London has renamed some Tube lines - here’s why Londoners aren’t happy

Edward Thomas’s In Pursuit of Spring, published more than a century ago, is a classic in the nature lover’s library, a lyrical account of the poet’s journey from London to Somerset seeking signs of the coming season. Setting out from a rainy Wandsworth in March 1913, shaking loose a long winter, Thomas yearned for apple blossom and cuckoo flowers, “the perfume of sunny earth”, and the nightingale’s song. “Would the bees be heard instead of the wind?” he questioned anxiously.

Delta Air Lines is making some notable changes to its route network.

The flights are perfectly timed to connect on to the airlines’ North American services to New York, Boston, Toronto and Montreal.

The RJ plan is focused on expanding the network of destinations to reach 60 and increasing the size of its fleet of aircraft to almost 40 in the coming years to cater to the growth and development witnessed by the air transport industry and the growing travel demand.

It is easy to see why Bangkok is such a popular travel destination. Bursting with color and culture, exuberant temples and delectable street food, it is no wonder that this is one of the world’s most-visited cities.

A holiday is always a good day to market travel deals. But what about a holiday that comes not ‘but once a year’ like Christmas, but just once every four years?

Grapes have been associated with pleasure since ancient times, a symbol of Bacchus, the god of wine and revelry. These days, clusters of plummy Concords, oval autumn royals and dusky kyohos are decorating dinner tables, doubling as cornucopian decorations and low-effort snacks. “You can get a beautiful, imperfect drip and drape from grapes,” says the interior stylist Colin King, 35, who overflowed a marble urn with abundant mounds of them for the launch of his furniture collection, a collaboration with the Future Perfect, in New York this past fall. Although he uses green grapes for daytime parties, for evening events he prefers the “moody, sensual vibe” of dark varieties — like the attenuated, oblong moon drops that the artist Laila Gohar, 35, mixed with red globes and flames to form an edible monolith for the recent opening of the Essentiel Antwerp clothing store in New York. The chef Mina Stone, 42 — who runs Mina’s, the cafe at MoMA PS1 in Queens, and is a go-to caterer for art gallery dinners — favors Thomcords, a sweet, seedless hybrid she often serves with dessert to “provide heft and a colorful backdrop” for daintier confections. She also likes to roast grapes alongside seared duck breast. In London, the pastry chef Claire Ptak, the owner of Violet bakery, offers what she calls fragolina cupcakes, named for the fragola (Italian for “strawberry”) grapes that she cooks down, then purées and adds to the buttercream frosting. The fragolas “taste like a berryish Concord,” says Ptak, 49, who tops each cake with a small cluster of fruit. The frosted treats “transport you back to childhood when you take the first bite,” she says, “and then you realize they’re also very grown-up.” —

Norwegian low-cost airline Norse Atlantic is heading for Nigeria. The addition of the West African nation is unusual for the carrier, which usually flies from Europe to the United States and the Caribbean.

Australian airline Qantas has delayed the start of its flight from Sydney to New York — slated to be the longest flight in the world — to 2026, citing aircraft manufacturing delays.

Britain’s only hub airport, London Heathrow, carried 79.2 million passengers last year, an increase of 29% on the previous year and the third highest in its history, but retail revenue did not keep up. It rose by 24% and the airport blamed the lackluster commercial performance on the removal of VAT-free shopping.

A hotel is coming to London's famed BT Tower, but you'll need to wait a few years to check in.

Last May, I reserved a two-bedroom apartment in London for eight days through Booking.com, using a credit card to hold the reservation. Soon afterward, I received what looked like an official email from the company offering me a 20 percent discount and insisting I pay the host directly, in advance, via wire transfer. I sent the equivalent of $3,100 dollars to the account of a man named Nyholm Peik, which I now know was a foolish thing to do. Soon afterward, Booking emailed to tell me the property was no longer available. I got in touch with Booking and spoke with several agents about getting a refund, but they gave me the runaround, continually insisting on more documentation. Can you help?