“Caroline Phillips is a tenacious and skilful writer with a flair for high quality interviewing and a knack for making things work.”
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 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’.”
A former Barclays Bank branch has been reborn as the Chuan Spa in the grand 19th-century Langham Hotel, London. Now that the money men have gone, the spa has settled prettily in a brilliant spot on Portland Place – directly opposite Broadcasting House, the iconic home of the BBC, and just a few Louboutin-shod steps from Bond Street and even more exclusive Mount Street.
When JG Ballard died, in April 2009, few people knew he had been planning a new work. The author of Crash and Empire of the Sun, celebrated for his bleak dystopian vision, had proposed a book co-written with his oncologist, Jonathan Waxman, to be called Conversations with my Physician: the Meaning, if Any, of Life.
The year may have been humbling for many of the hedge-fund industry’s biggest stars and other experienced investors and traders. Many have found it hard to cope with the effects of Japan’s disasters, uneven US and British economic recoveries, commodity price volatility and concerns about the solvency of Greece and other European nations. This is hardly the time, you would think, for the wives of hedgies to be demanding a new personal shopper, only the woman in question is devoted to rationalising your portfolio (of clothes) and helping you avoid a haircut (on ill-advised purchases).
We pull up at the ashram. A bare-chested man in a dhoti walks past as monkeys and peacocks wander around. “I’ve been here before,” I say, startled. “In another life,” replies a distant cousin, Alan Lawrence. No, two years ago, en route to Kerala. I visited for nanoseconds and thought: “Golly, how could anyone stay here? So boring and uncomfortable.” Now I’m here for two weeks.
Caroline Phillips tries a radical detox treatment in India, while, overleaf, we suggest the 20 best spas to beat the new year blues.
View transcriptOnce the holiday preserve of toiling backpackers, Vietnam is now attracting a more grown-up breed of traveler, drawn by its unspoilt mix of natural and cultural treasures. Caroline Phillips takes a heady trip from the hectic streets of Hanoi’s French Quarter to a stylish eco-resort nestled on remote tropical shores.
French interior designer Jacques Grange is an industry legend whose latest project saw him completely revamp New York’s Mark Hotel. Caroline Phillips hops stateside to pay a visit and recommends how to get the look back home.
It used to be a man’s world. But since the credit crunch men have increasingly been turning to everything from make-up and cosmetic surgery to hormone replacement therapy. Now chaps are having to play a woman’s game. Men in high-powered jobs are expected to be eternally youthful, to display endless stamina and vigour. And, on top of this, increasingly, they’re judged on their looks.
When we moved to London’s Kensal Rise in 2003, I hated it. I disparagingly referred to it as ‘The Suburbs’. We’d lived in Holland Park and Kensington. I loved the Royal Borough’s stucco houses, gracious parks, cafes and shops. But we’d sold our duplex in Kensington during the rise of the property market and, sitting smug, waited in a rented house in Holland Park for the market to crash. And waited. And waited.
The challenges of memory, the stranglehold of the past, addiction, alcoholism, loneliness, regret, nostalgia, resignation, denial, blame, guilt, lies and illusion, love and forgiveness. They’re…
Go and see this production of Faith Healer by Brian Friel, one of the greatest Irish dramatists; it’s mesmerising and moving. It’s a four-scene play…
What better time than now to scrub up in a newly-restored bath whilst breathing deeply of the latest sustainable home fragrance diffuser? To buff and wash your skin in…