The Good Gift-shop Guide

Don't waste time trudging around town in search of the perfect gift. We've done the hard work for you and identified Melbourne's best pressie purveyors. Compiled by Rachel Wells, Miranda Tay, Melissa Kent and Michelle Griffin.

Stark Show Of Potential

The wide variety of works at a Newcastle University exhibition shows its potential as an art centre.

Home Style

Rise and shine Here's a neat accessory for iPod fans - a compact yet powerful speaker system with alarm clock that allows you to wake up to your favourite iPod tunes, FM radio or a buzzer. The GrooveTime II, with back-lit LED display showing time and volume, comes with a full-function remote and syncs to your computer via a USB jack. $139.95. For stockists phone (03) 9429 2552 or see www.cygnett.com.

A Scotch On The Rocks

With a whisky in one hand and a book in the other, Saska Graville revels in a Scottish island getaway. Jura Lodge is in a league of its own.

Insider Trading

Where is the best fabric store? How do you find a good upholsterer? And where are the best sales? Andrea Millar asks five design industry insiders to reveal their secrets.

Fifty Finds

A snapshot of 50 top homeware stores, one piece at a time. By Lisa Chivers A. Louis Poulsen pendant light, $450, Le Contraste, Windsor. French period, Danish and 20th-century decor.

Hill Of Content

The newly renovated apartment of fashion designer Alannah Hill is the perfect backdrop for her fantasy lifestyle, writes Jacinta Le Plastrier Aboukhater.

Virgin Territory

In order to study sex, scientists need volunteers. Journalist Mary Roach reports what happened when she and her husband did the deed under lab conditions.

Feelin'warm And Smoky

Soft textures and rich chocolate browns are in this winter, and here to stay.

Barfly

Mockingbird, 129 Fitzroy Street, St Kilda, 9534 0000

Big Questions Nothing To Be Sniffed At

AS THE influx of fashionable retirees with short-cropped hair and too-big resin earrings in the inner city over the past few days demonstrates, the Sydney Writers' Festival is almost upon us. Like past years, a number of the festival's panel topics have been presented in the form of a single question. Here we provide answers to those questions.

24 Hours In London

"Up and down the City Road, in and out the Eagle, that's the way the money goes ..." Despite the nursery rhyme, spending time in Islington and adjoining boroughs needn't cost a lot.

Tetsuya, Eat Your Heart Out

Rob McFarland acts on a hot tip and finds a restaurant almost too good to believe. There is only one option available: a 10-course set menu.

Water Worlds

Bathrooms have become the luxury haven of the home, Jodie Thomson writes.

Perfect Presents: From Puppies To Perfumes

A PET becomes a friend for life, says Brenda Murphy. At her Neutral Bay shop, Four Legged Friends, she sells puppies, kittens, rabbits, guinea pigs, budgies, cockatiels and goldfish. Dog breeds at her shop include Maltese terriers, Shih tzus, minipoodles and cocker spaniels. Cats include Himalaya

The Gallery You Can Resort To For Fine Art

IN THE small spa resort town of Daylesford, in central Victoria, there is an art and craft gallery that is attracting visitors at an astonishing average of 3,500 a week. Of course it is bigger than the usual run of resort art and craft shop: a three-storey former convent and boarding school

Deck The Halls For Little Lolly

CHRISTMAS just isn't Christmas without the odd sprig of holly balanced on the mantelpiece and a few decorative tinsel twists hanging from the picture frames. It's easiest to raid the local variety store for coloured balls and glitter, but an abundance of bought ornaments tends to the cheap-and-