Globe

There are more reasons to watch the Golden Globe Awards show tonight than at any time in its history. The biggest one is that for the first time the live telecast will have a host, and he's an unpredictable one who could create some genuine, unrehearsed fun: Ricky Gervais. The Hollywood Foreign Press Association has also given more control to Dick Clark Productions with the mandate to create a television event worthy of prime time - rather than an awards dinner geared to a hotel ballroom in Beverly Hills filled with celebrities.

T here are more reasons to watch the Golden Globe Awards show tonight than at any time in its history. The biggest one is that for the first time the live telecast will have a host, and he's an unpredictable one who could create some genuine, unrehearsed fun: Ricky Gervais. The Hollywood Foreign Press Association has also given more control to Dick Clark Productions with the mandate to create a television event worthy of prime time - rather than an awards dinner geared to a hotel ballroom in Beverly Hills filled with celebrities.

The only thing standing between Mo'Nique and awards-season glory could be Mo'Nique herself. Portraying a monstrously abusive mom with a shockingly disarming moment of clarity, Mo'Nique has certainly given an award-worthy performance in "Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire." Any doubt of that was erased Tuesday morning, when the Baltimore County native and BET talk-show host landed a Golden Globe nomination for her performance. She's already been named the year's top supporting actress by the Los Angeles Film Critics and the Boston Society of Film Critics.

The only thing standing between Mo'Nique and awards-season glory could be Mo'Nique herself. Portraying a monstrously abusive mom with a shockingly disarming moment of clarity, Mo'Nique has certainly given an award-worthy performance in "Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire." Any doubt of that was erased Tuesday morning, when the Baltimore County native and BET talk-show host landed a Golden Globe nomination for her performance. She's already been named the year's top supporting actress by the Los Angeles Film Critics and the Boston Society of Film Critics.

- " Mescolati, non agitati " is Italian for "stirred, not shaken," but to me it means a good martini is hard to find here - and in a lot of other places, for that matter. I went looking for one on the last Sunday evening in August, the nadir of the year in Rome. It was hot even at 7 p.m., and everything was closed because Romans linger at the beach as long as they can before returning to town to face September. On the Via Veneto, prime martini territory given its Fellini-esque "La Dolce Vita" connections, lobby bars in the grand hotels were shut tight, and maitre d's in oversize suits beckoned me into sad, empty sidewalk cafes.

The first person to circumnavigate the globe did it for spite. When Ferdinand Magellan's request for a pay raise was spurned by the King of Portugal, Magellan set sail for Spain to offer his services to the competing monarch. The adventurer hoped to prove that the bountiful - and profitable - Spice Islands belonged to Spain and not to Portugal, the country of his birth. Nowadays, thanks to Cruise West, nearly anyone can be a Magellan and sail around the world for fun (though it still takes a royal treasury to pay for it)

Elspeth M. Udvarhelyi, who had held important development roles with several Baltimore and Washington artistic and cultural organizations, and had been development director and interim CEO of the Globe Theatre in London, died Sunday of Merkel cell cancer, a rare skin disease, at Gilchrist Hospice Care. The Roland Park Place resident was 79. Elspeth Mary Campbell, the daughter of a sheep farmer, was born in Dornoch, Scotland, and raised in Bonar Bridge, Scotland. She was a graduate of a private high school in Inverness, where she developed her lifelong interest in music, art and theater.

Gather 'round children and hear the sad tale of when the Colts forsook Baltimore for Indianapolis. Now, 25 years later, the details are a little hazy. So we turn to the writings of the major news giants of our generation. It was a dark and stormy night, on that everyone agrees. It happened over March 28 and 29 or on "a snowy December night in 1984." (The Boston Globe) Or maybe it was during "a sleet storm." (Sports Illustrated) Out of the darkness and into the training complex in Owings Mills rumbled "a Mayflower moving van" (WBAL)

People always ask me how I decide where to go. I read, I see movies, I stare at maps, I dream. In doing so, I arrived at these 10 places that are tops on my list for 2009. Some are old favorites that are newly affordable. Others have a particular reason to shine this year or suddenly are being talked about by well-traveled people I know. A few are raw, off-the-beaten-track destinations that I doubt can long remain untransformed by globalization. Money's tight, so I know I won't get to them all. But tough times have forced travel providers to reduce prices, meaning that now might be the time to take the grand tour.