A Great Name For a Beer

 My son is on the other side of the world in a foreign airport as I write this. He doesn’t really speak the language and neither does his wife, but I suspect they will get along fine. Italy and the Italians have been playing host to the word for three thousand years at least. I suppose you could call being conquerors is sort of like playing host.

Brendan has spent the better part of two weeks lounging around a country famous for so many things, both good and bad. I am writing this and I find that I really don’t know very much about Italy other than it being in the Mediterranean, it’s the home of pizza and spaghetti, Sophia Lorne, it is shaped like a dominatrix’s boot, the Mafia and some of the best construction workers in the world.

I can remember that every Christmas My mom and dad would send a card to the fellow that built our house. It was a very nice house and well built too. His ancestors were probably responsible for building Hadrians wall in Northern England. Hadrian was emperor of Rome from 117 to 138 CE and thought that it would be a great idea to build a wall across England. If he had talked to the Chinese emperors, they would have been able to tell him not to waste the time or money. Walls don’t really work in the long run and they are very expensive.

Hadrian didn’t talk to any Chinese and ended up building a wall about 120 Kilometres long from Wallsend (really?) on the river Tyne to the shore of Solway Firth. One of the reasons it was built was to keep the Barbarians out. If I were a barbarian, I wouldn’t go anywhere near where there were Romans. The Romans were vicious, aggressive serious minded race of over achievers. The barbarians just hung around most of the day wearing dresses, painting their faces blue, tossing large poles in the air and eating the foulest food you could stuff in a sheep’s stomach.

The barbarians would no more try to cross into Roman territory back in 123 CE than they would want to cross into England now. Maybe for a drink or two and a liaison with some loose English/Roman gals, but not to actually stay for any length of time. The Romans were the ones that kept marching onto other people’s property and declaring it their own. There never has been nor will there ever be something called the Barbarian Empire, unless modern day Scots decide to market a new beer. That would be a great name for a beer.