Richard E. Ptardio@RichardPtardio
I’ve always thought the English and the Argentinians have far more in common than either side likes to admit.
Back in the late 1990s, I was sent to Buenos Aires for a few months to advise a bank.
The city was booming. The dollar-peso peg was still in place, the restaurants were full and everyone appeared to be spending money they assumed would remain valuable.
Although, as so often is the case in Argentina, economic disaster was waiting politely around the corner.
I had been put up alone in an enormous mock-Tudor house in the suburbs.
Each morning, I commuted into the city, offered my wisdom and returned home in time for a solitary glass of Malbec.
On the third evening, there was a knock at the door.
Half the neighbourhood had arrived, carrying meat and wine.
Within minutes, they had occupied the garden, lit a fire and begun cooking what remains one of the finest meals I have ever eaten.
From that point, I didn't eat alone for the rest of my stay.
Before long, I was known affectionately as "el inglés", and the entire street had begun interfering in my personal life.
I was set up on dates, lectured on the inadequacies of English football and, within a fortnight, persuaded to begin psychoanalysis.
That is Argentina. You arrive as a guest and very quickly find yourself with a nickname, being fed, contradicted and treated like family.
We share with them a self-deprecating humour and a wistful fondness for some grander, half-remembered past.
I have ever since admired the Argentinians for possessing something we British always struggle with.
The emotional courage to say what we really think.
