It’s taken a while, but New Orleans gets its best hotel back when the Ritz-Carlton (www.ritz-carlton.com; doubles from £89) reopens on Monday week. It’s had a general post-Katrina spruce-up, and it’s introduced some cool spa treatments: we rather fancy the Voodoo Love Massage.
Probably the best job in the world
Neofile was sorely tempted to apply for this one: Sheraton hotels is recruiting a chief beer officer. Duties will include regularly tasting all beers sold at the hotels, researching new beers and... well, generally consuming a lot of beer. They’re not disclosing the salary, but at least they can’t fire you for drinking on the job.
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Expensive innings
It calls itself the most highly rated hotel in the southwest: we’ll find out whether the new incarnation lives up to the billing when Gidleigh Park (www.gidleigh.com), the Arts and Crafts pile on the edge of Dartmoor, reopens on December 11 after a year of serious renovation. The two- Michelin-starred Michael Caines is still there, but much else is new: the two-bedroom converted cricket pavilion sounds tasty. It had better be good, mind. Doubles with dinner go from £440 to a thumping £1,200 a night.
It’s all research, you know
Cynics might call it a suspiciously stellar line-up for a new event: Kiran Desai, fresh from her Booker triumph, Victoria Glendinning, William Dalrymple and Mark Tully will all be at the first Galle Literary Festival, in Sri Lanka (January 10–14). “It is remarkable,” say the baffled-sounding organisers. “Most of the authors approached us, actually.” Couldn’t be that a week on a tropical beach was more enticing than wrestling with the muse, could it? Cazenove+Loyd (020 7384 2332, www.cazloyd.com) has a week covering the festival, at the boutique Galle Fort, from £1,290.
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Hand relief
Sign of the times: Hyatt has launched a massage treatment designed to counteract BlackBerry thumb, curse of the stressed exec traveller. We’re all in favour — anything that keeps them off their mobiles.