Join The Club: Castiglion del Bosco, Siena

The brochure for Castiglion del Bosco is printed on paper so thick, you could make a sturdy bench out of it. The owners feature themselves, with a sepia photograph of 15 of the Ferragamo family in chinos and white shirts, a study of stylish insouciance, flanked by their coterie of horses and dogs. Other images…
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Patek’s 5959

As a serious and roughly speaking heterosexual member of the male race, I’m more than happy to buy jewellery for my wives and mistresses but, for some reason, I have never been tempted by jewellery for myself, which explains why my hands are ring-free zones and my ear lobes, navel and tongue are all un-pierced.…
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Cassa New York Residences

This new complex may not be the poshest on the block but with big, comfy rooms and a solid location it should make a mint. So long as the owners keep the grouting clean. Unless they suddenly get greedy, the owners of New York’s Cassa Residences should make pretty good money for the next 15…
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Singapore Slings

What is it about bars being incapable of serving their signature cocktail (or the one they were key in popularising) to an acceptable standard? Mojitos at Hemingway haunt, La Bodeguita? Old measly mint and mean rum portions. Daiquiris at Florodita ‘Cradle of the Daiquiri’, in Havana? Blended slush. Old Fashioned’s at the Pendennis Club in…
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Dream Symphony

It’s not often we get boat envy but, like many at the Monaco Yacht Show, we felt those green-eyed pangs over the details of Dream Symphony. The privately owned yacht will be the biggest ever built and a mould-breaker in a class of its own– assuming that Dykstra & Partners can build the mould to…
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Spy Girl: A Man of French Letters

I arrive at City Airport. The check-in lady squints at my passport. Maybe she knows something. A few drawn-out minutes pass and she hands it back. Perhaps she’s just short-sighted. Or half-witted. “This will be no normal mission, it’s a literary affair”, the memo from HQ said. “Tolstoy and KGB will be involved. He has…
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Follow the Yellow Brick Road: Rally Touring in Australia

Ever watched Mel Gibson in the Mad Max movies and thought to yourself, ‘I’d love the chance to drive through a post-Apocalyptic Aussie landscape in a big truck or on a bike and experience those kind of adventures’? Well, here’s your opportunity to do just that – without the pesky nuclear war. Jingers Jaunts expertly…
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