Katie Ormerod
With less than a year to go till the XXIV Winter Olympic Games in Beijing, we sat down with Crystal Globe winner and Team GB Big Air phenomenon, Katie Ormerod, to talk lockdown training and going for gold.
Elysium: Kudadoo
Was it all a dream? Some sort of abstraction from consciousness? Had delirium set in? It seemed so real. The colours so incredibly vivid, the sealife so lustrous. I felt incredibly lucid sojourning under the luminous morning sun, deep in the heart of the Indian Ocean. The heat instantly envelopes you when you’re a mere 380 miles from the equator. It was a stark contrast from the ashen winter morning that now sat before me. I needed to find the red pill and somehow get back – back to the pure shores of Kudadoo.
Twisted 21
I scanned the horizon of the Finnish race circuit but Charlie was possibly doing a few laps in the 500hp V8 110. “Let me see if I can find him Tony”. “Cool man”. This was the first of a handful of semi awkward exchanges I would have with Tony Hawk that week as we crossed from Finland into Russia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Austria and Monaco.
Days of Thunder
Phil Hanson, Asian Le Mans Series Champion in 2016, youngest overall Le Mans 24 Hour racer in 2017, débuted at Daytona in 2018. I’m not sure what Hanson achieved in 2019, presumably turning water into wine. But in 2020, in a year so tumultuous that governments fell, Hanson has taken the holy grail of motorsport. A win at Le Mans in the LMP2 series. What’s next, stigmata?
McLaren GT
It’s been six years since we last drove a McLaren away from the MTS in Woking. It was a 650S with pearl white metallic elite paintwork and carbon black alcantara interior. That’s light years for McLaren. It’s the time difference equivalent of the Neptunes and Miles Davis.
Alpine Escapes
When I started 2020, I was almost mountain fit. Not rock-climbing fit, you understand, but skiing down. I spent the last six months of 2019 working on a fitness routine to kick start myself into a 2020 season of incredible heli skiing in New Zealand, British Columbia and Japan.
Evolution, not Revolution
Founded in the mid-1800s by Clemente Santi, a pharmaceutical graduate from Pisa University, the Biondi Santi family lineage of wine production and curation dates back to the middle ages.
Discovery
It might seem obtuse of me to begin this new column on car restoration with a well-targeted shot across the bow – but nonetheless, I’m taking aim and firing.
Secret Speyside
Longmorn, Caperdonich, Glen Keith, Braes of Glenlivet, four artisan producers from some of Speyside’s revered distilleries. Perhaps if the family had been sporting a measure from the Secret Speyside collection, I might have come into the fold a little sooner.
The Cary Arms
I should start by talking about the provenance of the local area, of the coastal beauty of South Devon, and the steeped history that the Cary Arms and its outlands hold. I should regale you with grand tales of the gaff yawl “escape” and the vision as she rounds Long Quarry Point.
The Eastbury Hotel
I get by with a little help from my friends. For me, it’s the Joe Cocker version that lands hardest. The immediacy in those opening bars, the strength of Jimmy Page’s guitar solos. It’s indicative of a sound from a different era. That’s what I needed: to escape to a different era. The nights had gotten long and daylight was fast becoming a distant memory to my work-embattled mind.
Twisted North America
As Twisted arrives at the ‘home of the brave’ this year, Peter J Robinson sits down with Tom Maxwell, CEO of Twisted North America to talk about the NA-V8 line-up and what it means to be bringing an icon to ‘Murica.
LIFT THE WEIGHT
The Rugby Players Association launched the ‘Lift The Weight’ campaign in 2017. A Professional Players’ Federation (PPF) survey of retired players revealed 62 per cent experienced some sort of mental health issue. We sat down with James Haskell and Damien Hopley, RPA Group Chief Executive, to find out why it is so important to #lifttheweight.
Tengri – The search for noble fibre
For thousands of years, the nomadic herders of the Khangai Mountains have stewarded the land home to the Khangai yak. These semi-wild indigenous species roam the rugged grassland steppes of the remote far reaches of Mongolia. Its intense wild landscapes are capped by glacier-tipped mountains, separated by green river valleys and shadowed by soaring peaks.
Boston Harbour Hotel
I was headed for check-in at the Boston Harbour Hotel, a recipient of both the Forbes Five-Star and AAA Five-Diamond awards. The hotel sits on Rowes Wharf, formerly a neighbourhood called South Battery. Created by early settlers during the seventeenth century, one of the city’s most prolific businessmen, John Rowe, purchased the land in 1764 and put up the original Rowes Wharf which was extended into Boston Harbour.
The Hollow Bottom
The Morgan raced on down the lane as the late October rain pelted the demure metal figure of British engineering. The storm had been battering my small enclave of the British Isles for some time. So much water had risen, I was beginning to forget a time before the flood.
Sexy Fish
Considering how prime its position on the square is, the exterior is rather understated. Though the interior decor is about as dramatic as anything I have ever seen. The floors are made of rare esmeralda onyx marble imported from Iran. There’s a large shoal of Frank Gehry fish lamps above the red stone bar that are guarded by some rather buxom bronze mermaids from Damien Hirst. Interior designer Martin Brudnizki has curated the interiors with Art Deco light fixtures, coral-coloured leather banquettes and a sizeable ceiling mural that covers the 190-seat restaurant.
Brad for Brioni
The style editor looked at me with wide-eyed panic. “There is only a month left of the SS20 season”. It was a fair point. “You’re basing that on the assumption that the readership is going to stay in their hemisphere, which we know they aren’t, Bobby,’’ I replied. “But it’s incredibly tailored and it’s evening wear.” “Which will be relevant in Cap Ferrat, Nantucket and Tokyo, no matter what time of year it is, Bobby’’. Bobby had already covered swimwear and linen shirts earlier in the calendar, so I thought it was about time we preempted the AW push for tailored sophistication. Better to be overdressed than underdressed. And the Brioni design director,…
Zachary Weckstein – The Host
Directed by Andy Newbery with Cinematography by Oona Menges, The Host is the first internationally distributed, English speaking, Dutch feature film.
Kaspars at The Savoy – WC2
For the longest time, The Savoy has eluded me. I’ve passed its decorated facade on many occasions, but for some reason, its heavily recessed entrance has never drawn me in.