Our Zoom Date with Britain’s First Woman to Explore the World (Alone) by Motorbike

In the summer of 1982, a 23-year-old Elspeth Beard set off on her motorbike, and didn’t return home until she’d travelled the entire globe – a remarkable feat for any person, but particularly as a solo female biker nearly 40 years ago, making her one of the first women to ride around the world alone…

Muse du Jour: What Happened to Shelley Duvall?

She was the woman wrapped in a fairytale. You may know her from classics like The Shining (1980) or Annie Hall (1977) or perhaps you know the sound of her warm voice saying, “Hello, I’m Shelley Duvall…” during the intro of a magical “Faerie Tale Theatre” TV hour she not only created, but hosted and…

The Time Capsule Brooklyn Barbershop that Could

The one charm about the past, said Oscar Wilde, is just that: it’s the past. But clearly, he never met Tony Garofalo. For over half a century, Tony has been behind the wheel, or swivel chair, rather, of the little Brooklyn Barber Shop that could… Quietly sandwiched between a deli and car service shop, you…

How to Soak Up New York City in Scorsese’s ‘The Irishman’ Style

The Irishman is Martin Scorsese’s latest ode to the Italian-American East Coast, and the unflinching mobsters who held its purse strings in the 1970s. It’s also an utter delight for the New Yorker at heart: Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci, and Al Pacino take us on a slow burning trip down memory lane to find…

52 Years Later, the Biggest Global Cult Is Still Off the Hook

On a Monday afternoon in 1971, Jeremy Spencer – Fleetwood Mac’s then-lead guitarist – popped out of the band’s Los Angeles hotel to grab some groceries. It was the last time they saw him, reported Rolling Stone, before Spencer disappeared without a trace. No note was left. No baggage taken. When management found him three…

Catching Up with the Louds: America’s First Reality TV Family

It was sold it as a social experiment. A fly-on-the-wall view of a family’s life under the sun in the picturesque town of Santa Barbara, California. When An American Family premiered on US television in 1973, its subject – the Loud family – sparked America’s great love affair with reality television. Yet, it was charged…

Get Back to Nature this Fall at these Airbnb Fairy Compounds

There’s no return from the orbit of SunRay Kelley. Not that we’d ever want to leave the little compound he’s built in Washington state; it’s a wonderland of moss covered fairy houses and sparkling waterways, wood shingled roofs and Hobbit-sized windows that started welcoming visitors long before the days of quirky Airbnbs. “SunRay Shire,” as…

A Dozen Celebrity Digs That Remind us to Go Big or Go Home

As long as folks have had money, they’ve had the ability to realise interior designs that most of us can only dream about – to breathe new life into ancient Italian villas, or hole up in a French seaside fortress; to live out their days in a storybook windmill, or commission a veritable spaceship. Our…

Muse du Jour: David Bowie’s Real ‘Lady Grinning Soul’

No one could shake it like Claudia Lennear. Or sing, for that matter. The 1960s-70s vocalist backed some of the music industry’s greatest talents, from Ike and Tina Turner to Joe Cocker; George Harrison to Stephen Still, but emerged as a powerhouse performer in her own right. “A tour de force from start to finish,”…

Our Glorious, Gaudy Dinner Date at America’s Kitschiest Restaurant

Free for a dinner date tonight? We’ll cosy up under the palm trees, beneath the eyes of Grecian statues and the bubbling of waterfalls; we’ll stroll amongst Medici-inspired gardens and socialise with 200-and-something other guests who’ve ordered a Delmonico steak, or triple-decker monte cristo sammie. Because this is the grande dame of fabulously kitsch American…