American wire service correspondent SHELBY STONE is posted to mid-20th century Rome, the Dolce Vita era. Intrigue and scandal surge between Cinecittá and the Vatican, the Deep South of Calabria and the glittering Via Veneto. He is taken in hand by an oversized and outrageous couple who are a goldmine of insights into the pre-war Italy of Benito Mussolini - Il Duce.'the Duck'. He helps a Mother Superior promote her convent as a fashion house - Holy Shirt. Watches a rowdy American singer convert an entire piazza into a restaurant. Meets the British script doctor Italian directors rely on to make their films screenworthy. Gets to know a cosmetics queen with a secret ingredient, and her glamorous gang of multi-married Hungarian jewellery smugglers. He falls for an actress married to a prince but yearns for the girl from back home whose career threatens to outshine his.

Dateline: Rome

Literature & Fiction

Delano, Anthony

Genre Fiction

Palatino

The years between 5500 and 3500BC have been described as the Mediterranean's "forgotten age". But in fact that was the Age of Enlightenment that saw the start of seettlement and village life, of civilisation in Europe and, coincidentally, experienced the first known steps of Man on the Maltese archipelago - which culminated in the building of one of the archaeological wonders of the world on Gozo: the site we call &#288;gantija (the first free-standing stone building on earth).

The First Gozitans: (... and Ġgantija)

Barker, Revel

Travel

There is evidence of weaving in Yorkshire dating back to the Bronze Age but there was weaving everywhere where there were sheep, and there were sheep everywhere in England. There was nothing special about Yorkshire wool, but when a missionary preacher came back from Australia to report on the colony to King George III, he brought a barrel full of wool from his own flock and had it woven and tailored near his home, half-way between Bradford and Leeds. The King (not so mad as reported) admired both the wool and the weave and was promised a coat in the same texture. It was the start of the Australian wool industry and the supremacy of Yorkshire as the place to weave it and then to tailor it and to market it. Bradford would become the world's centre for wool-buying and the weaving industry and Leeds, ten miles away for the marketing and tailoring. Everything in the West Riding, from the size of the mills to their works canteens would become the biggest and best in the world.

Fit For A King: A Short History of Yorkshire's Wool Industry and Trade

Business & Money

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