IF you had just woken up around here from a sleep of the Rip Van Winkle variety, you would have little difficult identifying the time of year. The daisies are out on the lawn, the grass at the side of the road has grown so much that the council workers have already been out mowing it, while the mimosa, the winter jasmine and the narcissi have all long since bloomed and are now on the way out. In short, spring has sprung and Lazio never seemed further from Leitrim.
If our Rip Van Winkle is not a nature lover and is still baffled as to the time of year, then a quick bout of eavesdropping at the nearest bar would probably resolve the issue for him. This is a week when he is likely to hear the words San Remo pass the lips of many Italians, and if our Rip Van Winkle knows his Italy, then he will know for certain that he has woken up in February.
The San Remo Song Contest is as regular an indicator of imminent springtime as the daisies on the lawn. San Remo is a handsome Italian Riviera town. An abundant sunshine makes it Italy's principal flower producer. All manner of flowers are out in San Remo long before anywhere else.
For most of the year, San Remo is best known for its flowers and for its gambling casino. For one day in the year, it becomes the hub of the professional road cycling circuit when it hosts a one day classic, the Milano San Remo, which incidentally was twice won by our own, great Sean Kelly.
Yet most Italians, San Remo means none of these things. "San Remo" means the Song Contest, a six day televised marathon which last year attracted a total television audience of 84 million and which this year has cost the Italian state broadcaster RAI a staggering £2.8 million to stage. On Monday night, more than 10 million Italians tuned in to watch the festival's "dress rehearsal" prior to last night's official opening.
Eight hundred accredited journalists are on hand for an event" which receives prominent treat in every radio and television news bulletin this week.
The significance of San Remo is, not based on commercial considerations, even though it generates some £6 million worth of sales for "Italy's music industry. Nor is it, importance explained by the tact that the contest is also a national lottery, worth millions of pounds to those lucky enough to draw a singer with their tickets.
Nor does the presence of international stars such as the man who opened this year's festival, namely one Springsteen B, explain the hype. The inevitable cross over between fashion and show business adds to the glamour last year's winner, Giorgia, as well as Tina Turner, will both be wearing Armani this week, while RAI's two glamorous female presenters, Sabrina Ferilli and Valeria Mazza, will be in Dolce and Gabbano and Versace respectively.
All of the above represent important ingredients in the San Remo cocktail but are not in themselves enough to explain the curious hold that the competition has over the Italian mind, a hold illustrated by the fact that RAI devotes all its prime time viewing, 20.30-00.30, right through the week to the festival.
No, San Remo is a matter of the mind, of the collective Italian unconscious. Its success dates from its inception in 1951, when Italy was desperately trying to haul itself out of the havoc wreaked by Mussolini and the second World War. To chart the rise and rise of the San Remo festival is to chart the enormous post war economic and industrial progress made by Italy.
San Remo is nothing more or less than the embodiment of Italy's post war economic miracle. It is the Italian collective saying, "Haven't We Come Far". The festival may be vulgar but at the heart of its success is an unarticulated national pride which, in these times of cynical, television manipulated, political chicanery, is not unwelcome. San Remo is back, then, and spring has sprung.