Pre-holiday movie madness begins in two weeks (Friday, December 15 to be exact) when the long-awaited Star Wars blockbuster, ‘The Last Jedi,’ hits a screen near you. And there’s a link to suspense novel, ‘Pretty Ugly.’ Not, it’s not (yet) that death-defying Luke Skywalker has agreed to the role of Colm, the intrepid Irish reporter who stumbles upon a devastating secret, though actor Mark ‘Skywalker’ Hamill, says he loves Ireland and would come back anytime, so don’t rule it o

It’s not often one watches an exciting suspense movie based on true events, then wander into a bar an hour later and meet some of the very people involved in the real thing. But that happened to me recently. It was an intriguing, once-in-a-lifetime experience. And, who knows, may lead to my novel ‘Pretty Ugly’ being turned into a big hit at the box-office. I’m not what you’d call a movie buff, in part because the nearest cinema is over an hour from my home along a winding mou

Considering it's the world’s most precious metal, the most status of symbols and the world’s first ever currency and has been around since ancient times - flakes of it having been found in Paleolithic caves dating back to 40,000 BC - gold is so valuable that even Egyptian pharaohs and temple priests adorned themselves with the stuff as an integral part of their rituals. I came closest to it in my lifetime this summer while meeting with the much-respected Mugur Isarescu, Gover