Why I won’t accept the Laurels of Dante
Dante’s Beach, Ravenna I have just refused to accept the local equivalent of an Oscar, which was to have been…
What The Leopard is really about
Written by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa at the end of his life in the late 1950s, it is a novel…
What Sky’s ‘Mussolini: Son of the Century’ won’t tell you about fascism
Sky Atlantic’s eight-part biopic, Mussolini: Son of the Century, is a great missed opportunity to tell the truth about fascism. Director…
Drinking with The Chemist – and God
Dante’s Beach, Ravenna The closest I get to a social life these days is when I sneak off into town…
Marianne Faithfull and my truth about female beauty
The death of Marianne Faithfull last week at the age of 78 has got me thinking again about female beauty.…
My night with Mussolini’s ghost
Dante’s Beach, Ravenna I came to Italy to write a biography of Benito Mussolini in the summer of 1998 and…
What Labour can learn from Giorgia Meloni
What else can you do but laugh? Former human rights supremo Sir Keir Starmer has done a deal to tackle…
If Meloni is ‘far right’, why are neo-Nazis trying to kill her?
Dante’s Beach, Ravenna Italian police have arrested 12 alleged terrorists who are accused of plotting a Day of the Jackal…
How Musk, Meloni and Trump are set to define European politics
Few have noticed yet but Giorgia Meloni looks set to become Donald Trump’s key point of contact in Europe – above all thanks…
The slippery business of catching a snake
Dante’s Beach, Ravenna It is strange how events elide and create a pattern whose significance remains elusive. I had just…
Giorgia Meloni is going to war with Italy’s judges
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has declared war on Italy’s judges who are trying to kybosh at birth her much…
Meloni’s migration strategy is working – and the rest of Europe is watching
Giorgia Meloni, Italy’s first female Prime Minister, has this week achieved what the Tories failed so fatally to do with…
My teenage Interrailing adventures
Dante’s Beach, Ravenna In my life I have nearly killed myself mainly with cigarettes and alcohol and dangerous journeys into…
Portofino has become a living nightmare
I can think of few things worse than being a tourist. So I must admit that I did manage a…
How rescuing Egyptian maus may make me millions
Was it chance or destiny, I wonder, that caused the eldest of our six children, Caterina, to pull over in…
My Egyptian mau pyramid scheme
Dante’s Beach, Ravenna Was it chance or destiny, I wonder, that caused the eldest of our six children, Caterina, to…
Watching the Euros final in Italy was a bad idea
There was not a Spaniard in sight, I was pretty sure of that. But I was surrounded by the enemy,…
Italians are beautiful – but not on this beach
When Pope Francis complained recently about too much frociaggine (faggotry) in the Catholic Church, he certainly struck a chord in…
Who will my wife marry next?
Since I had a brush with death a couple of years ago, I have often wondered who my far younger…
Giorgia Meloni’s opponents are becoming hysterical
Like drowning men clutching at straws, Giorgia Meloni’s opponents are trying ever more hopelessly to justify their claim that she is a…
Why Giorgia Meloni is taking on Alfa Romeo
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s crusade to defend Italian excellence from the destructive side of globalisation has won a small…
Under the Italian sun, the insects are stirring
The sun was setting on the first day of spring and I felt unusually happy as I fed the donkey.…
How I ran away to Italy
A quarter of a century ago I somehow managed to get out of Paris where I had haunted a cheap…
The ancient roots of Italy’s Festa della Befana
In Italy if you are not careful, you are condemned to measure out your life in religious festivals. There are…
Are the Pope’s allies funding people smugglers?
Some of Pope Francis’s closest allies in the Catholic Church are alleged to have secretly given more than €2 million to…
