This article is taken from the December-January 2026 issue of The Critic. To get the full magazine why not subscribe? Get five issues for just £25.
My Italian stallion
Italy’s answer to Ascot, the Gran Premio di Merano, takes place on the last weekend of September on what must be the most beautiful racecourse in the world, set in a valley of apple orchards and medieval castles encircled by the Tyrolean Alps. Merano became fashionable as a spa town when the Empress Sissi came to take the waters in 1870 and is still possessed of an unusual combination of wholesome sportiness and Belle Epoque glamour.
I was lucky enough to be the guest of the family who still sponsor the Oreste de Strobel steeplechase in honour of their ancestor, who established the Merano races in the late 19th century.
After a sumptuous lunch in the mellowest of autumn sunshine and an inspection of the trainers’ enclosure, we repaired to the chic Modernist stand, a Bauhaus gem from 1935. After expert study of the form, I’d bet on an outsider who by the second circuit of the 5,000-metre course was leading neck and neck with the favourite.
I’d already spent my vast new wealth on a fabulous tweed and velvet wardrobe from Tyrol-chic boutique Runggaldier before they came round for the third lap, by which time the wretched nag had dropped back to fourth. Despite my unleashing my inner Eliza Doolittle, which caused a little disquiet amongst the baronesses in the VIP box, she eventually limped home sixth. The winning jockey receives a splendid silver cup and a very Sud-Tirol basket of apples, which is all I’m going to be able to afford to eat for the next year.
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Surely history can have no more secrets left to reveal? Every job I get recently seems to have “secret” in the title. A day’s filming at Bishopsgate Library for Channel Five on royal births, marriages and deaths was followed by Stephen Fry’s podcast, Elizabethan Secrets. Spoiler: my revelation was that there is no historical evidence that Elizabeth I ever made the famous “I may have the body of a weak and feeble woman” speech at Tilbury during the Spanish Armada, let alone that she did so on horseback wearing a breastplate and a plumed helmet, as more than one historian has confidently asserted.
Back to Venice for more secrets, this time with Lucy Worsley for her upcoming BBC series on the great palaces of Europe. Despite an obscenely early call time, Lucy was as sharp and sparkling as ever. We discussed the “Black Doge”, Marin Falier, who was executed for his attempt to bring down the republic in 1355. A patrician who posed as an anti-elitist, Falier roused a populist rebellion by posting fake news of government corruption which could only be quashed by his appointment as a tyrant. No secrets there, either.
The BBC doesn’t run to make-up artists for history documentaries, unless you count an awkward dab of powder from the cameraman, but I did hear a joyous piece of inside gossip from a morning news veteran. Naming no names, but Nigel Farage might want to start doing his own face, given the extraordinarily imaginative range of natural cosmetics with which the brushes are loaded when he’s in the chair.
Musical differences
On 17 October, more than a thousand protestors gathered in Campo Sant’Angelo for a free concert performed by the musicians of La Fenice opera house, who were on strike in reaction to the controversial appointment of Beatrice Venezi as musical director. Venezi has never conducted at any major international opera house, and the Fenice company claims that she has neither the experience nor the competence for the role.
The cancelled premiere of Berg’s Wozzek was reprogrammed two days later, where a representative of the company read a defiant statement from the stage which received a standing ovation. My neighbour in the audience called out that Venezi was only fit to conduct at San Remo (the Italian equivalent of Britain’s Got Talent).
Whilst Venetians are firmly on the Fenice’s side, international coverage of the protests failed to pick up on the crucial fact that the position is in the gift of Venice’s mayor, Luigi Brugnaro, who remains en poste despite being under investigation on a vast raft of corruption charges. Venezi’s musical talents may be mediocre, but her political connections with the Forza Nuova and Fratelli d’Italia parties are impeccably far to the right.
Trashing the reputation of one of Venice’s outstanding cultural institutions clearly hasn’t overcrowded Brugnaro’s schedule, as the Comune have also found the time to destroy one of its historic gardens. Palazzo Mandelli in the Cannaregio district is being remodelled by the city council, who have cut down its ancient cypress trees and covered the 18th-century garden with concrete.
The works have also damaged a seventeenth-century well and the walls of the nearby San Marcuola church. Residents lodged legal protests months ago, but their objections went unanswered. Brugnaro’s term finally ends next year, but the Mandelli garden is emblematic of the irrevocable damage he has done to Venice.
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Casanova and I
Celebrating the city’s history of mystery and murder in fiction, the Venice Noir festival is taking place on 14 and 15 November. I’m looking forward to hearing Philip Gwynne Jones on the role of food in thrillers and Ian Rankin on “The Case of Old Hamlet’s Ear”, which promises to be a masterclass in how to kill characters realistically. Tours of Venice’s darkest corners and cocktails in suitably spooky palazzi have already sold out, but I’m apprehensive about “The Trial of Giacomo Casanova”, set to take place in the former 18th-century gambling den of the Ridotto. Writer David Hewson will make the case that Casanova was more grifting charlatan than daring adventurer, with yours truly appearing for the defence …
