I think I should be mentioning that I am not, strictly speaking, British. Actually, I am not at all British. Rather Italian, in fact.
‘What brought you here?’
Over the years, I have been asked the same question in many different ways.
‘Why did you decide to move to the UK?’
‘Why did you leave your country?’
‘Why London?’
‘What are you doing here? You are Italian? Is it true that all Italians are lazy and a bunch of cowards?’
Occasionally, at this point I would also be treated, by complete strangers, to the well known joke about the difference between toast and Italian men (“you can make soldiers out of the former but not out of the latter”); a popular one, lending itself well to the equally fashionable alternative involving Frenchmen.
The opening gamut of exchanges has always been fairly predictable; indeed, I have often asked myself the very same question: why did I come over here?
Nowadays, I have a selection of answers to suit the interlocutor and the occasion. At dinner parties, I shall smile sweetly and reply: ‘Why, the weather, of course.’ This will in turn elicit a splattering of mild-mannered exclamations from the other person, expressing their surprise and disbelief as to how the British weather could possibly be more enticing than the glorious Italian blue sky and sea, with their ice-cream and sunglasses accoutrements.
Of course, the truth is that I froze to death for the first two or three winters spent in North London, partly because – as I stood under the bare steel frame of my local bus shelter, staring at the shattered glass gathered at my feet and the dangling plastic seats half-yanked off their hinges – my pretty Italian jumper and trendy coat simply could not cope with the bitterly cold winds battering the sides exposed to the elements; and partly because I kept being distracted by swarms of young girls on their way to pubs and parties, cigarettes glued to painted lips and milky-white midriffs showing below the strappy tops: the sight alone of that bare flesh challenging the rigours of a serious continental winter was enough to make me shiver in my woolly socks.
I was envious of the ease with which they displayed their bodies. Where I come from, you get labelled a whore for wearing a lot more and smoking a lot less.
Nevertheless, my quip about the weather is not entirely misplaced: I enjoy the progressive growth of the timid fingers of spring sprawling into a sometimes glorious, albeit short-lived summer, the parks full of human torsos and smelling of suncream; the natural decline of nature towards autumn’s pensive oranges and purples, the howling grey rages of winter against London’s red rooftops: nowhere does one feel more aware of the seasons’ tide than in the capital city.
Does sexuality change in any way with nationality, or do stereotypes spear us like butterfly specimens, forever classified according to looks, colour of skin and propensity to copulate under any circumstances?
In other words, am I "hot" because I was born south of Milan, or do British women hide it better?
