You can stay in a hotel worse than The Empire. You’d be unlucky to stay somewhere more disappointing. The Empire is a one hundred year old legend, part of New Yorks hotelscape and it’s just had an expensive revamp. The Empire is somewhere New Yorkers hold dear they don’t want to stay there but they…
If I told you I was lying on a sun-lounger in the middle of the night, on a moor, in Scotland, in deep winter, and I was laughing with glee, you might assume I’d had a few drinks. You’d be right too. I was three sheets to the freezing wind. But it wasn’t a drunken…
Years of using Hong Kong as a layover for Pacific-bound journeys made me curious about Macau. “It’s just like Las Vegas”, everyone told me, as if that’s a good thing. It is just like Las Vegas in that every hotel either has a casino or shopping mall attached to the side, bottom or top of…
Neither country is teeming with the sort of “authenticity” beloved of some western tourists and earnest backpackers. However, while Dubai sweeps the issue under the carpet and attempts to distract – look! Another new, really tall building! – Abu Dhabi cheerfully acknowledges that, before discovering oil 50 years ago, the country was basically a few…
Friends? Over-rated. Friendliness means people want something out of you. And I’m a woman with much to give. Friendly companies? Distinctly suspect. “The World’s Friendliest Airline”. Sounds rather nice, doesn’t it? Don’t be fooled. Pacific Southwest, the last airline that carried this slogan, managed to kill 187 people, the majority in a crash ironically caused…
One of our favourite champagne companies, Laurent-Perrier have teamed up with Coutts & Co and the Devonshire Arms Country House Hotel and Spa to offer a Pink Afternoon Tea, in aid of Breast Cancer Haven Charity. It runs throughout July and August. The Hotel and Spa, at Bolton Abbey, will be offering a Pink Afternoon…
About as unwanted as a jury summons in August is the demand from a public relations firm that you actually acknowledge, in print, the services provided by one of their clients. But that would let the cat of the bag! I protested. And your point being? The icy reply, anyway, they’re threatening to call in…
She taught me the joy of getting your hands dirty and earning that bucket of fried chicken. Sure, then I struck oil, paid people to get their hands dirty while I had two extra buckets of fried chicken, but I didn’t forget the lesson. Mostly because I pay someone to remember it for me, but…
The von Essen hotel chain has always had something of the Bond villains evil empire about it to me. There’s Cliveden, the undeniably grand but slightly louche front that 007 first encounters. But once inside, he’d pick up some information that led him onto all the other stuff: the helipad in London- for quick getaways,…
I suppose one should expect nothing less than to be greeted by Achilles, when stepping foot on Aphrodite’s island. The surprising part, however, was that modern day Achilles is less of a Greek warrior and more of a… well, a doorman. The credit crunch affects us all, it seems. Anyway, Achilles guards the door to…