A.  Most people today think of chocolate as something sweet to eat or drink that can be easily found in stores around the world. It might surprise you that chocolate was once highly treasured. The tasty secret of the cacao (Kah Kow) tree was discovered 2,000 years ago in the tropical rainforests of the Americas. The story of how chocolate grew from a local Mesoamerican beverage into a global sweet encompasses many cultures and continents. B.  Historians believe the Maya people of Central America first learned to farm cacao plants around two thousand years ago. The Maya took cacao trees from the rainforests and grew them in their gardens. They cooked cacao seeds, then crushed them into a soft paste. They mixed the paste with water and flavorful spices to make an unsweetened chocolate drink. The Maya poured the chocolate drink back and forth between two containers so that the liquid would have a layer of bubbles, or foam. Cacao and chocolate were an important part of Maya culture. There are often images of cacao plants on Maya buildings and art objects. Ruling families drank chocolate at special ceremonies. Even poorer members of the society could enjoy the drink once

A Vicenza is a pleasant, prosperous city in the Veneto region, 60 km west of Venice. Its grand families settled and farmed the area from the 16th century. But its principal claim to fame is Andrea Palladio, an architect so influential that a neoclassical style is known as Palladian. The city itself is a permanent exhibition of some of his finest buildings. Since Palladio was born—specifically in Padua—500 years ago, the International Centre for the Study of Palladio’s Architecture has found an excellent reason to mount la grande mostra, or “the big show.” B The exhibition has the special advantage of being held in one of Palladio’s own buildings: Palazzo Barbaran da Porto. Its bold façade is a mixture of rustication and decoration, set between two rows of elegant columns. On the second floor, the pediments are alternately curved or pointed—a Palladian trademark. The harmonious proportions of the atrium at the entrance lead to a dramatic interior with fine fireplaces and painted ceilings. Palladio’s design is simple, clear, and never over-crowded. According to Howard Burns, the architectural historian who co-curated the show, the exhibition itself follows the same principles. C Palladio’s father was a miller who settled in Vicenza, where

Are the electronic media exacerbating illiteracy and making our children stupid? On the contrary, says Colin McCabe, they have the potential to make us truly literate. The debate surrounding literacy is one of the most charged in education. On the one hand there is an army of people convinced that traditional skills of reading and writing are declining. On the other, a host of progressives protest that literacy is much more complicated than a simple technical mastery of reading and writing. This second position is supported by most of the relevant academic work over the past 20 years. These studies argue that literacy can only be understood in its social and technical context. In Renaissance England, for example, many more people could read than could write, and within reading there was a distinction between those who could read print and those who could manage the more difficult task of reading manuscript. An understanding of these earlier periods helps us understand today’s ‘crisis in literacy’ debate. There does seem to be evidence that there has been an overall decline in some aspects of reading and writing – you only need to compare the tabloid newspapers of today with those of 50

Fears that television and computers would kill children’s desire to read couldn’t have been more wrong. With sales roaring, a new generation of authors is the publishing industry’s newest and unlikeliest literary stars. A Less than three years ago, doom merchants were predicting that the growth in video games and the rise of the Internet would sound the death knell for children’s literature. But contrary to popular myth, children are reading more books than ever. A recent survey by Books Marketing found that children up to the age of 11 read on average for four hours a week, particularly girls. B Moreover, the children’s book market, which traditionally was seen as a poor cousin to the more lucrative and successful adult market, has come into its own. Publishing houses are now making considerable profits on the back of new children’s books and children’s authors can now command significant advances. ‘Children’s books are going through an incredibly fertile period,’ says Wendy Cooling, a children’s literature consultant. ‘There’s a real buzz around them. Book clubs are happening, sales are good, and people are much more willing to listen to children’s authors.’ C The main growth area has been the market for eight

A It was told, we suppose, to people crouched around a fire: a tale of adventure, most likely – relating some close encounter with death; a remarkable hunt, an escape from mortal danger; a vision, or something else out of the ordinary. Whatever its thread, the weaving of this story was done with a prime purpose. The listeners must be kept listening. They must not fall asleep. So, as the story went on, its audience should be sustained by one question above all. What happens next? B The first fireside stories in human history can never be known. They were kept in the heads of those who told them. This method of storage is not necessarily inefficient. From documented oral traditions in Australia, the Balkans and other parts of the world we know that specialized storytellers and poets can recite from memory literally thousands of lines, in verse or prose, verbatim-word for word. But while memory is rightly considered an art in itself, it is clear that a primary purpose of making symbols is to have a system of reminders or mnemonic cues – signs that assist us to recall certain information in the mind’s eye. C In some Polynesian

A Football as we now know it developed in Britain in the 19th century, but the game is far older than this. In fact, the term has historically been applied to games played on foot, as opposed to those played on horseback, so ‘football’ hasn’t always involved kicking a ball. It has generally been played by men, though at the end of the 17th century, games were played between married and single women in a town in Scotland. The married women regularly won.  B The very earliest form of football for which we have evidence is the ‘tsu chu’, which was played in China and may date back 3,000 years. It was performed in front of the Emperor during festivities to mark his birthday. It involved kicking a leather ball through a 30-40 cm opening into a small net fixed onto long bamboo canes – a feat that demanded great skill and excellent technique. C Another form of the game, also originating from the Far East, was the Japanese ‘kemari’ which dates from about the fifth century and is still played today. This is a type of circular football game, a more dignified and ceremonious experience requiring certain skills, but