The Rake

There are safari lodges in the Okavango Delta that announce themselves with fanfare — architectural statements in steel and glass, temples to contemporary luxury dropped into the wilderness. Then there is Cha Cha Metsi, a camp that seems less designed than inherited. Hidden among the waterways and plains of Botswana’s Okavango Delta, Cha Cha Metsi possesses a quality that has become increasingly rare in modern travel: character that cannot be manufactured.

Few cities represent the confluence of theatricality, architectural grandeur and enviable lifestyle habits quite like Rome. Complemented by the refinement and precision of Italian tailoring, just aching to be worn over a morning (only) cappuccino, it is sometimes too much to bear for those of us who are sans Italian citizenship. Luckily, it’s a short flight from London.

What ties Audrey Hepburn and Judy Garland to Vincent van Gogh and Richard III? All four’s posthumous reputations became more nuanced decades or centuries after their passing. Usually, the passage of time is parsimonious in yielding fresh insights, but a book released earlier this year bestowed a windfall upon students of the most misunderstood Hollywood legend of the 20th century.

Gal Gadot makes me think of Hedy Lamarr. To most observers, Lamarr was a bonanza for Hollywood, which marketed her as ‘the world’s most beautiful woman’. She starred in films such as Ecstasy, in which she was said to have been duped into having the first on-screen orgasm, causing consternation and amazement (depending on which continent you were on), and Algiers, when “everyone gasped ... Lamarr’s beauty literally took one’s breath away”.

Comic books and fantasy fiction have a well-trodden narrative mechanic whereby two heroes, initially on their own separate journeys, form an alliance and double down on the awesome. You need only look at the Avengers series to see how potent (and profitable) this can be. Lone wolves can be wonderful. James Bond has done just fine — except the last one, which didn’t end too well for him — but I don't think we can resist a bit of teamwork.

The premise is simple: take a very good hotel, and tell it to keep moving. EXPLORA III, the newest addition to Explora Journeys’ growing fleet, has just set sail from Barcelona, inaugurating a maiden voyage that will take her from Lisbon through the Mediterranean and on towards northern Europe, Iceland and Greenland, before heading to the Caribbean and, eventually, Alaska. It is an ambitious itinerary. But the more interesting proposition is the hotel itself.

When it comes to English sporting heroes of the 20th century, few displayed greater derring-do than powerboat racers such as the late, great Donald Campbell, who died in January 1967 when his jet-engined hydroplane Bluebird K7 took off and back-flipped at 300mph on Coniston Water.

Boasting a solid resumé of roles with a flair for adventure, just one aspect of Theo James’ star quality lies in his ability to ground a scene before it goes off the rails (or the racetrack, in this case).

The success of one’s output is often conflated with their working environment. The mundanity of the “perennial office space” – dull carpet and walls cast into relief (or lack thereof) by fluorescent lighting – have come to represent a new filmic genre of horror, more inescapable than inspiring (see Severance, Backrooms). During the pandemic, the working desk became wherever one could clear a space from children’s homework and the myriad dishes accrued from all that time at home.

The Concours d’Élégance has long been the pinnacle of automotive celebration, where classic cars are judged, admired and mythologised. Now, for the first time, that same spirit is coming to horology.