The clampdown on fiddles in Italy is producing some remarkable results. How about discovering that more than one million homes in Italy are invisible? No, it is not April 1st!
Presumably inhibited by millions of invisible Italians, these invisible homes have been identified from satellite images by officials trying to sort out Italy’s cadaster – Italy’s land registry, which, supposedly, records who owns what and where throughout Italy, only it didn’t.
How the heck do one million homes could go unnoticed? The work of invisible planners?
One such home was probably the residence of the Invisible man, who, if you did not know, is Italian.
Who Lives in Italy’s Invisible Homes?
It is not yet clear who the other inhabitants are, probably because they cannot be seen. Technically, seeing as these Italians lived in invisible homes, they were homeless, and, knowing Italy, were probably claiming some benefit or other from the Italian authorities. Who knows? Blind people go window shopping, the dead claim pensions, and paralyzed landlords drive in Italy, so absolutely anything is possible.
The Blind Woman Who Went Window Shopping in Turin, Italy
[youtube width=”556″ height=”469″]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDh1PYLCbMg[/youtube]
Back to the invisible homes – more than one million of them. Put them all together and one would have the third or forth largest city in Italy!
Serving this, large, invisible city would be a whole host of invisible businesses – invisible shops supplied by invisible truck drivers. Actually, one invisible truck driver was recently found. More will probably be found when the thermal imaging devices are brought to bear.
Working in the invisible businesses would be invisible employees who, of course, live in invisible houses. By the way, officials have also found plenty of other invisible buildings hiding all over the Boot.
Stop reading, start speaking
Stop translating in your head and start speaking Italian for real with the only audio course that prompt you to speak.
The invisible parallel universe of the Harry Potter books springs suddenly to mind! Hogwarts is probably in Italy – but don’t try looking for it, it’s invisible, as are its pupils.
Invisible Kids, Cats and Dogs
Amongst the invisible employees who work for the invisible Italian businesses and have invisible kids who attend invisible schools, there will, no doubt, be a few of Italy’s semi-visible well-heeled poor. These people will probably drive highly visible Ferraris, which they cannot actually afford, or could not if most of their earnings were not invisible, like the houses they live in.
Maybe there are invisible banks in which Italy’s invisible have accounts?
Do invisible Italians have invisible cats and dogs? One wonders.
Anyway, the invisible homes have now been rendered visible and Italy’s local authorities are rubbing their hands in glee at the prospect of collecting something like €500 million a year in visible extra taxes.
All this invisibility begs the question: Just what is Italy’s population? On paper, it’s supposed to be around 60 million, but maybe this figure would be larger if the invisible were to be counted – if they can been seen, that is.
Is Italy a real country, or a fantasy Harry Potter land? The latter, it seems at times.
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Hilly landscape in Val d’Orcia photograph by Stefanoacetelli
