Fabrizio cardinali biography of abraham

While everyone is concerned about energy consumption, in a parallel universe, Fabrizio Cardinali, 72, does not crave bright city lights.

Indeed he has no use for electricity and, for more than half a century, has lived entirely off the grid.

That makes him one of the few people in Europe unconcerned about rising energy costs this winter.

Cardinali, whose long white beard makes him look like Karl Marx, the poet Walt Whitman or a slimmed-down Santa Claus, lives in a stone farmhouse in the hills of the Verdicchio wine country near Ancona, on Italy's eastern Adriatic coast.

By choice, he has no electricity, no gas and no indoor plumbing.

"I was not interested in being part of the world as it was going.

So I left everything – family, university, friends, the sports team, and set off in a completely different direction," he said, sitting in the kitchen and wearing patched corduroy trousers.

"Giv