● Napket Piccadilly (West) - What if Marie Antoinette were a restaurant?

● Radisson Blu Royal (Tsvetnoy Boulevard) - Lux hotel slotted within the restored neo-classical Hotel Ukrania -- one of the infamous Stalin-era Seven Sisters skyscrapers.

Recognizing that la vie Parisienne might jeopardize his reign as the gray, existential conscience of modern Blighty, our beloved Jarvis Cocker has negotiated his new geography by journeying into Anglo-Teutonic territory.

● Fred's at Barneys (Near North Side) - The Platinum Card set has just been ruptured by a fashionable new arrival.

● Blockley Pourhouse and Mary Oaks (Fairmont & Art Museum) - Former insane asylum becomes pub and performance space. State-of-the-art security becomes state-of-the-art sound system.

As the ethereal vocalist for the Cardigans, Nina Persson made a generation swoon. Now the lovely Swede calls Harlem, New York, her adopted home, following her marriage to American composer Nathan Larson (once of Shudder to Think). Nina and Nathan are also wed creatively, as singer and co-producer of A Camp; their new record, Colonia, is an enthralling amalgam of wistful, dreamy and gorgeously plaintive pop with lyrics that float between the stingingly sardonic (“Let’s raise our glasses to murderous asses”) and the heartbreakingly world-weary (“It’s not easy to be human anymore”). Here, Persson gives BlackBook a tour of her favorite hotspots and hardware stores.

The New British Invasion: Folk off, already, and make room for Glasvegas, the most exciting Scottish export since boiled sheep stomachs.

Those who have seen Lynne Ramsay’s desolate film Ratcatcher will understand the bleakness endemic to the city of Glasgow. It may now sport a few designer hotels and an inexplicable smoking ban, but it will always be a wearied, sallow place. The astonishing new band Glasvegas capture the melancholy of their town as explicitly as the Smiths did Manchester—yet their eponymous debut, out Stateside in March, has resonated across the breadth of Britain, where many have called them the kingdom’s best new band. “The reaction to our songs makes sense,” observes singer-songwriter James Allan, “because of the long nights and the amount of soul we put into that record.”

Everything’s gone green -- and god, is it ever boring. And let’s face it: Deep down, we know we’re all doomed, anyway. The ideal backlash maneuver, of course, is getting yourself behind the wheel of a glamorous Italian machine and torquing your way to high-speed nirvana. For those who are already in possession of their own little piece of automotive history, the new Monticello Motor Club offers up a sort of spa/playland package: At their facility, just 90 minutes outside of New York City, they will garage and pamper your designer chariot while you’re off dealing with all that banal life stuff; when it’s playtime, they’ve got 4.1 miles of glorious, custom-designed track for you to burn up, and a staff of professional drivers on hand to make sure you don’t actually hurt yourself.

Even with the recent and utterly catastrophic shutterings of both the Hammersmith Palais and the London Astoria, Blighty’s capital continues to exert its brand of cultural futurism. And so, the creative geniuses behind the Fabric club have devised a new venue that slouches resolutely toward the 22nd century. Built by William Russell of Pentagram Architects, directly below the space-age concert arena 02, the venue kicked off spectacularly this September with a show by UNKLE and Late of the Pier (with guest grooving by His Royal Monkey-ness, Ian Brown).

It can safely be assumed that nearly every building along Hollywood Boulevard has been turned into some kind of hot, celebrity-populated nightlife spot -- and yet, here’s another! Muse Lifestyle Group (of Ivar, Nacional, etc.) has taken over the historic Fox Theatre, and is offering party monsters 13,000 square feet of rollicking room, amid extravagant interiors by design bigshots I©RAVE (Koi, Pangaea). There will also be an adorably named on-site restaurant, Sweet Love Hangover, with nouveau diner eats and a retro ’60s vibe. As Hollywood hangovers go, here they’ll be more inspired by Cuervo than by Cupid.