I think he's saying "Come to my room later. I've got Sky tv."

I'm going to win by a landslide.

What did you have for dinner last night?

From 101 Dalmations....

We're Best Friends Forever - our country is fast becoming like yours!

Politically the UK and Italy are on the same road. Economically Italy looks to be doing better at the moment. The EU are giving Italy £100bn for Covid recovery in the coming year.

No wonder they are better economically 100bn ! Labour will equal it up

The PNRR is not a handout, its a loan - which most people ignore. Italy is doing appallingly badly, almost as much as the UK, both economically and politically. A grade one shitshow whichever side of the channel you find yourself.

Yep - a lot of schools are tapping into the Italian recovery fund (PNRR). This money has been spent on short English language courses of sorts. It's like putting lipstick on a pig - a lot of short-term projects without any long-term structural reform. Their education system will continue to produce school leavers who lag behind those in the UK, Germany or the Netherlands by 3 to 4 years in terms of skills and academic standards. (OECD reports 2021 and 2022)

It makes me wonder whether the Italians actually deserve this money, but again the EU is right in trying to bring down inequality across the bloc by helping laggards like Italy to stay afloat.

There's a grain of truth in the media misrepresentation of Juncker's words to the Italians: 'work harder, be less corrupt'.

It still amazes me that everything shuts for 2 or 3 hours every day in Italy. Even in Lucca at busy weekends!

It is less common than it was, and if they are open later in the evening, then most Italians probably are used to it. We got very used to it as the heat of the day was not the time to be out shopping!

I respect their tradition - it seems to be the same in most Catholic countries and it works for them. It's their loss and I don't have a problem with that. The real problem for me is inconvenience as things cannot get done over lunch time. People are forced to take time off work (and waste half a day) when they could have used that time doing something productive for their economy.

Meloni getting her teeth into RAI.

Looks like hungry Italy is turning into Hungary. I wonder how many Italians give a darn about RAI.

For €80 it is poor value.
We tried to cancel the subscription. A registered letter was sent and they confirmed the cancellation and then billed us for the licence fee.,