Slashed Seat Affair - Bubbo Natale the Sexy Befana

Firstly we’d like to start by wishing you all a Happy New Year. Hope whatever you did was fantastic and that 2009 brings you all you hope for.

We started 2009 with a trip to Milan. Posh, I know! Actually it was about an hour outside Milan in a place called Domodossola which is in the Mountains quite near the Swiss border. Obviously once we arrived it was cold, very cold. Prior to our visit there had been freezing fog and snow and predictions of temperatures reaching the sweltering heights of –2. Hmmmm.

However, once in our car, driven by the co-promoter Carlos we were greeted with the wonderful sight of sunshine. This provided us with some quite stunning views as we drove towards the Alps. Mountains and sunshine go together like Bert & Ernie, like credit and crunch.

Once checked into to our hotel rooms, we were free to wander around the lovely town at our leisure. It’s very quaint but what sets it aside is the fact that it is surrounded by mountains giving it an almost surreal quality which also makes you acutely aware of how big things are and how insignificant we all are, you know, the kind of bullshit conversation normally reserved for when you’re off your titties…etc, etc.

A few short drinks later, followed by some more – well we were on holiday, sort of – and a little time to scrub up, we went to the theatre for our soundcheck. The theatre was a 650 seat venue, Very tidy, very modern with a great sound system. After some initial sound problems were ironed out we all felt well pleased and well set for the show ahead.

Dinner in a local restaurant, with some vino of course – both rossa and bianchi – and we were ready for the show. Stopping on route to meet some proper nutty Italians who promised to come to the show was the only interruption to a meticulous itinerary.

It’s at this time we met a couple of very special people. Fabio, a club DJ and his girlfriend Alice, who said they would come to the gig. Very occasionally you meet some people with whom you feel you connect with immediately, Fabio and Alice were everything you hope when you meet people.

The gig was longer than our normal set and we were joined on stage for our last song by one of the mad firm we had met outside who had decided he wanted to join in. Fine by us!! The more audience participation the better as far as we’re concerned.

Post-gig, we hung out in one of the local bars for …er, more booze and some hospitality Italiano stylie! It had been a long day and although we were all tired, we were also buzzy. The fresh mountain air made us heady rather than drunk. Or perhaps it was the sub-zero temperatures.

Saturday was a free day. Domodossola has a market on a Saturday that stretches across a few of the sidestreets and is the kind of place you dream of if you’ve got no socks as every other stall seems to sell them!! It was really sweet and the friendliness of the locals was refreshing. Maybe it’s years of London that makes this a pleasant change.

Noel took the opportunity to sleep all day, the lazy fecker – although it may have something to do with the fact that I kept him up all night telling him I couldn’t sleep!!!, Rob went into Milan proper for some sight seeing. Ellie and I went strolling through Domodossola and noticed that everywhere we went were posters fro something called “Sexy Befana”. Apparently Befana means witch and Italian folklore states that the “Befana” gives gifts to kids in the same way Father Christmas, or Bubbo Natala as they say in these parts, do. Nice way to scare kids senseless I say –“off you go Giacomo and get your present off the witch”!! Wtf?! Anyway Sexy Befana was some kind of night in a titty bar.

We bumped into Fabio and Alice in a cool bar and convinced Fabio to join us for dinner. He was reluctant at first due to his broken English but we convinced him that with our broken Italian, we’d be fine. Alice was having a family dinner so would join us later. Fabio took us to a wonderful local restaurant where great food, great wine, fantastic chilli oil (!) and wonderful company ensured we had a night to remember. As payback, Fabio took us to a bar where he promised us drinks all night! The bar manager would just pull out bottles of shots and line them up for us. We had a long night ahead as we were being picked up at 2.30am for our return trip to Bergamo airport where our flight was departing from at 6.45am!!

It was an amazing trip and we made some genuine new friends and welcomed them into the SSA family.

Happy new year you old Sexy Befana’s you!

xxx