It is to be said. Tuesday morning when the alarm goes off half an hour earlier due to the 9 o’clock shorthand lecture, you begin questioning yourself: why in 2012 do I still need to learn it?

For me it is particularly hard because Monday night I usually stay up late since on Italian TV my favourite comedian Maurizio Crozza is broadcasted.

One of these Mondays I was waiting for some kind souls to upload the video on YouTube and finally at around midnight I was able to watch it.

It was fun as usual, but half way through its show I almost fell off my bed. He said: “The stenographer of the Senate earns more than 400,000€ per year”. WHAT?!?

I mean in a country where recession can be found in every corner, a shorthand writer, paid with taxpayers’ money, is paid more than 30,000€ per month.

Ok, I can recognise that understanding some of the Northern League politicians’ speeches could seriously be a nightmare but this does not justify such a wage.

To put it in the words of Crozza “if Barack Obama became the official stenographer of the Senate, it would be a step-up in his career, since now his wage is some 100,000€ shorter than the writer’s one.

However, I know I should not be surprised. The stenographer is part of the Italian political world which would be better named as Wonderland.

In Wonderland a 3-course meal at the canteen of Palazzo Chigi costs just over 11€, computers were sold at the symbolic price of a euro; Italian politicians are the most paid in the whole of Europe. In Italy there is also the highest number of “blue cars”, the cars given to politicians paid by taxpayers, in the world with 629.120 units.

Now it is clear that when Berlusconi said restaurants were fully-booked he must have referred to the Senate one.

Because outside Wonderland the life is a bit different; petrol has rocketed up to 2€ per litre, meals in restaurants cost around 30€, and in general the cost of living has risen by 2.1% from the same period last year.

Next year I will definitely think twice before missing a shorthand lecture.

And I will do it because if you are Italian, and the insane idea to become a journalist crosses your mind, this is what you should expect.

Earnings of between 2€ and 20€ for articles, depending on their length, and around 12€ for a story if you broadcast. This all happens if you are a freelancer.

It means that working every day of the year, a journalist is not able to earn a decent salary. To earn 800€ per month, with an average of an article written per day, one should work 40 days in a month. Unfortunately the calendar is too short for that.

And to my dad who used to tell me that knowing to use technology is important in life: well dad, this time you got it wrong. The good old shorthand still has a reason for being learned.