How gentle is the night's breeze. There is music in the distance as the rock and roll bands check their 'sound' for the big May Day concert tomorrow. As the music finishes the ringing bells sound from the mother church of Rome. In the air, there is a sense of imminent change.

You must forgive me, I'm a romantic who thinks that something like change can be felt in the quality of the air. Air, that thing that touches every earthly soul and seamlessly submerges the whole world in it. It is the substance of our very being and yet we do nothing but pump it daily with poison gas.

I got a small surprise earlier when I walked into Daniele's shop. Daniele is my barber. He works on his own, making his customers wait, sometimes for hours, rather than hire an assistant to deal with the demand. He had done a quick renovation turning the splotchy orangy yellow of the wall into grey. I remember telling him once to paint the ceiling the same orangy yellow. Instead he went for grey but he left the ceiling white. Under the mirror he painted a geometric pattern of triangles in a mix of white, grey and black. On the opposite wall, where once sat a small crisp white leather sofa, there will appear, Daniele told me, proudly showing me a drawing with an image of a telegraph pole. I reminded him to paint at least two birds on the wire.

Bird on a Wire  

Like a bird on the wire,
Like a drunk in a midnight choir
I have tried in my way to be free.
Like a worm on a hook,
Like a knight from some old fashioned book
I have saved all my ribbons for thee.

If I, if I have been unkind,
I hope that you can just let it go by.
If I, if I have been untrue
I hope you know it was never to you.

Like a baby, still-born,
Like a beast with his horn
I have torn everyone who reached out for me.

But I swear by this song
and by all that I have done wrong
I will make it all up to thee.

I saw a beggar leaning on his wooden crutch,
He said to me, "You must not ask for so much."
And a pretty woman leaning in her darkened door,
She cried to me, "Hey, why not ask for more?"

Oh like a bird on the wire,
Like a drunk in a midnight choir
I have tried in my way to be free."

to quote Leonard Cohen.

The 1st of May 2012 is a rather more sombre affair than usual. The Mojo hand is resting. The obvious question is: how did a rich nation let its pepople get poorer? The harder question is whether this is such a bad thing. This is the issue that Rock and Roll has always reconciled: how to get rich while singing about poverty.