Booker-winning radical icon Arundhati Roy’s incredible first memoir is a soaring account, both intimate and inspiring, of how author became the person and the writer she is, shaped by circumstance, but above all by her relationship to her extraordinary, singular mother Mary, who she describes as “my shelter and my storm”. Distraught and even a “little ashamed” at the intensity of her response to the death of the mother she ran from at age eighteen. Arundhati began to write Mother Mary Comes to Me. The result is this astonishing, disconcerting, funny chronicle  which is unique and simultaneously universal, of the author’s … Continue reading Love and savage grace- a mother like no other

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French heritage to become a cross-generational world appeal, as few bags have caught the appeal of grandmothers, mothers and daughters alike, the Longchamp Le Pliage bag, launched in 1993 inspired by Japanese origami and named after the French word for “folding”, the tote made from recycled nylon canvas, with beautiful leather handles, snap-button flap costing around £125. The Longchamp Le Pliage has been adopted as the school bag favourite choice by Generation Z. You don’t have to be Princes of Wales or Kendall Jenner or Angela Merkel to own and use one. Jean Cassegrain’s family privately owns the brand founded … Continue reading Cross-generational favourite handbag

Contemporary Gardens features an astonishing 300 gardens around the world, each accompanied by knowledgeable detailed descriptions of both public and private gardens like the exotic reinvention of the Old Rose Garden at Great Dixter in East Sussex and Sarah Price’s community garden. The Exchange in Erith, in North Kensington, The Grass Gardens at the Horniman, High Line, Changi Airport Garden, dreamy hillside garden in Morocco by Umberto Pasti, African Ancestors Memorial Garden, Chihuly Garden & Glass, Gardens by the Bay, Brook Gardens, Jardins d’Etretat, The Opera Park, Anna Wintour’s elegant garden in upstate New York by Miranda Brooks and Prairie … Continue reading Inspirational connection with the natural world

In the Nineteen Ninety’s, Nigerian mastermind Emmanuel Nwude pulled off the great $242million  scam selling a completely non-existent airport in Abuja to Brazil’s Noroeste. Posing as the Governor of Nigeria’s Central Bank Nwude promised $10million commission, and duped the bank’s director and pocketed $242million leaving the bank to collapse in 2001. Nwude was eventually convicted and his assets seized though he later recovered $52million, claiming it was legally his. Continue reading Deception and $242million fake airport scam