Steve Coogan eventually arrives, with his personal assistant and a young colleague from his film and TV production company, Baby Cow, in tow. He looks faintly academic – tweedy wool jacket, and short grey hair – which is curiously apt, given the lecturing, occasionally hectoring, tone of much of our encounter. The last time I …
It must be possible, indeed, advisable, to take a break from eating and drinking when you visit New Orleans but it’s more difficult than you might think since temptation beckons from every street corner. The last time I was there, three decades ago, was when I was close to the age of the older of my two sons, …
You’ve seen Miami so often in countless films and tv series that when you visit it for the first time, it’s like bumping into a famous person who looks so familiar that you are convinced you actually know them. But if Miami were a celebrity, she would toss her immaculately groomed hair, give you a …
At a tranquil monastic Tuscan spa retreat, Ginny Dougary submitted to a regime of detoxing massages, but found there was no gain to be had without pain. Tuscany may not be the first location that most sane people would choose to undergo a detox diet for a week. Imagine your sole summer holiday without a …
My Greek trip brought back memories of naked fun in my youth, but would the country’s history add extra magic on my return? Skinny tripping: Crab Hole beach can be reached only by boat or on foot. Floating in the cool water, the waves lazily lapping the tiny cove, all I can see are naked …
Where better to start than Haight-Ashbury, the San Francisco centre of the Summer of Love? At first glance you could be forgiven for thinking that this was 1968 rather than 2008. The main drag is dominated by “head” shops selling crazy-looking bongs, and the boutique windows are full of tie-dye T-shirts. The pavement panhandlers, however, …
Ginny Dougary and teenage sons take a guided tour of Harlem and the Bronx to find the roots of hip-hop. So there I am with my solid crew, two teenage sons and me in Kangol berets, dripping in bling, on loan from our hosts Grandmaster Caz and Reggie Reg, the grandaddies of hip-hop, manoeuvring our …
From Graham Greene to Apocalypse Now and the vanished world of French colonials, in Vietnam Ginny Dougary encounters a land of haunting resonances. My travelling companion, a most unquiet American, was beginning to feel picked on. You would think that she had become accustomed to it by now, having weathered the anti-Yank onslaught of taxi …
Raw adventure or 007-style glamour…Ginny Dougary and her teenage son had different expectations of their holiday in Oman, but in the end it was a uniquely bonding experience. It was clear from the start that there was a considerable gulf between Darcy’s idea of adventure and mine, and that our challenge would be to find …
Francis Latreille’s photographs are a tribute to the North Pole’s majestic, glacial beauty – and a chilling reminder of man’s careless destruction of the natural world. These unique sculptures, each one fashioned by the elements, seem to be living proof that there is no artistry more entrancing than that which is created by nature. They …