“I’ve often thought that Europe is an allegory for the ages of man. You’re born Italian: they’re relentlessly infantile and mother-obsessed. In childhood you’re English: chronically shy, tongue-tied, cliquey and only happy kicking balls, pulling the legs off things, or sending someone to Coventry. Teenagers are French: pretentiously philosophical, embarrassingly vain, ridiculously romantic and insincere. During middle age, we become either Swiss or Irish. Old age is German: ponderous, pompous and pedantic. And finally we regress into being Belgian, with no idea who we are at all.”
A.A. Gill for The Spectator
Advertisement
