Just after he was hired, the porter Primo Lucidi of the Royal Victoria Hotel in Pisa – who was immortalised in a photo with the proprietor Andrea Piegaja and the trans-Atlantic aviator Charles Lindbergh – was very proud to have taken a scrubbing brush and erased an Ode al comodo. This “Ode to the Convenience” had been lightly scratched onto the marble slabs of a toilet by the writer Cesare Pavese, to celebrate the fabulous English-made “comodo”, or water closet, with floral decorations. This was one of the first to be installed on the floors of a hotel in Pisa. In those days, the bathrooms were shared by a number of rooms. The poor porter kept his job but never forgave himself. The decorated toilet, a masterpiece of ceramic art, is still preserved in the hotel even though it is now out of order. The painter Lorenzo Viani was invited by a group of famous journalists to the Ristorante Erasmo in Ponte a Moriano: while the others were talking away at the table, he had fun making a drawing with a piece of charcoal on the back of his plate, which he quickly put down when the delicious dishes arrived. When the table was cleared, grandma in the kitchen grumbled on and on about how long it had taken her to clean all that black off one of the plates!