Spectrum

Morag Macpherson In her studio in Kirkcudbright. Picture Robert Perry

Interview: Morag Macpherson, textile designer

FOR a designer inspired by the world around her – travels to Japan, Cambodia, Morocco, the US – it should be no surprise to discover that Morag Macpherson’s most important commission to date is from Manhattan's newest, chicest destination hotel.

City guide: Annapolis, Maryland, USA

THE CAPITAL of the US state of Maryland, on Chesapeake Bay at the mouth of the Severn River, the city of Annapolis owes its birth to the water and it continues to be its lifeblood.

Travel: Hotel Plaza Athenee, Paris

IN THIS, its centenary year, the Plaza Athenee, with its art deco steel and glass canopy, baskets of tumbling red flowers and scarlet awnings, is as attractive as in its first flush of youth, when Josephine Baker and Rudolph Valentino gayly danced across its polished marble floors.

Walk of the week: Ettrick Water, Selkirk

SELKIRK bannocks are great – Queen Victoria is said to have enjoyed a taste when she visited the Borders town. Despite royal approval, it is the appreciation of our four-year-old daughter that counts.

You can avoid the tourist hordes and enjoy a more tranquil Goa. Picture: Anne Kapranos

Travel: Goa, India

Goa’s reputation as a destination for alternative culture is well deserved, but head off the beaten track to discover its true mix of flavours

Features

Oliver Shute and David Holliday laughingly blame Walt Disney for putting people off venison and rabbit

Interview: Oliver Shute, chef and food entrepreneur

Oliver Shute is putting Bambi and Thumper back on our dining tables, finds Janet Christie

Andrew Hoyle: ‘Our son was soon plundering the pond with the ferocious intensity of a Faroese trawlerman’

MAY have hit paydirt in my ceaseless quest for maximum entertainment of our three children, coupled with minimum financial outlay by me: it’s called tadpoles.

Good oral hygiene benefits general health

Nil by mouth: Opening up to oral hygiene

ORAL health – or the lack of it – is an indicator of general well-being, so it’s time to sort out your hygiene regime

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Lifelines: Anne Chilton on cross-communication

Q: I HAVE fallen out with my best friend. She took something I said the wrong way and now avoids me, and I don’t know how to get things back to how they were. We have known each other for 30 years and have always been there for each other.

Wine: ‘North-eastern Italy is open to experimentation’

A FREQUENT complaint, particularly about French and Italian wine producers, used to be their reluctance to learn from the New World. Equally, many have ascribed a similar conservatism to the top levels of the British wine trade.

Lifestyle

Interview: Oliver Shute, chef and food entrepreneur

Oliver Shute is putting Bambi and Thumper back on our dining tables, finds Janet Christie

Nil by mouth: Opening up to oral hygiene

ORAL health – or the lack of it – is an indicator of general well-being, so it’s time to sort out your hygiene regime

1 comment

Wine: ‘North-eastern Italy is open to experimentation’

A FREQUENT complaint, particularly about French and Italian wine producers, used to be their reluctance to learn from the New World. Equally, many have ascribed a similar conservatism to the top levels of the British wine trade.

Ruth Walker: ‘11pm on a Saturday is when a lady is at her most frisky. I’m gutted I slept through it’

SATURDAY night, 11pm. I've checked my diary to be certain on this one, and I can categorically confirm that, for at least the last four Saturdays on the trot, I have been curled up, foetus-like, in bed – my own bed – by this time.

Louisa Pearson: ‘I’ve had alcoholic neighbours who shouted all night instead of sleeping’

When the sheep in the field next to where I live baa, it’s exactly the same note as my mobile phone’s ringtone. As you can imagine, this leads to some confusion

Relationships

Andrew Hoyle: ‘Our son was soon plundering the pond with the ferocious intensity of a Faroese trawlerman’

MAY have hit paydirt in my ceaseless quest for maximum entertainment of our three children, coupled with minimum financial outlay by me: it’s called tadpoles.

Lifelines: Anne Chilton on cross-communication

Q: I HAVE fallen out with my best friend. She took something I said the wrong way and now avoids me, and I don’t know how to get things back to how they were. We have known each other for 30 years and have always been there for each other.

Jeremy Watson: ‘It’s on with the trainers to take on daughter two‘

SOME people of my acquaintance have suggested that I gave up running just because my daughter beat me in the one and only official 10k race we ever had. This may be cruel but it is probably correct.

Lifelines: Bernadette Lynass on problem neighbours

NIGHTLY NOISES

My neighbours are keeping me awake at night with their noisy love-making. I really don’t know how to broach the subject with them and so have ended up having to sleep on the sofa.

I don’t want to cause my neighbours any embarrassment but I need my sleep. Do I say nothing or risk causing friction between us?

Lifelines: Long distance relationships

Pauline Nimmo, a registered family mediator gives advice on the difficulties involved

Food & Drink

Interview: Oliver Shute, chef and food entrepreneur

Oliver Shute is putting Bambi and Thumper back on our dining tables, finds Janet Christie

Wine: ‘North-eastern Italy is open to experimentation’

A FREQUENT complaint, particularly about French and Italian wine producers, used to be their reluctance to learn from the New World. Equally, many have ascribed a similar conservatism to the top levels of the British wine trade.

Restaurant review: Café Royal Oyster Bar, West Register St., Edinburgh

IS THERE a more beautiful or atmospheric restaurant in Edinburgh – or Britain – than the Café Royal Oyster Bar? This, as I’ve just explained to my daughter as she took a break from grappling with the hidden meanings of Macbeth, is a rhetorical question: of course there isn’t.

The Lui Restaurant in Ballater. Picture: Kerstin Gruenling

Restaurant review: The Lui Restaurant, Invercauld Road, Ballater

HAVING spent a chilly day on the river without catching a glimpse of a fish, we decided to start with a couple of dishes in honour of absent friends.

Row of white wine glasses in winery tasting event

Wine: New Zealand Riesling Challenge produces a bumper crop

B ecause the many variables make straight comparisons between wines so difficult, Neil Charles-Jones, of Mud House Wine Group, resolved to create something much closer to a level playing field.

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Fashion

Edinburgh College of Art on Lauriston Place

ECA Fashion Show preview video

Moths, machines and the faded façades of Tuscan cities – fashion students at Edinburgh College of Art take inspiration where they find it. Now we showcase catwalk creations from the final collections of eight stars of the future – you saw them here first. By Janet Christie

Interview: Christian Louboutin, shoe designer video

ONCE a precocious little boy who stalked the Folies Bergeres, Christian Louboutin has come a long way – as a retrospective of his most iconic shoes now reveals

Travel

Travel: St Ermin’s Hotel, London

YOU want a discreet hideout right in the heart of London? Go where the spies went. Get off the tube at St James Park, turn right into Caxton Place, right again into an elegant courtyard, and there you are – its name above the foyer in the least obtrusive lights you could imagine: St Ermin’s Hotel.

Saadiyat Beach Golf Club in Abu Dhabi, UAE. Picture: David Cannon/Getty images

City guide: Abu Dhabi

NOW it may seem that in a country where summer temperatures top 50°C, the opportunities for meaningful sports-related activity are limited.

Travel: Kirkenes Snow Hotel, Arctic Norway

TIME for bed. I wore merino wool base layers, pyjamas, hat, muffler, balaclava and socks enhanced by heating pads. I was snuggled into a sleeping bag capable of withstanding temperatures of –30°C. I was still cold. Understandable, perhaps, as this was the Kirkenes Snow Hotel in Arctic Norway. Ron, my partner, and I flew for about two hours from Oslo to Kirkenes, an ice-free port inside the Arctic Circle, to stay in the Snow Hotel and then view the somewhat elusive, ethereal, mysterious aurora borealis – the northern lights.