Long life | 19 May 2012

When I was about to start a weekend colour supplement for the Independent in 1988, I got a note from the poet James Fenton containing a list of ‘do’s’ and ‘don’ts’ about what to put in it. The one that has stuck in my mind was to include no articles about Tuscany. This was very good advice, but far from easy to act upon.

Those parts of the media concerned with ‘lifestyle’ were then obsessed with Tuscany, having recently invented the ghastly word ‘Chiantishire’ to embrace the idea that the area between Florence and Siena had become a sort of English upper-class preserve. This was strange, because the British were very thin on the ground there. But it was an idea that took such root that the British media could not be deterred from publishing endless articles about it. Tuscany was vying with Provence, about to be celebrated in the best-selling books of Peter Mayle, as the principal dream destination for anyone fed up with life in Britain.