Poem: ‘Teach yourself Italian’
Ronald Gaskell, 5 July 1984
They are not writing the letters, they are looking at Peter’s yellow hat and red socks.
(Exercise 3)
Naturally this requires their full attention: the hat, a small but rakish panama being of a brilliant Van Gogh yellow, the socks, blazoned with a griffin rampant, an emphatic, even Risorgimento, red.
Peter, known to his friends as Giovanni, promptly uncrosses his legs, tips his hat a...