He’s 27 and claims he didn’t know how old they Colosseum is?! Bullshit. He’s only apologizing because he got caught.
Even if it was true, why is he carving his name into anything that he doesn’t own!
He’s English. We’re lucky he didn’t steal it and stick it in the British Museum.
Do you remember when the British robbed everyone in the world? What a spree that was! What a spree.
Here to plug one of my favorite podcasts: Stuff the British Stole (no affiliation)
Agreed. What he actually didn’t know was that there was a 15k euro fine and a five-year prison sentence.
Honestly, I think he should just get the fine and maybe some community service. It’s not like he did some terrible evil thing, he simply caused a tiny amount of damage to huge ancient structure.
Why should he lose 5 years of his life over something simple like this? Just give him a big fine that makes him regret it, and he won’t do it again.
Reminds me of the time we first visited Venice. Wife and I were admiring the splendour of St Marks Square (Piazza San Marco) and were stood next to some American tourists and overheard one say, “Oh my god this place is amazing; can you imagine how great its going to be in a few years when they finish it.” There was zero construction work going on…
The first time I was at St Marks Square some Euro dude stripped to his underwear and started sunbathing. Police showed up and told him to put clothes on.
In some countries like Spain it is perfectly legal to be fully naked in any public space as long as you are not being sexually explicit. The Euro dude likely assumed this was the case in Italy as well – I’m actually surprised that they had a problem with somebody in their underwear; it sounds prudish.
In Germany it can be an administrative offence, §118 OWiG, “Public Nuisance”:
- Whoever commits a grossly offensive act which is apt to disturb or endanger the public and to prejudice public order shall be deemed to have committed a regulatory offence.
- The regulatory offence may be sanctioned by a regulatory fine unless the act may be sanctioned in accordance with other provisions.
It’s our “shout fire in a theatre” paragraph and its unspecificness makes for volumes of juridical precedent. I liked the old title better, “Grober Unfug”, which more or less translates to “grand monkey business”.
In any case cops would first have to check whether the public (not just any random person, them included) is disturbed. Though I don’t think that precludes them from telling them to cut it out, that’s an inalienable right of any German citizen, police or not.
I guess in Italy we do have some issue with prudishness, for instance in Milan community swimming pools, and in many other towns too like my small town, it is forbidden to shower without wearing swimsuit and it is also forbidden to be naked in t dressing/undressing rooms.
https://www.milanosport.it/istituzionali/regolamenti/ -> [PDF] Regolamento Piscine
È VIETATO (IT IS FORBIDDEN):
- […]
- Fare la doccia senza costume e toglierlo negli spazi comuni e visibili al pubblico (Shower without costume and remove it in the common areas and visible to the public)
Imagine me coming back from having lived in Copenhagen…
So he wouldn’t have been embarrassed if he had defaced a newer building.
Sounds like he wouldn’t mind a bunch of Italians scratching their name into his house.
Makes sense. Cause it would have been perfectly OK if he carved his name into, say, something at Disney World, or a stranger’s house, since those are newer structures…
So he’d scratch his name on the glass of a bus stop, and that would be ok? How about carving his name in a tree?
No one give a f* about your mark.
At face value, you’re right. His mark is pointless, and in the colosseum case, degrading even.
But a lot of ancient buildings are nowadays studied for the marks found on them. If you squint your mind’s eye a bit, you can even imagine that some of the cave paintings that we nowadays admire are nothing but a testament to some dude’s wish to leave their mark. No one cared until someone started to care.
Funny how relative all these things are, right?
