Thoughts and not beliefs, with the occasional wild speculation
Tre mi hanno fatto ancora piacere. Questa volta hanno mandato un link tramite sms per aggiungere dettagli carta di cedito.
Ovviamente, il link NON FUNZIONE!
http://portale3.tre.it/133/op/id/485
Bravo Tre.
Ho Telefonato customer service. Mi hano datto un numero fax e…il numero no funzione!!
Bravo to all the idioti at Tre Italia!
Another waste of time.
Many of the villages of the Cilento are dying. Most have elderly populations that are not being replenished, because young people have moved and are still moving away to cities.
Certainly the world will not be much different if these villages eventually die out. But it could be different if they live. A way of life exists there that has existed for centuries, and some villages people still speak dialects that are a mixture of Ancient Greek and Albanian.
It is very sad, and the only hope is that the people of Cilento realise that they must do something drastic to avert their extinction.
07/08/2008
Here we are…wasting time. Yet again. And it’s all because the service provided by Tre Italia mobile internet is either incompetent or deliberately inferior so as to make the customer pay more. One cannot help side with the latter judgment.
So what is it this time?
Whilst surfing in an area where Tre’s reception is usually very good, the network switched from Tre Italia to “altre operatore” This basically means that you move out of the free usage zone withing your monthly plan and into the expensive zone of 60 cents per MB. I only found this out because the local meter “advised” me of 95% usage.
But that was the first i knew of it…when i had already used 25MB under copertura altre operatore. Besides that, the local meter is hopelessly inaccurate. I had it set to advise me at 1MB usage. Instead, it went 24MB passed that setting before it alerted me to the usage outside of Tre’s coverage.
I now face an extra charge of 41 Euro on my bill. This is outrageous and if it is not incompetence then it is theft.
These are the reasons for this dire state of affairs:
The local metering is hopelessly inaccurate
A user is NOT advised that the network switches from Tre to Altre operatore. Tre claims that this is so that the user can “enjoy” seamless surfing without interruption. One rather thinks that the user enjoys it less when he receives his bill. There should be a warning telling the user that he is about to switch networks, so that he can choose whether or not to pay for access.
And as always, to get some redress on the matter, one has to waste time writing faxes, explaining what happened and then there is little or no chance of getting satisfaction. Why? because Tre will not take responsibility. This is unethical if not downright wrong. Tre refuses to recognise that these out of quota uses would not occur if the user was given better tools for controlling usage.
Something needs to be done about this. The user cannot continue to be treated in this unethical manner especially when it costs money.
So, here we are again, wasting time. To be exact, wasting time writing about how mobile communication operators (MCO’s) waste our time. As always, there is someone getting screwed, and this time it is Tre Italia who is doing the screwing.
It has been six weeks since Angela woke to the shock of the month. Logging on to check her Internet usage with Tre mobile Internet one morning, she discovered she had run up a bill of €131, way in excess of her 19 Euro monthly flat rate. Usually careful to frequently check her usage, she struggled to remember how she could have run up such a bill.
Angela, who lives in Salerno, is one of an increasing number of business people who use Tre’s USIM data card for HDSP mobile Internet access. For 19 Euro a month she receives 5GB of traffic (total, for both up and down), at speeds of around 80Kbps, which, as mobile Internet goes, isn’t bad. However, Tre charges 20 cents per megabyte if you exceed your usage quota, which wouldn’t be so bad if you actually knew what your usage was.
To monitor usage, Tre provides a software panel installed locally on your PC, which (theoretically) shows how much you are using in real-time. However, by Tre’s own admission, this local metering is not reliable and advises customers to check their usage directly via their account on Tre’s website. Yet, though Tre claims that the meter on the website is accurate, it isn’t, as both Angela and I discovered recently whilst checking her account.
The story on Tre’s website is the by now familiar story: it often does not work. Well, to be accurate, only the client log-in area often doesn’t work. The rest of the site, which is concerned with selling you something, works fine. If you try to log-in to your account it can take up to 3 attempts to get in and even then the client area is often either down or “in allestimento” – something which frequently (and suspiciously) happens at the end the month when everyone needs to check their usage. Once you do get in though, checking your detailed usage is a nightmare, and about the only thing that is straightforward to check is the actual over-all usage.
However, as we discovered, the online meter showing the total monthly usage is in fact inaccurate, contrary to Tre’s claim. This is a serious, because it means there is no reliable, independent way for the customer to check usage. The only way to do so, apparently, is to call Tre’s Customer service phone line.
But incredibly, even this measure does not guarantee an accurate usage report. We discovered as much when, after noting that the online meter had not changed in several days, we called Tre’s customer service and spoke to an operator. We were very surprised indeed when the operator gave us the same reading as the one we could see on the website. Yet Angela knew that she had used several hundred megabytes since that reading was first seen by her a few days earlier. Being close to the end of the month this was indeed worrying, since she only had a few hundred megabytes left as part of the traffic included in the 19 Euro quota.
When this was pointed out to the customer care operator the response was somewhat incredible, though not quite unexpected. Tre can “only give us the information it just gave us” (which we knew already); and yes, Tre can confirm that there is a problem with the online meter. The really exasperating part , however, was that no attempt was made to acknowledge that the customer should not be held responsible for any usage over the limit when Tre is unable to provide neither a reliable online usage check, nor a live customer-care check. The only recourse we were offered was a fax number (800 179 600) with vague instructions to send a letter detailing our complaint. Which, you guessed it, means even more time wasting.
The up shot of all this is that not only does Angela possibly face a huge bill yet again, but that she has to waste time – probably hours, if not days – if she wants to get Tre to acknowledge their responsibility in the matter – if at all. The situation is all the more incredible when one thinks that while offering cutting edge mobile communications, Tre can’t do something as as simple as keeping accurate track of customer usage.
Which makes one wonder whether an ethos of shoddy service provision is deliberately encouraged by large companies like Tre so as to get customers to use more of their services. Moreover, the lack of adequate and competent customer services belies another suspected ethos: that of deliberately frustrating customers when they try to redress an issue. Therefore, Angela’s choice is either to waste time and get frustrated pursuing the issue; or to cut her losses and resign herself to paying for more than she uses, simply so as to get on with her life.
This story is by now a very common and familiar one in Italy. Service providers provide services that end up causing the customer extra expense and/or wasted time, not to mention headache. It really is time that the consumer was treated better than this. Unfortunately, that may not happen for a long time, since at the end of the day Italian companies have the customer by the short and curlies to the point that even if the customer complains or changes provider he will still face the same treatment wherever he goes.
Perhaps, though, the only true solution is a change in the ethical practices of large companies. Dare we ask if there are any, nay, even just one, conscientious, honest and ethically driven CEO out there who’d like to be the first to set an example? We’ll all love you for it, and we’ll stampede our way to your shops in droves to sign up for service.
We would be interested to hear of anyone’s experiences with Tre, other MCO’s and any service provider in Italy. Please either email to info@vietri.it or leave a comment.
Information
He cried in a whisper at some image, at some vision — he cried out twice, a cry that was no more than a breath—”L’aruba! L’aruba!”
Fans of Joseph Conrad will immediately recognise this famous quote from his novella and masterpiece Heart of Darkness. They will also realise that here it has been quoted in modern Internet English, substituting a new word that has entered the English language directly from Italian usage.
Originally intended to mean “Internet Service Provider and Domain Name Register” (www.aruba.it) Aruba has now come to symbolise dread, darkness and terror as well as a wicked habit of time wasting. (The Global Dictionary of Internet Abominations lists the definition of Aruba as, simply: horror)
As thousands of dissatisfied customers of Aruba Domain & Web Hosting Company will attest, the very mention of the word “Aruba” signifies horror to even the “profoundest heart of darkness”.
Many of them, including myself and my colleagues, have experienced excruciating weeks, months and in some cases years in vain attempts at registering and transferring domain names. In our case, our unhappy experience was with the domain name vietri.it, which took more than a year to transfer to Aruba from our previous (more expensive) provider.
We will spare the reader the fine details of the months of agonising correspondence, faxing, phone calling, photocopying, hair pulling, swearing and the involvement of a small army of secretaries in the attempt to successfully transfer the domain name, and simply recount the final gripping moments of the last conversation we had with Aruba before victory was finally ours…
“Hello, is that Angela?” I said, after waiting 17 minutes for the call to be answered.
“Yes, I am me. Is you is Mr Blake, Mr Blake?” answered Angela in very good English.
I was disappointed. After more than a year she still insisted on calling me Mr Blake. Very professional nonetheless I admit.
“We’ve faxed the final photocopies of my new passport; a copy of my British National Insurance certificate; and a signed photograph of Her Majesty, twice this morning and three times this afternoon ” I informed her.
We had taken these extra precautions of additional faxes, because a fax from Salerno in the south to Pisa in the north often doesn’t arrive. But I have since worked out the reason why. It is because the fax has to travel up hill, and therefore we now always take the precaution of faxing more than once and at least 4 or 5 times. (We’ve also noticed that there is a difference whether it is summer or winter).
Incidentally, the reason for this last fax to Aruba was because during the final month of the transfer “procedure” my passport had expired, necessitating a new flurry of photocopying and faxing (presumably so as to make sure that I myself hadn’t expired).
“Oh yes, Mr Blake-ez. We have receive it yesterday!”
I hesitated, wondering whether one should query how she could have received it yesterday, but decided instead to let it go… just in case.
“Well, that’s splendid” I said, choking back tears. “Is it…I mean has…”. I hesitated. “Does that mean www.vietri.it has been successfully transferred?” I spluttered.
Yes! It is beautiful day no?!”
I and my colleagues wept (I, because I was so happy. They, because they were now out of a job). After 14 months and 12 days, hundreds of faxes, phone calls and several brief holidays in which to recover and gather our strength, we had finally succeeded in doing something that would have taken less than a day in the UK. I couldn’t believe it and worried that something had been over looked, and that something awful and terrible would happen.
Just to make sure I (very politely) offered to send a photocopy of my paternal uncles’ elbow if it would help make sure of the transfer, but the assistant declined (also politely), though not after a slight pause, during which i almost believed that she might accept.
“Oh no Mr Blake-ez. We are very quiet (sic) fine. No photocopies more. The good has been done and my happy for you!”
I closed the phone feeling a little silly that I had even, at one point during the process, considered becoming religious if it might have helped. As I hugged my colleagues, I silently castigated myself for being so weak and of little faith. But nonetheless, as a final task I asked my small tribe of secretaries (now sadly unemployed) to make a note that next time we would take the train directly to Pisa and do it in person.
Well, it’s that time of year when the fruiti vendolo becomes the most important person in your culinary life. This is why, for a non-Italian, it is important to find one that doesn’t talk too much. For this estimable quality, our fruiti vendolo, affectionately known to us as Beelzebub, gets the prize of Best Fruiti Vendolo in Salerno and also the coveted grand prize of Best Shop Keeper.
Though most of the other fruiti vendoli sell quality produce and are themselves all decent folk – including their wives, sons, daughters, nonni, cugini and various other family members stretching back to the Cretaceous period of Earth’s history, all of whom help out and generally provide the chit-chat when the main, boss fruiti vendolo is momentarily occupied and unable to banter – Beelzebub has the added distinction of being thoroughly uninterested in your life, and only bothers to check, vaguely, whether or not he knows you. If he remembers that he knows you, then you are dealt with swiftly and above all silently, since his memory of you seems to trigger an infinite database containing information on precisely which and in what quantities you require in the way of fruit and vegetables.
Moreover, he rarely weighs anything with the precision required to keep a trader out of prison, but nevertheless his prices are the best and unfailingly rounded off to reflect not profit but expediency. It is in fact clear that he wishes to be rid of you as quickly as you do of him.
God bless you Beelzebub, and may you grunt and snort and remain unshaven and quite grotesquely present for ever and ever, and for always.
As people come from all over Italy to spend their summer in traffic around Salerno, it is comforting to know that even if sometimes they can’t quite get to a beach, there’s still always something to eat.
It is glorious summer again, a fact confirmed by the presence of a corn on the cob vendor at every corner. Whether roasted or boiled, and with a little salt, a corn on the cob is a delicious snack, just the sort of thing to keep your strength up while sitting in traffic along the Litoranea.
However, not all corn on the cobs are created equal, a fact which any savvy street seller of this food will know. Some are long and thin, usually being quite tender and succulent; while others are short and fat and are accordingly harder and drier. It is therefore more difficult to sell the short fat ones, since most people will ask for a long thin one (as will be noted if you observe next time you go and buy one).
But this is no problem for a clever and wise seller. By a subtle understanding of human psychology he has worked out that he can usually get away with selling the short fat ones to men and the long thin ones to women. This may not sound like a stroke of genius, and indeed it is not. (Though there is something quite logical about the association nonetheless). What is a stroke of genius is to actually discover this little trick of the corn seller and then work out a strategy to counter it.
In essence the strategy is very simple. If you are a male, send your wife or girlfriend to buy the corn on the cob; but if you are female, make sure your husband or boyfriend stays well out of sight! But never, absolutely never, go and buy corn on the cob as a couple. You will end up with one fat one and one thin one, which is probably all that is needed to send you clear over the edge after a whole day spent in traffic along the coast of Italy. And though there have not yet been any reports about couples killing each other over who gets the long thin one, we can be sure that it is only a matter of time before such a tragedy comes to pass.
This article focuses on recent “socio-sanitary developments” in the south of Italy that are “improving” the lives of residents.
At about 5.30 am each morning, the city council where we live sends out a trained team of employees to wake everyone up, just in case we can’t manage it ourselves. As an extra service they sometimes take the rubbish away as well, in tiny three-wheeled contraptions that are, from what I have seen so far, the backbone of Italian industrial might.
I’ve often in fact wondered why these exotic machines have not been introduced into other nations’ economies. (We shall call them took-took-clatters, because they took-took and clatter along the lanes). Their capacity is astonishing when you consider they can carry near enough a ton of cargo in a structure that is little more than a motorised wheelbarrow, as author of Italian Neighbours Tim Parks once described them . They can often be seen with an old bath tub in the back, in which two or three workmen are furiously mixing cement. Or leaning over menacingly with the contents of a small warehouse stacked up in an unlikely pile fully contemptuous of gravity.
The illustrious industrial might of Italy apart however, there can be no other machine in the history of mankind’s meddlesome tinkering with the internal combustion engine that can make more noise – even when switched off, dismantled, piled up in small heaps and scattered around the solar system one imagines – or that can encourage such loud shouting from its operators, than one of these iniquitous abominations. If you’ve ever wondered whether there exists a machine solely for the production of noise, well, this is it. The fact that it can also be used to collect rubbish and carry things in is but a fiendish accident of design (a “spandrel” as the late evolutionary biologist Steven Jay Gould might have called it).
If you drive a took-took clatter along the narrow vicoli of the old historical quarters of Italian towns, it is as if the entire noise production of a very noisy steel foundry (bottled over a conservative period of 100 years), has just been released beneath your window, all in the space of about 40 seconds. That’s about the time it takes the little hydraulic crane on the back of this monstrous contraption to attempt to grab, hoist and then spill the contents of the bins all over the cobbled stones.
After the rubbish is collected (or rather, strewn) over the lanes in this way you could, if you are so inclined, follow the trail of cans and bottles and potato peel to where the somewhat larger “command ship” rubbish cart stands waiting, and then watch as almost none of the rubbish that made it from the various collection points in the narrow lanes is carefully tipped.
I have on occasion done that, and I must confess that all one can do while beholding such activity is to marvel. Yet the real nuisance is not the rubbish, but the noise. Noise, lots of it, is what lubricates Italian civil life. It is a national right to make noise in Italy, just like voting or breathing, and everyone always makes sure they use it to the full.
That’s why it’s bemusing to note the introduction of a strange new breed of rubbish bin into southern Italian cities. Strolling past what looked like an ordinary municipal rubbish bin one day, I was privileged to be given a glimpse into the mind of apparently progressive Italian civil planners. A signora, carrying several rubbish filled supermarket carrier bags (without which none of us could live and society would never function) was opening the cavernous mouth of the bin by stepping on a lever with her foot (most ingenious i thought). I instinctively braced myself for the loud clatter that the lid was about to make as it slammed shut, breathing out as it did all sorts of evil odours and fragrances. But instead the lid continued to hang open after she’d deftly hurled the bags in, oscillating silently a few centimetres about its position.
It was one of those moments where the volume is suddenly turned down and everything conveniently becomes still in the background, so that you can concentrate on what’s going on in the main scene. The light itself became blurred and a haze shrouded the rubbish bin, where a busy formation of flies buzzed extra special slow just to add to the effect. Even the signora’s dress waved in slow motion through the thickened air as she walked away back to her door. And even when she had reached the doorway and her foot was on the first step, still no sound had come from the bin. Yet ever so gradually, and almost imperceptibly, the lid was surely and firmly coming down. As I gazed, sudden realisation came: not only had some thoughtful genius invented the silent closing rubbish bin, a deranged local council official had actually bought and installed one into a city whose rubbish collectors regularly wake the dead.
But I continued to watch, certain that the lid would reach a certain angle and then collapse catastrophically shut. Not a chance. To my complete annoyance it continued to descend quietly, discharging itself exponentially until closed. And as god and the signora are witness, no more than a clack came from it.
It is one thing to risk being arrested, say, if you are stalking someone, but it is another thing being caught loitering around a rubbish bin, and in the end i strolled on. But this was in 1999, and up until then my experience of Italian municipal rubbish bins was that the lid would near well take your arm off as it came down if you were not careful, not to mention battering your eardrums and breathing foul odours in your face. I confess I had never seen anything like it before – complete with little hydraulic dampers such as you find on the rear door of a family hatchback to stop it from slamming.
But now it seems that irreversible change is upon Italy, because in 2008 nearly all the bins come with this damping mechanism installed. It is but a matter of time before even the post office will start actually stocking stamps, i fear, and the newsagent will stop selling sweets by way of pretending they don’t have any small change. This vivacious, complex and above all noisy people are going the way of the fussy races of the Considerate Nations to the north, and who knows what this will do to Italian life.
There are three distinct periods in Italian history. First, there is the engineering, economic and military brilliance of the Romans. Next, the cultural and scientific genius of the Renaissance. And last, and certainly the least, we have the Great and Unfathomable Age of Mindless Incompetence and Pointless Complexity. That is, our present day.
Several months ago, in a small and rather unimportant office somewhere in a small and rather unimportant provincial town in southern Italy (Salerno), an event of great moment took place. I and several other subjects of her majesty Queen Elizabeth II installed what was to become the centre piece of our lives. As one would do with a fire place in a cold and remote mountain cabin, so we also did with this masterpiece of engineering. When it was finished we gathered round our handiwork and admired its brilliance. It has 3 holes, one switch, two screws and requires at least 6 strong, well fed horses to yank it out of its place on the wall.
The moment was indeed noteworthy, since to us it was the equivalent of raising the flag on the North Pole, or planting it in the lunar dust. To this day it sits exactly where it was first installed; solid, reliable, functional. And, above all, immovable.
We speak of course of the humble electric wall socket – British variety. Together with the tap, the electric wall socket is indisputably the life blood of modern domestic and industrial life, bringing power and convenience to the remotest corner of every home and workplace on the planet. Our reliance on it is colossal, and it is only when it is absent or doesn’t work that we realise exactly where we’d be without it.
This is why it is astonishing that Italy can function as a society, because the Italian wall socket is anything but convenient. It is, to put it mildly, an abomination, a stain on the history of design and development, a blot on the landscape of ingenuity and a curse to any foreigner who was born into a nation where wall sockets faithfully do what they are supposed to do: provide electricity and stay firmly fixed to where you screwed them in.
Intricate Technical Details of the Italian Electric Wall Plug
To get an appreciation of what we are talking about here, it is sadly necessary to burden the reader with the design of the Italian electric wall socket. The device, if it might be called such, has a plastic body, in which is set one or more “gangs” that receive the plugs of electrical appliances. To either side of the gangs there are usually two screws, that, theoretically, are supposed to anchor the socket into the wall. The screws themselves are each attached to a metal lug on the inside of the socket, and when tightened they are supposed, again theoretically, to grip the sides of the hole into which the socket is placed.
But this is where the problems start. The hole in the wall is usually lined with a short cylindrical pipe, and it is the inside of this pipe that the metal lugs are “designed” to grip, pressing against the sides when the screws are tightened from the outside. However, because the pipe frequently lacks any internal groove or lip behind which the metal lugs can anchor themselves, what usually results is that the socket comes clean out of the hole whenever an appliance is unplugged; attached, perhaps, to a bit of the wall as well. Even in the rare case when the socket stays firmly anchored, what often happens is that the gangs themselves come away instead! This is because the problem is not only with the functional design, but also with the quality of the materials used.
This all may not sound like much, especially if you are an average Italian who has grown up surrounded by the entrails of plugs dangling from every wall. But to a foreigner from an electrically advanced society (EAS), it is nothing short of a nightmare. What should be a simple procedure of unplugging your shaver or hairdryer turns into a life or death struggle with a ravenous serpent that refuses to let go of the plug.
An Adapter for Every Occasion
Sadly (though somewhat unsurprisingly) the story of the evils of electrical inconvenience in Italy does not end there. It is further infinitely complicated by the plethora of electric plugs, adaptors and extension leads used in the everyday attempt to get the simplest of appliances to work (the picture on the left only shows a handful). If you think that toasting your bread or grinding your coffee is as simple as plugging in the toaster or grinder, then you have probably never been to Italy. The procedure can at times be unbelievably complicated, and often you may fail entirely.
This is becasue in Italy there are easily four different sizes and ratings of plugs, from the very thin and flimsy to the very thick and rigid, and all of them are cunningly designed so as not to fit into the same socket (regardless of whether the socket is dangling from the wall or still miraculously fixed to it).
Yet, as with most things that would drive any half-normal person completely insane, this is no deterrent to the Italian. Whether designed in Italy or imported from abroad, he has found a solution. Like some deranged mastermind solving a Rubik cube style puzzle, he will whip out one, two, three and even four adapters and connectors in a brilliant display of problem solving aimed at getting a shaver or hairdryer working. To be sure, in the eyes of our hero, this exasperating procedure actually represents a triumph, and not the colossal waste of time (not to mention vexation) that it would to any normal person.
In blessed contrast, the British domestic electrical system is simplicity itself, which is to say nothing of its elegance, convenience and safety (being also fused). With only one standard type of plug, wall socket, adapter and extension, your average British citizen abides in an electrical paradise. Apart from simplicity, once fixed to the wall, the British electrical socket stays there – forever. Plugging and unplugging an appliance is pure joy (so much, in fact, that if one had nothing better to do one could do it all day as a special treat after a trip to Italy).
And there are no words to describe the pleasure experienced when one pulls out a plug and finds that the wall socket (and also the wall) is exactly where it should be. This luxury of functional design, together with the standardisation of fittings, saves not only frustration and time, but probably also lives.
We have finally arrived at why Italy was never a great world power, while the British ruled the globe. Basically, no country that has time to battle with dangling electric sockets -or rummage through draws or in cupboards or under beds for adapters, or which risks loosing members of its population to electrocutions through cheap design – could ever have found the time to sail the wide seas and conquer the world. The Romans did it, to be sure, but strictly speaking they were not Italians, because just like the ancient Egyptians they have about as much in common with “inginiere Pasquale” or “elettrecista Giuseppe” as Tutankhamen has with president Mubarak.
God save The Queen
The author wrote this article in hiding.
These days one is very frequently tempted into giving one’s opinion – generously, without solicitation and for free – to anyone who is unable to avoid hearing it. One of the most common deliveries of this nature concerns Italy and Italians, and usually starts with “Italy is a beautiful country; the food is great…” and so on. But it frequently winds up by concluding that Italians themselves are in fact an undeserving, primitive lot who are still a good many branches short of a full, Darwinian landing (as opposed to Albanians, say, who are an entire tree-top away from climbing down).
Not only do Italians drive the wrong way around roundabouts; or lawyers, notaries and government officials answer the phone without identifying themselves (just in case it’s a disgruntled punter, of which there are many); not only are drains positioned in front of an ATM machine exactly at the spot where you would drop and loose forever your credit card; and not only do lift operators, bus and taxi drivers go for lunch between 1.30 and 4.30 pm, precisely when everyone else is going home for lunch as well; but also, if that were not enough, everyone suddenly forgets all of these more wicked and annoying traits of Italians and only remembers the food and architecture.
The response by Italians to such an admittedly outrageous and disrespectful affront (as delivered by opinionated foreigners) is usually quite predictable: if Italy is so bad, they say, why don’t you just go back to where you came from? (This always confuses me, because I’m not sure where I came from).
But it has recently occurred to me that this standard and almost universal response can easily be countered by realising that most Italians themselves in fact wish to leave Italy. After which it becomes a mere formality to rebuke any uppity native who dares question the authority of a judgement delivered by one of Her Majesty’s subjects: I’m here through choice, one answers, where as you have to live here!
The situation is found in many countries throughout the world, though it is in many cases a lot worse. Egyptians for example, have an irresistible desire to tell you (after having tried to sell you something of course) that Egypt is the greatest country on earth etc. And that all other countries are green with envy because they haven’t got what Egypt has. Which is, exactly?
The exasperating response, we soon find out as if we didn’t know, is that Egypt has pyramids and tombs, as well as a thriving broad bean industry that churns out foule (the national dish) by the giga-tonne.
In counter exasperation, the only response to this vexation is to point out that both the pyramids and the tombs were built by a race that would, to a man, turn in their graves to find out who it was that now lived in their place. And as far as the broad beans are concerned? Well, we won’t argue with them on that one.
So, the best advice to long suffering though opinionated foreign visitors to any nation, is that if ever you are confronted with the plaintive and rather idiotic response of “why don’t you go back to where you came from”, the only counter-response is, “What a good idea”.