Another clear blue sky but crippling temperatures. One step outside and you can feel the hairs in your nostrils icing up. The first icy breath catches in your throat, then you get used to it. It’s my turn to go for water. I walk down to the river and find a spot where fresh [...]

Photos by Peter Hunt
A curled-up koala, a micro monkey with its hands up, a Victorian sweet jar filled near to the brim with preserved moles, their splayed paws and elongated noses seeming to press against the glass semaphoring “Let us out of here!” - the cabinets of curiosity at The Grant Museum, in London’s Bloomsbury [...]

Photo Courtesy of Selfridges
Commemorative cups, plaques, and dishes are so blasé. Why not spruce up your celebration of Will-n-Kate’s Royal Wedding by serving jelly in the shape of Buckingham Palace, made in a Bompas & Parr jelly mold? (12.95 GBP from Selfridges). Nothing could be more regally traditional than jelly. Need proof? Henry [...]

Should you go to Burma? For the reasons not to, packed in a wry little film starring Jason Schwartzman and Famke Janssen, see this clip.
As you struggle to make up your mind, read Rory Maclean’s Under the Dragon and Benedict Roger’s Than Shwe, Unmasking Burma’s Tyrant. For a light, but surprisingly clever read, try [...]

Photos Courtesy of La Sultana
Exhausted. Need to get away. Need to be pampered. Need delicious food. Need to just sink into a bliss of having everything PERFECT.
Now that the commute to Morocco has got so much better again (from the UK, British Airways have reintroduced the London-to-Marrakech route, meaning –Hallelujah — no more Royal Air [...]

I like to tell people I have a green thumb. My father comes from a long line of farmers, and although I’m not exactly handy with a cattle brand I can, if pushed, drive a tractor. London is brilliant at maintaining its green spaces - you’re never too far away from a park [...]

Photos by Peter Hunt
The current it-girl in London? Esther. That’s the name of the marvelous painting by John Everett Millais (1829-96) which is attracting fashionable attention as the star piece in the V&A Museum’s outstanding Cult of Beauty exhibition.
You will note the word “outstanding.” We do not usually gush. We do now. The V&A has [...]

Matti is up at 4am to put more wood on the fire and check the dogs. We sleep in till 8:30 and wake to the smell of fresh coffee. The cabin is cosy but there is 2cm of ice on the inside of the windows. Breakfast is a typically Swedish affair with cereals, yoghurt, ham, [...]