlusconi and Francesca Pascale driving away.
Sunday,
November 4, 2012. Silvio Berlusconi ponders to colour the Senate of Italy by choosing an Argentinian showgirl – known for faking an orgasm on TV– as a candidate for the imminent elections.
Most
possibly Mr Berlusconi must have thought that Italians do not care
about the skills of a politician, provided she can boast of large
boobs, as he evaluates the candidacy of 46-year-old showgirl Iliana Calabrò
for the People of Liberty (PdL) party in the Senate of Italy.
Her tentative Italian does not prevent her from understanding the concerns and issues of Argentina's Italian community (she declared on a telephone interview with the Italian Corriere della Sera), since she take part in all their parties, events, occasions, were – of course – she would also dance and sing.
Saturday, October 27, 2012. Silvio Berlusconi does an about-turn: he will not leave politics, because he must reform the judiciary first. And he might end support for Monti's government as well. And he is still very angry at Merkel-Sarkozy, you know why...
An angry Silvio Berlusconi
The recent sentence by a Milan's tribunal in the Mediaset-trial – last Friday Silvio Berlusconi was condemned to four years in jail, diminished to only one year thank to a tax fraud official remission – irritated the former Italian prime minister to such an extent, that he burst out talking nonsense, as usual, using its powerful media machinery.
