Taking off: what's new in the world

Camp it up
How’s this for one-upmanship? Sign up for a unique dating event at the Shard and you could be overnighting at the top of London’s tallest building for a fraction of the cost of a room at the Shangri-La below. While the swish new hotel reaches no higher than floor 52, the Sleepover event will take over floors 69 and 72, with bell tents and sleeping mats provided. Live music, a cash bar and, er, “interesting talks” will be laid on during the evening to get you in the mood for romance.
Saturday; from £50; designmynight.com

Get on down
Want to meet a Maori tribal leader, ride the Ghan train or head deep into the Red Centre? A new tour operator, Distant Journeys, is offering a trio of three- and four-week escorted trips in Australia and New Zealand to mark its launch. The emphasis is on flexibility and value, with stopovers in Singapore and Bangkok possible for £29pp — little more than the cost of a couple of rounds of Victoria Bitter.
From £3,495pp for 23 days, including flights; distantjourneys.co.uk

Call the shots
FootGolf, the one form of the beautiful game at which Barcelona might be rubbish, is being launched today at a Lancashire hotel. The hybrid sport, which involves trying to get footballs into oversized holes with as few touches as possible, is available at the Best Western Mytton Fold Hotel & Golf Club.
From £10; rooms from £75; bestwestern.co.uk

Briefing

Calais clashes
P&O Ferries has pledged to continue operating services to Calais as normal despite security breaches last week. The most serious saw 100 migrants storm the port, forcing a P&O vessel to delay mooring. “We’ve never before seen such audacious behaviour,” it said. “These migrants are desperate.” The firm has called for security
to be ramped up to ensure the safety of its passengers and crew.

Ski host ban stays
British ski reps will be unable to provide piste tours to holidaymakers in France for at least another winter after an appeal court in Chambéry upheld the ban on so-called “ski hosting”. Le Ski, the Yorkshire-based operator at the centre of the dispute with the French national ski school, is expected to appeal against Thursday’s decision to the supreme court in Paris. Le Ski, which is backed by a number of fellow UK operators, said it was “disappointed”.

Hotels write back
Hoteliers and B&B owners who respond to reviews on TripAdvisor are 21% more likely to receive a booking, research by the site claims. But the biggest boost for business comes when owners add pictures — with a single image found to increase inquiries by 225%.

Spanish ‘death trail’ reopens
El Caminito del Rey, described as the most terrifying hiking route on Earth, is to reopen in January after a £1.7m renovation project. The 3ft-wide path, in the Guadalhorce gorge, near Malaga, was opened in 1921, but has since fallen into dangerous disrepair. It was closed to thrill-seekers in 2000 after a spate of deaths.

Burning issue

Q Am I within my rights to glare at the parents of screaming babies on flights?

A Of course. Their jet-setting offspring have ruined your preflight skim of the paper, disturbed your postprandial snooze and are now sucking the dramatic tension out of Wolverine. Don’t these parents know what they’re putting you through? Possibly not, as they haven’t slept/chatted in peace/ gone to the cinema for years. This isn’t a holiday for them — it’s a lunge at rapidly receding sanity. In this context, a gauntlet of glares is a bit “so what?”, passive-aggressive popcorn bouncing off their pachyderm-thick hide. So turn up Wolverine, order another G&T and glare away. If you make the child burst into tears again, you’ve only got yourself to blame.

The Insider: big cats

Jonathan Scott is a London-born zoologist, author and former winner of Wildlife Photographer of the Year. He has spent nearly 40 years in Kenya’s Masai Mara National Reserve and has presented a number of wildlife TV shows, including the BBC’s Big Cat Diary (jonathanangelascott.com).

I’m infatuated by Kenya. We have a house in Nairobi, but the Masai Mara is our home. This is the Born Free country of savanna, wide-open plains and flat-topped acacias.

Governors’ (governorscamp.com) is a great place to base yourself to see the Marsh pride of lions made famous by the Big Cat series. The pride currently comprises three groups of families, with four big males that we call the Musketeers. One lost an eye in a fight. He’s Scarface — a real warrior.

Another camp I like is Rekero (rekero.asiliaafrica.com), on the Talek River. It’s small, with a maximum of 20 people, and is a real hotspot for leopards. The Masai themselves are the guides and, boy, do they know what they’re doing. It’s also good for cheetahs, which are becoming harder to see. They don’t scavenge, so they must kill their own food, and the cubs are vulnerable to hyena.

I go to Elephant Pepper Camp (elephantpeppercamp.com) the whole time. There’s more woodland there, and it’s on a rocky ridge, so you get a different feel.

I always say to people that if they come on safari in Africa, do the Mara last. However wonderful everything else is, it will pale by comparison. We get the migrating wildebeest and zebras, because we’re part of the Serengeti ecosystem — and of course the lions are always here, as they’re territorial. People assume that more camps mean better value for money. That’s not the case. You need to base yourself somewhere, three nights minimum, to take it all in.

You looking at me?

Finding Nemo among the thick tentacles of an anemone is no foregone conclusion. The clownfish, also called the anemonefish, uses the flower-like creatures for protection, as seen in this image from the Great Barrier Reef. It’s from a new book, Dive: The World’s Best Diving Destinations, by the veteran diver Lawson Wood, which covers more than 250 sites, from the Florida Keys to the atolls of French Polynesia. £17; quercusbooks.co.uk