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From: Dave Death Category: Life Date: 09 January 2007 Time: 06:38 AM Review: I've just noticed your reply to the squib I wrote about you last year. I'm surprised and flattered it came to your attention, and would have given it more time had I known you'd see it. I suppose what I picked up on and emphasised with was your apparent uncertain social status. My grandmother is from a good Triestine family with her brother a general, her parents a countess and judge, and there being a saint further back, but since my English background is more averagely midde-class Italy came to embody the lost grandeur to which for some reason I felt entitled. I made friends with a crowd of rich Napolitans eight years ago and have been to Naples (and elsewhere in Italy) each year since. Visiting Naples was my first experience of falling in love with a city, and it's the place where I am at my happiest. I ought to live there, but teaching TEFL wouldn't give me the money to keep up with the same circle and I don't see what else I could do. I thought of your TEFL piece last week when I found myself talking to a girl from Padua at a dinner with Italian friends. Her command of the language was basic, but her beauty shone through even in her attempts to understand and be understood. It was there in her nervousness and laughter. I realised the dynamic: she was interested in me because I spoke English; I was interested in her because she was fabulously beautiful. It didn't seem an entirely disreputable basis on which to talk. Until recently I was an EngLit PhD student here in London, writing about Ian Hamilton and his troubles with money. Before that, I tried literary journalism. I seem by default to be without a career, but of course I want to write. I'd like the chance to talk to you by email or in person, since we obviously have interests in common. I hope this message can be brought to your attention. My email is alex_barley@yahoo.com or my phone is 07986 828101. Best wishes Alexander