Suffering for my art

I spent a week in Southern Italy and my God if I felt a misfit! I was born and brought up in Milan but my family are from Puglia in the South, where my parents spend the summer and most of my other relatives live all year. There is a huge cultural difference between a big city in the North and a small town in the South and I have always felt an alien there. The most frequents arguments of conversation were food, money and gossip. Fortunately every now and then the subject of politics came out. Italians say that they hate politics but they can't stop talking about it. I saw a newspaper with the headline "Berlusconi bastona gli inglesi", i.e. "Berlusconi gives stick to the English" (meaning the British). The reference was to Mr B's reactions to an article in the Guardian. My father showed the headline to me and joked that I should better be careful. I said that I was preparesd to seek asylum in nearest British consulate, like a British Asian girl forced to marry a cousin in some Pakistani village.