Coda

1. What is it about New Year's Eve, that makes you stop and take stock and wait for something to happen and then realise that it isn't going to, unless you really go out of your way and rock the boat and do something dangerous, impulsive. Or downright calculated.

2. I've written 10 new year resolutions. Some are scary. I read somewhere you should print and tape them to your desk so you cannot run away from them. I'll store mine on my laptop.

3. What am I scared of? Phone calls in the night. The inevitable.

4. I love being a father. My son is still at an age where he asks me questions and waits for an answer. He is already a better dancer and wordsmith than I can ever be.

5. If I find a cartoonist, I will finally get the story we've called 'Oink the Pig' actually written. Instead of just woven in our heads, in laughter, on the way to school, each morning.

6. How to learn from mistakes, grow a skin, move forward without listening to all the voices clamouring for attention.

7. How to move forward. Period.

8. If you have words, you can wriggle out of trouble as much as you can land yourself in it.

9. You do not have to be next to me for me to think the world of you.

10. Count your blessings. We're still standing. Here comes the new year.

Digging into Facebook

There are nearly 14,000 Maltese who have a Facebook account. Five weeks ago, when I started thinking about this snippet, there were 8,000.

Facebook is the Internet site of 2007. In October, Microsoft spent $240 million for a 1.6% equity stake, valuing the company at a whopping $15 billion. With 34.5 billion page views in September, according to comScore Media Metrix, Facebook is now www.strategywothe fourth most highly trafficked Web property worldwide. Together, with the iPhone, Facebook was the Internet story of the year.

What nobody can say for sure is whether Facebook will be as popular in 2008. Such is the fickle nature of social networking sites that the next big thing may be round the corner: Google recently announced its Open Social network.

I wanted to understand why the Maltese are taking to Facebook in their droves, when they can pick a phone and meet a mate in 30 minutes for a drink and a chat. And why people keep sharing the most mundane and (sometimes) intimate details of their lives with online ‘friends’.

So I asked six questions to 13 friends within my Facebook network. I spread the mix, to make sure there was nothing much in common (except that I knew them all). 12 Maltese, 1 Canadian in Gozo, from all walks of life: sales & marketing executives to businessmen, students, a technologist and a published poet. This is some of the chatter that came back:

Joining Facebook tends to be a collective of peer pressure, curiosity, professional obligation and boredom. Facebook helps people rediscover old friends and keep tabs on those living overseas. Or those anywhere else with an Internet connection and time on their hands.

Facebook is an addiction, a guilt trip, a time-waster, a laugh, a glorified Hi5 for adults. We find ourselves trapped in our need to communicate: we check our email continuously; we get mad if we forget our mobile; and, now, there’s Facebook. Many use it like SMS or Twitter, with fingers rattling on a keyboard to keep up with hundreds of ‘friends’ from all walks of life. It's an incredibly powerful virus which motivates people to infect their friends and colleagues.

Voyeurism and narcissism appear to be key drivers. Girls inevitably change their profile picture on a more regular basis than the boys. We are an ego-centric, nosey nation, and now have a licence to pry quietly into other people’s lives and what makes them tick. Exhibitionism is a major characteristic of contemporary life. Except that on Facebook, you're only exposing yourself to the people you choose, as opposed to the entire web.

You can also lose yourself in your kind of crowd. Join’ Michael Mifsud for President’ (869 members and growing). Or groups managed by restaurateurs, rock bands, politicians, journalists, socialites and lonely hearts. Throw a virtual sheep, send a zombie kiss, order an electronic ice cream or play Scrabulous with your grandmother.

Concerns about privacy are growing. Employers use Facebook to search and measure up current and prospective employees. Some may already be paying the price in terms of lost employee productivity without knowing it. And others have been quick to see the branding opportunities. Paraphrasing Shakespeare… all the world’s a stage, so potentially anyone and everyone is your audience. Act with caution.

Not everyone is convinced that all is what it seems to be. Who’s a friend? Are friends counted in numbers or shoulders to cry on? Are the ‘friends’ on your list simply contacts, or merely trophies? This is one facet of the internet: trying to personalise, even embody, contacts that could well be anonymous. Facebook can also stand for currently bored, lustful, socially unfulfilled or generally avoiding real life.

Yet surely there’s no easier device around to help you organise a party, share your videos and pictures, market your talents, illustrate your life, let people know your every mood swing. I found out about the lovely Café Brasil concert at MITP because ‘Indri Mangu’ set up a Facebook Group for the occasion. New friends to Facebook are regularly greeted by older ones with the rousing ‘what took you so long to get here?’ There must be a reason for being here, surely?

The Facebook backlash has started. Credit information group Equifax said members of sites such as MySpace, Bebo and Facebook may be putting too many details about themselves online, and putting themselves at risk of identity fraud. Fraudsters could use these details to steal someone's identity and apply for credits and benefits. About 80,000 people in the UK were victims of identity theft last year, at a cost to the economy of £1.5bn. Facebook’s own new Beacon Advertising Service added to concerns about privacy issues. On 6th December, Mark Zuckenger, the Facebook founder ate humble pie and apologised for the way Beacon had been launched. People simply don’t want their personal data used for commercial purposes without their permission – even if the company using it is as familiar a travelling companion as Facebook.

Despite its success, nobody is quite sure if Facebook is here to stay. While many profess an inability to live without it, the same people think that like all technologies, Facebook will eventually be surpassed. It's the latest in a long line of social networks, starting from Friendster and, most recently, MySpace. Like all trends, the 'cool kids' will move on to the next big thing, and the masses will follow. Such is the fickle, transient nature that something deemed indispensible this year may well be old hat next. Just like the bar that was impossible to get into last summer and is not quite in vogue this year.

It’s as if our life cycles just got accelerated.

Maybe Facebook is just another indicator that being Maltese simply means being part of a global goldfish bowl. We use social networks like everyone else does. We will always run in herds to the next best thing, a time-poor, utility generation. Or maybe we’ve run to Facebook because the ‘cosy’ Maltese parochial life is long gone, as we spend more time in front of laptops, speak to fewer people in the flesh, pry over their shoulder online and gauge our social life success in terms of numbers of online friends. We long to feel connected in an age when one inevitably feels disconnected. There is a lot of talk, but much of it is mundane, and not of all of it may be true. We may be creating virtual online selves to make up for other things that we find lacking in our real lives.

Or maybe, we’re just smart, on the ball, and live full lives. Like millions of others, we are now connected, but on our own terms. The new glue for our social networks is online conversations. We’ve just become as good as anyone else in making our voice heard, assuming someone is really listening.

I suspect this conversation will keep going for a while longer.

More Facebook conversations here.

Saudade do Rio

It's been a while, since I posted anything here. Blame it on life, living, and a growing sense of what Talking Heads used to growl about. Say something once.. why say it again?

I was dragged out of hibernation by Lily, who edits Manic, a magazine for the Independent. This piece appeared there a week ago. It gave me an opportunity to get out of my current skin. And be in a place I am now linked to, that I need to go visit, again. Because it is a place that serves as a mirror to the canvas of my life.


When the rains come, I long to escape. A year ago, I succumbed to a growing sense that time was running out for doing things on impulse - and escaped to Rio for the year end.

Rio. The word alone triggers a chain of postcard clichés. That Duran Duran video. Jesus on Corcovado with his arms sweeping over Sugar Loaf mountain. Carnaval. The land of samba, the tanga, verde e amarelo, beautiful football, beautiful people and all night parties. Then the other Rio... the dark underbelly of violent crime, drug culture, corrupt police, Central Station and City of God.

Everything about Rio is a contradiction. It’s all black or white. You will either love it or run away fast, murmured the Sicilian seated next to me, as the Varig flight touched down at Tom Jobim Airport. He was in Rio for his 15th visit.

Rio is a full frontal assault to the senses. You wake up suddenly to the sound of bird song or a street vendor selling water melons. You leave an Alexander Calder exhibition downtown, walk round one block and find a cow tied to some railings. Everything is cheek by jowl. The ocean and the sand and the great curves of the beaches with the elegant high-rise hotels and apartments. And glued, on the hills, at the edge of the forest, in full view of the privileged, is the scar of the favelas.

You have to quickly get into the swing of things. Especially, if like me, you only have 14 days to burn. I was told to leave my watch and credit card at home and to dress ‘poor’. We’re lucky – we tan quickly and blend in.

But we’re not Cariocas. To understand them, you have to first understand something about their music. And then, start tuning to the rhythm of their conversations. And finally, you will notice the way they hold themselves, the way they walk. And how they dance.

Music is ageless. I watched the legendary Caetano Veloso play under a yellow moon in a cauldron called the Circo Voador. At times he was pure nectar, sometimes his backing band made Nine Inch Nails seem tame. At Trapiche Gamboa, kids aged 15 to 70 sang and danced the night away to the uplifting samba of Galo Canto’ and several litres of Chopp. The next morning, Alexandre, dentist cum samba connoisseur, turned up with a boxful of CDs because I’d said I really wanted to get into mu’sica brasileira.

Rhythm is everywhere. Someone is always tapping away on a table, waiting for a coffee, humming a tune. Women have hips, and use them to killer effect during a samba. In Laranjeiras, every Saturday afternoon, musicians meet up in the little square and play for hours, in return for a drink, or two.

Sometimes, things get weird. An impromptu trip to an exhibition of graffiti art led us past the market and the saffron shops and men in string vests and the black mamacita smoking a big joint in an alley. That was when I realised the exhibition venue was the Hotel Nicacio, and that ‘Sex Art’ was a project by local artists to paint the walls of a thriving brothel.

You need to watch your back. Car journeys are planned to reduce the number of potential red light stops, and the risk of car-jackings. One Sunday, en route to the amazing La Plancha, a kid not older than 7 ran in front of our car as we cruised to a red light stop in broad daylight. He took one look at us and raised his t-shirt over his head for a second. Then he juggled three red balls high above his head. Leo lowered the window a hairline crack and handed two reais to the kid, who flashed a white grin and scampered to the side as the lights turned green. “What was that all about?” I said. “That’s to show us he didn’t have a gun,” said Brunno, as another Tom Jobim number purred. It was only later that Leo told me his mother’s Toyota was bullet-proof.

Eating and drinking is great value. Think fruit, juice, fish, rice and beans, finger food, real Brazilian coffee. Nothing quenches your thirst quite like agua de coco. Or a Guarana’. Or a cachaca. Or a chopp.

Rio is a beautiful, colourful mess, with Cariocas as its glue. Skimpy lycra bikins and havaianas jostle for space with nail parlours and cosmetic surgeons. Hedonism is institutionalised - on every beach, on every paved sidewalk. From Copacabana to Ipanema to Barra. On an apartment on the 21st floor, you look over Lagoa, and wonder if you are in a dream. Because even favelas twinkle in the dark.

Sometimes, when I am stuck in a jam, I close my eyes and succumb to a saudade for Rio. A longing for what is now gone, but which might return in a distant future.

Pencil in 2014, when the beautiful game goes to Brazil.

Go to Rio.

Before you lose the urge to do things on impulse.


My top 10 things to do in Rio

Before you get to Rio: befriend a local. Find someone on Facebook. That way you stay safe, don’t get hassled by street vendors and live like a carioca.

1. Get a snapshot with your own Personal Jesus at Corcovado. Pinch yourself when you do your slow 360 degrees.

2. Settle down for the evening at the Academia da Cachaça in Leblon. Try the cachaça with honey. And then the 30 other variants. Try the feijoada. Watch the laughter.

3. Go body watching on a beach. The best beaches are further away. The best bodies tend to stay central.

4. Cross the bridge to Niteroi. Feast your eyes on Niemeyer’s MAC, the most beautiful museum on the planet. Drive to the top of the mountain and face the city across the bay. Be brave, tag on to a hang-glider buddy and jump over the edge.

5. Watch the posers and rollerbladers at Avenida Atlantica on a Sunday. Follow up with a detox breakfast of juice and pancakes at Ipanema. Or head straight to Boteco Belmonte in Flamengo for pasteis and empadas.

6. Take the rattling trolley at Santa Teresa. Have lunch at Sobrenatural. Go back in the evening for some ice-cold Chopp at Bar do Gomez. Hug strangers.

7. Roam downtown. Buy saffron in the market. Find some peace in the Royal Portuguese Reading Cabinet. Peek into the Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil. Sip tea in the elegant Colombo café.

8. Hire a car and in two hours you are in Buzios on the Costa do Sol. Stay at the Pousada dos Gravata’s in Geriba’. Open the door to your room, and you’re on a sandy beach.

9. Go and dance with the multitudes at Trapiche Gamboa. Watch a samba school rehearse. Do your funky chicken.

10. Spend your last night watching the sunset at Ipanema. Make a wish. Life is beautiful.

Why Rufus is good for your soul

The Old Vic is not normally the venue for an eight-piece band and four nights of sell out concerts – you only have to look up at the gods and the massive crystal chandelier and wonder whether the insurance applies to a wall of sound. But there is nothing normal about Rufus Wainwright (or ROOOOOFUUUUUUS) as the burly guys in the boxes insisted on screaming.

You have to experience a Rufus concert to understand how sublime, funny, outrageous, clever, unique an artist this man is. Gifted with a voice to make any mortal’s heart shiver, Wainwright’s music is a mix of jazz, pomp, ballad, soul, rock, blues. He is also the campest, funniest of performers. Someone who is in your face, takes incredible risks with the patter patter and the heavy breathing down the microphone and then dives into a sublime piano solo.

Five minutes into the show, Rufus gets up from his piano stool and grimaces. ‘Gee, I have sweat running down my buttocks’ he frowns, patting his striped posterior. ‘At least, it feels like sweat. I hope it is.’ The gays in the stalls whistled, everyone else hooted. This was a bastion of regal English theatre, for heaven's sake! 'Let's do some rock and roll. At the Old Vic... just don't break anything'. He does a costume change after six songs, and comes back in lederhosen. As everyone shrieks he shakes his head and says 'I know. Just before they ran off to the mountains. Oh, by the way.. it definitely WAS just sweat.'

No, Rufus is not Liberace for the 21st century. He does hover dangerously close to pastiche, sometimes. But there's always the music and the complex orchestration and that voice. Rufus at the Old Vic is one of those rare moments, when you watch an artist realising that the peak they aspire to is just there, within their reach. And Rufus reached out. Cappella singing without a microphone. On-stage cross-dressing to emerge as Judy Garland crooning a foggy day in London town. Laughter, pathos, fun, wickedness rolled into one.

Anything I write will sound like a pastiche. You cannot write about or picture where music can take you to. I just know that last Friday, for two hours plus, I was transported to a place where nothing else matters.

Mumbling

I don't quite know where I'm heading to.

So here's a list of where I've been.

1. On Wednesday night, I joined about 600 others at the AC Milan club to watch my team triumph (probably undeservedly, on the night) over the old nemesis of Istambul. Several highlights - the obvious one, watching Inzaghi's second goal crawl over the goal line and ending up with my neighbour's arm pit in my face. The best one was probably Gejtu the Club's secretary's announcement before the game: sic 'Friends! WHEN we score.. for fuck's sake... make sure you don't throw bottles at the screens! We rented them this time and they cost us a bomb!'

2. I'm setting up a startup called Muovo. Startups are normally the fodder of young guys in a garage in Silicon Valley or Tel Aviv, no? No, they're not. So the rollercoaster of creating something out of nothing has started. I've done this before. I've made a lot of money for other people. This time, it's me and two other illuminated souls. If we fail, we will do it gloriously, no doubt.

3. My ISP has been losing emails for the past two weeks. I finally lost my sense of diplomacy and sent a rude email to the technical director. He received it nearly 20 hours after I sent it.

4. Yesterday, at 17.14, a tiny sparrow, not more than a couple of weeks old, flapped against the window of my room. I stopped, blinked. Then a paw came out of nowhere and the sparrow screamed. And I charged out to see Smudge the cat, aged 10, run off with the bird in its mouth. By the time we had prised its jaw open, the bird was a goner. Seriously upset. Smudge looked smug for an entire hour.

5. Darren munched some pastizzi with me at Cafe Cordina and told me about BarCamps. Wicked ideas spinning in our heads.

6. I spent the best part of three days driving around Malta with a key associate for Muovo - a Bulgarian man who had never visited the island and confessed to liking Geneva. George liked Malta. A lot. I hadn't been to Mdina at night, for a while. The place just looks lovely. Palazzo Falzon is stunning, the lighting is subtle, and you still get a view from Fontanella. We've finally got a city we can be proud of.

7. I started one of those 'take a picture of yourself for 365 days and watch yourself age' projects. Mercifully, my memory card screwed up and wiped out an entire week's supply of mug shots. Project canned.

8. I washed my car, after a couple of months. Now I can see all the bumps and scratches.

9. Liz wants to build a room over our bedroom to 'improve the quality of our family life' and 'increase the value of our property'. No, there is no ulterior agenda.

10. Jacob has taken to calling himself 'Is-sur Jacob'. Primarily to irritate his mother, who cannot speak Maltese, I suspect. Then again, neither can he. Still, a near five year-old who aspires to becoming a chef might have a better game plan than a 45 year-old in a start-up.

Next week, I'm off to London to watch Zoot Woman, Rufus Wainwright and Cheek by Jowl's new production of Cymbeline. And to lose myself in crowds, think of new things, recharge the old grey cells, look up an old friend. And try and find some more answers.

Walking the plank

Things are quite finely poised, right now. Between what was and what may be. Between 45 and wrinkles and 46 and more wrinkles. One moment I can see the church spire in Siggiewi, the next a developer buys the two-room house next door and tries to turn the village core into penthouse heaven. Two days ago I had my voice, today I cannot croak two words without diving for the Kleenex.

Isn't this the time when people my age do a 360 degrees, and take up fish farming or shave their head or get an inky tattoo or enrol as a trappist monk or pick up a Harley and head towards the Mojave Desert?

Mercifully , the play has faded fast. Some people loved it and emailed and texted to say so..., some confessed to 'just not getting it' and others hated it with a passion. Which was kind of amusing. Because we always knew it would be like that. Or maybe we were just crap.

Whatever it was, it's all over and as the lawyer turned reviewer suggested.. 'the actors have gone back to their day jobs'.

Well, some did.

I'm up for new things now.

I'm clearing my office. I'm looking at getting involved with another start-up. At the end of the month I will go to a start up conference in London and see what's changed since the heady, pre dot-bust days.

I need to go back to networking, though I have never been terrific at that. Or branding myself.

Sometimes all I want is the company of a book and music in my ears or the chattering of my son, spinning another story in the garden, about pirates with hooks and cackles and people in trouble walking the plank.

These are strange, soul-searching times.

But I've been here before.

Life repeated

I'm doing some theatre, after an absence of two years. Yasmina's Reza's Life x 3 is a seminal piece on marriage, parenthood, ambition and disappointment - a real mid-life sliding doors of a piece. It comes at a good time for me - when I am again stopping to take stock of where I am, and where I want to go.

It's also a real challenge. It's just four of us, on stage for most of the 100 minutes or so of the performance.

We've got just over three weeks' of rehearsals to go, and then we're on for three nights at the Manoel. That's the normal deal in Malta - quick rehearsals, quick runs. I don't mind. The process is intense. It makes life that much more interesting and dangerous.

Gila

AC Milan is my drug, part of my DNA, the link to a childhood when things weren’t quite so complicated. One of my earliest memories is hanging out of my father’s Fiat 600 on a carcade to Valletta, on May 26th 1969, when Milan beat Ajax 4-1 in the old European Cup. Even then, I remember thinking – wow, this is cool.

You can divide football fans by their colours, their choruses, their propensity for spontaneous hooliganism and heavy drinking. But the one thing all football fans do have in common and in abundance is blind, irrational passion. The love for your team is in many instances better, purer and even, dare I say, more durable than the love for your woman or whoever you choose to share your life with. Football is our excuse to get away from the day to day – to a simple world of winning and losing, where the framework of life, for once, is clear. There is no chance of living in shades of grey when you are in front of a TV screen or shivering for ninety minutes on the terraces.

Most of the fun with Milan being around has been us. The Maltese. The head cases who checked themselves into the hotel for a week in the cope of sharing a croissant with Inzaghi over breakfast. The guy at the Milan Club who lost his job because he forgot to show up for work for three consecutive days. A mass of faces, digital cameras, arms and limbs in the SAS Radisson restaurant. The outstretched hands with Milan memorabilia lined up outside the hotel, waiting for the team bus, in the hope of a signature, a handshake, something to immortalise the moment. And make us bask in reflected glory.

And I’m like them. While I waited in the lobby of the SAS Golden Sands, I gibbered, grinned like a Cheshire cat, took clips on my camera as my team filed past me on their way to lunch. I texted everyone I knew. I was an embarrassment. I was a fan.

Gilardino came in with PR minder and another guy who looked familiar, and who transpired later to be Daniele Bonera, the full back. The PR guy said I had five minutes; the recorder was clicked on and Gilardino sat down for the photo shoot.

My first thought was that the guy was young enough to be my son. My second was a general sense of wonder at Italian football’s propensity to serve up pin-up boys as their icons. And my third was that I had to coax stuff out of the guy, because he was clearly well-versed in PR.

We kicked off by talking about the obvious…

On Serie A this season

It’s been a strange summer, for sure. No Juve to play against. No proper summer break. Yes, I would have gone to play for Milan if we had been demoted to Serie B, no questions asked. I am in the team that I always wanted to join, the team that is right for me. There are a lot of clichés about Milan being a family, but I cannot describe it any other way. I am very attached to these colours, to this family. When I came here, Milan wanted me at all costs. I do not forget that kind of commitment.

It’s been tough seeing Inter race away from us this season. We have no chance of catching them in the League. But wouldn’t it be great to trip them up in the Champions League?

On Winning

I have won nothing for my club yet. I know people keep talking about how a footballer can find the motivation to get better, after winning the World Cup. But I still have to deliver something for my club.

On Training in Malta

We don’t get to see much, but it seems to be a lovely island. Our routine has really been from here, to the training ground and back. I knew very little about Malta before I came. But it’s been great for us. We’re here for nearly two weeks – so it’s inevitable that close bonds are made between the players and the group gets stronger. And we’ve also had time to train hard and work on the technical and physical aspects of our game.

On the Maltese fans

Outside of Milan, I have ever seen such warmth as here – it really has been an explosion of joy around the team. Sure, when you travel, as a Milan player, you are recognised by fans all over the world - you do your bit of signing autographs. But Malta is just something else. All of us were completely bowled over by the reception when we arrived at the airport. And the level of support, of good humour, has remained the same, day after day. The Maltese have been great, polite, and good-natured – it really has been fantastic to be made to feel at home like this.

On life in the fast lane

From 12 years old you are aware that your future is likely to be different from that of other kids. By the time you are 17 and if you’re as lucky as I was, already close to playing in Serie A, you are earning much more than your contemporaries in other walks of life. You’ve got to be careful that it does not mess up your head. You need to retain the same mentality, the same values you had before you got into the football world. Your family have to help sort you out, and keep your feet on the ground. I’m very lucky. My parents were there for me.

On tough opponents

I don’t mind playing against defenders who play with passion. People like Gattuso are tough, but always fair. They’re not out there to injure you, they’re trying to win the ball. True, then there are people like Poulsen, who are there to wind you up.

If you want to make it in football, you have to be tough - not just physically, but mentally.

On Mind Games

When things go wrong, when you cannot score, or you’re injured, you have to get back to doing the simple things well. You train hard. You need the affection of people who you know really care for you – your family, your team mates. You look for your inner calm. You have to dig in and cultivate that element of self-belief to take you through the bad times. I went through a barren spell earlier this season. All attackers do, at some stage in their career. I never gave up, thinking I could get out of the tunnel.

No matter what anyone else tells you, you have to regroup, and keep working hard. 50% of a great player is the head.

On the Violin

People keep on asking me what happened to that one… getting down on a knee and pretending to play a violin after a goal. It is something I started at Parma and carried on with the National Team – I think the last time was the goal against the USA in Germany. I really have no idea why I have never celebrated a Milan goal in that way. Maybe I’m waiting for that special goal at San Siro. San Siro’s a pretty special place.

On Music

I can listen to most stuff. Especially on the team bus. Oasis, U2, Ramazzotti. But for true music talent, you’d have to listen to Seedorf, because he’s a great singer.

On Food

I’m a traditionalist. Give me pasta, give me anything Italian.

On Holidays

My best holiday is the one I still have to take. I want to drive across the US, coast to coast, with my girlfriend. Something I always dreamt of.

On Childhood

If you are a successful footballer, it is inevitable that you lose a bit of your childhood. I left Biella when I was still a kid. So, yes, you do grow up in a strange world, very much apart from other kids. That’s the price you pay.

On being recognised

Milan is a very liveable city, even if it is a metropolis. People leave you on your own, whether you go to a restaurant or go to a club. They are used to having stars around there.

On being a role model

If you want role models, look at Maldini, Gattuso, Pirlo. Football is full of senators. It is still a bit too early for my generation – me and Kaka – to be the flag bearers for this club.

I am not quite the Milan flag, right now… more like just the stick (Non mi sento una bandiera… forse a questo momento sono soltanto l’asta). But we’ll get there.

On life after football

Give me some time to think about that one! I’m 24. Honestly, it’s too early to say. I always wanted to be a footballer. I am living my dream.


At the end of the interview, we realised that the minder had drifted out of the room, and was admiring Golden Bay from the terrace outside. Gilardino patiently signed a memento for my father ‘A William,’ he mouthed, and then disappeared to promptly return with a digital camera.

“Hey”, he grinned, as he snapped away, “I might be back here on holiday, after all. MY girlfriend would love this room. How long does it take to get here by boat?”

I launched into the virtues of Virtu’ Ferries’ 90 minute crossing from Pozzallo before I realised that a multi-millionaire was likely to come over in some other more comfortable form of transport. I swear, he just kept nodding as I reeled off timetables and weather forecasts.

Gila’s a good guy. Even my mother would have liked him. She always had a soft spot for a well brought-up, pin-up boy.