The Sbaffis hit the town

Luigi and Barbara (2nd and 4th from the right) with other Club luminaries at Crocker’s Folly

On 22nd July Luigi Sbaffi and Barbara Giurastante were over from Italy, and a group of us met up in a couple of watering holes in Little Venice in London. Luigi is in the Carabinieri and first discovered the NSC during a posting in London in charge of security at the Italian embassy here. He is a man of many passions, including Kendo, jazz, role-playing games, dressing up as an Etruscan, dressing up in Regency costume, and dressing up generally. Naturally he became aware of the Club and was a stalwart of our activities until work required him to return to Ancona. 

To celebrate his visit, we met up first in the Prince Alfred, a gin palace pub by Warwick Avenue, before some of us headed up the road to Crocker's Folly, formerly an even more opulent pub and now a Lebanese restaurant. Check out that chandelier.

Luigi's enthusiasm for the Club has not been dampened by his new distance from the epicentre, and he has actually started an Italian chapter, recruiting several new members from Ancona, a number of whom have joined the mother club too, and can be seen proudly sporting their NSC badges in the photo below from their July meeting. (When we launched the NSC back in 2006, I actually expected that local chapters like this would spring up around the world, but to date Luigi is the only person who has had the gumption to start one!)