On a Moroccan roll

Rich City | 16 Feb 2005

When Vanessa Branson purchased her riad in Marrakesh, she was the only woman who didn’t sign the deal with a thumb print. There were other details that also made the transaction novel. “Myself and my business partner, Howell James, had to wait a further four days before completion because the vendors didn’t trust our notaire to hand over the keys and money.” Vanessa and Howell followed the 26 Moroccan family members involved in the sale back to the riad, and the problem was resolved over mint tea.

• Homes, Interiors & Property,
• Travel: Europe/ Africa

Lunch isn’t for wimps

The Sunday Times Magazine | 5 Jun 2004

When Faith MacArthur was a child, she’d pluck chickens and pick potatoes during the harvest. She lived in “Cow Town” – Calgary, Alberta – in the Prairies. Her mother, a minister’s wife, would hang home-made noodles around the house to dry. Sitting on her mother’s knee, four-year-old Faith would pummel bread dough and make carrot curls for garnish. Now Faith, 42, is standing in her fashionable Notting Hill kitchen, knee-high in ingredients for soups: cumin, cinnamon, turmeric, ginger, chickpeas, chillis. Rows of saucepans are steaming on an industrial oven and scribbled, half-complete recipes litter every surface.

Faith is half of the husband-and-wife team behind the EAT chain of cafes.

• Food

Ever the trendsetters

Financial Times | 27 Mar 2004

Mattia Bonetti and David Gillare are preparing to show a new collection of furniture in New York and London. Caroline Phillips takes a peek.

• Homes, Interiors & Property

From California to Kensal Road

Independent on Sunday | 27 Mar 2004

For Sarah Stitt, 36, work is therapy. She had a miscarriage in 1994 and coped with her bereavement by painting a series of pregnant women, some with angels above. A year later, she became pregnant. But just five days after the birth, she was back in her studio, “hormonally insane” and painting to prevent herself going mad.

She first “found salvation in art” when she was at St Martins , aged 19. “I drank and drugged excessively,” recalls Stitt. “My rebellious youth ended with a nervous breakdown and painting was the only thing that helped me.” In 1993, she suffered a second breakdown. “I was severely depressed, suicidal and confronting the demons of my past.” So she “paid with paintings” for inpatient treatment in a therapy clinic on the Greek island of Skiathos.  

• Culture

From humble radiator to hot work of art

Financial Times | 10 Feb 2004

In 1982, the late Geoffrey Ward had a plumbing installation company. Camden Council insisted that he could not run his business from retail premises – without a window display, he could no longer be classified as a shop and would have to close.

Mr Ward had a zany designer radiator that he had imported for fun. He put it into the window of his Kilburn premises. People started asking to buy it – those were the days of the ubiquitous white panel radiator – so Mr. Ward decided to change jobs. He started to import sculptural radiators.

• Homes, Interiors & Property

Heston Blumenthal: The big cheese of the Fat Duck

Financial Times | 31 Jan 2004

The former debt collector has some extraordinary kit in his kitchen. A rotavapor machine that distills natural essences, a water and oil bath, a canister containing liquid nitrogen and a gleaming machine that turns purees into edible shaving foam. There’s a desiccator and pump to suck moisture out of chips, test tubes, overhead stirrers, mini filtration units and magnetic mixers. And now he falls delightedly upon Fishers laboratory catalogue. “Heat pads! You put them in a beaker of water with magnets underneath and it keeps it stirred. Can you see the vortex it’s creating?” he asks ecstatically.

• Food

Sandwich man has an appetite for spreading

Financial Times | 6 Jan 2004

Niall MacArthur, the founder of Eat, tells Caroline Phillips about his ambitions to expand his 26-strong chain beyond its base in London.

• Food

Patricia O’Neill: Animal House

The Sunday Times Magazine | 19 Sep 1999

They call it, with some affection, Broadmoor. At least, that’s what they say in the family. To others, however, it is Broadlands, the stud farm belonging to the horse breeder and animal conservationist the Hon Patricia O’Neill.

She has 42 stray dogs who move in packs through her house, and a kitchen carpeted with yapping Pekingese. She also has a donkey, jackal, lynx, chimp, 200 parrots, 40 stud ponies, a cage shared by a tortoise, cockerel, monkey and rabbit, plus 19 rescued baboons – some living in a room with filing cabinets and books.

• Interviews

Ingrams on death

The Week | 4 Oct 1997

Richard Ingrams, the former editor of Private Eye and now editor of The Oldie, has been dwelling on mortality.

• Interviews

Sir Jocelyn’s temper

The Week | 19 Apr 1997

Although a sign on his office door reads “the floggings will continue until morale improves”, Sir Jocelyn Stevens, Chairman of English Heritage, denies he’s the “fascist cannibal beast” he’s made out to be.

• Interviews

Lord Bath: Law and disorder of the Bath

The Express | 19 Apr 1997

The air is close with the smell of sweaty old feet and unwashed plates. He has stained bedsheets, pillows with red hearts, lopsided posters of Monet and Manet, screaming pink, yellow and red paint work and a cupboard full of blouses with flounces, frills, embroidery and twirls. It could be a bohemian student squat. But his doorbell on the Fifties block states simply “Bath”.

This is the home of the 7th Marquess of Bath, Alexander Thynn, 64, dubbed the Loins of Longleat in reference to his multifarious romantic interests and the safari lions at his £150 million, 10,000 acre Elizabethan stately home in Wiltshire.

• Interviews,
• Columns & Regulars

Stay in the car for a Christmas to remember

The Express | 10 Dec 1996

A survey released last week by motor manufacturer Toyota found that the car has overtaken the breakfast table as a principal family meeting place. The evidence from the survey will be used in designing its Picnic “family fun” car.

Our family has known this for years. A long time ago, we started having family Christmases in the car. We don’t have to put up many decorations because we can, if the mood takes us, park beneath the festoons of light adorning Regent Street.

And we do our bit for the environment – the tree part of it, at least – because we speed to Trafalgar Square to admire the 65ft Norwegian Christmas tree rather than splashing out on our own somewhat smaller baubled conifer.

• Columns & Regulars