Burned spoon, pack of bicarbonate of soda, pop bottle with a silver foil lid. A lovely slim little knife was there too, but I had already picked it up before I snapped the picture. I didn't need to call in CSI: Rome to know what had been going on. Drugs! No surprise, really; down on the wasteland...

“Under the armpit and knee of River Plate you can see that the marble is still smooth as it once was. But the amazing and enormous head is rough and lined like an old man.”

I just love the idea of the River Plate’s armpit. The real thing’s not bad either. The restoration of Bernini’s fountai...

European Cities Do Away with Traffic Signs.

"The many rules strip us of the most important thing: the ability to be considerate. We're losing our capacity for socially responsible behavior," says Dutch traffic guru Hans Monderman, one of the project's co-founders. "The greater the number of pr...

On Monday they started to clean up the rough ground down by the river. Not just cutting back the vegetation. Demolishing the rude huts and shacks erected by the “gypsies” who called the area home.

Bulldozers, big trucks with grab cranes. Smashed dwellings carted away like the junk they were ma...

It was rainy, the first wet day of autumn that wasn’t also a work day. We were away on a weekend jaunt, just up the coast a little. Not far enough, really. The Squeeze said it felt like an affair, being away and in a hotel but less than an hour from home. And after the stunning storm of the night be...