This morning I sat beside my director of human resources, Gianluca Brunetti, in the opening seminar for the Committee’s well-being week. This evening I saw him in a very different guise; as the foreman of the jury in an Italian amateur theatre production of Twelve Angry Men (‘La Parola ai Giurati’). We greatly enjoyed it. The cast was great, with a good range of characters and voices, and the acting was very good. From a linguistic point of view, we felt that some of the lines work almost better in Italian but, then, we are biased. We were happy to see a large number of children and young people in the audience, for the play’s basic democratic message, about the importance of voicing doubt, is a powerful one. The proceeds go to a charity, V.A.I. (Volontarie Assistenza Italiana), which, the Director explained before the performance, has mutated through various functions and activities but was founded to help meet the needs of the first generation of Italian immigrants who came to Belgium in the 1950s and 1960s (to work in the mines). When I hear talk about Poles, Bulgarians and Romanians, I like to remind people that not so long ago it was the Italians, Spaniards and Portugese. Tonight’s experience was  in any case a wonderful illustration of the way cultures can exist within and alongside other cultures. As we were leaving, it suddenly occurred to me that Twelve Angry Men is a reversal of the story of Thomas, the doubter among the twelve disciples. Gianluca is on the centre-right in the picture, by-the-way; the one with the hat.