According to an ancient Sardinian legend the bodies of those who are born on Christmas Eve will never dissolve into dust but are preserved until the end of time.

Like all young reporters - brilliant or hopelessly incompetent - I dreamed of the glamorous life of the foreign correspondent: prowling Vienna in a Burberry trench coat speaking a dozen languages to dangerous women narrowly escaping Sardinian bandits - the usual stuff that newspaper dreams are made of.