Silvio Berlusconi and the cleansing of the island of Lampedusa.

Wednesday, 30 March 2011. Island of Lampedusa (Province of Agrigento, Sicily, Italy). Silvio Berlusconi pledge to “liberate” in “48-60 hours” the tiny island from the refugees who fled North Africa, whilst he buys a property in Lampedusa, mixing business with pleasure.

Berlusconi's show begins

A jubilant crowd was waiting for the Prime Minister's show yesterday in Lampedusa (a minuscule island that lies much closer to Tunisia's shores than Sicily).

Berlusconi with Lampedusa Mayor on stage

The trouble there is that almost 20,000 migrants (mostly from Tunisia and Libya) have landed along the beaches of the 20 sq Km (8 sq miles, twice as big as London's Richmond Park) Lampedusa island since the beginning of the year (and many more are expected, as troubles in north Africa are still there), so the inhabitants got in the desperate need of a real decision-maker who's going to fix it snappy. Not just the usual funny Berlusconi.

Migrants and soldiers

And they got it. Mr Berlusconi has made one of his famous vows: in two – maximum 2.5 – days Lampedusa “will be liberated” and thousands of North Africans will find their way home, with the help of an Italian assault ship and five ferries. To better underline his commitment, he announced to each and everyone that he became a villager of the island, since – to mix business with pleasure – he just bought a new dwelling there: Villa Due Palme (Two Palms). A new villa to be added to Berlusconi's estates.

Berlusconi's Villa Due Palme (Two Palms)

While many of the Berlusconi fan applauds to his macho intents, Lampedusa Mayor – Mr De Rubeis – declared that he believed “the 60 per cent of what Berlusconi has said”, on a popular radio programme called “La Zanzara” (The Mosquito), broadcast by Radio24 Channel.

Will the energetic politician keep his promise or will it end up with a blunder, as apparently it happened with Silvio's previous engagement about cleaning-up the streets of Naples? Wait (60 hours) and see.

Video from our YouTube Channel: Berluschannel

Silvio Berlusconi and the Neapolitan Rubbish War

Saturday, March 26 2011. Naples (Campania, Italy). 1,200 tonnes of waste in the streets of Naples. A problem Silvio Berlusconi already solved for good, several times.

Silvio, the road-sweeper

“The waste emergency is over!” declared a triumphant Berlusconi, thank to Guido Bertolaso (then the head of the Civil Protection Department) who dealt with the problem, and the incinerators in Hamburg (Germany), were a few hundred tonnes of garbage were sent, from Campania. Daily. It was July 2008.

The newly elected Prime Minister's blitzkrieg against the garbage of Naples was a visible sign of his utter commitment and ability in tackling Italy long-time problems.

After then, the rubbish problem showed up a few times, from time to time. And our hero (and his staff) always answered in a snappy way, as usual. With a great deal of humour and levity.

Naples today (ANSA)

Here are some of the best puns: “My challenge is to make Naples the cleanest city in Italy and in the world!” and “the model should be Singapore, where littering was punished with 7 lashes on the back”, “Let's talk about the REAL waste” and “TG3 (note: the RAI “communist” channel's news) does not exist”, “It (the Acerra's incinerator) will pollute like three small cars”, “In Acerra everything works perfectly” and “Were has he been? In Acerra or Disneyworld”.

At least he managed to find where the problem is: Mafia control over the waste business, illegal dumping of risky waste, the Neapolitans are not recycling enough, the Neapolitans should behave in a better way, the (old) Naples' administration was full of communists. Will he find the REAL solution too?

Comparative Advertising: free Swedish TV and Mr Berlusconi

February 2005. State-funded Sveriges Television choose the Italian tycoon Silvio Berlusconi as a negative testimonial of its free TV campaign.

COMPARATIVE ADVERTISING: advertising in which a competitor's product is named and compared with the advertiser's product (source: Merriam Webster dictionary online). Needless to say, you need a lousy competitor in order to brag about the great feature of your product.

Berlusconi on TV

That's exactly what Sweden national television broadcaster (Sveriges Television – SVT) does in 2005. In order to advertise the most significant feature of its product – freedom – goes for something (or someone) that is the denial of liberty, and so decides to “hire” Berlusconi and his close friend Mr Putin.

They both appeared in SVT commercials, which – in the case of the Italian politician – says: “Silvio Berlusconi controls Italy's national television broadcasters' 92 per cent. In 2001 he was elected prime minister following a massive TV campaign. In the aftermath a court asked him to give away one of his TVs, but the law was changed and the sentence lost its power. SVT, free TV”.

Video from our YouTube Channel: Berluschannel

The commercial ad's music track is a mandolin-played version of “'O sole mio”, possibly as a tribute to the Italian premier's legendary appreciation of Neapolitan folk music. Quite a funny picture of Berlusconi.

When Italian foreign ministry summons Sweden's ambassador to complain about the ad he can only say that “the media in Sweden are independent and free” (in other words it's not her problem). Are there many chances that the Italian entrepreneur and TV monopolist understood what she was talking about?