2,000 years of history, John Chambers finds there’s more to the historic town of Bath than buns and Jane Austen.

The bank guarantee should have been designed as a temporary measure until losses in the banks could be determined, the economist and broadcaster David McWilliams told the banking inquiry yesterday.

Most of our alcohol intake occurs during binge sessions. Is there any hope for the next day asks Jonathan deBurca Butler.

Claire O’Reilly on why you should explore the Aragonese capital before everyone else catches on to its charms.

THE Cork and Kerry mountains were golden with gorse when we drove west last weekend, not Irish dwarf gorse, which displays its glory in September, but French gorse, the tall fellow which Goldsmith described, in The Deserted Village, as “blossom’d furze unprofitably gay ... ”.

CHRISTMAS has always been a festive season because it marks the winter solstice, when finally darkness is vanquished by light.

LISBON is a city of quiet contradictions.

The news that Frank Lampard has signed a contract to write children’s books seemed the perfect hook for a quip-happy column until I learned that Frankie had beaten us all to pun, as it were, by naming the second in his series — about a young boy with a magic football — Frankie Versus The Rowdy Romans.

Rabbits in the big field behind my house can again be seen since the wheat crop was harvested.

Liam Mackey reflects on the memorable moments, on and off the pitch, from Ireland’s Euro 2012 qualifying campaign

DURING the winter of 2004, waxwings visited Dublin’s St. Stephen’s Green.

POPE Benedict XVI in his New Year’s homily yesterday praised young people as key to securing a future of hope despite what he called “shadows on the horizon of today’s world”.

Jonathan deBurca Butler gets a whistle-stop taste of a confident, vibrant, lived-in city with the ‘swagger of a matador ‘, before moving on to devour delightful Toledo, Seville and Cordoba

WINE wears its history proudly.

ROMAN soldiers in full battle gear will march on an historic city former jail at the weekend as part of a new living-history military show.

“THERE’S no bad publicity, except an obituary,” declared Brendan Behan.

Henry Cecil has further Breeders’ Cup success in his sights after Midday ended years of hurt with an emotional victory in the Filly & Mare Turf at Santa Anita.

IF you’re a Munster rugby fan who’s just been subjected to a weekend of taunts by the natives you might not agree, but Dublin has been voted the friendliest European city.

A nine-year-old boy accused of methodically shooting dead his father and his father’s roommate pleaded guilty to negligent homicide.

AMBITIOUS plans to build a revolutionary 420m shape-shifting skyscraper in Dubai have been unveiled by architects.

“And Moses stretched his hand over the sea; and the Lord caused the waters to go back by a strong east wind ... and made the sea dry land.”

THE souvenir sellers were busy enough as the cameras snapped the famous sights in Rome and the normal number of tourists for this time of year wandered around.

WHEN the grey uniforms appear on the streets of Rome, the citizens know the occasion is going to be a big one.

“FRIENDS, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears; I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him. The evil that men do lives after them, the good is oft interred with their bones. So let it be with Caesar.”

MILLIONS of faithful around the world were praying for Pope John Paul II, as the 84-year-old head of the Catholic Church appeared to be approaching his final hours.

The Pope will leave hospital tonight, the Vatican said, declaring the 84-year-old pontiff “cured” of the illness that landed him in a Rome clinic for 10 days and rekindled questions about his ability to carry on as head of the Roman Catholic Church.

TOWNS and villages came alive yesterday to the sounds of the age-old Wren Boys tradition.

A MASSIVE blackout in Italy, which left millions of people without power, stranding planes and trains, and leading to traffic accidents was last night blamed on a tree.

A massive power blackout which crippled Italy and left most of its 57 million people without electricity for hours was today blamed ... on a tree.

REGARDING the letter from Maerton Davis of Israel (Irish Examiner, July 6), it is surely unwise to call someone "ignorant concerning historical facts", immediately before displaying that same quality.