Absolutely Briz! They are not!
The true Romani are not all thieves.
The tattooed football fans are not all lager louts.

You cannot lump people together and describe them as being all the same.

The only things you can generalise about true Romani is their genealogy and their traditions. Even these may vary from country to country.

It's like saying all forum members (verb?). We are all very different but we belong to the same forum and try to abide by its rules. The Romani have rules too but the people are still individual.

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"The years between fifty and seventy are the hardest. You are always being asked to do things and yet you are not decrepit enough to turn them down.
T.S. Eliot (1950)

Just to brighten the day.

We were sitting in the same cafe in Tenerife for a number of days and each day we smile and say Hola to a couple who we know aren't British.

On the third day they pluck up courage and speak to us asking what nationality we are.

We say "English"

They say "We would never have thought that neither of you have any tattoos."


ps do "true" Romani have a fancy handshake?

El Pais is reporting that 600 Roma in Naples and Milan have had their fingerprints taken, and that ethnic background is officially recorded in their files. The official reason for the move is a census. Source.

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γνωθι σεαυτόν. And on the eighth day, god made the fossils

Did they say if they are "true" Roma

All they say is 'ciudadanos gitanos' by which they mean gypsies, I suppose.

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γνωθι σεαυτόν. And on the eighth day, god made the fossils

Yes there's lots of Gypsies I bet "true" Roma's are as rare as Rocking Horse s**t

The Observer has published some photos here from inside a gypsy camp in Italy. You really do get the impression that they are very much second-class citizens in Italy.

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γνωθι σεαυτόν. And on the eighth day, god made the fossils

A strange mixture Olga Jevrenovic looks a very old 60 years

Inside Italian Gypsy camps | World news | Observer.co.uk

but these two look as though they'll never be kept down

Inside Italian Gypsy camps | World news | Observer.co.uk