“Caroline Phillips is a tenacious and skilful writer with a flair for high quality interviewing and a knack for making things work.”
I’m swimming when I notice a hippo just a few feet from me, wallowing beside me in the waterhole. My heart lurches. OK, let’s be honest, he’s in the waterhole and I’m in the infinity pool that overlooks it. But there can be few better ways to view game.
Edinburgh: that wondrous place on the shore of the Firth of Forth that’s dominated by its 11th-century castle on a rocky ridge; the capital of Scotland; somewhere with JK Rowling spots aplenty. Heading to the Fringe this summer? Luckily for you, Edinburgh isn’t just host to theatre and comedy’s rising stars, but a stellar destination in its own right. It is a location with top food, excellent shopping and historic sites across the town centre, not to mention those wonderful Scots themselves, with their dry humour, haggis and sporrans. It is, of course, always bathed in sunlight because that’s what the weather’s permanently like in Edinburgh – not. Just prepare yourself for four seasons in one day.
Spirituality and formerly arcane practices have gone mainstream, with CEOs, lawyers and HNWs seeking help from tarot readers to people ‘in spirit’ to make those big decisions. Yes, hedgies to bankers – and at least one newspaper proprietor – have become ‘seekers’.
Holistic in nature and based on the concept of interconnectedness, Ayurvedic treatments aim to balance the mind, body (and spirit) with diets, herbal remedies, massage therapies, yoga and meditation.
There are multiple benefits to running your own Ayurvedic retreat, including keeping things local and spending a fraction of the usual price of an international retreat. You’ll also help the environment – by jettisoning long plane trips – and avoid pesky airport queues and jet lag. Plus, staying home allows you to do an Ayurvedic break that’s so mini you won’t return to work (or home) and find yourself so overloaded that you wish you’d never left.
Barring a lottery win, a trip to The Ranch is out of my reach. So I’m having a bargain-basement bash at it by trying to follow the fitness schedule from the Italian Ranch (nabbed off the website, er, free of charge) with meals from the cookery book at home.
African aesthetics are having a moment – from the spectacular William Kentridge exhibition at the Royal Academy to the V&A’s blockbuster Africa Fashion. And there’s no better place to experience African art in all its forms (from sculpture to scent and gemstones) than at the Delaire Graff Estate. Set in a glorious 106-acre estate bursting with vineyards near Stellenbosch, it’s the hotel of Laurence Graff, jeweller, diamantaire, billionaire businessman and art collector. You can even rent his art-filled private house, the Owner’s Villa, if your pockets are deep.
Natural or not, the choice is yours, says Caroline Phillips
From the tip-top family business whose people digitise your photo albums professionally chez vous, through to the whizz who turns your home office paperless, and the must-have illustration of your house. From the leading Look Doctor to edit your wardrobe and style you in the privacy of your own bedroom (clue, she’s a fashion icon), to someone (used by folk in Kensington Palace) to collect your leatherwork and refurbish it. While you’re trying all the recommendations, grab the app offering a recently-launched service delivering Fortnum & Mason’s artisan foods and drinks to your home within minutes. And let the latest and best robots (reviewed below) clean your home while you’re enjoying all of these home services. You need never leave your house again. But this time you won’t feel as if you’re in lockdown.
Here’s a guide to six of the best off-the-beaten track places to stay in Scotland, from a secret historical hideaway in Edinburgh to a private Highlands estate where you can stalk and pan for gold, to a stylish, off-grid property on a remote island. Most of these discoveries are so off-grid, they have never been written about before.
Jews make up less than one per cent of the UK population. Yet a quarter of all hate crimes in the country are antisemitic. In the week that the Jewish Chronicle reported on this harrowing statistic, I went to the Royal Court to see journalist Jonathan Freedland’s ‘Jews. In their Own Words,’(JITOW). I have a Church of England mother but grew up with antisemitism: the curious sort from my Jewish father (the son of observant parents) who directed it against his own kind — arguably a manifestation in part of self-hatred and a perverse desire for assimilation. (‘Jews can be the worst antisemites,’ a Jewish friend explained.)
When girls started yelping and convulsing and then went limp or rigid, witchcraft was diagnosed. This was Salem, Massachusetts in 1692. The Crucible —which was first staged in New York in 1953 —was, as is well known, Arthur Miller’s partly-fictionalised story of the Salem witch trials: a quasi-allegorical play based on the story of the pre-adolescents’ denunciations that gripped Salem and which saw hundreds of townsfolk accused of witchcraft and sent to their deaths. The play was Miller’s response to the paranoia and hysteria of post-war US politics, when Communists and suspected Commies were treated as devils in need of exorcism by senator Joe McCarthy and his like; something Miller witnessed personally.
Cheese making was a gift of the gods, according to Greek mythology. And this course has been created by the Paxton & Whitfield gods of Piccadilly. If you’ve ever wondered how cheese is made, how to taste it like a pro, how to describe its character, when to eat it, how to serve it and with what, this is the class for you. It’s masterminded by the super knowledgeable folk from that shop that’s had the Buckingham Palace patent since Queen Victoria. And after closing the physical classroom door for the pandemic lockdowns, in-person meetings have just started again.
Every week ‘The Week’ selects the best features from the world’s press
Ascetic eccentric who served as a stretcher bearer during the war and has written more than 200 musical works. Long haired, energetic, darling of the…
Facialogy? What’s that? It’s a combo of a blissful Vaishaly Signature Facial with a relaxing, health-promoting reflexology.