Simple Pleasures
Nick Curtis, acting features director
As a born Londoner who avidly consumes everything that this great, bejewelled funhouse of a city has to offer, I already feel I have won life’s jackpot. So the ultimate in decadence for me is to take a break from being a metropolitan ponce. My sister and her Danish husband own a simple, wooden summer house near the Baltic coast north of Copenhagen, and it’s the place my wife and I go to simplify our lives and quieten our minds. We chop wood, build fires, cycle to the beach, swim if it’s not too freezing, play board games and buy smoked fish from the nearby town of Havnebyen. There’s no wi-fi so in the evenings we listen to music, read and play Scrabble. And in the rural dark and the quiet, we sleep better than we do anywhere else.
First-class lounge
Rosamund Dean, acting deputy editor
In my 20s, luxury was a new dress and a ticket to the hottest party. Ten years and two kids later, I covet cosy clothes. In my mind I’m the woman in the Brora catalogue, a cashmere dressing gown over a Liberty print nightshirt; novel in hand, gazing out of the window. In reality, a toddler is wiping snot on my shoulder while a four-year-old is using my dressing gown cord as a bandana. True luxury is time to lounge.
Booked up
Niamh O’Keeffe, PA to the editor
I am a regular at John Sandoe Books off the King’s Road, a bibliophile’s paradise where the supremely knowledgeable staff oversee 30,000 books while also sourcing out-of-print books. My idea of money-can’t-buy bliss would be a private library complete with my growing collection of gorgeous Persephone books and a sliding ladder like the bookshop in Funny Face (right), stuffed floor to ceiling with books. That’s the dream.
Jet Set
Matt Hryciw, chief sub editor
Luxury to me is setting off on an adventure to a place I’ve never been. When I can leave behind the monotony of the daily routine and discover something entirely new. When the simplest of things sparks curiosity, such as sifting through a pocketful of strange new coins or looking up at an entirely different starry night sky — even navigating the world’s myriad loos (Japan wins for luxury, hands down!). There’s rarely a dull moment when I’m visiting some place new, and that’s the ultimate in luxury for me.
Flower power
Dipal Acharya, arts and entertainment director
Buying blooms is one of life’s simple luxuries, and London has some of the best florists in the world (Kitten Grayson, Worm London, Petalon and Scarlet & Violet), not to mention Columbia Road Flower Market. I love to catch the first of the season’s chocolate cosmos or pick up a dazzle of delphiniums to brighten my tiny flat. If I don’t make a market trip, Whole Foods, the purveyor of all things organic, does an excellent selection of fresh-cut, well-priced flowers that seem to last forever.
