[Isabo]

The whole world now has blonde jokes.
America has Polish jokes.
England has Irish jokes and Essex girl jokes.
Italy has Carabinieri jokes.
The Carabinieri are a police agency, traditionally their recruits come from the more rural parts of the deep south where there is high unemployment.
Some of my favourites are:
Why do Carabinieri where trousers with red stripes? To help them find there pockets.
The two Carabinieri who won the lottery and bought an old police station to go into business for themselves.
Why do carabinieri go round in threes? One can read, one can write and one has to keep an eye on the two wiseguys.

The following tales are unfortunately true, the last two involved people I know near my weekend cottage.
Italy's new road code requires that all cars are equipped with a reflective safety waistcoat kept in the cabin of the car. The specs for these waistcoats will be published at the end of this month, consequently they are NOT Available yet. The Carabinieri have been prosecuting everyone they stop who doesn't have the waistcoat when stopped. These prosecutions are all obviously quashed.
An old senile man walked out of the home he lived in, he was never found. Some time later a fisherman found a corpse. He left everything and went to fetch the carabinieri, who returned with him as well as a doctor and a photographer. The fisherman, doctor and photographer waded across to where the corpse was, the carabiniere officer made junior give him a piggy backride across. Yes, he tripped and they both ended up underwater. Accidental?
Rumour says there are photos and that some speeding and parking tickets get quashed.
Varsi is a small mountain town near Parma.
A local farmer was using a gadget with a timer to fire blank shots to frighten off birds. These are illegal and his neighbours made a complaint to the carabinieri because of the disturbance he was creating. Three carabinieri arrived and confiscated the device. They forgot however, to disarm it. The timer duly went off in their landrover. They went off the side of the road, wrote the landrover off and had to be rescued, one is still in hospital with ruptured eardrums. To get around they have had to borrow a jeep from the unit in the next town.
Carabinieri are very sensitive about carabinieri jokes so the station involved tried to quieten this one down. Yes, I do have a grudge to settle with this particular unit.