The heart wants what the heart wants

It came back to me as I looked at this photo before publishing it: my grandfather, Antenore, used to say it often; the heart wants what the heart wants he would say, even as he let me, a child, accompany him to the cellar to get a bottle of wine for Sunday lunch. Sometimes my grandmother, Ginetta, used to say it too.

Perhaps it is no coincidence that it has come back to me today: this morning, I suffered an attempted phone scam, from London, even though the number I was called from was, more modestly, Casale Monferrato.

One of those scams in which the person who is scamming, in barely sufficient Italian, outlines some tragic story - act 1 - and then proposes a thaumaturgic solution - act 2 - which involves sponging money off the unfortunate person - act 3: applause, curtain.

The tragic story, in my case: my Bitcoin account is blocked and I, in order to proceed to recover my money, have to do who knows what. I don't know exactly what, because the call stops before I find out. Only that an account with four Bitcoins on it I have never had. That's, roughly, one hundred and seventy thousand euros: I'd have to be distracted quite a bit not to notice.

This mid-morning phone call reminded me of a podcast that I listened to with curiosity a few months ago: it's called Love Bombing, the podcast, and the episode that came to mind is number 7: it's called 'Online Trading' and it's, also, a kind of guide on how to recognise scam attempts like the one I've been talking about.

Because the key point of the scam is that, precisely, sometimes a voice calls out from London, on a sunny January morning, with an uncertain accent, to the point of tenderness. She has a fake and unbelievable story to tell, and who knows what other true story, perhaps just as unbelievable, that made her pick up the phone to tell me: hey, your Bitcoins are blocked.