Greetings from Italy

Hi all

I joined the SHADO discussion group in June this year, but couldn't take the time to introduce myself until now because of pressing work commitments - I've been a freelance translator (English-to-Italian) for over a decade and I'm also involved in the production of a film music magazine called Colonne Sonore (Italian for "soundtracks") as a proofreader. We're about to launch issue no. 3 and I've been reading proofs for the past few days, not to say hours.
I'm from Milano, Northern Italy. I've been a fan of UFO since the series was first broadcast in Italy in the early 70s. I was around four at the time and the aliens featured in the show were largely responsible for some of the most horrible nightmares I used to have as a kid. I remember collecting the UFO stickers produced by Panini at the time and closing my eyes when arriving to the page that had a colour picture of the dying alien (Gito Santana) in Identified. Those eyes were so scary! Despite my alien-induced nightmares, I started collecting the now-famous UFO Italian photomagazines and the 'unofficial' UFO comic books. As well as watching all the episodes broadcast by the premier Italian TV network, RAI, my father brought me to see two of the infamous UFO compilation movies at a local theater. This was the first time I saw UFO in vivid colour and enlarged to dramatic proportions to boot - I think I crapped myself during one of these screenings, when the camera suddenly focused on the eyes of an alien (Gito Santana in a scene taken from The Sound of Silence)!
I also catched the differently-dubbed UFO episodes broadcast by the Swiss-Italian TV network and, a few years later, the reruns of this particular version on a local network called Antenna Nord - I think a friend a mine still has a page from a vintage TV guide announcing one of these broadcasts.
My UFO collection isn't as large as Paolo Maluguti's or Angelo Finamore's - quite the opposite. Still, it includes what I think are the essential UFO collectibles - UFO videos (soon to be replaced by the recently released DVD box sets); both the original and the Italian editions of Chris Drake's The UFO & Space:1999 book (soon to be followed by the new Complete UFO Book); an autographed colour photo of Ed Bishop as Ed Straker (a shot taken from Reflections in the Water); and, last but not least, the 2CD set released by Fanderson this year, for which I had to renew my membership (I first joined Fanderson a few years ago in order to be able to get the Space: 1999 Year One 2-CD set). Now I look forward to purchasing the new UFO die-cast models announced by Product Enterprise, as well as the UFO soundtrack CD coming out from Silva Screen after Space: 1999 Year One and Thunderbirds Volume 2. The latter I hope will feature at least some of the music missing from the Fanderson 2CD set, such as the music heard during the sinking of the cargo ship at the beginning of Reflections in the Water and during The Psychobombs too.

My favourite UFO episodes are Identified, The Sound of Silence and Mindbender. And if I had to pick the best scene involving an Alien, that would be the night-time assault on the game warden and his dog in The Square Triangle. Runner-up would be the Alien spying on Russ Stone in The Sound of Silence.

How's that for an introduction - pretty long, eh? Well, I don't want to say too much in one go and I don't want to test anyone's patience and eyesight. Before pressing the Send button, though, I'd like to thank Marc for his words of welcome and his excellent job on the www.ufoseries.com website. Have you ever thought about creating various foreign-language versions of this site, Marc?

Also, I'd like to inform the SHADO Group about a new Italian UFO collectible. The current issue of Il Mucchio, a music weekly, has a colourful montage of stills from UFO on the cover plus an 8-page article with lots of photos, an interview with Ed Bishop and Alan Perry conducted during the ISOSHADO event at Finale Ligure, an interview with Marcello Rossi about the Italian UFO DVD box set, and an interview with Paolo Malaguti about the ISOSHADO fan club. You can see the cover at the following link: www.ilmucchio.it

Best Regards, and Ciao

Fabio


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