Back in September, we reported that the lost tomb of Richard III may have been found in Leicester, England. Now the Daily Mail reports the remains in that tomb have been determined to be those of the king.
Richard III was the last of the Plantagenet kings and fought the Tudors during the War of the Roses for control of the kingdom. The final showdown came in 1485 at the Battle of Bosworth, where Richard was killed. His body was buried in the church of the Franciscan friary of the Grey Friars in nearby Leicester. The church and friary were demolished in the 1530s and its location forgotten. Using old maps, archaeologists from the University of Leicester and the Richard III Society figured out that the church lay beneath the parking lot of the city’s social services department.
The team sunk exploratory trenches and soon located the friary and the remains of a man and a woman. The male skeleton had wounds from an arrow and from a blade to the skull, consistent with accounts of Richard’s death. The skeleton also suffered from scoliosis. Richard was said to have been a humpback, and this disease could have created such a deformity.
There has yet to be an official announcement. The Daily Mail cites an unnamed source with “knowledge of the excavation” and states that an official announcement won’t come until a TV documentary airs in January. A descendant of Richard III was used to provide a DNA match but it’s unclear if this is what has determined the body is that of the dead king.
While royalty are generally buried in Westminster Abbey in London, the Ministry of Justice has ruled that any remains determined to be those of Richard III should be buried in Leicester Cathedral.
I first heard about Lieka from her boss. He runs a tour guide company in Amsterdam. And over beers, he listed the types of tours his company offers. “There are Red Light District tours, there are food tours and there are drinking tours.”
“Oh yeah!” he said, “I also have a woman offer a workshop in giving oral sex to men.”
That’s when there was a record scratch across the heavens. Wait, what? It’s for tour groups who want to do a little something different while in Amsterdam and it’s for bachelorette parties. “It’s really quite fun,” he said. And then he mentioned the teacher was going to be stopping by his office – conveniently located next to the pub we were sitting in – and offered to introduce me.
And so, smack in the center of the Dutch metropolis and a herring’s throw from the Red Light District, where packs of guys roam to gawk at the ladies in their little booths, I met with Lieka. An attractive brunette in her mid-20s, and as long as I wouldn’t use her last name (or her photo), she kindly allowed me to interview her about her most unusual profession.Gadling: How does one become such a teacher?
Lieka: First of all, you have to have an interest in the subject matter. I studied social work and psychology and have taught sex ed before, so I felt qualified.
Gadling: Is there, like, a certificate program one can do in order to teach a class like this?
Lieka: [Laughs] No.
Gadling: So how did you prepare or study to teach the class?
Lieka: I interviewed the target group: guys! I asked them what they liked. I also talked to a few prostitutes.
Gadling: How often do you teach the class?
Lieka: It depends. But some months I’ll teach it four times.
Gadling: How do you make the students feel comfortable?
Lieka: I give them a glass of wine at the start. I tell jokes and say there’s no judgment in the class. I also let them pick their own dildos and ask them to give it a name. It’s funny to see who takes the biggest one.
Gadling: Is there a common name that keeps popping up?
Lieka: I often hear “Anaconda.”
Gadling: Have there been any injuries yet, like choking or gagging?
Lieka: [Laughs] Not yet.
Gadling: What’s a common beginners mistake?
Lieka: A lot of the women think you do it the way they do it in porn films – and this intimidates them. It’s just up and down. There’s a lot in between, too!
Gadling: Do you give homework?
Lieka: Sort of. I tell them that the next time they do it, they have to mix all the techniques. Hopefully they’ll learn.
Gadling: So no one’s returned to tell you how they made out?
Lieka: Not yet. Usually the classes are fun and are sort of a joke but once I had a group of Muslim women and it became clear that the bride-to-be had really never had sex. So she was really learning for the first time.
Gadling: Can you spot talent in the class? Is one born with such a talent or is this a skill one can acquire?
Lieka: Everyone can do it! You just have to have an interest in pleasuring the other person.
Gadling: Have any guys been in the class?
Lieka: No. But the women always suggest we offer a class to guys teaching them how to reciprocate.
Is there any point in visiting the Art Institute of Chicago if you only have about an hour and a half to take in what many regard as Chicago’s one bad-ass, can’t miss attraction? That was the question I pondered last Wednesday after I realized I had two appointments in Chicago’s Loop with a 90-minute gap in between them.
I’ve lived in Chicago on and off since 1997 and every time I come back from a trip and feel a bit homesick, that is, sick of being here at home, I think about what I can explore in my own backyard. I’d just had an incredible experience at the Getty Museum in Los Angeles and thought I might check out another museum I hadn’t been to in a while.
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I checked out Trip Advisor, and noticed that the Art Institute was far and away the city’s #1 attraction with 2,374 reviews and an average rating of 4.5 stars. The reviews of the place are so almost unanimously positive that I was curious about the six people, reflecting .002% of popular opinion who think that the place is a 1 star (terrible) thing to do in Chicago.
One of the disgruntled reviewers was a teacher whose class was unable to see a Matisse exhibit, two complained that the staff was rude, one insisted that the place was “very pregidist (sic),” and another griped about two exhibitions from years ago, one involving a crucifix and a bottle of urine and another that required visitors to step across an American flag to get to a complaint box. But the negative review I found most interesting was from one of the site’s “senior reviewers” from Oklahoma City who titled their review “Boring!”
I’d been to the Art Institute a few times before over the years but hadn’t been there in some time. The place, which was founded in 1879, has some 300,000 works of art in its permanent collection in eight buildings spread across nearly 1,000,000 square feet. Even Ferris Bueller didn’t think the Art Institute was boring!
The Art Institute is free for Illinois residents the first two Wednesdays of the month, so I decided to use the 90 free minutes I had in the city last Wednesday to take a power walk through the museum. My plan was to take in all of the museum’s works from Vincent Van Gogh and Paul Gauguin, two of my personal favorites, and then try to walk through the entire museum, stopping only to take note of other pieces that I found particularly compelling.
I should state at the outset that I’m only an occasional museumgoer and when I am at museums, I’m usually harassing my wife to hurry up or looking for a bench to sit on. So as I fed a staggering $9 into a parking meter in the Loop for 90 minutes, I was feeling pretty good about my chances of seeing all or most of the place in short order.
But no matter how many times you’ve been to the Art Institute, there are always surprises in store and it’s easy to forget how damn impressive the place is. I started with a quick breeze through the basement, and an impressive exhibition on medieval German woodcuts on the second floor before getting completely bogged down looking at the impressionists on the second floor. One room has 13 Renoirs. There are seven Van Goghs in another small, ordinary looking room (The Carl & Marjorie Kelly Gallery) and a total of eleven works from Gauguin split into two rooms.
My rule was that I was only planning to stop and take note of works that I found particularly impressive, but within a half hour of my arrival, I was filling my notebook with the names of all kinds of artists I was completely unfamiliar with prior to my visit: Bernat Martorell, Paulus Moreelse, and James Vibert to name just a few.
By the time I was done with the second floor, I looked at my watch and realized I had just 15 minutes left. In a panic, I rushed down to the ground floor and breezed through a few thousand years of Indian, African, Southeast Asian, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Himalayan, Greek, Byzantine and Roman Art in less time than it takes Andrew Zimmern to wolf down a plate of raw camel organs. It all went by in a blur and then I remembered that I’d completely neglected the museum’s Late Roman and Early Byzantine Treasures from the British Museum exhibit.
I walked through that exhibit so fast that some of the security guards began to eye me nervously, as though I was about to run off with something and, in my haste, I actually set off an alarm when I walked too close to a ancient Greek mosaic on the floor. I beat a hasty retreat back to my car before security or Chicago’s parking Gestapo could get me.
I didn’t come anywhere near seeing everything in the museum – I didn’t make it to the third floor to see master works from Pablo Picasso and Salvador Dali, I didn’t hit the Modern Wing at all, and I missed other corners of the place as well. But the Art Institute is a glorious place to pass some time, even if you don’t have much of it, and the works of art I saw managed to lift my spirits at a time when I was feeling a little less than thrilled about life in Chicago (coming back from California in December can do that to you).
You can’t see everything at the Art Institute in 90 minutes but that isn’t the point. It’s easy to get into a mindset where going to museums is something you only do while you’re on vacation, but sometimes you can take a little mini-vacation right at home, even if it’s just on your lunch break. Wherever you live, there are places to do this. In Chicago, there is no better place for a lightning fast escape than the Art Institute.
[Photo credits: Dave Seminara and Art Institute of Chicago]
There’s a new airport lounge concept coming to United Airlines, and it’s pretty dandy. The first showpiece in Terminal 2 of Chicago‘s O’Hare airport opens up on Thursday, the 20th of December, and the improvements over traditional clubs are dramatic.
Design facets of the club are a mixture of the Continental and United brands, folded into tones of travel and warmth. The spherical lights over the bar, for example, symbolize the updated company logo. Tables and lights are modeled after jet engines, while the swept ceiling looks like a wing. Even the bathrooms, which have 787 Dreamliner-style mirrors, reflect the airline’s livery.
United plans to open seven more clubs in San Diego, Seattle, Houston, London, San Francisco, Atlanta and Boston through the third quarter of 2014, and any remodels will hold this updated aesthetic. Take a look through the club in Chicago below.
Choosing the proper luggage for travel can be a very personal experience. After all, with any luck you are selecting a travel companion that will be with you for many years to come and will accompany you on everything from weekend escapes to longer excursions abroad. A good set of luggage can be quite an investment too, which is why it needs to be stylish, versatile and durable. The new EO Travel collection from Incase has been designed from the ground up to meet that criteria and so much more. I recently had the good fortune to test their EO Travel Roller and found it to be a fantastic option for modern travelers looking for a great bag for both business and pleasure.
The first thing that caught my eye about the Roller was the clean, classic looking exterior design. Unlike many other bags, the Roller isn’t cluttered with numerous zippers and pockets that are tacked on without thought for form or function. In fact, with just one exterior pocket, I wondered if this bag would have enough storage options to keep everything well organized while on the road. Turns out I needn’t have worried, but more on that later.
In addition to the clean look of the EO Travel Roller, I was also immediately struck by the high quality handle and wheels, both of which have a very solid and rugged feel. The handle easily slides out at the touch of a button, extending to the perfect length for rolling it through the airport, which is made all the easier thanks to the smooth and steady wheels. Two additional non-telescoping soft handles on the top and side make it a simple affair to grab the bag from either side when it needs to be hefted into or out of a vehicle, or retrieved from the baggage claim.The exterior of the Travel Roller doesn’t give much of an indication of what to expect from the inside, so I was pleasantly surprised when I opened it up. As I mentioned above, the lack of exterior pockets was a concern at first glance, but opening the bag put those fears to rest quickly. Incase has put a great deal of thought into the layout of the interior of the Roller and it shows. In addition to a standard large main compartment, they’ve also included a second storage area that has multiple integrated organizational pockets that are perfect for the modern traveler who never leaves home without his or her gadgets. This area of the bag features a laptop sleeve capable of holding a 17″ laptop, several pockets for cables and chargers, and even a compartment specifically designed for an iPad or other tablet. The entire section is lined with thick padding that keeps our favorite tech toys safe and sound, even while they are jostled about in transit.
The bag is designed to be used as a carry-on and complies with the size restrictions for most airlines. But for those times when you need just a little extra storage, the entire Roller expands by an additional 35% with just the simple slide of a zipper. This comes in particularly handy on those trips when you’re returning home with newfound treasure and could use the extra room to safely carry those items. It also adds a nice level of versatility to the bag, which can pull double duty as a carry-on or something larger as needed.
As someone who typically travels out of a backpack, the Travel Roller came as quite a breath of fresh air. Classy and refined, this is a piece of luggage that is prefect for the business traveler who is regularly on the road or someone who likes to travel as light as possible while still enjoying a real piece of luggage. I was impressed with how much the Roller can carry and the fact that it has room for a laptop and other tech gear means that it is possible you could travel with just one bag, leaving the laptop case behind.
I was also impressed with how durable this bag is. Its exterior features a weather resistant front panel that helps repel rain and snow, while the rest of the body is made of rugged materials that won’t scuff, tear or rip easily. That helps deliver a certain piece of mind that this is a bag that you’ll still be using years down the line.
The EO Travel Roller comes with a $249 price tag, which puts it out of the budget of most casual travelers. But for those of us who spend a great deal of time on the road, its impressive design, high quality construction and extra features make it well worth the money. Its integrated laptop sleeve and other organizational pockets help to make this bag stand out from the crowd and make it a fantastic choice for anyone who hits the road with plenty of tech gear in tow. For the modern day road warrior, I can’t think of a better option.