The bullet finds Briatore
My friend Zachary Oluoch got engaged to his Italian girlfriend a couple of years ago. Ochieng’s fiancé, Isabella, was from the town of Ravenna in the wealthy Emilia-Romagna region of northern Italy. Having never been to Italy, Ochieng was unaware that to an Italian, where one comes from matters a great deal. The differences between the north and the south are staggeringly stark. The southern part of the country is, to put it mildly, another country all together. The variation is complicated but the best way to summarise it would be to say north, rich and posh; south, poor and grubby. It is the reason there is a forthright political party, the Northern League, that advocates secession of the north.
The bit about the southern part of Italy which fascinates me the most will not be surprising to a keen reader of this blog: it is the home of the Mafia, the Calabria and all the other gangsters. That is where you find the shady, dangerous fellows you do not want to mess with.
As his relationship progressed steadily, Oluoch decided to take his fiancé on a Kenyan holiday with a difference. After taking in the joys of Mount Kenya, Tsavo and the Masai Mara, Oluoch included a surprise trip to the coastal town of Malindi. The couple arrived in Malindi at night, tired from a day’s safari and went straight to bed at the End Roc Hotel. When they awoke the next morning, Oluoch announced his surprise to his fiancé. “Today, my darling,” he said, “I am going to show you a home away from home. I will take you into Malindi town and you will see that far from being a Kenyan town it is Italian. You will see people from your country, eat food from your country and even walk in the streets licking Italian ice cream.”
Oluoch was perplexed when, after no more than a half hour’s stroll through Malindi town, Isabella fell into a mood and refused to speak to him for three days. When she eventually spoke on the flight back to London she, in a way only a highly strung woman can, put Oluoch firmly in his place. “Do not ever dare to presume that I have anything whatsoever in common with those people calling themselves Italian in Malindi,” she said. The subject was thenceforth closed forever and a day.
Flavio Briatore, the Svengali of Formula One, is not from the south of Italy. He, however, has spent, sufficient time with the denizens of the region to have acquired enough of their ways to get by in the world. Why, he even owns an island off the coast of Malindi where he has been known to entertain supermodels like Heidi Klum and Naomi Campbell. The influence Briatore has wielded over the sport has been legendary. There is no better talent scout than Briatore – after all it is he who discovered two of F1’s most outstanding drivers, Michael Schumacher and Fernando Alonso.
But, as any Mafioso will tell you for nothing, influence comes at a heavy price. Each success adds an enemy or two to a waiting gang of thugs hell-bent on destroying you. Remember, even the Godfather, Don Vito Corleone, was gunned down in the street by rival gangsters. If you engineer the embarrassing filming of the FIA president as he indulges in le vice Anglais or sack the son of a Brazilian household name, you must be aware that at some corner on some day a bullet will be waiting for you.
Well, Flav will have lots of time to spend in Malindi with his shady friends now. For 16 September 2009 is the day he will remember for the rest of his life as the day when the bullet found him.
See below:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/formula_1/article6836809.ece
Gitau
16 September 2009
The bit about the southern part of Italy which fascinates me the most will not be surprising to a keen reader of this blog: it is the home of the Mafia, the Calabria and all the other gangsters. That is where you find the shady, dangerous fellows you do not want to mess with.
As his relationship progressed steadily, Oluoch decided to take his fiancé on a Kenyan holiday with a difference. After taking in the joys of Mount Kenya, Tsavo and the Masai Mara, Oluoch included a surprise trip to the coastal town of Malindi. The couple arrived in Malindi at night, tired from a day’s safari and went straight to bed at the End Roc Hotel. When they awoke the next morning, Oluoch announced his surprise to his fiancé. “Today, my darling,” he said, “I am going to show you a home away from home. I will take you into Malindi town and you will see that far from being a Kenyan town it is Italian. You will see people from your country, eat food from your country and even walk in the streets licking Italian ice cream.”
Oluoch was perplexed when, after no more than a half hour’s stroll through Malindi town, Isabella fell into a mood and refused to speak to him for three days. When she eventually spoke on the flight back to London she, in a way only a highly strung woman can, put Oluoch firmly in his place. “Do not ever dare to presume that I have anything whatsoever in common with those people calling themselves Italian in Malindi,” she said. The subject was thenceforth closed forever and a day.
Flavio Briatore, the Svengali of Formula One, is not from the south of Italy. He, however, has spent, sufficient time with the denizens of the region to have acquired enough of their ways to get by in the world. Why, he even owns an island off the coast of Malindi where he has been known to entertain supermodels like Heidi Klum and Naomi Campbell. The influence Briatore has wielded over the sport has been legendary. There is no better talent scout than Briatore – after all it is he who discovered two of F1’s most outstanding drivers, Michael Schumacher and Fernando Alonso.
But, as any Mafioso will tell you for nothing, influence comes at a heavy price. Each success adds an enemy or two to a waiting gang of thugs hell-bent on destroying you. Remember, even the Godfather, Don Vito Corleone, was gunned down in the street by rival gangsters. If you engineer the embarrassing filming of the FIA president as he indulges in le vice Anglais or sack the son of a Brazilian household name, you must be aware that at some corner on some day a bullet will be waiting for you.
Well, Flav will have lots of time to spend in Malindi with his shady friends now. For 16 September 2009 is the day he will remember for the rest of his life as the day when the bullet found him.
See below:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/formula_1/article6836809.ece
Gitau
16 September 2009
posted by Gitau at 4:40 pm
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