Europe, the great melting pot of yogurt-by Peter York
Euroland, can't live with it, can't live without it. Eurostar - the nice, easy bourgeois way to Paris, Brussels, Lille - easyJet, Ryanair. Weekend breaks, you name it. Amsterdam clubbing for teens and twenties: just an extension of Soho and Shoreditch. Ibiza: love that 1990s revival vibe. Positano: that posh retro Mr Ripley thing. And the Eurohouses - it used to be Buy One, Get One Free. A chateau the size of Chatsworth for EURO 3.00. It's gone up a bit now we've all got one. Lots of Europe is delicious. A lot of the ugly stuff is at least familiar. And we know the people from killing them so often. And whatever they say, there's still masses of money there. Any decent medium-big provincial town in Old Europe has a mini Bond or Sloane Street. And have you seen how the Italian rich live? Brits like to hate the EU, the EC, the Common Agricultural Policy and the wine lake. They believe yesterday's Euro-stories today, and they feel thoroughly conflicted when they hear about "cheese-eating surrender monkeys". Lots of them bought Tobias Jones's book on The Dark Heart of Italy. Lots more will buy Jules Eden's and Alex Charles's funny new book Fifty Reasons to Hate the French to read in their gîtes this summer.
No comments:
Post a Comment