Having recently returned from a week in Rome, I found that I have learned a few things. About the Italians, as I expected, but also about the British. Rome is, of course, filled with Renaissance and Baroque buildings, passionate people who would probably kick seven shades out of you if you accidentally bumped into their mothers, and fantastic food. However, there are some things that us British just do a lot better. Or at least with some semblance of sanity.

1. Breakfast

No matter how cultured you may feel eating one, no matter how healthy it is and even if you are indeed in Rome and doing as the Romans do, a continental breakfast has got nothing on a full English. Ham and cheese are not for breakfast, they are for lunch. And I don't want toast or some such nonesense. I want something that is most likely going to give me angina at some point in the future. Although I must confess that if it was a socially acceptable practice (maybe one day it will be, i can only hope) I would eat a kebab for breakfast, so that is probably not saying much for the full English.


2. Queues

A blindingly simple concept the humble queue, yet one that appears to be beyond the grasp of many a non-English speaker. We're living in a society. Old women jostling their way to the front of the queue to the Vatican. Unbelievable. I am convinced that for a very brief moment I actually went blind with rage. If they'd had zimmer frames I would have kicked them from under their feet. Bastards.


3. Traffic

I suggest that next time you are swearing like Joe Pesci in Casino at the state of traffic systems in Britain you think again. In Italy traffic systems are a myth, like Atlantis - instead they let Darwinism take it's course and weed out those who are incapable of reacting like Michael Schumacher to the vehicles around them, while pedestrians are actually considered a form of game.
It also appears that the green man means absolutely nothing to Italian drivers, and its appearance seems to have a similar effect to that of calling Mike Tyson "a gay" to his face.


Wow, I managed to get through that with relatively little swearing.

Having recently returned from a week in Rome, I found that I have learned a few things. About the Italians, as I expected, but also about the British. Rome is, of course, filled with Renaissance and Baroque buildings, passionate people who would probably kick seven shades out of you if you accidentally bumped into their mothers, and fantastic food. However, there are some things that us British just do a lot better. Or at least with some semblance of sanity.

1. Breakfast

No matter how cultured you may feel eating one, no matter how healthy it is and even if you are indeed in Rome and doing as the Romans do, a continental breakfast has got nothing on a full English. Ham and cheese are not for breakfast, they are for lunch. And I don't want toast or some such nonesense. I want something that is most likely going to give me angina at some point in the future. Although I must confess that if it was a socially acceptable practice (maybe one day it will be, i can only hope) I would eat a kebab for breakfast, so that is probably not saying much for the full English.


2. Queues

A blindingly simple concept the humble queue, yet one that appears to be beyond the grasp of many a non-English speaker. We're living in a society. Old women jostling their way to the front of the queue to the Vatican. Unbelievable. I am convinced that for a very brief moment I actually went blind with rage. If they'd had zimmer frames I would have kicked them from under their feet. Bastards.


3. Traffic

I suggest that next time you are swearing like Joe Pesci in Casino at the state of traffic systems in Britain you think again. In Italy traffic systems are a myth, like Atlantis - instead they let Darwinism take it's course and weed out those who are incapable of reacting like Michael Schumacher to the vehicles around them, while pedestrians are actually considered a form of game.
It also appears that the green man means absolutely nothing to Italian drivers, and its appearance seems to have a similar effect to that of calling Mike Tyson "a gay" to his face.


Wow, I managed to get through that with relatively little swearing.