Italians: What’s Good and Not So Good

September 23, 2007 · Filed Under Culture · 11 Comments

What I love about Italians:

They are friendly, hospitable, generous, intelligent, good humoured, gentle, well-dressed, tasteful, and family oriented. And they don’t get drunk and vulgar. There are also many other positive characteristics too.

What I don’t like about Italians:

Only one thing really, and that is they, not all, but many, lack consideration for anyone who is not a direct friend, contact or family. Here are some common everyday examples of this:

When driving: Not slowing down at pedestrian crossings. Driving too fast and not anticipating potential problems. Parking on sidewalks/pavements and not thinking about the elderly or young mothers with strollers/pushchairs. Impatience - using the horn when someone hesitates at the traffic lights or at a stop sign for a few nanoseconds.
When strolling: Walking three abreast on narrow sidewalks/pavements, and not moving over for other pedestrians.
With dogs: Letting their dogs foul the sidewalks/pavements and not cleaning up the mess.
Queuing: Not standing one behind the other. Pushing in front or pushing into others.
When speaking: Talking over the top of others without letting them finish. Talking loudly, and almost shouting to each other when in groups - this is related to one person not letting another finish talking before starting to speak. (This is something which people from the US and UK find unusual and rather impolite, incidentally)
On public transport: Pushing and shoving.
Young people on public transport: Not getting up and offering seats to elderly people, mothers with young children, or pregnant women.

Indeed, I put many of Italy’s problems down to this odd lack of respect for other people. And it surprises me that this is the case in a land which headquarters the Roman Catholic Church.

I hope I don’t offend any of my Italian readers with this post, and I would stress that not all Italians are inconsiderate. And maybe one or two other non-Italian readers would like to confirm or deny what I have written, which is purely the product of my own observations and my English sensibilities.

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Tags: Culture, driving in italy, Italian, Italians, Italy

Added some more photos to my Flickr collection.

September 23, 2007 · Filed Under Digital photography · 4 Comments

Hop on over to Flickr, if you wish, and look at the ‘Black and White’ set, where you will see some Black and white images of runners. I used a slow shutter, 1/25 to 1/40 to capture the motion of the runners. Just experiments really.

The shots were taken next to Milan’s Arena yesterday evening. Reactions/Comments appreciated.

Here is one: