The Italian Connections: Why Italy Never Ruled the World

In our latest article on Italian culture and society, Nigel Blake, an arrogant somewhat annoyed Englishman who refuses to go home, rants about Italian domestic electric fittings.

There are three distinct periods in Italian history. First, there is the engineering, economic and military brilliance of the Romans. Next, the cultural and scientific genius of the Renaissance. And last, and certainly the least, we have the Great and Unfathomable Age of Mindless Incompetence and Pointless Complexity. That is, our present day.

Several months ago, in a small and rather unimportant office somewhere in a small and rather unimportant provincial town (Salerno), an event of great moment took place. I and several other subjects of her majesty Queen Elizabeth II installed what was to become the centre piece of our lives. As one would do with a fire place in a cold and remote mountain cabin, when it was finished we gathered round our handiwork and admired its brilliance. It has 3 holes, one switch, two screws and requires at least 6 strong and well fed horses to yank it out of its place on the wall.

The moment was indeed noteworthy, since to us it was the equivalent of raising the flag on the North Pole, or planting it in the lunar dust. To this day it sits exactly where it was first installed; solid, reliable and functional. And, above all, immovable.

We speak of course of the humble electric wall socket – British variety. Together with the tap, it is indisputably the life blood of modern domestic and industrial life, bringing power and convenience to the remotest corner of every home and workplace. Our reliance on it is colossal, and it is only when it is absent or doesn’t work that we realise exactly where we’d be without it.

This is why it is astonishing that Italy can function as a society, because the Italian wall socket is anything but convenient. It is, to put it mildly, an abomination, a stain on the history of design and development, a blot on the landscape of ingenuity and a curse to any foreigner who was born into a nation where wall sockets faithfully do what they are supposed to do: stay firmly fixed to where you screwed them in.

To get an appreciation of this, it is sadly necessary to burden the reader with the design of the Italian wall socket. The device, if it might be called such, has a plastic body, in which is set one or more “gangs” that receive the plugs of electrical appliances. To either side of the gangs there are usually two screws, that, theoretically, are supposed to anchor the socket into the wall. The screws themselves are each attached to a metal lug on the inside of the socket, and when tightened they are supposed, again theoretically, to grip the sides of the hole into which the socket is placed.

But this is where the problems start. The hole is usually lined with a short cylindrical pipe, and it is the inside of this pipe that the metal lugs are “designed” to grip, pressing against the sides when the screws are tightened from the outside. However, because the pipe frequently lacks any internal groove or lip behind which the metal lugs can anchor themselves, what usually results is that the socket comes clean out of the hole whenever an appliance is unplugged, attached, perhaps, to a bit of the wall as well. Even in the rare case when the socket stays firmly anchored, what often happens is that the gangs themselves come away instead! This is because the problem is not only with the functional design, but also with the quality of the materials used.

This all may not sound like much, especially if you are an average Italian who has grown up surrounded by the entrails of plugs dangling from every wall. But to a foreigner from an electrically advanced society (EAS), it is nothing short of a nightmare. What should be a simple procedure of unplugging your shaver or hairdryer turns into a life or death struggle with a ravenous serpent that refuses to let go of the plug.

Sadly (though somewhat unsurprisingly) the story of the evils of electrical inconvenience in Italy does not end there. It is further infinitely complicated by the plethora of electric plugs, adaptors and extension leads used in the everyday attempt to get the simplest of appliances to work (the picture only shows a handful). If you think that toasting your bread or grinding your coffee is as simple as plugging in the toaster or grinder, then you have probably never been to Italy. The procedure can at times be unbelievably complicated, and often you may fail entirely. There are easily four different sizes and ratings of plugs, from the very thin and flimsy to the very thick and rigid, and all of them are cunningly designed so as not to fit into the same socket (regardless of whether the socket is dangling from the wall or still miraculously fixed to it).

Yet, as with most things that would drive any half-normal person completely insane, this is no deterrent to the Italian. Whether designed in Italy or imported from abroad, he has found a solution. Like some deranged mastermind solving a Rubik cube style puzzle, he will whip out one, two, three and even four adapters and connectors in a brilliant display of problem solving aimed at getting a shaver or hairdryer working. To be sure, in the eyes of our hero, this exasperating procedure actually represents a triumph, and not the colossal waste of time (not to mention vexation) that it would to any normal person.

In blessed contrast, the British domestic electrical system is simplicity itself, which is to say nothing of its elegance, convenience and safety (being also fused). With only one standard type of plug, wall socket, adapter and extension, your average British citizen abides in an electrical paradise. Once fixed to the wall, the British electrical socket stays there – forever. Plugging and unplugging an appliance is pure joy (so much, in fact, that if one had nothing better to do one could do it all day). And there are no words to describe the pleasure experienced when one pulls out a plug and finds that the wall socket (and also the wall) is exactly where it should be. This luxury of functional design, together with the standardisation of fittings, saves not only frustration and time, but probably also lives.

We have finally arrived at why Italy was never a great world power, while Nations like the British most indubitably were. No country that has time to battle with dangling electrical sockets, or rummage through draws or in cupboards or under beds, or which risks loosing members of its population to electrocutions, could ever have found the time to sail the wide seas and conquer the world. The Romans did it, to be sure, but strictly speaking they were not Italians, because just like the ancient Egyptians they have about as much in common with Inginiere Pasquale or elettrecista Giuseppe as Tutankhamen has with president Mubarak.

God save The Queen

Nigel Blake is a waiter who attempts to live and work in the southern Italian town of Salerno. He has written many articles about Southern Italy and has lost many friends as a result. He hopes one day to retire in Switzerland. He cannot be contacted because he is, at the moment, in hiding.

Tag: British, electric, Genius, Italian, madness, socket