Mamma mia! According to my tape recorder, just six minutes and 52 seconds have elapsed since I met the tenor Andrea Bocelli and he has just announced that he “haf a beeg reeespect for sex.” A big respect for sex? “Yes, a beeg reeespect for sex.”
There are several of us in this New York hotel room, but I appear to be the only one with a blush rising from their neck, and I soon realise that this is because I am the only one who is not from Italy. Of course Bocelli haf a beeg reeespect for sex. He is Italian, the most famous Italian after Silvio Berlusconi now I come to think about it – a section of the Adriatic coast is named after him – and, much like the Italian prime minister, Bocelli’s voice seems to make women’s clothes fall off, as witnessed the night before when he performed to a packed Central Park.
