“Caroline Phillips is a tenacious and skilful writer with a flair for high quality interviewing and a knack for making things work.”
I am onstage in front of 65 strangers who think I’m a stand-up comedian. I’ve never done anything like this before. Why have I agreed to expose myself to cracking jokes solo in public when I’d rather eat my own prostate, if I had one, or face the Covid-19 inquiry naked? I fear stage fright, hecklers and farting near the mike.
Facialogy? What’s that? It’s a combo of a blissful Vaishaly Signature Facial with a relaxing, health-promoting reflexology treatment.
I am lying on a wooden massage bed as two women rub my naked body with hot pouches of cooked rice, milk and medicinal herbs. They massage in tandem my legs, hip joints and up to my neck. A little gloop escapes the poultice bags each time and soon my body is covered with a gluey white residue. This is navarakizhi, a treatment claimed to reduce joint stiffness and relieve depression.
I’m at Soukya, a health retreat outside Bangalore that offers traditional Indian cures for conditions from hay fever to diabetes and strives to “restore the natural balance of your mind, body and spirit”.
For a country the size of England, Nicaragua has more than its fair share of volcanoes, says Caroline Phillips in The Independent.
Savage Beauty, a major retrospective of the work of visionary fashion designer Lee Alexander McQueen, is a cut above the rest. The exhibition – which originated at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York – has been edited and expanded, with 244 items on display. Clothes will always look dull after these.
As we stepped off the ferry onto the Aegean island of Symi in late August, our thoughts were on sunbathing and sailing. But the first thing we saw was a group of what we soon discovered were Syrians carrying small backpacks holding those few possessions they hadn’t lost during the crossing from Turkey. A week later, the number of frightened, hungry and exhausted refugees had grown substantially; when we arrived there were about fifty, now there were around two hundred. An old man with gashes on his face sat bleeding in 30° heat for ten hours waiting for a doctor. He slumped forward, seemingly drunk from dehydration. He’d hit his face against the rocks when the Greek port police fired a shot in the air. Symi is the island closest to the Turkish mainland; the same thing is happening on many other outlying islands.
As we stepped off the Dodekanisos Pride ferry onto the Greek island of Symi for our late August beach holiday, our thoughts were on sunbathing and sailing. But our first sight was of 48 dispossessed Syrians carrying backpacks containing their worldly possessions. Within a week their numbers had grown to more than 200 and we could ignore their misery no longer.
Spending our last four days among them, we came across a septuagenarian with facial gashes who sat bleeding in 30C heat waiting for a doctor, as he had for 10 hours. He had hit his face against rocks when the Greek port police fired a shot in the air.
The Royal Triangle is like a sort of reverse Bermuda Triangle – so instead of aircraft and ships disappearing under suspicious circumstances, tasteful Highgrove daisy grubbers, maple-handled planting trowels, traditional Sussex trugs in which to collect your earthy organic carrots and wooden apple crates simply appear. Just like that. And everything is painted that sautéed sage colour. It’s like living in the brain of Lady Bamford of Daylesford fame, the high priestess of this sort of aesthetic.
Mornings were worst. I would wake with lead in my veins, a jackboot pressing on my chest and my body rigid, as if set in formaldehyde. I’d be beset by a terrible inner loneliness and desolation, paralysed with foreboding. I became destructive, self-sabotaging and impulsive, forgetting that I’m a successful, loved woman with a good life and an exciting future.
This is depression. A crippling depression that has been with me all my life. So who would have thought that the best help would come in the form of a spa therapist?
Welcome to Brent — once called the drive-by-shooting capital of the UK. Before that it was the People’s Republic of Brent, ravaged by poverty and famed from the late Eighties for outspoken local MP “Red” Ken Livingstone, London’s first elected mayor.
When I moved to Kensal Rise in Brent, the place was derided. But “The Rise” has now risen, earning a reputation as a celebrity haunt-meets-Nappy Valley. Last year Brent experienced Britain’s fastest-rising house prices, outpacing even the oligarch hotspots of Kensington and Knightsbridge.
Cyprus is gloriously hot at Easter and autumn half-term, but its trump card for those travelling with under fours is that it’s less than five hours on a plane from London, saving you the hell of long-haul. And luckily, the nannies from Scott Dunn (English-speaking, young, smiley) are on hand to absolve you of a moment’s guilt about disentangling yourself for a few hours (or 9.30am-5.30pm, if you prefer)
It has been attracting attention from the rich and famous lately, but the lush and beautiful Greek island of Meganisi is still “firmly off the tourist radar”, says Caroline Phillips in The Times. Part of the Ionian archipelago, just off the country’s west coast, it feels lost in time, with patchy mobile reception and a population of just 1200, none of whom locks their house or car.
Hurrah. Some new intimate wellness solutions for the sisterhood. Gentil focuses on pH balance, gut and skin microbiome, alongside urinary tract health.
Caroline Phillips rounds up the best treatments from the most qualified experts to have in the comfort of your own home
St Andrews, Fife, packs a punch with its history, scenic beauty, fresh seafood and student hijinks. It’s the home of golf, the English-speaking world’s third…