Val D'I Lash

I've recently returned from a decadent week on the slopes in Tignes and Val d'Isère - Espace Killy. After negotiating La Face and La Sache we all needed a stiff après-ski session...

La Folie Douce is where we headed.

France seems to have entered the fray and leading the way is Val d’Isère where La Folie Douce - mountain restaurant and self-styled “highest club in Europe” - is causing a bit of a stir.

So what’s the big deal?

In a few short years, the charismatic Kely Starlight and his team have taken the French après-ski scene to another level with their unique brand of live electro-house, dished up daily.

Pretty jovial stuff, no? But behind the fun and frolics lie a talented and highly professional bunch of musicians fronted by Kely, lead singer, entrepreneur and showman extraordinaire (some might even say enfant terrible).

What’s more, the Folie is spreading! New this year is La Folie Douce - Val Thorens: same format, different team, more mayhem – and soon other resorts may also be in the frame. Watch this space.

Folklore: The Humble Pie

With their newly won Protected Geographical Status, the name of the Cornish pasty can no longer be taken in vain.

The humble Cornish pasty has achieved European status, a sort of appellation d'origine contrôlée to protect regional food specialities. This little Cornish delicacy now joins the rarified ranks of champagne, gorgonzola and parmesan-reggiano.

If I was a Cornish nationalist I'd be out there waving St Piran's flag, singing verses from Trelawny (…a good sword and a trusty hand, a faithful heart and true, King James's men shall understand, what Cornish lads can do…). I'm not. But I do have an abode in Devon (I'm going to class myself as a Cornish neighbour), so it's good to know that my neighbouring county finally has the monopoly on the denomination of their exquisite regional dish. For nine years the Cornish Pasty Association has fought for Protected Geographical Indication (PGI) status. Now, hurrah, only pasties made in Cornwall can claim a Cornish identity.

Under EU law, PGI foods must be "produced or processed or prepared within the geographical area". So no more copy-cat Cornish pasties made in, I don't know, London, or Leeds, or even Le Havre. No more nonsense at the British Pie Awards, either (there was a bit of an outcry from the Cornish camp, when Chunk, a pie-maker from Devon, won first prize in the Cornish pasty category in 2009). And the directive doesn't stop at the pasty's origins. Like Swaledale cheese, Melton Mowbray Pork Pies or Arbroath smokies (all British foods with PGI status) there are certain qualities, traditions, to uphold.

Now, I do like a good pasty, I really do. I've decided I'm genetically programmed to sniff one out the moment I get within a mile or two of, say, Bodmin Moor. And it's kind of true. As soon as I cross the border (welcome to Kernow, goodbye Devon), I get an itch, a hunger for a hot pasty.

A few of my favourite things: Mulberry's foxes and front-row hounds

Seeing as I seem to be sticking with a very 'British' theme. I thought I'd share my 5 favourite British brands:

Mulberry
Emma Bridgewater
John Lewis/Waitrose
Marmite (Have you tried the new cheese?!)
Barbour

This brings me on to London Fashion Week 2011 and in particular Mulburry's inspiration, bringing together British cult fashion and British cult literature.

Sunday 20th February began with a forest full of flora and fauna decorating the runway, and no less than seven furry fashionistas of the canine variety in the front row (one wearing Mulberry finery, another being toted in it), it was clear that this collection was going to be a wild one.

Turns out, Mulberry designer Emma Hill was inspired by "Fantastic Mr. Fox" (both the Roald Dahl book and the Wes Anderson film) all the way down to the hardware on the latest Alexa handbag (tiny gold fox-head rivets on the turn locks).

The clothing had a cute fox-and-hounds, English countryside vibe. Anderson would have loved the burgundy corduroy swing jacket and matching skirt, and the whimsical bird-print dress. There was also plenty for the urban fashion animal to wear, including jodphurs tucked into wedge heel boots, long skirts in autumnal prints and checks, worn with wooly sweaters and pompom scarves. Bags -- the Alexa, the Bayswater, the Carter and more -- came in deep colors of mock crocodile.

Clemence Poesy and Kirsten Dunst were the front-row attraction at the early show. But the four-legged starlets that came to the second showing were a lot more fun to watch, especially the St. Bernard that looked as if he wanted to take a bite out of the diminutive terrier walking a model down the runway.

A perfect rural idyll. Who's keen for a long weekend hunting, shooting and fishing with evenings by a log burner reading Roald Dahl's Fantastic Mr Fox surrounded by the moody, ethereal tones of a Turner landscape? Me please!!!

I Heart LDN

The price of a taxi in London could make a person faint. Come to that, the price of a ride on the Underground could bring on the vapours, too. The same could be said for a night out in one of the capital’s dining establishments. I am, unapologetically, a South-West Londoner, having defected to SW6 two years ago, so I’m biased. Living in West London, the East almost seems like a foreign country. Like any good Londoner, I love to complain about the city I’ve lived in, or in close proximity to for the entirety of my life.

I’d like to say I’m a well travelled individual. I’ve traipsed and trespassed around the world for a year. I’ve foraged through small towns and rambled, searched and explored large cities. But none compare to LDN. For example, there is no Borough Market anywhere else is the world. Yes, there are plenty of similar markets. Not the same. In Borough you can even request the name of the pig you are about to devour.
London has totally held on to its reputation as one of Europe's hippest capitals with new landmarks and trendy hotels, restaurants and clubs opening up all the time. The hotel scene is ever expanding with recent openings including boutique hotels and stylish B&B accommodation in the pretty neighbourhoods of Notting Hill and Chelsea as well as more centrally in Bloomsbury and Mayfair. London is steeped in history and architecture, with prominent sights at every turn, from Big Ben to the London Eye, the National Gallery to the Tate Modern. All I can say is London is a timeless city offering a fascinating mix of old and new.

London is a queer, mysterious place. London has the London Stone and the grave of William Blake, though no one really knows exactly where he lies. London has double-decker buses, a thrill that never palls even for a native. London is less impressed with itself than New York, although that city no longer proclaims itself “The Capital of the World”, as it used to. I like that London shrugs and lets its citizens get on with their lives - even if it costs them an arm and a leg to do so.

Pass the sick bag

Not everyone in the UK is looking forward to the upcoming nuptials of Wills and Kate (apart from the days off, of course. YES.). For republicans everywhere, illustrator Lydia Leith has an essential Royal Wedding accessory.

Leith's screenprinted souvenir sick bags (under the punning brand name Throne Up) are available from her website at £3 each. As they say on the front, non-Royalists may want to keep them handy on April 29.

So What If You Don't Sleep Enough?

Actually, you'll die earlier, be fatter, and be worse at your job.

How many times have you told yourself (especially when you're up at 2 a.m. on a Sunday night): "Eh, it's just sleep." Is it just sleep, though? What happens to your health when you're not sleeping enough?

These facts are pretty gobsmacking. For example, we, as a nation, seem pretty tired all the time: Only 7% of people get eight hours of sleep a night. But the effects of this might be calamitous: Getting less sleep is associated with a 200% rise in cancer, a 100% rise in heart disease, and a 20% rise in the likelihood you'll be dead in 20 years. Not only will you be less healthy, you'll be fatter. People who sleep an hour more each day lose 14.3 pounds per year. (?!!). And 1 in 3 women find themselves too sleepy for sex

Scientists are inching closer to an explanation of how all this might be the case. (It really does seem that the lack of sleep itself is the problem, rather than lack of sleep being merely correlated with some other thing, such as alcohol consumption, which is causing all the problems.) Studies have shown that sleeping too little effectively puts the body on "high alert," creating increased stress hormones and chemicals associated with inflammation.

That said, sleeping too much can be almost as a dangerous as not sleeping enough. If you sleep over nine hours a day, you're more likely to be fat, diabetic, depressed, and have heart disease. So get eight hours, but no more.

Crazy App: Which Side of Your Face Is Better Looking?

Do you prefer your left side and wish your right side looked the same? Presto!

Back in the day, all you needed to test your own hotness was a mirror and a quick squeeze of the hiney. Then science (and a lot of creative interpretation) went and got involved and now the only thing anyone cares about is a symmetrical mug. Perfectly spaced eyes? Equally proportioned nostrils?

It was only a matter of time, then, before someone developed an app that generates images of a more even-faced and therefore, a presumably beautiful you. And you thought the world had run out of ways to make you hate yourself.

Here’s how the app, called Echoism, works: It takes a picture of you, then splits the image into a left and a right section. The images are then mirrored to create two separate, symmetrical identities, one showing what you’d look like if the left side of your face were dominant; the other showing right-side dominance.

So not only do you get to admire how you’d appear with the impossible facial symmetry of Amber Valletta, you get proof, once and for all, that yes, the left side of your face is droopier than the right, and no you cannot photograph it. (Right, Mariah?)

Many of the pictures are utterly, completely, and totally frightening (which probably has a lot to do with the crappiness of camera phones). Half the people resemble aliens. The rest could pass for some combination of Frankenstein and Alan Carr. Everyone's rendered ugly in a similar way, and there's something sort of beautiful about that. Right?

The World's Most Imposing Mountain Peaks

I've always wanted to climb a mountain. I have, however, accomplished one (and it's slightly embarrassing!) Australia's Mt Kosciuszko, at 2228m (some sources say 2229m), or 7310 feet located in the Snowy Mountains in Kosciuszko National Park in southern New South Wales. Sounds impressive. It's not.


I've always been amazed by the courage and folly of trying to climb a 20,000 foot mountain just because it's there. Which is why I am delighted to find this elegantly designed infographic, by Audree Lapierre of FFunction.

It simply shows the world's Seven Summits - the tallest mountains of each of the seven continents, which together form a kind of grand slam for world-class mountaineers.

The chart shows the rankings of a mountain's "prominence." Also called autonomous height, relative height, or simply prime factor, it's basically a measure of how tall a mountain is relative to its surrounding topography. So you actually learn a little bit about what it feels like to climb a given summit. If a mountain is tall but has a low prominence, then it probably doesn't feel all that dramatic - you may feel like you're on top of simple one mountain among many others. But mountains with higher prominence jut up from the land around them - the loom over the surrounding landscape. Thus, when climbed, they offer a more dramatic sense of ascent and greater views. And once you're at the top, the give you more of a sense of being on the literal top of the world.

Let the ascending commence.