In this episode of Nostro Uomo in Italia...
...I address politics...
Viva l'Italia! Viva l'Italia!
So, prawns and nationalism.
You don't get that at home, do you?
...identity...
So that means I'm Idris Elba.
- That's quite cool. - Yes.
...and truth.
Like a lot of things
in subatomic physics,
you'll have to just take our word for it.
Epic.
Ah, look, that's la Mia Panda,
driving along a road.
I wonder where it leads.
Well, as you can probably tell, viewers, the sun
is beginning to set. I'm well on my way towards
Rome.
This person is
- Guia. Buon giorno. - Buon giorno.
And, uh, she's agreed to be my guide
for this episode.
- Grazia. - Grazie te, James.
Yes, viewers, we're off to Italy's capital,
which, if we're going to stick with the old boot analogy,
can be found around your kneecap,
assuming you like boots that go up to your gluteus maximus.
Is being Roman
different from being any other type of Italian?
We think we are represent the whole Italy.
The Roman way is the best way to be Italian, you know?
The reason, uh, Guia is driving
is because she insisted that,
as I'm not a Roman, and I don't...
...understand the rules of driving in Rome,
it was better if she did it.
Our view at home in Britain is that driving in Rome
- is mad. - Mm-hmm.
Uh, it's very furious.
There are thousands of old Cinquecenti...
...dodging around.
I want to drive you there,
and then I will... I want you to drive there.
You want me to take over when we're in Rome?
- Yeah. - Okay.
I want you to... you know...
- And then you can critique. - Yeah.
Yes.
- Gosh, it's a bit like a driving lesson. - Mm.
I am ready.
Oh, la, la. Perfect.
- Grazie. - Prego.
Now, the first rule of driving in Rome
is that your rules are wrong.
All right, here we go.
Avanti, as Caesar said.
Whoa! Wow, wow.
Revolutione maximus.
Ah, you like it.
I've got it.
I can't let him go.
- Ooh, la, la. Oh, no, no. - Aw...
- James. - Ah, I'm gonna
go on the pavement a bit to avoid
that one. There you go.
My Roman driving examiner is relaxed,
a good sign.
Sì, sì.
- Oh e oh e... - Sì. Uh...
Oh...
- No, arancione, you... - Yes.
Remember, if in doubt...
- Mm... - Oh, that's a useful one.
- I could've, I could've gone... - ...use hand signals.
You're making me unhappy.
- Oh, la, la. - Oh.
The scooter riders are all a little bit...
- Ooh-hoo. - Yeah.
Ooh-hoo. Ooh-hoo.
But not as bad as...
No. Like... Ooh-hoo.
- Ooh! - Is that bad?
It's good, actually.
Bravo. You made it.
Do you think I've passed my Roman driving test?
- I think so, James. - Grazie.
- Good job. - I'm not gonna do it again.
While ancient Rome was all about
architecture, culture,
eating, drinking, and being Roman,
modern Rome is completely the same.
Questa sera,
Guia is taking me out for supper
in a very fashionable part of Rome
and to what is apparently
an extremely popular restaurant.
- Bellissimo. - Bellissimo.
Bellissimo.
What is the name of this quarter?
- Estra Trastevere. - Welcome, hurry up
and don't break our *, c'mon get on with it.
- This is, uh... - Bit rough.
Mm... You think?
Sì.
And to eat?
- You... decide yet? - Well, I haven't decided yet.
We don't know yet.
I haven't got all day.
- Sorry? - Hurry up!
Sorry, I didn't quite catch that.
Hurry up!
I'm finding the waiter's Italian
rather hard to follow, but perhaps
it's because I haven't mastered the nuances
of the Roman dialect yet.
He's a bit impatient, isn't he?
What?
Is the Bucatini good?
What the * do you want!
He said, "Cazzo." You know what it means?
Cazzo? That's a type of Japanese food.
No, cazzo is-is a *.
"What the * do you want?"
That's not even English.
What do you respond in Italian?
- Perfect. - We've come out for supper.
I haven't come out looking for a fight. Okay.
- Salute. - Salute.
Mm.
Maybe not, uh, the best.
- It's a bit warm. - Mm.
Okay. Scusi,
senor, scusi.
I'm British.
I don't like to complain, but I'm also paying
for dinner, and this is just
non é good enough.
- Oh, hello. - Scusi.
Hey, you done eating?
You've taken forever and I need the table.
The wine is not cold.
You don't understand shit.
He doesn't understand a thing.
I speak it for you.
* off.
Do you understand?
"Vaffanculo" means "* off."
Oh, fantastico.
- Fantastico. - No.
If you don't want to know what I attempt to say to the waiter next,
please look away now.
You have the face of a boot.
Di uno stivale?
- Boot. - What the *?
- It's an English insult. - I know. No, no, no, sir.
Tradizionale Roman insulte.
I don't understand a thing he says.
It's not traditional in Rome. It's this place, I think.
People flock here because we tell them to * off.
Ah. No, hang on.
This is a rude restaurant.
- Yeah. - Ah!
- Oh! - Yeah.
They insult you
the minute you are sit.
- Sorry, James. - I was fooled.
I was astonished that anybody
would be that rude. Anyway...
The wine is not cold.
- Non è freddo. - That's not for drinking,
it's for washing your arse.
I'm not interested in shoving it up your arse.
I'd just like it to be lower temperature.
- You know... - Wash your *.
Thank you, it tasted like I imagine my anus does.
Please give us five stars on TripAdvisor.
Yeah, sì. Ciao.
Ciao.
- Salute. Salute. - Salute.
I just wanted to talk to you a bit
about rude restaurant, which was quite good fun.
But ultimately, the problem is
if you don't speak the language properly,
then it's slightly confusing.
But I have to say I did learn a lot of new words,
most of which didn't appear on your screens, I'm afraid.
And I do at least now know what that newsagent in Naples
was saying to me.
I forgive Guia for trying
to make me look like a cazzo on my first night
and agree to meet again
the next day.
Now, when I signed up to explore Italy,
I thought it would be shades and linen shirts all the way,
not this damp Manchester tribute act.
But I lend Guia
a boring British green anorak,
and we press on to see the sights.
Fantastic. So that's
- where the pope lives. - Yeah.
- Perfect. - And...
this is Piazza some...
It's not "Pinocchio," but it's a word
- a bit like it. Pincio. - Pincio. Pincio.
You know, this, uh, terrazza is famous because
every Roman comes here to-to kiss it.
Kiss them. Kiss each other.
Beware.
You have to wait for someone,
- maybe. - Oh.
We've edited out how long I waited
for nobody to show up.
Anyway, our first stop, a must-see for gods-botherers
and pan fans alike, the Pantheon.
That's quite fab.
Is this the bit where
- your father brought you as a child... - Yeah.
- ...and then made you learn about it? - Sì, sì, sì.
Papa Guia would have said
that the Pantheon has the largest and oldest
unreinforced concrete dome in the world,
has been in continuous use since the second century AD
and costs so much to film inside,
we're stuck alfresco.
We could do with an umbrella, couldn't we?
- Oh! Wow. - There's one.
Wow.
While Dante has his nine circles of hell,
if you want to film in Italy,
there are at least ten circles of bureaucracy.
It's the rozzers.
Italy is different from the rest of Europe
in that the view is not considered free.
You need permits to film things.
The moment you turn up with a film crew here,
as if by magic,
someone else turns up to check your permit.
So, I-I'd advise if you want to say anything more
about the Pantheon, I'd say it very quickly.
- Okay, okay, okay. - Quickly.
The Pantheon. You got eight seconds
- starting now. - So, Pantheon... Okay, so, "Pantheon"
means every-every god's...
You know, Pantheon. You know.
Every god's, uh...
Next on our sodden tour of the ancient city,
somewhere that's meant to be wet.
Scusi. Scusi. Mi scusi.
It's the Trevi Fountain,
and every day 3,000 euros...
is thrown in here
by tourists and locals
in return for wishes granted.
- What are you wishing for? - I can't tell.
Can't see. No!
- You missed. - Yeah, I missed.
See if it goes in.
I've made a wish.
Yes!
You made it.
Anyway, Rome is also home
to many other architectural greatest hits.
The Colosseum and the Forum,
neither of which you can see here
because they're also too expensive to film.
But at least there's the Circus Maximus.
So, this is Circus Maximus.
Or so I thought.
The real problem, I think, with the Circus Maximus...
Sì.
...is that it's largely notus therus anymore.
No, you're right.
- There's a... - You need a lot of imagination.
- Do you know what would be really good? - What?
If somebody had a tour bus...
- Mm-hmm. - ...that went around Rome,
that it mixed the real view of modern Rome out of the window
with, like, virtual reality ancient Rome.
- An enhanced reality. - Oh. And, oh, and also, um,
you know, the smell of ancient Rome.
- Should we? Mm. - We've completed... Yes. Yes.
As if by magic,
planned meticulously by the production crew,
just such a thing turns up immediately.
A virtual reality tour bus.
Complete with permits.
- Something's happening. - Everywhere.
- Oh, wow, wow, wow. - Oh.
- Oh.
Oh, my God.
Wow. Look at that.
So, that's what
this bit of Rome would have looked...
- Look at that. - Wow. Amazing.
Unlike my previous experience
of GPS-activated tours, guess what?
This one works.
And this is the Fori Imperiali,
- ancient Forum. - Look, it's very good.
- You can see right through the buildings. - Wow.
Okay, this is very convenient,
having a virtual Forum to look at.
There's the Colosseum.
Yeah.
- Oh, wow. - That's quite good, isn't it?
Yeah.
People shouting and a strange smell of battle.
That's the smell of a dismembered Christian
who's just been torn to bits by lions.
Oh, hang on. Here comes the real world
- in all its disappointment. - And now we will see...
- There is the real Colosseum... - Wow.
- ...which you can't look at. - Yes.
- I want to... - The important thing is
- if-if you're getting off the bus... - Yeah.
...make sure you get off in the modern world,
- not ancient Rome. Otherwise, you'll be... - Sì. Yeah, that's important.
- Yeah, you'll be stuck there forever. - Yeah.
Oh, no.
No sooner did I say that than we actually did
get off the bus 2,000 years too early.
Looks like we're in for one of those "when in ancient Rome" moments.
Are you ready to learn how to fight and die
like a gladiator?
Yes.
This is a real-life gladiator school,
where anyone can pay to dress up in silly-looking costumes
and learn to use not-so-silly-looking weapons.
Whether you leave in one piece, however,
depends on two-bit Nero giving you
the thumbs-up or the thumbs-down.
Until then,
we're in the culpable hands of trainer Atticus Fisticuffs.
Okay, this is the gladio.
- It's the most iconic weapon... - Gladio. I...
- ...in the imperial Roman Empire. Yeah. - Oh, it's real.
Equipment, yes, is real.
- Are the deaths real? - Yeah. Uh-huh.
- Real death? - Yeah.
Wow.
There are three main weapons
to master if you want to be a gladiator.
There's the mortifying sword.
- Right. The third blow on the neck. - Surely... Surely he's had it by now.
Go.
The terrifying trident.
This.
I'll just try that out on Tom, the director.
So, I can go in the gut
and round the head.
- You need him. So... - Yes. Uh, no, we don't.
And the... fishing net.
Are we going to actually
- fight to the death? - Yes.
Ah. Well, if I'm about to cark it,
they're probably going to edit in
some clichéd training montage.
- So, this... - Some of the gladiators
were major celebrities,
and feeding and housing them didn't come cheap.
Yeah, great.
So they weren't offed
as much as Hollywood suggests.
The tradition actually started during funeral ceremonies,
where the spilling of blood
was said to purify the souls of dead, rich Romans.
In the nuts!
Here we go.
But then it became a mass spectator sport for the plebs.
- Oh! - Oh, it just caught me. That was close.
Anyway, back to my impending death.
When the trumpet blows,
it's time to fight.
Excuse me.
As you can tell from the music,
this is deadly serious.
How dare you turn your back.
Who are you?
I am known as James "Bim" May.
Maker of travelogues.
Collector of various motorbikes.
And now your opponent.
Guia.
Seriously?
Aah!
It is a brutal, unforgiving
arena of combat, where no quarter is given
and none is taken.
Ow.
- Whoo-hoo! - Wait.
Peace.
After my unceremonious demise yesterday,
I decided to leave Guia behind in ancient Rome,
because today, I fancy something futuristic.
You know when you're staying in a hotel
in an interesting city which is full of tourist sites
and landmarks and interesting things to do,
you get a collection of leaflets at "ricepiatzione"
saying, "Come to the dinosaur park"
and "Come to the museum of printing"
and "Come and see the Colosseum."
You never get one that says,
"Come to the local rocket factory."
Thirty-five miles southeast of Rome is Colleferro,
a small town that's home to some really big stuff.
Inside these unassuming modern walls
is a company that's made airplanes
for over a hundred years and nowadays this:
the Vega rocket for the European Space Agency,
which sends satellites and probes into orbit
and an old nerd into a tailspin.
Maggio, you are cleared for crap Italian.
As the people who work here sometimes say...
I'm not the man they think I am back home
I'm a....
rocketman.-
It's only taken half the film,
but finally, I'm allowed to do something I like.
And there's no silly dressing up.
We're going into the clean room
and might actually be able to touch something
that's going to end up in space, which I get very excited about,
because components that are incredibly humdrum,
like M6 hex-headed *s,
become very exotic
when you know they're going to go into orbit.
My head is enormous.
- Aah! How's my hair? - Ah, okay, okay. All right.
- You look cool. - Perfect. Really tight.
- Is it really tight? - You look cool.
- I don't look good, do I? - No.
This is my first rocketing experience.
- Yes. - So...
This place is so advanced,
- they even have a teleporter. - Let's go.
Whoa!
Or, as it turns out,
a Hoover for grubby humans.
Dust-free.
This is actually the cleanest this film crew has ever been.
Today, we'll be looking at stage four
of the Vega-C rocket,
which is powered by a liquid propellant engine,
allowing for multiple deliveries
to a range of orbits on a single mission.
- What is that bit? - So,
this is one under preparation.
So, it's at an earlier stage. It's only the structure
and some of the wiring you see here.
Oh! Hey.
Come and stick your lens in here.
There's a huge amount of wiring.
Giulio Ranzo,
Avio's main rocket man,
is naturally proud of his product,
but I do have some concerns.
And I hesitate to bring this up,
but I have owned a number of Italian motorcycles.
Sometimes, the wiring is not very good.
'Cause on the old Ducati, often,
what should have been a red wire in the book
- was blue. Mm. - Was-was... Yeah.
Many of this wirings don't even come from us.
They are put together by other companies
- all around Europe. - Germans.
So, we work with Germans.
- We work with Swedes. - Oh, thank God for that.
The rocket is only one and a half meters wide,
just big enough for three.
If you want to invade and go underneath this,
- we can enter inside. - Yeah.
I think this is actually the first time I've been
- inside a rocket. - Yes.
This is a very high-tech interior,
but if you look at the actual nozzle
of the rocket motor here,
this appears to have been bought
from a, uh, retro '50s housewares market.
It's a piece of Soviet Union technology
that no one has ever done any better than them. You know?
In many ways, rocket engineering,
it's very complicated,
but it's actually a great deal of simplicity.
- Yes. We-we complexify things. - Yeah.
But the law of physics are few, you know,
and pretty simple.
Making a travelogue about Italy is lovely, yes,
but a part of me is always in my shed.
There are bits of this that I can imagine
making in my little workshop at home. I could...
- I could do that with my pipe bender. - Yeah.
Um, I could probably, on my lathe,
make that bit.
Would you mind at some point
having a word with the film crew about the correct use
of tapes and cable ties?
- Because this is beaut... - Oh!
- Aw, come on. - Oh!
This is beautifully done. Very neat.
It has to be. Rather than,
say, lumps of Black Tac stuck on the windscreen of my car.
I think the difference is if it's me,
no one gives a shit.
That's... Could be.
Can we go and see the future rocket?
Yes, we can see.
We cannot get too close,
'cause I'm told we need to keep some secrets.
- So, we'll see how we do. - Oh, okay.
I won't say anything.
For security reasons, the crew weren't allowed in,
so they had to watch through the window.
Yeah, that looks like a turbo. Quite a beefy one, actually.
A bit like people who couldn't afford a telly
in the olden days.
Oh!
That-that gets your interest, doesn't it?
Yeah.
Oh, no, he's on the tools. We're never gonna get him out.
You're probably still wondering
what I wished for at the Trevi Fountain.
It's nice to be left alone with someone else
who appreciates the finer things in life.
Yes, the socket set.
- Oh, too... - Oh, and a few pens and things.
Sharing the joy of beautiful things.
Ah, the essential magnet on a stick.
At last, I've found my forever home.
Oh, this is fantastic.
Apparently, a tool chest isn't for life after all.
It's only for Christmas at best.
I was told the socket set had to be put down.
Back to the day job.
There are three essential elements
to any Italian high street.
They are clothing, cafés and ice cream.
You might get a small hardware shop.
You might get a chemist. You might even get a gioielliere.
But you will always have clothing, cafés and ice cream.
So, today, what I thought we'd do is make some ice cream.
And we're going to turn this little adventure
into an Anglo-Italian collaborazione.
It all begins in this market,
where I'm gonna buy some ingredients.
And this gives me an excellent opportunity
to try out some of the Italian words I've learned.
Pomidoro. L'uva.
Arancio.
Seven carrots, if you please.
Perfetto. Grazie mille.
Hello, do you have any peeled shrimps?
Viva l'Italia!
So, prawns and nationalism.
You don't get that at home, do you?
Armed with my ingredients,
it's gelato'clock.
Marco and Venezia have been making their gelato
for the last ten years and claim
they can make ice cream out of anything.
Scopriamolo.
Oh, they've spelt "gelato" wrong.
Now, I said this was going to be a, uh,
Anglo-Italian ice cream, and it is,
but what I thought we'd do is make
a carrot and coriander ice cream.
It's a bit like a sort of rather nice left-wing British cake,
and then prawn cocktail.
And that's not quite such a daft idea as it sounds,
because if you were watching our Japanese series,
you'll know that fishy, savory ice cream is a thing.
It's the sort of thing Heston Blumenthal would do,
you know, without even blinking.
So, what Marco's saying is that carrots, being orange,
are the color of joy. I would agree with him on that.
I have an orange car
and an orange refrigerator at home for that reason.
Let's leap forward in the action to a point where the carrots
have been boiled for the appropriate length of time
and blended into a paste.
Here it is.
The carrots are pureed.
You spread it all over your car?
- It's ready. - Oh, it's ready. Okay.
It's ready to go in the ice cream machine.
Now for the really good bit. To make this stuff,
you need some high tech.
This machine is from the 1970s.
This has been in continuous operation ever since. So...
It's a sort of alchemy,
transforming liquid beta-carotene
into solid joy.
- Can you turn this one? - Yes.
It's a bit like using a milling machine
- or a pillar drill. - Yeah.
This machine has two functions.
One is to chill the mixture.
The other is to stir it in such a way
that it's fluffed up slightly and becomes more leggero,
lighter.
- Oh, look at that! - Okay.
Can you see the consistency of the mixture
is changing as it's stirred and chilled?
This is very satisfying to watch.
While my carrots churn away,
let's watch Marco make the Marie Rose sauce
for my prawn cocktail flavor
using salad cream,
ketchup and the essential part of any ice cream...
This, if you're watching in America,
is "Wor-cester-shire" sauce.
A tiny... Ooh.
That's three, four drops.
Once everything is blended together...
...it's into the machine...
Here it goes, ready to start rotating
as it engages. There.
...which works exactly the same on a prawn
as it does on a carrot,
so let's cut to the tasting.
Hey, that's not bad, you know.
After the joyful carrot and coriander,
it's prawn cocktail.
Actually, I'm going to go as far as to say that would be
a better starter
to your traditional English '70s dinner party
than an actual prawn cocktail.
Well, I would say that.
Let's test this properly with an in-depth, on-the-street,
vox pop market research focus group survey thing.
Free, strange ice cream.
Gelato strano.
- No, thank you. - Oh.
You made this?
Yes.
- I like it. - You like it.
- Carrot and coriander, dieci punti. - Ten points.
What about my other backwards gelato?
- Did you make these? - Mm? Sì.
- Chef? - Sì.
I made these with your prawns.
- Very good. - That means "delicious."
Well, I think I might have got away with it.
Gelato. Bringing communities together.
- Oui. Thank you very much. - Grazie.
And that brings to an end that sequence in which I make
gelato... what did I make?
Gelato strano e gratis.
- Strano. - You're welcome.
Plus, a little rub from the locals never goes amiss.
It's day three of my Roman Holiday...
I mean, my Italian Job...
and I'm delighted to say it's not raining.
I might put a nice scarf on for this.
We were talking about La Dolce Vita,
and if you've seen the film anywhere other than in Italy,
it will have been subtitled.
But, if you're in Italy and you watch a foreign film here,
it will be dubbed, because apparently
Italians don't like subtitles.
Actually, it's a bit more complicated.
In the 1950s, many Italians still spoke a regional dialect,
and dubbing in standardized Italian
was something the government used
to unify the language.
So everything foreign had to be dubbed, and as a result,
the Italian dubbing industry became a world leader.
Now, it follows that because Amazon is a global platform
that also offers next-day delivery, streaming music
and more, there must be somebody in Italy
with the rather dolorosa task of being me.
Well, his name is Alberto,
and he works in this dubbing studio here.
So I'm going to go and meet me.
- Good morning. - Buon giorno.
Now, the interesting thing is Alberto has obviously had to
play me all over the world, tutti la monda, and bizarrely,
- you are also Idris Elba? - Yes.
- Same voice? - Same voice, obviously.
So that means I'm Idris Elba.
- That's quite cool. Excellent. - Yes.
Today, Francesco the director and Enzo the sound engineer
are dubbing the first episode of this very series,
from a few hours ago.
Don't let me put you off.
This is me in Sicily, harping on about La Dolce Vita.
- From-from the, from the top, okay? - Okay.
It doesn't just have to fit, it has to be translated
and spoken in such a way
that the sense and the mood of what I'm saying
is the same for an Italian audience
as the English version is for an English audience.
I suspect this is a lot harder than it looks.
For me it's perfect!
Bravo. Bravo, signore.
So, obviously, I'm having a go myself
with a scene the crew prepared earlier starring Italian me
and Italian Giua.
Now I just need to be the English everyone.
Tutti gli ingelsi.
Hang on...
- You're overlooking something. - What?
I don't really speak Italian. I can only say,
"Io mangio una mela."
Okay, so can I have a minute to try and work out
what the bloody hell this all means?
Yes.
May I have a pencil?
After five onscreen seconds of working it out for myself,
it's my turn.
For the benefit of you at home, you'll get subtitles.
But I won't.
Okay, from-from the top, okay?
And action.
Can I ask you a question, Guia?
What is James like?
Guia, can I ask you something? Tell me.
First thing, he is convinced he speaks Italian,
but can't even say jewellery shop.
Also, he has a fixation with carpentry, I don't know why.
I now love James. Hah, he had me with his Italian.
He can say gioielleria.
I'm fixated with his face and hair.
In the car, he blasts progressive rock all the time...
and his hair is a permanent bird's nest.
So he's a totally lost soul.
Yes.
In the car, he lets me play prog rock,
and he has such a lovely, lovely scarf.
I see. What a smart animal.
- Perfetto? - Perfetto.
Unfortunately, director Tom has spotted a flaw
in our otherwise faultless idea for a scene.
I think it's just too confusing for the viewers.
The Italians won't know what the hell's going on.
He's him being you being him but then he's gonna be...
- No, he's not. - But then he's gonna
- be you again at the end. - No!
And then it's really confusing.
- When he's being me, he's me. - Yeah.
But when he is speaking Italian by himself being Alberto,
he's Alberto, and then I'm him
because I'm reading it in English.
- So you're both each other? - Yes.
- That's ridiculous. - No, it's not.
- Hang on, let me ask the director. - No, hang on...
Francesco, do you understand
- what's going on? - Nothing.
Alberto, do you understand what's going on?
Yes. I like.
See? "Yes, I like." Perfect.
I think that's an excellent demonstration
about how the dubbing works.
Please shut up.
Now we've cleared all that up,
the English version of the Italian Idris Elba is
driving out to the east of Rome,
towards the back of Italy's knee, in Abruzzo.
An area of wide open spaces, of national parks
and stunning views, like the lake at Campotosto.
I just wanted to stop here for a moment, viewers, to say
look at that.
I mean, anywhere else that would be a sort of gray, cloudy day.
But in Italy, even the clouds are bellissimo.
It was Verdi-- he was a composer--
who said, "You may have the universe if I may have Italy."
But he was right, though, look at that. Look at the water.
It's fantastic.
Looming large over the lake at Campotosto is the Gran Sasso d'Italia,
the highest mountain in the Apennine Gap.
It's a magnet for skiers, climbers, wannabe Bond villains
and nuclear physicists with a penchant for hiding.
Inside lies the world's largest underground neutrino
and astroparticle physics laboratory.
Which interferes with cameras... either that, or it's raining.
So I'm now driving through the mountain,
and I've got to go five kilometers,
and then I will turn off into the laboratory itself,
which is through a big, sliding steel door,
sort of like Blofeld's lair.
That's as far as you're allowed to go with a car.
And there's still another kilometer
of scientific tunnels to go.
So that's why I've brought with me a little piece of England
in the form of...
la mia bicicletta Bromptono folder.
This is how I'm going to get around the world
of top-end conceptual physics.
Grazie mille.
Inside three cavernous chambers,
hewn deep into solid rock,
is a world of subatomic experiments and dark matter.
Now, dark matter is pretty mysterious stuff.
It makes up 27% of the mass of the universe,
but we can't see any of it
because it's, well, very dark.
So it's taken some Italian brains
bigger than the largest available helmet
to try and find it.
- Nice to meet you. - Buon giorno,
- and you. - Buon giorno.
Sorry about that. I overshot slightly.
I was enjoying myself.
- Wow. - So...
Anyway, this is no ordinary boffin in a helmet.
Carlo is a neutrino hunter in a subterranean lair.
Why put it inside the mountain?
You're making life very difficult for yourself.
The main point is that we have to be shielded
from something called cosmic rays....
that are particles that are coming from outer space...
and so we have to shield.
The particles we are looking for,
mainly Neutrinos and Dark Matter particles, are...
so rare that we have to shield our experiments from natural radioactivity.
Carlo detects his neutrinos in this apparatus,
a kind of super-cooled, high-tech ice bucket.
But it seems even one and a half kilometers of solid mountain
isn't enough to protect their experiments
from stray radiation.
They also need ancient Roman lead.
It's quite heavy.
Very heavy.
Two thousand years ago...
close to Sardinia, there was a ship that sank...
full of lead ingots.
Our institute understood that it could be used for physics.
- Can we put it down? - Yes.
We use lead to shield our experiments from radioactivity.
So the point is lead itself contains a radioactive isotope,
Lead 210, that decays with time.
If we take ancient lead, we can have an excellent material for shielding...
completely free of radioactivity.
I like that thought.
This is bleeding-edge physics,
but it's dependent upon
Emperor Caesar.
Oh, that's Emperor Caesar, right.
- Yes. - That's his lead ingot.
- Fingers, - Fingers, yes.
Time to meet some more well-protected brains.
I'm excited to continue our journey
to the center of the Earth, because I'm allowed
to help out with an actual experiment.
So now you'll have the chance to help us to build
something to really detect sub-nuclear particles.
Epic.
After my second deep clean of the episode,
it's time for particle physics.
This is a crystal of Tellurium Dioxide.
This particular crystal, when super-cooled, can pick up
even the weakest traces of radioactive decay,
which show up as an infinitesimal temperature increase.
Fantastico.
Now, viewers, it seems there may have been a slight error
in judgement on our part...
I'm guessing the crystal goes...
- Well, I press it in there... - Exactly. It sits there.
...in thinking you might be interested in seeing people
dressed entirely in white...
They are very tiny, 25 microns, gold wires.
Well small.
...performing an experiment that we can't see...
We're talking about the smallest events in the universe, I think, aren't we?
Yes.
...and neither can you.
- Did you get it? - Absolutely, yes.
Like a lot of things in subatomic physics,
you'll have to just take our word for it.
In fact, the amount of time an invisible physics experiment
sustains on the screen is the half-life of Barium 122,
which is right about now.
I've collected Guia, who's refusing to talk to me
because I wouldn't let her take part in the particle physics experiment.
Maybe I can infuse her with what's coming up in the next scene.
Now, there are two basic elements to this show.
There are the things that I would like to do in Italy,
and there are the things that the producer and the director
think I should do in Italy.
So I would like to look at Italian art and culture,
a bit of science history, a bit of tech.
Some food and wine, learn some Italian words.
The producer and the directors would like me to do anything
that involves dressing up and making me look like a total knob.
So, we're on our way to meet some people who have
chosen to live like hobbits from Lord Of The Rings.
Guess whose idea that was.
Can we have a slightly less cynical one, please?
Less cynical?
Hey, you'll never guess what, viewers!
We're going off to dress up as hobbits.
It's gonna be brilliant!
Begrudgingly, we're off to Middle-earth,
just off junction five of the ring road.
There's nothing really "middle" about it,
except in the "of nowhere" sense.
On the face of it, this place looks pretty idyllic:
beautiful countryside, quirky little huts,
moustachioed men in flat caps and braces.
This is the brainchild of one Nicolas Gentile,
who, in a bid to escape the pressure of
working as a pastry chef in Rome,
decided to live as a hobbit.
What I really want to know is, is this for real,
or is it just a Tolkein gesture?
You've got to hand it to him, he's a stickler for detail.
No tree stump left unthumped,
no field unswept.
He's even got a life-size statue of a wizard.
Buon giorno, Signore Gandalf.
Now, I've never knocked on a hobbit door before,
but I think I'm supposed to knock with a staff.
And there's one here. Oh, there's also a bell.
Buona sera, Signore Hobbit.
Buona sera, James.
La mia Italiano e caca.
We can speak in Elvish if you want.
La mia Elvisha e
- even more caca. - Okay.
Welcome in my hobbit hole.
This is a very tiny hobbit house.
In Tolkein language it's called a "smial."
- Built into the, the hill. - Yes.
My project is to build a real Shire.
Not one hobbit houses, but a village.
A hobbit village.
Architectural drawings of hobbit houses are visible
on this small hobbit table,
along with un piatto di biscottii.
If you come into the Shire and you don't eat anything,
then you are not in the Shire.
- Oh. - So, enjoy.
I think this makes him lord of the jam rings.
Salute.
- Chin chin. - Chin chin.
Grazie. Very good.
We have also the wizard Gandalf.
- Oh, Gandalf. - Gandalf the Grey.
Oh, Gandalf is real.
I didn't realize he was a real person.
I thought he was a mannequin.
I don't think he lives as a hobbit.
It's like a Saturday thing, right?
I think so, yeah.
It's like playing football on a Saturday morning.
He hobbits it up on a Saturday.
Yeah, exactly. I play with my lathe,
Tom mows the grass,
you play football, he's a hobbit.
I mean, if transporting plastic pumpkins around
from A to B for no real reason is how you get your kicks,
then this place is for you.
Or maybe it's a cult.
Well, what I might go and do is go and speak to Gandalf,
who hasn't really said anything yet,
and then see if, when he blinks, it says
"save me" on his eyelids, or something like that.
- Buona sera, Gandalf. - Buona sera.
Um, are you okay?
No, no.
It's a cult.
Living as a Hobbit is understanding
that we are not made to live in big cities...
or in social environments that don't suit humans.
We are meant to be with family and friends.
Perhaps living this way is the key to a happy life.
As you can tell, it's nighttime now,
and Italian hobbits die hard, so there's...
the obligatory vat of tagliatelle a la Baggins.
Everyone's gobbling down the red wine.
Buon appetito! Buon appetito!
Salute.
Chin chin!
- In hobbit. - Grazie. Aye!
This is great, yeah.
- It's very nice. - It's great. Very nice food.
- Being in good company, with my friend. - Yeah.
I think it suits you, actually, if you don't mind my saying.
So there you go. We came in search of la dolce vita,
we dismissed it as a myth, and then we realized that
it does exist here at hobbit farm.
Salute!
Right, let's get out of here before I feel too awks,
or they burn Gandalf at the stake or something.
The next morning, I returned to Rome
for the inevitable arrivederci.
- That's better, isn't it? - Yes, it is. Yeah.
With the sun bathing the pope's house and...
- It's amazing. - The sight of the obelisk.
- James! - I know, we're just avoiding it.
- Ya, ya, ya. - But...
I mean, we've had a great time.
- I've got a gift for you. - Really?
- Yes. - Oh, no.
- Uh, gift item, please. - Oh, no.
Here's the gift, coming in magically.
- Thank you. - Wow. Thank you.
It's very special. I was...
- Oh! - To be honest, I was going to keep it.
- I shouldn't say that, but... - No! Whoa.
Oh, nice. Nice box.
You haven't seen it yet.
But the box, the box is nice.
No! Wow!
Wow, what is it?
It's a really nice desktop rocket model.
- Wow, it's amazing. Thank you. - So I wanted you to have it
because I-I love it.
I'm going to go now, because I don't like emotional moments.
- Okay, okay. Let's go. - It's been a pleasure.
I will stay here watching.
- Goodbye. - Yeah, you're right.
In three,
two, one, action.
And I love James.
Ha ha, he had me with his Italian.
He can say gioielleria.
I'm fixated with his face and hair.
- Coffee? - Grazie.
- Thank you. - Grazie.
In the car, he lets me play prog rock.
And he has such a lovely, lovely scarf.
I see.