This is a confusing time to be a talented young musician called Daniel Cohen.

When Eric Bourne's family fled Germany the year Hitler came to power, the nine-year-old never imagined he was about to embark on the happiest years of his life.

"I just remember an interview with this very large lady in a suburb of Berlin, and by October 1933 I was at school in Kent with 60 other Jewish children from Germany."

Is Howard Schultz a madman or a genius? A "poor boy from Brooklyn", he spent 13 years building up Starbucks from a handful of branches to a global empire before deciding to step back. And after he had borrowed millions to buy it.

She had no Jewish upbringing, yet the sound of klezmer tore at her heart. It would take most of a lifetime for Kristina Taylor to discover why.

"An invisible rope would tighten around my chest; I had such an emotional response to the music," she recalls. "Now I know it's because a part of me belongs to that old Jewish culture and tradition."

A slow food movement for babies may sound like a middle-class affectation. However, anyone who watched the recent BBC Three programme, Fast Food Baby, will realise we urgently need a formal feeding programme to get the next generation back on track.

She was not brought up with religion, but when suddenly asked if she was Jewish at the age of 12, Esther Freud instinctively said: "Yes".

What do film stars Gwyneth Paltrow, Alicia Silverstone and Sarah Jessica Parker have in common with their ancestors in the shtetl?

Answer: the macrobiotic diet, which became trendy in the '60s but has plenty in common with Ashkenazi food.

Jews, according to the stereotype, tend to be control freaks. We all crack jokes about our neurotic dads and balabooster mothers having Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.

But OCD is far from a joke, with an estimated 740,000 sufferers in Britain. And although not borne out by hard data, the clinical view is that Jews are more likely than the general population to be affected.

In the same handsome crescent that houses the Western Marble Arch Synagogue, a gorgeous boutique hotel has arisen.

Part of the Pride of Britain consortium, it opened less than a year ago with 82 rooms built within a run of seven listed Georgian buildings and a pair of mews houses. Original features have been retained, but a contemporary vibe prevails in the public areas.

What constitutes a healthy breakfast? It is a topic which bears close inspection during National Breakfast Week, with experts falling into two distinct camps. About the only thing they agree on is that having any breakfast at all is a Very Good Thing.

The eggs, cheese and yoghurt fraternity points out that protein makes you feel full for longer and stabilises blood sugar. Yet 97 per cent of British households keep a box of cereal in the house and two thirds of us raid it at least once a week. Cereal is cheap, quick, and qualifies for many as comfort food.

For bringing Israel's favourite egg dish, shak- shuka, to north London, we have not just chef Josh Katz to thank but his parents.

When Josh told his mother and father that instead of planning to follow them into the professions, his passion lay with food, their response was not to wring their hands but to treat him to a Cordon Bleu course.

Those watching their weight and contemplating the impact of the party season should consider one sobering fact - cavemen did not eat starchy deep fried snacks. Humans were never designed to digest the foods which have propelled the western world into an obesity crisis.

Oil? Our hunter-gatherer ancestors did not have the technology to make it, and they did not hang around long enough to grow the crops that produce oil, or indeed those which make bread or pasta.

With its considerable style and comfort and W1 location, it's a mystery why the Marylebone Hotel remains a well-kept secret. Perhaps because, disguised by a grim '60s facade on one of the anonymous, shop-less streets which run behind the Oxford Street department stores, it is unrecognisable from the street as a four-star hostelry.

Hull is not Britain's most obvious tourist destination, but Philip Larkin has put it firmly on the map. Several buildings closely associated with the controversial poet - who lived in this coastal city for the last half of his life - have been highlighted on a trail recently launched to mark the 25th anniversary of his death.

A logical place to start is Paragon Station, where a statue of the writer, born in 1922, will be unveiled on December 2. He took many rail journeys and was a regular at the nearby Royal Hotel, where he enjoyed many a lunch in the Brigantine Room.

"You need to walk for your life!" commanded the doctor who informed me I had just flunked both the fitness and ideal weight test at my recent check-up. "Go for 10,000 steps a day - and get a pedometer to tell you when you've done it," he ordered.

I had heard about those 10,000 steps, now considered as essential for optimum health as your five-a-day. However, like every couch potato, I regarded this figure with some trepidation.

This is Chocolate Week - and possibly the most delicious aspect of it is that we no longer need to regard a bar of the dark stuff as a guilty pleasure.

For as the Mayans who discovered the fruits of the cocoa plant discovered, it is, when properly made, choc-full of healthful ingredients. Recent scientific studies have shown dark chocolate can lower blood pressure, improve brain function and contribute to heart health.

For a doctor who has built an empire on pricey skin care products, Dr Howard Murad has a surprising message - the secret of a radiant and younger-looking complexion is… water.

In fact getting more water into our cells and keeping it there is the secret to better health all round, says the Baghdad-born associate professor of medicine at California's prestigious UCLA Geffen School of Medicine.

"Every single cell is connected to every other cell, so to have good skin you have to have a good body in every sense," he declares.

When David Levin opened The Capital in 1971, it seemed daringly moderne for its surroundings. Genteel Basil Street, between Knightsbridge and Harrods, had never seen the likes of the silver-spaceship foyer and the bold canopy proclaiming in chrome letters London's first true boutique hotel.

But all that is gone now - except the repu-tation. Within a few years of opening, the Capital got recognition from Michelin, and it continues to make all the top award lists for the hotel and its eponymous fine restaurant.

There must be many a case of mistaken identity in the hunt for smart lodgings in the tiny, picturesque pair of Cotswold villages known as the Slaughters.

For the upper and lower villages, separated by a bridge, have three manor houses between them. And despite having the only Michelin-starred restaurant, the Lords is not the huge pile at the top of the hill - that's a private house - nor the Relais & Chateaux property two minutes down the street in Lower Slaughter.