Off Their Hostess Trolley – SWISS Air Collaborates On Michelin-starred Inflight Meals

SWISS, the world’s most refined and assiduous airline have put a Michelin chef to work on their catering. Thomas Patterson has the tedious task of sampling (and a light and a whistle for attracting attention).   Ah, the inflight meal – is there anything more unappetising than the tinfoil-topped airline dinner, with its mystery meat served…
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Johannesburg: South Africa’s own Detroit is Climbing Out Into The Sunshine

Johannesburg was a gold rush city. Established in 1886, following the discovery of gold on a small farmstead in the area, Johannesburg rapidly swelled in size as prospectors swarmed through chasing their gilded dreams, eventually expanding to become the largest city in South Africa. Yet today, the overwhelming picture most outsiders have of Johannesburg couldn’t…
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Thomas Patterson: Build It And They Will Come

My grandfather was very good with his hands. He could build anything, from impressive dolls’ houses with tiny lifelike furniture, to full-sized rocking horses, sanded and varnished to a quality that would make professional woodworkers weep, and small children weep even more because they weren’t allowed anywhere near these beautiful toys, lest they got their…
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Thomas Patterson: First Row Problems

Cannes 2014 was notable for many things – Nicole Kidman’s turn as Princess Grace in the risible ‘Grace of Monaco’; Timothy Spall’s Best Actor win for his role in Mike Leigh’s triumphant biopic ‘Mr Turner’; Abel Ferrara’s upstaging of the whole shebang with ‘Welcome to New York’, his thinly veiled satire about Dominique Strauss-Kahn, which…
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Thomas Patterson: We Dive Till Dawn

There are many things that are better in America than in Britain: burritos, cheerleaders, Austrian movie stars, Real Housewives. But one of the most overlooked areas in which our cousins across the Atlantic excel at is drinking. No, hear me out. We may think we have the market licked with our real ales and WKD…
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Thomas Patterson: Big Boys Don’t Cry (Probably)

It’s obviously a thorny question, made ever more unanswerable by the constantly changing station of men in 21st century life, where brawn is no longer as important as a Twitter account and where having to wait an extraordinarily long time for an Ocado delivery is the closest many of us will come to hunting/gathering our…
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