On hearing 'Bellini' the uptown girls and boys amongst you probably think of champagne (3 oz.), peach schnaps (1 oz.) and grenadine (1 oz.). I now think of something else: trenshcoats, street-fighting and 'A Fistful of Dynamite.'

Yes, one could call it lame-boy bravado, cock-stroking hubris, but the story of the Banda Bellini, a mythical gang of Milanese radicals who held their own against the Stalinist Katanga and police through the period from 1968 to the close of the moivement of '77 is just plain entertaining. Some of the presenters posed the question as to why a younger generation might find some use value in this account. Yep, stumps me as well! And Anrea Bellini has style, in an old-school way - chainsmoking, hard-drinking, chauvinistic with the shrewd calculating eye of soldier. His face has that unnatural glow that is a walking testament to blood pressure out of control. Obvuìiously he practices no rationing of tobacco, alcohol or cholesterol, a walking heart-attack waiting to happen.

His gang drew inspiration and lore from the films of Sergio Leone and the green trenchcoat worn by James Coburn in Giu La Testa constituted their uniform, together with Rayban sunglasses, trophies of successful clashes with bourgeois fascist adversaries, children of the Milane hoi polloi.

On sex, Andrea had this to say: "We knew it was 1968 when after we'd been begging for it for years, suddenly the wommen were giving it away. We didn't expect it and were not prepared."

The charming thing about the evening was that the tale-telling proved contagious, an old-timers from San Lorenzo who normally keep stumm, drink, eat and smoke their pot felt inspired to interject sponateously with their own anecdotes, pithy lines, working up a good rant and laughing at times gone by.

Erri De Luca, writer and former militant with Lotta Continua in Rome described the atmosphere of that time from a Roman perspective, but also underlined the sense of revolutionary ferment. Thosands of people were literally full-time revolutionaries (as they thought themselves) and from 1975 the State passed laws that alolowed searches withpout warrents, the use of live ammunition against crowds even when there was no justification of legitimate defense, and the detention of individuals for 48 hours without even the obligation to inform a magistrate. In this way, the stakes were escalated to the point where the creative section of the movement was driven away and the square became theatre for a battle between two military formations. The logic of militarisation drove many into clandestinity and nomination of tarmed struggle as the only alphabet of political action and the space was closed for those committed to open public agitation. Heroin took some, exotic climes attracted others, some went into exile. De Luca pointed out that there were as many alternatives to the dead end of groupuscular guerilla activity as there were individuals. If the listeners and readers hear De Luca's message then the publication of this book will have served a purpose beyond providing a couple of laughs for the boys.

Anyway, you can find out more about the gang here. The book is published by Shake editions.