Most amusing.
Davide Boni, a councillor in Milan for the Northern League, which also opposes the building of mosques in Italian cities, said that kebab shop owners were prepared to work long hours, which was unfair competition.
Sadly, that view, while amusing, isn\’t limited to odd Italian politicians. This is also fun:
There is confusion, however, over what is meant by ethnic. Mr Di Grazia said that French restaurants would be allowed. He was unsure, though, about Sicilian cuisine. It is influenced by Arab cooking.
It\’s one of the fixtures of Italian life that anyone from 20 or 30 miles south of wherever the thinker comes from is thought to be a little too Arab or African for the thinker\’s liking. A little like California in this manner: everyone agrees that Southern California is the preserve of nuts and flakes, it\’s just that "Southern" starts a few miles further south from wherever you are.
Very true. I used to live in Detroit; the folks there think every one in every other state is southern and therefore flaky.
The people in Northern Michigan (UPsrs) though the same of us more southerly Michiganders.
From what I hear from my brother, who spent 3 years in Anchorage, it’s Alaska where the serious eccentrics hang out.
Yes, this seems to be a universal trait. In the part of the State of Illinois where I grew up–the East Central part–we were/are called “southerners” by people in Chicago and the northern part of the state, while people in the southern part, say, around Carbondale or Cairo, regard us as living in the “Yankee” part of the state. We, of course regarded ourselves as neither especially northern nor especially southern–but especially neither.