A masterpiece of ancient Rome in a Bucks stable … for just one more week

 Tucked in the Buckinghamshire countryside, for just one more week, you can see one of the finest complete mosaics of the Roman Empire.  If that's not surprising enough, get this: it's from Israel.  This is its last stop on a world tour while its new museum in Lod, near Tel Aviv, has been under construction.  If you're lucky enough to live anywhere in striking distance, get to Waddesdon Manor before the special exhibition ends next week.

What's the big deal?  There are very few mosaics from the Roman world that are this big (50 ft long by 27 feet wide) and in such perfect shape.  Other than two missing spots at one end, it's perfectly intact.  It  is marvellously beautiful.  And it conveys a sense of culture and conviviality that reminds us of just how good life could be in the Roman Empire.  Even at its edges.

This was, fairly obviously, a dining room floor.  Just below the central octagon two leopards … the standard bearers of the wine god Dionysos … hang off the sides of a large wine flagon.  The immediate message is clear: welcome, you'll have a fine time here.

If this first image promises fine drinking, the rest tells you how well you'll eat.  On one end, a dazzling variety of fish that might end up on your plate swim beneath the ships out to catch them.  On the other, a bevy of creatures of the field and forest.  Around the centre, the best of both, shown in loving detail.  And in the central octagon, an exotic scene of African animals, including an elephant and one of the earliest giraffes shown in Western art.  Its quality … in colours, in realistic portrayal of the animals, in the stylistic unity of the whole piece … is on par with the finest examples I saw in the blockbuster Bardo museum in Tunis, Tunisia (Which I wrote about here).

It's all the more interesting because it comes from Israel, someplace we don't often associate with peaceful, cosmopolitan daily lives in the Roman empire.  (Blacker episodes of a destroyed temple or Pilate's judgement are more likely to come to mind.)  Amazingly, it spent the past 1,700 years just one meter below ground level.  Experts believe it was a fluke of all four original walls falling inwards that protected the floor.  It was only another fluke, of road construction, that revealed it to the modern world.

How did it get to Waddesdon?  The manor is one of the homes of the Rothschild family in England.  Unsurprisingly, the famous family of Jewish bankers have strong ties with Israel.  This house has always been a quirky one; it's a perfect French chateau set in the middle of the English countryside.  So why shouldn't they have a perfect Roman imperial floor in their barn?

If you have nothing on next weekend, get there and check it out before it start its journey back home.

Tower's poppies best part of day of too-expensive restaurants & plans gone astray

Restaurant Reviews:  Gaucho, Tsunami

You would have to have unplugged yourself from all national and social media over the past few
months to be unaware of the poppy installation at the Tower of London.

Since the 5th of August, volunteers have been "planting" ceramic poppies in the moat.  By the 11th of November there will be 888,246; one for each British fatality in World War 1.  Officially called Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red, it's the wonderful idea of ceramic artist Paul Cummins and stage designer Tom Piper, and it is … with no exception … the most emotionally gripping piece of installation art I have ever seen.

It's effective in photos and on television, but nothing compared to the impact of seeing it in person.  If you have the chance, go.

The poppies flow out from strategic points atop the Tower's battlements, cascading down like a stream into the moat below.  Piper has worked magic, with placement that leaves subtle lines of green and undulates the flowers.  The naturalistic curves mean that you can can look closely and pick out individual blooms, or allow your eyes to go slightly out of focus and take in the vast ocean of red.  It's stunningly beautiful, drifting between the greys and whites of the stonework and the emerald green of the grass.  Until you remember what it actually means.  Every stem, a death.  All those names, on all those war memorials, accumulated here in horrific, terrible beauty.  It is very hard to hold the tears back.

It's also a fine reminder that this is fundraising season for the six major charities that support our armed forces.  This year, you can buy one of those ceramic poppies in addition to your usual label-decorating support.  More information here.

The rest of our day out in London couldn't really stand up to that.

We'd planned to wander through Borough Market and graze across gourmet food carts for lunch.  While I get this way fairly often for work, Piers hasn't been here for years.  I wanted to show him how London can hold its own against similar food markets in Paris and Barcelona.  But I hadn't counted on the weekend crowds.  It was shoulder-to-shoulder madness, with queues 20-deep at every dining and drinking option.  There may be more vendors here on a Saturday, but I'd advise the relative sanity of a weekday visit.

So we started walking up the south bank of the Thames, thinking we'd find someplace before too long. Through Hays Wharf, past numerous riverside pubs and restaurants, all were packed.  Leading us, finally, tired and starving, to the first empty table we saw at Gaucho Tower Bridge.

Really, I should pay more attention to my own blog.  In August 2010 I said of another of its branches that I'd return to any of the other restaurants I'd been to rather than "this outrageously expensive Argentinian chain … that is clearly set up to extract every penny it can out of its well-heeled clientele." I said more.  Nothing's changed.  We had nice but unexceptional steak tartare, some tasty sides, a decent bottle of wine, and spent precisely five times as much as the most generous budget I'd envisioned for market grazing.  Never again.

My plans misfired on the British Museum, as well.  With a quick lunch before the poppies, we should have been into the Ming exhibit by 3:30.  Instead, waving our membership cards for last-minute admission, we arrived just before 5.  With less than half an hour to skip through before closing, I can tell you that the show offers a beautiful range of objects and paints a wonderfully comprehensive picture of life during one of China's most culturally sophisticated eras.  It's also exciting to see how versatile the new exhibit space is, being used in a very different way than for the previous Viking show.  Clearly, I need to get back.

After recovering from all that rushing around with a pint in the Museum Tavern across the street (an old favourite), we trekked across town for the last planned event of the night.  Meeting our friends Tracy and Beric usually calls for sushi, since we're all big fans, and a good friend tipped Clapham's Tsunami as "good as Nobu, but much cheaper." Had to be tried.

Maybe it was the fault of our late lunch.  We weren't particularly hungry, and we were still in a bad mood from the sticker shock of the bill.  We found the menu overcomplicated and trying too hard.  Foie gras sushi?  Please.  Fusion can go too far.  They accidentally served us a yellowfin tartare we didn't order.  In a little mason jar, with fancy toasts and odd dressings.  All too fussy.  Meanwhile, we spotted no Japanese faces in the open kitchen, and there wasn't any option for combination sushi platters.

We ordered a satisfying variety a la carte.  A shared double order of their soft shell crab tempura was
the standout, by far.  Otherwise, it was tasty and nicely presented, but nothing special.  Had I only had the light lunch we'd planned, I'd probably have left hungry.  Our portion of the meal cost about the same as our lunch, and that was with double the wine.  Good value in comparison to Gaucho, but I know I would have been much happier pulling sushi off the conveyor belt at my enduring favourite, Hiroba on Kingsway.

Fortunately, the company outweighed any disgruntlement with the food, and the poppies made the trip into town … and all the expense … worth while.  I just wish more of that cash could have gone to services charities rather than to the restaurant bills.

Zaha Hadid dreams a futurescape I'm ready to occupy

You don't find me talking about work much on this blog.  It's rare that the world of corporate communications in the IT services industry intersects with the culture, travel, food and wine I write about here.  But sometimes, the planets come together and there's a wonderful moment when my "work" world makes my "life" soul sit up and take notice.  Yesterday brought one, in the form of a senior director from Zaha Hadid Architects.

My company was sponsoring a conference in central London on innovation.  On the agenda: "smart cities".  That's the concept that with technology and connectivity we can do amazing things to make cities better places to live.  While having less impact on the environment.  The architects were there to point out that things can look good, too.

I'd long been aware of Hadid, whose buildings regularly show up in design magazines and culture supplements.  She was the first woman to win the Pritzker Architecture Prize, and pretty much the only woman getting headlines in a thoroughly male industry.  I've only been in one of her buildings … the swimming pavilion in London's Olympic park, because most of her work is scattered around the world.  But I had an impression of buildings that were curvy, dramatic, elegant and beautiful.  In a word: feminine.

Turns out that's just the start.  The Hadid practice's philosophy is an organic, people-centric riposte to the brutalism of late 20th century architecture.  Probably more akin in its philosophical foundations to high Gothic than to Meis van der Rohe, as Director Patrick Schumacher explained in a fast-paced, intellectually rich illustrated talk.  I think some of the IT and corporate crowd were starting to drift.  I could have listened to him all day.

In Hadid's vision, social order requires spiritual order. Architecture is a force for good that can prevent a collapse into chaos.

The typical modern city, clustering streets and buildings with little reference to the unique topography around us, is creating ubiquitous urban sprawls with no local distinction.  They have no soul.  It's the natural topography that gives a place identity and order.  Schumacher used the outskirts of London as his example: "a cancerous outgrowth, identity-less."  The feature that gives it unique identity?  The sinuous meander of the Thames.  Thus Hadid's architectural prescription for modern London is round and meandering, something we saw in the aquatic pavilion.

Schumacher said this starting point creates "islands in the urban menace."  They further humanise their designs by focusing on, and celebrating, the spaces where people come together.  Entrances, atria and hallways are all big design features in Hadid buildings.  Rejecting the fashion for putting a building's guts on the outside, they clothe their work in "smart skins" which hide what's going on.  Just like a living creature.

There's no denying that Hadid buildings are boldly modern.  But this philosophy makes them human and organic as well.  Many are huge, but there's a warmth and intimacy about them.  The skin, the curves, the relationship with the surrounding topography … it all drew my mind back to the great Gothic architects, with their forests of columns branching into canopies of groin vaulting, illuminated by massive windows.  Hadid is modern, but the company philosophy is rooted in ancient truths.

Certainly, they're top of my list should I ever be called upon to found a utopian city.  And I'd love to attend a proper lecture from Hadid or one of her partners.  But for now, I'll just have to add more of their buildings to my travel "bucket list".

Familiarity breeds appreciation for Sherfield's Four Horseshoes

We are blessed with a truly fine local pub.  I was reminded of just how blessed this weekend, when we had the rare circumstance of two pub meals in one weekend.  Dinner Saturday at the favoured Four Horseshoes in Sherfield-on-Loddon, lunch Sunday at our old local, The Queen in Dummer.

The vast gap between dining at those two pubs drove home the superiority of the Horseshoes.  And prompts me to tell you more about it.  Because, frankly, it's worth a drive for non-locals to eat here.

It has all the qualities you'd expect of a proper local pub.  It looks the part, with Georgian bones, an open fire, exposed beams and a garden.  There's even a skittle alley.  A satisfying seasonal menu on top of expected pub classics like fish and chips and burgers.  But, importantly, it's not just a restaurant.  The bar opens into two rooms, and you're as welcome to drink and socialise as to eat.

Most importantly, perhaps, it's owned and run by a local couple who are almost always around.  Scott and Jules were long-time village residents when the last owner decided to retire.  Scott, seeing the place's potential, bought it and started the transformation into the gem we see today.  This summer, they did a major renovation of the interior, losing the dated elements that said "old boozer", laying wooden flooring throughout, brightening things up.  The old world charm remains, but now there's a touch of modern elegance as well.  All this means that there are, inevitably, locals in this local.  Scott and Jules remember names, everyone chats socially, and it's clearly a meeting place for the neighbourhood.

It's the food, inevitably, that gets us through the door.  (At two miles, it's just far enough to keep us from wandering by for the swift pint alone.)  We've come to depend on seasonal specialities, local game, good sauces, deftly-handled vegetables and tasty desserts, all prepared well and served with attention to presentation.  Saturday was no different.

I started with a duck and cranberry terrine served with warm brioche which, had I been restraining my appetite, would have been enough for the whole meal.  Piers tucked into the ultimate winter warmer: an enormous home-made Scotch egg (above), centre still jigglingly soft, served on a salad studded with black pudding.  Our friend Guy went a bit lighter with a line of bacon-wrapped sardines.

The specials menu was so tempting we each were deciding between three possibilities.  I don't think there was a chance to go wrong, however.  We all ordered different things, and all proclaimed satisfaction. I had my first venison of the new season, rare with a rich sauce and horseradish mash that was worth giving up carbs the rest of the week for.  Across the table, my second choice of Gressingham duck looked fabulous (and tasted so, too, in the bite he gave me).  Guy's tower of liver and onions on a bed of creamy mash actually smelled good enough that I might reconsider my aversion to this dish in future.  I ended with a slice of lemon tart, which was no doubt an indulgence too far, but I wanted something to cut the rich flavours that had gone before.   (The boys settled for more wine.)

The next morning we went clay shooting.  It was an exquisite early Autumn day: trees just touched by hints of red and yellow, clear blue skies with billowing white clouds, just a hint of chill in the air.  The view from Chalky Hill offers up a panorama of rolling, pastoral beauty. There are few things so quintessentially English as being out in this landscape, surrounded by people in tweed and Barbours, well-behaved hunting dogs at their sides, practicing your shooting skills.  Just in case you get invited up to the big house sometime soon to bring down a few grouse.  I, of course, won't bring down anything unless I practice a great deal more … although I do seem to be better with the clays that mimic rabbits.  It might be the memory of the little pests that ate my flower garden in Texas.

Such a morning pretty much demands lunch at a country pub so, being on the other side of Basingstoke, we headed for The Queen in Dummer.  When we lived nearby, this was the best gastropub in the area.  It's high on charm, and the menu looked promising.

Just like the horseshoes, there's a standard pub menu and specials on the board.  But the arrival of the food revealed a vast divide between the two kitchens.  Scallops tasted past their prime and hadn't been cleaned thoroughly, corals neither removed nor fully included.  That might have been excusable, but grinding your teeth against bits of shell was not.  Salt and chili squid had a too-heavy breading that made them look suspiciously like they'd come out of a freezer bag.  Local wild boar lacked seasoning and was let down by what was supposed to be an apple and Armagnac sauce, but was just a sweet, gloopy mess of onions.

Everything came out on the same heavy, industrial white plates, potatoes and veg piled on artlessly.  Rationally, I know presentation does nothing for the taste of the food.  But the Horseshoes has invested in new china of different shapes to show off different dishes, and dresses them with an artful tower here, or a swirl of balsamic glaze there.  It ads to the sense of occasion.  At The Queen, the plates looked no different than what you might dish up at home in a hurry.

Such a stark contrast, so soon after a fine dinner at The Horseshoes, reminded us that if we're staying local … we might as well stay really local.  Because we have something special on the doorstep.  And those of you without the gastropub of your dreams?  Climb in the car and head to North Hampshire.  We'll meet you for a pint.  And maybe the chef's tasty rabbit papardelle with mustard cream sauce.


Sadly, The Four Horseshoes lost its chef during the summer of '15 and the owners decided they'd had enough of the business. A change of management is on the cards. Until new ownership and a fresh review, this article is no longer an endorsement, but a fond memory of what a local can be.

MasterChef pop-up a fine concept that falls down when it gets to the table

If the intent of the MasterChef pop-up restaurant is to give you the feeling of being a judge ... some highs, some lows, a couple disasters, all with charming personality ... then the culinary franchise's current London offering is a success.  If, however, it was supposed to deliver a fine dining experience to match a "proper" restaurant, I fear that, at least last night, they've failed.

The concept is a fine one.  Especially in this foodie-filled capital, where thousands of prosperous professionals follow the shows with the same devotion they'd give to a football club.  (My husband and I bonded, early in our relationship, texting commentary back and forth while watching Series 6 from our respective sofas.)


Take over the top-floor canteen of a London office building with a fine view (the Blue Fin) for five weeks.  Line up 12 former winners and finalists. putting three in the kitchen at a time.  Let each trio design a five-course tasting menu.  Advertise.  Sell out in advance.  Invite diners to arrive early for pop-up bar in the roof garden with stunning views.  Feed them, while allowing them to peek into the kitchen where the stars are at work.  Have the chefs work the room a bit as they near the end of service.


But beware, MasterChef.  These aren't just regular diners.  You've self-selected a group serious about their food, attuned to culinary criticism and with high, and informed, expectations.  Expectations that neither the food nor the service lived up to.

We started with 2010 winner Dhruv Baker's spiced crab cakes with tamarind yogurt dressing.  Which didn't hit the table until more than half an hour after we sat down; we were left alone so long we thought they'd forgotten about us.  Light on crab, heavy on potato; if he'd called them crab croquetas they would have worked, but as crab cakes they fell short.  The dressing was the best part of the dish, but I felt myself channelling Greg Wallace: I want more sauce, mate!  The elegant presentation was, oddly, let down by a black plastic plate.  Was picnic-ware part of the pop-up experience?  (No, other courses were on proper china.)

The second starter, a pork and prosciutto terrine (pictured), was more successful.  This came from 2012 finalist Tom Rennolds, who many will remember as the perfectionist plasterer turned king of presentation.  Mouthfuls of chewy porcine goodness, with a lovely textural element added by the crunch of popcorn and crispy prosciutto on top.  But I hit two pieces of gristle so hard I could have cracked a crown had I been chewing with more force.  Schoolboy error.

We were excited about 2012 finalist Andrew Kojima's scallops, mackerel and sea bass with soba noodles, miso butter and ponzu.  It was exactly the kind of Anglo-Japanese fusion that made him so appealing as a contestant.  But the balance was wrong, with the mackerel overwhelming the other fish, made worse by the fact its skin was flabbily inedible.

Dhruv rode to the rescue with a main course of Achari-spiced duck with carrots and plum jus, a beautiful balance of sweet and savoury with a complexity of spices.  We wanted more.

Dessert was another high point, with two offerings on the same plate.  To one side, Dhruv's lemon, lime and cardamom tart with chai masala, another triumph of Asian fusion.  But it was Koj who pushed all my pleasure buttons with a melt-in-mouth pistachio cake with burnt white chocolate ice cream.

These were served at erratic intervals, some coming quickly and others taking so long we expected one of those classic MasterChef scenes where the contestant pops out of the kitchen to apologise for a bit of a crisis and say he needed 10 more minutes.  Perhaps the fire alarm that went off mid-meal?  Though this, presumably, only excused the timing on the fish course.

The delays gave us time to ponder the extreme youth and variable quality of the wait staff.  The table beside us seemed to have chatty fellows who explained who'd designed each dish and gave a bit of detail.  Ours just put the plates down with a smile and recited the dish name that was in the menu.  We wondered if the whole pop-up was an apprentice scheme to train up new, young talent?  If so, good for them.  But warn us so we can modify our expectations.

As the evening wound down, Dhruv and Koj wandered out of the kitchen to do some table hopping.  No sign of Tom.  Clearly, nobody had organised this.  The ideal would have been to give the three a rotation, so every table got a couple of minutes with one of the star attractions.  Sadly, it was far more casual, with them spending lots of time at a handful of tables (not ours, sadly!) and drifting away.

I'm enough of a fan of the franchise to watch out for a return of the pop-up in 2015, and I'll probably book a table.  But I do hope they work out the kinks.  I'd prefer to be channelling a bit more satisfied diner, and a bit less John and Greg.

Undersea adventures make the Maldives truly unique

The sea turtle swam towards me with a fin upraised, as if wanting a "high five".  He looked at me for a moment, close enough that I could clearly see his beaked mouth and look into his gentle eyes.  I popped my head out of the water, looking to alert my fellow snorkelers, but they were on the other side of the reef.  So I returned to the turtle, who had now started poking around in the coral below ... a thicket of what looked like stag antlers, with bright blue tips ... for a snack.  I was close enough to stroke his shell, and he wasn't bothered.  We swam along like that for a while, at peace in the quiet waters.

And that was after I'd been swimming with whale sharks.

I've been on a lot of magnificent beach holidays, but never one as good as The Maldives once you get in the water.  I quickly realised that a holiday here is much like an African safari, alternating bursts of wildlife observation with breaks to recover from your awe.  People who think they'd be bored "just sitting on a beach" are missing the point; the magic here is beyond the beach.

The unique geology of the Maldives has a lot to do with it.  If you're lucky enough to need a sea plane to get to your resort ... something I highly recommend for the full experience ... you'll see that this place is very different.  Imagine thousands of tiny islands poking their heads above swathes of coral reef, made obvious from the air because of the variations of lighter blues that differentiate them from the indigo of the deep sea.  When seen from above, you realise the reefs and islands usually comprise circles, and these smaller circles form the line of much larger ones.

Together, these make up the atolls, of which there are 26 spread over 80,000 square kilometers.  The theory has it that this is what's left of an impossibly ancient chain of volcanoes.  The peaks themselves wore down long ago, but the coral reefs that surrounded them ... which, after all, are living things ... still survive.

An aquatic metropolis

Besides making for spectacularly beautiful views, this geology has tremendous advantages for the tourist.  All these reefs break and calm the waves, so at sea level you have the illusion of being in the middle of the ocean, but it's still calm and placid as a lake.  The shallows around the islands are expansive.  From our villa you could walk out for almost one hundred yards at high tide on nothing but powdery sand, the water never much past your waist.  The sand is white, the water turquoise, and the sun above gives the surface an undulating violet sheen.  Elsewhere off these islands, however, you can put on your fins, start swimming, and be over reefs and fish in 15 strong kicks.  And, of course, all these coral reefs are a source of food and housing for a dazzling variety of fish.  For humans, this might be the middle of nowhere, but it's a piscine New York City.

Snorkel and fins came with our hotel package and, I suspect, do at most resorts.  This means that once you're here ... admittedly, an expensive proposition ... activity is free.  You can float and observe for hours without ever getting bored.

My favourites were the obscenely coloured parrot fish, usually violet with teal accents and touches of red, yellow and green.  Though I saw turquoise and burgundy varieties as well.  These odd fish, about the size of a small lapdog, have industrial-strength gnashers they use to actually take bites out of the reef.  When they're swimming as a school, you can hear them chewing before you see them.  Their digestive systems filter out the nutrients, break down what's left and excrete it as sand.  Yes, those lovely beaches are ... parrot fish poop.

But they're just the showiest guys in the neighbourhood.  You'll spot every shade of neon in stripes,
swirls and dots.  Hover over a round coral, its filaments dancing in the current like hair, and watch 200 tiny, electric blue tadpoles dart in and out.  Laugh at schools of yellow and black striped fish that look like escaping convicts.  Inspect the horn on the odd unicorn fish, who can get away with being boring black because that thing coming out of his head is so distinctive.  Gawp when the giant clams occasionally open and close their garish orange and blue lips.  After day two, you won't even pay attention to the small black-finned sharks or the rays hovering in the shallows, so common are they.  It is often hard to believe this is real, rather than some animatronic set concocted by Disney for its "Finding Nemo" ride.

Of course, if you want to spend money, there are special excursions to be had.  Dolphin watching aboard one of the native dhoni boats, its prow curved like an Egyptian pharaoh's barge, is the most typical.  There are enough of our aquatic cousins gambolling in these waters to almost guarantee you'll end up gliding along next to a pod, watching them arch, dive and ... it you're lucky ... pirouette in flashy leaps.

The dive shop at Moofushi did an intro to scuba experience for $130 a person.  The entry barriers to this activity can be daunting: expensive and time-consuming qualifications, equipment, etc.  Here, we had half an hour of instruction on the basics (main take out: never hold your breath or your lungs might explode), got kitted out and headed for the water.  The two of us had our own dive instructor, Massimo, who stayed close and ensured everything went smoothly.  After making sure we had the basics of breathing down in the shallows next to the main dock, we headed for the adjoining reef and he pushed us down to two or three meters.  Quite literally "pushed"; he was above the two of us, hands on our backs, controlling our depth and ready to pull us to the surface at the slightest hint of trouble.

As an introduction, it was magnificent.  And great to do something totally new for a new decade (we did it the morning of my birthday).  Overall, I am yet to be convinced that it is worth the vast cost differential from the essentially free snorkelling.  Other than a menacing eel and getting closer to some of the more interesting coral, we didn't see much more from under the water than we did from on top.  But I'm open to further experimentation.  After all, I wasn't crazy about my first spa experience ... and now I'm an addict.

A whale of a time
Our biggest excursion investment, however, was a full-day whale shark adventure.  At $250 per person we thought about that one quite a bit before signing up, but agreed it was worth every penny.  It was the highlight of the whole Moofushi stay.

Whale sharks are the largest fish on the planet ... remember, whales themselves are mammals rather than fish ... and The Maldives hosts one of the world's largest colonies.  There are about 200 males and six females now living off these reefs.  They are gentle giants, on average about 9 metres long, who feed on plankton.  They rise from the depths at meal time and hang in the current a couple of meters below the surface, their massive mouths opened to filter the water bringing their food.  It's this habit that makes them easy to swim with, if you can spot them.  They're content to let you hover and swim with them, as long as you give them a fair buffer.  Get too close, you'll spook them and they'll return to the depths.

We quickly realised our premium pricing went for a fine boat, limited numbers and professional spotters.  One was even a fully-qualified marine biologist.  Our speedboat spent 45 minutes zipping us past reefs, other resorts and tiny uninhabited islands before we got to the long chain that formed the southern edge of our atoll.  Then the spotters went to work.  One on the prow, two on the roof, spotting for the telltale shadow in the water as we trolled up and down their usual hunting grounds.  For more than an hour we saw no sharks … just an entertaining pod of dolphins and several other boats doing the same as us.  These, however, were slow-moving dhonis, mostly filled with Chinese tourists.

We were beginning to give up hope when our crew told us to get ready and sped us to the bit of water they'd spotted.  Over the side we went, and there she was.  No more than four meters away, sometimes much closer.  So close, in fact, that I watched as Piers hit the water and, unsure where she was, almost collided with her snout as he got his bearings.

The fish are majestic and awe inspiring in their size.  Roughly the length of a city bus, with a mouth as wide as a young teenager.  Even though you know they only eat plankton, when you're in front of one, letting it swim toward you, you can't help but be terrified of that gaping maw.  Fortunately, our girl wasn't bothered by our presence at all, and we were able to swim along with her for 10 minutes.  Enough time to inspect her from every angle.  Hanging above her middle, seeing the way the white spot and lines on her grey skin formed the perfect "dazzle" camouflage in the sun-dappled shallows.  Swimming respectfully behind her, imagining just how lethal that swinging tail could be if you got in the way.  (Our biologist guide had been very clear about keeping well clear.)

And then the Chinese arrived.  I wouldn't want to make any generalisations about a whole nationality, I'll only say that these groups paid little attention to the instructions not to get close, and flailed around in the water as if they were all new to swimming.  The result?  Our shark dove to avoid the ruckus.  We swam back to our speedboat.  Three more times our spotters got us to a shark in front of the hoards.  And that, we realised, was what we were paying for.  The edge over the bigger, slower groups.

Having tired ourselves out with the sharks, we headed off to a desert island for a spot of lunch.  Then a bit of snorkelling on a reef full of sea turtles, including my special friend.  What a day.  What a place.

Welcome to paradise … it's called Moofushi

Americans of a certain age will acknowledge the formative influence of a show called Fantasy Island.  Every week, a sea plane dropped a new bunch of guests into a tropical paradise, where a benign, god-like host arranged scenarios to make the guests' deepest desires come true.

I hadn't thought of that show for years, but it was ... inevitably … repeating through my brain as our own sea plane touched down on the indigo waves and nudged the Constance Moofushi's floating dock.  Sure enough, a group of staff members waited to greet us by name, one person per couple, whisking us into their island paradise.  "No News, No Shoes beyond this point" read the entry sign; a fitting summary of the complete relaxation to come.

This luxury resort in the Maldives is, quite simply, the culmination of every dream of a beach holiday I've ever had.  White, sandy beaches.  Water at that perfect temperature: warm enough to stroll right in, cool enough to refresh in the heat of the day.  Reefs a short swim from shore busy with tropical fish.  Each room a luxuriously appointed thatched "hut".  Ours on stilts over the water.  Friendly, unobtrusive staff.  Tiki bar by the infinity pool with exotic cocktails.  Excellent food, fine wine list.

I banked cash for two years to get here, and it delivered on every expectation.  If I ever win the lottery, I'm coming here for at least a month each year.  The problem now is … how will any future beach holiday compare?

Browsing a brochure back in England a year ago, all of the resorts looked pretty much the same.  How to choose?  In true marketing boss fashion, I decided to go with brand loyalty.  We'd had a magnificent honeymoon at the Constance Prince Maurice on Mauritius.  Why not give the chain another try?  I was delighted to be proven right.

The mood here is different from its Mauritian sister, however.  That hotel had grand architecture and a sophisticated evening vibe.  Here, deep into the Indian Ocean close to the equator, they're going for luxury Robinson Crusoe.  The thatched hut look is repeated on all of the island's buildings, sand forms most floors and everyone, including the staff, is welcome to go barefoot at all times.  It took Crusoe a while to explore his island.  You could walk around this one in 30 extremely leisurely minutes.

Moofushi is really no more than a palm-crowded sand spit atop a coral reef.  At its heart there's a restaurant, sides open to the air with views over the lagoon where the resort's dhoni boats are moored.  Their colourful, curved prows whisper of exotic voyages.  The thatched bar next door features one of the few solid floors in the place, should you fancy a dance.  We were more inclined to settle into comfy armchairs to play backgammon; one of multiple board games available for guests.  Across from the bar, reception occupies another round, open-aired pavilion.  The sandy square between them is as close to a hotel lobby as you get, one side leading to the pier that welcomes boats and sea planes, the other fronting the dive shop and a small boutique.  (The latter is mostly filled with high-bling beach wear in very small sizes, one suspects targeted at the profusion of new brides from Russia and China.)

Heading away from the restaurant in the other direction, you find a library-cum-billards room before a path plunges into a thicket of tropical vegetation.  It's an illusion of density, however, as it's only 20 or 30 yards before you come to the spa on your left, its welcome pavilion forming a gate to a lagoon-topping pier off which individual treatment huts branch.  Tucked to one side on the beach is a yoga pavilion, positioned to catch the rising sun.  Not something we ever caught, as our slug-a-bed mornings meant we only made it to breakfast two days out of 10.  Beyond this is the second restaurant, really no more than a couple of tented decks and tables on the sand.

Across from the spa and restaurant is a small but fully kitted-out gym, which I did manage to get to on my first morning.  After that, I'd picked up my snorkel gear and thought: why exercise indoors when I can swim?    Behind this, cleverly camouflaged from the guests, the islands tiny "inland" houses the staff, the kitchens and the power and desalination plants that make life possible here.

Continue on 30 or 40 more steps and you've reached the Totem Bar.  It's decorated with those figures that look unspeakably tacky when moulded into plastic coconuts for Tiki Bar parties, but here somehow manage to look cool and elegant.  Outdoor sofas and thickly-padded armchairs are scattered in the sand beneath the palms.  Beside that, there's a crescent-shaped infinity pool, its tiles a deep charcoal so as not to compete with the shocking blues, whites and greens of the seascape beyond.  A few more steps, and you've reached the other end of the island, a beach to your right stretching backwards around that cleverly-hidden staff area, to meet back up with that reception hut that marks the other pole of your watery existence.

About 20 villas are nestled in greenery along that beach, so well camouflaged that you could easily walk by the area without realising there was accommodation there.  These are the least expensive options, and while I suppose it's better than not getting here at all, I don't see the point of coming this far unless you buy into what The Maldives is famous for: over-water villas.

The wooden piers extending from each side of Moofushi essentially triple the length of the island, and these are where you find most of the accommodation.  This being the big birthday trip, I splurged on a senior water villa.  These are strung along the tip of the Western pier, presumably for the finest views of the sunset.

I'm unsure that the upgrade was worth the money.  From what I saw the interiors were pretty much the

same.  Cathedral ceilings, pale wood, abstract decor in vaguely sea-creature forms, generous shower and dressing area, glass walls and sliding screens giving you the ability to close yourself off, or feel at sea.  Careful placement and bamboo partitions shielded you from your neighbours.  Beyond your sleeping area, sliding glass doors gave on to a deck with both chairs and loungers, with steps descending to the sea.  The senior water villa addition was a bit more square footage, and an outdoor shower and bath.

Now, I have to admit that I loved the bath.  I quickly developed a late afternoon routine.  Swing by the Totem, pick up a cocktail, bring it back to the room, run a bath and soak off the salt water while sipping away and reading my Kindle.  Though the bath is on the boardwalk side of the villa, it's enclosed by bamboo screening and on a plinth standing in the sea, so you look over the edge and you're peering into shallow water through which the occasional fish glides.  Peer over one shoulder, along the edge of the villa, and you could take in the whole seascape.  Magnificent.  But as the only differentiator, I could probably slide down to the regular water villa and save some cash.  Especially since we realised that it was the senior water villas, with extra room for extra beds, that were most likely to house that scourge of any elegant holiday:  children.  After careful consideration, we've staked out water villas 45 or 46 as our ideal for a return visit.

The Maldives has a "one island, one resort" policy, and each one is reached only by motorboat or sea plane.  (In Moofushi's case, it's a journey of about 45 minutes in the air.)  This means that once you've arrived, you're a captive audience.  Surprisingly, most of the resorts are not all inclusive.  Meaning you're stuck with whatever price their bars and restaurants charge for the duration of your stay.  Terrified by tales of £10 bottles of water and people tripling their total holiday cost with food and drink, we also chose Moofushi because it was one of just a few all inclusive resorts.  It worked out even better than I expected, as I'll relate in a future entry.

All the spectacular views and creature comforts are enhanced by a top-quality staff.  Again, there's a slight difference from the Prince Maurice.  There, it was all quiet and respectful; even though the staff-to-guest ratio was spectacular, the ethos was to make your life perfect and then disappear.  And it was always "Mrs. Bencard".  The formality fit the architecture.

At Moofushi there's a casual bonhomie that matches the barefoot chic.  Every staff member grins and gives you a merry greeting when you pass, and you're quickly on first-name basis with many.  Or is it just us who get to know the head chefs and the sommelier staff within 48 hours of arrival?  More of them to come, as well.

The Constance Moofushi has left me with a terrible problem.  In every aspect, it was so close to my idea of paradise, that I don't want to go anywhere else for a special occasion holiday for the rest of my life.  And yet … after superlative experiences at two of the Constance hotels, I'm dying to try some of the others.  If only that lottery win would come through.