All it took was
12 indignant lines from a Times columnist
and Britain's
relationship with another European country was on the rocks.
Are
Italians the rudest people on the planet? asked
Matthew Parris in Thursday's edition before laying into the stylishly dressed
people who had barged past him to get on to the Tube before he had the chance
to alight. And every time they've been yabbering
in Italian, Parris wrote.
After a barbed
comment on modern Italian society, he then let fly at Silvio
Berlusconi, the Prime Minister. Say what you like about our rowdy,
beer-swilling English mob but they'd have seen through Berlusconi in an
instant.
Times
sources
in Rome
predicted trouble, and they were right. God save us from the English, screamed the headline in the Milan daily Il Giornale owned by the Berlusconi family devoting a whole page to declare a
Newspaper War.
The first target
was Parris himself. Heaven forbid! This ridiculous incident unleashed
apocalyptic invective, another lecture of moralistic Puritanism that was not a
little bit racist.
Many Italians
homed in on the swipe at Mr Berlusconi. A blogger on
the Arte e Salute (Art and Health) site said: Parris, Parris! Tell us what
it is that is really bothering you ... not the materialism, the trash TV, the
obsession with designer clothing and celebrity worship in which I think the English are even
worse than us but for our political
choices.
Then the nation
as a whole came under attack, in particular that same rowdy mob on display in Italy in
summer.
The paper had a
dig at the exorbitant fees charged to visitors to London attractions, while
we believe that it is the right of tourists to come with their huge buses into
the Coliseum, bring them on to the Piazza of the Duomo,
allow their four-wheel drives up to the Tower of Pisa, all the while
leaving mountains of garbage on the stairways of our monuments that we
would never dream of dropping in a foreign country, if only for fear of the
bobbies.
Il Giornale also harrumphed at English manners, kissing
abilities and standards of hygiene, pointing out that they have not yet
learnt to use a bidet.
Naturally,
English food did not escape. Writing for La Stampa,
Carlo Rossella, a long-time journalist in
Berlusconi's media empire, decried the treatment of Italy in the British press and
claimed that the Italians were far more polite.
Whoever has
spoken ill of unappetising porridge, or the nausea
provoked by steak and kidney pie, raise your hand, he said.
Then it got
physical. Mr Rossella's
piece was accompanied by less than flattering photographs of rather robust
women performing a version of the can-can at Ascot, and bare-chested, tattooed
British football fans on the loose in Italy.
In the
opinion of the Times editorialist,
hooligans and violent asses are much better than we are. And
all because Italians chose Berlusconi. Better
Berlusconi than Gordon Brown, sad and boring.
No one has
ever tried to turn the tables and look at the English and England with
the same critical eye full of
stereotypes, as does Mr Parris and his
colleagues.
Er, not quite true. When
David Barnish, 47, won #750 compensation in May for
an unhappy holiday in Greece
spoilt, he argued, by the
overwhelming presence of Germans and the German language it sparked a war of words between The
Sun and Bild, Germany's mass circulation paper.
The British led
the way with Holiday from Helmut,
dusting off clichis about the Germans and their
sun-lounger-poaching antics.
Bild
didn't
take this lying down, publishing an avoid-at-all-costs list of
resorts traditionally dominated by the British, with some choice comments on
this country's diet, drinking habits and penalty-taking ability.
Again our
national anatomical flaws were highlighted, leading one to think that those
funny Europeans might be on to something.
Only a few took
it on the chin. Francesco, a blogger, wrote: It's true, we've lost the
elegance of our ways, and all that's left is the elegance of our dress.