We (or maybe, I) will have much to be thankful to Italians for

Ah, thank you Italy for inventing the parmesan cheese, which I have enjoyed so much over the past 4 days.  Thank you too, for inventing gorgonzola, mozzarella, spaghetti, lasagna, cannelloni, pepperoni, ravioli, tagliatelli, Ferrari, Lamborghini, Fiat, Alfa Romeo, Maserati; and oh, risotto, pizza and chianti.


Then you also produced Christopher Columbus, Galileo, Marco Polo and Pinocchio.  


Whilst busy inventing and producing all the above, you further added to your list of inventions the ambulance, eye glasses, fire places, the piano and the thermometer.  Then of course, was Eau de Cologne; where would we be without Eau de Cologne and romance?


Ah, all of that are but a few things Italy has given us that we  have probably never thought about in one thought pattern.  We knew it all, but when putting it together have to think that the Italians have been clever, inventive, creative and cuisine specialist throughout the centuries. And they created gelato, thank you Italy.


And the Vesper. And the espresso machine.


For the first time ever I realise that maybe the rest of the world should be thankful for Italian history.  Where would we be without a pizza and Pinocchio?.  And that's without contemplating Gucci, Prada, Armani and Versace.  I have never been blessed with any of their creations, nor ever will, but they have still given much to social history.


Oh, there is also the thermometer and the piano - they both came from Italy.  And the ice cream cone. The typewriter.  Oh, for heavens sake, Italy has been the inventor of everything we really need in our lives. 


Maybe I shall not be so dismissive of the Italian rugby team at the next world cup - after all, those rugby players have come from a fine line of ancestry who have been too busy inventing things to be creative on the rugby field.


The average life expectancy age for an Italian is 82 which is indeed an interesting fact when one considers that the average Italian eats 25 kilograms of pasta a year, whilst drinking 26 gallons of wine, soaked up with some huge amount of bread the figure which I forget right now.


I have spent the last thirty years trying my damnest to give up eating the oft referred to weight-gaining white pasta and white bread and red wine.  And here we have a nation living on the stuff and living long.  I feel in my bones that I was meant to be born Italian.  


Let no person scorn me in my future years to enjoying the pleasure of the red wine.  I shall remain idealistic in kerbing the white breads and pastas but will utilise the red wine as a life extending policy in my back-to-the-future now extended life.