Branded Male

Diamond geyser

I was ostensibly in Geneva to interview watchmakers. The results will appear in a book next year, so I won't dwell on that just now. Here I just wanted to mention how charming I found Geneva to be. Quiet and bourgeois, I agree; but ideal for window shopping, dining in discreetly expensive restaurants and, most of all, enjoying sunny lakeside strolls.

And while strolling by that vast blue lake, your gaze is irresistibly drawn to the famous "jet d'eau", or water jet: a towering fountain that tumbles in perpetual slow motion 459 feet into Lac Léman. This immediately made me feel nostalgic. It reminded me of the opening sequence of The Champions, a 1960s adventure series that was already a bit obscure when it was repeated by the BBC in my youth.

Remember it? The Champions (Craig Stirling, Richard Barrett and Sharron Macready) are espionage agents with a difference. A few years ago, their plane crashed near a Shangri La-type lost city in the Himalayas. There they befriended an advanced civilisation, whose generous citizens granted them superpowers. Much better than a souvenir ashtray, I think you'll agree.

While they're not superheroes of the clingy costume variety - the men dress in sharp suits, and Sharron in what looks like Balenciaga - they do have advanced agility, reflexes and intelligence. These talents help them to combat crime for an international organisation called NEMESIS, which is based in Geneva. One assumes it is the Red Cross of the crimefighting world.

I'd forgotten about The Champions - but others remember it only too well. In fact, there are rumours that Guillermo del Toro (Pan's Labyrinth, Hellboy 2) may helm a remake. Needless to say, it won't have the creaky charm of the original. Let's hope it has the water jet.

Getting fired

I've just returned from a short break in Marrakech. There are many things to say about the city, most of which would sound like a bad travel article (alluring blend of ancient and modern, friendly locals, exotic food and so on). But one of the things I enjoyed most was the log fire we warmed ourselves in front of every evening at the Riad Moucharabieh.

To an extent the fire was a necessity, as the temperature plummets at night in Morocco (at least, it does in January) and our riad was not the most centrally heated place on earth. And yet - oh, the irony of it all - in the 21st century a real log fire is also a terrific luxury. It's not often in life that one gets to read in front of a fire, the logs hissing and crackling in the grate and the flames throwing shifting orange light on the walls.

Of course, the pretentious literary type in me loved all this. I even revelled in the language of the fireplace: hearth, grate, cinders, poker...well, maybe not poker. More importantly, I experienced man's atavistic attraction to fire. It is, after all, our primal tool: the thing that, we're told, set us apart from the apes. Maybe that's why I spent more time staring into the guttering (that's a good one!) flames than actually reading my book.

By the way, I was rather disappointed to observe that the Branded Female was better at building fires than me (although I improved with practise). This made me worry that I ought to be out slaughtering animals to bring back to our cave. Fortunately, our quarter of the Marrakech medina - Bab Doukkala - was renowned for its butchers, so there were plenty of slaughtered animals just down the street. And they weren't under plastic wrapping, if you know what I mean. Log fires and raw carcasses. That's real man stuff, don't you think?

Great Eastern Hotel provides cold comfort on chilly weekend

As regular readers may know, I consider myself something of a connoisseur of luxury hotels. So it was with great anticipation that I arrived at London's Great Eastern Hotel, hoping to impress the branded female with my hedonistic good taste. Recently acquired by the Hyatt group, the hotel bills itself as a five star establishment. Unfortunately, our stay resembled a cross between Hotel Babylon and an episode of the 1970s guest house comedy Fawlty Towers (pictured). Here is a lightly edited version of the letter I left behind for the manager.

Dear Sir

Your hotel is a visual feast. Unfortunately, at truly great hotels, the following does not happen:

• The room is not freezing cold when you first step into it
• It does not remain freezing cold, until a maintenance person is summoned and tells you that the heating system is broken, forcing you to change rooms
• In the second room, the toilet flush does not stop working the very next morning
• A noisy wedding party is not taking place right next to your room
• The mini bar is not devoid of alcohol or snacks
• The internet connection is not unbearably slow
• The valet does not need to be called twice to bring an iron and an ironing board. When these items finally arrive, they do not date from the 1980s
• Housekeeping do not start knocking on doors and shouting "housekeeping!" at six thirty in the morning
• The breakfast is not a limited set menu, but a proper buffet
• The lifts and revolving doors are not festooned with "out of order" signs, giving you the impression that the hotel is collapsing around you
• A guest does not get upset by all of this, and refuse to pay his bar bill

I could have added, "after which, he goes home to blog about the experience". In other words, my friends, avoid the Great Eastern Hotel. On the other hand, the new Skylon restaurant, at the Royal Festival Hall, is a delight despite some of the dodgy reviews it's been getting.

In space, no-one can hear you yawn

For the unthinking rich, space is the next frontier. The International Herald Tribune reports that wealthy travellers are queuing up for a shot at becoming the first space tourists. The biggest brand in the space race, as you probably know, is Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic. About 200 people have signed up for a US$200,000 trip that will last three hours, including just five minutes of weightlessness. That's if they make it out of the atmosphere: the Trib reports that one of the planes exploded this summer, killing three engineers.
The deal proposed by Galactic Suite sounds better on paper. It will feature eight weeks of training on a Caribbean island, followed by a three-day weightless stay on a space station. The Caribbean spaceport will include luxury villas, scuba-diving and golfing facilities. Its owner is called Xavier Claramunt. The IHT doesn't tell us whether he constantly strokes a white cat, but the scenario sounds very Bondesque. And once you've seen the website, you won't have much confidence in the rockets.
In any case, the whole concept is flawed. Let's think about it for a minute. There you are on your space station, for three days. Once you've peered out of the window and confirmed that planet earth is blue, and there's nothing you can do, what do you do next? A bit of floating, a few meals in tablet form, some drinking out of a tube and peeing into a different one. How about another look out of the window? Oh yeah, space again.
And imagine your fellow guests. The super-rich tend not to be the most sociable people on earth - or off it. Do you really want to be stuck in space with a bloated plutocrat and a couple of Russian oligarchs? In fact, the only way of enjoying the experience is to make sure you go with your parter, so you can find out what it's really like to get it on in zero gravity. And no jokes about re-entry, thank you very much.

Briefly...Berlin

I felt like a Brandbenburg Gate-crasher. I was in Berlin only because the advertising agency TBWA had asked me to speak at their annual Summer Camp. This is when all their German agencies meet to talk about creativity, the digital revolution, The Big Idea, and all the other stuff advertising people like to go on about.
The late Jay Chiat, who had a lot of impact on TBWA's values, used to wonder how big an agency could get before it got bad. Now TBWA is way big, but still cool. Anyway, all that will written up elsewhere in a professional capacity. Here I wanted to share some notes on Berlin, which I managed to see a tiny slice of after scurrying out of the conference as soon as I'd delivered my speech. The words "fleeting visit" are almost an insult to the expression.

11 am Already back at my hotel, the Sofitel Berlin Gendarmenmarkt. I dump my bag and my speech notes and grab my notebook and camera (I've only got the point-and-shoot on this trip, but it will have to do).

 

11.10 am Espresso and the International Herald Tribune on a sunny, tree-shaded terrace in the Gendarmenmarkt. From here I've got glorious views of the French and German cathedrals and the concert hall between them. The French cathedral (Französischer Dom) was built by French Huguenots who fled France to escape Catholic persecution. My Cockney grandfather reckoned he had a French Huguenot name: Goucher.

11.40 am I visit The Corner Berlin, which TBWA's PR man Ulrich has assured me is "the trendiest store in the city". And indeed it contains painfully hip books and magazines, wallet-wrecking designer clothes and vintage furniture, as well as a little café. I see a wonderful grey flannel suit from Kilgour, but don't have time to try it on. Grey flannel is something to think about for this winter, though.

   

Midday I cross the Bebelplatz, where law students from the university that looms over the square participated in book-burning when the Nazis came to power. (Which just goes to show, once again, that you should never trust a lawyer.) I am moved by the monument to the event: peering down through a plate of glass set into the cobblestones, you see a vast vault of empty bookshelves.

12.15 pm I ogle the telecommunications tower, which I adore for its retro-futuristic, Flash Gordon-esque lines. Then I stroll the wide bouldevard of Unter den Linden, noting - not for the first time on my visit - that Berliners love their bicycles.

12.30 pm I settle into a banquette for lunch at the Einstein Café, the newer branch of this Berlin institution. A Berlin take on a Paris brasserie, it has a slightly ersatz feel about it. But there's nothing fake about my excellent John Dory in a lime and cream sauce with basmati rice. I remember that the French call this fish Saint Pierre because the marking behind its gill is said to have been made by Saint Peter when he plucked it from the ocean. Unlike the one that was subsequently served to Jesus, mine is perfectly accompanied by a fresh, tangy Reisling with a slightly sherbety finish. Another quick espresso, and a halo of satisfaction surrounds me.

1.30 pm Having reclaimed my bag from the hotel, I'm in a taxi heading for the airport. The radio is playing West End Girls by the Pet Shop Boys, whose electro riffs and urban weltschmerz is the perfect accompaniment to the Berlin cityscape. Like a shot of schnapps, my visit has been short but potent.

City of books

Walking through Lisbon is like ambling through the yellowed pages of a classic and beloved novel. The city's elegantly dilapidated buildings, shadowed streets and wheezing electric trams lend it the sedentary charm of a half-imagined, more gentle era. Then there are its dark, wood-panelled cafés, whose discoloured mirrors reflect rows of jewel-like pastries in curved glass cases. The tiled restaurants of the Barrio Alto, serving salted cod and boiled potatoes; the raffish unswept bars near the waterfront; the ruby hue of a glass of port: all of Lisbon's pleasures are delightfully archaic.
But most of all there are the bookshops. The bookshops of Lisbon reminded me how much I missed them. I'm not talking about today's literary supermarkets, which come equipped with magazine racks and coffee bars serving lattes. I mean mysterious, underlit places, where the proprietors read, almost dozing, behind hulking antique cash registers. There is a vague sense of disorder, which encourages browsing and promises wonderful discoveries. As you move slowly to the back of the store, the street recedes and the subtle musty fragrance of paper takes over. Here, you feel, almost any book you buy will turn out to be a lost treasure.
And once you have made your purchase - it should probably be by Fernando Pessoa, the bard of Lisbon - you take it to a café on the fringes of the crumbling, higgeldly-piggledy Alfama quarter, a dominion of creased old ladies, and settle down to read, while outside the 28 tram grates and groans its way up the hill, ringing its bell to ward off the 21st century.   

Hanoi snapshots

Just before I finish my Vietnam bulletins by sticking up a few snapshots, I thought I'd mention the conversation I had this morning with the marketing director of Peninsula Hotels. I was interviewing her for the section of my book that deals with business travel. She said a number of interesting things, but this one stuck in my mind: "Pleasing the traveller is all about anticipating their needs. That's why, if a guest requests a special service during their stay, we make sure it's on hand the next time they choose one of our hotels. It could be anything from a hypoallergenic pillow to their favourite brand of tea."
Now that's the way to build loyalty. But for me, the mark of a truly great business hotel is having an iron and an ironing board in every room, so you don't have to ring down for one (or use the overpriced laundry service).

Anyway, here are some gratuitous shots from Hanoi. Suitably enough, we begin with my hotel, The Metropole...

 

Bulletin from Vietnam 2

One of the many reasons to come to Vietnam is for the food. The lasting influence of the French has contributed to a cuisine unrivalled, I suspect, in the rest of Southeast Asia. It's certainly the most eccentric: for instance, the Vietnamese are said to be the only Asians who eat cheese. Unlike the French, however, they use garlic to ward off mosquitoes. I don't know if this works, but I certainly haven't been bitten.
My favourite meal at the Hotel Metropole in Hanoi was spicy crabcakes, a sort of deluxe fast food that I ate twice - the second time by the pool, washed down with a cold Tiger beer. I've also enjoyed a dirt cheap yet perfectly satisfying meal of soup, fish and rice at one of the many sidewalk restaurants in the old quarter, squatting on a plastic stool and digging in with my chopsticks.
I tried many European-style spots, of course: such as Bobby Chinn, the big showboat of a restaurant with theatrical drapes and scattered blossoms on every table, where celebrity chef Bobby holds court entertainingly at the bar with a shisha pipe and a seemingly endless file of anecdotes. There's also Vine, a bohemian wine bar where a silken canopy bows from the ceiling, a Buddah winks in an alcove and racks of darkly seductive bottles crowd the walls.
But the restaurant I enjoyed most was a spot in the old quarter called Green Tangerine. It was a beautiful colonial townhouse with a flagstoned courtyard. Inside, bare brick walls and a cool tiled floor, tropical fans revolving obligingly above. The food was Franco-Vietnamese, so the menu had a poetry all of its own.
For instance, I started with soft-shelled crab stuffed with mozzarella cheese, spinach and tomato. Then came salmon fillet in tamarind and red wine sauce - a delicious sweet-sour combination. Dessert was jasmine and green tea cheese cake, topped with a slender tablet of dark chocolate.
As usual I finished the meal with Vietnamese coffee, which has an aroma so dense and complex that I know I'll be transported right back here if ever I detect it at home.

Bobby Chinn, 1 Ba Triu, Hoan Kiem District (84 4) 934 8577

Vine, 1a Xan Dieu, West Lake District (84 4) 719 8000

Green Tangerine, 48 Hang Be, Old Quarter (84 4) 825 1286

Bulletin from Vietnam

In Graham Greene's book The Quiet American, his cynical journalist anti-hero is constantly filing reports from dusty hotels like The Metropole in Hanoi. And as I'm currently in Hanoi, staying at that very same Metropole Hotel, I thought I should continue the tradition. In a cowardly peace-time kind of way, of course.

The first thing you notice about Hanoi, apart from the cloying humidity, is the sheer number of motorcycles and mopeds on the streets. The place buzzes, splutters and hoots without relent. Crossing the road is like diving into an ocean of rushing steel - although it always politely divides to allow you to cleave a path to the other side. You'll also note that the riders are dashingly unhelmeted, their glossy black hair flowing in their slipstreams. But not for much longer. An article in Le Courrier du Vietnam this morning informed me that helmets are about to become mandatory on "major routes". The reporter wrote, scandalised, of 70-year-old men (sans, presumably, glossy locks) being forced to shell out up to 80,000 dongs (four euros) to acquire helmets for the first time in their lives. Of course, that's for a "presitigious brand" like Amoro or Lucky Star. Fakes are already flourishing, for around 50,000 dong a piece. The paper worries that these cheaper versions may not be effective, but goes on to suggest that consumers don't care. "If people wear a helmet, it's mostly because they fear a fine."

Meanwhile, as far as I can see, young and old continue to tear around the streets of Hanoi bare-headed: foolhardy but free. 

Visa jolly good fellow

Good service is difficult to come by, particularly in this town. Which is why I was delighted to come across a company called Kilometres Services, which specialises in getting hold of visas for time-poor travel addicts. I'm off to Vietnam in July, and I knew that applying for a visa would mean many hours of waiting at the Vietnamese embassy - hours that could have been spent writing, or researching, or shopping...anything, in other words, than warming a bench in a grim government pile.
A quick burst of inspiration led me to pop into a travel agent and casually ask who handled visas on behalf of their clients. With considerable kindness, considering I hadn't booked my trip through him, the guy told me about Kilometres Services. As instructed, I printed out the visa application from the Vietnamese embassy website, filled it in and attached a couple of mugshots. One phone call later, Ludovic arrived at my apartment to collect my passport (a disquieting moment, but he gave me a receipt).
Yesterday morning, my mobile phone rang. It was Ludovic, returning my passport complete with freshly minted Vietnam visa. The service cost me just under 50 euros (plus, of course, the price of the visa). Frankly, I'd have been willing to pay twice that for such an efficient and time-saving service. But don't tell Ludovic.