The Persian princess famously told one story a night, completing her task in just under three years. It’s taken me a bit longer. I thought I’d start experimenting with the then-new social platform of blogging in May of 2007, meaning that I’ve hit the 1,001 milestone in just short of 18 years. 
My original intent was a story a week. The reality mixed dry spells when I didn’t have much to say with heavy flows of content around holidays. Bencard's Bites launched in the heady days of London before the 2009 financial crash, and therefore drew on a steady stream of corporate hospitality and work events for its source material. The fancy restaurant reviews became a lot less frequent once I was footing the bill, though fine dining continues to turn up several times a year.
Blogging has peaked and faded in the nearly two decades that I’ve been writing. "Influencers" have come to dominate the world of social content, and short form video has replaced blogging as the genre du jour. Some of the most precious young people in my life have wondered by I bother with these tedious words when I could just throw some fun videos out there.
I’ve been doing more video. (Please follow me on TikTok.) But I’m a writer. Video doesn’t give me the same satisfaction. It’s too ephemeral. Too quick. So I keep writing, more to please myself than any audience. Thanks to my years of marketing experience I know that I’ll never hit the influencer big time with my format. To do that, I’d need to focus on one niche rather than roaming across travel, food, wine and culture. I’d probably need to get more populist in my style and subjects: I write for a well-educated audience, probably older, interested in the finer things in life. My audience is me, and if you want to come along with my journeys, I’m delighted.
If not, I’m building up quite a backlog of memories with which to entertain myself in the nursing home.
Today, at this 1,001st milestone, I’m going to take a self-indulgent stroll down memory lane to call out my favourite pieces over the years.
FROM THE FIRST 100
I launched the blog on a rainy May bank holiday when I couldn’t be bothered to head out into the gloomy weather. It’s a scenario that’s both truly British, and consistent throughout the years. I didn’t realise it, but I was capturing a world that was soon to disappear; this article on London as a golden city built on expense accounts seems hard to believe, these days.
FROM THE FIRST 100
I launched the blog on a rainy May bank holiday when I couldn’t be bothered to head out into the gloomy weather. It’s a scenario that’s both truly British, and consistent throughout the years. I didn’t realise it, but I was capturing a world that was soon to disappear; this article on London as a golden city built on expense accounts seems hard to believe, these days.
While I started with the idea that the blog would be a far-reaching column with commentary on current events and trends, I quickly drifted away from that idea. Given the vitriol and abuse often attracted by strong opinions on social media, I was probably a bit prescient there. Instead, I got serious about travel. The most exotic adventure in this first century of articles took place deep in the Tunisian countryside, in a ruined Roman city called Dougga. I was also pleased with the tone I managed to capture in this article from Burgundy, and the humour I wove into my sojourn at DisneyWorld with a 7-year-old.
My favourite from this bunch, however, has always been a restaurant review. I believe the greatest reviews go beyond just a description of food and experience to tap into bigger issues. I tried to do this here with musings on the nature of friendship as dear friends prepared to leave the UK. This was their farewell meal, at the Michelin-starred Waterside Inn. I’m delighted to say that the friendship remains as true as the article, and they are just as precious to me now as they were when I wrote this.
My favourite from this bunch, however, has always been a restaurant review. I believe the greatest reviews go beyond just a description of food and experience to tap into bigger issues. I tried to do this here with musings on the nature of friendship as dear friends prepared to leave the UK. This was their farewell meal, at the Michelin-starred Waterside Inn. I’m delighted to say that the friendship remains as true as the article, and they are just as precious to me now as they were when I wrote this.
THE SECOND CENTURY
These articles span November of 2008 to July of 2010, when the world started shifting dramatically. The financial crisis damaged my professional landscape to an extent it’s never really recovered from, while my mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer. On the positive front, I met the man who would become my husband.
I think this description of how opera seems engineered to help you cope with such dramatic change captured the zeitgeist. Most of my travel in this period was to see my ailing mother. While I love St. Louis, there’s only so much I could mine for excitement, so I raided my pre-blog letters for a description of a trip to South Africa. Five months before I met the man who was to become my husband, I attended my first rugby match. Piers would make the game a significant part of my life, and of this blog. This introduction to rugby at Twickenham laid the foundations for me to be happy about that.
Even in these early days of social media I recognised the danger of revealing too much personal information, so I tended not to write about anything very private. Thus there’s little here about the giddy joy of finding love at a point in life where I thought I was past the possibility. But I think I captured a bit of the magic in my favourite piece from this hundred. Here, I'm writing about the shift in my perception of Valentine’s Day as I moved from a lonely single to someone in a happy relationship.
Even in these early days of social media I recognised the danger of revealing too much personal information, so I tended not to write about anything very private. Thus there’s little here about the giddy joy of finding love at a point in life where I thought I was past the possibility. But I think I captured a bit of the magic in my favourite piece from this hundred. Here, I'm writing about the shift in my perception of Valentine’s Day as I moved from a lonely single to someone in a happy relationship.
THE THIRD CENTURY
Change continued to dominate here, with death, marriage and the return of my breast cancer taking centre stage. Given that I don’t like like to write about gloomy or negative topics, finding content was tough. The standout article of the time was unarguably my mother’s obituary, not just because of its subject but because I’ve rarely worked harder at crafting and honing one piece of copy. It was not just for the blog; I delivered it in person to more than 200 people at her memorial service. So it had to be good.
Thankfully, this time period had more than enough joy to counter the difficulty. Here we find my introduction to Longborough Festival Opera, which was to become so important to my relationship with my husband and through our future. Despite the economic downturn my work was going well. So well, in fact, that I penned this ode to job satisfaction from a very glamorous gig in Cannes where I emceed an impressive client meeting and had dinner with rugby star Lawrence Dallaglio.
Romance definitely led the fun, however, first with a review of my own wedding (discovering and resolving differences between English and American wedding traditions, frankly, could have been a small book rather than just an article), then coverage of a dreamy honeymoon in Mauritius followed by time in South Africa. Safari, which had been the bit I was probably least excited about, became the highlight of the trip.
Thankfully, this time period had more than enough joy to counter the difficulty. Here we find my introduction to Longborough Festival Opera, which was to become so important to my relationship with my husband and through our future. Despite the economic downturn my work was going well. So well, in fact, that I penned this ode to job satisfaction from a very glamorous gig in Cannes where I emceed an impressive client meeting and had dinner with rugby star Lawrence Dallaglio.
Romance definitely led the fun, however, first with a review of my own wedding (discovering and resolving differences between English and American wedding traditions, frankly, could have been a small book rather than just an article), then coverage of a dreamy honeymoon in Mauritius followed by time in South Africa. Safari, which had been the bit I was probably least excited about, became the highlight of the trip.
THE FOURTH CENTURY
Covering most of 2012 and 2013, this set of articles included far less in the way of monumental change. We moved into our new house and settled into everyday life as a married couple. It was so unexceptional, in fact, that I took the time to publish excerpts from some old travel diaries I found from my “Grand Tour” across Europe after graduating from university. This description of our sightseeing whirlwind through Germany is typical. It makes me grateful I've adopted a more leisurely European style of travel in my maturity; it sounds quite exhausting.
These reflections on the recently deceased Stan Musial, “baseball’s perfect knight”, still resonate. We need gracious heroes now even more than we did when I wrote this. Stan is a part of my St. Louis childhood, and this time period saw me giving my still-new husband a proper, in-depth introduction to my home town. We almost drowned him in Americana. I was proud of the way he survived. My introduction to the new, meanwhile, came in Iceland. In this article I desperately tried to evoke the majesty of the Icelandic landscape.
The article that captures the most memorable thing in this time period, however, is this piece on the 2012 Olympics. After all the bitching, moaning and generally low expectations, the English rose to the occasion and delivered something extraordinary.
Covering most of 2012 and 2013, this set of articles included far less in the way of monumental change. We moved into our new house and settled into everyday life as a married couple. It was so unexceptional, in fact, that I took the time to publish excerpts from some old travel diaries I found from my “Grand Tour” across Europe after graduating from university. This description of our sightseeing whirlwind through Germany is typical. It makes me grateful I've adopted a more leisurely European style of travel in my maturity; it sounds quite exhausting.
These reflections on the recently deceased Stan Musial, “baseball’s perfect knight”, still resonate. We need gracious heroes now even more than we did when I wrote this. Stan is a part of my St. Louis childhood, and this time period saw me giving my still-new husband a proper, in-depth introduction to my home town. We almost drowned him in Americana. I was proud of the way he survived. My introduction to the new, meanwhile, came in Iceland. In this article I desperately tried to evoke the majesty of the Icelandic landscape.
The article that captures the most memorable thing in this time period, however, is this piece on the 2012 Olympics. After all the bitching, moaning and generally low expectations, the English rose to the occasion and delivered something extraordinary.
The “real’ world and the news agenda made a brief appearance in this hundred articles, as I happened to be in St. Louis when race-based tensions brought the disapproving eyes of the world down on my home town. I felt the need to write an impassioned rebuttal to misconceptions about the Ferguson situation.
The most memorable articles in this century, however, were all centred around my 50th birthday, which sparked several bucket-list worthy trips. I wrote about a truly extraordinary day of wine tasting around Mount Etna, ending with words that I hope captured the emotion of the day. If I could be any happier, it came floating over the coral reefs of the Maldives, where I truly did find heaven on earth.
My most popular article of this hundred amongst my readers, however, was clearly my reflections on turning 50. My five lessons for a life well-lived seemed to resonate. Indeed, looking back on the article from my 60th birthday I didn’t bother to do another. I would have just written the same things.
My most popular article of this hundred amongst my readers, however, was clearly my reflections on turning 50. My five lessons for a life well-lived seemed to resonate. Indeed, looking back on the article from my 60th birthday I didn’t bother to do another. I would have just written the same things.
THE SIXTH CENTURY
As a marketer I understand search engine optimisation and strategies for promoting content on the internet. But, fact is, sometimes things “go viral” with no explanation. This review of a family-run B&B wasn’t exceptional, nor was our stay there, but for some reason it’s one of the most-read articles I’ve ever published, still getting hits years after the B&B closed. Go figure.
My husband’s 60th birthday dominated this time period, and the best stories accompany the event. My article on the Gascony Cooking School captured the excitement of a residential culinary programme at the heart of one of the world’s great food cultures. A trip to Germany later in the year brought us face-to-face with both horror and beauty in Nuremberg.
We turned our visit to nearby Munich into a quest to visit all its best beer gardens, which produced this fabulous guide. For its continuing usefulness, this is my favourite article of the century.
THE SEVENTH CENTURY
These articles cover two years between the Augusts of 2016 and 2018. The best story in the lot ... the one I'm still telling at dinner parties today ... was undoubtably the royal wedding of Prince Harry to Northwestern University graduate Meghan Markle. I organised our UK alumni club to cheer our fellow Wildcat on from a position along the Windsor Castle Long Walk. I was also the official press spokesperson for the University on the day, getting my 15 minutes of fame (or a bit less) live on CBS’ news coverage. I did my best in the article to capture the rare excitement of the day.
As fine dining became a bit less common in my life, I added variety to the blog with more music and theatre reviews. There were two memorable ones here, as I wrote about the emotional impact of hearing Mozart’s requiem performed within the context of a mass for the first time and my introduction to the musical Hamilton, which I thought was positively Shakespearean.
Holidays, naturally, got plenty of coverage, and as the blog marked its 10-year anniversary it became ever more dominated by travel writing. My most treasured memory in this set is a description of my first time sport fishing (off the coast of Puerto Rico). We'd also done a leisurely wander around Denmark for a summer holiday, with this piece on the charms of Skagen being the most evocative of the nine articles I wrote from that trip. Meanwhile in Switzerland, I contemplated immigration patterns and their effects on history as I travelled back to the tiny village some of my ancestors left to come to America.
Holidays, naturally, got plenty of coverage, and as the blog marked its 10-year anniversary it became ever more dominated by travel writing. My most treasured memory in this set is a description of my first time sport fishing (off the coast of Puerto Rico). We'd also done a leisurely wander around Denmark for a summer holiday, with this piece on the charms of Skagen being the most evocative of the nine articles I wrote from that trip. Meanwhile in Switzerland, I contemplated immigration patterns and their effects on history as I travelled back to the tiny village some of my ancestors left to come to America.
THE EIGHTH CENTURY
I'm filled with bittersweet nostalgia as I re-read this piece on the parts of my American DNA that make me proudest. I wrote it on the 20th anniversary of moving permanently to England, and I'm not sure I could write with such confidence or optimism today. I was clearly feeling philosophical, and a bit irritated with the English, in this time period as I also wrote an impassioned response to everyone in my new home country who detests Halloween as a tacky American import. The English aren't all anti-American, however. This set of articles also saw American baseball come to London for the first time, which I chronicled with glee.
Japan dominated my travel writing with 19 articles from an epic trip in the autumn of 2019. This review of a luxurious inn in the hills above Kyoto is my favourite. There was more luxury a few months later as a cancelled flight and following my mother's rules of travel landed us in one of the grandest hotels of our lives for one night in Antigua. There were also simple joys to be savoured on an oyster boat off the coast of Croatia. And, proving that travel can have a serious side, I wrote what I thought was a moving piece on the emotional impact of the WWI sites in the Somme.
It was a good thing that the start of this period had been so busy, because COVID lockdown suffocated everything at the end of this century of articles. Though the pace of blogging slowed down with less source material, I did find things to write about. This piece on life in lockdown has to be my favourite of the century, as it captures a unique time in our lives that, hopefully, will never be repeated.
THE NINTH CENTURY
The COVID pandemic continued through this next hundred articles, and got lots more attention from me as it stretched on. I pondered how, if you could stay healthy, age made people more resilient to the side-effects of the modern plague, and learned travel lessons from a pandemic that just wouldn't go away. There was good with the bad: social distancing guidelines forced Longborough to come up with creative solutions that made for the most emotionally moving performance of a Wagner opera I'd ever seen.
Perhaps triggered by lockdown, there's a nostalgia to many of the articles from this period. Travelling to St. Louis for my high school reunion had me appreciating the quiet beauty of old friendships, while my university football team showing up to play in Dublin sparked this love letter to Northwestern Wildcats on and off the field.
The piece I love the most, however, is my passionate defence of the British monarchy on Elizabeth II's jubilee. Not only does it capture a magical event I'll never see again in my lifetime, but I use it regularly to educate young people who are quick to write off the value of this ancient institution.
APPROACHING MY PERSONAL MILLENNIUM
By the time I wrote my 900th article in March of 2023 the end of full-time corporate employment was in sight. (Though it wouldn't happen for another eight months.) Corporate hospitality and executive perks would no longer offer fuel for my writing. I did have one last moment of glory, however, as an empty hotel room at a conference I was managing gave me the chance to experience being a guest at Pennyhill Park and Spa.
I love how my husband's interests have stretched me beyond my travel comfort zone. I doubt I would ever have discovered the awesome wonder of the Norwegian fjords or realised that battlefield tourism can be fun (in this case, full days touring the Napoleonic battlefields of Salamanca and Vitoria), without him. But as my 60th birthday approached I knew I wanted to return to my travel "safe space", thus these 100 articles are awash with Italian travel reportage. There's falling in love with Naples, tips for surviving a heat wave in Tuscany, avoiding Venice crowds by heading to the outer islands, and an 11-article series on my adventures in Sicily. Once I wrapped my travels for 2024 I updated the indexes on the blog: if you view it through a desktop browser so you can see the three-column layout, you'll now see headlines of, and links to, 69 different Italian articles in indexes on the left.
It's hard to pick a favourite from this 100 so studded with magical memories. Amusingly, the one that gets my vote is actually a bad experience. I normally stick to positive reviews when I can, but the Verona Opera Festival's dreadful reimagining of Aida in space needed to be ripped apart. Writing it gave me an appreciation for those reviewers who become famous for tearing things down; you can have much more fun with words being mean. But I doubt I'll become a regular in this style.
By the time I wrote my 900th article in March of 2023 the end of full-time corporate employment was in sight. (Though it wouldn't happen for another eight months.) Corporate hospitality and executive perks would no longer offer fuel for my writing. I did have one last moment of glory, however, as an empty hotel room at a conference I was managing gave me the chance to experience being a guest at Pennyhill Park and Spa.
I love how my husband's interests have stretched me beyond my travel comfort zone. I doubt I would ever have discovered the awesome wonder of the Norwegian fjords or realised that battlefield tourism can be fun (in this case, full days touring the Napoleonic battlefields of Salamanca and Vitoria), without him. But as my 60th birthday approached I knew I wanted to return to my travel "safe space", thus these 100 articles are awash with Italian travel reportage. There's falling in love with Naples, tips for surviving a heat wave in Tuscany, avoiding Venice crowds by heading to the outer islands, and an 11-article series on my adventures in Sicily. Once I wrapped my travels for 2024 I updated the indexes on the blog: if you view it through a desktop browser so you can see the three-column layout, you'll now see headlines of, and links to, 69 different Italian articles in indexes on the left.
It's hard to pick a favourite from this 100 so studded with magical memories. Amusingly, the one that gets my vote is actually a bad experience. I normally stick to positive reviews when I can, but the Verona Opera Festival's dreadful reimagining of Aida in space needed to be ripped apart. Writing it gave me an appreciation for those reviewers who become famous for tearing things down; you can have much more fun with words being mean. But I doubt I'll become a regular in this style.
And that's how I got to 1,000. Creating this blog has been a consistent source of joy ... and, I hope, kept my writing fresh and less corporate ... for almost 18 years. Yes, there are times when keeping up has felt a bit more like a chore than entertainment. As the years pass I realise there are things I probably should have written about but didn't, no doubt because I was too busy with other things.
If I keep going at this pace I'll publish my 2,000th article when I'm 78. But it's hard to imagine having that much to write about in retirement, especially after the early years of heavy travel when we settle down to a quiet life. Hopefully I won't end up a correspondent of medical treatments and old age complaints. But, frankly, if I'm still healthy and writing regularly as I approach 80 I'll be happy. If anyone reads me, great. But I'll continue to do this for myself.
Here's to the next 1,000.
