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Morricone to receive Golden Globes statuette in Rome

Italian composer Ennio Morricone will be presented Saturday with his Golden Globes statuette for the soundtrack of "The Hateful Eight", the first such time the award is bestowed outside of Los Angeles.

Morricone to receive Golden Globes statuette in Rome
Morricone, shown here with a European Film Award, will pick up his Golden Globe in Rome Photo: Johannes Eiselle/AFP

The 87-year-old maestro was unable to travel to Beverly Hills to receive the award on January 10th and US filmmaker Quentin Tarantino, the man behind the western flick, accepted it on his behalf.
   
Lorenzo Soria, head of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA), will present it to the composer at an event hosted by Italian luxury jeweller Bulgari at its historical premises on Rome's Via Condotti.
   
This is the third Golden Globe for Morricone, who scooped up one in 1987 for the soundtrack to “The Mission” by Roland Joffe, and one in 2000 for that of Giuseppe Tornatore's “The Legend of 1900”.
   
Tornatore, best known for his Oscar-winning “Cinema Paradiso”, will speak at the event about a documentary on Morricone entitled “The Glance of Music”.
   
“The Hateful Eight”, a tribute to Sergio Leone westerns, is competing for an Oscar in the best soundtrack category. Morricone has won one Oscar – an honorary lifetime achievement Oscar in 2007.
   
He has composed over 500 film scores, most famously for Sergio Leone's “Dollars Trilogy” – from “A Fistful of Dollars”, to “For a Few Dollars More” and “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly”.
   
Morricone discovered his passion for music at a young age, taught to play the trumpet by his father in the 1930s. After studying music in Rome, he composed pop songs before beginning to write for cinema in the 1960s, at the Italian film industry's height.

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Switzerland searches for owner of 180,000 francs worth of gold bars left on train

Are you missing 180,000 francs (€168,000) worth of gold bars after a train journey through central Switzerland? If so, you might be in luck.

Switzerland searches for owner of 180,000 francs worth of gold bars left on train
Photo: Pexels/Free to use

Swiss authorities have announced they are searching for the owner or owners of a set of gold bars worth 180,000 francs (€168,000/$US190,000). 

The bars were left on a train from St Gallen to Lucerne in October 2019. The bars were found unattended by a member of train staff and brought to lost property – upon which SBB officers realised the find.  

After an eight-month private search for the gold – including looking at surveillance cameras throughout the journey – Lucerne authorities have gone public to try and find the rightful owner. 

But if you’ve suddenly realised your gold cache is a little light, don’t fear. The Lucerne Prosecutors Office have given prospective gold seekers a five-year window in which they can claim ownership. 

In an interview with Swiss news organisation 20 Minutes, the Lucerne Prosecutors Office says they’ve already received several claims for ownership. 

Spokesperson Simon Kopp said: “We’ve received a lot of reports and we have to check them now.”

Kopp said authorities would go through all claims they believed to be legitimate – not including the hundreds of hopeful claimants on social media. 

We're unsure how hard the authorities are looking however – as Switzerland has a 'finders keepers' law which snaps into place after five years. 

Although possession of gold bars is relatively rare – even in Switzerland – Kopp said determining the original owner of the bars just by evaluating them is impossible. 

No loss or theft of gold bars has been recorded in Switzerland either, reports the Zürichsee newspaper

Switzerland's forgetful golden problem

Remarkably, it is not the first time a large cache of gold bars has been found in Switzerland. 

In 2012, 100,000 francs worth of gold was found in a field in Klingau, Aargau by employees of the village town council. 

After a five-year search with no luck, the gold became the property of the village – under the same finders keepers law. 

An investigation failed to find the owner, despite an initial lead pointing to a Bosnian man who was in prison when the treasure was discovered.

READ: Swiss village gets to keep abandoned gold bars 

But ownership was not proven, nor was there anything to connect the gold bars to a crime.

Shortly before the five year deadline, two people turned up to stake a claim on the treasure, but after a police investigation, their claims were judged unfounded, police said.

As reported at the time, the employees were entitled to 10 percent of the total value of the find. 

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