Five go mad in Dorset Hold on, chaps. I think Timmy the dog is trying to tell us something! He’s barking at the old Mansion House hotel in Poole. I think he’s saying it will reopen as the latest in the Hotel du Vin chain on September 29, with doubles from £109. That good egg Enid Blyton spent a lot of time there in her youth, you know. What’s that, Timmy? The queer coves at HdV are creating horrid strong drinks in her memory, with cocktails called the Dick, the Anne, the Julian, the Georgina and... the Timmy?! Fetch a policeman, Julian. Anyone who doesn’t know that the Famous Five drink nothing but lashings of ginger beer must be a beastly foreign spy.

Higher, dad! Swings sound sort of harmless, don’t they? Not this one. The Nevis Arc, which opens next month in New Zealand (www.bungy.co.nz ), is strung from a steel-wire bridge suspended over a gorge. It’s 135yd long, and it’ll take you more than eight seconds to reach the bottom, plummeting past sheer cliff faces at up to 87mph. It’s right out in the wilds, half an hour from Queenstown; when you hear the screams, you’re getting close.

Hard times 1 Mindful of the effect of rocketing food prices, London’s City Inn is offering a masterclass in using up the leftovers from this year’s Christmas dinner. The turkey hash and parsnip soup sound good. We’re as strapped for cash as everyone else, so we were about to sign up when we saw the small print. The course costs 40 quid. Which would buy a lot of parsnips, even now.

Hard times 2 Spare a thought for the struggling super-rich while you’re at it. Up till now, if you wanted to stay on Richard Branson’s Necker Island, you’ve had to take the place for a week, for £222,000. But it seems even that modest sum is getting to be a stretch for some, so this most exclusive 74 acres has entered the short-break market: three nights for just £105,000, with www.destinology.co.uk . Within reach of the humblest millionaire, then. Mind you, sharp readers will have noticed that’s actually more expensive per night. No flies on Branson.

Piece of cake It seems the Hideaway restaurant with rooms in Windermere, which makes quite a thing of its afternoon teas, has discovered a handy pudding personality guide. Apparently, cheesecake munchers are romantics, chocolate-cake eaters won’t compromise, and lemon-meringue fans are sexy. We asked them what our spotted-dick fetish says about us. “Something Freudian, probably. We don’t do spotted dick.” Maybe that’s just as well.

Times recommends

• The Green Spaces Travel Awards, 2008 - the winners
• Britain's 12 best winter walks
• The insiders' guide to bohemian Paris