Good time girls: Italian women prefer sunglasses to babies, according to Nicholas Farrell

Like so many Britons who chased the dream and woke up in Italy I have contemplated writing a book about the Italians. I even thought of what to call it: Those Italians.The title was prompted by what an Albanian port official told the media during some international crisis in response to the news that the entire cargo of an Italian aid ship had disappeared one night in the Albanian port of Durres. ‘Yes it is incredible,’ the official conceded, ‘but — my friends — there is always something funny going on with those Italians.’ An Albanian, of all people!

But such books are a poisoned chalice. The theme demands that you capture the spirit of the place and its people and yet avoid stereotype and cliché. But how do you say anything interesting about the Italians that has not been said so many times before?

If I had not bottled out, my instinct would have been to rattle the cage big time because — here we go — the Italians are a pathologically paranoid people.