Work, drink, break the law and grow old in Cacciacapre in Val Sabbia, an almost mountain village in the province of Brescia where time stopped at the era of dance halls, the gramophone, the movie house, the inns, the Simca 1000 and the baritone flugelhorn. Where currency is still the Scudo or barter. Where the male natives wear wide-wale corduroy and the females petticoats and chignons. There’s not a trace of modern times – no TV, no mobile phones, internet and the like. Thinking is still at the speed of letters brought by carrier pigeons. They steal hens by night and the economy stands on medieval tasks like being a herder, a stone cleaner or a puddle dryer. Brothers pass on their used clothes, shoes, coats and bicycles and Gramps complains because a neighbouring widow prefers dancing with Gino. Some catch the sturdy manure flies on the fly and some raise obese mites under the skin and some eat raw rooster wattles. There are also the village idiots to whom the Municipality has erected a commemorative bust, and there’s a circus where unfortunate humans become an attraction. And the fear of ending up an old man sitting on a porch and regretting the great almost love tossed into the toilet years ago because the courage to be committed was lacking. A surreal village in the province described by someone who, between one roll in the hay and another, knows all the pastures. His madcap version of the province.