Rome. With a quick nod to the hugely impressive buildings and history on show throughout the city once again I quickly became bored with the alternative to statues and churches which on this occasion was ruins. If you’re the type that wants to know how old a piece of stone is that’s lying amongst the rubble or you want to know what a building might have looked like at some time not entirely known in the distant past then please feel free to look it up for yourself.
Maybe I’ve been watching too much Michael Palin but I really struggle with the whole mainstream tourist trail. If it isn’t the stalls selling crap, the street sellers ‘giving’ you something for free only to ask for money after, the €2 small bottle of water or the shitty service on offer (New York excluded) then it’s something else. More and more I’ve been trying to look beyond these things and when something turns up that you just know that nobody else has seen it’s priceless. Maybe you don’t know what I mean? Let me share this little beauty with you... Street acts. Apart from the just about passable ‘photo with a gladiator’ one of the most common of street acts is the old human statue and Rome is no different to many cities in this respect. Somewhat strangely though I counted three Egyptian ‘Tutankhamuns,’ two silver cowboys and an absolutely pathetic ‘Statue of Liberty’ that was so poor it was unreal. Firstly for a so called statue he couldn’t remain still not even for a few seconds as he appeared to have some type of winking tick which he tried to disguise by frequently fiddling with his robe. Oh and the torch in his right hand was originally part of a toilet brush set that had been slightly modified and painted silver. Laughable. To me anyway, you see the average tourist is too busy to remain in one place for more than is necessary as they’re too busy on that tourist trail to notice. These ‘performers’ are there day after day and probably all know one another as well as the bin men, the hotdog man, the tour guides, the pickpockets, the artists and so on. Some of these people like the bog brush guy are terrible, some are average, some are good and then there are the real professionals...
You may well have already looked at the picture but regardless, look again. What do you see? A wealthy young woman who’s healthy and happy against a backdrop of a poor old woman who’s crippled and sad? If so then you’d like to help, surely a couple of Euros would be the least that you could do? But hang on...didn’t you see her earlier in a different part of town? And that rhythmic step...step...money shake, step...step...money shake, isn’t that a little too perfect? What else? It’s not exactly cold out, so why the gloves? Why can’t you see any skin? Is it just me, does nobody else think that this is all a little too convincing? Look beyond most people’s ten second snapshot of this...that is bloody hard work!! Absolutely fascinated by this on my return to my guesthouse a quick google images search of ‘old lady rome beggar’ revealed...you’ve guessed it, the same character way back in 2005 performing the same old routine. It’s there, see for yourself! Keep looking; the clue is in the headscarf...
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