Category: United Kingdom


Bucket-List Holidays: How to Travel Like a Mega-Millionaire

What do the Loch Ness Monster and the Pope have in common? (Hint: It’s not the long neck). Find out in my latest story for Wine Dine + Travel magazine.

Scotland Loch Ness Urquhart Castle

Urquhart Castle on the banks of Loch Ness. © Amy Laughinghouse

Briggs & Riley Compression Suitcase: The Next Best Thing to Mary Poppins’ Magic Bag

Years ago, I travelled with a woman who claimed she could pack for a week’s skiing holiday in a handbag. Not the skis themselves, mind you, but she insisted she could fit every other essential in one average-sized, over-the-shoulder satchel.

My comrade had already proven her mysterious superpowers, having employed said sack for a trip we shared to Edinburgh.

But…how?

Did she possess some sort of pret-a-portable TARDIS, equipped with entire wardrobes instead of zip pockets?

When she went camping, could she crawl in there to sleep at night?

Given that every handbag is legally obligated to devote at least half its capacity to crumpled receipts, wadded tissues and lint-covered breath mints, did the thing require its own household staff to tidy unfathomable mounds of discarded detritus?

Okay, so this isn’t her…and this isn’t the magic bag, but it wasn’t much bigger than the one carried by Duane Hanson’s remarkably lifelike sculpture at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art.

As our train chugged back to London, I longed to ask her to turn her bag inside out so that I could explore its enigmatic dimensions. But somehow, it didn’t seem right to request that she dump her unmentionables on the tray table.

Nor did I wish to risk being sucked in by the gravitational pull of what I can only assume was her pocketbook’s fifth dimension.

Fortunately, given my own everything-but-the-kitchen-sink penchant for disaster packing, I have discovered the next best thing to Mary Poppins’ magic carpet bag.

Behold, my friends: patented CX™ Expansion-Compression Technology from Briggs & Riley(more…)

Big Bucks Fashion: New Buckingham Palace Exhibit Showcases 18th Century Style

Glittering gowns of improbable proportions. Gravity defying updos that expand like marshmallows in a microwave. An obsession with implausibly pearly grins that are anything but God-given.

Style & Society: Dressing the Georgians exhibit at Buckingham Palace in London

Royal Collection Trust / © His Majesty King Charles III 2023

We’re not talking about celebrities strutting their stuff at New York’s Met Gala or the latest film debut. Rather, these are some of the 18th century trends highlighted in Style & Society: Dressing the Georgians, a new exhibition at The Queen’s Gallery at Buckingham Palace in London.

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