10946 Three things I hate about Italy

It seems only fair and I am curious to know what others think

1. Even though there are double white lines, no overtaking signs and a blind bend on between work and home. I meet(and not in a nice way) some one on my side of the road 3 or 4 times a week.

2. When you arrive at a shop to find it is closed, no sign to say what time it opens when or if it will reopen. Maybe no problem if you were passing, but a pain in the neck if it is the other side of Rome.

3. Having to check the bill each time we are in a new restaurant to see if any thing has accidentally been added(This is only for Lazio, we have not had it happen anywhere else).

There is a lot I love about Italy and I know I am going to get flamed for this. But nothing is perfect.....or is it?

Mark

Category
Culture & Entertainment

Good idea.. but I am still struggling- will get back to ya.

I hate

1. How poor the broadband coverage is in my area.
2. Italian TV
3. Some of the driving. Either the ones who do 20mph everywhere or the ones who sit a gnat’s whisker from your rear bumper, waiting for that blind bend so they can overtake.

Very good idea...I have been in some trouble about complaining about Italy before now...:reallyembarrassed:

1. Here in Puglia, that there is NO autumn - still warm in mid-november.(I know almost everyone will think I'm mad)
2. Italian TV for me too - we only watch Sky channels to avoid the trash.
3. General lack of consideration on the road/parking.
4. I know I had to had another one though - that the customer is usually WRONG.

All in all though these are only petty annoyances ( to my mind ) and my list would have to be:
1.Silvio B and everything he stands for
2.People who voted for the above [U]unless[/U] they are clearly suffering from some kind of mental illness
3.The sindaco and other comune bods who turn a blind eye / deaf ear etc to environmental crimes committed on their own doorsteps (in [U]some comunes)[/U]

The 'Hate list' didn't take long. But, hate is a much more difficult and stronger word to use than 'love'.

What I really don't like about Italy.

1. Drivers who seem intent on giving me a very intimate examination - while driving very fast, at night, in the rain or in fog!!

2. The lack of 'cat's eyes' on the road. Surely these would save many lives on the generally poorer Italian roads.

3. Italians very conservtive approach to anything not Italian - food etc. Also they seem to be welcoming to white stranieri (incomers) but others get a far frostier reception.

I think Im gonna stay out of this one...........there may be "hunters" about ...........:eeeek::eeeek::eeeek::eeeek:

[quote=deborahandricky;102843]I think Im gonna stay out of this one...........there may be "hunters" about ...........:eeeek::eeeek:[/quote]

"Chicken"...................:winki::bigergrin:

I am probably going to be very unpopular but I enjoy driving in Italy - specially in Rome (I did want to be a rally driver when much younger). What drives me mad...
supermarket cashier crashing all the items together whilst you madly try to pack them

'jobs worths' who would provide a much better service if they really had to work for a living and are usually ignorant of what is really needed but pretend they know (usually in government offices)

umm can't think of a third at the moment - perhaps all the demonstrations about educational reform when it is really needed (I mean who needs 3 teachers for every primary class and you really can't run an A level for one student never mind a degree course!)

ooh I forgot about the cashiers smashing all your fragile groceries together while you panic to stuff it all in the bags!!!

I think hate is too strong a word, in my book its a word solely reserved for the French.

The things I find a little annoying are .

Drivers wearing sunglasses at high noon, driving with fog lights on......WHY !

Not having enough Italian to have a proper conversation, apart from the weather.

Once you have had your meal, having to wait weeks for the bill to turn up.
That last one is purely because I have had to take the pledge, Dang nab-it !!!!!

1. "zitta e mangia"
2. hunters
3. cats - collectively not individually (there are more cats than children and no birds)

Tonight I dislike that cannot post, send emails to friends because there is nasty weather coming and broadband hates that around here, this may get through, who knows? apart from that, lovely weather for the time of year and the olives go to the press tomorrow.!
A

Cats Tim thats bit of a worry on the dislike theme mine havent caught a bird since they have been here, perhaps the hunters got them first?
A

Italian computer systems. (Having said that, I haven't lived anywhere else since computers were in widespread use) - but the Italians seem to be ruled by what they see on the screen even when it is patently crazy. It's hard to be too cruel though, when the computer experts think the pronunciation of the seminal computing word is 'daylaytay'. Plus the fact that many Italian websites 'close' in August.

Italian e-mail response (same caveat) but I've got used to ringing up and saying 'I've sent you an e-mail' - otherwise I know nothing will happen.

Parochialism. This involves the total inability to communicate to a neighbouring comune when there is an unmissable festa happening in the next village, and if the next village has the misfortune to be located in a dfferent province - forget it. The strange thing about this is that I often encounter people at festas who have travelled an hour to get to just that festa - but they always have an excuse such as 'we know about this one because our son plays in the band'.

My thoughts.

The lack of new heating technical knowledge that the "experts" have.
Italian drivers who think they are the best in the world ...... look at the flowers on the bends that prove their ability.
The 2 pricing mentality, one for the English and one for the Italians ......... just the same as in Vietnam and Cambodia. So maybe it is a 3rd world country and as greedy as well

Geotherm - there was no thank you button - but you nailed it.
Angie - sorry for any upset. It is a collective dislike. We are inundated by unsterilised cast-offs from the coast. It is a shame there are more cats than children though. We have an incredible view and birdsong is rarer than in Central London. (If the hunters didn't get them maybe the chemicals on the crops/olives did!?)

[quote=katier;102831]Very good idea...I have been in some trouble about complaining about Italy before now...:reallyembarrassed:

1. Here in Puglia, that there is NO autumn - still warm in mid-november.(I know almost everyone will think I'm mad)
2. Italian TV for me too - we only watch Sky channels to avoid the trash.
3. General lack of consideration on the road/parking.
4. I know I had to had another one though - that the customer is usually WRONG.[/quote]

Can I add one for Puglia too Katier. Trying to cross a road in Ostuni with kids. Even with a buggy you litterally have to take yours and your littleun's life in your hands and make a run for it, even at crossing. NOBODY stops. Having just returned from a small town in Spain, where there was a crossing at the end of every street and EVERYBODY stopped, I was gob smacked at the difference.:wideeyed:

Have you managed to sell your house in Puglia now Paula?

[quote=timwills;102881]Geotherm - there was no thank you button - but you nailed it.
Angie - sorry for any upset. It is a collective dislike. We are inundated by unsterilised cast-offs from the coast. It is a shame there are more cats than children though. We have an incredible view and birdsong is rarer than in Central London. (If the hunters didn't get them maybe the chemicals on the crops/olives did!?)[/quote]
Funny where that button went Tim, as every other post has it. Perhaps its not allowed to post constructive comments and truths at certain times

[quote=juliancoll;102884]Have you managed to sell your house in Puglia now Paula?[/quote]

Ah, thanks for asking Aliena, I did at the begining of this year actually :yes:

Pleased to hear that Paula - that's one less to worry about eh? :smile:

I remember Paula mentioning this in a property thread.

[quote=F Bower;102857]
supermarket cashier crashing all the items together whilst you madly try to pack them
[/quote]

I can never understand this? In a country that loves it's food and takes such care with it. I have seen little old ladies spend ages picking the best fruit/veg(and I do the same), only to get to the checkout and have it turned into puree by the person at the till. :veryconfused:

The other thing is that if you try to pick anything without the gloves they give you the evil eye. But I don't know any Italians that don't wash,scrub,soak and then peel the stuff before they eat it.

Mark

Thats OK Tim I can see that unsteralised cats can be a nuisance especially in a town, the ones around here belong to farmers or to the people up in the village so at least they get fed. We do have birds though, woodpeckers, robins, finches, a nightingale and birds of prey and owls, to name a few, we also have had for the past 3 years a pair of pheasants who have raised their young on our land, fingers crossed that they continue to do so and the hunters continue to be bad shots!
A

Three things eh?
(1) Well one thing I DO hate is the way, in the country, they treat their dogs. Many are chained outside for life! Many, if not chained, then kept in cages where, even though they can run around, they are never, EVER released! Many don't even have a name... and most are fed on the cheapest food possible. Often the most they get is 'animal pasta' with soaked stale bread... and that is IT! [I]G*dammit - they don't even have a [U]word[/U] for 'pet' in their language![/I]

The remaining two things I don't really 'hate' - dislike, yes - but hate? No!

(2) The habit of salespeople continuing thier conversations with colleagues while you are clearly waiting to be served, and actually 'looking you in the eye', glaring and almost [I]daring[/I] you to comment!

(3) Public services (and other shops/offices etc.) who will [I][U]never[/U][/I] answer the telephone 30-45 minutes before their lunch break or their finishing time!

But living here compensates for these last two petty annoyances. But the first one I will [B]never[/B] get used to, and I do as much as I can to support ENPAS in their fight against 'chained dogs'!

[quote](1) Well one thing I DO hate is the way, in the country, they treat their dogs. Many are chained outside for life! Many, if not chained, then kept in cages where, even though they can run around, they are never, EVER released! Many don't even have a name... and most are fed on the cheapest food possible. Often the most they get is 'animal pasta' with soaked stale bread... and that is IT! G*dammit - they don't even have a word for 'pet' in their language![/quote]

And thank god for that,after all they are mere animals,and as you do not mention them being beaten,then I cannot see anything wrong with them being treated as working animals rather than part of the family!

In the news this week back in the UK is the utterly disgusting story of a 18 month baby that died through neglect, being beaten and treated worse than the owners two dogs,who's scraps was the young child's main source of food.

Now that is disgusting,that is inhumane, and Its not the first time either that similar stories have made headlines, here in the UK.
So if you ask me, for now anyway most Italians have got there priorities the right way round.

That was an appalling story Giovanni. Neverthelsss animals are God's creatures too, and the way Italians and indeed the Spanish treat domestic animals, on the whole, is atrocious.

And actually I remember the thread here on the awful conditions involved inn the transportation of horses from Poland to feed Italians.

Surely it should'nt be either/or can we not be kind to kids and animals, wherever we are?

[quote=Sally Donaldson;102952]That was an appalling story Giovanni. Neverthelsss animals are God's creatures too, and the way Italians and indeed the Spanish treat domestic animals, on the whole, is atrocious.

And actually I remember the thread here on the awful conditions involved inn the transportation of horses from Poland to feed Italians.[/quote]

And don't forget they eat dogs in large parts of Asia, but then we eat ,pigs, sheep, goats, poultry, foul ,ect ect but they don't usually share our homes prior to being eaten.
So one could actually say the dogs chained up outside are treated better, and don't forget the 1000s of guard dogs around the world, that are left outside and chained. But like I said they are working animals, not pets.That's the difference.

Haven't you heard that 2 wrongs dont make a right G?

Some of us support Amnesty and the RSPCA .It's not that we care more for anilmals than people but we don't care less if you see what I mean.

And what do you mean about working dogs.i know lots of people who keep working dogd; they are border collies who are used to herd and protect sheep.These tasks require a huge amount of skill and concentration on behalf of the dog and we've always kept collies ourselves as they are so intelligent and great company.

What I see so often in Italy though are dogs simply chained for life with no outlets for their instinctive behaviours.Do you call these working dogs? That's not my definition.Barking dogs maybe but not working dogs.

Giovanni - I didn't [U]NEED[/U] to say I 'hated' the way Italians mistreat their chiildren - in the majority of cases they DON'T.

This thread regards Italian habits/customs that we - as expats - find 'unusual' or 'unpleasant', and was begun as a counterbalance to the 'Three things I love about Italy' thread, as some felt we shouldn't [I]only[/I] dwell on what we loved here!

Now had the incident you mentioned occurred here in Italy and had it been one of many such incidents, then I would have listed that behaviour as the top of my hates...

P.S. Keeping a dog chained is against the law here.

So, when you see someone (many) breaking the law by chaining up a dog - what do you do about it?

[quote=myabruzzohome;102965]Haven't you heard that 2 wrongs dont make a right G?

Some of us support Amnesty and the RSPCA .It's not that we care more for anilmals than people but we don't care less if you see what I mean.

And what do you mean about working dogs.i know lots of people who keep working dogd; they are border collies who are used to herd and protect sheep.These tasks require a huge amount of skill and concentration on behalf of the dog and we've always kept collies ourselves as they are so intelligent and great company.

What I see so often in Italy though are dogs simply chained for life with no outlets for their instinctive behaviours.Do you call these working dogs? That's not my definition.Barking dogs maybe but not working dogs.[/quote]

No I don't see what you mean,How on earth can anyone care the same for animal as they do for a human being! because that is exactly what you have said in you post!But then hang on, its not animals is it,Its just dogs in the main!

So these chained dogs are not working dogs? please tell me what exactly they are then.? Why would people keep these dogs in the first place? there not pets, so what are they then?if they are not there as a worker!

The only wrongs I see is yours sally's and Carole's statements which labels the entire Italian nation as dog haters. Yet As I travel through Italy regularly,and indeed I venture regularly into the more populated north of Italy,there your statements become rather weak and inaccurate, holding very little truth whatsoever.

I suppose that was the real point i should have been making from the start,you buy properties in sleepy areas which have changed very little over the last century,then decreed that ALL of Italy must have the same mentality and lifestyle as these sleepy places.! It just isn't so.

So taking extremes, where here in the UK a child's life at times is worth far less than a so called family pet, when Family pets regularly make headlines for attacking young children, regardless of where fault lies.and then compare that to the sleepy Italy where they keep children and dogs apart,even if that means chaining the dog outside.

I know which one I think is the better solution.....and its still not cruel. beating and starving an animal is cruel.....

I've decided that expecting your average [I]contadino[/I] to show compassion for animals of any sort is as pointless as expecting a feral cat to simply admire a bird from afar or an Italian country dog not to bark ceaselessly at night. I'm not saying you'll never find a man (or woman) in the Italian countryside who treats animals with a degree of respect; I know they do exist. I just think it's pointless to expect it or – in my opinion – to complain about it. I suspect that the idea that animals are soulless and on earth to be under man's dominion is far too deeply rooted here.

The stray dog that adopted us recently only confirms my negative views. A hunting dog about three years old, his previous owner abandoned him somewhere near the far edge of our farm either because he was rubbish at hunting or, more likely, because he has Leishmaniasis. Quite possibly, he was crap at hunting because he is unwell. Very likely, he's ill because his previous owner couldn't be bothered to take steps to protect him. Almost certainly, his previous owner decided that he was not worth the cost of the treatment which will hopefully push the Leishmaniasis into remission: about €150 for the state of the art drug regime, then €3 a month for other drugs for the rest of his life. In fact, it's pretty clear that his previous owner didn't think he even was worth the cost of a bullet to his head, so he was simply left by the roadside to starve, get shot by someone else or get hit by a car.

What's definite is that whoever and whatever particular sort of scumbag his previous owner is (clearly, he certainly could [B]not[/B] be a hunter, since we all know what noble, law abiding, respectable characters they all possess), he never complied with the law to get him microchipped and registered. It's also very clear from the dog's behaviour that he expects to be badly treated by people.

We felt sorry enough for the dog to take responsibility for him, but I can't honestly say I hate the previous owner. At worst, I feel a sense of disgust when I think of him. It's much less in degree, but not much different in quality to what I feel for those whose ill-treatment caused the death of the 18 month-old child mentioned earlier in this thread. Their behaviour and that of the previous owner of our dog was disgusting, inhumane and reprehensible, but us hating them achieves nothing. In my opinion, anyone who deliberately kills a child deserves to be locked away for the rest of their life and anyone who deliberately ill-treats a dog should be banned from ever owning an animal of any sort, but there seems to me no point in me hating them.

Oh, and it's not just dogs that are ill-treated and neglected in the Italian countryside. The pigs that our neighbours kill by hanging up and "sticking" in a way that's been illegal in Britain for half a century are ill-treated. The chickens and other sorts of poultry that one sees living in disgusting, ramshackle runs are badly treated. The mangy, ill-fed, diseased cats that one sees all over the place in Italy are not being well-treated. As for what happens to the animals one [I]doesn't[/I] see, such as the dairy cattle and pigs which are almost universally kept indoors at all times here, I suspect all of us non-vegans are much happier not knowing.

Now, as for what I [B]do[/B] hate about Italy, there's actually only one thing that really, really bugs me: motorway sliproads. If they can't afford the land or the tarmac to create a proper merging lane, why the hell don't they just make all entrances to Autostrade and dual carriageways a simple T-junction with a "Yield" sign? As it is, you never know when you're joining an unfamiliar road if you're going to have time to get up to merging speed or even if you're going to have the sight-lines which allow you to actually see the traffic on the motorway approaching the junction.

The recently-constructed dual-carriageway which forms the final link from Teramo to the Adriatic for the Rome Autostrada has the worse junctions I have ever seen in Italy: huge, solid crash barriers that prevent any view of traffic on the road when you're on the sliproad and then junctions that not only have no merging lane, but lack even space to stop and study your wing-mirror to see what's approaching at Mach speed.

One would almost think that Italian road designers have never bothered to travel abroad and look at how other countries deal with vehicles joining high-speed traffic flows.

Al

Did I not say "as a whole" in my post Giovanni??? There are exceptions.

[quote=Sally Donaldson;102978]Did I not say "as a whole" in my post Giovanni??? There are exceptions.[/quote]

Did you mean there is a huge hole in your post!!!

You see in Spain as a whole very few people own donkeys! so they are the exception the few that do.

Sleepy Italy is the same "as a whole "most families do not have dogs,so again those nasty dog owners who chain there dogs outside and do not buy them best steak to eat, as a whole are the exception, the minority,therefore statements like carole's, "the way Italians treat there dogs" is not a true representative of Italians,,,
As a whole!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and could be well applied to dog owners the world over...but not as a whole,just the exceptions......

[quote=juliancoll;102968]So, when you see someone (many) breaking the law by chaining up a dog - what do you do about it?[/quote]

What do I do? I make sure my local Mayor and Poliziotto (we only have one) are aware, though it is clear that in small comunes 'they' know everyone. I am also involved with fund raising for my local branch of ENPAS for the province where I live. Not much more I can do - but I can still 'dislike' the practice!

And just to clarify - it is not against the law to 'chain' a dog outside occaisionally.
These are the regulations:

[B]REGOLAMENTO COMUNALE SULLA
TUTELA DEGLI ANIMALI[/B]
[I]Approvato con delibera di Consiglio Comunale n. 3 del 07.02.2005
[/I]
Art. 18) Divieto di detenzione dei cani alla catena

E' fatto assoluto divieto di detenere cani a catena fissa di lunghezza inferiore a 4 metri, ovvero a metri 3 qualora la catena possa scorrere su un cavo aereo della lunghezza di almeno 4 metri e di altezza di almeno 2 metri, onde permettere all'animale di muoversi senza rimanere impigliato e di per poter raggiungere il riparo, il contenitore dell’acqua e del cibo.
In entrambi i casi le catene devono essere munite due moschettoni ruotanti alle estremità.

Art. 19) Dimensioni dei recinti

Nel caso di cani tenuti in recinti, questi devono avere una superficie non inferiore ai 9 (nove) mq e ogni recinto non può contenere più di due cani adulti più gli eventuali loro cuccioli in fase di allattamento. Ogni cane adulto in più richiede un aumento della superficie del recinto di almeno 3 (tre) mq.

It wasn't a direct question to you Carole, more of a statement, but thanks for your reply - it's good to know that you do something about the things you believe in. However, "as a whole" you are probably the exception.

Things have got better in Italy over the years regarding the treatment of what would be considered "domestic pets" in the UK - but there are still so many stray animals that have to fend for themselves. Most of them do well enough to stay alive by scavenging. Not a good life, but certainly better than when I was a child and saw many dogs brutally killed - piled up on top of each other and burnt to a crisp by the local kids on a piece of waste land - just 100 yards away from zia's front door. It was considered acceptable to round up the local strays every so often and "get rid of them".

At first my brothers and I used to try to save them, but we couldn't get close enough to the dogs to catch them as they were so scared and liable to rip your hand off through fear. Being practical (which we weren't at that young age) we couldn't really have done much anyway, we had no means of feeding them or anywhere to hide them away - especially as we were only there for the Summer hols. The local kids told us we were mad - they just couldn't understand why we were running around screeching and fighting with them. We weren't used to it - never experienced anything like it before.

They were all mangy, flea ridden things and looking back on it now, I believe they were actually better off dead than trying to live like that. Neighbours couldn't understand our tears - simply because it was "normal" for them - they knew no different - they accepted it as something that had to be done - and in a way, they were right - the authorities did nothing so the stray population was massive.

If, as a child, you were to see this type of thing happening on a regular basis - or even participate in it - what chance is there that you would become a person who would keep a pet or care for a dog or a cat in any way?

It was later I realised why stray cats - who were just as flea ridden and mangy as the dogs - were not disposed of - they kept the rat population under control - and here's the rub - my brothers and I had no problem helping the other kids kill the rats that were too big for the cats - in fact I killed the biggest one of the lot and was hailed as the champion rat killer as I proudly walked around the area displaying it's head on a stick - like a trophy.

Did I just hear someone whisper the word hypocrite in my direction? :bigergrin:

[quote=giovanni;102982]Did you mean there is a huge hole in your post!!!

You see in Spain as a whole very few people own donkeys! so they are the exception the few that do.

Sleepy Italy is the same "as a whole "most families do not have dogs,so again those nasty dog owners who chain there dogs outside and do not buy them best steak to eat, as a whole are the exception, the minority,therefore statements like carole's, "the way Italians treat there dogs" is not a true representative of Italians,,,
As a whole!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and could be well applied to dog owners the world over...but not as a whole,just the exceptions......[/quote]

But you say that the British treat their children worse than animals. Are you talking about the whole or just the exceptions?

Mark

[quote]By Giovanni: "........Sleepy Italy is the same "as a whole "most families do not have dogs,so again those nasty dog owners who chain there dogs outside and do not buy them best steak to eat, as a whole are the exception, the minority,therefore statements like carole's, "the way Italians treat there dogs" is not a true representative of Italians,,,
As a whole!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and could be well applied to dog owners the world over...but not as a whole,just the exceptions......[/quote]

Come on now Giovanni - be fair... you really shouldn't [B]misquote[/B] what someone writes! If you have reason to dispute their 'actual words' then quote them [U]verbatim[/U] - DON'T make up your own version of what you assume they meant. That's not fair!!!

Now here is what I DID say:
"Well one thing I DO hate is the way, [I][B]in the country[/B][/I] [COLOR="Red"](Note - [U]NOT[/U] in towns or cities)[/COLOR], they treat their dogs. [I][B]Many[/B][/I] [COLOR="Red"](Note - NOT all!)[/COLOR] are chained outside for life! [I][B]Many[/B][/I], [COLOR="Red"](Note once again - NOT all!)[/COLOR] if not chained, then kept in cages where, even though they can run around, they are never, EVER released! Many don't even have a name... and [I][B]most are fed on the cheapest food[/B][/I] [COLOR="Red"](Note - No mention of [U]buying them best steak to eat[/U])[/COLOR]. Often the most they get is 'animal pasta' with soaked stale bread... and that is IT! G*dammit - they don't even have a word for 'pet' in their language!"

And : '[U]On[/U] the whole' I agree with your statement that
"therefore statements like carole's, "the way Italians treat there dogs" is not a true representative of Italians,,,"
I agree with that because I [I]didn't[/I] say it [U]WAS[/U] representative of Italians.... only [U]SOME[/U] of them!

AND finally I agree 110% (not '[U]on[/U] the whole') with [I]your[/I] last statement (not mine):
" As a whole!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and could be well applied to dog owners the world over... but not as a whole,just the exceptions....."

Last but not least, as an aside I'd like to respond to this statement of yours if I may(?)
You said:
"... [U][I]Sleepy Italy[/I] is the same "as a whole "most families do not have dogs,"[/U]

Well I live in a village in '[I]sleepy Italy[/I]' and a good 90% of people here have a dog. One or two are pets, like mine, but (on the whole) the majority are kept on chains or in cages!

So - having got that off my chest - shall we call a cease fire? We [U]all[/U] have the best interests of the dogs at heart, and isn't that the main thing?

[IMG]http://www.getsmile.com/smiley/energizer/3.gif[/IMG]

"Did I just hear someone whisper the word hypocrite in my direction?" - Juliancoll
No - I think you make a very good point. Isn't it just down to conditioning? That's why animal rights people use the same pictures year after year of experiments on higher animals when really the animals most at risk are rats and mice. If I see a cow in a field I think steak, and a dog in certain countries is just food. If chickens were kittens I'll bet they wouldn't be kept in battery farms. (Sorry - I suddenly had wierd images of kitten and ham pie there....)

Back to the subject
1. I'm another person who regularly "meets" people driving on my side of the road- so the general standard of driving would be one
2. Not being able to buy trousers here as I have dancer/sketaers thighs and Italian trousers are made for chicken legs
3. The inaccuracy of the weather forecast ( this is only today as we were meant to pick our olives before the rain that was forecast for tomorrow but guess what it arrived today!)

[quote=annec;103018] (Sorry - I suddenly had weird images of kitten and ham pie there....)[/quote]

I believe kitten tastes very much like chicken. Mind you, doesn't everything taste like chicken these days - especially apples, tomatoes, beef and fish! :bigergrin:

[quote=juliancoll;103027]I believe kitten tastes very much like chicken. Mind you, doesn't everything taste like chicken these days - especially apples, tomatoes, beef and fish! :bigergrin:[/quote]

Have you changed your medication recently? What is the point you are not making here?
:smile:
Pilch

Read the thread properly Pilch and - after taking your own medication - sit up nicely and leave me alone. Grazie.

[quote=Markcarter;102996]But you say that he British treat their tchildren worse than animals. Are you talking about the whole or just the exceptions?

Mark[/quote]

Here just for you mark.

[quote]So taking extremes, where here in the UK a child's life at times is worth far less than a so called family pet, when Family pets regularly make headlines for attacking young children, regardless of where fault lies.and then compare that to the sleepy Italy where they keep children and dogs apart,even if that means chaining the dog outside.[/quote]

Words like "taking extremes" and "at times" even using a vivid imagination,would you think that they meant "as a whole" !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :nah:

You know, I really must find out what that word means - I always thought it was kinell.