Catholics

Thursday

Nicholas Farrell

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 our house here at Dante’s Beach near Ravenna. Nudism used to be illegal on pain of up to three years in prison, but the nudists simply ignored the law We live a mile inland from one of the last stretches of Adriatic coast not lined by umbrellas and concrete but by sand dunes and pine forests. It is a spiaggia libera (free beach) as well, and so belongs to everyone. However, the most beautiful bit cannot be used by the silent majority: it has been stolen by a small minority

Tuesday

Jenny McCartney

The power and the glory that was Belfast

What should we make of present-day Belfast and its compelling, fractious backstory? English visitors have long found the city invigorating, confusing or exasperating – often all three – but undeniably characterful. Philip Larkin, who lived there for five years in the 1950s, noted its ‘draughty streets, end-on to hills, the faint/Archaic smell of dockland’ and found himself enjoying the ambiance: ‘the salt rebuff of speech/ insisting so on difference, made me welcome’. Not so Sir Reginald Maudling, on his first visit as home secretary amid the escalating sectarian insanity of 1970. He boarded the plane back to London with the words: ‘For God’s sake, bring me a large Scotch. What