Bottoming out
Sir: Boris Johnson's readings in Italian history take him along strange paths indeed (Politics, May 27). Or is it that the temptation of a saucy title en plus is irre- sistible?
It is a fading memory, but I recall from my distant childhood a book — Our Island's Story, I believe, must have been the title — which among other things told that the Bri- tannians used to terrify their enemies by painting their own bottoms blue and then suddenly appearing to them in heavily armed chariots. They tried it with the Romans, got trounced and stopped this habit. The interest of the story — for an Italian — lies not in the trouncing part (that, after all, is life), but in the fact that because of this otherwise unwelcome expe- rience those ancient peoples stopped the rather defatigating and pointless practice of painting their bottoms blue. Is that not, in essence, how civilisation and progress proceed?
Antonio Armellini
Italian Embassy, 14 Three Kings Yard, London W1
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