Laura Craik on how luxury bedding keeps her awake at night

Plus, fresh hope for Keanu obsessives and the internet’s tears of joy for P Diddy
Alamy Stock Photo
Laura Craik14 November 2019

As every Londoner knows, the greatest luxury in life is sleep.

But what if it eludes you? The odd night of insomnia is okay, but eventually you turn crazed, convinced the barista has accidentally given you decaf, when really you’re just so freakin’ tired that even the caffeine hasn’t made a dent. At this point, one of two things can happen. You either go down the pill route — begging Temazepam from the doctor, trying your 53rd variant of CBD oil — or you become hopelessly, irritatingly obsessed with bedding. You spend hours on the John Lewis website, reading reviews of its Ultimate Collection 1600 thread count duvet cover. Only two people appear to have dropped £460 on a duvet cover — you blame Brexit — but both reviews are persuasive. ‘I have had mine for 10 years and not had ONE malfunction to date,’ writes one user.

Treed CBD oil

But wait. What if a 1600 thread count isn’t high enough? Is it Egyptian cotton or Supima? You don’t know the difference — they’re just words — but suddenly, you’re on the Harrods website. Who is Yves Delorme? He sounds like the Georgio Peviani of the bedding world. Oh, but here’s Frette. You once read that Blake Lively sleeps on Frette sheets, and no one looks more well-rested than Blake Lively. Alas, a Lux Glow Weave duvet cover set appears to cost £3,385. Better retreat to M&S.

Maybe you should upgrade your duvet. Silk-filled, alpaca or Arctic duck down? Siberian goose, Hungarian goose or Canadian? And then there’s your pillow. Jen has a Bluetooth pillow that plays ambient whale music, but ambient whale music makes you feel shouty. And a mattress topper. You love your Eve mattress, bought after nine months of research and an informal vox pop of 62 mums in the school playground, but a topper wouldn’t hurt. £1,150 for a Vispring one stuffed with sustainably sourced platinum-certified fleece wool? Is that a typo? Maybe you’re hallucinating. It’s midnight. You bored your partner to sleep long ago. You should get some shut-eye, too. In your basic bitch of a bed. Those Frette sheets are going on your Christmas list, though.

You, too, can find your Keanu

Keanu Reeves and Alexandra Grant
Getty Images for Audi

‘Ooh, she looks like a young Helen Mirren,’ cooed the internet when Keanu Reeves was photographed with his new girlfriend, Alexandra Grant — his first in a decade, as some media outlets were quick to point out, ever eager to make a well-loved Hollywood actor seem like a weirdo. Either way, by dating someone who, at 46, is a mere nine years younger than him, Keanu has given new hope to that most hopeless group of all: Women Over 40 Trying To Find A Sentient Man With His Own Teeth And Hair (Who Isn’t A Psychopath). For that, we must be truly grateful and watch The Matrix again.

Many Diddy returns

Sean 'P Diddy' Combs at Las Vegas holding a bottle of Circoc Vodka. Pic: Getty
Getty

His 50th wasn’t as extra as his former girlfriend J-Lo’s — thus far, no photographs have emerged of him pole-dancing, nor was he given a $140,000 Porsche — but P Diddy’s half-century was marked by something just as memorable as a star-studded party at Gloria Estefan’s mansion. All sorts of friends took to Instagram to post heartfelt tributes, from Naomi Campbell to 2 Chainz to Mark Ronson, whose post about how Diddy encouraged him as a producer (‘He’s more responsible for where I am in my career than he could possibly know’) left nary a dry eye on the internet. I love it when Instagram turns into the social media equivalent of This is Your Life (google it, millennials).

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