I love my job...

Hair Salon in Bond St. - Work in progress.

London

The Blue bar at the Berkeley Hotel

London

Kensington Roof Gardens

Virgin Atlantic - The Lounge

Virgin Atlantic's vision is to create an airline that people love to fly, and they add to that that they want to have some fun doing it. The business class lounge at London Heathrow is a perfect example of just how they are bringing this vision to life.
The airline was created by Richard Branson, and now part owned by Singapore Airlines. It s based out of the UK, and seems to be adding more and more routes every year.

I have never been in an airport lounge quite like it.
I used to think that their old lounge was something pretty amazing, but this one leaves you literally breathless. The lounge opened a few months back and is open to people flying Upper Class or who have a Frequent Flyer Gold card.


Upper Class is what they call their premium cabin as they do not have a First Class but offer a kind of hybrid First/ Business. I say hybrid as they price it the same as business class fares of their competition but throw so much more in.



The sort of extras that they throw in for the fare includes: a limo that collects you and takes you to the airport (which in the UK checks you in and had a drive through check-in so you never have to queue), the amazing Clubhouse at Heathrow, seats on the plane that are lie flat and are the largest in the business, a sit down bar and also free massages en route!



But the feature of this posting is the lounge at Heathrow. Posted below are a pile of photos of the place to show how stunning it is. It takes your breath away when you walk in for three reasons: (1) as it is so huge, (2) it looks incredible, like a 1970s inspired fantasy of an airport and (3) the glittering array of free services and features.



The services and features include (and remember you pay nothing extra for any of them):

Cowshed spa with massages, wet shave etc
Bumble & Bumble hair salon
Shoe shine service
Brassiere restaurant
Deli
Menu and drinks service at all seating areas (I had delicious organic scrambled eggs and Scottish salmon)
Cocktail bar
Pool table
Monster multi screen cinema
Internet café and library, although there are laptops with free internet access dotted all over the place for you to use
Play area with games
Business Center
Outside viewing area, to watch the planes taking off

Lanesborough Hotel

Lanesborough Hotel

Harvey Nichols

Spring/Summer 08 Key Trends

Put away your reservations and your boring old grey suits, because this season is all about bright colour, and lots of it. Red, green, blue, you name it, it's en-vogue. If sport's more your thing, then Olympic-inspired styles from Dries Van Noten's judo tops to DSquared2's racing driver jumpsuits, are also going to be key players. For a smarter tailored feel, choose one of the Summer's reworked and very modern blazers. Here's the full details...

London - Home

The birthday girl...



www.paulabobone.net

Terminal 5 Heathrow

Facts and Figures
Terminal 5 will be able to handle 30million passengers per year, taking Heathrow's total number of passengers to around 90 million. This will make Heathrow the world's busiest airport.

The new terminal building will be big enough to fit around fifty football pitches across its five floors.

The terminal's control tower will be the highest in the UK.

Around 18km of conveyor belt will be used to transport luggage around the terminal when it opens.

It is the UK's largest ever single site archaeological project, with over 100 hectares of land requiring investigation.

So far there has been over 80,000 artefacts found throughout the project, including pottery, worked flint, a hand axe dating back to 3000BC, a wooden bowl and a wooden bucket dating back to 1500BC - 1100BC.

Home - London

Vivienne Westwood

Westwood was born Vivienne Isabel Swire in the village of Tintwistle in Glossop, Derbyshire on April 8 1941, daughter of Dora (Ball) and Gordon Swire, a storekeeper.[2] She studied at the Harrow School of Art (later to become the University of Westminster) for one term. Vivienne went on to attend Trent Park College(later to become the Middlesex University) and later taught at a primary school in North London. She loved teaching.

Vivienne's first husband was Derek Westwood, with whom she had one child named Ben. Their marriage lasted three years before she met Malcolm McLaren, later known for being the manager for punk band The Sex Pistols. The two had a son named Joseph, and Westwood continued to teach until 1971, when Malcolm decided to open a shop, Let It Rock (also known as Sex, Too Fast To Live Too Young To Die, Seditionaries) where Westwood began to sell her outrageous designs. During this period, Westwood, McLaren, and artist Jamie Reid were influenced by the Situationists. She still owns the shop, which is at 430 King's Road, and sells her Anglomania label from there. The shop is now known as World's End.

The punk style began to gain notoriety when the Sex Pistols wore clothes from Westwood and McLaren's shop at their first gig. The "punk style" included BDSM fashion, bondage gear, safety pins, razor blades, bicycle or lavatory chains on clothing and spiked dog collars that were used as jewelery, as well as outrageous make-up and hair. Westwood invented the slashed A symbol for Anarchy at this time.

The inclusion of more traditional elements of British design, such as tartan fabric, amongst the more unusual elements of her style only served to make the overall effect of her designs more shocking.

Together, Westwood and McLaren revolutionised fashion, and the impact is still felt today. She has only a few exclusive shops including three in London, two in Manchester, Liverpool, Newcastle and Leeds. A ninth will open in Nottingham in 2008. Westwood worked historical factors into her collection by using historical 17th-18th century original cutting principles and modernising them. This collection was about 'gold and treasure, adventure and exploration'. Other influences in Westwood's work have included ethnic Peruvian influence, feminine figure, velvet and knitwear. A historical influence has always shown in her work.

In December 2003, she and the Wedgwood pottery company launched a series of tea sets featuring her designs.
Her first major retrospective of her work was shown in 2004-2005 at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, and the National Gallery of Australia. The exhibition is made up of around 145 complete outfits, grouped into the themes which have dominated her work from the early 1970s to the present day and were drawn from her own personal archive and the V&A's extensive collection. They range from early Punk garments to glamorous 'historical' evening gowns. The retrospective is touring the world and is set to continue until 2008.

In September 2005, Westwood joined forces with the British civil rights group Liberty and launched exclusive limited design T-shirts and baby wear bearing the slogan I AM NOT A TERRORIST, please don't arrest me. Westwood said she was supporting the campaign and defending habeas corpus. "When I was a schoolgirl my history teacher, Mr. Scott, began to take classes in civic affairs. The first thing he explained to us was the fundamental rule of law embodied in habeas corpus. He spoke with pride of civilisation and democracy. The hatred of arbitrary arrest by the lettres de cachet of the French monarchy caused the storming of the Bastille. We can only take democracy for granted if we insist on our liberty", she said.[3] The sale of the £50 T-shirts raised funds for the organisation. Dame Vivienne has recently stated on television that she has transferred her long standing support for the Labour Party to the Conservative Party, over the issues of civil liberties and human rights.
Her Autumn/Winter 2005/06 Propaganda Collection drew inspiration from her archive, reinterpreting designs using Wolford’s exclusive knitting technology, who she has worked in close collaboration with since 2003. In 2006, collaborated with Nine West. These shoes are not designed directly by Westwood, however, the Nine West brand name shares its label with Westwood.

Westwood accepted a DBE in the 2006 New Year's Honours List "for services to fashion", and has thrice earned the award for British Designer of the Year.
In May 2006, Westwood wrote a poem and provided personal photographs eulogising Swallows Wood, a Nature Reserve near Tintwistle where she was born and grew up. The Reserve is threatened with destruction by the construction of the Longdendale Bypass.

Vivienne Westwood has spent much of 2007 designing new graduation gowns for King's College London, which will be conferring its own degrees for the first time in summer 2008.
Throughout her career, Westwood has been influential in launching the careers of other designers into the British fashion industry. Most notably, she employed the services of Patrick Cox to design shoes for her "Clint Eastwood" collection in 1984. The result was a prototype of the nine inch heeled shoes in which supermodel Naomi Campbell famously fell during a Westwood fashion show in Paris in 1994.

I Love My Job, I Love My Job, I Love my Job...

Home - London

Daylesford Organic

As you walk in you see gorgeous fruit and veg, lounging in tasteful baskets. A display of white flowers jostles for attention. And when you turn the corner, the food counters offer up the most tantalising treats we've ever seen - pungent cheeses, artisan breads, tempting pastries and cakes, organic meats - each section more appealing than the last. Cheeses are hand-made next door at the Creamery using traditional methods - the farm's Organic Cheddar won Best English Cheese in the British Cheese Awards 2002. Book a time on Mondays or Thursdays to watch the cheesemaking in progress.

Once you've done your shopping, grab a table on the ground floor by the gifts section (loaded with edible goodies and wonderful pottery) or in the upstairs seating section and enjoy a cup of tea, a freshly squeezed juice, light meal or pudding. Even pooches are pampered here, with their own dog parking area and organic biscuits. But while the experience at Daylesford is up-market, the farm doesn't lose sight of its roots - focusing on organic products and sustainability.

Daylesford has now opened the Hay Barn, an airy eco-spa made with recycled materials and offering holistic treatments such as Indian head massage, shiatsu and yoga.

Home - London

Happy Valentines Day

A nice time in London...

Home - Drunk

Home - London