Life after Helsinki 2007 Eurovision

Sicily has produced a lot of famous and succesful artists from Franco Battiato to Giuni Russo , Marcella Bella and Gianni Bella , Carmen Consoli , Gerardina Trovato , Rosario Di Bella , Luca Madonia and Silvia Salemi come to mind from the past decennies. But the season of various talent shows and competitions 2014-2015 is all Sicilian! In 2014 Suor Cristina from Comiso wins The Voice Italia, Deborah Uirato from Ragusa Amici and Lorenzo Fragola from Catania X Factor, now Giovanni Caccamo from Modica wins Sanremo nuove proposte and Il Volo the festival itself. Two of the guys are Sicilian (Piero from Naro and Ignazio from Marsala), only Gianluca comes from Abruzzo region. 6-1 for Sicily vs. rest of Italy, not bad? Now all we need to add to the list is an Eurovision victory :-)

Franco Battiato takes on a new adventure, becoming the Councillor for culture in his home region Sicily in the new elected government.  "I renounce the compensation and I will try to organize events that expose the island Sicily with the rest of the world " he declares and underlines he's not there to make politics and politics he can do without. He  does not want to be called councillor, he prefers to be called Franco only and feel free to work for free as one of the conditions to  accept the position of Councillor for Culture of the board of the newly elected governor of Sicily, Crocetta, a former mayor of troubled southern Sicilian town of Gela (where this blogger has spent some fun times many, many moons ago!). Another condition for accepting the job was that he could quit at any time as he "can't and won't change jobs" .  He is ready to work for Sicily, although " it is still early to talk about programs and initiatives. The only wort...