Those videofonini
Have added new word to growing Italian vocabulary: videofonino (plural videofonini). It means video phone and if ever a product was suited to a society then the video phone and Italy were designed for each other. Want to show off to your pals in a Milanese bar? Whip out that NEC e606 multimedia mobile, which costs a cool €740, and watch that goal Filippo Inzaghi scored for AC Milan last night in their dramatic Champions League win over Ajax at the San Siro stadium. And because you're an AC supporter, you replay it 20 times.
Five weeks after the introduction of the first UMTS (Universal Mobile Telecommunications Service) network in Italy, the operator, H3G, a subsidiary of the Hong Kong conglomorate Hutchinson Whampoa, has signed up 40,000 customers. And 150,000 orders for the service are waiting to be filled. By the end of May, H3G says it will have 130,000 Italian customers sending photos, videos and music over its network and paying a monthly fee of either €85 or €140 for the service, depending on their level of usage.
The H3G network now reaches 40 per cent of the Italian population; the UMTS footprint covers 500 communes and all regional capitals, except Naples and Venice.
Diarist of the day: Alec Guinness, 24 April 1996"I'm glad I'm not having to undergo any surgery just now. Today's press is full of photographs of the Princess of Wales, in operating-theatre gear and pale make-up, sitting in on a serious operation. We are told she is doing the rounds of several hospitals. 'Pardon me, your Royal Highness, but this is my hernia and I don't want anyone to stitch it up except the surgeon. Another whiff of gas, nurse, if you don't mind, and leave out the Cal裨e Parfum."
