High life
Come off it, Petronella
Taki
Gstaad Now that Carla Powell and Claus von Billow have fired the first shots in defence of Mediterranean macho man, I shall deliv- er the coup de grace to bella Petronella Wyatt's narrow forehead.
Sure, Italian men ain't what they used to be, but what is? Mind you, and despite what she says, you won't find many Italian men's self-winding watches stopping when they make love, as in the case of the aver- age Anglo. The last time some of my toffy shire friends were inside a woman was when they visited the Statue of Liberty.
Prince Massimo Talkalotti and Contessa Tutti-Ignorami may fake their interest in the arts, but the Hon Gaylord Freelunch and Lady Camilla Onherback don't even pretend. They are philistines, tout court. The Italians drink to enjoy themselves. The Anglos drink to beat each other up. The three English phrases Petronella derisively accuses Italian men of knowing — 'How are you?', 'I love you' and 'Where is your hotel?' — is all a man needs to know when meeting an English female overseas. Actu- ally, just the last one will do fine.
Mediterranean women, I'm afraid, have it all over their English counterparts. One never hears the phrase 'passionate Anglo- Saxon'. The English have great difficulty understanding passion. Anna Karenina is incomprehensible to them. To give up a loving husband, a child and a beautiful stately pile for an officer seems madness to them. Not to the wops. Manon Lescaut is a great favourite, not to mention La Traviata.
Unlike most Sloanes, Italian women do not give it away like a Frisbee. But once they do, fasten your seat-belts. What's an 18-year-old English virgin like? Nobody knows. What's a 13-year-old English virgin like? Ask a Turkish waiter. In Italy, the only ones using handcuffs are the police. In England, every time I go to a country house, I feel I'm back in Pentonville. In Italian parks, I somehow do not worry about my children being molested, whereas in Hampstead Heath .
Not many Anglos have gone to live in the Land of Pasta and come back to the Land of Fish and Chips. And how many tourists have suffered from the Stendhal syndrome when visiting Leeds? Finally, how many English restaurants do we know in Italy?
As for women in politics, who would you rather wake up next to: Claire Short or La Cicciolina? One dago 'prince' joked to Petronella about writing, or not writing, and she takes that as evidence that wops don't write books. They don't write the `How to' crap Americans are writing nowa- days. But even if Italians have become emasculated, as she claims, I do know that any people who failed to 'acknowledge' feminism have to be doing something right. Why would Italian women want to become like their liberated sisters across the Atlantic? Who on earth would want them? The arrival of American feminist harridans in Italy was rightly treated as an occasion of great merriment.
I also thought the joke about Italian sol- diers rather stale and sad. The Italian sol- dier can be a fierce enemy when correctly led. The only mistake they made was to attack us Greeks first, and they never recovered from it. In their glorious Renais- sance past — which Wyatt ignores — the Condottieri were the great mercenaries of Europe.
The Italian accepts life as it is. They don't accost you about smoking, they don't bother to lecture you about the evils of red meat. Ideological fads like 'multicultural- ism' have passed them by. They are also the least credulous people in the world. They do not trust politicians and in return pols promise nothing because they know they will not be believed. A congenital and shameless liar like the Draft Dodger could never hoodwink the Italians the way he continues to do in America.
In Italy, governments bribe contractors and contractors bribe governments, and nobody claims they're totally honest. Life is what it is and always has been. When it gets too hot everyone goes to the beach. The country itself is one long pleasure. Their greatest political thinker, Machiavelli, did not bother himself with individual rights. His was a sceptical philosophy, a guide to survival in a world filled — as it was and always will be — with liars, brigands and cut-throats.
Petronella, I suspect, has met one effete Tuscan Pelicano hotel habitué too many. Come a bit further south, sweetheart, and as Yogi Berra put it, 'It's de:1'4 vu all over again.' Macho man rules supreme.
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