On travelling to foreign places.

I've always had a resistance to going to Italy; my mental image of it is a place filled with short people who will happily pinch my bottom/wallet/kidneys as soon as look at me. As time has passed I've grown more used to this idea, possibly because working in Stevenage means that I'm surrounded every day by short people who would shiv me without a second thought, and who jabber incomprehensibly to one another non-stop. So it is that, as pretty much everyone I know who has travelled has said only good things about Italy, I'm increasingly coming round to the idea of going. I mean, look at all the good things that the Italians have ever given us: Caligula, La Cicciolina, The Borgias...

The problem with me going to Italy would be the language barrier - I've got enough survival level Greek and Spanish to at least get by in those countries, but my command of Italian is limited to names of pasta and musical notation. In some ways this isn't so bad - I can indulge in the two main national Italian pastimes, namely ordering in restaurants ("Linguini, presto!"), and having sex ("Largo...largo..largo...Fortissimo! Fortissimo! Crescendo! Crescendo!"), but I have to say that doing anything else would leave me at something of a loss.

Any ideas?

Reasons my brother does not have a girlfriend, number 65,009,468

Girl: "Do you think I've put on weight?"
Brother: "If you had a pair of curly horns, you'd look like a space hopper."

It's nice to know that there is someone in this world against whom I will always look good in comparison.