GOLD may climb the most in more than three decades this year as investors and central banks boost their holdings on concern that global economic growth may stall amid a worsening sovereign-debt crisis in the US and Europe.

CHARLIE Wilkins, the well known gardening columnist, will be leading an unusual Mediterranean cruise in September. The trip will include a flight from Cork to Barcelona, with two nights on terra firma, and seven further days and nights on the high seas, with the liner calling into such ports as Nice, Pisa/Florence, Rome, Naples and Sicily.