Dolce vita

The slippery business of catching a snake

9 November 2024 9:00 am

Dante’s Beach, Ravenna It is strange how events elide and create a pattern whose significance remains elusive. I had just…

My teenage Interrailing adventures

14 September 2024 9:00 am

Dante’s Beach, Ravenna In my life I have nearly killed myself mainly with cigarettes and alcohol and dangerous journeys into…

My Egyptian mau pyramid scheme

24 August 2024 9:00 am

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

27 July 2024 9:00 am

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

29 June 2024 9:00 am

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?

1 June 2024 9:00 am

Since I had a brush with death a couple of years ago, I have often wondered who my far younger…

Under the Italian sun, the insects are stirring

6 April 2024 9:00 am

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

2 March 2024 9:00 am

A quarter of a century ago I somehow managed to get out of Paris where I had haunted a cheap…