ONE THING that remains constant about Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi is his ability to inspire the most fervent admiration among his closest supporters.
Take the case of Umberto Scapagnini, the former mayor of Catania in Sicily. He is a deputy for Berlusconi’s People of Freedom Party as well as being one of his private doctors.
Earlier this year, Scapagnini suggested that such was Berlusconi’s physical and mental well-being that he “could live to be 120 years old”.
This week, the good doctor has returned to the fray with the reassuring news that Berlusconi is so well that he “could have sex six times a week”.
In an interview with the weekly gossip magazine, Novella 2000, Scapagnini says: "Berlusconi is physically and intellectually above average . . . he can have sex six times a week, no exaggeration."
After that, however, says Scapagnini, the 74-year-old prime minister, like God, should rest on the seventh day. Indeed, Scapagnini says he has tried to convince Berlusconi, someone who has had prostate cancer, to “conserve his energy”, perhaps by taking a 45-minute nap during the afternoon.
Even more remarkably, Scapagnini touches on one of the hottest items of political gossip of the last year, namely speculation that the prime minister has been having treatment to heighten his sexual “performance”. He admits discussing a “stimulation” treatment with Berlusconi that entails injections into the penis.
But is this not rather painful, asks the alarmed interviewer.
“No, no, you hardly feel a thing . . . they’re not really syringes, they’re more like a Biro . . . A little snap and you’re ready for action.”
To be sure about the safety of the product, called Caverject, the doctor claims that he not only tried it out himself but gave it to a friend, who diligently carried out field research with both his wife and his lover, with apparently very satisfactory results.
Scapagnini (69), who was mayor of Catania for almost eight years, is under investigation in relation to the losses incurred by his administration.
As for Berlusconi, in a week when all occasions do seem to inform against him, there was at least some good news in the shape of a constitutional court ruling on Wednesday which may well prompt a suspension of his infamous “Rubygate” sex scandal trial, perhaps until early next year.