I could say Italians are Africans but....

That would be an insult to Africans. I know they are close together, both are ruled by big men ( though the Italian one is of small stature ) and crime and corruption are rife. And nothing works right 1st time though at least in African, a solution does eventually appear after a muddle through period.

I flew with Alitalia from Heathrow to Trieste with a change of plane in Rome. I was informed at check in that the plane would leave Heathrow 35 minutes late but this eventually became 1.5 hours. Hence I arrived in Rome about the time my next flight was about to leave. To compound the problem, even though they knew lots of people on the flight had connections, did they park the plane at a "working' gate? No, after dis-embarking into the airbridge, we then had to go down onto the ground and into a bus for a journey around the apron. Then, to add insult to injury, we then had to line up again to have our hand luggage X rayed again before getting back into the terminal. I noticed my next flight had been delayed by 10 minutes so I raced down the whole terminal building, from one extreme to the other and eventually got onto my next plane. I asked the crew if bags from the Heathrow flight had been transferred and he referred me to the loading agent. She said yes! Well, sometimes yes means no as I have yet to be united with my bags. It appears my old and tired bags are having trouble keeping up with me. Should old bags be put down?

The flight to Trieste was the last one for the day and on talking to my neighbour, learnt that the flight is usually delayed so that all transferring passengers can get on board. Alitalia then doesn't need to pay for accommodation in Rome. This flight left about 40 minutes late. I forget my "silly hat" so told the silly old duck in the lost baggage office that I had just come from Africa and they know how to do things better down there. She mumbled something in Italian so I have probably doomed any chance of seeing my old bags again.

So it's out to the airport again to see if they want to return to Papa!!!