breakfast at murrayfield

I don’t know if you get any news on what’s happening in Italy out there [insert nervous, hysterical laughter here], but, in case you don’t, let me just tell you we’re past beyond the “this is utterly ridiculous” point now — as if trying to defeat stereotypes about Italy and being Italian wasn’t already hard enough in peace times, now it’s even worse.

Thank you, Silvio.

For instance, I don’t think there’s any other allegedly democratic country out there where a newspaper editor tries to defend the Prime Minster first saying he’s an impotent, therefore it’s unlikely he’s done anything with any 18-year-old girl, and then maintaining nobody can really accuse said Prime Minster as, well, you know, puh-lease, is there really anybody who can claim they’ve never done what he’s done in their lives?

This is so ridiculous (and yes, I also think it is very offensive and disturbing — which makes a bigot moralist of me in Vittorio Feltri’s book, but that’s fine.) that it’s difficult to think of a decent reply, but then Giulia wrote what I think is the best argument to that on Sorelle d’Italia:

One thing’s for sure: Mr Feltri says we’re all philanderers — or, better, all men are philanderers and all women are whores, and whoever says it ain’t so (and finds the Prime Minister’s behaviour disgusting and squalid) is a bigot. We can’t afford casting the first stone as we’re all like him, we’re all Berlusconi.

Vittorio, please speak for yerself: I’m tall.

And so am I.