What is the connection between the Italian Prime Minister and Tiger Woods? A disparate pair if ever there were one. On one hand we have the stubby but energetic, 73 year old politician who is surrounded by scandal and rumours of miscreance, bribery and infidelity and on the other hand the clean cut, 34 year old athletic mega rich champion golfer. Yet the news of their nemesis comes as a delicious piece of schadenfreud for many of us.
The great golfer having to try and remember all his misdeeds to recount them to his lovely wife and mother in law so they can ratchet up the matrimonial stakes to something prohibitive, should he go off the rails again and the Italian head of state being royally clonked with a cast metal statuette of the Milan Duomo, presumably with the madonnina to the fore, hence the broken teeth.
Do we feel that destiny played a part or is it all due to our speed of light communication systems nowadays that eventually all naughty boys will be discovered and shamed? I think most red-blooded males would have done a lot more screwing around than the Tiger if they could wield a nib lick in similar fashion and I think most 70 year old brethren would be pleased to have enough libido to feel arousal at the intimacy of some budding female politician without going through the laborious stages of of having to remove one's shoes and socks.
The Italian macho cult lives on and even the Italian women admire Berlusconi because he is predictably venal and fallible and does not have to show off his upper-body muscularity like Mr Putin to impress his subjects. With Berlusconi you got no surprises except perhaps that the alleged attacker was not all compos mentis when one would expect some sane and rational bloke would have done what half the nation expected some time ago.
On the other hand the gradually unfolding saga of Tiger Wood's indiscretions is to be savoured deliciously especially by those of us who go round in over 100 and have never had a hole in one. We never thought that the buttoned up Yank would be linked to a porn star ( blimey, I wonder if she had a camera rigged up?) and all the ladies are in a quandary as to whether they should keep silent now and reap praise and comfort later or to join the list of seductresses who lay in wait for the brilliant young player who may have felt he missed his chance of having a few profligate years before wedlock because his Dad kept making him practice putting the ball instead of poking the pudding.
One way or another the Berlusconi attack and the Woods revelations have cheered us all up whilst our masters are in Copenhagen pretending we can all do without our family car and annual flight to Benidorm. If the world has got to end soon Berlusconi has more chance of getting out of it than Tiger who now will have to actually consider the value of the prizes he needs to earn while his loving and understanding family chip away at the considerable residue.