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).

I think the drug problem has subsided a bit, from what I see. Public gardens used to be full of needles. Pushers would swarm round schools when the pupils came out. Given that school’s out at 1 or 2pm, there was a lot of opportunity to target teens hanging around with their mates in parks etc. There is the fall out now, though, as many middle aged former users have hepatitis.

Obviously this refers to a very urban area.

Wow! I’m a bit startled by so many negative reactions to what is clearly a lighthearted and subjective OP.
FWIW I agree with most of her cons and pros but it’s always interesting to me to see how things we accept as the norm appear to those coming from different norms.
I teach immigrants from many different countries to the U.K. and their most common gripes are: separate H&C taps; crap windows (Polish windows for example are reportedly easier to clean and open differently and also better quality); weather and the prevalence of fast food, - although I do point out that just because they see so many fast food shops, they shouldn’t believe the average British family eats fast food every week, - a lot of my students ask me “Why don’t British people cook?” - which puzzled me at first, but the majority of our students live in cheap city centre private rentals which concentrate around arterial roads with loads of fast food shops so I think that’s why they assume that. Syrian students can’t understand why adult children don’t fight for the honour if who will have their infirm aged parents live with them but put them in homes instead. Horror at us “putting” our parents in homes is widespread, although one Indian gentleman told me that actually a lot of domestic elder abuse existed where he came from, but was brushed under the carpet, so he wasn’t sure it was that simple. A lot of our older Congolese ladies have to be taught not just the word “pet” but the whole concept, and they find the idea of keeping an animal in your house for companionship and love bafflingly pathetic and also filthy. A lot of African students with children comment on the lack of discipline in schools and the lack of respect for teachers, they are very keen that their own children don’t assimilate this.
There is general approbation of our parks and public spaces, the lack of corruption, and our police! Many can’t believe our police don’t exhort bribes and that you can ask them a question and they answer helpfully and politely. Obviously the lack of violence and the peace are huge pluses for many of our students who are refugees. Most comment on people in shops etc. being friendly, which is nice to hear as our city used to be very homogeneously white British.

I am getting fond of ItalianPoster now, but when you read the word 'hate' in an OP, you generally don't take it as 'light hearted'.

Also what annoyed me a bit was the use of 'England' as though Scotland and Wales had just dropped off/weren't important.

Maybe the poster hasn't visited Wales or Scotland and didn't like to make assumptions.

I used to work with quite a few people from other places, and asked what they liked/disliked. I was surprised when one visitor said that he really enjoyed the birdsong. He said he never heard it at home - he wasn't Italian BTW. I am sure there are lots of birds singing in Italy too.

maybe yes, that was it.
I just get annoyed with anyone using 'England' tbh. It's not 'England' it's Britain.

I'm in Northern Italy right now. Usually come in July, first time in Autumn.

Things that are weird 😉
The shops are full of winter clothes although it's 27C.
Toasters seem to be a thing of mystery to non English which results in lots of burnt bread.
They can't really do proper biscuits.
It's very white.
Television is dreadful but I'm a bit addicted to Cooking with Benedetta!

But the birds are singing and we still come every year because we like it.

Maybe people think Italy has a problem with drugs because of the no-go areas around railway stations (and not just at night) and hospitals? Only last night there was a news article about how Termini and SMM in Florence have become out of bounds because of the crime around them. You don't generally have your husband warning you not to when you head for St Pancras.

Re the old people, what you find is that, yes, families will keep grandma at home a) there aren't many nursing/care homes like we know them, b) they hire in a badante- generally an Albanian or Romanian woman who they will pay a pittance, cash in hand, to do the dirty stuff.

The OP said that she’d never been to Wales/Scotland/NI so didn’t feel she should include them.

For someone who claims to be Italian and only in UK 10 years, the OP's English is beyond what many native speakers could achieve.

Comments such as
Italy’s largest daily, Il Corriere della Sera, provocatively talked about and
no point engaging in a discussion with people who base their conclusion on anecdotal evidence

really does not say 'someone with English as a second language. Just saying.....

Oh, let the OP off re the other bits of Britain. I expect non-Dutch people refer to the Netherlands as "Holland" all the time.

The harsh but true reason is that the other bits are small and not particularly different from an outsider's perspective.

*Italy’s largest daily, Il Corriere della Sera, provocatively talked about and
no point engaging in a discussion with people who base their conclusion on anecdotal evidence

really does not say 'someone with English as a second language. Just saying.....*

I'm not a native speaker and I like to think I could cobble that kind of sentence together but I might just be deluding myself of course.

I live in Scotland and when I visit family in Germany, or talk to colleagues (mostly in France and Spain), I am frequently asked how I'm doing "over there in England". I correct it every time but it makes no difference. Many Europeans say England even when they really mean all of the UK.

I'm curious about the OP's phenomenal English too. How did that come about in ten years?

How did that come about in ten years?

It is possible to study a language outside the countries it is spoken.

Oh dear. Never start a thread suggesting that the U.K. is anything other than the best place on earth

It is not what the OP said that got some people’s backs up, but the way in which it was said.

It is one thing to discuss differences, another to make people feel wilfully criticised.

I am pretty sure most people know that the UK has faults like everywhere else - unless they are the likes of Jacob Rees-Mogg .

The care for the elderly is interesting

In westernised cultures when it’s the norm for both parents to work full time it does seem to be the norm to outsource it

What else can peoople
Who have to work till 68 do ?

I do read a lot that the Brits appear to care more about dogs that their elderly and I would tend to agree with that !

I also love the difference between English parenting - and what appears to be the rest of the world ! You tube has some very funny clips

I adore italy and it has to be said that south and north are very different . I am
More uses to Deep South and I suspect that a woman from
Milan will have more in common with me
Than with a woman from
Sicily

Ops English could be good because she made the effort to learn it, or used it alongside native language. Furthermore the people I have met from other countries as Italy, Germany, France etc have superb languages skills in other European languages as well as English.

" Oh dear. Never start a thread suggesting that the U.K. is anything other than the best place on earth "

oh don't be silly. The thread title had 'things I hate about England' in it.

if that many foreigners arrived to live in Italy and started commenting about what they 'hate' it would probably lead to the rise of fascism..oh wait...

.let's be honest it's a touchy subject right now...Brexit and all..

While OP's English is startlingly good, perhaps she doesn't really understand the strength of the word 'hate'.

Yes some speakers of other languages pass a test called 'Cambridge Proficiency in English' which an awful lot of native speakers would just fail.

Elderly care in the home generally means women doing it, whatever the country. Maybe we're less willing to do it as a default option in the UK than we used to be?

Construction standards better in Italy....? I am hysterically laughing at this point. But given the disregard for public safety in the latest example of that collapsed bridge, it is tragic really. However, the shocking lack of adhering to building regulations in general. Which seems to go hand in hand with the next point. Corruption. Permeating and oozing out at every level. Rampant sexism and constant sexual harassment. Not so light hearted but a very unpleasant part of whenever I crossed the border from the South of France to Italy.

LightDrizzle that's really interesting.

I came to the UK years ago from a less developed country. I was fascinated by all the ready meals! I found a frozen microwaveable donner kebab in Farmfoods. Sadly it was disgusting

Depends how old she was 10 years ago probably!

I moved to England age 5, obviously by age 15 there was no discernable difference between my language skills and anyone elses. Same for friends who came over mid-teens. Even friends who came over as young adults to do their degrees, yes they've got an accent but there's no differences in their written English.

“really does not say 'someone with English as a second language. Just saying.....”
Were you complimenting my English, or wondering if I am a native speaker posing as a foreigner?

As for “England”, I clarified it after a few posts, I’ll say it again for the last time: I mentioned England not because I ignore the difference among England, Great Britain and the UK, but because I have very limited knowledge of the other countries in the UK (I only set foot in Scotland, and only a couple of times). Some of the things I hate (leasehold in Scotland) don’t apply everywhere. No do some of the things I love, eg (with the notable exception of State-funded faith schools) religious freedom and the lack of interference from the Churches (think of abortion in Northern Ireland).

Brits living in Tuscany might talk about what they love and hate about Tuscany, rather than about Italy in general, if their experience and knowledge are mostly limited to Tuscany. Same thing here.

As for heroin problems, my point was a bit more general. It is human nature to infer general conclusions from our own experience, without really questioning how limited or representative that is. Some things are impossible to measure precisely, some aren’t. Most surveys have shown people (pretty much everywhere) tend to massively overestimate things like the % of foreigners or the number of crimes; one such massive survey in Italy showed people thought foreigners were ca. 30% of the population whereas the true number is closer to 9%.
The number of heroin-related deaths is one of those things that can be, and is, measured quite precisely. The UK accounts for more than 30% of such deaths in the EU, followed by Germany with 15%. I don’t know the number for Italy, but it must be less than 15%, ie less than half the UK (note the two countries have similar population). In light of this, it beggars belief to claim that Italy has a bigger security problem.

It is true that the areas around many railway stations in Italy are no-go-zones. One of the things which positively struck me when I first came here was seeing half-naked fully-drunk girls getting on night buses without being “escorted” by male friends or relatives or loves or whatever. Something like this would be inconceivable in most of Italy AFAIK.
But it is hard to quantify crime and security in general. In London there have been many moped-related crimes, including throwing acid on the face of Deliveroo riders to steal their scooters – AFAIK this is unheard of in Italy. Which is safer? I genuinely don’t know.