A version of the "parachute question" I used to ask myself as a much younger travel writer: are the problems of Naples and Campania easily detected by the uninformed traveller? Would you know something was wrong without being told? Saviano thinks the worst problem is the toxic waste which has poisoned lives and, in some areas, sent cancer rates soaring. But I don't think you would know this as a tourist: we ate and drank in Campania for two weeks without ill effects. On the other hand, the over-development is obvious and appalling. Most tourists see this in the filthy sprawl around Pompeii, which looks more like an Asian urban area than a European one. (Scotch any middle-class English myth that the Italians have natural good taste in visual matters!) But the place that hit me hardest was Battipaglia. Half a century ago I was stuck as a hitcher in the town, it was a nice and old area that would have served very well in one of the Old Country scenes in The Godfather. Now it is an enormous sprawl of grotty apartments, tacky villas and vast, oversized shopping malls. I can't think of anywhere in England that has gone so downhill so quickly. The Camorra love their cement.