Lake Como in Italy is a marvellous place for a holiday.

Majestic mountains, lots of attractive villages along the extensive shoreline, impressive villas with gardens reaching the shore,

Kayaks and boats of a variety of shapes and sizes criss-crossing the lake. And the chance to try out my deficient italiano on the few locals that don’t insist on using their English!

But …. twisty roads all around the lake, Italian drivers who appear to have no fear, teenagers riding noisy high-revving small motorcycles, and tourist prices for everything that are a far cry from the early days of the EU (EC!) when the Italian lira was a laughing stock currency. Now it’ll soon be the UK pound that’s out in the cold!

However, capitalism can still ride to the rescue! Having bought a bottle of local wine at an extortionate price from a village shop (it’s a small producer, and I know the family….), I found another local shop that supplied wine from large metal cylinders ino three or five litre ‘plastiques’. Nice wine, and less than half the price! I’ll drink to that!

Of course, the wine didn’t really taste as good as the genuine local stuff, having been shipped from another part of Italy and no doubt adulterated with other wines, but if you drink enough of it, the wine starts to taste OK!

I’m not sure if there’s a Br***t lesson in all this? I still love Italy and intend to continue going there, whatever our trading status. I would like to be more than just a trading partner – but I’d have to understand the language a bit better!