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Distractions to inspire…

The cool thing about being royalty, is you get to go all out on your hobbies. Enjoy miniatures? Not as much as Queen Elizabeth II, whose miniatures collection is truly eye-watering. Into beauty and self-care? Not as much as 17th century France’s King Louis XIV, aka the Sun King, who took his baths in a rare marble basin filled with the eau de parfum of his exotic citrus trees. Which brings us to another one of the Sun King’s extravagant hobbies: ballet. Louis’s passion for dance helped usher the ballet de cour (courtly ballet) into an era with real personality. There was beauty, and humour; style and emotion. There were men – and only men, for a while – in tight, tight tights. It played a huge role in the burgeoning art of ballet not just in France, but the whole of the Western world…

Literary lovers and Parisphiles who enjoy group discussion. Writers (authors, journalists, bloggers, freelancers and hobbyists) who wish to share unpublished work with the club. Non-writers but avid readers and keen listeners with great ideas. Interested? Find out more on how to join the club.

Looking for the remnants of old Berlin is difficult. Not so much the churches, museums and monuments, but the bars, restaurants, theatres and cafes that once graced the city. For a brief while between the two World Wars, Berlin was one of the most decadent, thrilling and glitziest of European cities. “The city had a jewel-like sparkle, especially at night, that didn’t exist in Paris”, remarked Josephine Baker. At it’s dazzling height, there were some 900 dance halls alone in Berlin. Hedonists, flappers, cabaret-goers and dandies enjoyed over 500 slightly more salacious night clubs throughout the city. But today, virtually nothing authentic remains of this old Berlin.

Looking for the remnants of old Berlin is difficult. Not so much the churches, museums and monuments, but the bars, restaurants, theatres and cafes that once graced the city. For a brief while between the two World Wars, Berlin was one of the most decadent, thrilling and glitziest of European cities. “The city had a jewel-like sparkle, especially at night, that didn’t exist in Paris”, remarked Josephine Baker. At it’s dazzling height, there were some 900 dance halls alone in Berlin. Hedonists, flappers, cabaret-goers and dandies enjoyed over 500 slightly more salacious night clubs throughout the city. But today, virtually nothing authentic remains of this old Berlin.

The far end of New York’s Long Island is a place filled with secrets. Set against a beautiful backdrop of rocky Atlantic coastline, charming fishing towns, lighthouses and exclusive boatclubs, are hidden places where you’re not allowed to go. There’s the decommissioned Camp Hero in Montauk, an old coastal defence station disguised as a fishing village, that was designed to protect New York from invasion from the sea, but rumoured to be home to underground laboratories. Here the government supposedly worked on psychological warfare techniques and time travel experiments that would inspire the TV series, Stranger Things.

For a brief moment in the 1930s, one of the most famous celebrities of the day was a 100-pound mannequin named Cynthia. She had box seats at the Metropolitan Opera, received freebies from Tiffany and Cartier, graced the cover of Life magazine and was even invited to the wedding of Edward V111 and Wallis Simpson. She was designed by Lester Gaba, whose life-sized, carved-soap mannequins modeled after well-known New York debutantes, would change window displays forever. What started as a publicity stunt to humorously demonstrate how lifelike the mannequins had become, quickly turned Cynthia into an overnight sensation…

You would think that being Frank Lloyd Wright’s earliest protégé; the woman behind so many of most of the iconic drawings to come out of his practice; might just give you a leg up in the world. So how is it that the legacy of one of the first women to become a licensed architect in the world can so easily be erased from history, her story condensed down into a mere footnote, clumsily attached to the work of her male partners? The work of Marion Mahony Griffin is still present across America and Australia, but the woman behind the architecture has been given little of the attention that she deserves.