I watched Inter Milan at the San Siro & discovered the meaning of life

It’s a warm Saturday morning in October because the planet is dying. The sun is unimpeded by clouds and the temperature in Milan is already above 20 degrees. Each passing second sees the thermostat continue its remorseless journey northward.

In a few hours time, the San Siro will be abuzz with activity before Inter Milan’s match against Bologna.

One of football’s great cathedrals, it’s a monument to human endeavour and home to the full spectrum of emotions that infuse our existence with meaning.

Cesare Maldini was no stranger to those. More commonly known as Paolo’s father, Maldini made 347 appearances for AC Milan in the 1950s and 1960s and was a proud proponent of the catenaccio system that defines perceptions of Italian football.

But, this morning and every morning hereafter, Maldini rests in the city’s Cimitero Monumentale.

The vast site, full of artistic tombs and monuments, is blessed with an arresting quietness. The noise of the living, including my shuffling and sweating self, doesn’t intrude on the peace of its inhabitants.

We’ll all end up like Maldini, I observe morbidly over the grave he shares with his wife. Such is the perverseness of the human mind, it’s instantly followed by an internal lament for not packing suncream.

But it does reinforce the importance of actually living life. An afternoon at the San Siro certainly ticks that box.

In many ways, Milan feels divorced from the rest of Italy.

The financial and industrial centre of the Italian peninsula is unmistakenly affluent. The signs are everywhere you care to look, from the skyscrapers of the business district to the transport infrastructure that puts the UK to shame.

Forget perceptions of a leisurely pace of life, whiling away afternoons with a vino rosso in