Shining Happy People: The Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel

Cognitive dissonance is a discomfort caused by holding conflicting cognitions (e.g., ideas, beliefs, values, emotional reactions) simultaneously. Like admiring David Cameron for his attempts to bring Etonian, bloody-good-chap decency to the pragmatic horrors of governing in a coalition, yet suspecting him of being nefariously on the side of the privileged and ancestrally elite. Tricky. Pop…
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The American Diner

What is it with you guys and the French? One minute you’re cracking funnies at their expense, the next you’re falling over yourselves to worship their food, wine and culture. Back home, our experience of the French is even more confusing. My first experience of a Frenchman was Pepe Le Pew, my last experience of…
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Spy Girl: Britain’s First Line of Defence

I open the letter. The Silk Room. One hundred years. Family. Tuesday. Typically nondescript. I better have another Belgian truffle. Brain food. Anyway, I’m booked in for a body wrap on Monday; clearly not something the clever-clogs who came up with moment on the lips, lifetime on the hips ever discovered. He must be new.…
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Dolder and Wiser

Recently, aboard an Orient Express train, I met a lady from Zurich. When I told her I was planning a trip to her hometown she asked where I was going to stay. “The Dolder Grand,” I said and she gasped. “Ah, I’ve never been,” she said, “It’s very smart!” Incongruous as this was – we…
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Frying Circus: The Goodwood Breakfast Club

I like a good roll – be it aileron, barrel, four-point or bacon. Consequently, looping and rolling high above the Solent on Goodwood’s Supercar Sunday, followed by a full English, struck me as probably a better way of spending a Sunday morning than going to church. Indeed, there were top quality rolls of many kinds…
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Vodafone-McLaren-Mercedes, Infiniti

When the driver of a Formula One car pulls out onto the track, he’s at the sharp end of a rolling annual $300 million investment. The teams are literally made of money and the sharing of technological know-how, and title-name prominence, is the obvious ROI for Vodafone-McLaren-Mercedes. But what persuades someone like Infiniti, a luxury…
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The Fight Against Time

Not because of the weather and shortened daylight hours, although the former has been particularly frightful this year. No, November signals something much worse, it is the month of my birth and therefore cannot possibly fail to remind me of my fast approaching senility, along with the distinct possibility that Roger, as he never fails…
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All You Need to Know About Tequila

Whilst the mere name will send shivers down the spine of those with less-than-fond memories of slamming shots of poorly produced mixto tequilas in a nightclub, more and more spirits aficionados are becoming aware of the fascinating history, versatility and stylistic range of 100% agave tequilas. It is, in fact, the fastest growing spirit in…
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Sloe Fire Way to Home Made Heaven

Sloe gin doesn’t spring to mind as the Next Big Thing, unless you’ve been listening to sloe enthusiasts over the past well, for the last century or so. So when those connoisseurs of taste, the LUSSO editorial department, strolled into my bar a few months ago demanding a round of blackthorn fruit infused Vera Lynn,…
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