Many things here are the same, well, almost the same, as in the UK. We are, generally, not so different at all. But it’s the little differences that count. Some of those things are really nice and some are more than a little frustrating.

For instance, one of the things that is not so nice, and which I’ve mentioned before, is the lack of personal space that Italians feel – whereas, we from the UK do like our personal space. Also the fact that people quite openly stare at you as you walk down the street, sit on a tram, etc. All very disconcerting. On the other hand, although the staring and the being too close can seem aggressive, there is rarely any actual aggressiveness, something that, in spite of our (UK people) respecting of personal space, we cannot seem to do without in our day-to-day lives.

And then there are, in the world of business, meetings.

I’ve been in the business world for many years. I’ve been to meetings in Belgium, Germany and Poland and, of course, the UK, when I spent many years as a consultant for a rather large motor vehicle manufacturer. During these meetings, the conduct of the people involved was quite good although I didn’t realise that this was not how the whole world was, at the time.

The problem is talking. If you go to a meeting in the UK (or the other places I mentioned), when there is a discussion between two or more people on a subject, everyone else will not talk to each other, or if they do, it will be a whispered conversation.

Not so here. It doesn’t matter if the meeting is in Italian, English or another language, the Italians all seem to do the same thing, that is talk over the other people, effectively having several meetings in one.

This makes it difficult to follow a single discussion – hard to hear, hard to know which (sometimes of the many) conversation you should concentrate on. It’s also difficult for our customers. I have been in meetings for the last two days and one of our customers was becoming very irritated about the Italian conversation that seemed to be a continuous side meeting.

But, since they do this when in a group in a social context as well, I think it must be something that they can do easily – have half an ear on one conversation whilst conducting another at the same time.

Not easy for us Northern Europeans though.