VENICE, Italy. I haven't seen the French Fries Golden Arc here.

Surprising, when only last year Italy's agriculture minister Luca Zaia (2008-2010) donned a McDonald's apron to launch the "McItaly" line — two new sandwiches and a salad featuring all-Italian produce.

McDonald's "Go Italian" was presented at the flagship restaurant near the Spanish Steps in Rome. "McDonald's speaks Italian," said the banners (in Italian).

McItaly sandwiches had lettuce, bresaola, and parmesan salad, Asiago cheese.

But Italian farmers complained that Zaia was sleeping with the enemy. For a country that gave birth to the Slow Food movement a quarter-century ago and prides itself on its varied, delicious, and healthy cuisine, Zaia's enthusiastic support of McDonald's has been hard to swallow.

Might that be the reason why the current Italian agriculture minster is now Francesco Saverio Romano?

The French had their version of the cult hero — José Bové who crashed the McDonald's outlet in Paris. "A peasant Robin Hood" is how the French left-wing daily Libération described the farmer who attacked the McDonald's fast food outlet in Millau, in the Tarn valley of southern France.

Which must be why no advertising genuis dares preempting the "M" of Paris Metro for the iconic French Fries Arc.

In Moscow the line to McDonald's was lengthening inversely as the queue to Lenin's tomb shortened.

When the former mayor of Berlin Bernhard Diepgen suggested to the former US Ambassador Kornblum to open a McDonald's instead in controversial proposed US Embassy, the envoy was not amused: "We only protected this country 50 years."

The jury's not yet out whether the smallest McDonald's is in the largest country: Shanghai (next to largest Hagendaz) or in the 482 feet of Ginza in Tokyo...

Or if the most expensive pommes frites are in Ginza or along Champs Elysee.

The oldest structure to house a McDonald's restaurant is in Shrewsbury, England. (Exterior walls date back to the thirteenth century.)

The sun never sets on The Golden Arches. McDonald's opens a new restaurant every four hours.

McDonald's first restaurant in China opened in 1990. (And maybe because of that, every day, McDonald's serves more than 46 million people).

McDonald's has sold well over 100 billion hamburgers. Ronald McDonald speaks more than 25 languages, including Cantonese, Portuguese, Hindi, Tagalog, and Russian.

An entrepreneur had registered a Mang Donald in Manila but the multinatinal's legal team closed the establishment.

Kita-Kits sa McDo. Where to find it? Just across the local Jollibee. Feedback: jaz_aide@yahoo.com