Remember to zip up your rucksack...

...before you get on your motorbike. That's the moral of the story which appeared in La Repubblica's online edition today, which told of a major traffic hold-up on a motorway near Taranto, in the heel of Italy, caused not by a traffic accident but by "manna piovuta dal cielo" - manna raining from heaven. The rucksack of a motorcyclist had come undone, and from it fell some €20,000 of cash, to the astonishment and delight of motorists. Naturally, despite it being a busy motorway, drivers screeched to a halt and helped themselves to as much of this "manna" as they could before legging it. By the time the cops reached the scene, where the motorcyclist had realised his balls-up and was frantically scrabbling to recover as much of the cash as possible despite the strong wind, only €7,000 could be recovered. The biker himself was removed to the local copshop where he unconvincingly, to the cops anyhow, maintained that he was on his way to buy a car from a local dealer and that the wodge of notes (some £14,000 at today's exchange rate) was because he had to pay in cash. A bit like the money from heaven scene in the old screwball movie "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad Mad World".

Motociclista perde lo zainetto volano banconote, strada nel caos. La Repubblica online, 29/5/06