hello to all. i'm part of the team behind Mondo Oltro and i've been directed to this site by someone who linked your news item on our old post re: Morrissey at the Sphinx.

if anything, i'm a little surprised that all this discussion started but no-one even thought about sending us an email (it's very visible on the URL you linked!) asking for clarification over the things we wrote. babelfish is not to be trusted so much;-)

firstly, let me say that Mondo Oltro is not a fansite or a fanzine, it is a gossip blog much in the style of Gawker. we'd like to be like Popbitch, eh:)
secondly, we like to use irony, and possibly humour, in many of the things we post. this is the case with a few posts regarding Morrissey. not all of them, but a few (shall explain further on).

so. in the specific case of Morrissey, he is as you all know recording in Roma. since he's been first seen in the center of the city buying books, the spottings have multiplied and people wrote us saying he had been seen here and there and everywhere, even when it was obvious that he couldn't have (the same night he was supposed to be at the Isle of Wight Festival he was spotted in that same bookstore? COME ON!). so what we did was writing completely over-the-top items, very humorous, very funny, so as to signal to our readers to give it a break. thus once we "spotted" Morrissey but in truth it was an Italian comedian who doesn't even look like him (Gene Gnocchi, someone has linked a picture), another time he was buying 50 or more copies of the same children book, and another we made him speak perfect italian or better still: perfect Roman jargon. all the above was posted over the arc of a month. it was sort of like our summer game. then we stopped because, well, it was getting boring!
also i would like to say that these were obvious pieces of humour, Italian readers all got it (well of course... and it's understandable that a translation from Altavista wouldn't:)

then at the end of August real spottings started to trickle in again. Morrissey was seen backstage at the Elton John show at the Colosseo, then he was seen several times in an area of Rome near the Olympic Stadium, which we didn't believe at the time but then turned out to be the same neighborhood where the recording studio for his new album is. so i guess it was true, uh?

now back to the episode in the subject of this message -
the spotting is verified but the person who originally wrote to one of the members of Mondo Oltro doesn't want to have anything to do with it anymore, doesn't want for their name (i myself don't know if it's a he or a she) to be known. he fears legal action, certainly not from the owners of the bar but from the famous 70-year old writer, who by the way writes a column daily on one of the country best selling newspapers, he's very well considered and blah de blah.

as far as the Sphinx goes - it's a joint so blatantly extravagant and over the top for the Roman scene that it's been a destination for certain kinds of tourists (well, not families with children). so it's very possible that Morrissey was brought there to be shown such a venue. just as he was brought weeks later to a danceclub (but he was refused entry when he himself refused to write his details on the club's member card).

i hope this offers some kind of explanation.
all i can say is: please don't use babelfish! ;-)
best,
chiara