Luigi Canaloni was recently sitting outside the Cafe' de Italiano when he was overheard making the casual remark "I have the distinct impression that the British are somewhat remiss when it comes to cooking pasta. " Within hours this remark went viral. A web site went up - neveraskthebritishtocookpasta.com, an online petition was launched entitled "All Britishers should be banned from cooking pasta", a number of facebooks were created warning people about the dangers to health of eating pasta cooked by the British, the European Union was asked to revoke the passports of all UK nationals buying uncooked pasta, #brits-are-sh**t-at-italian-cooking had a million hits, the creator of the youtube video "One hundred best British pasta failures" became on overnight billionaire.
The following events are a cautionary tale. The next morning Luigi went to his downtown tomato farm to check on his produce, and found, to his horror, that all the fences had been taken and the local goats had happily eaten his prize crop of San Marzano tomatoes. "I had heard rumours of fences being taken, but I never imagined that anyone would take a fence from me. This is the worse thing that has ever happened," a tearful Luigi remarked. He is currently enrolled on a government course on how to build fences.
