Life & style, Issue 620

Preview 2009 - Fashion

For years now, predicting the upcoming season’s trends has been a matter of guessing which decade of the 20th century we’ll be nicking our looks from. Mini dresses and go-go boots? Flares? Flares again? Flares on men? All this rifling through the…

Preview 2009 - Technology

If 2008 was anything to go by, 2009 should bring many great techy things to our lives. Firefox 3 made everything easier and better as domestic broadband got cheaper and faster. The house of innovation that is Google will be hard pushed in 2009 to better…

Courses, classes and activities

Alternative Therapy Edinburgh Aromatherapy Far superior to a nasty blast of air freshener, learn the subtle art of aromatherapy, with beginner’s classes in essential oils and massage. An 8-week non-vocational course is available through the…

Floatariums

‘I usually take sessions twice a month,’ says an amiable Roger Tyler, co-owner of Glasgow’s Willow Trading Rooms, and home to Glasgow’s only flotation tank. ‘Flotation tanks,’ he explains, ‘provide a unique experience for each person, the feeling of…

Red Sugar - Not such a raw deal

This number is important: 47.7. In Celsius, that’s the hottest food can get if it’s to remain raw. According to raw food theory, cooking food not only destroys key digestive enzymes but also exposes the body to potentially harmful toxins. It can seem…

Shivago Thai Clinic

Mental note to self: stop channelling Gwyneth. As a glass cup is set alight, blown out then placed on my back, things at the Shivago Thai Clinic, off Edinburgh's High Street, are feeling decidedly un-Hollywood. Indeed, as the foreign contraption comes…

Preview 2009 - Food

There’s a general expectation that we’ll be reporting on closures rather than openings in 2009, but don’t be so sure. Judging by the stream of new places in the last few months – far outweighing the number of farewells – doom and gloom clearly isn’t on…

Two Fat Ladies set for staff role reversal

The award-winning Two Fat Ladies at the Buttery has announced plans for a day of role reversal at a special fundraising event in aid of Quarriers, Bridge of Weir on Mon 26 Jan. Front of house staff will don their chefs’ hats in the kitchen, while…