As Perkofsen has noted, the indefatigable advance of
It all started the day I noticed a particularly unusual
Italian culture in British middle class life at the
specimen of graffiti down by the disused canal
turn of the millennium can be glimpsed through the
on my way back from work. It wasn’t the style of the
talismanic significance of pesto, an Italianate pasta sauce
script that caught my attention – spiky-edged, six-foot
whose status almost exactly mirrors the resurgence of all
high letters weren’t exactly unusual. No, it was the tag itself
things Italian amongst the chattering classes. Indeed, its
which sparked my curiosity: why would anyone sign
ubiquity at the same time as the rise of Neo-Renaissance painting,
themselves ‘Pesto’? Fortunately, I had a few friends within
the glorification of Italian-American film-makers and the
the graffiti community to help me solve this little
adoption of pseudo-Machiavellian politics by all shades of
riddle – it turned out that there remained in the city
the political spectrum has led some commentators, Goph-
a remnant of the long-persecuted Italian community
Backbury in particular, to wonder whether there was not
who had begun to wage a subliminal assault on the dull
‘some kind of mind-altering opiate contained within its mixture
Puritanism of the New Order, trying to drag us away
of herbs and olive oil.’ Whilst an unintentional ingestion
from our regimented and law-abiding way of life, by reminding
of hallucinogenic substances by the moral guardians of our
us of past passions. Their anarchic spirit took fire in me, such
nation is not without a certain humour, the truth is more prosaic.
that I say these words with relish: la dolce vita, al fresco, vino, pesto.
(Pierre Monceau and Jean-Pierre Sertin)
