“Caroline Phillips is a tenacious and skilful writer with a flair for high quality interviewing and a knack for making things work.”
‘Think organised. Think organised squared… and that’s Susanna Hammond. In the space of a day she can change your life for the better. Susanna should be available on the National Health.’ These are the words of Emma Burns, the talented director of interior design company Colefax and Fowler.
The plane lands to an unusual chorus. “Santo bravo,” the plane’s incumbents, many of them schoolchildren, shout and clap. “They are thanking the pilot,” explains my octogenarian neighbour, an Italian lady in black. It’s our first insight into the warmth of the Apulians, as the locals are known. Welcome to Bari in Puglia, high on Italy’s heel.
As we sail away from the medieval coastal town of Kotor, Montenegro, all ancient walls and 12th-century churches, with a dramatic backdrop of mountains, the warm breeze is filled with the sound of altos and baritones. One minute they’re singing Bellini, the next it’s Bizet. There’s a piano on deck too.
The stuffiest of ‘men-only’ sports has finally entered the 21st century. Home of the Masters golf tournament, Augusta National has accepted its first two female members.
Granted, one is the former US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice and the other is Darla Moore, one of the US’s most powerful businesswomen but still…In Sicily, at the Verdura Golf & Spa Resort, they’re positively demanding that women swap their Louboutins for studded shoes.They’re whooping about a rise in ‘girlie golf’ and are planning a ladies’ tournament for next years.
I’m not ordinarily a fan of Bangkok – too much heat, too many knockoffs – but then there’s the Sukhotai hotel. Yes it’s surrounded by high-rise buildings in one of the noisiest and most traffic-choked cities in the world. But stop a while – inside, it’s pure orchid filled Zen and The Art of Hotel Living. Plus it offers something that’s as rare as a paragliding saffron-robed monk: it’s a resort hotel set calmly in the centre of the city.
I’m at a reunion dinner for some of my erstwhile classmates: ten of us – including a psychotherapist, a doctor and a lawyer – now 50 years old, successful and glamorous. Conversation falls to the topic of food and bodies. Then something startling is revealed. Seven of us admit to having suffered from eating disorders at school – bulimia, compulsive overeating or anorexia.
The Gstaad Palace, Switzerland, is full of European royals, Greek ship owners and tuxedo-clad waiters. Liz Taylor loved it and so does Valentino. But when people with kingdoms and Ferraris tire of socialising, dancing and the spa of all spas, they can pay a princely sum to stay in a mountain hut with an outside lavatory.
“The granita in Bar Roma is the best in Sicily,” declared Fulvio Pierangelini, the chef who oversees Sir Rocco Forte’s hotel kitchens globally. Bar Roma is found in the port of Sciacca – pronounced shakka – on the little-visited southern coast of Sicily, just up from Agrigento. During the summer, Fulvio is based at the Verdura Golf & Spa Resort, 20 minutes away, and he was taking the opportunity to give me a cookery lesson that included a visit to Sciacca to choose fish.
The couple were cuddled up on a sofa, talking about their good fortune. “We lead such a charmed life,” James Collins told his wife, Sharmila Nikapota. The Cambridge-educated professionals enjoyed the theatre, dining out, romantic holidays. They had a lovely home and planned a family. “The world was our oyster,” Sharmila, now 43, says. James is a commercial barrister, recently made a QC. Sharmila used to be a vet. On July 15, 2002, their perfect world was shattered. Their first child, Sohana, was born with the genetic skin condition recessive dystrophic epidermolysis bullosa (RDEB).
A Jesus lookalike is sitting in his shop sanding poplar wood. Handmade wooden marionettes and tambourines hang from the ceiling. He has covered his walls with leftist newspaper cuttings. “This street’s full of fascists,” he confides. “I’m the only true Communist here.” His shop doesn’t have a name, although it’s been here 36 years. “Just call it ‘the shop by the cathedral’.”
‘Think organised. Think organised squared… and that’s Susanna Hammond. In the space of a day she can change your life for the better. Susanna should…
As we sail away from the medieval coastal town of Kotor, Montenegro, all ancient walls and 12th-century churches, with a dramatic backdrop of mountains, the…
I’m not ordinarily a fan of Bangkok – too much heat, too many knockoffs – but then there’s the Sukhotai hotel. Yes it’s surrounded by…