A day in the life of... Claudio Ranieri

7.00 am Claudio Ranieri woke up and prepared his usual breakfast, the same he had enjoyed for almost five decades. A coffee with plenty of hot milk, and some bread rolls with jam. He would usually go at a leisurely pace on a day off, but today he was taking a plane to visit his 96-year-old mother. He didn’t want to be late, because he clearly loved his mother a great deal - so much so that he was prepared to miss watching the game between Chelsea and Spurs, the game that might see Leicester crowned champions.

7.30 am But although he needed to catch a flight, he still had a few obligations to meet and errands to run before he could get on his way to the airport. The first was a suggestion for a cookbook, with a suggested spaghetti bolognese recipe as its centre piece. He read over the recipe, and found his heart rate begin to race and his anxiety start to bubble under the surface. The recipe felt familiar to him, because he had discussed it over the phone with the editor and ghostwriter already. It had everything it needed for a bolognese like his grandmother used to make, who he was deeply, deeply attached to. His mother was the only person in the world who was able to recreate it, and now he saw that the recipe that was sent over had red peppers in it.

“Red peppers! Mamma mia!” He exclaimed. He sent a quick, courteous but firm email to the editors explaining that even slight tampering with the recipe was regarded by him as an outrageous and wrong-headed tampering with a vital culinary legacy.

9.43 am His emotion had got the better of him and, wiping away a tear, he realised he had to get on his way to the airport. He wondered if he should take his Vespa to enjoy the unseasonably clement weather of late but he looked out side and saw that it was rodding it down. He took out an oversized, black puffer jacket and put it over his Italian three-piece suit, and got into his Alfa Romeo. He would have taken his Fiat Punto, but it was in the garage for the fifth time this year.

10.55 am Ranieri arrived at the airport with plenty of time to spare, so he went to an airport cafe for a cappuccino, as it was just before 11am. He would not countenance having it a minute later than that.

11.00 am Ranieri threw what was left of his cappuccino away and instantly ordered an espresso the moment the clock ticked past 11. He strolled from the cafe to a newsagent to pick up that pink football paper that everyone reads to show that they can speak Italian, or because they are actually Italian. In Ranieri’s case, it was the latter.

12.13 pm Unfortunately, Ranieri’s plane was delayed because of a sudden blitz of sleet. The runway was unsafe for a few minutes, and there was a check to make sure all was in order before the flight could go ahead. While he was not phobic of flying, and was rarely a drinker, he went back to the cafe to ask if they had a Punt e Mes to settle his rattled stomach. They only had a Fernet, which he accepted as a workable second choice.

1.35 pm Once up in the air he turned on his laptop and watched the opening hour and a half of the second Godfather film. He then remembered the third film and started to get that familiar feeling from the bolognese debacle, and had to ask for some burrata to distract himself from the rising sadness.

2.45pm Italian time Ranieri landed at the airport and was picked up by an old friend from his childhood. The two of them hugged, kissed each other on the cheek, and as a beautiful woman walked past, the two of them carried out a surreptitious conversation made up entirely of onomatopoeic emissions and florid hand gestures to one another. In the past, they would have given a strident round of applause, but they had learned a sense of decorum and maturity in recent years.

10.05pm BST Ranieri returned to the airport having seen his mother and discussed the events of both their lives in the last few months, and Ranieri turned off his laptop and phone, ready to hear the result when he landed in a couple of hours. He took out a check list and ticked off everything that he needed to do that day off the list. As well as visiting his mother, he'd completed his good luck charm of being the most cliched Italian man in the world for 24 hours.