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Category / Editor’s Picks

Drinking Away the Last Hours of Shanghai

Deep in the LIFE archives, I found myself fascinated by a glimpse into mid 20th century China during a period chronicled as “the last days of Shanghai”. It’s a portrait of a city full of Western influence; American neon-lit dive bars on every corner, shops and businesses advertised in English and western ex-pat communities going about their daily lives…

The Subculture of Japanese Trucker Art

‘Lit up like a Christmas tree’ doesn’t quite cover it. Moving pieces of art, embellished with massive neon lights and bling-tastic chrome; something between a science fiction robot and a Las Vegas arcade. “Decotora” trucks (translation: trucks decorated with illuminations), are the emblems of an unlikely subculture to emerge in the last decade out on the…

Nubian Nirvana on the Nile

This article probably couldn’t come at a worse time. I don’t think you’ll find many travel sites talking about Egypt right now in light of recent events, but removed from the terror alerts, backed-up flight cancellations and the potential collapse of an overcrowded tourist resort, there is a little-known place along the banks of the legendary river Nile that…

Made in Holland: The Chanel of Africa

A small town factory in the Netherlands might not seem like the obvious birthplace for African haute couture. Helmond is a place most people (Dutch or African) wouldn’t be able to point out on a map and yet, this unassuming little town is where one of the most iconic fashion brands of West and Central Africa was created. As the main…

My Little Antique Town

There are some good things about growing up and becoming an adult, for instance, not missing out on historic little towns such as this because we’re too busy nagging our parents about when we’ll get to the water park. Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania is the type of place my mother would have had to drag me…

Candlelight Cocktails in the “World’s Oldest Music Hall”

They say it’s the world’s oldest music hall, yet there’s no theatrical facade, just a faded red door set into a peeling wall cobbled together from five Victorian house fronts. Hidden half-way down a pedestrian alley in the heart of East London, an unforgettable evening awaits… It began as an alehouse dating from 1743 or earlier,…

The Ten Year Apocalypse that Nearly Destroyed Midwestern America

If you saw Christopher Nolan’s science fiction epic, Interstellar, you’ll recall the first few minutes of the film, set in the year 2067, consists of interviews by survivors of an apocalyptic dust bowl. Although Nolan’s film is fictional, those scenes are in fact real interview clips of actual survivors from the Dust Bowl which nearly destroyed the midwestern United…

Oh, Just a Miniature Mermaid’s Dollhouse

This is one of those slightly random finds that I was about to throw in with my Monday series of 13 Things I Found on the Internet Today, but then I looked closer (rubbed my eyes in disbelief a little), and realised it definitely needed its very own post. That, and the fact that it’s a Miniature. Mermaid.…

The Fashion Brand the Cool Kids would Rather Keep a Secret

It’s not very often that you’ll catch me dedicating an entire post to a fashion brand, but now and again, I tumble head over heels for something truly unique and just absolutely need to share it with you… It’s not often that you come across a shirt that doubles as a hand-painted piece of art, which could sound…

Liverpool has a Buried Underworld and No One Knows Why

For fifteen years, retired Liverpudlian locals and curious have-a-go volunteers have been digging up a vast network of 200 hundred-year old tunnels and cellar systems beneath their streets, not knowing how far they go, where they lead to and why they are even there. The only clue history has given, is that they were built…

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