Roman holiday

It’s a long time since I’ve been to a museum or a gallery, what with global pandemics and everything. We … More

State of the planet

At the age of eighteen I was a dope-smoking, layabout, benefit-scrounging squatter. During this phase of my life I was … More

Darkness is an abundant resource during December in Edinburgh. To many of the city’s residents, trapped in an indoor workplace … More

Money, it’s a gas Grab that cash with both hands, and make a stash – Roger Waters Generally speaking, I … More

Eight kilometres to the north, and many lifetimes away from Noto, lie the remains of its corpse. Here was journey’s … More

At the approximate heart of the island of Sicily there is a site which it is hard not to regard … More

We were welcomed to the (deep breath) Antonio Salinas Regional Archaeological Museum of Palermo by a dole of small turtles, … More

The visible surface of a museum, which is to say its collections as they are displayed, tells you what sort … More

The Cattedrale di Palermo is a chimaera of architectural styles and periods. If someone had drawn it from their imagination, … More

‘Palazzo’ is a term that is bandied about quite casually in Italy, and although it is technically cognate with ‘palace’, … More

Like the gardens of the Orto Botanico, the formal beds and pathways through which one approaches the facade of the … More

A melancholy sense of lost hegemony and deteriorated grandeur was brought to Britain from southern Europe by the Grand Tourists … More

Facing across a busy Palermo street narrow enough to deny its facade any commanding sightlines, the Palazzo Riso-Belmonte is also … More

Apparently I’ve been to Anglesey Abbey before, according to everyone else in my family who I am claimed to have … More