Number 11 update

My attempts to contact people I've lost touch with have first taken me back to Milan in the mid-80s, where I had my first proper job. As soon as I got there and moved into my old friend Gary's cupboard, we decided to start a band. The very next day he found not only a very good guitarist – the boyfriend of a colleague -- but also a semi-pro and beautiful singer who was a student at the 'College for Maidens' where he 'worked' (= spent his time drooling). We wrote a couple of quick songs, took the name 'Men's Rubbish', and we were off, meeting up every Saturday morning in a studio to rehearse. After a few months, before we were anything like ready, we got offered a big gig, playing outdoors at a major international volleyball tournament, with an audience of 5,000 people. When the moment came we were cacking ourselves so badly that we didn't notice the drummer still hadn't appeared until we were actually climbing onto the stage. It didn't matter – as I put my foot on the first step, a giant thunderclap set off the worst hailstorm I'd ever experienced – golf-ball-sized chunks of ice smashed glasses on the tables, a swarm of roadies dragged away the huge PA system, and that was the end of Men's Rubbish. We took it as a sign that a) there IS a god, b) health and safety is not his priority and c) he didn't rate our music (We found out later that our drummer had fallen off his motorbike on the way to the gig and broken his arm, which only confirmed this). Apart from me and Gary, we never met up again. It would have ended badly in any case, as we were all in love with the singer. So the anticlimax is that I've tried every trick to contact guitarist Carmine Sirimarco and singer Stefania Martinelli without result, apart from finding out she went on to higher things in her singing career.

                         Stefania Martinelli (bottom left): higher things