Lifestyle

Renowned for its history of art, architecture and music, it is hard to find someone who hasn't fallen in love with Venice. It was the masks that first drew me in: the colours, the intricate, beautiful designs, the feathers and the doll-like delicacy in their features. Carnival masks are a part of the city as much as the canals, gondolas and St Marks Basilica. The actual wearing of masks in Venice has a chequered history. In the beginning they were allowed to be worn at all major events, bar religious festivals. But in 1339 the wearing of masks was limited to daytime and in 1608 the anonymity and immoral behaviour associated with wearing a mask led to them being banned apart for carnival and banquets. If you were going to Venice specifically to revel in the wonders of these beautiful works...

In my time as a university student I've done an awful lot of cooking with alcohol. Some of the alcohol even made its way into the food. This tomato vodka pasta is a simple, speedy recipe, and if you make it once I promise you will be craving it again soon. It's excellent food for a hangover, and this recipe makes enough for two servings so you can share it with a friend or pack some up and take it with you to the library for some great-tasting brain food. You won't get intoxicated from eating this recipe because the alcohol evaporates as it cooks, but it leaves the tomatoes tasting splendid. Ingredients 1 red onion, chopped 3 garlic cloves, chopped 1 tbsp olive oil 20g butter 200ml vodka 400g can of chopped tomatoes 1 vegetable stock cube 1 tsp of dried rosemary 100 ml double cream 125g p...

Freddie Rayner: I've been modelling since I was 17 – I got scouted waiting for a bus in my school uniform and it's been a roller coaster ever since. There have been crazy shoots… there was one in Paris where we had to get up at some god-awful time and we ended up just running around the city. It's quite difficult to find clothes in my size so I usually go all over. If I see something cool I'll probably buy it – but knowing me I'd probably wreck it a few days later. If I could, I would probably change my height, by about an inch or two. My favourite thing about myself? I'd say it's the travel I've been on – it just feels really good to know I can ship myself off to the furthest flung places across the world and somehow survive. Photography: Gyan Gurang

A quick and cheap way of getting around, if you don't mind death-defying driving, sardine-like people-packing or being handed a child/chicken to hold on your lap for the entire journey. A ‘Dale Dale' ( dar-lay dar-lay) is a minibus taken to various stops in and out of town. A 20 minute ride costs about 30p. Your best chances of catching a ride is to find the nearest ‘station', as it were – a sort of large gathering zone where many start their routes. It basically looks like a large herd of white minivans surrounded by drivers shouting and packing as many people into their vans as they can possibly hold. The first thing to note is that the locals take their people-cramming skills to a serious level. The other issue is the stops: seeing where you are, or where to get off, can be difficult t...

The 1920's Flapper-Girl image is recognisable to all. Low waistlines, bob cuts, strings of beads long enough to play a somewhat overly-elegant game of ‘Cat's Cradle' and bright red pouting lips. With Baz Luhrmann's visually exhilarating adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's ‘The Great Gatsby' sparkling away on Britain's silver screens, it's no wonder high street shoppers are being inundated with all things dapper and flapper. For those who could afford it, the Roaring Twenties was an era of extravagance, late nights and the disregard of previous stuffy social standards. Women tore off their corsets and showed a bit of leg, men put on their dancing shoes and the party never ended. Now, it's here that I spot some correlation between the guys and dolls of the Twenties and us, in the here and n...