From the Man Cave XXVI

The man cave has been uninhabited for a while as I have been working in Italy. It was cold and wet, but I would far rather be cold and wet in Italy than in Hull. The food is better and so is the wine. And so is the Prime Minister. I have expressed my crush on Italian Prime Minister, gorgeous Giorgia Meloni, in these pages before.

Italy has a significant illegal immigrant problem, particularly from North Africa. The ones who don’t drown in the Mediterranean and make it to the shores of Italy, traditionally infest tourist areas and continually pester you, selling trinkets that nobody wants.

But things are visibly improving. There was still a significant problem in Florence when I was there at the end of the year and there is a huge problem in Brescia, which has the highest density of North African immigrants in Italy. But in Genoa – where I was working – and in Milan to which I fly and catch the train to Genoa, things are much better.

At Milano Centrale, the main station in Milan, you used to have to run the gauntlet of trinket sellers from the bus stop to the station and the place was crowded with young men of military-age, not necessarily North Africans but obviously migrants. On my last two visits the issue has been fixed by the introduction of another group of young men and women of military-age.

These are members of the Italian Carabinieri, a kind of paramilitary police force, who are obviously there to disinfect the place from these unwelcome and unsavoury characters. You are more likely now to encounter the Jehovah’s Witnesses than an immigrant trinket seller. Perhaps the Carabinieri will widen their net and move them on too.

Likewise in Genoa where, even seated snugly inside a restaurant, some gaunt, ill-dressed and glassy-eyed North African would approach tables selling single red roses until the owner chased them out things have changed. On my recent visits I have not been pestered once.

Peppa Pig Goes Woke

You really don’t have to make stuff up these days when the woke left are the gift that keeps on giving. This morning I had to check whether it really was Valentine’s Day or April the 1^st when I read that Peppa Pig had gone woke.

Apparently, a theatre in Grimsby, Lincolnshire which is mounting a Peppa Pig show, has decided to ban pork-based products from sale ‘as a considerate gesture’ during the performance so that everyone feels comfortable attending. The move came at the request of the extremist animal rights organisation, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA). Instead, the venue will provide ‘vegan’ ham which sounds about as emetic as sticking your fingers down your throat.

These people are nutters, plain and simple. There must be a few activists in Grimsby as a local fish and chip shop was stickered with a poster saying that eating fish was the same as eating cats. I, for one, completely disagree. I hate eating fish, but I just love a slice of roast cat with boiled potatoes for my Sunday lunch.

It is worrying for a Hull resident like me to think just how close Grimsby and the whole of Lincolnshire are. Lincoln is divided from the East Riding of Yorkshire by the Humber Bridge under which runs the murky and muddy River Humber. In 1972 some idiots thought it would be a good idea, literally, to bridge the gap between the two counties.

To add insult to the injury of allowing greater exchange of people between the two sides of the Humber, they even charge us for the privilege of crossing the bridge. If the likes of the PETA activists from Grimsby are going to cross to our side of the river, then there may be a case for blowing up the Humber Bridge. Where are ISIS when you need them? (Note to Humberside Police: the above is a joke).

Is Keir Starmer Still Prime Minister?

When I left the UK for Italy, I decided not to follow the news too closely. There is only so much one can take of revelations about Jeffrey Epstein and Peter Mandelson. I also assumed that our glorious leader would have been deposed and consigned to the dustbin of political history.

But blow me, folk are still banging on about both Jeff and Mandy and Keir Starmer is still the Prime Minister. I suppose that the problem for the Labour Party is that there is absolutely nobody who looks like a credible leader. Wes Streeting was a front-runner and was doing all he could to tip the scales in his favour. But, surely, his intimate exchange of emails with Peter Mandelson – which he released himself – has scuppered that. Surely the Ginger Minger Angie Rayner, even with a new hairstyle, cannot be a credible leader.

I hate to say it, but I think we’re stuck with Keir Starmer for a while longer. I must say that Giorgia is still on my mind.

Roger Watson is a retired academic, editor and writer. He writes regularly for a range of conservative journals including The Salisbury Review and The European Conservative. He has travelled and worked extensively in the Far East and the Middle East. He lives in Kingston upon Hull, UK.

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