highlander1

After that poor idiot of Gasparri - vice president of Senato, not less this:

Lo sfottò di Fiorello che trasforma l'inno inglese da God save the Queen a Gol save the Queen - Rai News

have all the problems of Italy as well as Expo and Mose's corruption being already forgotten ? .. for a few strips of leather sawed toghether ?

primularossa

do you know the concept of "panem et circenses?"
:-(

the alternative for distracting people from internal political problems could be a war....better the football world championship!!
;-)

jonwel

Does that really bother you, Highlander? As Marx said, "Football is the opium of the people". But I don't think Italy has the monopoly of the problems.
I think it's a bit of harmless "letting off steam". If England had won, what would we have seen? And people can't spend all their time thinking about their nation's problems.

However, I'd like to see people getting as agitated about political problems as they do about football. That applies to all countries.

highlander1

No, it does not !
However I would like to see if another nation was making fun of their
'' tarantella'' sound alike national anthem... what is it .. oh, yes... l'inno di mameli ?! By the way is Fiorello supposed to be a ''comedian''..? I have seen a lot of toilets that badly needs cleaning..so, maybe..?

highlander1

I do not think that even a war would distract them... pane e circo sound about right as their politicians are a bunch of clowns !

jonwel

I'm turned off by all national anthems and all patriotic flag-waving. But if we're going to make comparisons I can say that the British national anthem is the most banal of all. All it says is "God save the Queen", variously paraphrased. It doesn't even mention the name of the country (perhaps it does in the other verses, but no one knows them). Musically banal, too - the Italian one is certainly no worse on that score.
A question: in the Six Nations, the Scottish and Welsh teams sing their own national anthems. So why does the English team sing the British national anthem?

HADENOUGHPIZZA

Is that ' turned off ' .. you're missing an F or ' turned on ' .. you put an F instead of the N ?

highlander1

Was Scipio and his helmet italian ? Methink not..

jonwel

No, but are you suggesting that the Italians/Romans didn't know how to fight and make conquests? Whether that's a virtue or not is another question, of course...

highlander1

Italians ?

highlander1

Since when the Romans were '' italians '' ?

jonwel

Well, we'd better stop this. The original subject was football and national anthems.

By the way, if you want to add a comment after you've just posted, you can click on "EDIT" and modify - you don't have to write two posta in a row.

highlander1

never made a mistake ?

sunnysider

(Potentially) interesting point Highlander.

Care to elaborate?

highlander1

The way I see it is that Italy has been a single country only from 1861. Before that it was a collection of counties, small kingdoms and large sways of papal lands. Even now italians are not so sure if they should all be together, as some of them are quite keen on separate from the rest of Italy.
Even the actions of that great ''hero'' Garibaldi have been questioned in recent times.
Before that and going back to Roman times it was a was a mishmash of various population, as it was in most of Europe and the world: so what does it means being Italian after so few generation of being officially together ? maybe Primula Rossa could help here.
Let me just say what one of our neighbors, from Brianza said when I mentioned that a friend of ours from Sardinia was teaching italian to her grandchild, born in UK.... Yes, well ..italian, more like ..sardinian !!