New breed of hotel bars to boost London October 6, 2010 London may have cutting edge nightlife when it comes to clubs and restaurants but sadly the bar culture isn’t quite NYC. Fortunately the much maligned (if pricey) hotel bars are here to save the day. In the coming month the scene is going to get a serious boost with a host of new luxury hotels [...]
Shell out on British oysters October 6, 2010 LIKE Marmite and the ouevre of Robbie Williams, oysters divide opinion, and strongly. For some they are the perfect expression of pure foodiness, something that is best eaten quivering, dressed only with the smallest squeeze of lemon or (if you must) a dab of Tabasco. For others they are snotty little gobs of horror. I [...]
School of speed October 5, 2010 WE’VE done rather well in this column, test driving Aston Martin sports cars for CityA.M. The City of course is a key market for these cars, which is why I’ve been fortunate enough to get them. But the thing is, the more familiar I became with them the more I realised that UK speed restrictions [...]
CAR TALK October 5, 2010 JAZZ GOES HYBRID The best seller in the B-segment – the Honda Jazz – is now the first to go hybrid. The hybrid version of the Jazz has the same 1.3 litre i-VTEC engine as the Insight hybrid and is able to run on the electric motor alone. This will mean the cars emits only [...]
Get yourself ultimate fighting fit October 4, 2010 IT’S 48 hours since it finished, and I can just about pick up a pen now and my legs no longer feel like jelly… The reason for all this pain is a session of MMA, or mixed martial arts, a combination of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, Muay Thai kickboxing and Greco-Roman wrestling. MMA?is rapidly growing in popularity, [...]
If you’re feeling down, stop doing and start being October 4, 2010 RESEARCH published by Relate last week said that men are getting their mid-life crisis earlier than ever, and that men aged 35-44 are the least happy people. The numbers are chilling. Twenty-one per cent say they feel lonely a lot of the time; 22 per cent wanted a better relationship with their family; 30 per [...]
Queen of cakes gives tea a twist October 4, 2010 I ACTUALLY wanted to be a musician,” says Claire Clark. Unfortunately, her flute and violin playing wasn’t up to scratch. Happily for us, it meant she became the world’s best female patissiere, soon to open up a decadent cake shop – think champagne and chaises longues – in London. “My mother cooked everything,” says Clark, [...]
RESTAURANT REVIEW October 4, 2010 Tortilla 28 Leadenhall Market, EC3V 1LR Tel: 020 7929 7837 FOOD SERVICE ATMOSPHERE Cost per person without wine: £8 IF you go down to Leadenhall Market today at about one o’clock, round towards the bottom of the Lloyds building, you’ll see a big, big queue. It only opened a few weeks ago, but already Tortilla [...]
How to live the Polynesian dream October 3, 2010 IT’S a hot and humid afternoon in Nadi on the Fijian mainland as we squash into the rather intimate 14-seater plane that is to deliver us to Taveuni in the north-east of the archipelago. Known as Fiji’s Garden Island for its pristine tropical rainforests and ridiculously beautiful beaches, Taveuni is to be the starting point [...]
TRAVEL NOTES October 3, 2010 Picardie at Four Seasons Terre Blanche It’s all go at the Four Seasons Provence this October. On 16-17 Justine Picardie, author of Coco Chanel: The Legend and the Life, will be in situ to give two talks about the secret life of Gabrielle Chanel. Superfacialist Vaishaly will also be at the resort. Pamper your mind and [...]