Happiness is a friendly Italian Civil Servant

After those few days when we were granted a little foretaste of summer, the skies opened again yesterday and a Biblical deluge swept over Siena all day. But that didn't matter, because I had a very successful morning at the Anagrafe with my little lawyer girl Valentina, the one I was castigating so viciously last week...I now take it all back, unconditionally. 

The Anagrafe is the Registry Office, the place where you have to go when you want to become a resident. It is situated in the Palazzo Pubblico, above, and has been for the last 700 years- probably in the same rooms, even. I went there in October or November to ask how to go about becoming a resident, and was given an atrocious reception- multo antipatico! - which gave me a deep anxiety about the whole place, and actually made doubt my chances of ever being able to get anywhere in the labyrinthine bureaucracy which is the Italian civil service. 

But the meeting with the Capo, which had been arranged through Valentina, went swimmingly. He, also a lawyer, probably in his last couple of years before retirement, bespectacled and grey suited, was friendliness itself. We spent a pleasant hour in his office, which was of course much longer than what was strictly necessary to impart the information we needed. Nevertheless, since he seemed to enjoy our company, the conversation flowed happily, and  at one point turned to the laws and regulations which are changing in response to the developments in modern life, for example in order to accommodate the fact that Muslims are able to have several legal wives. This somehow meandered into  the gender debate. Even in Italy -quite a conservative country, after all-  there will have to be forms for people to fill in where the gender choice is not simply 'Female' or 'Male.'  The Capo then explained  that it would no longer  be necessary to go through a sex change operation in order to claim that one was the opposite of one's biological sex. One will  soon be able to claim it simply for reasons of personal preference.  I could, for instance, decide that I am  a man, and relatively soon I would be able to enter that on my resident application. No one would be able to dispute it, and physical evidence to the contrary would be disregarded. 

I am no philosopher, but this seems to be straying into areas of fundamental definitions of 'what is truth'?  And what if I decided that my personal preference was to be in possession of a PHD from Harvard University, would I have the right to declare that too? Now, let me explain that I have no problem with sex changes at all,  but I think that people  actually  have to have  the operation if they want to change their sex...At this point I, in my old fashioned way, exclaimed:

' Ma questo e completamente pazzo! 

Valentina and the Capo laughed heartily at this, because I think they  secretly agreed with me, although, being lawyers, they were not able to air their opinions so openly...The Capo ended up telling us exactly what we wanted to hear- he will personally make sure that I  get the residency and he will instruct his people to get on with it! I said I would make sure he was invited to the opening party at 11 Casato di Sopra.

After this charming interlude the blessed Valentina and I emerged from the dreaded Anagrafe into the deluge on the Piazza del Campo - she went on her way and since I had forgotten my umbrella I was forced to spend two hours in my favourite bar and have two Campari Sprizas!