Coals to Newcastle?

Categories: culture, translation

Date: 19 August 2007 19:02:53

I live in town with a history stretching back to Roman times and, as a result, we receive tourists throughout the year from all over the world with summer being the most popular period.

Today, I was trying to squeeze past a large group of young people who were gathered in a MOST unBritish manner outside the main Roman attraction. You will be shocked, gentle reader, to learn that there was no orderly line but something which resembled a bear garden. The young ones filled the available space entirely with their ungainly limbs flying in every direction as they horsed around in the limited space.

One of their supervisors came out of the museum and shouted “He, ragazzi! Basta!” and they began to shuffle into some sort of order to get through the door. It just struck me as mildly amusing that the Italians should come to Britain to become acquainted with their ancient culture. But if the town's marketing is to be believed, we have the best-preserved example of Roman Baths in Western Europe, so perhaps it's not that remarkable after all.

(No points for guessing where I live.)