Colm Tobin: Italy’s late-night ban on ice-cream would get a cool reception here

I CAN be guilty of focusing too much on the anglosphere in this column. This can be hard to resist with what’s going on to the far west and near east of us in recent years.

Trump and his stormy legal affairs, Liz Truss sinking an economy and the Tories’ reputation to manage it in a matter of months, Meghan Markle’s celebrity jam …. There’s a never-ending stream of popcorn-worthy fodder to make the eyes gape and the jaw drop.

But with the last sessions of the parliament taking place in Brussels this week and the 2024 European Parliament election set to be held on June 7th, I thought I’d veer east for a change and peruse some of the news from our friends on the continent.

Ciao to those noisy 99s!

FOR some people, the swallow is the first sign of summer. To me, it’s the sight of a happy farmer hopping into a tractor with a large 99 gripped in his paw.

The joy of ice cream seems to be having different ramifications in Italy, it seems.

While in Ireland, debates are ongoing about whether we should do away with closing hours for late pubs and nightclubs, in Milan, public order problems seem to revolve around after-hours ice cream.

It’s a city renowned for its vibrant nightlife and bustling streets that has long grappled with the challenges of excessive noise levels.

But the sale of ice cream after midnight has been identified as a major contributing factor to the noise pollution. So now they’re putting a stop to it.

No more late night gelatos! No more nocturnal cornettos for our pals who shout for gli Azzurri!

The decision has met with mixed reactions from business owners, for obvious reasons. Others have acknowledged the need for measures to address noise pollution and have pledged to comply with the ban.

Mayor Giuseppe Sala has stood firm against objections, emphasising the need for reasonable restrictions to ensure a harmonious coexistence between residents and the notorious ice cream brigade.

They should spend 10 minutes outside any Irish rural nightclub on a Saturday night. Can you imagine the shock they’d get?

Back on home turf, ice cream had a very different significance at the weekend.

Myself and my old college friends have a WhatsApp group and on Saturday a McFlurry of images of 99s started to circulate once the afternoon sun began to bake the country.

The gloves were off and the sprinkles were on, it seemed, and we were all rushing to the nearest available petrol station to get our fill.

Here, at last, after what feels like 10,000 months of winter, squalls, fog and rain belting you at multiple orientations, the summer was with us.

And then it disappears as quickly as it arrived.

Polish priests and polls

OVER in Poland, a drop-off in people identifying as Catholic has a local writer looking to Ireland to see if they can learn anything about the secular turn we’ve taken in recent decades.

Penned by Marta Abramowicz, the book is titled Irlandia wstaje z kolan, or Ireland Gets Up Off Its Knees, and according to Derek Scally reporting for The Irish Times, the writer has attracted big audiences to her 40 readings around the country.

The scandals that have befallen the church there have a different texture to what happened here. First off, the bishops there were staunch supporters of the right wing populist national-conservative Law and Justice party who deny LGBT rights, in particular same-sex marriages and any other form of legal recognition of same-sex couples.

They were recently ousted by Donald Tusk’s Civic Platform who is spearheading a centrist comeback. Then the scandals became more tawdry.

Cases include a Polish priest was sentenced to eighteen months in prison for hosting an orgy and obstructing paramedics trying to help an unconscious man who turned out to be the boyfriend of another attending priest.

In 2023, a priest stabbed a young deacon to death before taking his own life. And only this year, a local undertaker was found dead in the apartment of a local senior priest who had previous convictions for driving while under the influence of drugs.

So, it will be interesting to observe how the elections play out across Europe, particularly when the Poles go to the polls, not to mention the turn we might take here with politics feeling so fraught and unpredictable.

One thing is for sure, as the evenings get longer, there’ll be nobody stopping us from eating ice cream.

Let’s drink to that condition

MEANWHILE, in Belgium, a short hop north, a man was acquitted of drink driving on Monday because he apparently suffers from a rare condition whereby the body produces alcohol.

The condition is known as auto-brewery syndrome (ABS), which I have never heard of, but which might explain a lot about a few people I know.

In a surprise twist, however, or ‘another unfortunate coincidence’ according to his lawyer, it turns out the man actually works at a brewery as well!

It was at this point that I started to feel a little tipsy just reading about the case.

However, three doctors who independently examined the man confirmed he suffered from ABS, although it was not confirmed if they were sober at the time.

Belgian media reported that the judge emphasised in his verdict that the defendant did not experience symptoms of intoxication due to his condition and so he got off scot-free.

No wonder they can handle all those 9% beers that the monks brew up for them ….