Ciao, viewers.
Welcome to the northwest of Italy.
This time, killer robots...
I don't like that thing.
...killer views...
Absolutely gorgeous, belissimo.
...and killer insults.
That, sir, is sh...
♪ ♪
Buon giorno, spettatore e spettatrici, benvenuti
to episode five of Our Man in Italy.
And I'm still in Tuscany, just about,
and today I'm going to a quarry.
It's something to do with Mike and Dave.
You might think visiting a quarry
sounds dull and boring.
It often is,
but not if you're in the Tuscan Alps.
1,500 meters above sea level,
these stunning slopes yield
one of the world's most sought-after materials.
Here it is, it's the Calacata Borghini,
one of the most ancient marble quarries in the world.
And in a way, it is symptomatic of humankind's arrogance
because the drive here was through
one of the most debilitating, beautiful bits of the world
I've ever been in, and yet we believe
we can carve bits of it out and improve on it.
But in fairness to the people who have been doing that for centuries,
this marble has formed bits of the Parthenon,
marble arch in London, and Michelangelo's David.
Actually, I described it as a quarry.
More correctly, it is an entire mountain of marble.
The place is absolutely massive.
♪ ♪
Look at this. Enormous.
Judging from the urgent music,
I need to tell you some stats, and fast.
Here at Ruggetta quarry, they mine 12,000 tons of marble a year.
That's 2,000 Davids,
150,000 posh worktops,
or billions of actual marbles.
- And it's a noisy old business.
This is also a very, very wealthy establishment.
It's the only workplace I've been in with a marble floor.
This smooth white Carrara is considered
the crema de la crema of marble,
and it's owned by the family of Marco Borghini.
And-and marble is actually limestone
that's been compressed.
The marble is the consequence of the sedimentation of the seashells.
And the surface of the seashells created the white marble.
But the organic side of the creature inside is the blue one.
When you cut the material, you smell rotten fish.
Oh, does it?
But when you've completed the cut...
it burns the surface and the pores close, and you smell nothing.
So, your posh bathroom floor is just a squashed seafood starter.
But this didn't deter Michelangelo.
He takes only the perfect block for his sculpture...
and you don't have any cracks inside because the sculpture is a unique piece...
and you don't have the scrap or joint.
Otherwise his arm falls off.
500 feet below the quarry, in Carrara town,
the prehistoric shellfish are given new life.
This is the Carrara sculpture cooperative,
where they carve things out of marble.
Now, in Michelangelo's day, he would have had a selection
of chisels and presumably some abrasives of some sort.
These days, they have power tools,
but that doesn't diminish the skill,
which is to be able to envisage the Pietà, David,
tombstone, pretentious hand basin
inside the block of marble before you start.
It took two years to carve David,
but I've only got an afternoon,
so I'm just going to carve a very small part of myself,
and you can probably guess what it is.
I would like to carve my thumb please.
Once sculptor Diego has shown me how to use the tools
without de-thumbing myself...
- ...I'm ready to get hands-on.
I've never done this before.
The instructions are actually in this book,
but they're in Italian.
How long have you been doing this?
And do you love it and are you deaf yet?
I have been doing this job for 28 years now.
In our city, we are all in love with marble, some of us mine it...
and then people like us sculptors ennoble it.
I don't think he heard the bit where I asked if it had made him deaf.
As with many things in life,
like drinking and trying to walk down the steps,
it's very easy to go too far and then you can't undo it.
Luckily, I'm quite handy with a rotary tool.
It's something to do with having opposable thumbs.
Now I have to round the top.
Then I think we can start having a crack at the thumbnail,
which is the thing that will stop it looking like a *.
It's quite thumb-like.
Bit long.
Was it... No, that bit's not part of it, Tom. That's the bit I hold on to.
When we've done it, we'll saw it off there, all right?
- Bugger off, you lot. Honestly.
The final smoothing is done by hand,
and time flies when you're having thumb.
This is gonna take a long time. What are you going to do in the film?
Is it gonna be Rachmaninoff, and, "And later on, it was finished"?
And later on, it was finished.
I tried to hitch a ride with it afterwards,
but no one picked me up.
Well, you win thumb, you lose thumb.
Anyway, to make our "Italy as a boot" analogy still work,
we have to put on waders, because in this episode,
we're somewhere around the crotch seam.
So, from the marble mountains
onwards to the port city of Genoa.
This has about it the feel of
an important place.
The way the traffic is moving,
the way the roads are marked,
the facades of the buildings.
It just feels...
...like important stuff is being done.
Among the important things being done here,
we can't include indicating before suddenly turning right.
According to the rest of the world, Italy is a disorganized country,
and actually, all the Italians I've met have agreed with this.
They go, "Yes, Italy is a disorganized country,
but we sort of work around it."
The question is, though, can they deal with this?
The Port of Genoa,
the busiest in the Mediterranean.
It handles 40 massive ship movements a day,
millions and millions of tons of cargo a year.
It's something they can't afford
to screw up.
Let's find out. Scopriamolo.
Hotly pursued by my evil shadow,
I head up to the operations center.
This is Danilo,
who is the harbormaster.
Buon giorno.
And he is in charge of everything.
I'm not the Harbor Master, otherwise we make some...
I'm the Chief Pilot.
He's the chief pilot.
The first screwup in communication goes to the British.
Though, to be fair, when we asked them on the phone earlier,
it was quite hard to hear what they said.
The Pilot goes on board the vessel and suggests to the Captain...
how to approach the terminal or leave there.
Okay, so he's-he's a...
a sort of surrogate captain,
whilst you're maneuvering in the harbor before you get onto the open sea.
Every ship movement is plotted and tracked in this room.
This is a little bit like air traffic control at an airport,
except the objects are much, much bigger
and they move much more slowly.
But there's a, there's a great deal of energy in these objects,
which may only be doing ten or 11 knots.
Each fully loaded cargo ship can weigh up to quarter
of a million tons.
Even the slightest slipup and your bow end
could end up in the car park.
On today's voyage plan, the Zim Vancouver,
destination: Argentina.
This is the one we're going to pilot.
Is that a big'un?
It is quite big, it's 260 meters length overall and 32 meters beam.
Well, that is quite big.
Okay, and then the pilot has to get off by a gangplank,
a pericoloso gangplank onto the pilot boat.
Yes.
If the pilot fails to get off,
the... he's then with the ship, wherever it's going.
- Yes. Yes. - Right.
- That's what I thought.
Apparently, me being stuck on a boat
bound for South America while the crew remain in Italy
could prove somewhat problematic, but luckily there's a solution.
Please welcome back the fashionable Paolo from episode two.
- Thank you... Thank you for having me back. - Uh, pleasure.
My Italian body double looks like he's fresh off a yacht anyway.
We're going to drop Paolo off on a huge ship
that's departing with the pilot.
The pilot sees the ship out of the harbor safely,
and then we will go back alongside,
take Paolo back off again, and bring him back to the harbor.
Now, if this goes wrong, you are going to,
I think, Buenos Aires.
Finally, Paolo is given clearance
to board his one-way trip... sorry, the cargo ship.
And I'm given a life jacket that once belonged
to Richard Hammond's little brother.
I think this is incredibly exciting.
I've not done any harbor work before.
And the ships are so huge,
and they're so difficult to maneuver,
I just find it sort of quite... it's almost scary.
But minutes before boarding,
the operations center calls with another screwup.
What on earth has... What on earth has happened?
Let me, let me, let me talk to Danilo.
Danilo? We-We've got a problem.
Um, the Zim...
- Oh, no, the Zim... - Oh, *. Sorry, mate.
They don't want anybody on it, and I don't know why.
There seems to have been a mix-up
with the names on the ship's manifest,
but our strict three-minute slot for boarding is upon us.
Slight change of plan, it doesn't matter.
Sean our cameraman, who is on the manifest,
is now about to make the scary ascent
- onto that ship. - Wrap it up, wrap it up.
Sorry, we got to get this shot.
- If you want to pick it up... - Okay.
The shot is this one:
Sean disappearing up a 30-foot ladder into the Zim.
It's how he would want to be remembered.
Right, my plan to get rid of Paolo
by sending him to Buenos Aires has gone horribly wrong
because he's there.
There has been a cock-up. We're not sure whose it is.
It's actually probably an international cock-up
because we're British, the port authority is Italian,
the crew of the big ship is Israeli.
And now they've got a stowaway cameraman who's Australian.
Cleared for departure.
Up on the Zim's bridge, meanwhile,
the pilot's plans are going perfectly.
Now, we've got two tugboats
to pull the Zim away from the berth.
Driving the tugboat's quite a tricky job
'cause he's got to be very careful not to be run over
by the very ship that he's pulling out of the harbor.
It's sort of slightly terrifying, isn't it?
It's just the size of the thing.
As the Zim rounds the corner for open seas,
Sean is filming us filming him.
And the Genoa port pilot is calmly orchestrating
the boat ballet below.
'Cause if you stand here
and you look at the nose of the ship, and then you think,
"Oh, I'll have a look at the back," you turn your head,
and the back is twice as far away as you expect it to be.
The front tug has departed.
And in fact, I think the back one is departing.
That ship is at sea.
- It's on its own. - It's on its own.
It's quite magnificent, isn't it?
There was so much confusion over who was allowed on the ship,
we forgot to take Sean off again.
And that is probably the last time we'll ever see him.
Should we send a mess... massage to family?
We should probably write a letter about how brave he was,
Yeah, he has a daughter. He was a great dad.
He-he was a fantastic dad.
Refreshed by the sea air,
I return to land and the wheel of my Panda and drive away,
bursting with enthusiasm for the next scene.
I'm going to look at robots.
And the thing about robots is, they are always,
always have been and probably always will be disappointing.
Spoiler alert,
Italian robots are actually quite cool.
This is the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia,
the, uh, Italian Institute of Technology,
and I know we all tend to think that Italy is about
pasta and the Renaissance and stylish jackets.
Actually, Italy was a pioneer in two important respects here:
computing and automation in manufacturing industry.
So if you want to know what's happening in robots,
this is where you come.
Hi, I'm iCub, the humanoid robot.
Very nice to meet you.
I heard that you love robots.
Y-Yes.
I do love robots.
- I... He's quite spooky.
- I know. - He's-he's a little bit creepy.
Bim 2.0... Sorry, I mean iCub...
is one of Europe's most advanced androids,
and his human overlord, for now,
is Dr. Giorgio Metta.
- What can it do? - Um, it can talk to you,
- for instance. Uh... - Really?
- Yeah. - Could I...
Can I ask him any question?
Um, yeah.
Where are your trousers?
- I don't know. - It...
That... He did, he did an-an Italian gesture.
These are copied
from human movement.
- You know, this is where he gets... - Yes.
I am Italian, after all.
I think iCub may have heard how I mistreated
his Japanese cousin.
He's making a break for it.
To be absolutely clear, this robot is an avatar,
so it replicates human activity at a distance.
Somebody over there is being a human
and being converted to robot here.
iCub's A.I. system learns everything its human operator does.
Could I have a go at being the person?
The robot's person?
Yeah, I think you should try it.
- It's very nice. - Yeah, that would be great.
One day, iCub might be useful
in dangerous situations like bomb disposal
or to help people with disabilities
or to inform tourists about the bridges in Kyoto.
For now, though, we'll keep it simple.
I'm basically being covered in sensors
so that whatever I do: move my fingers,
walk, look around, will be replicated in the robot.
Hello, Paolo. Can we shake hands if I...
- You can. - I can see my hand.
I'm wondering if I can make traditional gestures
at you.
Can I walk backwards? Hang on.
Well, y-you're going frontwards.
You're going... Okay, now you're going backwards.
Yeah, that's what you got to do. Slowly, slowly.
Put your mobile phone.
Let's see if I can hold it.
I'm risking it.
Yes, I can feel.
Now I can turn and give it to...
How good was that?
That was pretty good, wasn't it?
Robot Giacomo is about half the size of the real me.
So we could have a 100-meter-tall robot
stomping over the Earth, controlled by me here,
or we could have a tiny little one that would go inside
the workings of your washing machine to see what was wrong with it.
That's great, isn't it?
Forget what I said earlier. Robots are ace.
Well, maybe not this one.
This looks like a robot with evil intent.
- Yes. - It looks quite... dangerous.
It-it may be dangerous, in fact. It's very powerful.
With its aluminium roll cage and Kevlar shell,
the HyQreal is designed to navigate
rough terrain in agriculture, apparently.
- What can that pull? Could it pull a car? - Um...
Um, it can pull an airplane.
After eight weeks of Italian lunches,
I reckon I can give this four-legged nightmare
a run for its money.
So, to determine the future of humanity: a tug-of-war.
So, three, two,
one, go.
No, the way that thing moves is really,
really sinister and disturbing.
Go.
I don't like that thing.
- Ready... - Ready.
...set, go.
Oh... No, no, no, no.
- No, no, no, no. - Oh, damn, we lost.
It won, but what was
- the price for that? - Yes, its life.
That's the great thing about robots, you can send them
off to do things that will cost them their lives
and they will happily lay their lives down.
That, I... I find that very disturbing.
I think he probably comes back to life.
I wouldn't stand there, in fact.
- So, should we go? - You're in direct... Yeah.
- I... Yes. Yeah, right. - Yeah. That's fine.
- After you. - Run for... No, don't be polite. Just run for it.
Quickly, we flee the threat
of imminent A.I. vengeance for somewhere safe.
This is not the droid I was looking for.
Centauro is allegedly a search and rescue robot.
It can bash through flat things and pick up heavy things.
It's also a qualified tai chi master,
a founding member of Daft Punk,
and Mr. Piggyback Italia three years running.
Are you getting a good shot of my ass here?
If only there were some nicer robots I could play with.
Here, in fact, is a robot that can make pesto,
or I think, more correctly,
a robot that will learn to make pesto.
You show it once, and then the robot will be able to repeat the same actions.
- Um... - So this is "machine learning."
I make a pretty good pesto back home,
so I'm the man to show this Italian bot what's what.
That's the tablecloth. That's the tablecloth.
- Oh, okay. - That's the tablecloth.
It's a... That's a dreadful start.
- Let's try again. - Okay, I'm gonna begin with the basil,
- which is... that. - It's better.
Put the pine nuts in next.
Where have they gone?
No.
You all thought I was gonna make a terrible balls-up of this,
and actually this is brilliant.
Remember, tech fans:
rubbish in, rubbish out.
D-Don't worry about that, 'cause I can pick it up again.
- Ah. - There you go. No, hang on.
- Ooh. - What happened to it?
The trouble is, the-the... the arm ends up in the way of your vision.
- Shall I give you a hand? - Yeah, go on, then.
Otherwise we'll be here forever.
- There you go. - Okay. And I'm gonna tilt
my hand slightly.
Now, don't drop it.
Oh, yes.
The pestle bit.
So now I will pick this up...
...and put it in the bowl for you.
Right, here we go.
If you say so.
No, s... Now-now my hands are all slippery
'cause I've put them in the olive oil, look.
Ah, okay.
There you are.
Your pesto is served, sir.
For now, it's probably easier just to send iCub
to the shops for some pesto.
The problem with robots, I think,
is that science fiction has led us
to expect far too much of them.
We think we should be able to order C-3PO from Amazon,
have it delivered the next day, and it will work perfectly,
but of course that day is a long way off.
The great thing about the robot researchers
is that they can see that future,
they can see the personal digital butler
and the robotic assistant for disabled people.
That's all fantastic, but at the moment
they're excited merely if they can get
a robot's little finger to work correctly,
so we just have to be patient.
Anyway, here's a brief glimpse of the future.
We're now heading north from the coast
into the beautiful wooded hills of Piedmont.
Right, Paolo has invited me truffle hunting today,
something I've never done.
The woods are very big, and a truffle, even a big truffle,
is pretty small, isn't it?
Sort of about the size of a conker.
That's a really big one.
Truffles are big business here, which isn't surprising,
considering some are worth more than their weight in gold,
and that they're just lying around in the ground.
You just have to find them.
Or enlist a rather lifelike quadruped trufflebot.
We are in a secret location near Alba
in the woods.
Uh, this is Dora.
- This is Ezio. Buon giorno. - Ezio.
- Buon giorno. - And this is Paolo, obviously.
- We're hunting for white truffles. - Oh, yes.
- Tartufo bianco. - Sì.
So, the most... The most important ones.
The most important ones, the tastiest ones and the most valuable.
White truffles can only be found by a dog.
Without a dog it's impossible, we need their sense of smell.
So it's over to Dora, without her we can do nothing.
Off you go, Dora. Make us rich.
The hunt begins.
The romantically-named tartufo bianco
is actually a tree fungus.
It was hailed by the Romans as a gift from the gods,
growing wherever Jupiter's thunderbolt struck the earth.
Mysterious, elusive...
- There's a truffle there. - ...and rather suspiciously,
only 50 feet from the car park.
- Yes? - Look, when the dog finds it she comes to collect her reward.
Everybody's happy in this 'cause we get a truffle and the dog gets a snack.
There's one.
That is huge.
We've struck white gold.
- That's a, that's a big truffle. - Wow.
- Ah. - That's properly...
Um, quanto costa?
This one is roughly 50 grams and the price fluctuates.
At present truffles are very expensive...
more or less 200 Euro.
- Wow. - Okay, let's go and hunt for some more.
Yeah, let's... Well, definitely, at that price.
I should point out, one of the disappointments
about truffle hunting is that Dora is a really lovely dog,
but we're not allowed to play with her
or pet her or anything like that because she's actually
only used to being with one person.
Two of us here and all the crew, she becomes overexcited
and then she won't find the truffles.
So no petting Dora.
Aw.
Sorry. Couldn't resist.
Right. Onwards to more tartufo bianco.
Dora's clearly the brains behind this operation...
well, the nose... but it seems Ezio
also has an uncanny knack for knowing
where truffles might be lurking.
Wait, we should look around there.
Okay, they want, they want to hunt around here.
There, that's good right there, on that spot.
John, he might look around there.
Curiously, Dora did seem interested
in the spot beneath John's tripod.
Dig down this way.
Yeah, here we go, here we go.
- Ah. - It's another big'un. Wow.
It's almost as if Ezio knew.
Wow.
- Well done. - Congratulations.
- Grazie. - Well done, well done.
How much do you love Dora?
Ah, she's a wonderful friend, and she loves me too.
Yes, I can see that.
More than life itself, eh, Dora?
These beautiful woods make me want to snatch
a quiet moment to myself,
maybe write a haiku.
Oh, sorry, wrong country.
It is so lovely in the woods.
We have the low
autumnal sun,
the dappling of the light, the colored fallen leaves,
John Keats, all that sort of stuff.
Um, but also because... I've been away now
for the best part of ten weeks, and this reminds me of home,
because these woods are very much like the ones
near where I live in South Wiltshire.
It's got the same gradient.
It's got the same sort of trees, actually.
I often go for a walk in the woods.
The difference is that at home it doesn't cost 300 euros,
which is what I'm now expected to pay for those truffles we found.
Anybody fancy lunch?
While our pasta was on the boil at a nearby restaurant,
I presented our chef with the smaller
of the two truffles we found.
I paid 100 euros for it.
How much do you think that's worth?
In... this can be 60 euro.
Oh, well, the dog was cute.
And a truffle this big will last for ages.
That's a huge amount.
Mmm, it is quite tasty, though, isn't it?
Onwards, from the mountains of Piedmont,
to the elegant city of Turin.
Guess what? The Fiat Panda
was designed here, car fact fans.
But that's not the reason Paolo's so excited.
I probably need
to check my heartbeat.
You're not going to turn into one of those dribbling sycophant people?
- He is.
This is the home of Juventus,
the Ferrari of football clubs.
Since the 1890s...
...they've won 36 Italian Championships...
...six European trophies...
...and they're so popular, even I've heard of them.
And that was before Paolo started his gibbering.
Just, like, the biggest team in Italy, one of the biggest in the world.
We've been searching for la dolce vita on this trip,
and I think Paolo might be getting close,
because we've been invited for a kickaround
at the Juventus training ground.
We're about to touch the blessed field
of the biggest Italian team.
If you say "hallowed turf," I'm gonna just drop you off
on those tramlines, okay?
I-I would take my shoes off getting on that pitch.
This is my punishment for putting "likes football"
on my CV back in 1987.
You ought to know,
that of all the things I'm crap at,
uh, football is the crappest.
England's footballing fortunes have been a roller-coaster ride recently.
In Euro 2020, we miraculously made the final.
Playing against Italy,
captained by Juventus player Giorgio Chiellini,
England stormed into an early lead.
- And it's Luke Shaw!
But Italy dug deep...
Italy are level!
...and the penalty shootout ended in bitter disappointment.
Penalties proved to be
the dagger in English hearts once more.
But today, there's a chance for redemption:
a penalties rematch.
In goal, Tommaso Orsini,
Juventus's goalkeeping coach.
For Italy, Paolo Damiano,
a keen amateur who plays football every Saturday.
And for England, James May, who last kicked a ball
before the other players were even born.
I feel the pressure of all of this,
and we're on a training ground.
Imagine in front of 80,000 people.
If you have to take one penalty
in the final of an international competition,
you deserve all the money in the world.
Five kicks each.
I've just got to get the ball on the circle first.
Hang on. There we go.
So, I put my foot next to it and kick it, yeah?
The hopes of England rest on my shoulders.
Okay, here I go.
- Oh! - Goal.
Just call me Giacomo Golden Balls.
Ooh, he so nearly got a finger on it.
So it's one-all. It's quite exciting.
- My gosh... - Yes!
That looked fluky. Actually, it was tactics.
Half the game is the mind game.
- Try not to mess it up, Paolo.
- No chance. No chance.
- Ooh...
What was that?
- Has it landed yet? Hello?
Milan, can we have our ball back, please?
We send a young person to retrieve that.
New ball, please.
That was actually quite a good kick.
If you're the current England manager,
well, I hope you're watching.
It seems my confidence is somewhat premature.
No!
At three-all, everything hangs on the final kick.
♪ ♪
Cue the cheesy music.
England, this is for you.
- ♪ ♪
Bollocks. I kicked it straight at him.
It is too much pressure.
Gonna cry.
After my dignified celebration, it's down to a tiebreaker.
Sudden death.
Why does this feel so important?
'Cause obviously, we're not playing in front of a live audience,
which would be absolutely horrific.
But there are quite a lot of people, hopefully,
watching on the other side of that piece of glass,
so we are actually playing
- an important match. - For our countries.
Sudden death is where the first player
to miss a goal loses, unless your opponent also misses their goal,
in which case you both take another kick and keep going until only one of you...
Oh. He's saved it.
- Bollocks. In Italian.
If Italy scores this goal, Italy has won.
No!
Well, there's another thing I'll never hear the end of.
The inevitability of it, that's what depresses me.
I mean, it's been going on my whole life.
I'm 58 years old and England always lose on penalties.
It doesn't matter whether it's the national squad
or a * in a bobble hat playing it on a training ground,
we always lose.
The Football Association would like me to point out
that we have, in fact, won three matches at major tournaments on penalties,
but we did lose seven.
Anyway, at least it's over with,
and I'll never have to suffer that humiliation again.
Oh, apparently, I do.
Again?
...because we're sitting through a replay with the Juventus and Italy captain
who crushed England's dreams, actual Giorgio Chiellini.
- Oh. Maguire. - Completely fooled.
- Like the Maguire penalty. - Yes.
Can we not show this one?
- Ooh!
- Thank you. - Boom.
If you pause the replay, you can actually pinpoint
the exact moment Paolo's heart breaks.
- But fast-forward,
and he's cheered up a bit.
- Ah. - Wrapping up your things.
Well, not for long, because there is still one arena
where we English have the edge.
You are better than us at football and at taking penalties,
but Italy is crap at making tea.
- And before you all start raging,
I'm not gonna take any of that, "Ugh, British people
can't go abroad without their tea bags."
The fact is, Britain, over the last 20 years,
has completely embraced coffee culture.
You can't move near where I live
for double-mocha Choco Taco waffle things with a stupid pattern on the top.
We've done that.
The rest of the world, but especially Italy,
hasn't learned how to make a decent cup of tea.
So if you don't mind, I would now like to challenge you, sir,
to make a cup of tea.
It is a difficult challenge for me.
Sweet revenge.
This is for you, people of England.
I'm scared about this challenge.
Starting lineup: we have a kettle,
teapot and strainer, tea bags
and loose-leaf tea
and, in goal, the biscuits.
Three types of milk are on the subs bench along with a mystery object.
This is...
That's what everybody will do with it, and that's not actually what it's for.
Everybody ready?
- Good luck.
And he's off.
Or he would be if he could work out how to turn the kettle on.
Down, down.
It's a tactical switch.
Yes.
- Oof. Uh... - And biscuits?
See? Correct.
Eat a biscuit whilst you're doing it.
He's brought on the tea cosy. Oh, but a touch early.
- So far, they are making a cup of water.
Can we even give him a little hint?
Okay, I'll give you a massive tip.
There's a brief pause
- for substitutions.
Tea bags are off, tea leaves are on.
How do I? But where am I meant to put this?
And for some halftime biscuits...
I just want to do this because I know a lot of people will be very jealous.
I'm going to bite the same chocolate digestive
that the captain of the Italy squad has bitten.
Ooh.
Mmm.
And we're back in the game.
The captain of the Italian football squad has correctly identified the milk jug,
which is pretty good, actually.
- The final whistle has blown.
La tazze de tè.
And England's captain is lifting the cup.
That, sir, is shit.
I don't wish to be rude, but I mean,
Jesus Christ, that's...
All right, so let's do a quick post-match analysis.
Your first mistake was, at the beginning, you should always
put fresh water in the kettle
because it could have been in there for, you know, six months.
Teapot, no, because you added tea
to the water in that reprehensible continental way.
However, an enormous tick for using the tea cosy correctly.
Um, an enormous tick for filling up the milk jug,
which my mother would approve of.
Um, which milk did you use?
- Skim. - Skimmed milk.
- That is a definite no-no. - No...
So which is the full-fat? This is...
Full-fat milk?
- Yeah, but t-this is the problem.
- Ah... I... - This...
- What are you talking... This is pasta and pizza. - I-I did for you, eh?
- Yeah, but I did, I did for you.
Referee.
Right, let's show these tea heathens how it's done.
First, a small amount of water to heat the pot.
♪ Hear the roar...
One spoon per person and one for the pot.
♪ This time ♪
♪ More than any other time, this time ♪
Cosy on.
♪ We're gonna find a way ♪
♪ Find a way to get away this time...
And now the massive argument,
do you put the milk in first or second?
- Second. Second. - Second.
- It goes in first. - Nah.
- Yes, it does.
Otherwise, the milk is scalded by the greater volume of hot tea.
♪ This time...
That's a lovely golden tea-like color.
And there, sir, is a proper cup of tea.
What's it like?
Delightful.
What a gent.
Maybe this afternoon at 5:00,
I... I... this, for my wife, who loves, uh, English...
- Does she? - Yeah.
Oh, right... Oh, well...
you make her a cup of tea like that, you get your card stamped no problem.
We'll call that one-all, I think.
The city of Turin looks pretty pleasant,
for an actual portal to hell.
According to local myth, Satan's front door is situated
under a manhole cover in the central piazza.
exactly halfway between the North Pole and the equator.
And apparently, that's an excuse for putting up
a big old statue of Lucifer in the city center.
And all that occult energy wafting around has made the city
a mecca for all the rabbit-out-of-a-hat types, too.
Magicians.
Turin is actually considered
the Italian capital of magic.
Can we saw a woman in half?
- Yeah, shall we go and see? - Yeah.
This is home to Turin's magic circle.
They're excellent at it.
Here they are practicing their invisibility.
First, the warm-up act,
Giacomo the Dubious.
This one was taught to me by my grandfather.
It's called Two Little Dickie Birds.
Two little dickie birds sitting on a wall.
One called Peter, one called Paul.
Fly away, Peter, fly away, Paul.
Come back, Peter, come back, Paul.
Come back, Paul.
- That's brilliant, isn't it? - Oh, that's excellent.
And now, the magic... of television.
Just take a-any card, any card you want.
Okay.
And I ask you to make a signature.
Okay? So this card will be unique in the world.
- Okay, so look away, then. - Okay.
Okay, I will show you something with this card.
If I bend the card a little bit...
- Yes. - Of course, you can tell the difference
between the other... between these
and the other... cards, right?
Yes. Okay.
- You can see... - That is the slightly bent one.
- Yeah. - Yeah.
So now it's like in 20...
20th position, approximately.
But if I do like this...
The card jumps, with your signature on...
Now, I don't care what you say.
When you go, "Oh, it's just sleight of hand
and you've got to look the other way..."
It's magic.
And it makes you feel an idiot.
It makes me feel 12, which is what I like about it.
It's great.
If I eat this card,
can you make it come to the top of the pack?
- In a few days, yeah.
Luca is letting me into the magic circle
with a simple trick to fool Paolo.
You have to leave the room, I'm afraid, Paolo.
- Okay... - Good luck.
And you lot.
Bugger off. Go on.
Prepare yourselves, viewers.
What you are about to see will confound and astound you.
Buonasera, Paolo.
- Buonasera. - Per favore.
Or possibly confuse
and bemuse you.
We'll see.
That, you would agree, is a proper paper
Italian 20 euro note.
- Sì? - Yes.
This is a test, really, to see if t-the note is genuine.
Fold it inside another piece of paper.
Thus, it's a Post-it Note.
And then you take a pointed object. It could be a hat pin
or it could be something like a freshly sharpened pencil.
And then you put that between the two pieces of paper
and the pencil won't go through it...
if it's a real banknote. Except it did.
Behold, Giacomo's mastery at misdirection.
But, okay, the pencil did go through.
You can rub it with your finger and you can confirm
- that there is a hole... - Uh...
That is a hole, yes? I wasn't faking it.
Yeah, that's a hole.
And yet, the banknote is strangely intact.
- Uh, well done.
- Thank you for that. Thank you for that... - You're welcome.
But I... D-Don't I get the explanation of that?
No.
We never saw Paolo again after that.
So I journeyed on alone, northeast towards the Alps
and the Italian lake district.
It is extremely scenic around here.
All of Italy, to be honest, is pretty good-looking.
The other day, on the drive into Turin,
it was...
oh, it was about half past 6:00 in the evening, so it was dark,
it was also raining and it was a bit misty,
and we drove past a chemical-processing plant
at the side of the road and it looked nice.
There is no excuse for things being ugly.
♪ ♪
The Italian lakes don't need any help with that.
The dreamy shorelines and romantic towns
have long seduced artists, writers
and tourists hoping to catch a glimpse
of part-time resident George Clooney in his Speedos.
Well, today, they get the next best thing.
Good morning, viewers.
You join me at the foot of Lake Como, possibly the prettiest place on earth.
Look at that.
And I'd love to show it to you.
The obvious way to do that is on a boat,
but we have already had quite a few boats in this series,
so I thought we'd go... oh, in that.
The Cessna 206 is a bloody good kite.
Buon giorno, skipper.
It's nimble,
it's rugged...
...it's gutsy,
it's got a six-cylinder fuel-injected engine,
a constant-speed propeller and it flies.
This is my dolce vita.
♪ ♪
What an excellent way to see a fantastic lake.
Look at all these houses. They look like they're actually
crowding the water's edge looking for a drink.
They're like animals, almost.
On these shores,
some of the world's greatest artworks were created.
Verdi's famous opera La traviata,
the romantic poetry of Byron
and, as attentive viewers will have spotted,
the advert for one of the world's most distinctive scents,
Il grande odore dell'uomo.
All this beauty brings man closer to God,
gives the soul wings and focuses the mind on more noble thoughts.
I do have some friends and they own a house...
just round the corner, there it is just on the corner.
And I hope they're watching because I'd like to say...
I can see your house from up here.
Absolutely gorgeous, belissimo.
Ready for the bump.
There we are.
It's a boat.
Bravo!
We dinghy ashore at the pretty town of Bellagio,
named after the Vegas casino.
It's all so perfect it almost makes you puke, doesn't it?
It was a favorite of Renaissance-era
Italian nobility.
Cor, what a dump, eh?
The Medicis hadn't found anyone who could invent the floatplane,
so they found another way to get their flying fix.
Now, the Cessna 206 is an excellent airplane,
very dependable, very foolproof in flight,
but not as good as this fellow Morgan.
Here he comes. Morgan.
He is a Harris's hawk,
and this is the sport of falconry, very medieval.
Do you like that? He's fantastic.
Okay, I can send him back. Morgan.
That feels fantastic, actually.
That loss of weight in your arm as the bird takes off.
We're playing hawk tennis.
Um, more balls, please.
I don't know how you actually win the game of, um, hawk tennis.
Let's see. Maybe I'll miss this one.
Oh, s-scusi.
Oh, no. Oh, no, no, no. Ah.
That's 15-love. I messed up.
We've done quite a lot of complicated things
in this episode, like sculpture and penalty shootouts
and cooking and shipping movements, but actually,
I quite like this simple aristocratic pleasure.
Morgan.
All you need is a massive villa by a lake
and a Harris's hawk and only one glove.
I hope it's been good watching.
See you next time.
♪ ♪