AIBU to hate these things about England vs Italy?

[ItalianPoster]

As an Italian who has spent the last decade in England, I have grown fond of the country, but there are also a few bugbears which totally drive me nuts. Clearly a light-hearted rant, not a profound economic, sociological and anthropological analysis!

1.  No bidet. I. Will. Never. Get. It. You don’t clean your hands, or a baby’s bottom, with a dry towel, right? You wash the parts! Ideally with water, or at the very least with a wet wipe. Why should an adult’s bottom be any different?
   

2. No ID cards. I will never get it. You are opposed to ID cards because you don't want a compulsory document but you have made the passport practically compulsory. Don't say you don't need a passport - Windrush proved you wrong. Note that a system of ID cards, like in most of the civilised - and developing - world, would have avoided the Windrush scandal.

3.  Leasehold. The middle ages are over. Ius primae noctis has been abolished. Why does leasehold persist?
   

4.  Carpets. I understand them in offices. I understand them in flats with no noise insulation. But in houses? Whether you like them or not is subjective. That they are filthy and almost impossible to clean effectively, compared to wooden or tile floors, is not – that’s a fact.
   

5.  Separate hot and cold faucets. Why, oh, please someone explain why!
   

6.  Rodents. No, they are neither normal nor harmless. They carry diseases. In many continental European countries, having rodents is shameful and dealt with swiftly – here they are just accepted passively. Councils don’t seem to conduct periodic exterminations like abroad, and most homeowners seem happy living in properties full of rodent-friendly holes, or just accept with a shrug that, when a house is being refurbished, mice will move to the neighbours!
   

7.  State schools. Admission by distance, ie by whether you can afford to live close enough. Faith schools funded by the State! It would be outrageous to have hospitals for Christians only but funded by all taxpayers, yet this is what happens with State schools.
   

8.  School uniforms. Why are you so obsessed with them? While they might have some merit, the obsession with which some schools apply their dress codes is shocking. Every September there are stories about repressed,  control-freak headteachers who check whether pupils are wearing the right shade of grey etc.
   

9.  Construction standards. Even without bringing up the Greenfell tragedy, construction standards are incredibly low compared to continental Europe. Is there maybe a tax for building stuff straight, not crooked, and for sealing holes? I had never seen crooked angles or ceilings in Italy, Germany or Spain – here they seem to be the norm. And doors? Why do your doors almost never seal the entrance properly? Having an energy performance certificate which looks at whether there any energy-saving light bulbs, but ignores that the front door is all bent and allows lots of draught in, makes no sense at all! Ancient Greece used to build straight stuff - why can't modern England, too?
   

On the plus side:

1. English mother-in-laws don't seem as overbearing as the Italian ones. Extended families are, in general, less "suffocating". Italian families tend to give more financial support, but that support tends to come with huuuuge strings attached. English kids are brought up to be independent, unlike their Italian cousins.

2. Work. There's much more of it, and the country is incredibly more open and meritocratic. In Italy, you'll struggle to find non-white non-Italians who have progressed in their career and are heading teams of white Italians. Not here. Foreigners for very high-profile jobs (Carney)? Forget it.

3. There is no concept of "concorso", these huge, theoretical exams which are needed to hire people in the civil service, and which, idiotically, totally disregard soft skills. A job "concorso" typically involves thousands of applicants locked in a huge gym answering mostly irrelevant and theoretical written questions.

4. The immigration bureaucracy is shameful (Windrush), but, in general, English bureaucracy is miles ahead the Italian one (I know, it doesn't take much!). Receiving a new driving licence, for free, in a few days, or receiving a tax refund 3 days after filing your tax return are unthinkable and cause the envy of our friends in Italy.

5. Green spaces and kids' activities. At least in London, there are so many, mostly well-kept gardens, parks, green spaces and play grounds; the difference with the large Italian cities is shocking.

6. Free motorways. Privatised railways have been an utter failure (Govia/Southern Fail), but at least you didn't privatise the motorways and gave too good a deal to a bunch of well-connected local entrepreneurs like we did (by the way, the fact they are the key investors in the Italian motorways is one reason why I never buy Benetton).

Where da fuq do you live that 'most home owners' accept rodents as normal?! That's grim. Noone I know does that!

I find it odd you should mention construction standards after the huge bridge collapse in Italy the other week.

Things I don't understand about Italy.

1. Needing to know (and probably pay) the right person at the Commune to get anything - e.g. a license to open a restaurant, planning permission etc.

1. Stopping going to the beach in September because 'the season has finished' even though it's baking.

1. People going to university on and off for like 10 years - what's that about? Also why do all the universities let everyone in and then weed them out?

1. People getting 13 or 14 months of pay per year rather than the 12 months that there actually are.

1. It being practically impossible to sack anyone, even if they are awful at their job.

1. Half-built houses everywhere. Not ones that are in the process of being built, ones that have just been started and left.

1. The way so many Italians get fed up with pets and chuck them out of the car on the autostrada. They actually had to make a TV advert to tell people not to.

1. Colpo Grosso

1. Racism

10. People will stare and when you catch their eye THEY DON'T LOOK AWAY.

Well I agree with much of what you say and I count myself as a massive Italophile - but I'm not sure about construction standards Has Italy not just had a terrible terrible tragedy on the back of very poor construction standards?

I'll never get your bloody obsession with bidets though . Should I be ashamed to admit I don't even know which way round to sit on one, never mind how to use it! Nah - you can keep your bidets!

The thing is with bidets is, has the person who used it before you actually given it a good scrub afterwards?. Or are particles of their shit sprinkled around the porcelain?

I would have to wash and disenfect it before i use it. But what to wash it with? With a cloth? Where do you put the shitty cloth after?

I'll stick to bum wipes thanks.

I completely agree except for number 8.

The separate hot and cold taps indicates that the hot water tap isn't safe to drink from, it's a cross contamination thing. It's still annoying though.

Carpets are a personal preference thing, don't sit or eat off them if they bother you.

Genuinely staggering to have an Italian lecturing us on building standards.

Also, rage against carpets - please tell us what health hazards they constitute precisely? How have I managed to live so many years without death by carpet?

In fact how is it that I do not know a single person who has died, or even gone to hospital, as a result of having carpets?

WE ARE ALL CHEATING DEATH!

Flushable bum wipes are very common where I'm from.

Negatives for me:

Lack of look seats
No free water with meals
Lack of child meals so makes eating out expensive

Some of many positives:

Great fresh fruit
Good food
Beautiful buildings

Construction, I’m always shocked at the state of properties and apartments when I go to Italy. Bridges (yes plural) collapsing.

Rodents

Bidets are grim.

Carpets are usually in shoe free homes. I remember when it was fashionable to have carpets in bathrooms, that was hideous!

My DM is Italian and has spent almost the past six decades living in the UK compared to your one OP.

And she would laugh at some of these. She would not want a bidet and would not dream of not having carpets.

They’re just cultural differences, no? You could draw up a similar list for England v every other country in the world. It’s not about what’s right or what’s wrong, it doesn’t even matter - no country is the same as the other, culturally, economically or otherwise. I believe many of your points to be untrue anyway - rats?!? I don’t know anybody who would tolerate living with them. The recent Italian bridge disaster proves construction standards are no better in other European countries. If you don’t want a passport you don’t have to have one - Windrush, albeit a massive f**ck up, only applied to a small minority of the country so your example is largely irrelevant. As far as I’m aware, mixer taps are largely available, or my house is very unusual in having 3 of them

For what it’s worth, I’m half English and half Italian so have spent a considerable amount of time in both countries. Give me a luxurious carpet in my living room and bedroom any day. I have never visited a “cosy” Italian home, they always feel so sterile and dare I say it, “old fashioned”. I’m sure my Italian relatives experience comparable feelings driven by cultural differences when they visit my home. But does it matter?!? No.

Here here on the construction standards irony. I've never witnessed so many builders hacking off and subsequently rebuilding bits of buildings as I did whilst living in Italy. Incessant drilling and banging. Didn't point to particularly high standards of construction in my experience.

I've heard it said that the hot / cold taps are a legacy of our very old plumbing. Probably connected to what a pp said about safe drinking water.

Don't get the big deal about ID cards. Genuinely can't see what the fuss is about.

Carpets are because it's cold here. We clean them with vacuum cleaners. Me personally I prefer wood floors but carpet is popular for that reason.

My own weird observations about Italy:

Insistence that I can't have a capucinno in the afternoon. Or indeed any time after about 10am.

People sweating in long sleeves and socks in April and May because summer hasn't officially begun, then a wholesale change to shorts, sandals etc on June 1st, at which time it is also acceptable to swim in the sea or sit on the beach. See September 1st for the reverse.

Dogs barking all night, and I mean ALL night long. Do they not drive the owners insane? Are they beloved pets or guard dogs? If the former, why so neglected? If the latter, why is no-one investigating?

The staring! I know this one is a culture clash, neither side is particularly right, but we are taught as British kids that it's rude to stare. It's deeply ingrained and hard to shake off.

I don't think we've ever voted in a child rapist as Prime Minister. Well not for a good while anyway.

Yes most older houses have separate hot and cold water pipes so therefore separate taps I think.

Why would I want a bidet, let's get loads of shit particles into another thing that needs cleaning.

Let's be honest no one encourages rodents.

Building standards, hmmm let's not mention that shall we.

State schools, how do you do admissions? Kidna makes sense that you go to your closest school surely unless you want to go to somewhere else.

I hope no one took a light-hearted rant too personally or seriously!

Melanie:
Your point about the Italian commune (town hall) is similar to mine about the English bureaucracy being vastly better.

Stopping going to the beach in September? I grew up by the beach and, trust me, this does not happen. What happens is concentrating holidays in August, which is different; many employees don’t have a choice – their employer shuts down for August, because the clients shut down, etc.

University taking forever; yes, that’s shameful and contributes to Italians not growing a pair and becoming adults till very late in life. As I said, I do appreciate that here people are brought up to be independent.

Impossible to sack anyone? You must have read too many Daily Mail articles. It depends. It used to be like these, and it still is for some civil servants and for some old people on old contracts, but not any more. For example, a couple of years ago they introduced a law in Italy that makes it compulsory to file your resignation through a centralised online system managed by the Ministry of Labour or something like that. Why? Because many employers were forcing young women of child-bearing age to sign undated letters of resignation as a precondition to getting a job.

Carpets: I am not debating personal choice and taste (subjective), I am simply saying that they cannot be cleaned as well and as easily as wooden or tile floors (objective fact) – this is what makes them filthy and disgusting. I remember one living room (the only room where we could eat) where we spilt some coffee and never managed to get rid of the stain, even after a professional cleaning with one of those huge machines. Even if you have carpets only in bedrooms, a pee or poo accident with a small child, which can happen, would be horrendous on a carpet.

Construction standards much better in Continental Europe???

I have travelled extensively throughout - and can tell you that you are totally. categorically 100%, WRONG.

Sure, there are dodgy landlords - same all over the world. They want the £££ in, but are loathe to spend the £££. That's not confined to the UK.

Lady, have you been sniffing the glue?

Carpets vs tiled flooring - have you not noted the differences in climate between the UK and Italy in the 10yrs you've lived here?

construction standards are better in Italy
Very, very sadly not the case.

The thing about the carpets is surely it's related to temperature. It's colder in England than Italy, carpets make it cosier especially in winter.

I’ll just leave this here for point 9 -

www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/world-europe-45439173

I’m laughing my head off at number 9 on your first list OP.

Bits of Italy I've been to it seems impossible to just wander on the beach, you need to pay and transit through a restaurant!

I see I am not the only one who thinks your point number 9 on construction is just plain wrong. Do you work in construction op? Do you have any experience of European product performance standards and how they are put together? Because I tell you that 4 times out of 5 the country vetoing improvements is...guess who...Italy.

I can recall an episode of Phil Spencer Secret Agent where the house in question had a tiled living room floor the Italian owner point blank refused to lift. Phil stated.... "the only way you'll get a sale if if we find an Italian buyer"... They did indeed find an Italian buyer who made an offer! However, anyone who was a UK national turned pale viewing it whilst expressing 'How much will it cost to rip up? That'll bugger the heating costs in winter!' 😯