Television Presenters

"[...] I met Fiorenzo Angelini. At the time, he was only a bishop, but already the éminence grise of Catholic healthcare, with his fingers in five hospitals in Rome, four hundred properties and eight thousand hectares of agricultural land around the capital. He was the Giulio Andreotti of the Vatican, of whom he was a close friend. I met him in Kisima or Baragoi, I don't remember exactly. Anyway, on the road -so to speak- that led to Loiyangalani, on the shores of Lake Rudolf. He emerged from the bougainvillea of a lodge wearing a shirt, a pair of khaki shorts and a camera in his hand. Imagine Alberto Sordi in Will Our Heroes Be Able to Find Their Friend Who Has Mysteriously Disappeared in Africa?. Exactly. And after introducing himself, he asked for two pieces of information: where to get a good exchange rate on the black market and whether thirty thousand lire per kilo was an acceptable price for contraband ivory. It seemed like a joke."

"During my career as a journalist, I have met too many spies to enjoy an unrealistic narrative; none of those I met looked like James Bond. Rather, I have always been fascinated by the Stasi headquarters I visited and that part of the secret archive that was destroyed. There is a black hole in our collective memory that has never been thoroughly investigated. [...] We continue to be [in the aftermath of the Cold War] up to our necks, just think of Russiagate... Or the submarine in which 14 Russian sailors recently died. It is most likely a vehicle used for special intelligence operations."

"[Purgatori replies that he wrote a spy novel for many reasons, the first being:] because, having met many spies from the East, the West and many other countries over many years of work, I also wanted to portray their human side, which is very different from what we imagine. They are women and men like us, and like us they experience emotions, feelings, joys and sorrows, and it is curious, shall we say, that they have to live them, in a way, in the shadows. Even if sometimes these feelings then undermine the carefully planned projects that are supposed to change the world order."

"I am quite obsessive about order and cleanliness at home, but I don't ask people to take their shoes off before coming in or to smoke cigarettes with their heads out of the window. I like to live in spaces and tidy them up, which is a bit like what happens every evening at the Bar. Discomfort and enthusiasm drive everything I do. The former should be understood as not feeling up to the task and always out of place, but this feeling of being a bit uncomfortable has helped me grow. As soon as I feel comfortable and a goal is easily achievable, I get bored and want to change. I still have to work on this."

"I have learned to take responsibility. When you are assigned a task, you have to complete it. That is the gratification of having done and learned something. I was top of the class in primary school, tenth in middle school, and last in high school."

"I am not obsessed with my career. I have a very long-term view of my work, and this helps me to live everything with commitment, but without anxiety. I experienced a lot of exposure as a young man and I understood the disadvantages. To improve, you have to practise; to take off, you need many hours of flight time. There is nothing healthier than study and application. I achieved important goals early on, but I love this job so much that I don't want it to wear me out."

"Growing up, sarcasm and irony helped me overcome my shyness. My dad was a dancer at the San Carlo theatre in Naples, and as a child I loved watching him perform, but I never thought of pursuing the same career. In my opinion, Naples is “the worst most beautiful city in the world”. I find magic in its contradictions. It is a unique city, where I would choose to be reborn if I could. And I love looking at it from the sea: it is poetic."

"I was born at a time when computers and video games were not widely used. I played in the street, a bit of football, and rode my bike. At home, I used a wooden strummolo, a sort of spinning top that I spun with a string and stopped with a bottle cap. When I was very young, my father took me to the beach and we had fun in the water or building sandcastles. When I got older, my grandfather taught me how to play cards. But I never managed to win a game of scopa or briscola with him. Grandfather was incredible. When we played hide and seek as children, one of us would inevitably get hurt and shout “stop the game”. And that was the end of it. I wish that today this “stop” could be used to stop the war."

"I am a slave to my enthusiasm: when I lose it, I have to find a way to rekindle it. When dance became a job and there was nothing left for me to discover, it came naturally to me to turn to television. That's how I am: if I'm uncomfortable, I enjoy myself; if I'm comfortable, I get bored. I like to learn, to apply myself to things I don't know how to do well. I would like to be able to do more things at the same time. I'm not good at multitasking, I think in silos and it's something I can't stand about myself. I am privileged, I do what I love and yes, today I am a very happy man."

"From a small boy I had wanted only to be a and to work on the land. A hurdle-maker's life seemed to me to be ideal, your materials with hand tools in the woods and then making hurdles with hypnotic skill. As a student I had seriously considered becoming a thatcher. In an ideal world I would farm as well, but I had worked on farms and seen that only those with money had any chance of owning their own land and for me, possession was a large part of the draw. The only writing that I considered was fiction. It never crossed my mind to write about gardening, even though by then I had written — and destroyed — a couple of excruciatingly bad novels, and was facing the sneaking suspicion that I might not be any good at it."

"... Two years ago, I was filming in Madrid for my BBC series on Spanish gardens and was struck by the dogs garden] at , designed by Álvaro Sampedro. Dogs had been very much a part of that design. I thought it was fun and nicely done and, when I got home to Longmeadow, my garden in , it made me think about the ways my dogs use the garden and how they react to it."

"For the Japanese especially, gardens are an essential part of their cultural identity and their history can be measured out in them. In a land of earthquakes and s, gardens are often more durable — and more easily repaired — than buildings. That is not to say that they are easy for the Western visitor to understand or appreciate. Of all the countries I have visited, Japan remains the most enigmatic, drawing you just so close but no further. The cultural divide in the garden — as in almost all other walks of life — remain huge."

"One of the things that has always moved me, and this has often been said by people who are grieving, is that the rhythm of the seasons is a huge comforter. In the bleakest , you trust that spring will come, that the blossom will appear."

"It's hard for me to talk about him (Lucio Dalla), every corner of Bologna I turn, there's a memory of him. Just think, the last thing he did was Sanremo, he didn't want to, I almost blackmailed him. And then, 15 days later, he died."

"Everyone, young and old, still sings ‘'C'era un ragazzo’' (There was a boy), they know all the words. So, I relive my life and there are moments of great emotion, I find them again."

"Having him as a father is a blessing, but at the same time it casts a long shadow that is difficult to escape. He is everywhere."

"Tognazzi always told me: Germi only made two bad films in his life: mine [‘'L'immotale’'] and yours [‘'Le castagne sono buone’']."

"When I saw the pain of the people who were there in Lourdes, even my rock bottom seemed like paradise, because when you say “I've hit rock bottom,” you don't really realize what rock bottom really is!"

"I really like Totti: he is an extraordinary player who deserved the Ballon d'Or. It's also great that he wanted to stay with Roma for his entire career: anyone who loves soccer cannot help but love Totti."

"When we played with Led Zeppelin in Milan, on that disastrous evening, I felt like I was a hundred years old, surrounded by all those shirtless young guys who saw me as a wreck."

"I like Renato Zero because he's talented, beyond all appearances, which are only superficial. Behind his slightly crazy persona are beautiful songs, which he sings well. My children are crazy about him, as all children are, and I think that's right, because Renato is ‘real’, he's ‘right’. I've known him for many years and he's always been like that."

"(With the sick in Lourdes) I felt very fragile and also stupid, full of useless vices."

"I took a tour of the city. Maybe I've already said this, but I'll say it again: Palermo is magnificent, surprising, full of art and history; it's a city unlike any other in the world."

"Mina has gone through these forty years with a soundtrack that has accompanied the changes in customs and history of our country, almost like a continuous reference, like a positive Italy that comes through music."

"Every now and then I look at my children and other young people and I feel guilty: we have destroyed the environment and ideals. And even if we try to repair the damage, it remains."

"He is the man of clean soccer, of soccer where the best player wins and not those who use other means. This is precisely why he arouses so much interest. Celentano causes quite a stir with his outbursts, a bit like Zeman. I don't know which of the two took after the other! Anyway, yes, they are two characters who can be compared, two people who stand out from the crowd, difficult to imitate and match. I'm happy to see Zeman back in Serie A, he plays good soccer: to think that a few years ago they wanted him for the Bologna bench, but then nothing came of it."

"(Speaking of Giorgio Gaber) I could have stolen his place when Mina's manager suggested I do a theater season with her. But he did that tour, and that's where he decided to devote himself to theater. I also tried my hand at theater in the early 1970s with ‘'Jacopone’', a rock opera that turned out to be a bit of a disaster. But Giorgio helped me out on that occasion too, telling me how to streamline the show. However, his shows were something else. I was amazed, noticing that he was growing more and more, becoming a true man of the theater. And watching people go crazy for him, even when he was alone on stage for two hours, was a lesson for me. Because he had clearly found the right key to success: with content, but not only that."

"I must say that there, in front of the grotto (of Lourdes), you feel something that I don't quite know how to define, something great, mysterious, indescribable."

"There were very few radio stations that played [Squallor's songs], yet they were a resounding success."

"[On the television program Non è la Rai, created with Irene Ghergo and of which he was also the director] My program isn't stupid; it's television, which, apart from a few very rare well-made programs, is completely idiotic. Except that others don't say so, and I shout it out loud."

"Throughout history, security as much as status has been an obstacle to summitry. In 1419 France was in turmoil from war with the English and a power struggle provoked by the periodic insanity of King Charles VI. On September 10 the dauphin, Charles’ son, conferred on a bridge near Rouen with their archrival, John, Duke of Burgundy. Both men were well attended by guards and a barrier had been erected in the middle, with a wicket gate bolted on either side to allow passage only by mutual consent. During the conference Duke John was persuaded to come through the gate—only to be cut down by the dauphin’s bodyguard. The dauphin, inheriting the throne as Charles VII, recovered much of France from the English. When his son, Louis XI, met the Yorkist king Edward IV at Picquigny near Amiens in 1475 to conclude a peace treaty, the fate of Duke John was much in mind. The chronicler Philippe de Commines tells how this conference was held on a bridge over the Somme. Louis insisted that across the middle of the bridge and along its sides his carpenters should build "a strong wooden lattice, such as lions’ cages are made with, the hole between each bar being no wider than to thrust in a man’s arm." The two kings somehow managed to embrace between the holes and conducted their meeting in secure cordiality."

"Although by about 1500 several strong national states had emerged in Europe, they remained greatly dependent on their monarchs. This kind of personalized power is at the heart of summitry. One of the most famous encounters took place on the so-called Field of the Cloth of Gold in June 1520, bringing together Henry VIII of England and François I of France. The young English monarch, whose titles still included "King of France," had resumed the old struggle in 1512. But his advisor Cardinal Thomas Wolsey secured a truce and then arranged a summit to consummate an enduring peace. It took place on the edge of Calais, the last English enclave in France, in a shallow dip known as the Val d’Or. Both sides of the valley were carefully reshaped to ensure that neither party enjoyed a height advantage. A special pavilion was constructed for the meeting and festivities, surrounded by thousands of tents and a three-hundred-foot-square timber castle for the rest of those attending. Henry’s entourage alone numbered more than five thousand, while the French crown needed ten years to pay off its share of the cost. [...] At the appointed hour on June 7, 1520, the Feast of Corpus Christi, the two monarchs with their retinues in full battle array appeared on the opposite sides of the valley. There was a moment of tense silence—each side feared an ambush by the other. Then the two kings spurred their horses forward to the appointed place marked by a spear in the ground and embraced. The ice was broken. They dismounted and went into the pavilion arm in arm to talk. Then began nearly two weeks of jousting, feasting and dancing that culminated in a High Mass in the open air. Choirs from England and France accompanied the mass and there was a sermon on the virtues of peace. In both choreography and cost, the Field of the Cloth of Gold resembles contemporary summits. In a further similarity, style was more important than substance: by 1521 the two countries were at war again. In many ways they were natural rivals, whereas Henry was bound—by marriage and interest—to France’s enemy Charles V, king of Spain. Both before and after the Cloth of Gold Henry met Charles for discussions of much greater diplomatic magnitude. And although Wolsey hoped the meeting of the British and French elites might build bridges, this soon proved an illusion. As the Cloth of Gold demonstrated, egos were everything in these summits, with each side alert to any hint of advantage gained summits by the other. Commines was implacably opposed to such meetings for this very reason. It was, he said, impossible "to hinder the train and equipage of the one from being finer and more magnificent than the other, which produces mockery, and nothing touches any person more sensibly than to be laughed at.""

"It became normal to have at each of the major courts a resident "ambassador"—a word defined by the English poet and diplomat Sir Henry Wotton in a punning epigram as “a man sent to lie abroad for his country’s good.” Given the time required for travel, and the hazards en route—especially in an age of dynastic and religious warfare—permanent ambassadors offered a convenient substitute for personal summitry. And their detailed reports required the attention of specialist secretaries who oversaw foreign affairs, such as Francis Walsingham in Elizabethan London or Antonio Perez at the court of Philip III. Day-to-day diplomacy tended to slip out of the hands of rulers."

"The importance of status is vividly illustrated by perhaps the most celebrated summit in German history: the meeting at Canossa in 1077 between Pope Gregory VII and Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV. In German this is known as der Canossagang, the journey to Canossa; more aptly in Italian as l’umiliazione di Canossa, for it was truly a humiliation. In the Investiture Controversy—the power struggle between pope and emperor over the right to appoint bishops—Henry had renounced Gregory as pope, only to find himself excommunicated. This papal edict not only imperilled Henry’s immortal soul, it also laid him open to revolt by the German nobility. He sought a meeting with Gregory who, fearing violence, retreated to the castle of Canossa, in safe territory south of Parma. This forced the emperor to come to him. What exactly happened is shrouded in legend, but supposedly Henry arrived in the depths of winter, barefoot and in a pilgrim’s hair shirt, only to be kept waiting by Gregory for three days. When he was finally admitted to the castle on January 28, 1077, the emperor knelt before the pope and begged forgiveness. He was absolved and the two most powerful figures in Christendom then shared the Mass. The reconciliation was short-lived. After being excommunicated a second time Henry crossed the Alps with his army and replaced Gregory with an “antipope” of his own. But the events themselves matter less than the myth that grew up around them. During the German Reformation Henry was lionized as the defender of national rights and the scourge of the Catholic pope, often being dubbed “the first Protestant.” And during Chancellor Otto von Bismarck’s struggle to rein in the Catholic church, he famously declared in the Reichstag on May 14, 1872: “We will not go to Canossa, neither in body nor in spirit.” He was voicing the new German Reich’s resolve to accept no outside interference in its affairs—political or religious. As a result Henry IV shivering outside the gates of Canossa became a familiar figure in late-nineteenth-century German art; the phrase “to go to Canossa” (nach Canossa gehen) entered the language as a synonym for craven surrender—almost the equivalent of "Munich" to the British and Americans."

"In the heyday of the Byzantine Empire its rulers tried to manage affairs from Constantinople, either bringing foreign rulers to their court or conducting negotiations by letters and by envoys who acted as the self-styled "voice of kings." In 1096 and 1097 the emperor Alexis Comnenos made a point of meeting the leaders of the First Crusade in his own palace, as did Manuel Comnenos when the Second Crusade arrived in 1147. But when Byzantium spiralled into decline in the fourteenth century, its emperors became as mobile as those of the late Roman Empire, and much less potent. Emperor Manuel II was reduced to touring the courts of Italy, France, Germany and England for help against the Ottoman Turks, handing out precious books and pieces of the supposed tunic of Christ as inducements. This was the diplomacy of desperation: Byzantium fell to the Turks in 1453, less than thirty years after Manuel’s death."

"After Westphalia brought peace to Europe, the second half of the seventeenth century saw a further spread of resident ambassadors, with Louis XIV’s France leading the way, and French replaced Latin as the lingua franca. There was, however, still scope for summitry, for instance during Peter the Great’s tour of Western Europe in 1697–8. His meetings with William III of England helped bring Russia belatedly into the European diplomatic orbit. In due course, the czar created a "Diplomatic Chancellery" and a network of foreign embassies on the European model."

"In the post-Roman West personal diplomacy was more normal, for instance when family members were vying to divide up a kingdom, as portrayed dramatically in the opening scene of Shakespeare’s King Lear. A notable example was the series of summits in Carolingian France after the death of Louis the Pious, particularly those at Verdun in 843 and Meersen in 870. The outlines of these territorial settlements were laboriously thrashed out months in advance by commissioners who surveyed the terrain and gathered data. But plenty of scope still remained for face-to-face haggling by the principals—their in-person meetings guaranteed the agreements by an exchange of oaths and sometimes of hostages. On other occasions, summits concluded carefully prepared peace agreements, as when Frederick Barbarossa and Pope Alexander III met in Venice in 1177. This conference took place on neutral territory; others, as with late Roman practice, were conducted in the borderlands. In either case, the location was chosen to ensure the status and/or security of each ruler."

"[A]t the time praise was showered on Chamberlain for brokering the deal. On his return from Locarno, he received a special welcome at Victoria Station and, in further similarity to Disraeli in 1878, was immediately made a Knight of the Garter. Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin praised him for resolving an issue that had "so far defied the efforts of every statesman since the war." One of Baldwin’s predecessors, Lord Arthur Balfour, said that Chamberlain’s name would be "indissolubly associated” with this probable "turning point in civilisation." A few months later Chamberlain was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. For a politician who had grown up in the shadow of his famous father, "Radical Joe," it was an intoxicating apotheosis. “I am astonished and a little frightened by the completeness of my success and by its immediate recognition everywhere,” Chamberlain told his sister. On October 22, 1925, he dined alone with his younger half-brother Neville, who noted in his diary that Austen "talked almost without stopping from 8 till 11.00 on Locarno. Very naturally, perhaps, the rest of the world does not exist for him...Looking back he felt that no mistake had been made from beginning to end." Neville found it hard to conceal his envy at Austen’s success. Nor, as we shall see, did he forget it."

"Unlike the French government, Britain had no formal obligations to Czechoslovakia. A cardinal axiom of British foreign policy was not to get entangled in France’s alliance system in Eastern Europe, designed to threaten a resurgent Germany with war on two fronts. However, the French coalition government led by Édouard Daladier was itself bitterly split over Czechoslovakia, with one group willing to honor France’s obligations, another favoring peace at almost any price, and Daladier shifting uneasily between them. At root, a weakened and divided France would not go to war without Britain: for much of the Czech crisis, Paris therefore followed London—its "English governess," in the words of one historian. And London, in essence, meant Neville Chamberlain, aged sixty-eight, who had succeeded Stanley Baldwin as prime minister in May 1937."

"The origins of diplomacy date back at least to the Bronze Age in the Near East. Caches of documents from the Euphrates kingdom in the mid–eighteenth century BC and from Akhenaten’s Egypt four centuries later reveal a regular exchange of envoys with neighboring states, prompted by the need for trade and the danger of war. This was hardly a fully fledged diplomatic "system." Envoys were not resident ambassadors and they were not protected by agreed rules of immunity—but it was a recognizable form of diplomacy."

"By exploring different cultures, we not only enrich our own lives but also foster a deeper understanding of the global community."

"Travel, for me, is about expanding my horizons and connecting with different cultures on a deeper level. Every destination offers a unique lens through which I learn more about the world"

"What really stands out is how Dubai celebrates its diversity, blending tradition and modernity in a way that mirrors our own cultural tapestry. There’s a lot we can learn from how the city embraces and showcases its rich heritage alongside its modern influences."

"...you can’t visit Dubai without starting at the Burj Khalifa—the views from the top are simply breathtaking. But beyond the skyscrapers, I’d recommend exploring the Al Fahidi Historical Neighbourhood to really get a sense of Dubai’s cultural roots."

"It’s about stepping beyond your comfort zone and discovering how much more there is out there."

"I write from scripture, I sing scripture, whatever scripture that the Holy Spirit drops in my heart that feels relevant at the time. That's how I write and that's how we wrote almost all the songs in the album"

"I believe if He did it for you, He will do it for me. But more than anything, it's a declaration of His unchanging love. This is my thank you to God for every season — every pain, every joy. I'm grateful. This album is that gratitude in song."

"I'll do it for love. I have done a lot of gigs for free. But I need to survive, I have dependents and I have a family. We don’t do it for money. If money doesn’t come, you will suffer. But if you do it for love and make someone smile,"

"God always has a way to reward you and that’s how I live. And if everything I did was for money, I wouldn’t be here today doing this interview because you would have to pay me."

"I listen to Whitney Houston, Ntokozo Mbambo and Tasha Cobbs. If you listen to their ranges, they are very high. I practice with them. I love their music, I love their voice"