Travel notes August 19, 2012 C’est magnifique Famous Parisian hotel Le Meurice has undergone a “sumptuous” refurbishment of its presidential suites by French interior designer Charles Jouffre. The designer aimed to create an atmosphere more akin to a stately home than a hotel, with use of drapes and high quality materials. dorchestercollection.com Souk it and see Dar Jaguar, a five [...]
How to enjoy the sun while it lasts August 16, 2012 Film 4 Summer Screen Somerset House £10; Until 25 August Set in the jaw-droppingly beautiful Edmond J Safra fountain court, this is the ideal way to spend a summer evening in London. Likewise, if you enjoy open-air cinema then this is the destination for you. Classics including Hitchcock’s menacing The Birds will be showing on [...]
Marriage abounds this week but these lacklustre movies are on the rocks August 16, 2012 FILM THE WEDDING VIDEO Cert 15 ** THE trailer for The Wedding Video is awful. The adverts are awful. Even the name is awful, inspiring the unique kind of dread that clings to movies about weddings. At first glance it looks like a low-rent remake of the stereotypical American “wedding movie,” which places a hord [...]
Strike appose August 15, 2012 ■ CHICFEED If you love fashion blogs but find it hard to keep track of the many hundreds of thousands out there then chicfeed is the app for you. This gathers together the top fashion blogs from the likes of The Sartoralist, Face Hunter and Cherry Blossom Girl and collates them all into one feed. [...]
Give the bling a ring August 15, 2012 LG Prada phone by LG 3.0 P940 The Prada phone is sleek and sophisticated. With an 8 mega pixel camera and 8GB of memory and GPS, this touchscreen Android OS phone is one of the best designer models. Pad it out with other Prada accessories including designer cases and Bluetooth ear set. Available at T [...]
Less trendy Fiat Punto is revamped August 14, 2012 Fiat is on a roll with its little 500 and Panda city cars, both of which have been critical and commercial successes. But the problem with introducing cool, trendy little cars is that they can make older cars in the range suddenly look long in the tooth. So it is with the Fiat Punto, a [...]
Car talk August 14, 2012 Jaguar’s F-Type two-seater It feels as if we have been waiting forever. Thankfully Jaguar will show its new F-Type two-seater rear-wheel drive sports car at the Paris Motor Show on 27 September. The car will be launched in droptop form with a choice of three petrol engines – 340PS and 380PS versions of Jaguar’s 3.0-litre [...]
House prices show biggest fall in a year August 14, 2012 British house prices experienced their most widespread falls for a year in the three months to July, and surveyors do not expect the outlook to improve over the next 12 months, a survey by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) showed today. The figures, which also show sellers hanging back, reinforce a generally gloomy [...]
A taste of Mother Russia in a Knightsbridge salon August 13, 2012 RESTAURANT MARI VANNA 116 Knightsbridge, SW1X 7PJ el: 020 7225 3122 FOOD ** SERVICE **** ATMOSPHERE **** Cost per person without wine: £55 There are two facts you need to know about Mari Vanna. One: it’s done up like a Russian babushka’s dining room – albeit one with a more than a dollop of Tsarist [...]
Back to the Bronze age August 13, 2012 Whether you’re heading off somewhere nice or staying home, you’ll want to look brown. Here’s our pick of the best fake tans Clarins self tanning instant gel, £17.50 Clarins is a skincare classic and its fake tan is bang up to standard. Its special non-oily gel formula glides on the skin, leaving you with a [...]