How they hid the red flag in Pisticci in 1923, and how it was betrayed

Some people may think it cheeky of the author to compare Lucy Mair— who has mat sort of position in British social anthropology—to Michele D'Alessandro, known as Pischiniull,—who has that sort of position in the south Italian town called Pisticci. There is a view of Mediterranean or Latin politics which sees them to be largely instrumental, governed by actors' perceptions of their profit. The language spoken by Pisticcesi in 1965 was a mixture of dialect, 'bad' Italian and 'good' Italian, and the author have tried to reproduce it faithfully—aided, the author must acknowledge, by Mrs Ripalta Colclough. In some cases these 'misuses' exhibit serendipitous creativity of the kind which makes popular language a continuing delight. In the sonnets of G. G. Belli the transition of a word from formal educated language into a popular speech creates a dimension of ironic resonance which is there the mainspring of conscious poetic creation.