Briton running across Australia fights pain, flies and a ‘cheating' row
The Eyre Highway stretches more than 1,000 miles across the Nullarbor Plain, from Western Australia to the South Australian border.
It includes the continent's longest straight stretch of road, a relentless strip of tarmac through the outback marked by little more than a few roadhouses and known as the '90-mile Straight'.
Last week it included one other curiosity: Will Goodge, a British fitness model, social media influencer and ultra-endurance athlete who is attempting to set a new world record by running from Perth to Sydney in just 35 days.
Having run from John o' Groats to Land's End and become the fastest Englishman to cross the US on foot, the 30-year-old from Bedfordshire was fighting a mental battle as well as a physical one.
'Boredom
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Vogue Arabia
05-05-2025
- Vogue Arabia
Inside Yves Saint Laurent's Former Home, Now a Dreamy Retreat in Tangier
There is a hush at Villa Mabrouka — a kind of curated stillness, scented faintly of floral, salt, and something faintly nostalgic, like vintage Guerlain perfume steeped in sunshine. Here, on the cliffside of Tangier, overlooking the straits where Europe and Africa trade glances across the sea, Yves Saint Laurent once found his escape. Today, it's your turn. Photographer: Andrew Montgomery Photographer: Andrew Montgomery Photographer: Andrew Montgomery The villa, whose name translates to House of Luck , has long existed at the intersection of myth and memory: Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé's seaside sanctuary, their private world away from the intoxicating chaos of Paris and the opulent restraint of Marrakech. Now, it's open to the rest of us—well, the lucky few who can book one of just 12 suites in what has become an immaculate, whisper-quiet, two-pool hideaway at the edge of the world. Its new steward is Jasper Conran , the British designer and seasoned hotelier who already coaxed a 17th-century riad in Marrakech into understated perfection. Conran approached Villa Mabrouka not as a palette to be splashed anew, but as a fragile relic to be resuscitated. Photographer: Andrew Montgomery Photographer: Andrew Montgomery Photographer: Andrew Montgomery Photographer: Andrew Montgomery 'Saint Laurent wanted it to reflect the elegance of his childhood in Oran,' Conran tells Vogue Arabia . 'It's glamorous in its purity and simplicity. Not a Moroccan palace—but a Mediterranean house with the gentle nuances of Morocco. A halcyon moment between the wars. A twinkle. A dazzle.' If that sounds like something out of a Slim Aarons photo—good. That's the vibe. But there's more than fantasy here; there's reverence. Conran didn't gut the home. He excavated it. Painstakingly. What had been a private residence required complete rebuilding, from its corroded pipes to new structures discreetly added throughout the grounds. The original floor tiles remain; so do the soaring ceilings and the silhouette of the home's former life. Photographer: Andrew Montgomery Photographer: Andrew Montgomery Photographer: Andrew Montgomery Photographer: Andrew Montgomery The rooms hum in soft whites and quiet greens, cornflower blues and pale ochres—colors chosen not to compete with the setting but to defer to it. 'The white is a relief from the heat,' says Conran, 'and a contrast to the green of the garden.' The house is a lesson in control: Mauritanian rugs underfoot, slipper chairs in velvet, cashmere bed covers, and antique embroideries that feel less like decoration and more like punctuation. Every stitch and stripe whispers, never shouts. Like Saint Laurent's clothes, the house is structured but not stiff. Serious without losing sensuality. And just as every hem was once obsessed over in the atelier, so too are the rituals here: Conran designed the tableware, the linens, the furniture. He's considered how your croissant will flake in the morning sun. 'Effortlessness takes a lot of effort,' he admits. 'I want guests to feel soothed, completely taken care of—but never overhandled. Everything should feel seamless.' Photographer: Andrew Montgomery Photographer: Andrew Montgomery Photographer: Andrew Montgomery Photographer: Andrew Montgomery Indeed, Villa Mabrouka is not a hotel that begs to be Instagrammed, though you likely will. It's a hotel that seduces slowly. It's the kind of place where you start planning your return halfway through your stay. Maybe you'll spend your days swimming in silence. Maybe you'll wander Tangier's sloping medina, channeling Paul Bowles and Talitha Getty. Or maybe you'll just sit in the garden where Saint Laurent once read Cocteau and smoked in linen. This is not a place to be seen. It's a place to remember who you were before you needed to be. A fashion home reborn not with spectacle, but with soul.
Times
28-04-2025
- Times
Lee Blackett and Byron McGuigan to join England coaching staff
Steve Borthwick has recruited Lee Blackett and Byron McGuigan to join the England coaching staff for the summer tour to Argentina and the United States. Blackett, the highly regarded Bath attack coach, will fill the vacancy left by Richard Wigglesworth, who will be away on British & Irish Lions duty. Bath have scored more points than any other club in the Gallagher Premiership and their haul of 13 try bonus points is matched only by Bristol Bears. McGuigan will work on England's defence with Joe El-Abd after building one of the meanest and most physical defensive units at Sale Sharks. One of the hallmarks of their Premiership victory over Saracens last Friday night was the ferocity and physicality of their defence. The RFU has confirmed
Times
28-04-2025
- Times
Robert Macfarlane takes an epic trip down three great rivers
A new book from Robert Macfarlane is a literary event. A Cambridge professor and bestselling author, he is the grand panjandrum of British nature writing. In a suite of adventurous, poetic and thoughtful books, he has roamed and probed the landscape, from mountains (Mountains of the Mind) and the wilderness (The Wild Places) to ancient pathways (The Old Ways) and subterranean spaces (Underland). Now he has turned to rivers. Is a River Alive? recounts three short but eventful journeys to the Ecuadorian cloud forest, to the waterways of Chennai in southeast India and to the Mutehekau Shipu, a whitewater river in Quebec, Canada, where things nearly go epically wrong. Between each trip he makes a small pilgrimage,
