On Tuesday, I highlighted the case of Patrizia Reggiani, aka The Black Widow, who paid a hitman $300,000 to murder her former husband, Maurizio Gucci, the heir to the fashion family’s fortune.
She insisted she was not motivated by hatred. ‘I didn’t hate Maurizio,’ she protested. ‘I never hated him. It was my irritation — he irritated me.’
Ms Reggiani’s suggestion that irritation is a more powerful force than hatred will, I suspect, ring a bell with a great many people.
Some of the most venerable figures in history have been tremendously irritable. When Elizabeth I was dying and her courtier…
