Featured Book #1
Six Nations – The Italians
The Italians live life to the full, and do not feel in the least bit guilty leading a life of leisure and pleasure twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, fifty-two weeks a year. This is what life is all about: Italians do not live to work, they work to live.
Featured Book #2
Six Nations – Irish
A popular perception of the Irish is that they’re all fiery, freckle-faced red-heads who’ll start a fight at the slightest offence (e.g., being called ‘British’). The bit about the freckles is accurate enough, but the typical Irish person has brown hair and blue eyes. And while they may be descended from the Celts, a fearless people whose warriors were known to run naked into battle, most modern-day Irish people would think twice before running naked into the bathroom.
Featured Book #3
Six Nations – Welsh
The Welsh are stubborn – very, very stubborn. The Welsh themselves would probably rather say ‘tenacious’, but to anyone on the receiving end a better description might well be ‘bloody-minded’.
Featured Book #4
Six Nations – Scots
A Scotsman likes to feel that, almost by instinct, he could guddle a trout (palm it out of the water) or gralloch a deer (disembowel it with his knife), even if he spends his day driving a bus or designing software.
Featured Book #5
Six Nations French
The French are the most faddish people in the world; They love ideas, concepts, innovations – playing around with things, like democracy, railway systems, architecture. It’s not the practical end of the road they’re interested in, but the journey, the possibilities, hence the way they drive, as though safe arrival at their destination was the last thing on their minds.
Featured Book #6
Six Nations – English
Moderation – a treasured ideal – means a lot to the English. Their respect for it is reflected in their shared dislike of any person who ‘goes too far’.
