Italy
The medicinal powers of a good book
‘And they lived happily ever after. The end.’ ‘Again.’ My poor father, bidden to read the story of the moment…
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…
Should I grow old gracefully – or disgracefully?
Now that I’m about to turn 70, I’m wondering: shall I grow old gracefully, or disgracefully? Everyone I know, young…
A visit to the world’s worst capital city
Nouakchott in Mauritania is often referred to as the ‘worst capital city in the world’. That may be a little…
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…
Pure Puccini: an opera lover’s melodramatic family history
Flamboyant theatrics were part of Michael Volpe’s life as CEO of Opera Holland Park. But those of his feuding Italian relatives rival anything seen on stage
Admit it – Italian food is rubbish
Every year I’m summoned to a gathering which I strive to avoid. My first cousin, who loves a boozy party,…
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…
My life of genteel poverty
Every year at the beginning of April, I tell myself I must top up my Isa before the 5 April…
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.…
Dangerous secrets: Verdigris, by Michele Mari, reviewed
A lonely teenager on holiday in Italy befriends his grandparents’ elderly gardener and slowly coaxes out his painful memories of betrayals and reprisals during the war
Politicians can’t win on illegal migration
It is eight years now since The Spectator sent me to Lampedusa to see the boats coming in. That was…
You have to be truly incompetent to eat badly in Paris
Paris has enough great restaurants to maintain its claim to be the world capital of gastronomy. That said, Parisian residents…
A perfect slice of Calabria
The Romans wrote the history, or at least the myths. But long before Romulus murdered Remus, the Mediterranean – the…
Italy is under attack from a killer crab
Italy is under attack from a foreign crab
Where to drink Tuscany’s finest summer tipples
Some subjects invite an eternal recurrence. One such is Tuscany. The other day, I wrote about that glorious region: its…
What’s so super about Super Tuscans?
In Fellini’s La Dolce Vita, the hopes embodied in the title dissolve into grimness and black irony. It was all…
Tuscan chiaroscuro
A trio of formidable British women are enjoying peaceful retirement in Italy – until their idyll is disrupted by a series of unforeseen events
An eye for the absurd
Come for the satire, stay for the one-liners, and take succour from the hope Walter finds in a world where everyone needs an angel from time to time
