Finch's Quarterly Review Issue 9 by Tristram Fetherstonhaugh

Issue 9: Autumn 2010

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Look Back in Languour

Michael Lonsdale in Moonraker, 1979

HE other day – well, quite a few days ago now, it was during the Cannes Film Festival – I was introduced to a delightful French concept: “ringard”. The French are, of course, a fiendishly clever nation. For a start, they speak that infernally difficult lingo. And then, of course, they invented the croissant, the beret, the concept of cycling around in a striped T-shirt while garlanded in onions, Existentialism, the concept of selling elderly grape juice as a luxury beverage, the Citroën and a whole host of other epoch-making bits and pieces. Me? I prefer it when their authors write in English – somehow Balzac wrote with so much more confidence in the language of Shakespeare, Milton and Dickens… Anyway, never in my studies of Balzac, Flaubert, Stendhal, Zola or even Maupassant had I come across ringard. At first I thought it might be some sort of Dumasian Three Musketeersian variant on “On guard!” (a fencing term, I believe). But no. Ringard, I was told means shabby, has-been, dusty… of course I thought I was being paid a compliment but, instead, it appears I was being warned of the perils of appearing too ringard. The thing is, I find being or, rather, has-being, a very seductive state. It is, to my mind, what it (life, the human condition etc) is more or less all about. Take, for instance, Venice, home to this quarter’s film festival. Given that our eponymous proprietor is also a producer of moving pictures, we arrange our lives – albeit very loosely – around the film festival calendar. Venice is by no means a young city, nor even a middle-aged one; it is, one might say, knocking on in years. If one were being unkind you could describe Venice as being a bit ringard.

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Youth is a phase – and a very pleasant one at that. But let’s hear it for everything hoary, says Nick Foulkes, as he revels in (relative) maturity Indeed, the great 19th-century sage Ruskin would have us believe that Venice has been on the slide since about 8 May 1418. Ruskin’s Stones of Venice is one of the great, underrated classics of 19th-century England. Kenneth Clark of Civilisation fame said the essay about the Gothic was “one of the noblest things written in the 19th century”. But it is the first couple of sentences that I like best: “Since the first dominion of men was asserted over the ocean, three thrones, of mark beyond all others, have been set upon its sands: the thrones of Tyre, Venice, and England. Of the First of these great powers only the memory remains; of the Second, the ruin; the Third, which inherits their greatness, if it forget their example, may be led through prouder eminence to less pitied destruction.” Strong stuff, and, I am sure you will agree, steeped in decayed grandeur. I am positive that Ruskin would have been proud to be considered ringard, by which I do not mean that he was not open to new ideas – far from it – what I mean is that he valued the lessons that the past can teach us, should we choose to learn them. Today we overvalue youthfulness as an admirable quality in its own right rather than as a naturally occurring phase of the human condition. I have nothing against youthfulness – I was, I believe, once young myself. It is just the indecency with which people who really should know better try and hang onto it. I know it is probably all to do with intimations of our own mortality. The fact that one is no longer young

and that one might, quelle horreur, be showing one’s age as the passing years etch their cruel hieroglyphs on our features is, of course, far from pleasant and, as a vain man, I do my Canutelike best to stop the signs of ageing showing too much. But the joy of having a few miles on the clock is that, provided your memory is not too shot, you have stored up a bank of knowledge, a reservoir of savoir-faire that, I believe, is far more important and significant than being au fait with the latest teenage fashion blogger or in possession of the very latest “apps”. Knowledge and wisdom are two qualities that, with luck, grow with us as we grow older. OR instance, I was fortunate enough to know Mark Birley, and once, when I rang his house and asked to speak to him, I was told that he was unable to come to the telephone because he was “busy relaxing”. He wasn’t busy on Facebook, Twittering or downloading an app that turned his iPhone into a virtual lighter to hold aloft at a “festival” for lovers of popular music. No, he was busy relaxing. How stylish, how soigné – how typical of him. I miss Mark, but I am happy to have met and appreciated him. As a man of innate distinction, Mark was sufficiently confident in his own taste and comfortable with his own style not to need to chase the ever-changing chimera of the latest and the newest. Of course, young people know everything, which is why at FQR we like to give work to the young. But by the time you reach the… ahem… maturity that Charles, Tristram and I have achieved, you

pick up a few useful nuggets of knowledge. I like to think that I can tell a Rubinacci tailored jacket, or London-made Cartier watch of the late 1960s at a couple of furlongs at night in Havana (metres are a little too up to date for my liking). Tristram can pick out an Enzo Mari pen holder just using his sense of smell. And Charles only has to walk into a restaurant anywhere in the world and he is immediately shown to the finest table – it is remarkable, one of the wonders of the civilised world, and something I have seen with my own (failing) eyes. Do you think that we have cultivated these gifts by being up to date, familiar with the latest developments in Ragtime music – or Hipperty Hop, as I believe it is called by the young people in the ’hood(ies)? Far from it. These almost superhuman abilities that we possess, rather like a well-tailored riposte to the X-Men franchise, have been honed over decades. Naturally, we are fortunate to have been blessed with innate ability, but it is only by patient reading of Ruskin, composition of epic verse, and regular visits to the hallowed sites of Antiquity and abodes of the Muses such as Marbella and the Bahamas that we have achieved this beatific state of epiphany. It seems fitting to end with an observation from Oscar Wilde. Oscar had an epigram for every occasion, a witticism for every subject, and this is no exception. In An Ideal Husband he offers the stark warning, “Nothing is so dangerous as being too modern. One is apt to grow old-fashioned quite suddenly.” Nick Foulkes is the editorial director of the FQR Group of Publications and Editor in Chief of Finch’s Quarterly Review

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uarterly ReviewIII

The Prologue

And then there is, of course, the series of luxury fairs that will soon be an indispensable part of life in London, New Nick Foulkes just can’t help York, Moscow, Mumbai, Beijing, Paris and Marbella. You weren’t aware of our luxury himself: he’s in buoyant Quarterly Report �� 4 fairs division, were you? To be honest, mood and feeling effusive FQR Venice Special: Adam Dawtrey on films and Venice �� 7 neither was I, but the big spenders around Gone But Not Forgotten: Schiller & Edelman on Dennis Hopper �� 8 the world are bracing their bank balances about all things Finch’s S THE cover of our noble journal FQR Venice Special: Marco Müller on the Venice Film Festival �� 9 for this promised cornucopia of cashmere, is a celebration of the wisdom or, in FQR Venetian Chic: Kate Lenahan, Claudio Ponzio & Alberto Nardi ��10 & 11 craftsmanship and coachbuilt motor cars, my case, the slight decrease in folly FQR Films in Focus: Élodie Bouchez & Michael Apted �� 12 this horological horn of plenty, this… well, that comes with age, it seems appropriate FQR Films in Focus: This year’s Best Director at Cannes, Mathieu Amalric �� 13 you get the picture. to dedicate The Prologue to the dreams of Gone But Not Forgotten: Bailey & Gladstone on Cecil Beaton �� 15 Having just read the preceding paragraphs, youth. FQR’s Casting Couch: Olivia Grant �� 17 I feel I must apologise for letting you, the As any business-minded person will tell FQR World Watch: Eski Thomas �� 18 reader, down and allowing an unwonted you, the trick is to hire young people while FQR Pro Bono Pin Up: Sveva Gallmann �� 19 and entirely uncharacteristic display of they still know everything, before they FQR Music & Movement: Henry Wyndham & Duncan Heath �� 20 enthusiasm and optimism to creep into become assailed by doubt and find their FQR Music & Movement: The Marchioness of Douro & Sally Greene �� 21 The Prologue. As you know, I am Eeyore optimism tempered by experience. And at FQR Action Man Special: Luca Rubinacci & Tom Aikens �� 22 to Charles’s Tigger, but even I feel that we FQR we are proud to uphold this tradition FQR Male Haircare: Robert Calcraft & Brent Pankhurst �� 23 are poised for a quite unreasonable and, on in the hiring of Emilia of Hungerford as the FQR Germans in High Heels & The Princess Diaries �� 24 the whole, thoroughly undeserved double new deputy editor. Like her predecessor, Finch’s World: Charles Finch, Harry Herbert & Reza Rashidian �� 26 helping of success. It has even caused me Elisabeth, Emilia has a family castle, Finch’s World: The Ode, Nick Broomfield & Linda Pilkington �� 27 to toy with the idea of reviving our Art although it is not in quite such a good repair FQR’s Liberal at Large: Matthew Modine �� 29 Guide project, albeit in a small way as a as Schloss T&T. FQR Business Studies: James Caan, Deborah Meaden & Chris Robson ��30 & 31 supplement within FQR. Emilia is surely destined for greatness – or FQR Media Studies: Wei Koh & Mandolyna Theodoracopulos �� 33 Certainly, Charles has never entertained if not greatness, then at least a senior editorial John Malkovich, Adam O’Riordan and Maya Even �� 34 the slightest scintilla of doubt that the FQR role at the ever-expanding FQR Group of Gone But Not Forgotten: Horst & Picardie on Coco Chanel �� 35 Group of Publications would swell into the Publications. This commercial expansion is FQR Arts: Charles Saumarez Smith & Simon Phillips �� 37 sort of media empire of which the entire spearheaded by our other young person and FQR Art Review: Fabien Fryns, Tyrone Wood �� 38 nation can be proud. And what I like about resident young man in a hurry, James Rae. FQR Art Exclusive: Matthew Slotover & Fiona Banner �� 39 Charles is that he is thinking long term. James, like all of us, fell under the spell of He even asked me to start considering the Charles’s effulgent charisma and left a highly creation of a young person’s publication – salaried position working for or, for all I know, heading up, one of the major film studios in Los and who am I to question his wisdom, even though I seem to have spent most of my life trying Angeles, to put his shoulder to the elegantly crafted wheel that is the FQR Group of Publications. to be older than I am. Among James’s many tasks is supplying the sound commercial basis that will enable us to convert Anyway, just to prove that we manage to be both ringard and avant-garde at the same time, our website from being merely a virtual reflection of the lambent prose of the physical newspaper as well as the forthcoming youthquake from FQR we pause to mark the contribution of those and into a thriving e-commerce site, a sort of eBay for rich people, Amazon for millionaires, you sadly no longer with us and in this issue we feature personal memoirs of two very different know the sort of thing. We have already got off to a flying start, as, from what I understand, James figures. Charlie Gladstone recalls his life growing up with Cecil Beaton, while Pierre Edelman has already secured a vintage Bugatti for us to sell. remembers countercultural totem Dennis Hopper. Elsewhere in the Empire, work on FQR Couture is going well and has piqued the interest of The rest of it is the usual feast of fun, exotica and downright eccentric stuff that you are some of the most famous of French fashion houses. It is hard to see how we can fail. In fact, it unlikely to find anywhere else (probably for very sensible reasons) and, if you will excuse me, I all seems to be falling into place rather nicely, especially as this is our “September Issue” and, must dash as I have a global publishing empire to run… Well, actually, I have a cigar to smoke as dedicated fashionistas, we have been poring over the homonymous documentary, honing our and a nap to take while Charles gets on with the serious business of taking over the world. best “Devil Wears Rubinacci” manner and perfecting our front-row-of-the-shows mien. Nick Foulkes

Contents

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Proprietor’s Spouse: Sydney Ingle-Finch

Proprietor: Charles Finch Editor in Chief: Nick Foulkes Creative Director: Tristram Fetherstonhaugh Contributing editors: Vicki Reeve, Simon de Pury, Tom Stubbs, Kevin Spacey, Emma Thompson, Saffron Aldridge, L’Wren Scott, Patrick Fetherstonhaugh (Photography) Liberal at Large: Matthew Modine Literary Editor: John Malkovich Deputy Editor: Emilia Hungerford Fine Arts Editor: Charles Saumarez Smith Editor at Large: Elisabeth von Thurn und Taxis Film Editor: Adam Dawtrey Highland Editor (19th Century): Charlie Gladstone Travel Editor: Kate Lenahan Cookery Editor: Maya Even Racing Correspondent: The Hon. Harry Herbert Hunting Editor: Reza Rashidian Mississippi Steamboat correspondent: Stephen pulvirent PA to the Proprietor: Tiffany Grayson Advertising Director: Jonathan Sanders The FQR Group of Publications including: FQR Art; FQR Style; FQR Living Well, FQR Big Game Hunter, Game Shot and Conservation; FQR Equestrian Life; FQR Ocean Wave incorporating Nautical Style; FQR Home and Hearth; FQR Paranormal; FQR Faith (Formerly FQR Monotheism in the Modern Age); www.finchsquarterly.com Chief Executive: Charles Finch Editorial Director: Nick Foulkes Creative Director: Tristram Fetherstonhaugh Commercial Director: Jonathan Sanders, Chief Financial Officer: Adam Bent Designed and produced by Fetherstonhaugh Associates www.fetherstonhaugh.com The views expressed in Finch’s Quarterly Review are not necessarily those of the editorial team. The editorial team is not responsible or liable for text, pictures or illustrations, which remain the responsibility of the authors. Finch’s Quarterly Review is fully protected by copyright and nothing may be printed, translated or reproduced wholly or in part without written permission. Next issue: December 2010. All advertising enquiries should be sent for the attention of Jonathan Sanders: jonathan@finchandpartners.com. All subscription enquiries should be sent for the attention of James Rae: jrae@finchandpartners.com Tel: +44 (0)20 7851 7140.

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autumn 2010

FQR Cannes Quarterly Report Special

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Photographs by Richard Young and Dave Benett

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GIRARD-PERREGAUX 1966 Chronograph Pink gold case, sapphire case back, Girard-Perregaux automatic mechanical movement. Column wheel chronograph, small seconds.

FQR Venice Special

Death & Love in Venice

olle Everett C ERREBI/Rex

Features

The Merchant of Venice. Or as the Americans call it, William Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice, in case you got it confused with that other bloke’s. This 2004 version of the Shylock story, starring Al Pacino and directed by Mike Radford, is powerful and atmospheric. The Merchant of Venice was hugely popular with filmmakers during the silent era, with seven different movies made between 1908 and 1927, but has been little filmed since, which perhaps reflects the problematic Jewish question. Everett Collection/Rex Features Radford is now trying to make another drama set in Venice, an adaptation of Hemingway’s Across the River and into the Trees, about a dying World War II hero snatching a last chance of romance with a young Venetian contessa. Italian For Beginners. The extravagant beauty of Venice doesn’t usually serve as a backdrop to social realism. But in Italian For Beginners, the city provides a soaring romantic climax for this sweet and modest tale of Danish lonelyhearts taking Italian lessons and finding love. Lone Scherfig pulls off a brilliant coup de cinéma when she suddenly cuts from a drab Danish suburb to sparkling St Mark’s Square.

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ostra Inte rnazionale founded d’Arte by Coun t Volpi in Cinematografica, aristocrati 1932 c o festivals. Expensive f the major in , is the most ternation a nd exclusi Old-Worl al film d high a ve, Venic rt e . is but seldo H a o ll b y a w st ion of oo m reward ed with th d glamour is we lcomed, e top priz e. Remarkably, when Darre n Aronofsky won the Go lden Lion two years ago for The Wrestler, he was the firs t American director to take the aw ard without sharing it with another filmmaker. John Cassa vetes shared the prize for Gloria in 1980 with Louis Malle for Atlantic City; and Ro bert Altman was another joint winner with Short Cuts alongsid e Krzysztof Kieslowski’s Three Colou rs Blue in 1993.

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Bread and Tulips. A rare Italian film set in Venice, but a gem. A middle-aged mother manages to get left behind on a family outing when the coach leaves without her. She heads for Venice on a journey of self-discovery, where she makes friends with oddballs and finds work with an anarchist florist. Death in Venice. We couldn’t ignore this one, even though it has dated badly and tests the patience of today’s viewer beyond endurance. Visconti’s languorous version of Thomas Mann’s novel consists of Dirk Bogarde dying and yearning after a boy on the Lido, interspersed with flashback arguments about art and beauty. In fact, it should really be called Death on the Lido because Venice itself is only seen in glimpses. The Wings of the Dove. Henry James was a regular visitor to Venice, and Iain Softley’s 1997 film of his novel, starring Helena Bonham Carter, does lavish justice to his love for the city, captured by the genius of cinematographer Eduardo Serra. It’s hard to watch this movie without wishing to book a plane ticket immediately. The Tourist. Venice will be back on the big screen early in 2011 with this American remake of the 2005 French spy thriller Anthony Zimmer. The re-do was going to star Tom Cruise, then Sam Worthington and Charlize Theron, but ended up “making do” with Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie, which isn’t too shabby. The director is the superbly named Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, with his first English-language feature following his breakthrough with The Lives of Others. Depp is an American tourist visiting Venice to cure his broken heart; Jolie is the trouble he stumbles into. Paul Bettany, Rufus Sewell and Timothy Dalton are a dream supporting cast of Brits up to no good. Adam Dawtrey is Finch’s Quarterly Review’s film critic

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Don’t Look Now. Nic Roeg’s (father of Charles Finch’s friend Luc) disturbing psycho-thriller must rank as the greatest use of Venice on celluloid. This isn’t the golden, romantic city of summer, but the cold, empty and decaying Venice of winter. Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie try to assuage their grief at their daughter’s death with the most intense and realistic sex in film history, shot in the Hotel Bauer Grünwald. Fans can also visit San Nicolo dei Mendicoli, the crumbling church that Sutherland’s character is restoring. Just watch out for homicidal dwarves lurking in the shadows.

Moonraker, Casino Royale and From Russia with Love. James Bond has visited Venice three times. Sean Connery got to grips with Rosa Klebb’s killer heels. Roger Moore had a larky chase around the canals, with a gondola turning into a speed boat. Daniel Craig’s rather more serious 007 loses femme fatale Eva Green in a spectacularly collapsing palazzo on the Grand Canal.

Rex Feat

RRIVING in Venice feels like stepping onto a movie set. At any moment, Casanova will jump from a window into a gondola as he flees another cuckolded husband. Or a malevolent dwarf in a red coat will lunge out of the darkness and open your jugular. Love and death. These are the grand themes that have always drawn filmmakers to the sinking city. But Venice has defeated many directors. The setting is so extraordinary, it always threatens to overwhelm the story. Only a few have made it their own.

Everyone Says I Love You. In retrospect, this is where it all started to go wrong for Woody Allen. First, there were the funny ones. Then the serious artistic ones. And finally, the long, sad decline of his European tour. Everyone Says I Love You inaugurated his travelogue phase. Woody himself gets to canoodle implausibly through the streets of Venice with Julia Roberts, occasionally breaking into song.

Everett C ollection/

Adam Dawtrey on the most successful films set in Venice

From the motion picture American Dreamer, directed by Lawrence Schiller and LM Kit Carson, 1972

In Bed With Dennis

Pierre Edelman recalls some of the many exploits of the late, great Dennis Hopper Photograph by Lawrence Schiller

T THE DH Lawrence Ranch in Taos (New Mexico), Dennis Hopper had just completed what he thought was the final cut of The Last Movie, which he had shot in Peru. The pressure exerted by the Universal executives who had financed the film, and wanted him to recut and recut, had no effect on him, since in early August he’d received an invitation from the Venice Film Biennale. As a result of the 1968 crisis the festival was non-competitive but his spirits were high: some of his peers would be attending to receive a Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement, Ingmar Berman and John Ford among them. He delivered the print and braced himself for what he thought would be a screening that would render him justice, and make Universal bend backwards. The audience is mesmerised by this strange, “antiwestern”, avant-garde film. No opening credits, then 12 minutes later: “a film by Dennis Hopper”. Ten more minutes and, eventually, the title appears on

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the screen. The cast is as unpredictable as the director: Sam Fuller, Don Gordon (Bullitt), Sylvia Miles, Peter Fonda, Kris Kristofferson, Toni Basil, Dean Stockwell, Michelle Phillips, cinematography by László Kovács. Dennis plays the role of a stuntman who wants to marry a local girl, Maria (Stella Garcia, who will later play opposite Clint Eastwood in Joe Kidd). At first, it is a film about making a film, a making-of, and, suddenly, it turns into a nightmare. When the production ends, Dennis stays behind with Maria planning an idyllic romance, but the local Indians pretend to make their own movie with wicker cameras and real violence, for what they witnessed for weeks is just real and not movie fakery. Dennis Hopper doesn’t stop there. Some events are shown out of order, with flashbacks and forward, there are “scene missing” cards, and we even see the retake of a sequence. In the darkness of the movie theatre, Dennis Hopper was on the watch for Ford’s reaction, but couldn’t spot him. In the midst of the applause that ensued, he forgot all about it. He was told that the screening was such a critical success he would receive the only award that would be given that year, the coveted Critics Award. From that very moment the darling of the Festival is full of delusions. He convinces himself

he has won the Biennale and, to prove it, he surrounds himself with a huge bunch of new fans, last but not least the photographer Victor Skrebneski. Determined to enjoy his success, he postpones his departure. There’s no way he’d leave the magic Lido that adopted him! Fifteen years later, Dennis broke the story in detail: “Once sober, I discovered that I had been left by myself. The rats had deserted the sinking ship. Rambling through the Lido, the locals ignored me. Suddenly, I heard John Ford was still here. He had been the hero of the Biennale… I couldn’t believe it. With nothing else left to do, I decided to investigate. Where could he be if not the Excelsior or the Hotel des Bains? When I found him, I was flabbergasted. The room was in such a mess, I couldn’t describe the chaos. Looking at the empty bottles, I was sure he had drunk the entire hotel bar! He was lying down on a bed that looked like a battlefield, soiled sheets piled up on the carpet. I looked at his wheelchair and I examined his eyes. He was in pain. His broken hip had not stopped him from coming, but now he seemed paralysed. I stared at the phone and it took me a minute to make up my mind. I had to evacuate ‘the forgotten man’ immediately, to where? I just had a flash. I remembered the story of John Huston directing his first movie, The Maltese Falcon. Standing still

There’s no way he’d leave the magic Lido that adopted him

on the set, he was trying to figure out his first shot. Right then, Ford appears, takes Huston aside and tells him: ‘You cannot do that. The crew will lose respect. Make them busy. Anything would do. Ask for the tracks, the dolly, it’ll give you time to make up your mind.’ Huston gives orders, and a couple of minutes later, his first shot becomes crystal clear. So, I called John Huston in London, and summed up the situation. His raucous voice reassured me. At the other end, he’d take care of everything. I pulled Ford in the wheelchair, put him in a motorboat and got him on the next flight to London. In the plane I realised Victor Skrebneski had given me a hand. He’d been following us all along. At the airport, no family reunion. Huston just winked at Ford, then sent me a long stare that meant no time to lose. A hospital room was ready for my hero. Three days later – clean, new clothes on, but still in pain – we decided to fly him to Los Angeles. After all, it was the only solution. Take him to Palm Springs, where his ‘usual’ hospital was only a few blocks away from his home. Victor Skrebneski in tail, we finally reached our destination. We put John Ford to bed and asked him for a smile. To no avail. Skerbneski begged for a photo of the three of us. Ford almost had a fit: after all he had endured! Sulking, the photographer insisted – silently. He hadn’t taken any picture the entire trip… With a mischievous smile John Ford said, ‘All right, one photo, but only if Dennis and John come to bed.’ We slipped under the sheets like three no-good teenagers. That’s how that picture was taken.” Pierre Edelman is a film producer and a great friend of the late Dennis Hopper

autumn 2010

FQRâ&#x20AC;&#x2C6;Venice Special

A New Cultural Revolution Emilia Hungerford talks to World film specialist Marco MĂźller on his journey from student viewings of Albanian films in China in the Seventies to directing the Venice International Film Festival

ORN in Rome to an ItaloSwiss father and Italo-GrecoBrazilian mother, Marco MĂźller studied Orientalism and anthropology at university. In 1974 he went to the Peopleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Republic of China for his specialisation and state doctorate. How did this experience influence you? In that period I was teaching ethnomusicology at university. When I arrived in China, I hoped to carry on my studies in cultural anthropology but I was denied access to libraries, which were closed to foreigners. All

autumn 2010

bourgeois disciplines had been â&#x20AC;&#x153;erasedâ&#x20AC;? as they were thought of as superstitious. Instead, I found an alternative subject to study â&#x20AC;&#x201C; and my passion turned to films. How did your passion for films turn into a career? At the time there were very few Chinese films to see, as many had been banned and were only available in private collections. Thus, I watched mostly Romanian, Albanian and North Korean films. In the aftermath of the Cultural Revolution, films made during this period could be screened again, and I started watching these too. I tried to establish a film chorology of the country, which had such a rich and varied history. By the time my doctorate in China had ended in 1977, I had watched over 350 Chinese films. When I returned to Italy, I realised that I wanted to work in film. I wanted to share the amazing films I had been privileged to see in China with the people in my country and around the world and I became a festival maker. In 1982, I created and directed â&#x20AC;&#x153;Electric Shadowsâ&#x20AC;?, which comprised a major retrospective of the history of Chinese cinema in 135 films from

the mid-Thirties to the golden age of studios, to the transition to the Peopleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Republic of China to the end of the Cultural Revolution; films that I had found in private collections and other sources during my stay in China. That festival became the Turin Film Festival. In the meantime, in 1979, I had started

the world, its people and culture. It should include the elements of luxury and mystery. Luxury in terms of the technology we now have to view films, the quality and the enhanced experience of watching films in 3-D. Mystery in terms of showing material that is interesting, new and that breaks with trends and challenges the norms. It is this search for authenticity that is the most exciting for me, but it is also the greatest challenge. Can you describe your involvement in rescuing banned

films

awards

you

and

the

promote

that celebrate cinemaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s hidden gems?

In 2005, at the 62nd Venice Film Festival, Julian Schnabel and Marco MĂźller I organised the Secret History of Asian Cinema, consulting on Asian film for the Venice which was dedicated to classic Chinese Film Festival. and Japanese cinema, and, in 2007, Whatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s your involvement with the the Secret History of Russian Cinema, Venice Film Festival? which included â&#x20AC;&#x153;forgotten filmsâ&#x20AC;? I had worked at the Venice Film Festival blocked by Stalinâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s and later censors during the tenure of five directors â&#x20AC;&#x201C; and which had rarely been seen. Not from 1979 to 1995 - and so, by the to mention the retrospectives on Italian time I was elected director in 2004, popular and auteur cinema. I felt I had a strong vision of how I To me, the Venice Film Festival has wanted to run the Festival. For me, the another important role: it has to help Festival represents a break from habits the film world recognise its great and customs. It is a way to spread new talents. This year we are awarding the knowledge and new investigations of Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement

to the director and producer John Woo. It recognises a filmmaker who has revolutionised our conception of staging and editing and action in films both in Asia and Hollywood. A career award does not have to celebrate only the memory of great directors of the past, or of someone whose career is nearly over. It has to celebrate and enlighten the greatness of directors who have a remarkable career and also a stunning future to come. Recognising their value now that they are working is the best way to support them. For example, this year we are also awarding the Jaeger-LeCoultre Glory to the Filmmaker Award to the Indian director Mani Ratnam. Ratnam is one of the great innovators in contemporary Indian cinema and we are screening his forthcoming film Raavan at the Festival in the best version: the Tamil one. It will be a spectacular experience. What about the future? This is my seventh year at Venice and 2011 will be the last one of my mandate. In these years Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve never wanted to get set in an ideology, but to present films that show the unexpected, that take risks and reassess the rules of filmmaking. I would like to keep the variety and genres we show at Venice alive. Cinemaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s role, for me, is to look at life here and now. And give a glimpse of the future. Emilia Hungerford is deputy-editor of Finchâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Quarterly Review

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FQR Venetian Chic

Veni, Vidi, Venice Kate Lenahan’s Venice address book

ENICE in the 21st century remains the destination most associated with romance and, no doubt, numerous marriage proposals on various bridges, balconies and gondolas. Nothing changes in this jewel in the crown of Italy’s most historical cities – which, despite even more tourists traipsing all over it, still hasn’t sunk. One can choose to stay in any number or type of hotels or private palazzi while in the City of Sighs. My current recommendations include, in no particular order: Hotel Danieli Still the best hotel on the main island, with the best view of Venice from the terrace while dining. The central building of the hotel was built in the 14th century by descendants of the first Doge of Venice, and over the years has been called home by Goethe, Wagner, George Sand, Harrison Ford, Steven Spielberg and countless other notables. www.danielihotelvenice.com Hotel Cipriani The Claridge’s of Venice, the Cipriani – on the tip of Giudecca Island – was born in the Italian glory days of the 1950s, and is set in beautiful gardens. A private butler service combines the Cipriani’s legendary cuisine (including the Harry’s Bar Bellini) and housekeeping with the ultimate personal attention. www.hotelcipriani.com

Bauer Il Palazzo An opulent boutique hotel on the Giudecca and sister to The Bauer that overlooks it on the mainland. It’s pure Venice in every way. www.ilpalazzovenezia.com Locanda Montin A small, family-run with a pretty back garden in a quieter part of Venice. A favourite relaxation spot for rock stars and intellectuals alike, and Modigliani had a preference for rooms 5 and 8 with their canal-view balconies. The hotel itself is also filled with sketches and paintings by artists who have been guests, which makes the stories of guests paying for meals with art all the more believable. www.locandamontin.com For your own palazzo, I hear from Cedric Reversade, the king of the most exquisite private rentals, that currently one of the best is Palazzo Grassi on the Canal Grande. It comes with a butler and the open loggia with sofas on the Grand Canal is a divine spot for drinking a Bellini, reading a book, painting… www.cedricreversade.com The Hotel La Fenice et des Artistes In this cozy hotel, each room has its own quirks and surprises. It is the hotel for artists and dramatists, with its proximity to the Teatro La Fenice, and provides quiet, discreet Venetian luxury to those looking for something less opulent. www.fenicehotels.com

Harry’s Bar Its guestbook bears the signatures of Arturo Toscanini, Somerset Maugham, Noël Coward, Charlie Chaplin, Orson Welles, Truman Capote, Georges Braque, Peggy Guggenheim, and innumerable others. The bar was opened after Giuseppe Cipriani, barman at the Hotel Europa, was presented with 40,000 lire by Mr Harry Pickering (to whom Cipriani had once lent 10,000 lire) and given directions to open a bar and name it Harry’s. The following year Mr Cipriani had a son and named him Arrigo (Italian for Harry) as well, and Arrigo is still running Harry’s Bar to this day. www.harrysbarvenezia.com B-Bar at The Bauer Great for satisfying late-night cocktail cravings, and with live music to enjoy if visiting in the winter. www.bauervenezia.com Pane Vino e San Daniele Fantastic organic Sardinian tucked away in a tiny square in Dorsoduro area of Venice – worth the walk. Its motto “One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well” (courtesy of Virginia Woolf ) shows the ethos of good eating is taken seriously here. www.panevinoesandaniele.net Kate Lenahan is Finch’s Quarterly Review’s travel editor

HEN I go to the market to find peaches Perhaps there is a small difference in taste but, to be for the Harry’s Bar Bellini I only choose honest, not one that I can really notice. white peaches. Yellow peaches may be Harry’s Bar Bellini, was invented by Giuseppe good for eating, but only white peaches can be Cipriani, the founder of Harry’s Bar in Venice, used in a real Bellini. I wash them, take in 1947. To celebrate the Biennale Festival in out the stone with a spoon and, Venice, Cipriani had the idea to with the peel still on, squeeze squeeze a couple of peaches and them with my bare hands. I mix their juice with prosecco. leave the peel on because it is Prosecco is the Italian version this that gives the white peach of champagne and comes from juice its rosy pink colour. At the region around Treviso Harry’s Bar we squeeze about near Venice. It was during 20kg of peaches every day. the Biennale Festival in We then use a special device Venice that Giuseppe was called “cinoire” to filter the shown paintings by the juice; it looks like a Chinese 15th-century Venetian artist hat with a little hole in it. This Giovanni Bellini. One of the keeps the juice with just the paintings was of a saint dressed right amount of pulp in it but in a toga of similar pinkish it also keeps the peel out. We colour to his newly invented also add a little lemon juice to drink and thus he decided to the purée to keep it from going name the drink the Bellini. This Claudio Ponzio of is how the famous Bellini was black. We then chill it until it is time to make the Bellini. Harry’s Bar in Venice created. There are really no secrets, just In Italy, we used to have two makes the best Bellini Bellini’s – the painter and the our traditional method. Bellini used to be seasonal, famous composer – but for the only available in the summertime from June to drink, we’re always talking about the painter. And September, but now we can make them all year round now we have three. because in winter, when there are no white peaches at Claudio Ponzio, head barman at Harry’s Bar, has the local markets, we use a frozen white peach purée. been filling glasses there for over 30 years

MAKERS S P O RT I N G G U N S

OF THE FINEST

RIFLES IN THE WORLD AND SUPPLIERS OF

S H O O T I N G A C C E S S O R I E S A N D C O U N T RY C L O T H I N G

Just Peachy

Method Ingredients: 3 parts chilled dry prosecco 1 part white peach purée With only two ingredients, the key is getting both of them spot on. For the peach purée, only use ripe white peaches, never yellow, and either squeeze them by hand or process them lightly in a food mill, reserving the juice and pulp. Then force the juice and pulp through a fine sieve, and add a small amount

of lemon juice to preserve colour. Chill the strained purée until very cold. If it’s too tart, add a small amount of sugar syrup (one part sugar dissolved in one part water) to sweeten it up. Then mix one part chilled purée with three parts cold prosecco, allowing a quarter-inch or so of foam to form on top. Serve in a chilled, narrow glass.

Variations

Tiziano - Bellini made with grape juice instead of peach purée. It’s special grape juice

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made from uva fragola, the same grapes that are used to make strawberry wine, a local speciality that is not even sold in stores. Use one part chilled grape juice to three parts chilled prosecco. Mimosa - Bellini using one part freshly squeezed orange juice with a little fresh tangerine juice to three parts chilled prosecco. We used to serve it only in the winter, when Bellinis were out of season. Rossini - Bellini using one part strawberry purée to three parts chilled prosecco.

3 3 B R U T O N S T R E E T, L O N D O N W 1 J 6 H H TEL: 020 7499 4411 GUNROOM@HOLLANDANDHOLLAND.COM W W W. H O L L A N D A N D H O L L A N D . C O M

autumn 2010

FQR Venetian Chic

Ultimate Pin-Ups The über-merchant of Venice, gemologist and jeweller Alberto Nardi on the secrets of the celebrated Moretti brooches use gold and coloured gemstones such as rubies, sapphires and emeralds, carving the features first out of onyx and then tortoiseshell. S MY grandfather was a romantic – after all, he did move to Venice for love – he was attracted to the theatricality of these figures: they had a sort of elegance and yet dangerous exoticism about them, a reminder of a time when the Mediterranean was terrorised by the Barbary pirates and when the Ottomans laid siege to Vienna. I don’t know exactly when my grandfather made the first Nardi Moretto brooch, probably in the early Twenties. The oldest one I’ve discovered so far is from the Thirties; it is made of ebony, pink gold, diamonds and rubies with small gold bubbles in the eye sockets, something we stopped doing in the Forties. I bought it in New York – occasionally, they come up at auction or old clients ring me up and ask if I want to buy them back. This way, I am slowly building up a museum of Moretti. And although these old pieces have a lovely waxy patina to them, if you ask me, the Moretti we make today are better than the ones my grandfather was selling; for a start, the stones are better quality. It was only after World War II that the Moretti r e a l l y became a trend with the jet set. In the Fifties and Sixties Venice was so elegant; the city witnessed such events as the famous Beistegui ball in 1951 and the marriage of Ira von Fürstenberg to Prince Alfonso of HohenloheLangenburg. These were glamorous occasions that put the city on the map as far as the international set was concerned. And it seemed that everyone wanted a Moretto brooch. The older ones are signed “G Nardi” after my grandfather, and then, from the late Sixties, “S Nardi”, for my father Sergio. Today they are just signed “Nardi” and, although the use of tortoiseshell was prohibited in the Seventies, my father and grandfather were sufficiently far sighted to buy up the entire remaining stock and we are only beginning to run out now. We have enough tortoiseshell for about 15 more Moretti, and then we will have to move to ebony – something of the end of an era. Even though no two Moretti are the same, they began to fall into different “families”, sometimes named in honour of the person who commissioned the first one. The most famous is the Paola, named after Paola, Queen of Belgium. She first came to the shop in

AM often asked by my customers if I sell any 18th- or 19th-century Venetian Moretti, and I have to laugh because they don’t exist: these characteristic brooches are a 20th-century invention created by my grandfather, Giulio Nardi. And there wouldn’t be a tradition of Moretti in Venice today had he not fallen in love with a Venetian girl, who became my grandmother. Of course, there were Moretti before – but not Venetian ones. They were first made along the Dalmatian coast, which used to be part of the Venetian republic, La Serenissima, using silver and enamel to celebrate the retreat of the Turks from Europe, but it was not until 1918 that my grandfather arrived in Venice. He started in a small shop that was selling crystal and then, together with a business partner, decided to open a small shop, a single arch in St Mark’s Square. That arch is still our entrance, even though the shop is now five arches linked together. At first, my grandfather started selling silver and crystal but then he fell in love with jewellery and started to design pieces and have them made in our workshop at the back of the square. It is a way of doing business that I continue to this day. My grandfather was a very artistic man, and the whimsicality and exoticism of the old Dalmatian Moretti appealed to him, even if he did not think too much of the level of workmanship. So whereas those primitive Moretti used silver and enamel, my grandfather chose to

the Fifties, and I recently welcomed her back. The Moretto that bears her name, the Paola, has a triangular torso surrounded by mixed cabochon stones – sometimes semiprecious, such as turquoise and coral, but more often rubies and sapphires – with a mixture of silver and gold. The Princess Grace shares the same shape, but is set only with diamonds, usually three rows, whereas the Elizabeth Taylor is made with sapphires and yellow gold. Then there is the Hemingway, a more symmetrical shape, a little similar to the one we call Renaissance, because it is a longer torso clad in a suit of armour. In the Seventies we also introduced some slight variations on

tradition we can take a few liberties now and again. We use old ivory for the features and the patina is perfect. Then there are the Moretti that defy description – truly crazy maybe, with a torso of a giant pearl or huge rubelite, or even an antique piece of cameo or engraving that we set into the bust. One of the maddest we’ve made featured an 18th-century coral cherub which we set into white gold clouds. However, the one that is the most significant for me is what we call the Tree of Life, the leaves of which are diamonds. We only started selling this quite recently, although it is one of the oldest of our designs. The original was made by my grandfather for my grandmother, making the Moretto brooch an important and eternal part of our family love affair with the city. Alberto Nardi is the third generation of his family to run the eponymous and celebrated Venetian jewellers, Nardi

We have enough tortoiseshell for about 15 more Moretti

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the theme, adding the Venetian tradition of carnival and putting the Moretto in a carnival costume, hat and mask – the multicoloured patchwork of the costume allows us to add a dazzling variety of stones. And about 20 years ago we started making some pale Moretti but I feel that as my grandfather started the

Clockwise from top left: 18 ct. gold “Marco Polo” brooch set with white opal and sapphires; 18 ct. pink gold “Moretto Paola” brooch set with pink sapphires; Grace Kelly; 18 ct. gold “Moretto Sole” brooch set with fire opal and diamonds; Greek Royals; Ingrid Bergman; 18 ct. white gold “Moretto Angelo” brooch set with coral and diamonds; Platinum “Moretto Albero della Vita” brooch set with diamonds; 19 ct. gold “Moretto Liz Taylor” brooch set with sapphires and diamonds; Princess Ira Von Fürstenberg and Prince Alfonso Hohenlohe

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FQR Films in Focus

Independents’ Day D

URING the opening shot of the film, I’m naked. Right away, no credits, nothing. Just me. Naked. If the scene serves what we are talking about, and if it serves the narrative, and if it makes sense to me when I first read the script, then nudity is fine. It just makes sense in the film The Imperialists Are Still Alive! It tells the viewer something important about this story and my character. She is engrossed in her art, doing a self-portrait photoshoot, wearing nothing but a muslin scarf and smoking a cigarette. Right away the tone that’s set is provocative, and the personality of this girl is established. It was funny because the night I got the script from Zeina Durra, the director, I was thinking about the fact that I was committed to this big French movie that I was not so sure I wanted to be a part of. I got Zeina’s script, printed it, read it, and although it is a tiny movie compared to what I was supposed to do in France, I thought, “Oh my god, this is really what I want to do.” The dates of production were the same, and I felt much more in touch with this film; it really came to me at the right moment on the right night. When I pick a project, it is because I am deeply attracted to it in its totality. It is really like a package. There’s the script and how well it is written, both in terms of story and characters, and then there’s the director’s vision. Most of the time I’m in independent French and American films and it’s often the directors themselves who write the scripts. So when you read their script you can usually get a vision and a point of view already and, for me, a strong vision is very important. Whatever the style of film, whether comedy or drama or whatever else, I like it when there is a strong vision and something meaningful to talk about. Mostly, it’s just an instinct. Also, when you’re part of a good movie with a good director, nothing is hard to do. I’ve realised that the few times things were very hard for me on a film were when I was unhappy with the director or the film itself. Even very intense movies that look like they

are hard at first become easy when you have great people to work with. Luckily, Zeina has a very strong personality and we connected right away. I’m very happy with the film, and it talks about something really important, but in a very funny and light way. Essentially, it’s the story of this young French conceptual artist named Asya living in New York City. She really lives the New York high life. At the beginning of the film she hears that her childhood friend was flying from New York to Houston and was abducted. We have no news of him from the CIA because he is an Arab. So she wants to do something to help her friend, but is totally helpless. At the same time, it’s also a movie about New York City and the rhythm of life there. This situation creates a split between her politically charged inner life and the lightness and superficiality of her city life. She also meets a Mexican man and falls in love, so it’s a love story too. AM really proud of a bunch of movies I have done, including The Imperialists Are Still Alive! My first movie was Serge Gainsbourg’s last movie as a director, which I did when I was 16. The film started my career and gave it tone; it was a very special film to begin my career with. I am also proud of the parts I played in Wild Reeds and The Dreamlife of Angels and La Faute à Voltaire by a director called Abdel Kechiche, an amazing director in France. My latest film is Happy Few, which I shot in France last summer and had an amazing experience filming. It’s a love story about two couples who meet and fall in love with each other, but exchange partners. It’s not about adultery, because everybody knows it’s happening. It’s about freedom and love and sharing. It carries on until the situation is no longer possible. It’s a wonderful story, and we’re taking it to the Venice Film Festival this year. This will be my third time at Venice, and I’m very excited to compete. Exciting projects like this keep life interesting. I just want to continue working on new, exciting and interesting projects. And most importantly, I never want to fall into the routine of working on movies as a job instead of making movies I’m truly proud of with people I love. Élodie Bouchez is an award-winning French actress, Happy Few opens in France on 15 September

Independent French and American filmmakers love Élodie Bouchez – not just for her obvious talent and good looks but for her dedication to decent scripts and strong vision Élodie Bouchez in Happy Few

documentary films that I started in 1964 which followed the lives of 14 British children. It was designed as an experiment to investigate whether or not a child’s social class

t Y I th

’ve u o

Michael Apted has directed a smorgasbord of some of today’s biggest films. His latest is the third of the Narnia movies

predetermines their future and we therefore selected a range of children to film, from different socioeconomic backgrounds. Roughly every seven

years I have filmed them, as they have progressed through life. As I get older the age difference between myself and the participants seems to get smaller and we continue to get closer. They’ve all taken such different paths, which has been both fascinating and, at times, emotional to watch and film. When I finished the last documentary, I thought I could never do another one because it was just too emotional. Although it’s hard, I would only discontinue the series if people stopped being interested in the films or if too many of the participants dropped out. HE Up series has encapsulated my life. It was the first job I ever did, and since then it has been a roadmap for me. I’ve always felt these films have been about the heroism of ordinary life and our destiny and how unpredictable life can be. You never really know for sure where life is taking you and what is going to happen next, and the films convey this message in a

o tt a R

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Narnia, that there was an agenda when I took on the project. With Bond in The World Is Not Enough, it was to try and make the franchise more attractive to women. So we made the villain female and M, played by Judi Dench, became a more important character. I’ve built a reputation for working with women over the years and having some success with it. Then for the Narnia film, the producers really wanted to bring back emotion into the film. The first film in The Chronicles of Narnia, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, was very successful but the second, Prince Caspian, was less so. The producers wanted to go back to the style of the first, which had more emotion in it. This was their agenda for hiring me. When you can figure out what they need, it helps you define what you can offer and places your role in the whole thing. The first films I worked on were the Up series. These are a series of

W i

HE reason I decided to direct the third Narnia movie, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, was because it was different to other films I have made, and I wanted to make another big movie. I do a lot of different sorts of movies – everything from small documentaries to small independent films, to studio films, to the Bond film I directed. I have always liked the feeling of doing a big movie. I just love the idea that there are millions of people out there waiting for this movie and the chance to see it. My whole life, I’ve always wanted to do films that a lot of people see. I never wanted just to do films for myself or my friends, or the kind of films that people don’t go and see. I spend most of my professional life trying to figure out whether anyone is going to show up to see my films, but when you have a thing like Bond or Narnia, you’ve got a huge built-in audience, which is thrilling and scary. Scary because these are huge operations and there are great expectations. It was clear in both cases, Bond and

o ll

Why Not Production / Jeannick Gravelines

If the scene serves what we are talking about, and if it serves the narrative, and if it makes sense to me when I first read the script, then nudity is fine

very unique and engaging way. Being a film director is a journey, and there’s a huge amount of luck involved. I’ve rolled with it, really. It’s sort of a sad thing to say but, early on, I used to have these great projects I wanted to do. When they don’t get done, instead of getting disillusioned, you just move on to the next thing. I’ve just kept working and have always tried to do a variety of different films and projects. I’ve always taken great joy in the process of it all. I simply love making films. So that to me has really been a destiny. I’ve done a great variety of different films, from the Up series to Gorillas in the Mist, to Bond, Enigma and Amazing Grace. I’ve met so many wonderful people and sometimes wonder whether there’s a transient, homeless quality about this business. You get very close to people, because it’s tough making a film. It’s very stressful, very intense and highly pressurised work – you never have the time, never have money. And all of these wonderful people pull you through it. Michael Apted, CMG, is a director, producer and writer

autumn 2010

FQR Films in Focus

Taking A Turn

HE story of Tournée is very simple, really. It’s about this rather strange French guy, Joachim, who decides to leave everything behind to start a new life in America. But whilst away, he has the idea to set up a burlesque striptease show, and he manages to persuade a group of dancers to do a tour of France. The showgirls invent a burlesque fantasy show that enraptures the French audiences. At the heart of the film is really an exchange of fantasies between Joachim and these women who know about the world of Le Moulin Rouge. Joachim has a troubled life but, when he sees these women, he uses their energy and vitality to keep going and, finally, the girls kind of adopt him, and he them. I play the role of Joachim. Originally, I didn’t know I wanted to act in this film but at the last moment it was decided that I would play the part. In fact, it was the best thing that

autumn 2010

happened for the film, because I became a part of the story. By acting with the girls, rather than just observing them like some strange animals, I felt that I understood the journey and the feelings of the characters at a much deeper level than if I were just directing the story. It was interesting because the experience scared me too. It was hard and frightening to try and find a way to exist as a man surrounded by all those wonderful bodies. How is a man supposed to feel? I tried to use my fear rather than ignore it. When a man feels in danger he gets a bit stupid, he doesn’t always speak well, and he gets disagreeable – I had to use that as an actor. The burlesque dancers in the film included Dirty Martini, Evie Lovelle, Kitten on the Keys and Mimi Le Meaux – and they were

truly amazing. We actually put on these real shows as we travelled through France. With an audience there, these girls really come alive. It’s very difficult to describe the show in words. The twirling tassels, the pop of a balloon, the routines and singing and the applause of the audience must be seen and heard to be truly meaningful. Their shows were also more than just a spectacle; they were also about humour, intelligence, generosity, warmth and courage. The dancers invented everything themselves. They really had to build their own characters on stage. I think they had to go and search very deeply inside themselves to invent the different sets they perform. What struck me was the individuality of each performance, and how truly intimate and personal they were. The girls were always

Burlesque dancers in the film included Dirty Martini, Evie Lovelle, Kitten on the Keys and Mimi Le Meaux

working and trying to invent new ways of expressing themselves. It was an amazing experience to be brought into this world of burlesque; we did a live tour, we lived in the hotels we were shooting in, and we kept the shooting short, to try and keep the energy alive. We needed the audience and the public for this, so we could mix the spontaneous energy with the scripted story. HE scripted story was based on the memoirs of Colette, the French novelist best known for her novel Gigi. When Colette was in her 30s she decided to tour on stage. She would sing and recite poems and do pantomimes, and the account is very purely written, very honest. There is also something very melancholy about going on tour, never having time to really sleep. You are in a kind of exile. But she felt an attraction to being on tour. I wanted to explore the idea that, as a woman, she felt very free doing this. The dancers in Tournée are also trying to find their freedom, their truth and individuality and their own form of self-expression – and their shows are really a celebration of this. Mathieu Amalric is a French actor and film director best known for his award-winning performance in The Diving Bell and the Butterfly Mimi Le Meaux

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Nicolas Guerin

Mathieu Amalric won this year’s Best Director award at Cannes for his film Tournée, in which he also stars, surrounded by gorgeous burlesque dancers. It’s a dirty job…

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FQR Gone But Not Forgotten

Cecil Beaton 1965

On the Charlie Gladstone recalls growing up with celebrated photographer and stage and costume designer Cecil Beaton Photograph by David Bailey

Y GREAT-GREAT-GRANDFATHER, Prime Minister William Gladstone, is still incredibly well known. Pretty much wherever I travel, I get asked if I am related to him. Sometimes I say, “Yes”, but more often than not I say, “No” – not because I’m not proud of my ancestor (I am), but because it’s just easier that way. Sometimes I get asked if I have anything to do with the Gladstone bag. This is a particularly tedious one, because I sort of do (it was named after William Gladstone) and I sort of don’t (we have – drat! – no rights over the name). Gladstone Bag was even, on more occasions than I can remember, attempted as a nickname for me at school. Unsurprisingly, perhaps, it never stuck. Sometimes I even get asked if I am a relation of the cricketer Gladstone Small (no, although he was apparently named after the Grand Old Man). I grew up in the shadow of a true behemoth of the Victorian age. And yet, until recently, I struggled to connect with this famous ancestor. As a boy I knew that I should be interested; but all I could really muster was apathy. I was interested in art, girls, pop music, books, not history or politics. And so I gravitated towards another, less famous relation, Sir Cecil Beaton; and the best thing about Cecil was that he was still very much alive. Cecil was my great-uncle on my mother’s side. He was one of four children, two boys and two girls. One of the boys, Reggie, died young in tragic circumstances, leaving Cecil and his two sisters, Nancy and Baba (my grandmother) to grow up as a tightknit unit. Almost anyone who is aware of Cecil’s work will know his early photographs of Nancy and Baba, carefully posed by Cecil and dressed in – or artfully positioned in front of – his elaborate creations. We have many of these lovely photos, and I believe that they are still amongst his best work; soft of focus, a tiny bit rickety, perhaps, but showing the deftness of touch of a true master.

autumn 2010

Track

They were often taken on the children’s nanny’s Kodak 3A, a perfect beginner’s camera. Cecil would send the finished results to London’s society magazines, often with a letter from a nom de plume, “recommending” the photographer’s work. It still thrills me to think of my beloved grandmother and her sister sitting, often for hours and hours, at their big brother’s whim, trussed up in his fantastical hats and dresses. Cecil and his two sisters remained close as the girls went off and married (well, of course). And so when Baba’s husband, Alec – my grandfather – was killed in action soon after my mother’s birth, Cecil was the man to whom my grandmother returned. He was a huge source of support during this terrible time and my mother and her elder sister adopted him as an important – perhaps even the important – male influence in their lives. Cecil’s career was very much in the ascendancy at this point; he was an official War photographer and his image of three-year-old Blitz victim Eileen Dunn, recovering in hospital with her teddy bear, soon brought him huge recognition. It became one of the most significant images of the conflict. America had yet to enter the War when the photograph was first taken and yet the image was widely published in the States. Indeed, it is often credited with helping to catalyse action in Washington to help Britain in its hour of need. Cecil went on to do extraordinary things. He won three Oscars for Costume Design and Art Direction. He photographed the Royal Family endlessly (the Queen Mother was his favourite sitter). He won Tonys, published endless books and six volumes of diaries, proposed – time and again – to Greta Garbo, hung out with The Stones, photographed Picasso, Brando, the Queen’s coronation, Hockney, Churchill, Hepburn and countless others, claimed to have had an affair with Gary Cooper and designed stage sets for operas in New York and London. And yet, despite all of this frenetic work and creativity, ambition and success, Cecil remained close to his sisters and their children and grandchildren. I remember his stays with us at Hawarden, camera, pen or paintbrush constantly at the ready. In my memory he always wore a large hat, a kind of fedora, but I am not sure if this is accurate. As a young boy I was in awe of him, because I

wanted to be an artist when I grew up; and because he was always kind, if slightly aloof. He took photos when I asked him to and we still have some of those today. In 1974, when I was 10, he suffered a massive stroke, which left him permanently paralysed on his right side. He taught himself to write and draw with his left hand, and some of his cameras were adapted to suit his condition. One of these drawings – a portrait in soft, barely there pencil – hangs above my desk as I write. It is remarkably competent, despite all the limitations visited upon the artist. After his stroke Cecil spent more and more time at Reddish House, his home in Wiltshire. He didn’t visit us at Hawarden again, but we went to Reddish where he proudly showed us his beloved garden and (gently) bossed his staff around. I remember one occasion when his staff were forced to serve us that evening’s pudding at teatime, simply because my siblings and I had eaten the teatime offering with such gusto. The chef was ordered to hastily create another pudding for dinner from whatever was available in the kitchen. ECIL aged rapidly, and he died in 1980, aged 76. I remember his memorial service, at St Martin-in-theFields, well. I was let out of school for the day in order to attend, but found the service curiously alienating and strangely impersonal. There were lots of people there – many of them famous, but few of whom I recognised or cared about – and yet the Cecil that I knew was completely absent. Cecil was public property, and not just an exotic member of our family. I just hadn’t really grasped this until then. This summer my parents moved from our family home into something smaller. This inevitably meant endless clearing-out of boxes and drawers and, to all of our surprise, the uncovering of many photographs and drawings by Cecil. Most significantly, we discovered an album full of photographs of my grandmother, given to her husband by Cecil on their wedding day. It is in immaculate condition and full of lovely, happy portraits of my grandmother taken by her beloved brother. Somehow, in the gentlest of ways, the discovery of this warm and intimate tome meant Cecil was ours again. Charlie Gladstone is Finch’s Quarterly Review’s Highland Editor (19th Century)

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The Prince Regent

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FQR Casting Couch

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autumn 2010

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FQR World Watch

A David and Goliath Story It might not be as glamorous as Pirates of the Caribbean, but Eski Thomas’s tale of biopiracy in the Amazon has a far better outcome

N THE year 2000 I read a piece on the environment in the New Scientist. Profoundly disturbed by it, I immediately made up my mind to join other people’s efforts to do something, ideally a pre-emptive something, to help rescue and preserve the places where wild nature and the species that live in the wild still hang on. From what does one have to protect these places, many of them already diminished and degraded? From us, Homo sapiens, all of us, ourselves. And here’s a Möbius-strip-resembling irony: in the time elapsed since the year 2000, climate change has migrated from the margins to the mainstream of environmental concern, and environmentalism itself has mutated into a deadly serious struggle to protect ourselves from ourselves.

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In early 2004 Pete Myers, a colleague and friend from Greenpeace who had been involved with me and Julien Temple in making what turned out to be pioneering information-disseminating films, came to me with an urgent request. We met in Soho. I thought he was going to propose something exciting and adventurous, along the lines of a previous trip to a Manaus music festival which featured the world’s best skateboarders demonstrating their skills on ramps and boards made from responsibly selected timber as opposed to timber from old-growth forest. Instead, he started telling me about a small Brazilian organisation, Amazonlink, at that time very active in a campaign to prevent an act of gross injustice: the Asahi Corporation of Japan, a food and drinks giant best known outside Japan for its beer, was in the process of patenting and trademarking a local Amazon tree fruit called cupuaçu. This is not uncommon. Botanists are sent to remote locations to look for commercially usable fruits, seeds, herbs etc. Anything they identify as having commercial potential the company patents and trademarks. This amounts to straightforward theft of a community’s food and drink –

substances that the people of the region may have relied upon for hundreds, maybe even thousands of years. Imagine in earlier times obtaining by patent the sole right to use and sell coffee, tea, cocoa… the potato(!) just because you manage to find yourself in its immediate vicinity. The food giants call it bioprospecting; the small NGOs that fight these thefts call it biopiracy. The affected communities, aided by Amazonlink and other NGO partners, had decided to try to get the patent and trademark overturned in the Brazilian courts. Pete was very direct: money was required urgently and I was his first port of call. I’m sorry to say that my initial reaction to his request was disappointment that, in this instance, I was of interest only as a potential provider of money. I was also incredulous that the problem could be dealt with by handing over a few thousand euros to a Brazilian law firm. Added to that, the extreme David and Goliath nature of the circumstances made it almost impossible to envisage a successful outcome. However, the situation as described to me by Pete appalled me, and the sum asked for was a stretch but not impossible. Altruism prevailed.

I learned never to judge an altruistic act to be of lesser value just because you don’t get a kick out of it at the time

In the weeks that followed I became convinced that I had parted with useful money in pursuance of a noble but clearly unwinnable objective. Then a Brazilian friend sent me a notice posted online: “March 9th 2004 – Rio Branco – Acre – Brazil: Amazonlink celebrates first ‘Cupuaçu victory’ with Capoeira and Rock.” The Brazilian court had ruled that the Asahi Corporation’s patent and trademark should be revoked. Its piratical acts had been judged to be against the spirit of a multinational agreement entitled “The Commitment of Rio Branco” which stated that life patents on traditionally used flora and fauna should be banned, as should any attempt to use patenting and trademarking to hijack tribal intellectual property. I learned from this never to judge an altruistic act to be of lesser value just because you don’t get a kick out of it at the time! And that, once performed, an act creates infinite ripples across distance and through time, and we, the perpetrators, will most likely only ever know the more immediate consequences. A short time after the Brazilian victory the Japanese Patent Office decided to cancel Asahi’s Japanese registration of the trademark Cupuaçu and rejected its patent request for the production of Cupuaçu chocolate. Moreover, the Cupuaçu ruling constituted a legal precedent and, as it says on the Amazonlink website, “The Cupuaçu case has become a landmark in the formation of Amazonian and Brazilian civil society’s selfassertion and capacity to act.” David now knows how to stand up to Goliath. Eski Thomas is a writer, part of Bright Green Pictures, and married to film producer Jeremy Thomas

7/28/10 10:03:16 AM

autumn 2010

FQR Pro Bono Pin Up

A Never-Ending Story Sveva Gallmann on how recognising the power of thousand-year-old stories led her to found The Four Generations Project in Kenya

WAS born into a family of storytellers, and some of my earliest memories are the voice of my grandfather telling me the most captivating tales. My mother is also writer and a phenomenal storyteller. Growing up as an only child in Africa on our conservancy in Kenya, I would spend a great deal of time in the company of adults. I would find myself at adult functions, such as my mother’s book launches, and I’d often be found in a corner with some much older person telling me their whole life story. I would also spend a great deal of time with the surrounding tribal people, and would listen to their stories too. Our conservancy on the Great Rift Valley is at a crossroads where a lot of different tribal communities come together. One of the elders was an old man called Mirimuk. He’d been brought up in the bush, and his entire education had been oral; he’d never gone to school, but he’d learned to read the bush like an encyclopaedia. He’d know how long it had been since a gazelle had passed on the track by how bent a blade of grass was. He’d be able to sniff the wind and know where a herd of elephants was. He had this extraordinary instinct and intuition for knowing the ways of nature. So did many of the older generations of these communities and they had amazing stories to tell – of nature, of the world they way they saw it, of medicine and of animals. Each of these surrounding tribes had eked out an existence in very different ways and they have each put very different cultural meanings and symbolism around the same basic facts of life. Then I went to England for my education. At university, I did my dissertation on herbal medicine in Kenya, and I went back and worked with a lot of herbalists in different parts of the country, finding out their knowledge of medicine. I travelled from village to village and I saw that the tribal knowledge and traditions were slowly being lost. The elders who had had knowledge passed on to them orally by their elders – knowledge accumulated over thousands of years of watching the environment and watching human interaction, and really understanding how to manage the harsh environment in which they live – was not being passed on to the younger generations, and was being lost forever. Travelling the country and seeing that there was no value attached to this ancient knowledge and cultural stories made me really sad. So when I finished university and went back to Kenya, the idea came up to develop a way for the younger generations to connect with the knowledge and history of their elders so that they could be proud of it and where they came from. This is how the Four Generations Project was born. The idea was to go into schools and start a project that involved the children finding out their own stories, indigenous history and knowledge. We did this and the schools wrote back saying that the kids who had been working with Four Generations had improved their grades by at least 10 per cent. We had a great deal of positive feedback from the teachers, the children and their communities – especially the elders, who loved it. What the Four Generations Project aims to do is to give Kenyan children knowledge of where they come from, and to be proud and confident of it. It has also equipped them with the tools and skills that this ancient knowledge provides, and they learn to live better within their communities and look after and respect their environment as previous generations have. It has also helped bring tribal communities together. We’ve used the power of storytelling to bring about community conversation, to talk about the problems facing them today and possible solutions. The Four Generations Project has also been about gathering stories, because there are 43 different tribes in a country which is so environmentally diverse. You’ve got people who have eked out an existence in so many different ways: fisherman on the coast, nomads in the Kenyan deserts, farmers, agriculturalists and the mountain people. What’s really inspired me is the wealth of stories there are in the country – it is an absolute testament to human imagination. There’s so much magic and truth in that diversity and so many lessons in those stories for us all to learn. Our role between now and the elections in 2012 is going to be great. We need support to bring people together in Kenya and to help the younger generations, who, often unemployed and dissatisfied with life, frequently get involved in violent gangs. What we are encouraging them to do is to talk rather than act on their dissatisfaction with life. Over the past year we have seen violence and poaching increase in Kenya. I think that helping the younger generations to find meaning in their lives, to find something meaningful to do and to have confidence and pride in who they are and their history and culture will help Kenyan people and Kenya itself enormously as it grows and competes in the global market. We aim to organise more peace projects and projects to document the amazing stories in this country and to help the children to understand them too. I love working with children and teenagers who are trying to make sense of life and who are often so keen to learn, if given the opportunity. They have a fantastic perspective on things and their aspirations haven’t yet been dulled. They think they can change the world – and to harness that energy is a great privilege. Sveva Gallmann is .a conservationist and founder of the Four Generations Project. She also works at the The Gallmann Memorial Foundation with her mother, the author Kuki Gallmann www.gallmannkenya.org

autumn 2010

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FQR Music and Movement

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Err on a G String

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Henry Wyndham, chairman of Sotheby’s music. His mother is musical, his family is he explains, exasperated, that’s not enough to play an instrument

LOVE almost all music, and have loved it all my life. When I was growing up I was obsessed by The Beatles. My parents took me to one of their concerts in Hammersmith. It was my first ever concert. I love the blues and rock’n’roll. I listen to The Rolling Stones, Coldplay, The Kooks, Bob Marley, Led Zeppelin, Annie Lennox, Creedence Clearwater Revival and Van Morrison. I recently went to a Leonard Cohen concert. Despite his age – mid-70s – he was absolutely fantastic and gave the best performance I can ever remember. Although not a huge fan, I did listen to his music in the Seventies. I saw Bob Marley in the Eighties, at Madison Square Garden, shortly before he died. Incredibly, he was the warm-up band for The Commodores. It was difficult to see through the haze of ganja and, by the time The Commodores came on, everyone was trolleyed. My three sons are very musical and the eldest, Ned, is a professional musician who has a band called Hoodoo Scoundrels, which is definitely one to watch for the future. He writes all the music and sings. My other two boys also play – one drums and the other guitar – so occasionally they all play together at friends’ weddings and parties, and I look on enviously as a proud dad longing to be able to play with them. I often go to Ned’s gigs but hide at the back

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Palo m Etta a Fait h’s Jam as I’m 40 years older than Play Bob e list Dyla s - At L anyone else in the crowd. ast n Billi e Ho - Simp I’m not sure how good it le T lida Wild is for his image to have is th y - Lad wist of S Fate y Si e W trei his ancient dad in the ngs san ind t d h Nick - Ni , Da audience! na S e Blues vid Cav Bow e& i m When my sons one ie an The , Ca Bad d ot Palo were much younger t Po h S ers eeds ma wer , Ba Fait I used to play them York - Th h rbra e , B rece feat o a all the music I tma urin ntly n g ’s Ca r Gho loved in the Sixties ll stfa eleased ce K a and Seventies – new illah (Wu sing Led Zeppelin, le, Tan New g Cl Hendrix, Joni Mitchell, an) James Taylor, The Stones etc and

I think that did rub off on them and has obviously had some effect as they are all obsessed by music now. They seem to quite like much of what I’ve introduced them to, but they too have introduced me to people who passed me by – particularly Peter Green of early Fleetwood Mac. I’ve also loved classical music ever since my mother used to play Brahms and Schumann at home. I don’t go to classical concerts but love the opera and go to Glyndebourne several times a season (as I am a Trustee) and to Covent Garden now and again when invited. I can’t claim to be a great expert but I particularly like Handel operas and I went to Giulio Cesare at Glyndebourne three times last season, which I absolutely adored. My mother is a very talented pianist. Unfortunately, that talent passed me and my sisters by. I did take up the

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piano and guitar at school but had neither the patience nor the ability. Perhaps one day in my next life I shall fulfil my dreams and become a guitarist. Henry Wyndham is chairman of Sotheby’s Europe ch Fin

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Charlie Gladstone : The Smiths The Q ueen Is Dead, Radioh In Rainbows/Kid A, ead Elbow The Seldom Seen Kid, The Spec Specials, Bob Marley ial s & The Wailers Turn Your Lights Down Lo Charlie Gladstone w is FQR ’s Highland Editor

A True Mover and Shaker Duncan Heath hasn’t looked back – well, not without a shimmy

USED to have an intense phobia about dancing; I literally could not go onto a dance floor. At the same time I had a cocaine habit. And then I thought that maybe I had the habit only as an excuse not to dance. Seriously. On my way to work I used to pass by a Catholic church which had a dance school in the basement, the Vernon Bamford Central School of Dance. And one day I thought I would go in. I kept chickening out until one day I just did it. Of course, I walked in and immediately began with the usual thing – “I’ve got two left feet, I don’t know what I’m doing, blah, blah, blah…” But they took me and that’s how I started, and how I kicked my cocaine habit. I’ve now been

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dancing for three years and haven’t looked back. My first dance lesson was a total disaster and terribly humiliating. I had no rhythm and I hadn’t really danced since school. Really, though, the first dozen lessons were very weird and I didn’t have a clue. But since I have a very addictive personality, I had to have some sort of goal: it wasn’t just social dancing for me. I

learned that you first start off with social dance, which is bottom of the line, and then you can move on to prebronze, bronze, silver, gold and gold award competitive dancing. So immediately I began thinking, “It’s competitive – that’s great.” When I started eventually to get the hang of it and went to social dances, I thought I was quite good.

Then I went into competition and realised no, I was terrible, and this was difficult. In competition there are 10 dances: five ballroom and five Latin. The ballroom dances are ballroom tango, waltz, Viennese waltz, quickstep and foxtrot, and the Latin are rumba, samba, jive, Argentinean tango and cha-cha. I also do things like West Coast and East Coast swing and salsa, but they are not part of competition. You feel like a total village idiot if you don’t do it right, but eventually you learn. Now I love competition, it really feels fantastic. I started competing seriously really quickly. I came in last every time for the first year and a half. You get used to being knocked out almost immediately, and that’s how you start getting better. But last year I came sixth in my level in the UK, which is bronze, which was just amazing. The final competition is held in the mecca of

autumn 2010

FQR Music and Movement

Jumping at the Chance

Sally Greene’s Playlist

The Marchioness of Douro reveals why she was so keen to be Chairman of The Royal Ballet School

ALBUMS Miles Davis Kind of Blue There is a photo of the genius Miles Davis in my office at Ronnie Scott’s. He was the iconic, beautiful trumpet player. Don’t call him a legend just call him Miles Davis! Elton John Madman Across The Water Greatest living composer, Elton John. Of course, he and his music have made such an impact on me. Tiny Dancer is Alice Eve’s Playlist my song – I think he wrote it for me and for Ben, my son. Leonard Cohen, Songs From a Room Alfredo Rodrîguez Trio Sounds of Space Joan Baez, Joan Baez:Volume 2 Quincy Jones introduced his new protégé Maria Callas: The Legend pianist, Alfredo Rodrîguez at Ronnie’s recently. He was incredible, young – so Bob Marley, Three Little Birds technical – and with a great bass player Nirvana, Nevermind and drummer. Mercedes Ruehl, who was in the club at the time with Jeff Goldblum, said he had the passionate Alice Eve stars in Sex and the City 2 face of a very young John Travolta! The Rolling Stones Exile on Main Street I love the Blues, and The Stones really deliver on this album in such an astonishing way. They just keep getting better and better. James Pearson Trio Swing the Club James is the Artistic Director at Ronnie’s who, night after night, gives brilliant performances together with Sam Burgess, the bassist and, until recently, Chris Dagley, the extraordinary drummer who was so charismatic on stage, always upbeat and loved by everyone who saw him perform. Now, so recently and tragically, he has been lost to us. I would like to dedicate this spot to him. He played with the greats and I know that Ronnie Scott’s will be a sadder place without him. This album was recently featured in The Sunday Times as one of the best jazz albums. SONGS Ella Fitzgerald Night and Day She was the First Lady of Song for a reason, the most seductive voice in the world. Elton John & Lee Hall Electricity This is one of the songs Elton and Lee wrote for Billy Elliot. When the first Billys (Liam, James and George) sang this song for the first time on stage on the opening night at the Victoria Palace Theatre in 2005 I was blown away by their courage, talent and their individual interpretation of this extraordinary number. Five years in the West End and it still makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up! Go, Billy! Kylie Minogue Two Hearts This song has a real cabaret feel, very sexy, like it wouldn’t be out of place at a Soho club. Hint to Kylie: play Ronnie Scott’s. The offer goes out to her. Charlotte Gainsbourg Heaven Can Wait N Moick Fo This is on her new album, done with Beck, which I think is If Y unta ulk e i o beautiful. I love that distinctly French sound which Serge -T uW nH s - T he N an igh am did so well too, while rehearsing next door to my atio na G Enou mi nal et T gh Terr flat in Paris! I would also love Charlotte to Ant o H - Th ell a hem eave e O nd play at Ronnie Scott’s! - C n - B zark Mar Stevie Wonder Superstition v her rya Mo in yl B n F un Ga I love to get up and dance t y arn erry ain e A es L Th Da in’t after a long day. No one ove e ‘In rede no And ’ C vils can deny that Mr Stevie Pas rowd sion Wonder does that better than anyone! Sally Greene is Chief Executive of The Old Vic and owner of Ronnie Scott’s

dancing, Blackpool. There are about six or seven knockout competitions leading up to Blackpool in November. It’s like a pilgrimage. What’s fun is that I’m great now at Bar Mitzvahs, weddings and parties. I remember going to this little place in the south-west of France in a little town square, and everyone was dancing to rock’n’roll, doing samba, cha-cha and the Viennese waltz. I just joined in and it felt great being able to do it. Luckily, not too many men can dance, so everybody thinks – and I know it’s a total cliché – that if you’ve got rhythm you must be good in the sack. And in my case, absolutely, but anyone else’s case, it’s just a cliché. It’s sad to think that people of a certain age just don’t dance. There’s really nothing worse than seeing people doing Mick Jagger impersonations or just waving their hands around. I think it’s

autumn 2010

YEAR ago I was asked if I would put my name forward to be considered as a Chairman for The Royal Ballet School. The Upper and Lower Ballet Schools – home in term time to 123 students aged from 11 to 16 years at White Lodge in Richmond, and another 90 16- to 18-yearolds in Floral Street, next to the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden – train the most gifted pupils they can lay their hands on. The Schools are extraordinary places. For the past three years 100 per cent of the graduates have gone on to dance in great companies throughout the world. They carry the flame of the school’s founder Dame Ninette de Valois’ vision for classical ballet. Many will come back at some stage in their careers to The Royal Ballet, and many to The Royal Ballet School. Whilst still in the school, senior students regularly dance with The Royal Ballet and Birmingham Royal Ballet. They are invited to dance abroad (last year they went to Canada and Japan), which provides an extraordinary opportunity to relate to other cultures, perform in various venues and for the Director and her team to spot foreign talent. The Royal Ballet School is for an élite – the élite few who have the gift that is the physique and passion to dance. Their education is funded variously by the Department for Education and by bursaries. It is a message that is easily communicated. You can contribute to giving a child who has got “it” the chance to realise it. The School aims to take all it has room for, who have the ability, whatever their financial position. 95 per cent of our students require financial support with 20 per cent of them coming from homes with an income of less than £10k – what we euphemistically call “low or modest” incomes.

a British thing, because if you go to France or America or wherever else, most men can dance. I think it’s a peculiar British pride that if you dance you’re effeminate. Women love to dance, so it’s sort of odd that getting a bloke on the dance floor is like pulling teeth. I also think dancing is enormously romantic and sensuous and a way of communicating without words. Some of the great icons of film such as Fred Astaire could dance and move incredibly well. I think Scent of a Woman,

in which Al Pacino played the blind man who took the girl round in that Argentinean tango, has got to be one of the sexiest things on film. As for funny dancing stories, two years ago my daughter came down to visit with her then boyfriend to see me at a Latin American competition. For Latin you get really jazzed up and I have this shirt with Swarovski crystals all over it, and when my daughter walked in with her new boyfriend, I was doing the rumba in my crystal-studded shirt. She had to explain to her very butch boyfriend, who had a look of absolute

What’s fun is that I’m great now at Bar Mitzvahs, weddings and parties 21

Margot Fonteyn

HERE are regular assessments and immense care is taken in guiding students to play to their strengths. Some will be advised to pursue a career in contemporary dance or develop their musical skills. Auditions for the 11-year-old entrants are extremely competitive. The “Billy Elliot” effect has led to a stronger and stronger intake of boys, often brought to the school by their fathers, an almost unheard of occasion in the past. Not all will make it all the way through the schools, but time with the Ballet School will have taught them a discipline that is widely respected. The governors are a dedicated board of philanthropists with a wide range of skills, who give freely of their time and knowledge. When they asked me to put my name forward, I didn’t hesitate. The Marchioness of Douro OBE is Chairman of The Royal Ballet School, a Trustee of the National Portrait Gallery and a Fellow of Eton College

horror on his face, that this was her father doing the rumba in Swarovski crystals. My dream for dancing would be to get first place in Blackpool. But, more important than that, I’m doing a week-long course on Argentinean tango in Buenos Aires next spring, and a week of salsa in Cuba. And unlike all my other hobbies – unlike horse racing, unlike sailing – it’s incredibly cheap. It doesn’t cost anything to dance, and when you turn that music on, people of all shapes and sizes come alive; a person who is 80 and doubled over springs back to life when the music starts playing. And it’s one of the very few things I can do in which I can be totally exposed – especially as an agent, when the nature of my job is to be a front and to give a certain impression. When I dance there’s no escape and I can’t pretend – and, for me, that’s the joy. Duncan Heath is a leading talent agent and the co-chairman of the Independent Talent Group

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Alex Lentati / Evening Standard / Rex Features

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FQR Action Man Special

Shooting The Breeze

Luca Rubinacci is so keen on kitesurfing he wants us all to follow his tips for beginners

HEN I reached the age of 12 my father encouraged me into the world of sailing. I sailed for the Italian team and once became the Italian champion for the 18 age

A Taste For Endurance

group. I have always had this amazing passion for sailing. But when I was 21, my father said it was time for business and when I started working with him I travelled to Milan, far from the sea but close to the mountains. My passion then became snowboarding. From snowboarding I moved on to kitesurfing. I started three years ago because kitesurfing is between the two, sailing and snowboarding. You have a similar board to the one for snowboarding but you use the wind, as in sailing. Kitesurfing was a challenge – and this is why I wanted to learn. And if you want to learn how to kitesurf Brazil is the best place to go so that’s where I went to spend one and half months with a pro-kitesurfer. Kitesurfing is an extreme sport. It’s not particularly dangerous, but everyone thinks they can do it. I think you have to have done some other similar sport – such as wakeboarding, snowboarding or windsurfing – to get into it. After you learn, though, it’s very easy. There is a special system to work the kite and you don’t need a lot of muscle to be able to do it. Because of this, women love it. But you do need to learn to be careful and to know that you are playing with the wind, which is always much stronger than you. Although I say it’s easy to learn and it’s safe, kitesurfing is still an extreme sport because of the speeds you can reach. If the wind travels at a certain speed you are always going that bit faster. The world record was reached by a pro in the Gulf of Leon in France and is 55 knots (just over 100km/ hour). I’m not quite that good. The danger arises if you fall at speed because falling at 20 knots in the water is similar to falling on solid ground. Last year in Antigua I fell because the line of my kite was wrongly set up and, when I launched the kite, it went straight into the “power zone” and pulled me 500m through the sand. You have to be careful, but kitesurfing is pure adrenaline and nothing beats racing along the water in the sunshine with friends. Luca Rubinacci is the son of Mariano Rubinacci, who owns the eponymous Neapolitan tailoring house. Luca will be débuting his first collection, “Luca’s Wardrobe”, in Harrods this autumn

Chef Tom Aikens lives through the pain again as he recounts the ordeal of taking part in the 25th Marathon des Sables in the Moroccan desert

CALLED in October to sign up for a six-day, 151-mile race through the Sahara in Morocco. I never expected to get a place at all. Usually, you have to enquire two years ahead but, in my case, it was only seven months until the race. There were only two places left and they offered me one of them. I said yes immediately, even though I had never run more than five miles in my life. I decided to run the marathon to support the charity Facing Africa. Once I’d signed up, there were three tasks at hand: raising the money; buying my kit; and, most importantly, doing the physical training. I started my training by running three miles a day, then five and then, within three weeks, I was doing half a marathon a day. I did my first two full marathons while skiing in Gstaad. I completed the first one in three hours 42 minutes, and my second in just under three and a half hours. Back in London, I ran every Friday for 13 miles; from Chelsea to London Bridge and back, with a loop around Battersea Park. Soon I could do two full marathons on a weekend and I kept pushing myself until I was doing 40- or 50-mile runs. Once I got out into the desert it was a completely different story. It became a mental as well as a physical challenge. The ground was rocky and the high temperatures and running conditions were extremely taxing. I carried all my food with me and was eating about half of what I was burning each day, which could be as much as 5,000 or 6,000 calories. I had two square meals a day, breakfast and dinner, and between these I ate dried fruit, nuts, cereal bars, sports gels and pepperami sticks – delicious. Every 10km or 12km there was a checkpoint to make sure the runners were getting enough water and we would have a tag on

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Learn to kitesurf with Luca Rubinacci Learn to drive the kite on the beach. Start to learn to move the kite from one side to the other, like you want to make a figure eight in the air. Remember when you were young and played with a kite? It’s the same thing. The first time I did this, I thought, “Wow, I could do this when I was seven or eight years old.” The next thing is body drag, which you do in the sea. You go out only with the kite, not the board, and you learn to steer the kite whilst in the water. You move the kite into the power zone so that you can feel the kite pull you whilst in the water. This basically teaches you how to drive the kite. The next step is learning to drive the kite whilst on the board in the sea. You will realise that the leash becomes very important in this step and should try always to keep the leash on the board so you can’t miss it. You can only kitesurf when you can control your speed. It is an extreme sport because, unlike a normal sport where you start with the easy part and things get harder, like skiing, in kitesurfing you immediately start riding at 20 knots because you put the kite in the power zone and you cannot believe how fast you go. If you’re not able to control yourself, then things can be dangerous.

With 20 knots of wind, you travel 2km downwind in just one minute, and then you have to walk upwind along the beach because you cannot yet control the kite well enough to go upwind and handle its power. After you start to get good, when you learn to control the speed, you can begin to travel upwind and really start to enjoy kitesurfing.

our packs punched to make a note of how much we’d had. We got 1.5 litres at each checkpoint, and then I would take two or three salt tablets and some sports gel or nuts between each point. Every day when I had finished running I would look at the state of my feet, which got progressively worse as the week went on. I dealt with it myself but then, after the first two days, it got so painful I had to have the doctors look at them. On one of the days I did 85km in one go, of which 25km was running through sand dunes. It was pitch black when I finished for the day and, when I took off my shoes to look at my feet, it was like something in an Italian mobster movie. The last two days I had to get them bandaged up completely. I even had to take the inner sole out of my trainers so I could get my feet into them. The pain was incredibly intense and by far the greatest challenge I had to get through. I couldn’t take any painkillers because they dehydrate you. So it really was a case of gritting my teeth and bearing the pain. It is amazing how one finds the strength to carry on. I know the ordeal sounds horrific at times, but it really was an amazing experience. You clear your head of everything except getting from point A to point B – and there’s no e-mail, no post, no distractions from the outside world. It really is just running, eating and sleeping. It was incredibly simplistic compared to the hectic world I live in, and incredibly fulfilling. You just think about the charity you’re running for and all the good you can do by getting to the finish line. Giving up was never an option because people were relying on my perseverance and my completion of it – and the fact that I did it was a great feeling. Would I do it again? Yes, of course! And I’m also looking at doing the Racing the Planet 4 Deserts series. This is a series of seven-day, 250km races in the world’s most extreme places over the course of a year. They include Chile, China, Egypt, and even Antarctica. I can’t wait! Tom Aikens is chef at Tom Aikens restaurant (www.tomaikens. co.uk). Facing Africa is a charity concerned with the prevention and cure of Noma, an acute and ravaging gangrenous infection that affects the face (www.facingafrica.org)

autumn 2010

Cutting a fine figure Alfred Dunhill’s barber in residence, Brent Pankhurst, knows how to make a man look good – just look at Arnaud Bamberger

The Mane Attraction Robert Calcraft on his Cavalier attitude to big hair

OMATOSE in the BA lounge in SFO, I receive a call from none other than Mr Nicholas Foulkes suggesting I write an article about “big hair” for his august organ, FQR. Within a second, he is gone with a snort and a “Cheerio”, off to write an article about luxe, watches and foppery. I am left with the suspicion that he is being deeply ironic, but ingénu that I am, I decide to take him at his word, put arse to chair and expand on the subject of big hair. Mine, that is. I boarded the big-hair train about four years ago, and not without a little trepidation. Big hair has fairly clear and suspect user types: hippies, bikers, tramps, metal fans and the New Age spiritual guru. In fact, the only thing worse than big hair is half-big hair – yes, the mullet. Nothing suggested big hair could be a) stylish, b) status worthy or c) attractive. So why did I bother? Men – and I include myself in this broad category – tend to have a functional relationship with their hair, a visit to the hairdresser being about as pleasurable as mowing the lawn. Men hate hairdressers, hate the pampering, fussiness, preening, forced conversation and mirror work they are made to do. Barbers are not much better than hairdressers, with their football posters, faded Eighties New Romantic model pictures or “something for the weekend” atmosphere. I once even resorted to Mr Toppers for a small, but grudgingly given, £5. Upon this fertile and resentful ground, the seed of big hairdom was sown when I began dating Guljeet, a full-beautiful Sikh girl who, ironically, has a family business supplying hair extensions. I noted in my relationship due diligence that not cutting one’s hair was one of the Five Ks that are a must for baptised Sikhs. This was enough to convince me to eschew the agony of haircuts and now here I am, three years later, follicly well endowed. But what style did I go for? A Meat Loaf? An Osho? A Fabio? A Bill Bailey? Er, that would be a no. The look I eventually drifted into was more a D’Artagnan tribute, although this demanded some intense moustache work, now thankfully completed. My observations on big hair? Well, firstly, big hair is anti. It suits

me, as uniforms, hierarchies and structures have never really been my thing – not even gently subverting them in McCririck style, as does Mr Foulkes. Big hair on a man who, age-wise, should know better, stands as a rebellion against the fund manager, the City-focused black, navy and charcoal sartorial hell of suits and the good taste of blazers, watches and “grooming” of the more off-duty European/ entrepreneur style. Having big hair is to be a Cavalier in a world of Roundheads. But more than this, I have come to see big hair as a metaphysical statement. With Freud’s ordinary unhappiness, Sartre’s nothingness, Beckett’s nihilism, American Beauty, Martin Amis, Saatchi’s YBA art etc, the concept of life being meaningless and pointless is a wellestablished idea. However, rather than endlessly dramatising the void of meaning or the loneliness of being an atomised self in an uncaring universe, I take a rather different view. In sum, there are two responses to the idea of life being pointless and meaningless. One is the world of modern art, film and literature and its self-conscious agonies. The other is profoundly shallow. What do you call activity that is pointless and meaningless? My children call it play. It has no purpose but the doing of it for and of itself. Big hair, for me, is play. It’s dressing up. It’s walking on stage as a different character. It’s not taking life or oneself seriously. To wit, living with big hair is not without its amusements. Dining with my brother, I had the now familiar, “Bonsoir, Monsieur, ’dame” and then an “I am so terribly sorry, Sir” as I was mistaken for a lady. No problem, I said – although my brother was not so amused at being thought to be having dinner with what he described as “a battered tranny”. Recently in Australia, when I approached someone to ask for directions, they hurried off muttering, “No, thank you” under their breath, assuming I was selling The Big Issue or asking for money. But in the end, I have loved – and do love – the big-hair life in all its low maintenance, life as a stage, and with gender-bending complexity. Although recently I’ve been donning a turban… But that’s another story. Robert Calcraft is joint founder of REN Skincare

I have come to see big hair as a metaphysical statement

autumn 2010

VERY man should have a great watch, a great haircut, and a great pair of shoes. For me, a gentleman’s haircut is even more important than his clothing, because he wears it 24/7. One of the most important things about cutting somebody’s hair is to take into consideration who they are – and their personality. For example, a taller gentleman with a lot of presence should have a lot of hair. Arnaud is lucky in that he has a great head of hair. It’s grey, it’s long, and the way he likes to wear it is back, in these long, grey waves. The most important thing about Arnaud’s hair, though, is that it doesn’t look like it’s been freshly cut. It’s slightly dishevelled, but always looks stylish. The biggest problem for gentlemen with longer hair is that they never know how to look after it. They end up using too much hair gel, which looks overstyled. So I always put in my own leave-in conditioner in Arnaud’s hair to help look after it. A leave-in conditioner also gives his hair a bit of hold. Most gentlemen don’t consciously look after their hair. If they do use conditioner, it’s for three seconds and then they wash it out. But the leave-in type looks good and takes care of their hair at the same time. I find that when they reach 30, give or take, men should know how they want to wear their hair. It might get slightly longer or shorter, but they basically know what suits them. For example, Steve McQueen: he might have got away with wearing his hair slightly shorter or longer, but he always knew what looked good on him and what image he wanted to project. Likewise, Arnaud has great presence and a big personality; you can image him in a stylish linen suit, driving a Bentley in the South of France, with a Sixties soundtrack playing and the wind blowing through his hair. His hair must reflect this image; it’s very much a statement in keeping with his personality. It’s also important that Arnaud likes and feels comfortable and confident with his cut. Which he does. I work with many people from around the world and different walks of life. I’ve done styling for bands and films but when someone’s in the barber’s chair, it’s a very personal thing. You build a relationship. I talk to people like no one else can – people who are in the public eye and have achieved a great deal in their lives. When they sit in the chair they switch off, they feel very trusting and can open up. They have a laugh, and you see a completely different side of them from the side you let others see. For me, there are really three basic styles – short, medium, and long hair – with a few small variations in between. The classic short hair look is Steve McQueen. A more modern example might be Daniel Craig, either in Layer Cake or as James Bond. The quintessential medium haircut is Elvis Presley’s quiff – just a little product, and it’s ready to go. Long hair is more difficult, and I don’t think it should ever get longer than Peter Fonda in Easy Rider. In fact, keep it more like Arnaud. Brent Pankhurst is the founder and director of the grooming salon at Alfred Dunhill and Finch’s Quarterly Review’s male grooming specialist

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Atton Conrad

FQR Male Haircare

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FQR Germans in High Heels and Princess Diaries

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S t a h e

Elisabeth von Thurn und Taxis on shoes that give her a natural high

T’S a bit of a cliché that women love shoes but, like most clichés, there is a lot of truth in it. In my case, it’s absolutely spot on. Even as a child, I was obsessed by shoes. It was when watching The Wizard of Oz for the first time, however, that I consciously lusted after a pair. Dorothy’s sparkly red ballerinas with that big red bow were probably my very first shoe crush. It wasn’t only that they had magic powers – Dorothy could beam herself anywhere by clicking her heels together, if I remember correctly – their shiny perfection alone mesmerised me. Fast forward a few decades and a pair of shoes can still make me ecstatic. The other day, for example, a male friend of mine witnessed the power of the heel first hand.

I was in a bit of a bad mood – too much travelling, too much work kind of thing – when suddenly a beautiful cream-coloured paper bag arrived at my doorstep. In it was a cream-coloured box in which my leopardprint Charlotte Olympia heels were neatly snuggled in bright pink tissue paper. Months earlier, I had preordered the pair during Fashion Week in Paris. Unwrapping them, I fell in love all over again. Although the shoes are ludicrously high, I pranced around my flat in pyjamas and faux-leopard-skin peeptoes. I was beaming. Lit up by a gigantic smile I realised my day was no longer a succession of trivialities. Excited, I wore my new little treasures out that same night and, inevitably, had a ball. You see, a good pair of heels cannot only make an outfit but also an experience. A shabby old floral-print dress, for example, might instantly be glamorised by a fierce pair of ankle boots. Once I was lent a Dior’s Haute Couture outfit for a party hosted by Chopard at Versaille. My platform heels were so ridiculously high, more sculpture than shoe, that I had to use two friends on either side as crutches whilst walking through the neverending courtyard.

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Her Natural Habitat? Elisabeth von Thurn und Taxis escapes the city to go wild in the country – or is it the other way round?

HEN I think of the countryside it evokes fond childhood memories of my siblings and me playing in the forest when the leaves had turned yellow and red. On weekends we would drive up into the deepest woods to a house we called Hütte, the hut. Actually, it was a string of houses, almost like a small village, architecturally inspired by Russian dachas. The various green hunting lodges covered in deer antlers and wild-boar tusks played different roles. One house was the dining room, another my parents stayed in. One was home to a bowling alley where my parents entertained guests after dinner. Yet another was the kitchen quarter. There were guesthouses and, of course, our children’s house. The grounds all around seemed endless to my eyes. I would jump out of bed in the morning, put on a pair of muddy riding trousers and head out into the green where I could run around and play all day. It didn’t matter that my hair was unbrushed and my nails dirty. Right next to our house we kept our ponies in a big meadow. I no longer had to be driven endlessly before sitting on my pony’s back, as I did each winter. Playing and camping in the woods, driving around in a battered old Volkswagen and riding through the forest easily kept us entertained for days on end. It was then that I made a mental note. Countryside, yes, but only when there is constant activity. I suppose my mother had her fair influence. You see, my mother kept busy taking lessons. Just when the tennis teacher was leaving, the guitar teacher would arrive and, upon his departure, the riding lesson would begin – and on it went from early in the morning till late at night. As I grew older I realised that not everyone functioned that way and that, to some, the countryside meant tranquillity and peace, aka isolation and boredom. Call me traumatised, but I have been invited to stay in beautiful country houses where endless lunches meant spending very little time outdoors. So, really, I could just as well have been in a pub in London. Isn’t the outdoors the whole point of the countryside, especially in autumn? After all, when the sun shows its face through breezy yellow leaves, somewhere green is the best place to soak it up. However, being harassed by a tweedy, spectacle-wearing geek whilst lying by a pool is not my idea of country bliss, either, and an afternoon of fishing or shooting with boars and bores is detrimental to my highly strung psyche. Recently, I have been rediscovering the countryside for myself. It all began with my trip to Argentina in the autumn. I immediately took up polo and quickly forgot about the city with its art shows, parties and fashion. I felt utterly satisfied after a couple of hours of riding through the Pampas followed by some stick and ball each day. At the end of my stay I even managed to play a couple of chukkas, which tired me out even more. In the evenings after dinner I could barely keep my eyes open and mostly fell asleep whilst watching a movie. Plummeting to bed each night is a far cry from the melatonin-popping ritual I often resort to in London. So, naturally, back in Europe I go riding whenever I get a chance and have consequently been spending some time in the Austrian countryside. OK, I admit that my newly awakened enthusiasm for abandoning the city is not entirely down to flora and fauna. Besides, the Austrian countryside is not quite the Argentinean Pampas in terms of grandeur and vastness. But the provinciality and lack of cultural diversity are quite the same and, for some reason, I find it charming in small portions. The longer I spend away from the city the less I miss it, but I do need it. Maybe countryside bliss is most potent when laced with city-fuelled stress. After all, one needs to be recovering from something, does one not? The mad cocktail of personalities, scenes and happenings in a pulsing organ such as London excites me enormously. The endless green, the serenity, the sporty simplicity is not too shabby, either. For me, it’s all about contrast. I suppose the countryside is rather like a Bloody Mary. It’s deliciously hearty, simple to make yet very hard to perfect – and definitely something I don’t need every day. A Diet Coke will do just fine.

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9/2/10

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A few hours and way too many glasses of champagne later and I literally fell out of my shoes and into the arms of the good-looking lad I was chatting to. He didn’t seem to mind, and neither did I. Despite feeling slightly handicapped that night, I had a blast. So it is with great disdain that I must admit that sky-high heels are becoming less and less practical to me these days. When all I did was leave my house and hop into a cab – direction: party – who cared about comfort? Now I seem to be fitting several errands into one night, and vertiginous heels turn them into a bit of a schlep. It devastates me how often I cop out of wearing a pair of stilts in the name of practicality. Why are the best shoes always the highest, I wonder? I am always on the lookout for the perfect pair. Not too high and not too low with just the right amount of cushioning to avoid ugly bunions. I have found the odd pair but, generally, I succumb to buying the unwearable, impractical, uncomfortable giant over and over again. I once asked Charlotte Dellal, creator of the fabulous Charlotte Olympia shoe, why she didn’t make smaller heels. She laughed and said: “That is so German, only Germans ask me that.” Maybe yet another cliché is true. Maybe we Germans are all long limbed and practical by nature. In that case, I feel a little better about my expensive shoe habit. After all, who wants to be a cliché? Not me.

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A gripping portrait of a national sporting obsession

‘A witty chronicler’ Andrew Roberts Out 13th May 2010 autumn 2010

Finch’s World

In Praise of a Life in Ruins

This Month I will be Killing Mostly…

FQR’s venerable proprietor, Charles Finch, celebrates the city of Paestum, where – along with magnificent archaeological sites – he finds the finest things in life

…in Scotland. Reza Rashidian on the joys of shooting in the northern reaches of the UK

CROSS the bay of Salerno from Positano lies a place called Paestum where first the Greeks and then the Romans founded a city of great beauty more than 2,500 years ago. Paestum is surrounded by green, fertile fields of corn and carcoffi that once kissed the sand beaches of Agropoli. Now the fields stop a mile or so before the port or seafront and share the gentle mountain plains with the magnificent buffalo farms, which give us one of the great culinary treats… mozzarella di bufala. I offer up Paestum to you, devout readers of FQR, for it embodies the qualities I find most wonderful in life: good food, magnificent history and the sea. There is a fine restaurant in Paestum called Nettuno, which serves a pasta dish called cresciuta, or something like that – this is not, after all, a bloody travel guide – struggle through the language barrier with the head waiter and find the name for yourselves. Do not be put off by the splendid portrait of Mussolini in the restaurant lobby. When I showed bristled feathers our female guide looked at me scornfully and proudly explained that without Il Duce, Paestum would be still overrun with swamp and buffalo. I sulked for the rest of the guided tour, sticking my tongue out at her whenever the opportunity arose, until my dear wife gave me an earful. Nevertheless, I do believe it’s inappropriate for that swine to have his picture hanging. Paestum was chosen by the Greeks all those years ago for the very same reasons you and I would choose it now. It’s far enough from Naples and its irritating population – the heaving, sweating masses of humanity known to descend to the peplum beaches of the Amalfi coast since time immemorial – but still close enough to the rest of the empire to be of import. Nestled under the mountains of the Cilento and surrounded by rivers, Paestum surveys the countryside, its Greek temples, as ever, east-facing with a stillness and beauty I have never seen in any ruined city in Europe. It may be that the fervent smell of the water buffalo – which is ever present as you walk the grassy ruins – makes the place seem even more authentic. Is this what the Greeks must have smelt? I convince myself that it must be so... There is a wonderful museum at Paestum in which the famous Tomb of the Diver can be seen and other magnificently preserved pieces from the temples and tombs. Go in September and stay at Le Sirenuse in Positano – one of the greatest hotels in the world, and still owned by the Sersale family. The beautiful rooms look down on Posi and make you feel like a visiting god. When you meet my lady guide, stay off the subject of Il Duce. And do try the mozzarella.

COTLAND provides the outdoors man with the most scenic and challenging environment, catering to both stalkers and bird shots in equally spectacular measure. What I would really like to focus on is what differentiates Scotland as a sporting destination from other parts of the UK and, indeed, the world. Whilst the pheasant and partridge shooting can be impressive, this can be replicated and even bettered at the best shoots in Devon or Wales. In terms of wild fowling too, again, there are some breathtaking opportunities to be explored, but not uniquely so. The true zenith of Scotland’s bird shooting (or any bird shooting for that matter, in my opinion) are red grouse at their authentic best. Although there are some spectacular grouse moors in the northern English counties, with the sustainable range of the bird expanding as far down as Wales, and west into Ireland, the subliminal pleasure of shooting a truly wild bird in the vast expanses that the Scottish wilderness provides, is unbeatable. Whether double gunning on a driven day, or walking the moors with pointers and a few friends, the privilege of shooting grouse is second to none. You see, as they say, you cannot rear grouse (unlike other game birds). You grow them. Attempts to breed grouse for shooting in any meaningful way have proved futile. I’m often reminded of the fine wine industry when it comes to grouse. You have a plethora of variables that have to come together to make a vintage year. And if you are lucky enough to be on the right moor, in the right year, imbibe as you would a Cheval ’82 or HautBrion ’89. To witness the athleticism and speed of such a bird, framed within the impossibly beautiful surroundings it inhabits is a memory to take to the grave. COTLAND also provides some of the best deer stalking anywhere in the world when one ventures into the Highlands. The reason for this is that the landscape is extraordinarily challenging and physically demanding. Both the roe and red deer that are found on the hill in Scotland are much inferior in terms of trophy quality to their lowland brethren. Stalking on the hill in Scotland is basically a culling exercise, and is tantamount to a lot of sweat with very little reward in the antler department. But it is, in that sense, the purest form of hunting, and also the most justifiable reason for stalking deer; in other words, as a means of population control. I have had the opportunity to pass much of my misspent youth pursuing all types of living creatures in the furthest and most exotic locations possible. The great thing about living in the UK as a shooting and stalking enthusiast is that we have a fairly accessible piece of sporting heaven. It’s called Scotland. Reza Rashidian is Finch’s Quarterly Review’s hunting and shooting correspondent

Harbinger of Zoom

Harry Herbert is in high spirits as his Highclere racing syndicate produces not only winners but “the best horse in the world”

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HEN, in the spring, I suggested Harbinger, among others, was a Highclere horse to follow this season I had little idea that in a matter of months our four-year-old colt would be rated the best horse in the world. Such was the official verdict after his stunning victory in the £1m King George VI & Queen Elizabeth Stakes at Ascot. The magic and uncertainty of racing has never been better portrayed. At the time I made my forecast, Harbinger had not begun his second season of competition. He was unraced at two – typical of his trainer Sir Michael Stoute’s patience with a late-maturing animal – and while his career at three had been progressive, it hardly heralded the momentous events to come. He registered as a blip on the 2009 International Classifications, despite “Glorious Goodwood” Group success in the Gordon Stakes. This year Harbinger had won all three of his races prior to the King George so, in a top-quality field for the major race of the summer, confronted by two Derby winners, Harbinger had his supporters. They were not just the Highclere faithful – a wide section of the British public made him second favourite to the sensational Investec Derby winner Workforce. Sir Michael also trains Workforce; he had also trained four previous King George winners, so Harbinger was to be his fifth. Like Aidan O’Brien – in charge of eventual runner-up Cape Blanco, and himself three-time winner of the King George – Sir Michael watched TV replays open-mouthed: they joined the 40,000-plus crowd in astonishment as Harbinger drew 11 lengths clear of the toiling field. We were all breathing rarefied air. Only once in Group race history has a race at the highest level been won by such a margin: Hawk Wing’s 2003 Lockinge Stakes. HE few still alive who were fortunate enough to see all-time greats Ribot and Sea-Bird in the flesh, insist they had seen another last year in Sea The Stars. Yet a mere 12 months on and Harbinger is mentioned in the same breath. “Look at this,” I said to my team in Ascot’s winner’s reception salon as we watched the replay for the first of what will be many, many times. “We may not see the like again.” For those not yet interested in the “sport of kings”, the phrase “life-changing moment” may seem overblown in connection with a horse race. But, quite apart from the millions that Harbinger is now worth at stud when the time comes for him to perpetuate the thoroughbred racehorse, his name is now indelible in the annals of the sport. In what is forever known as “the race of the century” in 1975, Grundy beat Bustino in an epic battle for the King George. Two terrific horses fought out the finest sporting finish imaginable in record time for Ascot’s mile and a half. Harbinger beat that record, despite having to race on his own for the best part of the last two furlongs; nothing could live with him. Harry Herbert is Finch’s Quarterly Reviews’s racing correspondent

autumn 2010

Finch’s World

OR me, gardening has always been about releasing energy more something from scratch. You start with something beautiful, so you can’t than anything. I started by just controlling undergrowth, and really go wrong unless you try to control things too much. You enhance sometimes I did it with so much vigour that people would take the things and add funny little details. It’s a humorous pursuit, really. I don’t side of the brambles just to avoid the carnage I created. It’s really quite an know very much, but I work with Dave, who does. And he gets very athletic pursuit, and I get scratched and stung to pieces. I was even bitten nervous when I stare at something for too long. I must be thinking of by a snake last time. When I went to the hospital they thought I’d been something crazy. drinking and sent me home, but the next morning I had these great fang Dave is a methodical worker and always has a plan and a way to carry marks on my ankle. it out. I don’t think I’ve ever been like Dave or my father or my sister, I love vigorous plants, and gardening is a dynamic pursuit for me – who were great artists in a traditional way – figuratively – and could not just about putting plants in a bed. I have a tree in my garden that make beautiful things with their hands. I was an oaf, and couldn’t make was completely taken over by a Himalayan something to save my life. I made a tray rambling rose. We planted 80 of these roses once in a woodwork class at school and it up and down the drive, and they managed fell to bits before I served my first tea. And to completely overtake this tree. My garden it was made mainly from pieces of other is very wild, and that’s what I love about it. people’s trays that I’d managed to swipe. You need the wild, and those big landscaping So I’m not good at that kind of thing but, statements. The relationship between rather, at creating a vision of how great manicured gardening and wilderness is something can be. That means I have to special. I think it makes people look more work with someone who can execute it carefully at nature. My garden is not just properly, or I’m sunk. I am a Neanderthal, happenstance, but intended wildness. in a sense. I can see the potential in things. I’m not so crazy about those French and At least, hopefully, I can – I mean, that’s Italian gardens that are so manicured. I’m what I enjoy, anyway. It’s collaborative, Nick Broomfield on the joys of a complete amateur, so I can’t really be too, and about really respecting what each pretentious about my gardening, but it’s person brings. When I first got this garden, tending his wild and a bit like making a film: you imagine how I would have lots of ideas, bad ideas, and wonderful garden something ought to be and then it takes Dave would say, “Why don’t we do it this years for it to take shape. Some of my way?” which was his polite way of saying, favourite trees really took five or six years until they took shape and came “Your idea is awful!” So in a sense, over the years you are shown how to do into their own. Sometimes I chop plants down because they look shapeless it and you can look back and see how bad some of your ideas really were. and puny. I usually want to put the axe to something and then, shortly A lot of the enjoyment I get out of the garden is seeing the enjoyment it after, I decide it’s transformed and looks fantastic. It’s a bit like a person brings to other people. I do also quite like flowers. I like excessive flowers, you’re annoyed with for a bit but then, when they come into their own, like roses that take over trees. I love those very traditional English gardens you wonder why you were so impatient. You have to give nature time and with lovely flowerbeds, but, obviously, they are so much work with all the let it do its own thing. detail and intricacy. They are incredibly beautiful, but I don’t think it’s I suppose I have always liked the country. At heart, I’m a country boy. something I would do. I’d rather keep things a bit wild. Creating a garden is more like looking at something and thinking of what Nick Broomfield is a documentary filmmaker and was awarded the Bafta its potential is and allowing that to come through, rather than creating Lifetime Achievement Award for Contribution to Documentary

Da Finchey Ode IX Far away there is a land Of summer palms And pink white sand. Here live huge, speckled hens, That lay pure gold And gems. In clear waters Where mermaids swim Bright coral the island rings. The Sherpa sleeps In his hammock of reeds, While the old boy builds his ship of dreams. Shipwrecked in Paradise, These two travellers, One with wish to stay, The other to fight another day. Tomorrow they will push out the raft And into the storm Goes their flimsy craft. Blighty calls our Gent Back to the city to conquer, To the squalor, to savour, And art and beauty And ballet and books And fine-written menus With coats on hooks At Wiltons and Mark’s At lunch or dinner Forever to eat For Queen and Country. Here is September. Think back to the island And remember…

Linda Pilkington on how she came to be a woman of scents and scents ability

HERE was really no moment when I decided it would be a good business plan to own a perfume house – it was just a series of happenstance. As a young girl, I used to make scented products as one of my many hobbies. We lived in the middle of nowhere and, on rainy Saturday afternoons, my sisters and I would come into the kitchen table and make things such as birthday and Christmas cards. So, roll the clock forward 25 years, when I bumped into my former next-door neighbour walking in Bond Street, and he said: “You used to make all those little scented products. I work for Chanel now.” He had some scented candles that weren’t burning very well and asked, “I don’t suppose you could melt them all down and reset them so they’ll burn again, could you?” So I reset them for him overnight and delivered them. He burnt them, was delighted, and asked if I could make more scented candles for Chanel’s shop. They’d never done scented candles, but a lady called Madame Sophie at Chanel Fine Jewellery knew a lot about oils and perfumes and I discussed it with her and I agreed to go ahead. That’s how Ormonde Jayne started. I thought of the name Ormonde Jayne because I am Linda Jayne and I lived at Ormonde Terrace and I thought I would replace my name, which is terribly boring, with Ormonde. I registered the company name for a few pounds and wrote my first invoice to Chanel Fine Jewellery in Bond Street. At the time, I was using ordinary scents for my candles and perfumes, like lime, lavender, sandalwood and spring jasmine, and then I realised I wanted to create a certain style. One day a lady came into the store and wanted me to copy the perfume Fracas. She wanted me to recreate it any way I liked. I didn’t know where they got their ingredients but I thought I could create a perfume using something more exotic and extraordinary than a tuberose. That’s when I realised that this is what I should be doing for Ormonde Jayne. If I can find plants, flowers, resins that are not the norm and are more exotic, that could be what Ormonde Jayne is all about. So I went off on my travels, researching flowers and resins all over the world. I hit lots of dead ends, made lots of mistakes, but eventually came up with Champaca, Osmanthus, Tolu, Ta’if and Ormonde, which is our signature scent for women, made from black hemlock. Nobody had ever made a perfume from hemlock before, nobody had even heard of the Champaca flower from India. When I went to India looking for the Champaca flower, I mixed it with basmati rice and tea, because when I was there I was always offered

autumn 2010

There is but a moment a cup of tea, and everywhere I went I could smell In eternity to touch rice, and so I thought I would mix Champaca The pleasure of stillness and time. flower, basmati rice and tea. This is how I go about putting scents together. First I look in my – Unknown Sherpa botanical book, and then I look to see if that flower exists in oil form somewhere in the world, and then I think of the natural harmony of plants in that particular country, and then I make the perfume according to that. Likewise, with the Ta’if rose, which comes from Saudi Arabia. When I went out there to visit the growers, the first thing they gave me for hospitality was a lot of dates and I used that as my philosophy for creating the scent. So the Ta’if perfume has date oil and orange blossom in it, and other things that I encountered when I went to that country. Once I discovered these perfumes, we started to use them in all our scented candles, which have become very popular. We have our own laboratory and studio in Belsize Park and we have three huge wax machines. Each night we put in 50-80 big slabs of paraffin wax and it melts overnight, and in the morning we scent it. We sell probably 6,000 or 7,000 candles a year. When you have only one tiny shop, that’s amazing. Linda Pilkington is the founder and perfumer of Ormonde Jayne

Linda’s Tips For Choosing and Using Scents 1. Always ask for a sample. Going into a store, spraying it, buying it and deciding how you’re going to scent your body or your home with a scented candle is a big deal. We have a “discovery set”, with tiny little 2ml vials, which allows you to smell them all. 2. See how your family, loved one, children etc like it before you buy it. 3. Take your time. 4. Try finding new ways of adding perfume to your life through scented candles. Use different candles for different rooms in your house and for different occasions. 5. Come to us with big, empty receptacles and seashells and we will fill them up with perfume wax and wicks. We can fill up receptacles for a party or a wedding and colour it to match the theme of the event.

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FQR Liberal at Large

perhaps creating even faster and more efficient onmental challenges we face. envir and ent. onm envir the ct prote to take these steps that might then become production we have a choice. If we wait, vehicles ght Toni to ed relat tly direc Matthew Modine, FQR’s are lems the common commuter. By Our energ y prob nue to endanger our freedoms vehicles for conti will we use eful wast – lems prob ns l in new, unconventional technologies our environmenta liberal at large, tur eign nation and we will become investing sover a as both solve us helps tion erva of resources. Cons creating energ y, we make our nation speechwriter for asingly vulnerable to supply interruptions for incre at once. stronger. from foreign suppliers. President Obama Tomorrow, I will present my energ y We will continue to invest in natural will I is why tomorrow morning This these of y Man ress. Cong proposals to that have forever shaped our world: s to halt manufacturing of all powers order issue EAR Mr President, cause will e we can Som r. pula unpo proposals will be s. The wind and water. Everywhere we look Hey, thanks for giving me this inconveniences and force us to compromise automobiles in the United State ed our shap has it did find evidence of how wind opportunity to write and offer our consumer habits. But to delay further automobile industry will transform, as Our on. moti in ys ad of making continents. Water is alwa the my analysis of your recent address to will affect our strength and our power as a during the World War II. Inste follow h whic , a seas swell and create tides vehicles for war, it will transform itself into the nation and to offer my thoughts and nation. wind the use Beca . moon’s orbit of the earth light rail public transportation industry. This e counsel for your next speech. Power to the Our decision to reduce our consumption and water are constants, we will investigat s sand n will create hundreds of thou ersio conv the of . people, right on! acter wind char and the nts test curre , of energ y will cient railways ways to harness the tides First, you did a fine job of placing American people. This difficult effort will be of jobs. The new energ y-effi that re natu of force s of skilled and Mankind has become a We accountability on those responsible for the an opportunity to unite all of our efforts to will create jobs for thousand to challenges the geological forces of nature. t unskilled labourers, as track will need usly Gulf catastrophe. I believe from this poin rebuild this great nation. onio harm live adapt and e a working network for will learn to on we should say catastrophes – what with wasteful nation on earth. be laid to creat most the is ral forces. s Our natu these with g ildin of uters. This will begin the rebu comm Our rt. impo the unknown effects of the millions we than y energ We waste more These measures will not be easy, nor will This will be an gallons of poisonous dispersants sprayed, consumption of oil has been going up every of America’s infrastructure. they be popular. But I think most of you future. the coastline and marshes blackened with year for the past 50. Our cars are too large investment in our country’s does not ask for During this realise that a policy that crude, the suffering and dead animals and and inefficient. be an effective not ld tran spor tatio n changes or sacrifices wou the slick that is on its way to the Atlantic Thre e-qu arte rs truly makes plan this revolution, we energ y policy. Whether Ocean. Not to mention that we are now in of them carry here in not ed decid will use buses a difference will be er hurricane season until the end of Novemb every and town and carpooling Washington, but in every s only one person, way – and who knows what those storm the high every on r. drive for commuters. factory, in every home and will bring? Anyway, you firmly stepped We don’t have A gas-rationing and every farm. at on the throat of all the knuckleheads ic publ ient suffic believe this can be a positive challenge. programme will if British Petroleum, which, by the way, n. tran spor tatio There is something especially American instituted be I were in your place, I would always refer Our homes are in the kinds of changes we have to to allow for to as “British Petroleum”. “BP” sounds i n s u f f i c i e n t l y wanted to give our necessary single- make. We have always cute, and they ain’t cute. Especially Tony insulated, and a world richer ldren passenger trips. children and grandchi Hayward. Also, I would frequently remind lose about 50 They are the had. Gas rationing in possibilities than we’ve one and all that British Petroleum is the per cent of their They are the now. for is not new; we ones we must provide third-biggest international energy and the heat. don’t act. we if have imposed it ones who will suffer most It fourth-largest corporation in the world. al interest speci the is all And here We can be sure that during extreme has a lot of dough. So do like you said and the undeniable the part k attac will times of need groups in the country kick ’em where it counts. There tly. direc them no ts truth we can and when our of this plan that affec e: Now, let’s talk about your next speech. longer ignore. ramm prog this for has should be only one test country ld Below is my first draft of what you shou try. coun no been at war, whether it will help our s We can say to the nation. I have borrowed idea longer rely on Other generations of Americans have which we are and rewritten segments of speeches from oil, natural gas faced and mastered great challenges. Meeting in the Gulf. previous presidents, which is acceptable, and coal to generate electricity. These are dirty now, in the Middle East and this challenge will make our own lives even As of tomorrow, no new construction will right? Don’t all politicians do that? Showbiz fuels that cause great environmental problems. If you will join me so that we can out first being approved by the richer. with begin gh enou soon does it all the time! out and courage, run will These dirty fuels ronmental work together with patriotism So here you go, Mr President. You – no, not in our lifetime but soon enough. Leadership in Energy & Envi great nation our that ty certification we will again prove should be firm and deliver this with all the We will be judged by future generations as Design group. This third-par of peace, age an into nally accepted can lead the world authority you can muster. Remember: you to why we destroyed the natural environment programme is a natio om. n, construction independence and freed are the leader of our great nation and we and compromised their wellbeing and safety. benchmark for the desig and operation of high-performance green want to be led. We see the destruction that searching for buildings, which gives building owners and coal has on our nation’s mountains. We see That’s it. And, as I said, Mr President, the tools they need to have an tors opera fuels dirty able stain lot of these unsu these that burning ct on their this is just a first draft. A My fellow Americans… (This is always contributes to global air pollution and acid immediate and measurable impa understood been programme ideas I mention have a good way to start, it lets people know rain that threatens the world’s oceans, forests, buildings’ performance. This Industrial the since g approach to and acknowledged t you’re one of the “people”.) Tonight I wan rivers, lakes and streams. The CO2 created will promote a whole-buildin spoke that e thos y, t g performance in Revolution began. Sadl the to have an unpleasant talk with you abou by burning these dirty fuels has caused the sustainability by recognisin and ent, ronm environmental of protecting the envi led a problem unprecedented in our country’s chemistry of the oceans to change and, unless five key areas of human and -fang new with up ntors who came is sustainable site development, water inve h: healt of e danc le history. The crisis in the Gulf of Mexico abun peop less or limit mers the drea , as we act decisively rials selection ideas, were dismissed t the greatest environmental disaster we have the sea will degrade into a useless tidal desert savings, energ y efficiency, mate profi th, grow of who stood in the way or environmental quality. indo and and ever faced. th grow new des. a deca within a few and progress. We need As of tomorrow, all unnecessary and This oil catastrophe has taught us all one rtainty of oil production and unce The development now, Mr President. A type end. will ine important thing: we, as a nation, simply must delivery has contributed to the loss of frivolous consumption of gasol er. and motorcycle that doesn’t resemble canc reduce our demand for energ y. By acting now, American jobs and made us increasingly All motorsports, automobile the gods bless all Good luck, and may racing will be g we can control our future instead of lettin vulnerable to supply interruptions. And now racing, air shows, and boat last until those you. h the future control us. We must not be selfis we are all witness to the problems of searching curtailed. This ban will As always, your fellow American, es that do not t or timid if we hope to have a safe and decen for oil off our coasts and far out at sea. We sports create new energ y sourc Matthew Modine I people and the world for our children and grandchildren. must reduce our demand for oil through compromise the safety of thew Modine is Finch’s Quarterly Mat new a re inspi ask you to deeply consider and understand the conservation. Conservation is the quickest, environment. This ban will technicians – Review’s Liberal at Large seriousness of the challenge we face and that cheapest, most practical way out of the energ y generation of mechanics and you be willing to make sacrifices. But we must

As of tomorrow, all unnecessary and frivolous consumption of gasoline will end

autumn 2010

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FQR Business Studies

Any Which Way, He Caan

on the programme, and I sank £100,000 into more hands-on approach to simply writing out the company in return for a 50 per cent stake. cheques. Entrepreneurs and business people Even I have been stunned by the huge demand have demonstrated that they can solve problems for a cardiovascular work out for canines – I’ve and understand how to get results. I think it’s taken up dog-walking in a big way! vital that we promote partnerships between HERE is no magic formula but, overall, governments and the private sector to address the I would say drive and determination world’s problems. We have seen from Bill Gates’s and the focus to see an idea through are work – which has turned the tide on malaria – undoubtedly key drivers. Anyone can “become” the sort of impact entrepreneurs can have. I am an entrepreneur, if they have the right idea and a great supporter of Dame Stephanie Shirley, the right plan for execution. The idea alone is Britain’s first Ambassador for Philanthropy, and not what makes an entrepreneur; it’s what you do do everything I can to encourage more countries with the idea and how you execute it that really to appoint Ambassadors for Philanthropy. sets apart inventors from entrepreneurs. Contrary In 2006 I started the James Caan Foundation, to popular opinion, which supports entrepreneurs do charities in the not take excessive UK and in the risks. In the world developing world. of small business, At the heart of the optimism is truly JCF is the desire cheap and highto give children 1 My principal philosophy in business has risk-takers often greater access always been “observe the masses and do the die an early death. to healthcare opposite”. I always live by the and education. I 2 Conviction, passion and unquestioning belief rule that I will only believe that every in what you are doing is essential for success in risk an amount I am child has the right business. comfortable losing. to loving care, a 3 Determination, however, must be coupled with An important issue right to progress excellent presentation and communication for an entrepreneur through their skills, as these will enable you to convince is to really learn from education and others both of yourself and of your idea, and to mistakes. Everybody build a better life leave sharing your passion too. makes them – I for themselves. 4 Entrepreneurs must not fear failure but, know I have. I In 2005 I built instead, be willing to learn from it. remember these the ARK School 5 Adopt a win-win formula. To really succeed in setbacks more than in Lahore, which the long term, you need to make sure that the my successes, and hosts 420 children people around you win too. Relationships are that’s helped me in aged 5-11 and is absolutely crucial in business. my decision-making now one of the in more recent years. top-performing It is also important schools in the that you have the country. I wanted confidence to recognise that you have weaknesses, to give less fortunate children the opportunity and you need to fill these gaps with people to gain an education in an otherwise underwho have the right expertise. Can any business developed community. owner honestly say they are a financial wizard, a I am also the chairman of The Big Issue Group dynamic salesperson, an IT guru and operational because I believe that The Big Issue is a business taskmaster all in one? If you try and do everything solution to a social problem. It ably demonstrates yourself you will probably fail. Overall, I would that an organisation can successfully achieve social always advise budding entrepreneurs to trust objectives whilst being driven commercially. their gut reaction to any proposition – a good James Caan is the founder and CEO of Hamilton entrepreneur will be able to distinguish a good Bradshaw, a UK-based private equity company. idea from a bad one in an instant. He also appears in the BBC TV series Dragons’ When it comes to philanthropy, I prefer a Den

LTHOUGH business sentiment is cautious, Hamilton Bradshaw, my private equity company, is continuing to expand its interest in the business support services space. We are evaluating a range of opportunities, with values spanning between £3m and £25m. We have invested heavily in the equity markets, especially in banking stocks. Although equity markets have clearly over-corrected, I still feel there are fantastic opportunities to invest in under-valued companies – and this will continue to be a key focus for 2010. Real estate is an important sector for us this year – central London property has bounced back from the recession quicker than expected and has shown resilience. Although I feel the London market overall is overheated – it’s out of touch with the rest of the UK, and should not be used as a barometer for the property sector as a whole. There are deals to be had, but prices are often unrealistic. Equally, outside London the rental growth is not great, however, so as an investor I tend to stay within the London market. HAVE always been selective about the investments I make, irrespective of the global financial crisis. In many ways, the challenging trading market has helped to distinguish long-term sustainable organisations in a way that would have been clouded in the “boom” times. At Hamilton Bradshaw, I have a team who implement rigorous investment appraisal and due diligence processes and I like to think this should be (and is) unaffected by external factors such as the broader economy. I think every business has learned over the past two years, in some form or fashion, how to make better long-term and sustainable decisions. As a member of the financial services community, Hamilton Bradshaw is doubly concerned with making responsible investments as they affect not only our overall returns, but also the actual livelihoods of the businesses and people we invest in. We are probably more optimistic about the overall medium-term economic outlook S A typical investor, I focus very heavily on the track record of a company and its management. It’s the management team who are key in driving a business forward, and

you need to hook into their motivation. I also focus on variables such as the outlook for their addressable market, the strength and uniqueness of the product, and also the customer proposition and the achievability of the financial forecasts. Hamilton Bradshaw has certainly become more process-focused over the past 18 months. Without stifling the entrepreneurial nature of our team and investment philosophy, we have recognised the need for structured investment protocols to ensure consistent delivery of returns whilst taking the least amount of risk possible. The stage of the businesses that HB invests in varies across the portfolio. I find the £1m-£10m business market the most exciting place to be as, in the past five or so years, private equity has become about bigger and bigger deals. OTORMOUSE was the final pitch of the last series of Dragons’ Den, and since then the company has, almost literally, taken off. The people behind the brand, David and Patti Bailey had the idea of producing executive-car-shaped, wireless computer mice. I was the only Dragon who saw the product’s potential and bought a 40 per cent share of the holding company for £120,000. Motormouse “cars” are now the fastestselling items onboard both British Airways and Emirates long-haul flights. Goldgenie has proved to be another successful investment for me this year. I was very impressed with Laban Roomes, the company’s founder, when he walked into the Den. The guy’s passion and willingness to work hard holds no bounds, and I decided to invest £60,000. Laban is a constant source of good ideas, and he has introduced a string of new products such as the Bobby Moore gold iPod for the World Cup – the first commercial product to bear Bobby’s signature. Fit Fur Life was one of the zanier ideas that appeared on Dragons’ Den. Sammy French’s idea for a canine treadmill caused a lot of sucking of teeth and scratching of heads among the Dragons, but I saw something in the idea I liked and something about Sammy told me she had the drive and determination to make the business work. It was my first-ever investment

Even I have been stunned by the huge demand for a cardiovascular work out for canines

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Caan You Tell The Difference? James Caan

James Caan

British-Pakistani entrepreneur. Born Nazim Khan, he changed his name at 16 having seen the movie The Godfather, believing “James Caan” better suited the business environment — This Caan is best known for the BBC TV series Dragons’ Den, where contestants present their business ideas to a panel of judges. One of his best investments was in a brand of treadmills for dogs called Fit Fur Life — This Caan was named Man of the Year and Businessman of the Year in 2008 in recognition of his service to business, industry and investment in people

American actor and gifted athlete, black belt in karate and former regular on the rodeo circuit. Born James Edmund Caan, nicknamed “Shoulders” and “Killer Caan” in his youth — This Caan is best known for his role of Sonny Corleone in 1972’s The Godfather. He also starred in the classic Rollerball (above) and more recently, the TV series Las Vegas as casino security chief “Big Ed” Deline — This Caan was nominated for an Academy Award in 1973 for his unforgettable performance as The Godfather’s fiery tempered Sonny Corleone

autumn 2010

SNAP/Rex Features

James Caan’s top business tips

FQR Business Studies

Professional investor and “Dragon” Deborah Meaden on Fox-hunting

S A professional investor, it is hard to predict where the next opportunity will come from. That was certainly the case with Fox Brothers, an English woollen mill dating back to the 18th century, which produces the world’s finest flannel cloth for suits and jackets. This little gem of a British manufacturing business, which can genuinely say its worldclass luxury cloth is entirely “Made in England”, just happens to lie a few miles from my home in Somerset. Steeped in history, it holds what is described as “the most significant textile company archive in the British Isles” including over 400 volumes containing business documents and cloth samples harking back to the company’s first year of trading in 1772. It is amazing to see the vibrancy of the colours and designs people used to wear, even if the cloth itself has become more refined and lightweight over the years to cater for modern tastes and a wide variety of climates. Fox Brothers’ reputation amongst Savile Row tailors, leading fashion designers and customers in key markets such as Japan and the US was second to none because of its highquality product, but the business had been caught up in the general demise in the UK of its textile industry and, after years of decline, was unable to secure its future via traditional funding – the future didn’t look too bright for this historic company. But what I saw and felt when I stepped across the threshold into the world of Fox was a real delight; all it needed was to build on its heritage, ensuring its history was clearly reflected in its product but in a relevant, contemporary way.

Where Shall I Begin? Entrepreneur Chris Robson had his work cut out when simultaneously trying to launch a start-up business and write a book… about launching a start-up business

O ONE ever tells you what it really feels like to be an entrepreneur. What you actually have to go through when you chase ambitions and fortunes. Equally, no one tells you what it really feels like to write your first book. Where do you start? How do you cope with staring at that blank sheet of paper hour after hour? How do you know if it’s any good? And most people don’t start writing their first book at the same time as they set up a new business, as I did… I wanted to write a book about the emotional issues that other business books ignore – the sacrifices you make, the addictive highs and crippling lows, the strain of uncertainty, day and night – everything that you will experience when you start a new business. I wanted to capture the journey, and I thought that my entrepreneurial experience would be perfect for this task. I had successfully built up and floated syzygy AG, a pan-European digital agency, for 240m Euros in 2000 on the German Stock Exchange. I decided to interview other entrepreneurial veterans and, to help people really get a sense of what it’s like to be an entrepreneur, I decided to write my book “live”, whilst battling through my own start-up journey. But six months after Pearson had commissioned me, I hadn’t written a word. I was so focused on my new internet business that I couldn’t get my head out of rational business presentations and meetings. Then one day in December, I got cold feet. Literally. Two days later I couldn’t

autumn 2010

3-ton steam wagon operated by Fox Bros. of Wellington, circa 1897

Operational improvements had to be made and, with a new management team in place, we have a renewed focus on our ability to deliver orders on time and to innovate our product to keep up with the changing tastes and demands of the modern style-conscious individual. In its heyday, Fox owned nine mills and employed over 4,500 people with its own legal tender until 1921. During World War I it received the largest single order for textiles: 852 miles of cloth destined for the military to make into spiral puttees. England was once the workshop of the world and the label “Made in England” became synonymous with excellence and highquality workmanship – at Fox Brothers it still is. Deborah Meaden is an investor, author of ‘Common Sense Rules’ and appears in the TV series Dragons’ Den

write. And two days after that I couldn’t walk! I went to see a doctor, who said, “You have Guillain-Barré syndrome. You need to be in hospital tomorrow or you will end up on a respirator in a few days. You won’t be working again for a few months!” Three weeks later, on Christmas Eve, I left hospital. I could hardly walk, so the holiday in Paris with my mother, who had just got through her first bout of cancer, was cancelled. Ironically, this illness triggered an emotional outpouring that got me writing the first few chapters of the book. My left brain was suddenly held in check. It was liberating. In fact, the more ups and downs I had, the easier I found it was to write my story as I continued on with my business. Even more, I began to find unbelievable similarities between writing a book and starting a business. Learning from failure and rejection is also a critical part of becoming a successful entrepreneur, and critical to creative success. As serial entrepreneur Bill Gross, founder and CEO of technical incubator Idealab, said to me: “If you deal with adversity as a challenge, or just another hill to climb over, then you will survive. I don’t know how to flick that switch in someone. I don’t know how you get it. It’s not necessarily smarts or ambition. It’s how you deal with adversity. You do something heroic to overcome it. Disney faced adversity. If the magical Disney struggled, we all will.” ALFWAY through my book, I was trying to raise money for my new venture. I felt like Tantalus: often so close but somehow so far from the fresh water below or the ripe fruit above! There were many times when I felt that I might fail. I was scared of never getting my business going. I didn’t know if I could rewrite another effing version of my business plan any more than I felt I could redraft another chapter of my book! Would this ever end? It did end, eventually: I changed the way my business worked, raising money for one service and putting two other services in development. I was finally off. My book was also complete and not exactly what I started out to do. But in both cases it felt good – each journey had been full and rewarding. Chris Robson’s Confessions of an Entrepreneur (Pearson, £10.99) is out this quarter

The Businessman’s Bookshelf Robert Sapolsky’s Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers – a fascinating read about stress and why we are often ill equipped to deal with it. Richard Templar’s Rules series – in many ways what he says is so obvious and yet it has a strange and hypnotic hold. Malcolm Gladwell’s books – his writing is rich and insightful, he really makes you think, and so much about being an entrepreneur and, indeed, a writer is about thinking.

The Three-Point Plan for starting a business and/or writing a book 1 Challenging your own assumptions is critical. You have a plan, but it’s based on the wrong assumption. You have an outline but it doesn’t work when you write it. You have to be alive to your assumptions and ideas changing all the time. 2 The importance of friends, allies and mentors cannot be overstated. You have to bounce your thoughts off other people all the time. You have to be receptive to people. You need to look for chance encounters, for new people, for new opportunities. You need to listen to external stimuli. 3 Keep working and reworking your book or product until it’s right.

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Like FQR, Wei K Rake, both in te magazine, The R oh’s rms of its philo sophy and clot its existence as a ake, hes was somewha print publicatio advocates elegan t n, is a alien statement agains to me, and I t living. t that. He tells Emilia longed to belong to it. Hungerford W Si milarly for him how it became a hy Singapore? , he cult classic The magazine st didn’t grow up in an elite arted in Singapor e, and a lot WASP culture of the chat room (h e gr s on style wer ew How and why d up in the Bron x), but id you start trthat. They’d say that it’s strangeethshatocakesmd by he was always fasc opical Asian coun all, The Rake? inated try would want by it. to do m

The Rake’s Progress

agazine on men’s I started a watch Because we ar a elegance. But Si magazine called e ngapore outsiders, we ar Revolution is a very youn in my mid-30s, e more g country that is and I’m in my 40 building a in tune to th s now. It culture and hist was a labour of e nuances. ory right now. love, and I starte What you I think it alm d to age have in Singap rapidly as a resu os t took an or e is a group of lt of the work I people Asian magazine to put into dramatically ob it. As I got olde celebrate se ssed with other r I started to look people’s British style in a at all the cultures. Singap other men’s mag w ay that I or e is a tiny coun azines, and the try with think the British message some 5m people that I received m , ight be but it’s the four was that the be th-largest somewhat shy st years of importer of fin my life had pass about. You e Swiss watches in ed me by. Which the world, also have to ke is strange, right behind C because in gene ep in mind hina, the US and rations before ou Japan. And that Singapore rs, men that’s because w reached their peak w as a colony e revere art and be later, for exampl autiful and with the Empi e Agnelli. things and beca It was as you go us re as large e, t older that you at the moment, w gained the have the capa e don’t as it was, there is st gravitas and expe ci ty ill a lot of to make them ou rience that allow rselves. influence as to corr ed you to We have so m really enjoy life. uc ec h tness and respect for wha I found it sad th t other friendship and un at there cultures are capabl wasn’t a magaz derstatedness. e of. So in some ine that comm ways it is I think principles unicated quite logical that this idea. I also like that are Singapore would had a desire to create a very much deriv re-explore magazine like T classicism. I was ed he from what Rake. lucky, because at we learned from the same time the world th e Br itish when was moving back they were a ve towards You this as well. ry much more view Cary Gran entrenched part t as of our culture. being an ic

How has it grow n since then?

on of m and elegance. W ale style hy? Grant was

an extraordinar y man in his ability for self-cr eation. He even developed his own manne r of speaking, which was neither really Br itish nor Americ an. He was also a guy who, if you wanted to conjure an image of him, yo u wouldn’t think of in his 20s or 30s but at his peak of attrac tiveness in his 50s, as in the film To Catch a Thief.

Christian Barker , my editor-in-c hief, told me that back co pies were being sold on eBay for £50, which is quite impressive. It’s developed a very rapid cult following, which is, I think, a result of filling a gap in the market – a market that is m ature and advocates elegan ce as every man’s birthright. But it also goes beyond the supe rficiality of presentation, an d talks about ho w a man What does elegance should behave in mean certain situations , and how to you? to value life. I al ways thought th at when I I think elegan turned 40, which ce is about your is regarded as a m choices – ilestone, informed choice I would have so s. me mature insig ht into the universe, and I do n’t. I think that, in many Ho ways, we are a w is this British generation that is getting increasingly im view mature and ou r attention of style and elega spans are dwindl nce being ing. People are so mired in adopted in the electronic m A edia of instant gr si a? atification I have always that sometimes been a huge fa we are losing th n of Ralph e things Lauren. One of that are perman the reasons was ent and substant because ial. The the culture that he expressed th rough his

A Site For Sore Eyes Mandolyna Theodoracopulos on the changing face of Takimag.com

FTER my uncle brought our family shipping business to naught, there was little to do but come up with one of our own. The obvious choice was publishing, as my father, Taki, had dabbled in it before. He has been a journalist since 1968. He started the website Takimag.com in 2006 in an effort to shake up the stodgy old world of republican politics in the United States. Last year he began his search to replace our former editor, as the webzine had become exactly what it had set out to counter: a white boys’ club. As my father describes it, “It was like a detective looking for a corpse that was in his own house.” He wanted someone who had similar beliefs to his own but who was young, and could shape the site to appeal to a wider audience. I began my career in publishing in New York about 12 years ago. I started out writing a social diary for Hamptons magazine, and later became its managing editor. I didn’t last long as I never quite wanted to be a part of the New York social scene.

autumn 2010

What are your p lans for The Rake?

Our immediate plans are to brin g it to China becaus e, from a commer cial aspect, every br and is looking at China as an im portant marketp la ce for the future. A nd at the same time, the Chinese peop le are at an intere sting and significant tip ping point in term s of their cultural ev olution. They no w ha access to tremen ve dous amounts of wealth, and to education.

was being dumbed What lessons d o w n , can luxury teach us? GossipI have a belief th hopper has at honest object s – be it a watch, or a bag, become a or a suit, or wha tever, even friendships – on big hit. ly become more beautiful as they get olde We are r. It’s a sort of militance against the ephe c o n s t a n t ly mera of the cultu re we are in right now. looking for Wei Koh is editori out-standing al director of The Rake and founder of Re female voices volution Press as a means to broaden our appeal as After a nine-year hiatus in California, well, so we ran where I worked as an interior designer, I decided that writing was what I enjoyed most, and went a fun fashion story on presidential style by Lizzie back to it. Soon after, my father asked me to run Garrett. We have a reporter on the ground in Athens, Aya Burweila, who has sent us a few essays his webzine. I modelled the new site after his persona. on the scene in Greece, and Maria Carraciola, our Cocktails, countesses and mental caviar became gossip-roundup babe. As for other outstanding our slogan. We choose writers who are not afraid female voices, I write a biweekly column where I to say what they really think. Takimag is interested try to be as provocative as possible, à la Taki, but with a skirt! in diversity of opinion Our best new male rather than in being a scribes include Jim Goad publication, like most and Gavin McInnes, who newspapers today, where speak to our younger, everyone sounds the more rebellious readers. same. We try to publish McInnes, a tattooed brash and humorous hooligan from Canada, articles by writers who has been amusing don’t take politics – or hipsters since he started anything else, for that Vice magazine back in matter – too seriously. We the early Nineties. He cover a variety of subjects is well known for his from gossip and fashion hilarious fashion DOs to the arts. Last Christmas, I began to assemble a stable of and DON’Ts book, which is required reading for writers with our divine managing editor, Miriam, any hipster, or hipster hater. Goad is a dude with a former editorial wrangler at The Daily Beast. an attitude down in Georgia who is often maligned In addition to our best writers, such as John for his impudence, though he certainly doesn’t Derbyshire, Patrick Foy, Charles Glass and Steve deserve it. A few of our readers took a jab at him Sailer, who have the smarts and experience to after he suggested celebrities keep their political appeal to our core audience, we have implemented activism in check. My father started out in the late Sixties, when, new features in an effort to develop the site, like Gossiphopper, a weekly roundup of international he says, the business was more formulaic, and the celebrity news, and Cultural Caviar, a sort of top 10 writing was much better, albeit heavily edited. things to do or see from around the world. Despite At Takimag, we rarely change copy. We take a the vociferous opponents who thought the site different approach, sometimes asking our writers

As my father always says, “If they hate you, they read you”

to go outside their comfort zone with a more critical attitude. We even publish two totally different points of view on the same subject - that way our readers don’t have to think for themselves if they don’t want to – we provide more than one view of the story. This formula has been a bit tough on the old white boys who have been reading us from the beginning. Some of them aren’t really sure how to handle the direction Takimag has taken. Actually, I am now convinced that most people who write in are, indeed, completely nuts; they certainly take things very personally. I get at least 10 nasty letters a week from infuriated readers who hate opinions that differ from their own, or from the political stance we have taken in the past. As my father always says, “If they hate you, they read you.” So I take this as a good sign. My father certainly knows: he has been pissing people off all his life, as well as being called every name under the sun. My favourite is “anti-Semite”; the old man often takes a rather un-American stance against Israel. We recently published a controversial article by John Derbyshire, in which Derbyshire defends Israel and points out the parallels with Anglo culture. People are loath to accept contradictions, which seems silly to me since the world is full of them. Readers went bananas. We took the day off and watched the numbers climb. My father is loved and hated for his honesty. My attitude and writing is similarly frank. This is the Takimag modus operandi, if you will. People like McInnes and Goad fall right in line with us. But finding such writers is tough. The breadth and ease of the internet doesn’t do much to weed out the hacks. I can’t imagine the future of online content won’t be overrun by drivel, if it hasn’t been already. My father seems to think people will begin to pay for quality, even though they can get it for free now on certain sites. With so much going on in the world these days, Takimag.com is a straightforward one-stop shop for culture and politics. We hope our site will stand out as one of the few uncensored and undistorted websites on the internet. In a sea of homogeny, we have no choice but to be bold. If you like it raw rather than sugarcoated, Takimag.com is for you. Mandolyna Theodoracopulos is the executive editor at Takimag.com

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FQR Books

ON FIXING A BLOODY MARY First the ice, then Stoli-O, tomato juice, a splash of Tabasco; this inexact equation of fruit and grain balanced with a twist of pepper like the aerial view of the woods you ran through that humid summer or closer, the coarse hair of your pubis, tapering to a delicate red. A crucible of molten lead, the clench of blood in a beating heart. Now part your lips and taste yourself in this first sip – the head of a battery, old pennies, citrus, cumin, fermented honey. From In the Flesh by Adam O’Riordan (Chatto Poetry)

Ice Cream That’s Worth Its Salt

Maya Even knows how to churn out that most sophisticated of ice creams: salt caramel

VEN now, years later, I can see my son waiting patiently by the sun-striped kiosk, scanning the campo for a familiar figure, his face brightening when he catches sight of me hurrying toward our meeting place. Three times a week, at 4pm, we would rendez-vous in the Campo San Polo – the halfway point between home and “B Canal” – his local school – and, with a slightly ritualistic solemnity, we would purchase our ice creams. The owner of the gelateria – a man of kindly aspect and saintly patience – presided over a kaleidoscope of flavours and colours, but my eight-year-old son, a rigid traditionalist, insisted on the same flavours every time: caramello e cioccolato. It was instead his mother who tested the endurance of the poor vendor – changing her order as his scoop hovered and moved on a dozen times, asking for absurd combinations that he would gamely allow her to taste and then reject, and pleading with her son to try more adventurous options, which said son – supported by kiosk owner – firmly resisted. It was fairly evident that the ice cream vendor adored Michele and detested his exasperating mother. Even worse, on the way home, I would quickly dispose of my ice cream, and then polish off Michele’s inevitable leftovers (he received scoops the size of Mont Blanc). It didn’t take me long to understand my mistake. The traditional flavours were the best for a good reason – one didn’t tire of them. My son, in his artless wisdom, had worked that out effortlessly. The caramel, as I remember it, was dark and creamy but with a near-burnt intensity which sharpened the taste and cut any cloying sweetness. The addition of salt – my own admittedly unorthodox twist – enhances the sweetness, but only by contrast. The cooks of Normandy and Brittany understood this well when they combined sugar and their famous salt to produce the sublime caramel à la fleur de sel. Interestingly, the ice cream owes its richness to the churn, rather than the fat content; the Italians tend to use milk rather than cream in their gelati. I have experimented with all levels of fat for this recipe – from double or heavy cream to skimmed milk – and have found that a minimum amount of cream best serves the texture. This should please the health- and weight-conscious as well as the unabashed Gargantuas. Maya Even is Finch’s Quarterly Review’s Cookery Editor

John Malkovich’s Autumn Reads The books that Finch’s Quarterly Review’s esteemed literary editor has fallen for this autumn

Miguel Street by VS Naipul This book is a semi-autobiographical account of Naipul’s life in Trinidad and Tobago. It is a story about great ambitions that are never fulfilled. There are some wonderfully idiosyncratic characters in the book, and each character gives their own childhood experiences while the narrator’s experiences are woven in between. There are characters such as Popo the carpenter, who works on “a thing without a name” but never quite finishes it. Then there’s the poet B Wordsworth, named after the great William Wordsworth. He is working on the greatest poem ever written but never gets beyond the first line. Lastly, there’s Manman, a man tinkering on the insane who becomes a prophet. It is only the book’s narrator who finally escapes Miguel Street and Trinidad with ambitions and hopes of succeeding someplace else. The Mystic Masseur by VS Naipaul Ingredients (for 6-8 persons) The Mystic Masseur is another of VS Naipaul’s great works. It is a comic novel published 300g caster sugar, 1 level tsp Maldon salt flakes or Fleur in 1957 and, along with Miguel Street, is one of his earliest novels. It tells the story de sel, 100ml double cream, 450ml semi-skimmed milk, 6 large of Ganesh and his hilarious, meteoric rise to fame and fortune. At the beginning of egg yolks the book, Ganesh is an unsuccessful schoolteacher and writer who then reinvents Equipment himself as a masseur - a mystic masseur. With his vast knowledge accumulated An ice-cream machine, Large and heavy cast-iron or equivalent saucepan, Medium through reading books, plus a little showmanship, he begins to perform miracle saucepan, Whisk or electric mixer, Wooden spoon, Wire-mesh strainer, Medium-size metal cures on his patients and becomes enormously popular as a result. His success or glass bowl leads to a move into politics and an MBE. The story is very funny and Method encapsulates this bewildering journey to success. In a medium saucepan, heat milk and cream together till simmering. Set aside. Caramelise 250g of the sugar in the cast-iron saucepan on medium heat. Resist the temptation to Libra by Don DeLillo stir while the sugar is melting – but you may tilt the pan gently to even the process. When the sugar has De Lillo is an American author who had one of the most distinctive and melted and the liquid has darkened to the colour of maple syrup, reduce the heat to very low and add first the salt compelling voices in late-20th-century US fiction. Libra was written in 1988 crystals, then half of the milk/cream mixture. Be warned: this will bubble up alarmingly. Remain calm, arm yourself with and is based on the life of Lee Harvey Oswald and the events surrounding a wooden spoon and stir down till smooth. Turn off the heat. President Kennedy’s assassination. It is a fictional account of the events that In a mixer or with a whisk, beat the egg yolks with the remaining 50g of sugar till pale and thick. Add the other half of shaped the murder of the President. DeLillo describes Oswald’s journey the warm cream/milk mix and stir to combine. from troubled teenager to his attempt on the life of the President. Libra Inspect your caramel mix. If the sides of the saucepan are relatively clean, then you may simply pour the egg/milk mix was Oswald’s sun sign and it symbolises his search for balance in American into the caramel and stir well. If, however, the sides are heavily encrusted with crystallised sugar, it might be best to tip the society. His search ends with a tilting of this balance towards death and caramel into a clean cast-iron pan first, and then add the egg mix. destruction. Before you go any further, there are two more steps that must be taken now while you are still relatively in control of events, rather than the other way around. The first is a precautionary measure, which I always find a reassurance. Fill your sink with two or three inches of cold water and throw in a few ice cubes to keep it that way. Next sit a wire-mesh strainer over a glass or metal bowl large enough to hold your custard mix. Put this bowl in the fridge. For Your Bookshelves These are trifling but vital steps. You do not want to have to flail about your cupboard trying to locate a strainer when your custard is ready but you are not. Now you are prepared. Return to the cooker. Once you have amalgamated the two mixes in the cast-iron pot, Songs of Blood and Sword by Fatima Bhutto (Jonathan Cape Ltd) is an account of the life of set on a low heat – over a metal diffuser, if you feel safer – and stir continuously with a wooden spoon till her father, Murtaza Bhutto, who was shot dead the custard has formed, ie, till the mixture thickens sufficiently to coat the back of the wooden by police in Karachi in 1996. spoon. This may take anywhere between 5 and 15 minutes. Stick your finger into the mix every so often to check that the heat is not too high – after all this effort you do not want to end up with scrambled eggs. Take off the heat if there is the slightest sign of this – and Furious Love by Sam Kashner and Nancy plunge the bottom of the pan into the Schoenberger (JR Books Ltd) is a book about cold water, stirring like mad. Return it to the burner the tumultuous marriage of Elizabeth Taylor to complete the process, if necessary. In any case, and Richard Burton. when your custard is achieved, put the saucepan in the cold water and beat for several minutes to cool and thicken. Then strain into the bowl, which you have retrieved from the fridge, Gentlemen & Blackguards by Nicholas Foulkes cover with a plate and refrigerate for at least (Weidenfeld & Nicolson), a firm favourite at FQR, an hour but overnight if possible. Pour into tells the story of gambling mania that gripped an ice-cream maker and churn. Freeze in a suitable early-19th-century Britain and the plot to steal container. Take out of freezer 15 minutes before you are the Derby of 1844. ready to serve. You may also offer your guests some extra salt crystals to sprinkle over their ice cream.

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autumn 2010

FQR Gone But Not Forgotten

Horst P Horst Gabrielle (Coco) Channel, 1937

CENTURY after Coco Chanel first went into business at Rue Cambon, just across the road from the Ritz, La Grande Mademoiselle is as chic as she ever was: inspiration for a new film (Coco & Igor, starring Anna Mouglalis and Mads Mikkelsen as couturière and composer); a presence in the Ballets Russes retrospective at the V&A (as financial patron and costume designer for Diaghilev’s extraordinary company); and the elusive heroine of my new book, a biography of Chanel that seeks to untangle the legend from her life. I’ve spent more years than it is fit to admit in pursuit of the clues that she left behind her – indeed, I have followed her footsteps from the convent orphanage where she was abandoned by her father, to the room where she died at the Ritz. “Do you like her?” say enquirers, when they ask me about writing this biography – to which I can only reply that Coco Chanel still intrigues me, over a decade since I first started researching her story. Or, rather, her stories, for Chanel was a

autumn 2010

© Horst Estate courtesy Hamiltons Gallery, London Doubtless there remains potential for another woman who reinvented herself, many times over, with the same deft touch as she remade fashion. dozen films to unravel the other, equally If Coco Avant Chanel – last year’s movie starring intriguing episodes in Coco Chanel’s life: her Audrey Tautou – revealed several episodes in her love affair with the richest man in England, the early life (her abandonment by her father; her 2nd Duke of Westminster; her friendship with escape from the black-clad Winston Churchill and her nuns by way of a smallrelationship with a German town music hall, and then officer in Paris during World CHANNELLING as demimondaine to a rich War II. This was a period man), then it also left much when she inhabited a world of Chanel’s adult life untold. of double-crossing and Justine Picardie on how The latest film to take up double agents – she was a her life has recently been a strand of her intriguing central character in a plot as consumed by Coco Chanel narrative is directed by Jan compellingly murky as that Kounen, who examines her of a Graham Greene novel. Photograph par Horst relationship with Stravinsky, There were times during composer of The Rite of the research and writing of my book when I was spending Spring (the revolutionary ballet that Chanel financed as a revival, seven every waking hour immersed in Chanel’s archives years after its first, scandalous performance in and private apartment, and at night she would 1913, when a riot had broken out in the audience inhabit my dreams. Now that the book is finally written, I am finding it difficult to relinquish at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in Paris).

COCO

the trail; I’ve grown accustomed to the hunt for the origins of her iconography that shaped 20th-century fashion (the camellia, the lion, the interlocked “CC”; the little black dress and long white evening gown; the quilted handbag with its strap of chains). Meanwhile, the unmistakable scent of Chanel No 5 is still present in Rue Cambon, rising through the mirrored stairway that is the backbone of the House of Chanel, another clue to its creator, who always seems just a step away – more, much more material, than a shadowy, dwindling ghost. So does my work stop here? No, I think not; for there will always be room for further revelations about Coco Chanel, a woman who knew as much about the art of covering up as she did of uncovering her customers from the constrictions of corsets. A designer who kept her past close to her heart, even as she sashayed into the future. Justine Picardie’s Coco Chanel: The Legend and the Life (Harper Collins) is published this quarter

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FQR Arts

Raphael Esterházy Madonna, “c. 1507–08” Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest

Hungary for Culture

Charles Saumarez Smith takes issue with the line of Brian (Sewell) and looks forward to the Royal Academy’s Treasures from Budapest exhibition

emerged from a context in which artists did want their works to be seen by a much broader public than had been possible in the first half of the 18th century. The whole drive during the 1750s and 1760s with the establishment of, first, the Society of Arts (founded in 1753), then the Society of Artists (founded in 1761), then the Royal Academy (founded in 1768), was to establish places and spaces whereby works of art could be seen by a broad public, rather than just the connoisseurs, dilettanti and private patrons who had previously dominated the art world. Artists were anxious to establish their professional status. Part of their professional status derived from the establishment of a free market for art. So, the suggestion that the only people who enjoyed works of art in the 18th century were those who had benefited from “private tutoring, Eton, Oxbridge and the Grand Tour” is, in my opinion, wrong. Third, I find it odd that Sewell, who has devoted his life to the excoriation of what he normally describes as “the Serota tendency”, should be hostile to the open, democratic nature of the Royal Academy. It is surely healthy to have a plurality of spaces in which to view art, including spaces that are in the control of artists themselves, rather than access to art being controlled by only a small number of publicly funded institutions and commercial galleries. Isn’t it healthy to be able to see and enjoy the

multiplicity of works of art that are displayed in the Royal Academy’s Summer Exhibition, rather than just the works of a small number of sophisticated operators of the system of public patronage? Modern-day curators are the equivalent of private patrons, like Lord Burlington, who dominated art circles in the early-18th century. So, the Royal Academy’s Summer Exhibition did indeed emerge as a vehicle for the wider public enjoyment of works of art in the 1760s. Moreover, if it was valid during the 1760s for major and well-established artists of the day to mount an exhibition in which their works could be seen, enjoyed and purchased, without intermediate selection by the art trade, then doesn’t this idea and belief, which originated in the Enlightenment, still have legitimacy today? EANWHILE, we have been gearing up for our major autumn exhibition, Treasures from Budapest: European Masterpieces from Leonardo to Schiele. In the Eighties, there were lots of

exhibitions called “Treasures” of this and that, and I think the genre became slightly discredited from the fact that, often, they were touring exhibitions from collections that were wary of sending their real treasures. But in the case of the Museum of Fine Arts in Budapest, our colleagues and, most especially, its director, Dr László Baán, have been sensationally generous in allowing us to show so many of their greatest works in London. The curator of the exhibition, Professor David Ekserdjian, tells the story of how, when he was going round the museum making gentle enquiries as to what might be available for loan, he would ask tentatively if the curators would consider lending a Leonardo drawing, and they would respond by suggesting the loan of a Raphael as well. I first visited the Museum of Fine Arts in Budapest in September 1971 and remember very well taking the tram through the grand 19thcentury boulevards of Pest to Heroes’ Square. I still have a slightly dog-eared catalogue from that visit, and I am looking forward to seeing so many of its treasures again. Charles Saumarez Smith CBE is FQR’s Fine Arts Editor and Secretary and Chief Executive of the Royal Academy of Arts

Y ARTICLE in the last issue of Finch’s Quarterly about the Royal Academy’s Summer Exhibition achieved a modest degree of fame by being quoted in Brian Sewell’s review of this year’s exhibition: As its chief executive put it in the current edition of a journal of which he is arts editor, the Academy holds “the 18th-century view that the best judges of art are not the critics but the public. Critics may sneer, but the public continues to enjoy the Summer Exhibition precisely because it gives them an opportunity to make up their own minds about what to like.” Sewell went on to say: The public can make up its mind about fish and chips and jellied eels, but to put it in charge of the kitchens of The Ritz would not be wise. And I am less sure that Charles Saumarez Smith’s contempt for critics was widely held anywhere in Europe in the 18th century, the Age of Reason, when the Enlightenment held sway; and even if it were, then the public to which he refers was not the ancestor of some bloke on the Clapham bendy-bus, but an educated gentleman with the benefits of private tutoring, Eton, Oxbridge and the Grand Tour, as ready with a Greek or Latin tag as our beloved Boris Johnson. The chief executive will find little of that background among the old biddies from Berkshire up for the day. AM going to use part of my article in this issue to attempt a gentle riposte. First, I am not so convinced that critics, the idea of art criticism, and the belief that critics were more important than the public as judges of art, were as well established in “the Age of Reason” as Sewell suggests. After all, there were scarcely any independent critics of art, other than Diderot in France, who, in writing about the Salons, may be said to have been the first professional art critic. Certainly, there was precious little newspaper criticism. In England, the best and most cogent writing about art came from the pen of Sir Joshua Reynolds: in other words, it came from within the Royal Academy, rather than being directed as a critique of works of art by independent authorities. (Jonathan Richardson, the previously best-known writer about art, was also a painter). It was not until the writings of Hazlitt in the early-19th century that the profession of art critic was properly established in Great Britain. So, I am not persuaded that the Age of the Enlightenment can be said to have held the opinion, and the profession, of the critic in as high regard as Sewell suggests. Second, in looking back at the history of the Royal Academy, it is reasonably clear that it

autumn 2010

Through the Looking Glass

Simon Phillips reflects on historic mirrors

ONALD Phillips Limited was started in 1952 by my father, Ronald, and we have been on Bruton Street for over 30 years. We deal in 18th-century English furniture ranging from Queen Anne, George I to George IV and the Victorian period. In my father’s day the shop sold antiques such as dining tables, sets of chairs and everyday objects – bread and butter antiques – but today things have changed. We tend to focus on the very special items that are unique and generally very expensive. This is where I believe the market is: in really high-end, great quality, original and minimally restored antiques. History is a big part of our collection, and each item has a story behind it that is often fascinating. The craftsmanship that went into making these pieces is quite extraordinary. We have works by or attributed to Thomas Chippendale, William Linnell, Robert Adam, Matthew Boulton and Thomas Sheraton – all famous 18th-century craftsmen. Chippendale is the more desirable at the moment; carved mahogany is what people seem to want. Mirrors are our speciality, and we have just held

the largest reputed mirror exhibition in the world, at which we exhibited 85 of the finest mirrors from between 1660 and 1820. This is when Venetians’ secret method of making mirrors was brought to London. Among the collection is a mirror that belonged to British Prime Minster Sir William Gladstone {ancestor of FQR’s Scottish editor}, and a pair that had belonged to Guy Ritchie’s family. The Gladstone mirror was an exciting purchase because it is in such great condition. There was virtually no restoration needed, which – when considering it was made in the middle of the 18th century – is quite amazing. The exhibition also had a number of the finest Chinese reverse-painted glasses, painted in China and sent to England to be sold. The earliest was from 1760. Mirrors are something I’ve always particularly liked and, like paintings, you can always find room for them. Michael Jackson came in two or three times to admire our mirrors and we spoke for about an hour. We’d love to believe he was thinking of us when he wrote Man in the Mirror, but the dates just don’t work out quite right.

Through The (Antique) Looking Glass With Simon Phillips

Choose original glass. Original glass has to come top of the list if you are looking to buy an antique mirror. In the 17th and 18th centuries glass was the most valuable part of a mirror, and it continues to be important when dealing in antique mirrors today. If an original mirror plate has been lost, so much of the history has gone with it, since much of the appeal of antique mirrors is the fact that they have been used as looking glasses for hundreds of years.

Find mirrors with original gilding. As fashions have changed over the years, many mirrors were regilded or painted, but it is best for investment purposes to have mirrors restored to their original state. In essence, always look for a mirror that has had as little repair done to it as possible.

4 5

Choose quality. Buy the very best!

Choose the best designs. Look out for intricate carvings on the frame and beautiful bevelling in the glass Simon Phillips is the proprietor of Ronald Phillips Ltd

Choose a mirror with a provenance. It’s always great if you can find a mirror with a bit of history or a story attached to it; proof of previous owners, maker’s labels or sale receipts give a piece that extra appeal.

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FQR Art Review

Now and Zeng Fabien Fryns on Zeng Fanzhi the man and his art

of both paint as a substance and the human condition in general. A keen student of human nature and art history, Zeng Fanzhi is an artist who needs to explore. He has an aptitude to discover something new in things that seem familiar to most of us. He then relentlessly pushes that idea to the limit. As soon as he feels that he starts to exhaust an idea or a style, he sets off on a new path, often by first making detailed studies, while simultaneously still working in his current style. When a new style or series emerges, a connective visual tissue between his extraordinary leaps might not always be evident, but it is always there, be it certain flesh tones or an article of clothing. In each of his bodies of work – from the Meat and Hospital series to his dramatically new Behind the Mask series (which he began a few

Pop Goes The Easel Tyrone Wood, son of the Rolling Stone and director of London’s Scream Gallery, talks to Pakpoom Silaphan about his art and the influence of popular culture

YRONE Wood: Your work is full of references to icons of Western pop culture, such as Warhol, Che Guevara and John Lennon. Since you were born in Thailand, why did you choose to focus on Western rather than Eastern icons? Pakpoom Silaphan: When I was growing up in Thailand our lives were very influenced by Western culture. We were surrounded by icons such as Ali and Elvis, but I knew little about them – for many years I thought Warhol, like Einstein, was a scientist because of his weird glasses and messy hair. When I arrived in England to study printmaking at Camberwell I was again surrounded by these icons, but then understood why they had become famous. TW: By using old advertising signs – upon which you paint recognisable figures from music, film, politics and art history – you are making an association between these icons and the advertising industry. Why did you make this connection in your work? PS: I was brought up in the countryside where there were lots of advertising signs. When I moved to Bangkok I used to pick them up in the street and hang them on my bedroom wall to remind me of my childhood. In 2006, after 10 years in exile in the UK, I returned home to Thailand and rediscovered my old collection at my parents’ home… and a new series was born. PS: Who are your icons? TW: Warhol, Basquiat, Banksy, Takashi Murakami, Lichtenstein and Antony Micallef. TW: You effectively use advertising signs for Coca-Cola and

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months after his move to Beijing in 1993) to his portrait series entitled Beneath the Mask (where the masks come off to reveal the faces beneath) to his We series (that enlarges his faces but keeps them behind a veil of spirals of grinded flesh) to his most recent powerfully energetic works that fuse figurative and landscape allusions with gestural abstraction – Zeng Fanzhi demonstrates a discipline and unique ability to push every idea to its extreme, exploring it from every possible angle until it is exhausted and he has no choice but to move on. This tendency is deeply rooted, I believe, in his inner nature. The visual result is that the artist has provided an astoundingly rich and varied, yet connected, body of work. Zeng Fanzhi does not hash out logos or symbols that he feels compelled to reproduce for the market ad nauseum. He ultimately explores for himself

wherever his heart, his vision, and his gut instinct take him, which makes him stand out among his contemporaries. The upshot of this profound, personal conviction for his viewers, collectors and friends is that one never gets bored. With Zeng Fanzhi, it is entirely possible to see five or six paintings, and for each of them to be so completely different that they form a fresh and totally unexpected world, one that has been discovered and unmasked in the hands of a ceaseless explorer and sophisticated soul. Finally, Zeng Fanzhi continues to combine natural artistic ability and well-honed skill with his unique sense of taste and perceptive insight to form one of the world’s truly indispensable painters. Fabien Fryns is a Beijing-based gallery owner and collector of contemporary art www.fabienfryns.com

Pepsi as a canvas, but can you explain the method used to create the figures? PS: It’s a combination of collage and illustration with emulsion and marker pen. TW: You had a Catholic upbringing, attending Roman Catholic school in Bangkok, and are now a practising Buddhist. You refer to the Bible in some of your work, such as your Last Supper series of 13 boxed warning lamps, each depicting a figure from da Vinci’s representation of The Last Supper, and your sculptures of discarded ironing boards inscribed with extracts from the Book of Genesis. Was it an obvious connection for you to make, between religious iconography and art? PS: Superstition is a strong theme throughout my work, and investigating the long-running suspicion of the unlucky number 13 and its relation to religion continues to fascinate me. I attended a Roman Catholic school in Bangkok, where I was made to pray twice a day, but never truly understood what or to whom these prayers were for. It was as I grew older and became a little more enlightened that I understood the significance of the Last Supper. Although I’m now a Buddhist, I’m still fascinated by the intricacies of the Christian religion. The ironing boards are each inscribed with the first three pages of the Book of Genesis and came about after years of being forced to read the Bible. Somehow, the Bible’s repetitive nature and its constant reinterpretation reminded me of how fashion is today’s opium of the masses and how, like religion, it too is constantly shifting and reinventing itself. TW: Nowadays “celebrity” is a very loose word, as opposed to an “icon” such as Elvis or Churchill. What, for you, are the qualities of an icon, and what criteria do the icons in your work possess? PS: Celebrity is really just a word. The people who not only find fame, but also learn the power of influence and, in doing so, make a huge impact on our culture – these are icons to me. Pakpoom Silaphan’s Coca-Cola series will be exhibited at Scream Gallery in London this quarter; www.screamlondon.com

N THE six years that I have now spent in China, I have come across many fascinating people from all kinds of walks of life. But two people in particular stand out. One was smitten enough to accept my marriage proposal: my lovely wife Lucy. The other is my dear friend Zeng Fanzhi, who has recently, and deservedly, shot to global stardom. When I first met Zeng Fanzhi in 2005, a year or so before the explosion of the contemporary Chinese art market onto the international scene, he had been a professional artist since the late Eighties and was working in an isolated studio set in a beautiful garden in a distant Beijing suburb. My increasingly frequent visits to his little oasis felt like short holidays. We would sit around, smoke cigars and talk about art and life in general. I quickly realised that this rather shy and very private man discreetly working in this enormous and anonymous metropolis had a certain sensitivity, which very much appealed to an old Rosey boy such as myself. Even though Zeng Fanzhi did not go to Le Rosey, it certainly felt like he could have. As “us Rosey boys need to stick together”, for lack of anyone else, we did. Happily, I can say that I have not only become an avid collector of Zeng Fanzhi’s paintings, but I have come to admire the man as well: his affable and serene personality, his professional work ethic, his impeccable taste in everything from art to fashion to wine, his broad knowledge of art history and his kindness and generosity in friendship. These are rare qualities in any man, and to find them in a truly great artist, whose paintings have become an invaluable part of your life, is rarer still. Like the man, Zeng Fanzhi’s striking vision amazes with complexity but also ripples with simple and refined elegance and exquisite detail. This type of richness draws each viewer to the paintings for totally different – and often very personal – reasons. Apart from his superb technical mastery, one of the strongest appeals in Zeng’s work, in my view, is connected to his deeply embedded and abiding love of exploration

autumn 2010

FQR Art Exclusive

Neon parts bent by the artist, clamps, wire, and transformer installation Fiona Banner studio

IONA Banner first became famous for her written-out films - picture the car chase from The French Connection written out across a large canvas - and has continued to explore picture-as-words up to and including a vast ‘transcription’ of the war film Black Hawk Down as part of the show to launch the South London Gallery’s new extension this summer. Her current Duveens Commission at Tate, Harrier and Jaguar, comprises two fighter planes, one painted with feathers, the other stripped and highly polished, sitting and hanging in Tate’s beautiful neo-classical Duveen Galleries on Millbank. The Bastard Word is the title both of our featured work and her ongoing project to explore the dual use of letter-signifiers as both language and form. By hand-bending the neon letters she removes the professional slickness of the shop-made version, to draw attention to the physicality of words and the brittleness of language. Patrick Fetherstonhaugh

e z e i Fr r e k ma Patrick Fetherstonhaugh chats art fairs in general, and Frieze in particular, with Matthew Slotover autumn 2010

MET up with Matthew Slotover at the very fashionable Kaffeine in London’s Great Titchfield Street, fresh from a meeting in Regent’s Park about this year’s Frieze Art Fair. Matthew is the co-founder – with Amanda Sharp and Tom Gidley – of frieze, the highly influential contemporary art magazine, in addition to the subsequent and possibly even more highly influential Frieze Art Fair. Both of these accomplishments are remarkable as much for the level of their success as for the speed with which they achieved it, the Fair in particular springing from literally nothing straight to the top table in the international art world calendar. Matthew had been doing the magazine for more than 10 years when he realised it was time to undertake a new challenge and so, informed by the international attendance at the opening of Tate Modern and sticking with a strict contemporary-art-only agenda, he went about putting together the Frieze Art Fair, again with Sharp, and produced a second gift for that hard-to-impress world. The move from magazine to fair is, as he explains, actually a very natural progression – advertisers become exhibitors, readers become visitors, and so on – and Frieze the brand (for want of a better word) expands from a printed conduit of dissemination to include a physical one. The Fair is held each October in a huge, specially constructed

tent in Regent’s Park – a bespoke venue in keeping with the longrunning Frieze philosophy of doing it yourself – and last year hosted galleries from 30 countries. But, of course, Frieze Art Fair is much more than just a salesroom for art galleries. As is clear to anyone who has attended, especially on the ever-popular preview day, the Fair has become a fixture on the capital’s social calendar. And thus we come to the desire for early entrance. Each year pretty much the first people into Frieze are (the) Tate, spending with its Outset/Frieze Art Fair Fund. After that, it’s broadly a case of the earlier the more serious, the later the more fun, and the observant can clearly see the difference in the early afternoon of the first day between the kind of people walking away from the Fair having concluded their day and those walking towards it about to start their evening. Whenever you visit the fair, though, Matthew will be wandering around keeping everything in control. Calm and confident, he has the air of someone who knows what he’s doing – although, apparently, you shouldn’t ask him to lock your bike up as he’s already lost three… Patrick Fetherstonhaugh is a contributing editor of Finch’s Quarterly Review