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ISSUE 0051
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May April/May 2016 2011
Kensington, Chelsea & Westminster Today
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Editor: Kate Hawthorne Art Director & Director Tim Epps Deputy Editor & Head of Business Development Dr Emma Trehane Business Development: Caroline Daggett, Niki Devereux, Cassandra Donovan Antoinette Kovatchka, Johan Thomsen Architecture: Emma Flynn Art & Culture Editors: Don Grant, Marian Maitland Astronomy: Scott Beadle FRAS Ballet/Dance Andrew Ward Bridge: Andrew Robson Chess: Barry Martin Contributing Editors: Marius Brill, Peter Burden Derek Wyatt Classical Music: James Douglas Crossword: Wolfe Dining Out: David Hughes Editorial: Anna Bromley, Rowland Stirling Events: Leila Kooros, Guitty Peymanfard, Fahad Redha Food & Flowers: Limpet Barron Horology: Jonathan Macnabb Motoring: Don Grant, David Hughes, Fahad Redha News Editor, Online Editor & Arts Correspondent: Max Feldman Poetry & Literary Editor: Emma Trehane MA Ph.D Political & News Correspondent: Henry Tobias Jones Sub-Editor: Leila Kooros Sporting Calendar Compiled by Fahad Redha Travel: Lynne McGowan, Cynthia Pickard
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Contents & Offices News Statue & Blue Plaque Opinion & Comment Features Europe & International Business & Finance Education Literature Poetry Dining Out Fashion Events
Arts & Culture Travel Health & Beauty Astronomy Horology Motoring Sport Crossword & Marketplace Chess & Bridge
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Parliament Squared
Polling time
Illustration © Jonny
by Derek Wyatt
By Henry Tobias Jones
“Why the hell should it make any difference that Sadiq Khan is Mayor of London,” “London is going to vote to remain anyway.” The capital is “the most proremain part of England.
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he hot topics have continued to be the London Mayoral election, the EU referendum, David Cameron's pending reshuffle of his Cabinet and the US Presidential elections. Of the four, only London has been resolved with Sadiq Khan easing out Zac Goldsmith in what was an increasingly bitter and below the belt campaign. Neither candidate offered a vision of London as a major international city in the world. Neither took a really serious view of the implications of Brexit on the Financial services industries in the City. Neither really understood the need to modernise our fragile “narrow” (broad) band and 4G (and 5G) networks which lag way behind most international cities in the world. Sadiq was easily the best candidate. Zac was uncomfortable answering questions for which he had no clear view or simply could not remember the details. Whilst that may have been fine for Boris, Londoners have tired of that approach to politics. Besides he made some quite offensive remarks about Khan which was deeply disappointing for a man whose political career may now be over. Whither Boris? He has had by some way the worst campaign of all. He is unsure whether he is fighting for the hearts and minds of the Tory party or whether he is applying for the soonto-be vacant Prime Minister’s position (2019 is my guess). If he is seeking the latter and by doing so hoping to inspire a “new” Churchill legacy he has to seriously up his game. Churchill may be writ large in his heart and soul but that will not be enough to win the long game. He made some unacceptable comments about the President of the United States which cannot just be shrugged off. A Prime Minister is for all of us and has to have a smidgeon of statesmanship in his or her armory. Boris is not yet the finished
goods and at this rate may not inspire his own MPs to nominate him when the opportunity arises. As for Cameron, he now knows that Jeremy Hunt will be stepping down sometime soon whilst John Whittingdale might want to spend a little more time checking his dating book. Their retirements might bring others with them. If we vote to remain, the future of Gove and Johnson in the Cabinet might yet be in the balance. As it is, some Secretaries of State have had 100 hour working weeks for six years and might think it is either time to move office or move out. The Prime Minister will have a final reshuffle to pave the way for his replacement which might still be George Osborne or possibly Theresa May. The Boris chances are harder to read this far out. Over the pond, Trump and Clinton will be the candidates in the US election. In 2008 and 2012 when the GOP was routed by the Democrats the aftermath “noise” was that the party was going out of fashion. White, older aged men and women were its core supporters and these were drawn largely from Middle America not from the west and east coasts where the votes count for more. Eight years on the Trump “following” has largely been white, even older aged men and white dispossessed men and women who feel left out of the political fray. The Hispanic and black voters still essentially do not trust the Republican Party. To be honest if Trump ends up with the Republican nomination there will be much anger internally. This will not help his cause against Hillary Clinton who could become the first female President (at last) and extend the Democrats reign in the White House for a least four more years. Not since Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who was President from 193245, will the Democrats have held sway for so long.
Prof John Curtice is the ‘King of the Polls’. He was the lone voice to successfully predict the outcome of the 2015 general election and along with his team at NatCen he is the polling expert. KCW Today spoke with Curtice about the London Mayoral and GLA Assembly election results, to investigate how accurate the polls were at predicting how Londoners vote. Prof Curtice explains that the final polls which gave Sadiq a 14-point lead “all fall quite similarly to each other.” “We’ve had 5 polls that were conducted between the 26th and the day before polling day, three of them said 57:43, and one said 56: 44,” he says “so nobody is really too surprised by the Opinium poll. ComRes is done by phone, YouGov is done online and they both have the same story.” “If you look at the way the London
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Elects website was tallying the vote on the day of the election, Mr Khan was already ahead on the morning of the count,” Curtice explains. London voters are easier to predict than national results, he explains, because of the way the boroughs are split. When it comes to predicting and analysing election results, voter turnout is actually the most interesting aspect of London’s democratic landscape. In the London Assembly and Mayoral election the overall London electorate was 5,739,011 and voter turnout was 45.6%. In boroughs like Merton and Wandsworth voter turnout for the Mayor election reached 50%. In some boroughs the increased turnout even meant that Sadiq had more votes than Boris received in 2012. While the voter turnout rise was hailed by many in the Labour party as evidence of a coup for Khan, many Tories have responded by claiming that the losses actually correspond to the absence of the “Boris factor” in what is essentially a Labour region. With Boris out of the picture many claim that Labour have essentially stood still in London. In the rest of England Labour have faced much more lackluster results, and by all accounts had a disaster in Scotland where they have been relegated to the third party behind the Tories. London now sets its sights on the EU referendum. Sadiq Khan and the results of the national election will undoubtedly have a profound effect on the future of London, however, Curtice explains the EU Referendum will be an entirely different battleground. “London may not vote to remain quite so strongly as Scotland or Northern Ireland will, but it will be relatively clear because it's full of young graduates, and young university graduates are in general keen for staying inside the European Union.” When asked how the result of the Mayoral race could affect the EU referendum campaign, Prof Curtice was very clear, declaring: “I wouldn’t have thought it will make a single iota of difference.” “Why the hell should it make any difference that Sadiq Khan is Mayor of London,” adding that “London is going to vote to remain anyway.” The capital is “the most pro-remain part of England. It doesn’t need Sadiq Khan’s particular assistance in order for that to happen, and the basic thing here is that the EU referendum cuts across voting preference. So the conservative vote is split down the middle, Labour voters are 2:1 in favour of remain, and none of the parties have much control of their voters on this issue.” The EU Referendum will take place on the 23rd June and with the campaigns already underway, Professor Curtice predicts that London will vote to stay in the EU. If his record proves anything it’s that he is very rarely wrong.
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Kensington, Chelsea & Westminster Today
unintentionally gridlocked as would-be artists vie for prime position to copy down the more revealing of its exhibits. The policy has been in effect (if relatively under the radar) since the museums hugely successful (and supremely busy) David Bowie Is exhibition in 2013. The museum has reassured its visitors that it’s ‘no sketching’ policy is only for its temporary (and ticketed) exhibitions, so any driven draughtsmen are free to draw to their hearts content, just as long as the sketchy characters resist trying to get into the V&A’s pants.
Google knows your medical data
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News
B
udding artists heading to the Victoria & Albert museum have been warned to leave their pencils at home as the museum has enacted a ban on sketching their prize exhibitions. The V&A’s new exhibition Undressed: A Brief History of Underwear was opened with a strict photography ban in place, but visitors hoping to circumvent the restrictions by recording the exhibition’s 19th century unmentionables in a fittingly 19th century style are warned off by signs stating that sketching is also off the table. Whilst the ban on photography has been accepted with relatively good grace, the restrictions on sketching have gotten some knickers in a twist. Rather than an attempt to crack down on a black market for hand drawn Victorian lingerie however, the museum has claimed that the issue instead lies in the exhibitions very popularity. A V&A spokesman stated that sketching has been forbidden in a bid to try and prevent the museum’s flow of visitors from becoming
Undressed: A Brief History of Underwear runs until 12 March 2017. Tickets cost £12.
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Photograph © V&A Museum
V&A closes the book on sketching
by Rowland Stirling
A document discovered by New Scientist has revealed that Google-owned company DeepMind, specialising in Artificial Intelligence, has been given access to the last five years of healthcare data of up to 1.6 million patients by three London Hospitals run by the Royal Free Healthcare Trust, Barnet, Chase Farm and the Royal Free. The information includes whether patients are HIV positive, details of drug overdoses and abortions, as well as logs of day to day hospital activity, such as the location and status of patients, and even who is visiting them. Google’s collaboration with the NHS has been public knowledge for some time, however the document, a data-sharing agreement between DeepMind and the Royal Free NHS Trust, illuminates what the corporation is doing with the sensitive information. In February 2016 DeepMind announced it is working with the NHS
in order to create an app called Streams to help hospital staff monitor patients with kidney disease Despite the corporation not being permitted to use the data in any other part of its business, Sam Smith, the head MedConfidential, a health data privacy group, is skeptical of Google’s intentions for the information, stating that ‘this is not just about kidney function. They’re getting the full data.’ Google responded that there is no separate dataset for people with kidney disease and that they therefore need access to the complete set of data in order to program Steams effectively. New Scientist’s discovery also uncovered a plan from DeepMind to develop a platform called Patient Rescue which will provide data analytics services to NHS hospital trusts. This will enable hospitals to carry out concurrent analysis of clinical data in order to speed up diagnostic decisions. DeepMind wants to assure people that the plan is not to automate clinical decisions, such as treatments to administer in any given situation, but merely to make predictions in order to support Doctors’ diagnostic abilities, by spotting trends in data too broad for an individual to process. Early detection of septicæmia, blood poisoning that kills 31,000 people in the UK every year, might be one future application.
Battersea hosts London Motor Show By Fahad Redha
While New York, Tokyo, Paris, and even Geneva all have annual motor shows with new debuts, London is often left out. Besides events for classic cars, the last one was in Excel in 2008 but trouble with the economy kept it from returning. Hopefully that’s about to change as Battersea Evolution, in Battersea Park hosted The London Motor Show in May 2016. From the new MG GS, the company’s first SUV, to a preview of the upcoming TVR revival, there was something for both the consumer and the enthusiast.
Attendees had the chance to experience auto-braking in a new Volvo V40. This was part of the #STOPTHECRASH campaign to raise awareness of this technology. They were given the chance to accelerate the car and rely only on its sensors to stop it! You’d be pleased to hear that it worked perfectly. Nissan’s luxury brand, Infiniti, which has only sold cars in the UK for a few years, showed off its new Q60 coupe. The sleek two-door will do battle with the BMW 4 Series and Audi A5. Expect it to cost from around £30,000 when it goes on sale later in 2016. It was joined by the hydrogen powered Riversimple, Morgan’s EV3, an all-electric 3-wheeler, as well as lightweight track cars, the VUHL 05 and Zenos E10. Supercars also took centre stage including the Lamborghini Huracan, Ferrari 488 GTB and the British built Noble M600. It’s been eight years since the last London Motor Show. Here’s hoping it won’t be another eight until the next one.
May 2016
News
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Rufus the Hawk is ready for Wimbledon By Wayne Davis
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ufus the hawk flys regular patrols at Westminster Abbey, Fulham ICR and Wimbledon AELTC. The essence of the patrol Rufus works in, at the varying sites, is a type of ‘Environmentally friendly Bird control’. He patrols to deter the pigeons from roosting, thus providing an active biological deterrent. Falconry is one of the most ancient of arts, with Chinese references to hunting with Goshawks going back to the 5th century BC. Wayne David, Rufus’s trainer, trained his first falcon when 13 years old. A humble Kestrel called Jessica. This was the beginning of a lifetime of working with these most enigmatic of birds. He says, “Rufus began his relationship with me in the time honoured art of Falconry. The first part of the training is called ‘manning’. In simple terms accustoming the hawk to this strange environment he has entered into. These days Hawks and Falcons are captive bred, and so therefore they are
taken out of the breeding aviary. At this stage , the hawk has had no interaction with humans. You may be familiar with the term ‘hoodwinked’. It originates from the medieval period and used in a similar way to the expression ‘to pull the wool over your eyes’. Essentially the hood covers the hawk’s eyes. This allows the trainers to manage the hawk’s initial fear of us. Through a combination of patience and time the hawk learns to trust you. Once this stage has been overcome the rest of the training can begin. Rufus began his working career at the All England Lawn Tennis Club at
Power of Power festival announced at the Southbank Centre By Rowland Stirling
During four weekends, from May to October 2016, a myriad of writers, experts and academics, including Nobel Prize winning journalist Svetlana Alexievich and Pulitzer Prize winning author Katherine Boo, will converge for The Southbank Centre’s new festival: Power of Power, featuring debates, discussions and performances to explore ‘the forces that control our world today’. The festival will predominantly take place in the Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall. Events are programed around Opera North’s performance of Wagner’s Ring cycle from June 28th July 3rd. The festival’s remaining talks and performances will take themes such as Money, Dynasty and Desire from this archaic tale of Gods and Heroes, exploring them in a contemporary context. The festival begins on May 29th at 14:30 with dramatized readings of
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Kensington, Chelsea & Westminster Today
Wimbledon; filming for Blue Peter! No pressure here then. And true to the adage ‘never work with animals and children’. Rufus flew up to the stadium roof and refused to come down much to the consternation of the children and the camera crew. The hawks are flown in the environments they are going work in. This prolongs the training process as there are so many distractions. Rufus is quite a celebrity at Wimbledon. He even has his own picture pass for the championships which he attends every day, from an unearthly hour of 5am-9am. On a more serious note Rufus is an amazing ambassador for the perception of Raptors. Indeed he has his own twitter account: @rufusthehawk Westminster Abbey is one of the most amazing places Rufus flies in. You can tangibly feel the history around you. When we do internal patrols, we scale the narrow spiral staircase to the triforium (upper level) home of the great organ and usually some pigeons which manage to gain access. On the external patrols we often come across wild Peregrine falcons which breed on the adjacent Palace of Westminster. Rufus is the star of our Falconry & Feasting days we hold at our home, the Old Lodge Farm in Northamptonshire. Avian Environmental Consultants www.avianenvironmental.co.uk
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Svetlana Alexievich’s work, performed in the Royal Festival Hall by award winning independent theatre company: Belarus Free Theatre, followed by Alexievich in conversation with Marina Warner for a talk entitled Power and Putin. On the same day In the Weston Roof Pavilion at 19:30, authors Margo Jefferson and Ekow Eshun discuss Race and Power in America. Before this at 17:30 in the Royal Festival Hall the pursuit of power will be explored musically in a theatrical concert featuring Aurora Orchestra Conductor Nicholas Collon and baritone soloist Marcus Farnsworth singing excerpts from Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony and HK Gruber’s
Frankenstein!! The second weekend, beginning June 25th, will follow the theme of money and begins with Vince Cable and former Economics Editor for Channel 4, Paul Mason, alongside others, in a panel discussion on global economy from 14:00 -15:00 in St Paul’s Roof Pavilion. This is followed at 18:30 by a debate over the powers that drive modern India’s growth and poverty in the Level Five Function room of the Royal Festival Hall. The discussion will be lead by the director of the King's College London India Institute, Sunil Khilnani and Katherine Boo, author of Behind the Beautiful Forevers. On the Sunday at 17:30, in St
Tawny Owl By Tony Common
The Tawny Owl is a common resident in London's parks and suburban gardens and lives here all the year round.
Paul’s Roof Pavilion, comedian Ayesha Hazarika leads a panel discussion on the gender pay gap in the UK and Europe. The third weekend of events, beginning on Friday 1st July, focusses on Dynasty. On the 1st at 19:00 in the Weston Roof Pavilion, Simon Sebag Montefiore talks about the history of the Romanov’s in his lecture The Curse of the Tsars. On July 2nd Public protest and activism in the digital age is discussed by filmmaker Amir Amirani and playwright Gillian Slovo at 12:30, before an exploration of the future ramifications of the refugee crisis begins, with speakers including Afghan political refugee Gulwali Passarly and the Guardian’s firstever migration correspondent Patrick Kingsley at 16:00. Both events will take place in the the Level Five Function Room of the Royal Festival Hall. Power is inextricably linked to ideas of gender and sexuality. The Fourth weekend, beginning October 7th, will hold a series of discussions centred around the theme of desire, illuminating how the age of the internet affects the ways we look for a partner, asking question concerning the future of the sex industry and illustrating the ways in which the desire for change can incite social revolution. For more info: http://www. southbankcentre.co.uk/whatson/ festivals-series/power-of-power/ production
Painting © Tony Common
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Statue & Blue Plaque
Photograph © Don Grant
STATUES
The Gardener By Karin Jonzen London Wall
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he Gardener is a gritty, rough-hewn bronze depicting a life-sized male figure kneeling down to tend a plant, which was commissioned by the Trees, Gardens and City Open of the Spaces Committee of the Corporation of London in 1971. It is placed in a small public garden on London Wall in front of the Brewer’s Hall, which ranks fourteenth in order of precedence of the Livery Companies, having received its first charter from Henry VI in 1438 when the brewers were incorporated as ‘The Wardens and Commonalty of the Mystery or Art of Brewers of the City of London.’ The sculptor was Karin Jonzen, a talented young artist, born in London in 1914 to Swedish parents, Uno and Gerda Lowenadler. She was originally thrust into an artistic career by her father, who, because of her output of comic drawings, saw a future for her as a Punch cartoonist. In 1937, when she was 22, she was runner-up for the Prix de Rome, open to all UK and Commonwealth artists under the age of 30. After a stint at the Slade, her parents then sent her away to Stockholm in order to get her away from a boyfriend of whom they disapproved. There she met and fell in love with an even more hopeless and penniless young Swedish poet, Ake Sucksdorff, and so was promptly hauled back to England again. In
1939 she won the Prix de Rome at her second attempt. Her style was figurative and resolutely traditonal, turning away from the more avant garde sculptors of the time, like Jacob Epstein, Henry Moore, John Skeaping and MoholyNagy, although she abhorred the ‘white marble bodies of the Victorian era, third hand in conception, being attempts to improve on Roman copies of Greek sculpture.’ She mainly worked in terracotta and bronze and Carel Weight, Professor of Painting at the Royal College, described her as ‘one of the small band of important sculptors left in the country who derive their inspiration from the human figure and are strong enough to resist the trend of fashionable art.’ In 1944 she met and married Basil Jonzen, another Anglo-Swede artist, with whom she started a gallery in Kensington, which was a huge success. After three years, they moved to the country, but her health deteriorated and she was diagnosed with advanced tuberculosis. Despite nominations in 1949, 1957 and 1964 for the Royal Academy of Arts, by such luminaries as Robert Buhler, Gilbert Ledward, Augustus John and Carel Weight, for some reason, she was unsuccessful at every turn. Her initial reputation began to fade, at the same time as her marriage went the same way. Jonzen had previously won a number of public commissions, in London for the Festival of Britain and the Barbican Centre, for the World Health Organization in New Delhi and Geneva, for Selwyn College Chapel, Cambridge University, and for churches including St Maryle-Bow, Cheapside and Guildford Cathedral. Her portrait sitters have included Malcolm Muggeridge, Paul Scofield, Max von Sydow and Dame Ninette de Valois. After her marriage ended, she ended up in Sweden and hooked up with Ake Sucksdorff again, whom she married on impulse. That marriage lasted a week. She returned to London, where her career began to recover and, in 1994, she had a successful show at David Messum Gallery in Cork Street. She died in 1998. Don Grant
150th Anniversary of the English Heritage’s Blue Plaque Scheme By Marian Maitland
It requires imagination to bring the past to life and Blue Plaques are a tangible and authentic medium that achieves this. They are an appropriate, artistic memorial to great people and more easily seen than headstones.They have long graced the buildings in London which are the homes of the great. The idea has been copied all over Britain and overseas. Blue Plaques bring personality and history to our neighbourhoods. It is exciting to see where great people resided and wonder how much the area has changed since their time. The Plaques encourage us to find out more about the people they commemorate. They bring emotion to a building and make it historically attractive. They are a very personal memorial, dealing with reputation and making you feel part of London’s Heritage. Blue Plaques not only adorn prestigious houses in Mayfair, Chelsea and Westminster but are often found in humble suburbs. The Blue Plaques are actually artworks, made of glazed clay. Incidentally, they are lighter at the back to facilitate fixing to the walls. Being dome shaped they stay clean. They
are round and some have decorations around the statement of name, dates of birth and death, occupation and period of residency. The earlier plaques were rectangular. In 1863 the radical MP, William Ewart, proposed in Parliament that there should be memorials on houses of famous people. The Royal Society of Arts implemented this idea in 1866. Lord Byron’s house in Holles St was the first to have a plaque (chocolate in colour). The house and plaque did not survive. Napoleon III’s in King Street, St James’s is the oldest surviving plaque. The London County Council changed the colour of Plaques to blue when they took over in 1921. The Greater London Council ran the scheme from 1965 to 1985. They were succeeded by English Heritage. The earlier plaques were mostly for men; Kings, statesmen, generals and politicians reflecting the contemporary attitude of the day. Later, more women, artists, actors, playwrights, footballers and pop stars were honoured, including members of ethnic minorities Anyone can put a name forward to be honoured, but, the procedure is very strict. Candidates must have been dead for twenty years or more, and have given a real benefit to humanity. Also, they must have lived in the building for a significant period of time and made an important achievement there. A short list is made. If not accepted the candidate cannot be submitted again until ten years have passed. Serious research is carried out and the worthiness of the candidate is checked in depth. The house where the candidate lived must not have changed or been rebuilt. In 2013, due to withdrawal of funding, the scheme was in danger of closing. There were personality problems on the Committee in 2014. English Heritage overcame financial problems, and now the scheme depends on funding, from donations via the Blue Plaque Club and the public, and generous private support provided by David Pearl. During the 150th year anniversary several new blue plaques will be erected, including: Tommy Cooper, Elizabeth David and Samuel Beckett and others will be honoured. Beckett’s plaque was recently unveiled in 48 Paultons Square, Chelsea, where the playwright is sharing a “double plaque” with eminent physicist Patrick Blackett who also lived in the address. There will be special walking tours, a series of talks and a Blue Plaque telephone app will be created. English Heritage is partnering with Product of Your Environment on a new range of fine bone china dinner plates replicating Blue Plaques of famous people. Agatha Christie and Alfred Hitchcock are included. In September English Heritage will publish the first official guide book, featuring a short history of the people honoured by Blue Plaques in London.
May 2016
Chelsea Flower Show
Kensington, Chelsea & Westminster Today
online: www.KCWToday.co.uk current unsold inventory now adds up to more than a year’s production, which is equivalent to 8,000 Olympic swimming pools. More stats, then; the show itself occupies eleven of the total of 66 acres of the Royal Hospital grounds, or ten football pitches, (which, incidentally, is an area 0.0013% the size of Wales) with the Grand Pavilion covering 12,000m², or, in easily-imagined convertors, two football pitches, on which one could park 500 London buses in the tent,
RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2016
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vents organisers seem to be obsessed with corporate consumption and statisitics. Royal Ascot trumpets that the punters consume 51,000 bottles of champagne, 160,000 glasses of Pimm’s, 131,000 pints of beer and 42,000 bottles of wine. At Goodwood August races, they get through 6,612 bottles of champagne (quite a precise number) and 11,550 glasses of Pimm’s over five days, while at Wimbledon, they can only manage
28,000 bottles of bubbly, but make up for it with 235,000 glasses of Pimm’s during the fortnight. Chelsea is modest on the champagne consumption, with a mere 23,823 glasses sold during the week, although 15,000 are served at the charity gala preview on the Monday evening to 5000 invited VIPs, who also wolf down 45,000 canapés in two hours. At Wimbledon, 2,100 kilos of bananas get eaten, but those are consumed by the tennis players and not the general public. The country Wales has been used as a comparative measurement for years; ‘China to build city the size of Wales’; ‘an area of rain-forest twice the size of Wales lost every hour/day/week in Africa’; iceberg half the size of Wales floats free in Antarctica.’ What would make headlines is ‘An earthquake in Wales devastates an area the size of Wales’. Olympic swimming pools are used to explain how much water was used/flooded/ wasted, while London doubledecker buses are also wheeled out to explain area, and sometimes height, in simple analogous terms. The European wine lake is not yet the size of Wales, so we still use Olympic swimming pools. Because of EU subsidies through farm policies that have sought to keep prices stable by stockpiling unsold wine, the
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thousands of tonnes of discarded plant matter, mature trees, some up to 12 metres tall and costing up to £11,000
each, hedging, timber and slabs of stone were simply dumped in skips, along with soil, gravel, tarmac, concrete and packaging. In 2011 the Homebase Garden, designed by Thomas Hoblyn, was donated to the Eden Project in Cornwall and 400 tonnes of cut and carved granite taken from a Cornish quarry, replete with a classic collection of Cornish plants, went back home after apparently. In just over a month, all the show gardens, along with the 250-odd trade stands and 100 exhibitors’ stands in the Great Pavilion, are designed, planned, dug, drained, planted, turfed, laid with brick and stone paths and walls, supplied with electricity and water, completed with pergolas, ponds, arbors, arches, sculpture, rockeries, screed,
buildings, small and not so small, then pruned, sprayed and titivated in time for the general public to trudge past in a constant slow-moving crawl for five days in May. It takes about a month for the Royal Hospital garden to return to what it was, just in time for Masterpiece to open at the end of June, in a tent of an equivalent area. Hundreds of tonnes of earth are dug up in just one of the dozen or so show gardens, and replaced with more than that amount of top-soil, compost, gravel and hardcore. It was only a handful of years ago that, after the show was over,
a week’s holiday in the big city. The RHS now encourages environmental responsibility and show gardens are planned with sustainability in mind, with a high percentage of the leftover Chelsea garden materials used as part of an Olympic legacy programme to deliver 50 community gardens across host boroughs. Everyone is very coy about how much a high-profile, heavily-sponsored show garden costs to put on. A quarter of a million is probably a good place to start for the basic garden, including designers’ and plantsmens’ fees, but the whole package, including publicity, entertaining, promotional material, printing, marketing, staffing, hotels, transport and deconstruction costs, could easily be double, treble or quadruple that. If the sponsor goes home without a coveted Gold Medal, or even Best in Show, then they may not be back the following year. Don Grant
Drawings © Don Grant
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News Photographs © Rolling Stone Archive
Exhibitionism: The Rolling Stones Saatchi Gallery Until 4 September 2016 Admission £25 https://tickets. stonesexhibitionism.com
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his exhibition has been travelling the planet for the past 4 years and it has finally come to rest in Chelsea, just over a mile down the King’s Road from their first flat in Edith Grove, which has been recreated for visitors to walk through. It makes Tracey Emin’s bed look like a Habitat showroom, with everything, including a kitchen sink, which is piled high with fetid dishes. This is the largest exhibition of Stones memorabilia ever mounted, and two introductory galleries give visitors a full-on, immersive, visceral and mind-blowing sensory barrage of 50 years from ‘The Greatest Rock ‘n’ Roll Band in the World’; no idle claim, that but, in spite of many pretenders, justifies the hyperbole, and not just because they have been doing it for half a century. At the heart of the band’s life is the recording studio, recreated to include original guitars, harmonicas, piano, sax and lyric books, with headphones and touch-screens to bring it to life. From humble beginnings, they chart the initial successes, and failures, before they are launched into the cosmos and become rock gods, rock royalty and legends in their own, geriatric lifetimes. En route, they have become fabulously rich, with Mick at the helm, steering a moneymaking empire around the globe, like a factory ship, but they still want to tour, and that cannot all be about money. There are a host of film clips, including the Maysles Brothers’ Gimme Shelter, shocking in that it shows a fan being stabbed in the back by a Hell’s Angel at Altamont in 1969, and Robert Frank’s Cocksucker Blues, chronicling the
great ennui of their American Tour in 1972 in support of their album Exile on Main Street. It was shelved by the bad boys themselves as it showed them in a ‘bad light’, snorting charlie, shooting heroin with groupies doing what groupies do best. Having seen it furtively a couple of years ago at a private showing, it is now on YouTube! Martin Scorsese narrates this part of the tour, citing his own Shine a Light and Jean-Luc Godard’s Sympathy for the Devil. There is a pacy compilation of some 30 videos, made by such sixties heavies as Peter Whitehead, David Fincher, Julien Temple and Michael Lindsay-Hogg. Art and design has always gone handin-hand with the Stones image, and not just in terms of dress style, but about
record album covers, posters, promotional material, stage and set design. They were all involved in the design process, and some of the covers have become ‘iconic’, particularly Andy Warhol’s Sticky Fingers, with the real zip sewn into the photo of some jeans. There was a problem when the albums were shipped, as they dented the vinyl, but problem solved by opening the zip, so the indentation still occurred, but only in the middle of the disc. Mick’s take on design was bordering on the simplistic. ‘So every time there was an album cover, you had to think, how are we going to do this? What does it mean for us? What does this record mean? We always tried to get someone really good.’ Not exactly words of wisdom, but that’s Mick for you. Apart from Warhol, who is almost over-represented, other ‘really good’ artists employed by the band include John Pasche from the Royal College, Jeff Koons, Walton Ford, Shepard Fairey and the stage designer Mark Fisher, who produced some seriously off-the-wall sets.
There are dozens of original costumes, some on scary Mickmannequins, with many of the fashionable fashionistas represented, including Ossie Clark, Granny Takes a Trip and Mr Fish from the sixties, Alexander McQueen, Jean-Paul Gaultier, Gucci, Dior and Versace up to the present day. There is a gallery called Rare: An Intimate Look, which is littered with weird and wonderful curiosities, including previously unseen footage, which will appeal to the true fan, just as the collection of guitars in glass cases will attract the Stones nerds. The organisers have kept the best until last with a behind-the-scenes backstage holding area before being lead into a ‘live’ arena with a pumped-up version of Satisfaction in 3D, which meant that sometimes you can always get what you want. This is quite an expensive hour-and-a-half ’s entertainment, with one downside being that it is not best suited to the rambling Saatchi Gallery, and visitors were thrust into blinding sunlight in between galleries and had to clamber up and down stairs to enter another darkened room. If there is a positive takeaway message, it is that those old rockers still really have lots of FUN. Don Grant
020 7738 2348
May 2016
News Think Tank Listings
By Henry Tobias Jones
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hroughout the Capital each month the finest think tanks convene to discuss, debate, and decry the most important political issues facing London, the UK, and the World today. KCW Today brings you the very best of these Think Tank events, helping to ensure you see the real politics.
Adam Smith Institute Lecture with Dalibor Rohac May 24 2016. 18:30-20:30 Adam Smith Institute, 23 Great Smith Street, London, SW1P 3DJ Dalibor Rohac will be giving an informative talk on his new book Towards An Imperfect Union: A Conservative Case for the EU. To register for this event call 02072224995 or email info@adamsmith. org Chatham House US Foreign Policy at a Crossroads 11 May 2016 10 St James's Square, London SW1Y 4LE Ahead of the 2016 US presidential elections, Xenia Wickett will reflect on Barack Obama’s foreign policy legacy and consider how foreign policy might develop under the next administration. Attendance is strictly by invitation only, Chatham House Rule. To register for this event, please RSVP to lbedford@ chathamhouse.org Compass Designing Democracy for the 21st century 10 May 2016 - 18.00-21.00 Committee Room 5, House of Commons Join Neal Lawson of Compass and Eddie Molloy of the Electoral Reform Society as they attempt to answer the questions: Why do we need a constitutional convention? and How do we design one that will have the best outcome for citizens? Register now for your place at: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/ designing-democracy-for-the-21st-
Kensington, Chelsea & Westminster Today
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online: www.KCWToday.co.uk century-tickets-24528509432 Demos Financial Inclusion Roundtable Series 1 June 2016 Demos is partnering with Lloyds Bank to deliver a project on improving and promoting financial inclusion. Bringing together expert stakeholders and practitioners in roundtable meetings under Chatham House Rule, to explore how financial services can be more open, accessible and equitable. For more information contact events@demos.co.uk European Council on Foreign Relations Yemen’s peace talks: End of the beginning or beginning of the end? 10th May 2016 7th Floor, Kings Building, 16 Smith Square, London SW1P 3HQ After more than a year of war, representatives of Yemen's warring factions are now gathering to discuss a potential peace settlement. Mohamed Abulahoum speaking about how and what is needed to prevent these talks from unravelling? This event is by invitation only. Fabian Society Fabian Society Summer Conference: Britain’s Future, Labour’s Future 21 May 2016 All day Venue TBC This year’s Fabian Summer Conference ‘Britain’s Future, Labour’s Future’ will examine the UK’s EU referendum choice and map out routes to recovery for the centre left. Keynote speaker Gordon Brown will deliver a major speech on the EU referendum. Tickets £22 for Fabian Members, £32 for Non-Members. Purchase tickets here https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/ fabian-society-summer-conferencebritains-future-labours-futuretickets-24319349830 Institute for Government What will English devolution mean for joining up local public services? 16 May 2016-12:30 Institute for Government, 2 Carlton Gardens, London SW1Y 5AA This event will explore the opportunities that English devolution brings for joining up local public services. Our panel will draw on their experiences to examine the approaches that Greater Manchester, the Sheffield City Region, and the West Midlands are taking to joining up public services such as employment and skills, and health and social care. Policy Exchange Creating a ‘powerful knowledge’ curriculum in schools 10 May 2016 17:30 Policy Exchange, 10 Storey's Gate, London, SW1P 3AY Professor Young and a high quality panel discuss the role of ‘powerful knowledge’
in schools today. His book, Knowledge and the Future School, proposes a ‘return to knowledge’ in school curricula for all children. RSVP events@policyexchange.org.uk New Local Government Network Brexit: the implications for Local Government? 15 June 2016. 18.00- 20.00 Hub Westminster, New Zealand House, 80 Haymarket, London With the referendum on exiting the EU drawing near, NLGN are holding an event to analyse the implications of Brexit for local authorities across the country. Focusing on the economic, social and democratic impact on local government. Legatum Institute Britain and Europe: Culture, Country or Continent? Wednesday, 15 June 2016 - 18:15 for 18:30 start, followed by a drinks reception. Legatum Institute, 11 Charles Street, London, W1J 5DW The Legatum Institute's Roads to Freedom Series will host a panel that offers a fresh perspective on the following week's EU referendum by analysing Britain's relationship with continental Europe in the context of a thousand years of its history. Attendance is strictly by registration only. Contact Louie.Brockbank@li.com Institute of Economic Ideas
Discussion: Does capitalism serve society? 24 May 2016-6.30pm IEA, 2 Lord North Street, London, SW1 (door on Great Peter Street) The IEA is delighted to invite you to a panel discussion on whether or not capitalism is serving society. Should companies do more to ‘give back’ and engage with society? Is capitalism providing the best outcomes for society? Overseas Development Institute Mental health: the world’s forgotten crisis 19 May 2016. 10:30-12:30 Live Streamed Online This #GlobalChallenges debate focuses on how we address and make progress on mental health around the world. What are the most cost-effective and innovative ways to make a real difference? How
can we measure progress? And what will it take to ensure that mental health becomes a top priority for governments between now and 2030? Politeia Stable, Secure, Prosperous and Free: What’s Best for Britain and a Global World Setting Britain Free 9 June 2016 19.00-20.00 Army and Navy Club, 36 Pall Mall, London SW1Y 5JN Politeia will host a special meeting with three distinguished parliamentarians, who have extensive knowledge and experience of the big questions of government. Email secretary2@politeia.co.uk with your name, organisation, position, email address and daytime contact phone no. Res Publica Britain’s Future in Europe 6th June 2016 Venue TBC In partnership with The City of London Corporation, ResPublica is delighted to announce an impartial and crossparty debate on how Brexit might affect London and the wider UK economy. Will Brexit hinder the skills agenda? Will a leave vote jeopardise financial services? Events@respublica.org.uk for more information or press enquiries. New Economics Foundation Beyond the Zombie Economy: Building a Common Agenda for Change 1-2 June 2016. 09.00-17.00 The Professor Stuart Hall Building, Goldsmiths, University of London, 8 Lewisham Way, London, SE14 6NW With financial crisis ready to erupt at any time; the New Economic Founation asks what does a democratic and inclusive economy look like? How to demolish financialisation? Can different labours organise? And Why build common ground? Space is very limited for this twoday conference so register your place by visiting https://www.eventbrite.com/e/ beyond-the-zombie-economy-buildinga-common-agenda-for-changetickets-23415409119 Social Market Foundation The ECJ and the EU Charter: An independent view May 16 2016. 17.30-19.00 Refreshments from 17.30 11 Tufton Street, London, SW1P 3QB An evening event with Jesse Norman MP who will examine the role of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) and the EU Charter, asking whether sovereignty lies beneath much of the debate over UK membership of the EU?
For more information about Social Market Foundation please email hannah@smf.co.uk
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May April/May 2016 2011
Kensington, Chelsea & Westminster Today
www.KCWToday.co.uk
By Henry Tobias Jones
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ritish Artist, Gareth John Wood, aka ‘Fuller,’ has meticulously hand drawn a map of London presenting the capital as a chaotic, pulsating, ever-changing city of landmarks. Copies of the map entitled, London Town have been acquired by The Museum of London and the British Library for the nation. The work instantly recognisable not just by the emblematic landmarks but also by the numerous comments on contemporary cultures of the capital’s many neighbourhoods and boroughs. ‘Fuller’ has previously also completed a map of Bristol, which took four years to create and is also working on a piece called Shòu, the Chinese character for ‘longevity’. Pat Hardy, the curator of paintings, prints and drawings at the Museum of London says “charting the changing structures of London between 20052015, London Town is a densely packed
Shocking Developments Let no-one say that High Street Kensington doesn’t have a few tricks up its sleeve. Emboldened by the bright spring sunshine, I’d taken the previously unimaginable step of leaving my wellworn coat on its hook and wandering the streets of our fair borough in nothing more than slacks and shirt. I soon found myself crossing the threshold of Altimus, a combination high-end sportswear and shoe store found right at the heart of High Street Ken. Whilst perusing their selection of running shoes with a notable pang of nostalgia (a high workload and a few too many five course meals has regrettably meant that the only running I do these days is to catch a bus) I found myself in conversation with one of the (frankly rather scarily) well informed shop assistant who asked me if I’d ever heard of Electromagnetic Stimulation Therapy. Not sure if he was referring to physical therapy or an obscure prog-rock band, I replied in the negative and he explained that it was a non-invasive, drug free therapy that was based on the principle of passing a weak, slow-changing magnetic field through either the entire body or a select area in order to re-tune and harmonise cellular processes. Not being particularly in the know
contemporary map of London which will provide Museum of London visitors with an intriguing, unique, glimpse into the capital’s key landmarks and points of interest.” Tom Harper, the antiquarian map curator at The British Library says “the map is one of the most personal pieces of cartography I’ve ever seen, and goes to show just how essential maps are in drawing a bond between who we are and the places we inhabit." An exhibition of original works aptly named 'Get Lost' is taking place at The Palm Tree Gallery, Portobello Road, London, 6-22nd May, where a limited number of London Town art prints are available.
life in new direction, dedicating herself to philanthropy and setting up a first of its kind charity in the UK that recycles used flower arrangements. The organisation has a team of 50 volunteers that deliver over 10,000 bouquets using pre-loved floral arrangement from weddings and events and rearranging them before delivering show the power of recycled to local hospices, care homes and shelter flowers around London. Marks & Spencer have becomes By Sasha Fedorenko the first official sponsor and donates its weekly delivery of sample bouquets, and flowers to the organisation. This month, RHS Chelsea Flower show has officially the Angels will have one of their biggest started and people are already wondering donations to date from M&S due to what will happen to all those flowers? their exhibit at the RHS Chelsea Flower The new charity, Flower Angels, Show; with over 230 arrangements founded by Chelsea local and former already been delivered to worthy causes journalist, Julie Ritter, 54, has taken her from the practice builds for the M&S
garden. It goes back to 2013 when three women who met on a floristry course; Amanda Romain, Frances Hunter and Julie Ritter and became inspired by an American charity called ‘Random Acts of Flowers’ and since then it has gone from strength to strength. Ritter explains the power of flowers to revive people, saying: “I am delighted at how quickly the charity has taken off and we are extremely grateful for the support from M&S.” “There is no doubt in my mind that nature heals,” Ritter adds, “we have vulnerable people to our floral therapy workshops and when they start to work with the flower and unleash their creative sides, they become calm and meditative and we hope that on some level, they begin to heal them themselves.”
when it comes to magnetic fields, I had to this was going to be the first of a series of admit my ignorance and was immediately EMS treatments. As I was saying goodbye to the helpful shop assistant, he casually offered a free consultation and trial mentioned Altimus’s in-house orthosession with Elizabeth, Altimus’s in house pediatrician who, taking into account slight EMS expert. In the spirit of trying new differences in leg length, strain on ankles things I agreed and soon found myself or hamstrings, can match anyone to their in Elizabeth’s expert care, who explained perfect pair of shoes and eliminate the risks that EMS can be utilised from everything from speeding bone healing to simply providing a kind of body maintenance and relaxation for the stressed and tired. I was immediately eager to try (“stressed and tired” regrettably being my natural state these days!) and soon I was reclining on Altimus’s specialized EMS couch feeling the first light tingles of the magnetic field working its way through my body. It was a strange sensation, as I could feel the tingling seemingly consciously seek out my various aches and pains across my body and almost massage them. Arcing from a pain in my lower back to the base of my head where an incipient headache had been building, the invisible field set to work with a feeling of almost sentient purpose. Sitting up afterwards I noticed a distinct feeling of personal wellbeing (and my 138 High Street Kensington, impending headache seemed to have departed for pastures new). London W8 7RL I decided then and there that Tel: 020 7937 7177
of bad posture and foot injuries. Looking at the running shoes I had been mooning over earlier with new eyes, I asked if the first appointment for him was free as well. On being answered in the affirmative, I realised that this summer might end up being far more action packed than I could have dreamed of…
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Fuller’s handdrawn map for all of London
Photograph © Flower Angels
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DUDLEY SUTTON’S I WISH I HAD WRITTEN THAT A recipe for whisky by Ron Butlin
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Wring the Scottish rain clouds dry; take the sleet, the driving snow, the hail; winter twilight; the summer’s sun slowed down to pearl-sheen dusk on hillsides, city roofs, on lochs at midnight. And, most of all, take the years that have already run to dust, the dust we spill behind us…
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All this, distil. And cask. And wait. The senselessness of human things resolves To who we are – our present fate. Let’s taste, let’s savour and enjoy. Let’s share once more. Another glass for absent friends. Pour Until the bottle’s done. Here’s life! Here’s courage to go on! From the collection ‘The Magicians of Edinburgh’ published by Polygon
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Canalway Cavalcade: Bank Holiday Celebrations 2016
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May April/May 2016 2011
Kensington, Chelsea & Westminster Today
www.KCWToday.co.uk
Opinion & Comment
MARIUS BRILL’S
MEMEING OF LIFE Illustration © Alice Stallard. www.alicestallard.com
Meme: . An element of a culture or system of behaviour passed from one individual to another...
To Hell in a Handcart
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his story has two morals. One of them is: don’t make life-changing decisions when you’re s***faced. But that’s kind of obvious so let’s dispense with that one here. Don’t. Just don’t. So it starts about six months ago and twenty yards from Cheyne Walk, on the front deck of a houseboat. It’s six thirty on a chilly autumn morning. A low sun glints off the gold pagoda in the park, the tide is low and the boats are beached, sprawled on the mud like fag butts beneath a teenager’s bedroom window. It smells like seaweed and sewage. Chris, an old mate from school, is in borrowed pyjamas. He’s pale, unkempt and shaking; partly from the cold, mostly from the come down. He steadies himself on the stern rail, fumbling with a little plastic bag of weed. He balances the bag on the rail to crumble a pinch of pot into the tobacco. Suddenly, with a gust of wind, he slaps the Rizla but knocks the bag which tumbles to the mud below. It’s not his boat, he’s ‘sitting’ it for a wealthy friend. Chris is between homes. He has been most of his life. He’s spent a month on board and knows that his friend will run out of patience with him before Christmas. Then he’ll find another sofa. Chris is scrawny. He doesn’t think twice before slipping through the rail and dropping to the wet ground. It squelches on his trousers but the bag is upright, the contents safe. Now he can’t get back on board. He edges around the boat towards the jetty, trips, plummets face first into the mud. Dirty and reeking he pushes himself up. There’s something
in his hand: an old pre-decimal penny. No numismatist, he’s about to fling it at the river, see if he can beat his personal record of five skips with a flat stone. But then he remembers that he’s lost a counterweight from his little antique balancing scales, one of the few possessions that float along with him in the jetsam of his life; one of his essentials. Chris wipes the penny clean and sticks it in his pocket before clambering up. I know all this because he tells me in detail when we meet that evening at Rileys in World’s End, possibly the last un-gastroed pub in Chelsea. Chris had done some research. He shows me the penny. He’s cleaned it up but it’s still a dark greenish brown and smells of fish. One side is clearly George V sporting a hipster beard and bushy moustache. Chris turns the penny over. “Look at the date,” he points enthusiastically. Beneath Britannia’s feet is the year 1933. “Right.” I say, unsure why he’s so animated. I have a jar full of similar leftover pennies at home. “1933. It’s special. They only made a handful. One of these is worth like £100,000.” “Sweet,” Luck has not been a frequent visitor in Chris’ life, she forgot to call when his embryo was picking out physical features and then pretty much ignored him the rest of his life through a disastrous marriage, the ensuing custody battle, alcoholism, several lifethreatening diseases and eternal penury. Finally she was making good. “It’s gotta be a fake.” Chris says dropping it on the table. In some ways Chris’ scars have earned him the right to expect the worst. A decade ago I dreaded nights out with him, but now the darkened aspect of his conversation is pretty much like every
conversation everyone has nowadays. From credit crunch angst to global Jihad despair, the politics of fear, the sunless outlook of more misery to come, is downright de rigueur. News programmes can’t even be bothered to find skateboarding ducks anymore. Pessimism is the new black. As Chris puts it. “You can’t watch all this ISIS crap, beheadings, people thrown off buildings or burnt alive, without thinking civilisation is paper thin. We’re all just animals under a thin veil of pretending that we give a shit. Look what we’re doing to the environment, and bankers…” Chris’ list has become a commonplace dinner party trope. A classic inversion of Ian Dury. “Isis trained jihadi, the English accent baddy, your paedophile daddy and Trump. Hamas filling Calais, any dark alley, BNP rally, Jez Hunt. Doctors earning money, cancer in your tummy, she’s only boiling bunny, c**t. Reasons to be Fearful Part 3…” The trouble with pessimism is it only gets worse. Chris is a pub philosopher of the first degree, but his doom and gloom is not just saloon bar rhetoric. The same problem is racking our academics. How does our terrified putative liberal democracy face a superstitious culture, armed to the teeth, writhing at the injustice of poverty and the global imbalance of wealth? Our own history tells us that the free-fall in the vacuum of absolute monarchies is bloody, pitiless and engaged upon with the same zeal as the French revolutionaries or those English Civil War fanatics. Witnessing the atrocities meted out in the Civil War, Thomas Hobbes concluded that the true nature of man’s life is “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.” He reckoned that the only reason we’re not all murdering each other all the time is self-protection. All society offers us is an unwritten Social Contract with each other: I won’t kill you if you don’t kill me. Apart from that, we are no better than beasts. Today, the Oxford philosopher John Grey continues the same dystopian vision insisting that there is no steady progression of human advances towards a more civilised world, or a more decent one, over a long period of time. It can all be whipped away with terrifying speed. As all pessimists do, he calls it realism. But pessimism is easy. Just drop your expectations and bask in ‘told you so’ fulfilment if everything goes tits up. It’s self-protection for the ego. For Grey there is no correlation between apparent advances in science and technology and the reasonableness of man. The growth of human power over the world is ethically ambiguous. Grey believes this ‘realist’ approach encourages us to live in the moment, to appreciate ‘the now’ as, presumably, we could all die horribly and senselessly tomorrow. He follows Isaiah Berlin, himself an escapee from the horrors of
the Holocaust. “The goal of life,” Berlin wrote, “is life itself… to sacrifice the present to some vague and unpredictable future is a form of delusion which leads to the destruction of all that alone is valuable in men and societies – to the gratuitous sacrifice of the flesh and blood of live human beings upon the alter of abstractions. The purpose of the singer is the song, and the purpose of life is to live.” So the current trend for Mindfulness could just be a product of our societal pessimism. Be in the now because tomorrow is way too awful to think about. And yet it seems like Berlin, Grey and Hobbes are in a state of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. The horror of bearing witness to these atrocities, has limited their, and our own, horizons. An optimist might take the longer view. Our relatively safe, multi-cultural, tolerant, liberal society, where life is valued, is not here by accident. It grew out of lessons learnt and blood spilt in the Civil War. France’s own secular culture emerged from the machinations of Sadism and the Guillotine. All births are painful and bloody. My kids may grow up terrified of rucksacks on the tube, but their kids may just get sick of it and peace has every chance of breaking out again. And then maybe there’ll be another culture in need of a revolution. But, bloody as it is, it still looks like progress. There’s nowhere I’d rather live than in a country that has had at least a couple of hundred years to settle in to its post-revolutionary vibe. But optimism takes effort and courage, especially when there is much more psychological security in pessimism: at the very least, you’ll be right when everything goes wrong. My evening with Chris ends after a crazy amount of alcohol. “Tomorrow Chris get the coin valued.” I say, “You never know it might be pukka?” “Yeah?” Chris slurs, “And what if it is? I’ll tell you what. First thing my wife will be back in contact, demanding her share, then I’ll have to explain to the kids why I wasn’t around and pretend that she’s not a complete bitch, and then I’ll be paying tax and then everybody I owe shit to, which is, like, everybody, will come after me till I’ve got bugger all left or, if I do, I’ll have to get a place and a fucking mortgage and be in debt to the Man.” By now Chris is shouting, “And you know what I’d do if I still had dosh left over. I’d snort it or drink it or inject it until it’s all gone or I’m dead. It’s a fucking death sentence this.” And before I can rebut or offer any assurance he stumbles out. It’s windy outside and there’s a cold drizzle that bites. I’m fairly sure I know what happened to the penny. Chris is still sofa surfing and claims he can’t remember. He still shakes in the morning. But I like to think that when that dark coin left his hand it skipped at least six times before it sank beneath the water.
May 2016
Opinion & Comment Up hill and Whittingdale By Peter Burden
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hat John Whittingdale’s been through recently shows how easily a life or, at least, a career, might unravel, once Joe Public is allowed a glimpse of an individual’s unexpectedly colourful sex life. Having a relationship with a woman who makes her living as a ‘sex-worker’ (is that a euphemism for ‘prostitute’?) by satisfying the S&M urges of her clients isn’t illegal, but it is potentially hazardous for a politician in charge of encouraging the smut-soaked progeny of the late, unlamented News of the World not to invade the privacy or document the sexual activity of what they call celebrities. Mr Whittingdale claims he didn’t know his lover of six months was a ‘sex-worker’. This will have struck the sophisticated readers of this paper as fairly bizarre. Maybe she and Whittingdale didn’t engage much in conversation, although they reportedly went on a lot of dates together. He must, though, surely have known that she had special skills, even if she was treating him to freebies. It was only when he heard that one of red-tops was sniffing around his lover’s CV that he dropped her like a hot turd, in a way that was neither honourable, nor heroic. Initially Whittingdale escaped exposure by the scandal hungry Red Tops, perhaps due to the favour he has shown the fatuous IPSO press self-regulatory body, and his apparent reluctance to see the promised Leveson Pt 2 take place. It’s plausible that, as far as the naughty papers were concerned, he held the whip hand, as long as he supported their freedom from the kind of external third party control to which every other industry in the country is subject. Had he not wanted to be at their mercy, he had every right, and a practical defence in simply declaring, that yes, his lover was a professional S&M practitioner, he liked what she offered, and that was his business. There’d have followed a minor story that would have done him little damage and possibly, in these days of popular pornographic fiction like Fifty Shades, might even have enhanced his image in the eyes of the tabloid readers. In fact, he seems to have displayed some dishonesty, but, more germane to his job as a Government Minister and member of the Cabinet, he has also shown a lack of perceptiveness and a measure of bad judgement. All three are handicaps to good, balanced decision making, rendering him ineffective and unsupportable as a Secretary of State. As long as he is, like a large number
of members of parliament (including the Prime Minister) in thrall to Rupert Rumplechops, the chances of our rubbish press ever being properly monitored will be negligible for some years to come. I had a ringside seat at one of Whittingdale’s attempts to insert his head between the wrinkled buttocks in July 2009, in the early days of the phone-hacking scandal, when the apparently horrified bosses at News Corp were declaring solemnly that there was only one ‘rogue reporter’ at the News of the World. Andy Coulson, the editor of the paper at the time that the ‘one rogue reporter’ had been jailed was called to give evidence to the Culture Media Sport committee, which Whittingdale then chaired. Two members of the committee, Adam Price of Plaid Cymru, and Labour’s Birmingham Bulldog, Tom Watson, asked me, as author of a book on the paper’s activities, to meet over lunch before the session to identify the most effective way to get some truth from the notoriously dissembling Coulson. ‘That’s easy,’ I told them, and drew their attention to a lead story in the News of the World of April 2006, when Andy Coulson had been in charge. It was headlined: ‘FURY AFTER HE OGLED LAPDANCERS’ BOOBS.’ It was based on a message left by Prince William on his brother’s voicemail, scolding Prince Harry as if he were Harry’s then girlfriend (Chelsy Davy) for going to a lap dancing club and looking at the performers’ breasts. It quoted the message verbatim, without revealing that this phone call was illegally eavesdropped by them. Astonishingly, not a single other journalist or commentator had referred to this glaring evidence of guilt. I told Price and Watson it should be a piece of cake to confront Coulson with this totally damning proof that he had quite obviously been aware of the endemic phone hacking on his paper. He had, I believed, absolutely nowhere to go. When it came to it, he achieved such heights of deceit that he was able successfully to deny any memory whatsoever of the story; a big, lead item for the News of the World, strapped on the front page. Without a scintilla of doubt, he knew how his reporters had got it. He was simply too competent an editor not to have done. Despite this wide open goal for the committee, they couldn’t find a crack in his cool, assertive denials. Watson and Price worked hard but they lacked the inquisitorial skills of a QC that they needed to trip him; he doggedly stonewalled until they gave up. John Whittingdale, as chairman, had the duty to push harder, but carefully did nothing to press Coulson. It was perfectly clear to anyone sitting in the Wilson Committee Room in Portcullis House that Coulson was floating on a sea of untruth, but, perhaps to keep favour with Andy’s bosses at News Corp, Whittingdale
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online: www.KCWToday.co.uk wasn’t going to do anything to sink him. When Whittingdale produced his report on these enquiries the following February, it stated: “We have seen no evidence that Andy Coulson knew that phone-hacking was taking place. However, that such hacking took place reveals a serious management failure for which as editor he bore ultimate responsibility, and we believe that he was correct to accept this and resign.” One might have thought back then in 2009 that Colson was going to walk free. It took six years for him to be brought to justice and sent to jail, while his bosses were declared not-guilty by a jury skilfully handled by a cohort of some of the nation’s most expensive QCs.
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Tales out of school ‘I’m gonna need you to fly out to Tulum with us on Saturday,’ says American Mom as soon as I walk in through the front door. ‘It’s in Mexicooooo!’ adds the Small One, helpfully. I can’t decide which objection to tentatively raise first. I start with school. The Brats have only just started Summer Term. ‘I’ve told school they’ll be gone for a week,’ says American Mom, airily. ‘I can’t possibly wait till half term. Apart from anything else, the hotel will be ghastly then; full of other people’s children.’ The irony, as always, is lost on her. I try to think of something that might prevent me going but, infuriatingly, travelling to Mexico requires neither a visa nor any injections. ‘But the flight, won’t it be very expensive?’ I am hopeful. ‘My travel chap will sort it,’ American Mom assures me. When I find myself seated in Economy between the Small One and the Middle One, while American Mom and the Eldest hobnob in First Class, I begin to get a sense of what this holiday will entail. American Mom is booked in to a week’s yoga retreat at one of the most lavish hotels on the beach. I scoured the website for kid-friendly activities but unless ‘Stand Up Paddleboard Yoga’ can be counted as such, my search was fruitless. American Mom’s retreat includes a daily sunrise meditation on the beach. She
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only joins in this element of proceedings on the first two mornings. The sight of an elderly member of next-door’s hippie community emerging naked from the sea after an awakening swim, interfered enormously with American Mom’s ability to empty her mind and relax. In an attempt to vary the theme of the Brats’ week from sunbathing, not a favoured activity of under 14s, I take them on a bus to some nearby Mayan ruins. Having rarely been on buses in London, the ride there was an excursion in itself for the three of them. We reach the top of a temple narrowly avoiding collisions with tourists making their way down. The result of which would have resembled a Mayan sacrifice. The Eldest immediately embroils himself in a selfie stick war. He wants to get a panoramic shot, as do most of the other people shuffling around the top of this ancient structure. I wonder which of the advanced Mayan astronomers could have predicted this. We arrive back at the hotel to find American Mom lounging on a sunbed in front of the turquoise ocean. I sense immediately that something is odd; she looks… calm. She’s had a Reiki healing session, followed by a Mezcal Margarita. A fail-safe combination in achieving a state of ‘bliss’, she assures me. She listens contentedly while the Brats tell her about the Mayans. I take the opportunity to go in search of the barperson and the Reiki Master, hoping one or other can provide me with a trigger word the next time American Mom isn’t feeling quite so blissful.
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Features Going Underground By Max Feldman
I
n order to celebrate the opening of the entrance hall of the Thames Tunnel to the public, Max Feldman examines the history of the Eighth Wonder of the World.
Photograph © Brunel Museum
In the 21st century it’s more likely to hear the Circle Line described as a ‘circle of hell’ that Dante didn’t have time to describe, rather than an architectural marvel. If an overenthusiastic tourist mentions how much they enjoy riding the tube, Londoners tend to react as if they had casually mentioned that their favourite way to unwind is a casual spate of wrestling bears. However this antipathy is a relatively modern phenomenon; when it opened in 1843, the so-called Thames Tunnel was described as the Eighth Wonder of the World. People came from far and wide to see the first tunnel under a river. On opening day, fifty thousand people descended the staircase and paid a penny to walk through the tunnel. By the end of the first three months the Thames Tunnel had attracted over a million people, or half the population of London. Tunnel walkers were lured from all over the world; buying souvenirs and enthusiastically taking in entertainment in the cross-tunnel arches in an exact inverse of our modern tendency when underground to simply keep one's head down, shove forwards mercilessly and treat buskers with a hostile indifference. The Thames Tunnel was the culmination of decades of work; beset by failure, flooding and accusations of impossibility. The need for a tunnel in order to expedite trade from the dramatically overcrowded river had been discussed for years but sceptical engineers denounced the plans as an “opium pipe dream” (the origin of the
phrase ‘pipe dream’) when an 1805 attempt ended in severe flooding after a mere 305 meters had been dug. The engineer Marc Brunel (father of the famous Isambard Kingdom Brunel) refused to be dissuaded from the project’s viability, developing a revolutionary ‘tunnelling shield’ which he was sure would be the breakthrough that would make his dream a reality. Politicians (who were as susceptible to huge-scale vanity projects then as they are in the present day) gave Brunel’s plans their backing and over 1,000 tons of mining apparatus was assembled and the project was begun in February 1825!... before the works quickly collapsed under their own weight and sank into the soft ground like a hot knife through butter. It was soon realised that the problem wasn’t the method but the fact that the spot they had chosen to tunnel was next to a previous forgotten attempt to tunnel under the Thames that had dramatically weakened the ground. After shamefacedly moving the proposed location to Rotherhithe, tunnelling was begun anew in November 1825. The tunnelling shield (or miners' cage) functioned by enabling miners to dig whilst protected inside a protective frame, whilst bricklayers built the walls behind them as they advanced. Horses would pull loaded carts down huge double helix ramps into the depths of
the tunnel and across to the other side. The method might have worked but conditions were torturous. Inside each cage, the miner would carefully dig out the wall in front, in strips only four inches wide. When he was done, and the man above and below as well, the whole row would be pushed forwards using screw jacks. Bricklayers working behind them made everything secure and the process began again. The Thames was thus tunnelled in painstaking four inch strips by miners using short handled spades. As they worked, the miners were showered in raw sewage and had to dodge hellish flames from ignited methane gas. The men only worked four hour shifts but this was due to the fact that the gases would invariably cause them to collapse after four hours rather than any kindness on the behalf of their employers. The collapsed men were simply pulled out and replaced until their replacements lost consciousness in turn and the revived men were forced out again. In addition the tunnel ended
up flooding a total of five times, with the worst drowning six men and nearly killing a 20 year old Isambard Kingdom Brunel (he celebrated his survival by throwing a banquet inside the half completed tunnel). This nightmarish process progressed on and off for a full eighteen years. The frequent delays allowed metropolitan wits to mercilessly mock Brunel (“That very mishap/When the Thames forced a gap/And made it fit haunt for an otter/Has proved that your scheme/Is no catchpenny dream/They can't say s“ ’twill never hold water.” is a typical example) but on the opening in 1843 he was able to have the last laugh. Whilst he had accomplished what was thought impossible, his original plans to transport cargo through the tunnel had come to nothing as monetary woes (it had cost a fortune to build: £454,000 to dig and another £180,000 to fit out – far exceeding its initial cost estimates.) meant they could not afford to build the ramps to get cargo into what had been conceived as a cargo tunnel. As a result the tunnel was opened as a hastily conceived ‘visitor attraction’ charging a penny to walk through the ‘Eighth Wonder of the World’ which
managed to attract approximately two million people a year. The American traveller William Allen Drew described it as a heaving mass of humanity, dotted with alcoves filled with everything from “Egyptian necromancers and fortunetellers to dancing monkeys.” whilst “gas light made the tunnel as bright as the sun”. He also went on to mention that the many knick knacks available for purchase were stamped with “brought in the Thames Tunnel” in an unconscious presaging of the “I♥London” memorabilia currently clogging tourist thoroughfares. As the years went on however the tunnel regressed into a haunt of prostitutes and “tunnel thieves” who hid in the alcoves and mugged passers-by. In 1855 the author Nathaniel Hawthorne recounted encountering “ people who spend their lives there, seldom or never, I presume, seeing any daylight” and denounced the whole project as a “an entire failure”. By 1865 (to the presumable relief of its investors) the East London Railway company bought the tunnel with the intention of digging new tunnels to link up from the North and South to link the Thames Tunnel to the national railway network. Four years later, in 1869, trains started to run through the tunnel (which had been designed for horses and carts.) For the first time the tunnel was doing what it was intended to do: Carrying freight across the river. In 1869 electric trains had not yet appeared on the national network, so the trains running through the tunnel were hauled by steam engines. Entering the tunnel the trains would go downhill towards the low point at mid-river before starting the hard climb back up to the surface. The harder a steam engine works the more smoke it produces and whilst in railway tunnels on land there were frequent shafts to allow the smoke to escape to the surface, no such ventilation shafts could be built below the river, making the tunnel a hellish experience for drivers and railway men. In 1913 the railway was electrified and incorporated into the London Underground as the East London Line, making the Thames Tunnel the oldest tunnel in the oldest underground system in the world and arguably the very birthplace of the Tube. When next descending into the darkness of the underground take a moment to imagine this time when the experience would have filled Londoners with wonder and dread which (rather more fantastically to the modern mind) would only have cost a penny.
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Assassins in Europe;
Anniversary of the attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II By Henry Tobias Jones
O
n Wednesday 13th May 1981, Mehmet Ali Ag˘ca, a 23 year old Turkish petty criminal cum-bank robber, fired four shots from within the crowds of St. Peter’s Square that echoed throughout Europe. All of the bullets fired that day entered the body of Pope John Paul II; two tore through his lower intestine. Ag˘ca was apprehended and sentenced to life in prison. Although the Pope was critically wounded by the attempt, he made a full recovery, and even petitioned the Italian President, Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, to pardon Ag˘ca who was eventually extradited to Turkey in 2000. In Europe today, many see the Cold War through the lense symbolic events like the demolition of the Berlin Wall, or the Cuban Missile Crisis. But, on the anniversary of the attempted assassination of John Paul II, it is worth considering how crucial this forgotten moment was. The story of the assassination attempt still remains largely unexplained. Conspiracy theories have permanently confused the story, and changed it from a political assassination into a battlefront in the Cold War. Perhaps the most intriguing theory is referred to simply as the: ‘Bulgarian Connection.” Three Bulgarian men, Sergey Antonov, Todor Ayvazov, and Jelio Vassilev, were accused by Ag˘ca of being Soviet spies and his collaborators in the attack. Russia and Bulgaria have consistently denied being involved ever since. Only Antonov was charged by the Italian police as the other two men were not in Italy at the time. He was an employee of Balkan Airlines in Rome, and was arrested on the 25th November 1982. However, by the 29th March 1986, after two years in prison, Antonov was released with the judge ruling that there was enough not evidence to convict. Though he returned to Bulgaria a free man, rumours that he conspired to kill the Pope followed him until his death in 2007. Professor Giuseppe Consolo is the Italian Lawyer who successfully defended Sergey Antonov. Consolo describes his introduction to the case, saying “I had many friends who told me: ‘you are crazy to defend the person involved in the attempt on the Pope,’ and I said, let me understand, first, what happened, and then I’ll tell you if I think he can be guilty or not.” “Our constitutional law” he explains,
“says under article 27, that everybody is innocent until you prove they are guilty,” and “I think my idea was that the Italian justice could not arrest Antonov” because of this article. Amid the anger and confusion that dominated the time, Consolo’s defence of Antonov is testament to the culture the West was fighting to protect. Ignoring the convictions of most of the public, he saw that the only real evidence against Antonov was the claim made by Ag˘ca from his prison cell. Not enough for any reasonable court to convict a person. Previously, Consolo has decried the “stain cast on the Bulgarian people” by what was demonstrably just an “outrageous legal blunder.” “In Italy in 1981,” it was “very tough for Ag˘ca,” but it was even worse for Antonov when he was arrested “in November 1982 because we had all the media saying everyday ‘he’s guilty, he’s guilty!’” Nevertheless, many remain convinced that Ag˘ca was not working alone, and that he was the bottom rung in a ladder that led through the Bulgarian secret services, right up to the KGB. Rosario Priore, a prominent Italian judge, worked as an investigator in the prosecution of Ag˘ca. His perspective is quite different. “The three Bulgarian men,” Priore says, “agreed with Ag˘ca” and wanted John Paul II killed, adding that it was “almost definitely one of the fronts in the Cold war.” “The accusations made by Ag˘ca were very confused,” according to Priore. “One day he said something, and the next he changed his mind, he was trying to create chaos.” While he did not kill the Pope, he did indeed create chaos. Cold war anxieties heightened the threats posed
by other nations, especially those that weren’t ‘like us.’ A complex network of drug, weapons, and human trafficking from places like Bulgaria and Turkey made them unpopular with many on both sides of the war. Consolo, for example, explains “the atmosphere was terrible! Everybody thought that Antonov was guilty and the situation became very tough because Italy was not really against Turkey [and Aǧca], but it was totally against Bulgaria.” Anti Eastern-European sentiments were exacerbated by the homegrown tensions between Italian left and right wing extremists. Roumiana Ugarchinska is the French author of The Truth About the Assassination Attempt Against John Paul II. 10 years of investigating the collective secret services of Turkey, Russia, Bulgaria, and virtually every European country gives her a real insight into the legacy of conspiracy and terror. “The secret services deliberately focused the attention on Antonov,” Ugarchinska explains. “Looking through all of the released records of the incident” she says, “they were all involved and they were all focused on spreading misinformation.” We may never know whether Ag˘ca was working for the KGB, or the fanatical Turkish anti-capitalist group, The Grey Wolves, which he was also part of. He may even have been working alone. But the most interesting perspective of the story is from the present, looking at the legacy of the four shots that still ring around the capitals of Europe today. “In Italy today there is a lot of tension because of ISIS” explains Judge Priore when asked if he thinks anything like this could happen again? “Yes,” he says,
“especially to Pope Francis, it could happen to Francis because he is very exposed and loves to be in the crowd.” The Cold war feels quite distant. Our new enemies maybe just make it seem less significant. Nevertheless, the attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II is a curious reminder of just how significant 1981 was in creating our present. Russia is not the opponent it once was, and yet, military and geopolitical infractions appear determined to reforge the Iron Curtain anew. Turkey is set to become a part of Europe’s “ever greater union”, with relaxed visa restrictions for the 74 million population, reminding the west of the pivotal role they played as an ally during the cold war. Likewise, the once maligned Bulgaria is cast in a more western model, with a Bulgarian candidate nominated to become the next UN Secretary General and the country set to become a member of the EU Schengen area. The world is beginning to recast the violence and chaos that were rife throughout the Cold War. As much as the Cold War was a struggle over our way of life versus theirs, the new ‘war on terror’ is, at its core, a culture war. Whereas once the enemy was Russia, now a new cold front has blown in, this time from the Middle East, bringing violent Islamist extremism to the streets of Europe. It may seem to be giving disproportionate significance to the four bullets fired in St. Peter’s Square on the 13th May 1981. But, the next time we are attacked in the streets of Paris, Rome, or London, if you listen closely, you may still hear them ringing in the ears of Europe.
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Europe German regions want €12 billion to integrate refugees By Henry Tobias Jones
Germany’s Bundesländer regions have advised that they need €12 billion in order to meet the financial strain of taking large numbers of refugees. Bremen’s mayor, Carsten Sieling, supported the demand, adding that when “we are confronted with an international crisis, the brunt of which is being borne by small communities and towns, the German “federal government cannot just stand by and watch.” Wolfgang Schäuble, the German Minister of Finance has already indicated that he is sceptical of the claim. Sieling wants Angela Merkel and the regional parties to share out more equally the costs of integrating the 1.1 million migrants who have travelled to Germany. In estimates provided by Bavaria and North Rhine-Westfalia the cost of relocating refugees could reach as much as €25 billion this year. In light of the demands, the German Finance Minister has spoken to colleagues about how to meet the growing costs associated with accepting such large numbers of migrants and refugees as part of Angela Merkel’s open door policy. However, Schäuble has also reportedly said that Berlin would not be tricked by the regions into “just nodding and paying.”
EU retaliates in visa restrictions spat with US
The EU’s Schengen area, includes 26 states, 22 of whom are EU Member states. Four countries,Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus and Romania are all legally obliged to join the area but currently need a visa to visit the US. Under current rules adopted by the European Parliament and Council in 2001, if non-reciprocity by countries is not corrected in 24 months, then the EU has cause “for suspending the visa waiver for citizens” of the countries involved. After this 24 month period expires, the Commission is obliged to offer a response, and on 12th April, a deadline set by the EU legislator expired for the US, Canada, and Brunei. However, the European Commission does advise that “any such decision must take into account the consequences of the suspension of the visa waiver for the external relations of the EU and its Member States.” With the June 23rd EU referendum campaigns now underway, many in Britain are more focused on EU issues which could shape the way the Union does business with the rest of the world both negatively and positively.
Dimitris Avramopoulos, Home Affairs, Migration and Citizenship By Henry Tobias Jones Commissioner explained that "visa reciprocity is a fundamental element of the EU's common visa policy,” adding As part of an ongoing investigation, the that “EU citizens rightly expect to travel European Commision is assessing a “lack without a visa to any third country of visa reciprocity with the US, Canada, whose citizens can enter the Schengen and Brunei”. area visa-free.” Britain is one of the European The United Kingdom and Ireland, countries that benefits under the US visa who are not part of the Schengen area waiver along with will not be “bound by a visa waiver “Full reciprocity” with Japan, the suspension” as neither participate in the Commission explain, “in December 2015, “common visa policy”. and “with Australia in June 2015.” Nevertheless, the European Tourism However, according to the EU Association (ETOA) has reacted Commision, the US, Canada and Brunei angrily to the stance adopted by the “continue to apply visa requirements for Commission, claiming that it could cost citizens of some EU Member States,” Europe’s tourism industry millions of despite the fact that their citizens benefit jobs. from an EU-wide visa waiver. Europe currently receives more
tourist visitors than any other region, with 83 million in Paris alone. An ETOA estimate that leisure travel could fall by as much as 30% if visa restrictions are placed on the US and Canada, would therefore make many Europeans nervous of the Commission’s proposal. Tom Jenkins, CEO of ETOA said “whilst we have every sympathy with the Commission, they are victims of their own process,” adding that “it is important that the European economy does not become a victim too.” US and Canadian visitors are “an enormously important industry for Europe,” Jenkins explains, and “we effectively sell them services worth approximately €50 billion: it is an export industry on the same level as the automotive sector. Millions of jobs are dependent on it.” The European Parliament and Council have launched a discussion to find the “most appropriate way forward” and will reconvene to discuss the issue by 12 July 2016 at the latest.
Free “e(u)book” commissioned by Sir Tom Hunter
for “undecided voters” By Henry Tobias Jones
Formerly the richest man in Scotland, Sir Tom Hunter, has commissioned a free ebook entitled: Britain’s decision: Facts and Impartial Analysis aimed at EU referendum voters who are still undecided. Hunter hopes the book will give readers “an informed, constructive overview of the critical issues at hand for UK voters.” The publication will consider the impact of leaving the EU on the UK economy, welfare, and security. It will additionally study potential “ramifications of diverging votes among home nations.” Noted for his sizable fortune and philanthropic projects, Hunter explains that he has joined the EU referendum debate because “this decision is far too important to be left to the politicians alone to inform us.” When explaining why he commissioned and funded the free book, Hunter said that he wants to eliminate ‘the obfuscation, hyperbole and bluster’ which for many is coming to define the vote. This follows the criticism encountered by George Osborne and the government when a report claiming that the UK economy would shrink “by 6.2 per cent by 2030, leading to a loss
of £4,300 a year for the average family” included an equation that many found too complicated to understand. Including critical analysis of subjects like “migration, security and welfare in and out of the EU,” the book will also address the fact that Scotland and Northern Ireland are significantly more pro-European than England and Wales. The book was commissioned by Hunter’s philanthropic organisation, The Hunter Foundation (THF), and will be digitally produced by the David Hume Institute and the Centre on Constitutional Change. “At least it is for me” Hunter claims, it's almost “impossible to determine the facts and fallacies from both the Remain and Leave camps in order to understand the issues at hand.” Director of the David Hume Institute, Ray Perman, said: “The official campaign is only just getting started, but already we are hearing some pretty sweeping assertions being made without the evidence to support them. What we are trying to do in this book is to provide voters with an easy reference on the major issues which are likely to come up; sovereignty, the economy, trade, immigration, welfare and so on. We are not trying to influence them to vote one way or another, but to give them some background information and expert opinion which might enable them to make more informed choices.” The book rests its objectivity on the fact that, as Hunter says, “the academics commissioned hold no side in the debate,” instead they simply “analyse the facts and the relative merits or demerits therein to help voters – me included - to make their decision.” The book can be downloaded for free at www.thehunterfoundation.co.uk
May 2016
International
must have GSOH By Henry Tobias Jones
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Looking for: a new secretary general of the UN, or the first time in the history of the UN public General Assembly (GA) hearings were held to elect the next UN Secretary General, during which candidates were asked nearly 800 questions over the course of three days. Nine candidates are competing to replace Ban Ki Moon as the Secretary General of the UN, a position often referred to simply as the ‘most important diplomat” or “the toughest job on Earth.” Under the new election process, first candidates must be recommended for the consideration of the General Assembly by the Security Council. A General Assembly ‘resolution,’ which requires the agreement of a “two-thirds” voting majority, can then appoint a Secretary General. As Secretary General, candidates will serve for 5 years with the option of reappointment for a further 5 years. Informally, the UN uses a system of “regional rotation” with previous Secretary Generals being selcted from Western Europe (Trygvie Lie, Dag Hammarskjold), Asia (U Thant), Western Europe (Kurt Waldheim), Latin America and the Carribbean ( Javier Perez de Cuellar), Africa (Boutros Boutros-Ghali and Kofi Annan), and Asia (Ban Ki Moon). 1 for 7 Billion is the campaign which has brought the previously secret UN Secretary General election to the world stage, aiming to show how important the post is to the rest of the world. Supported by over 750 organisations worldwide, the campaign has a combined reach of more than 170 million people. Natalie Samarasinghe, Executive Director of the United Nations Association UK and co-founder of the 1 for 7 Billion Campaign said that while there are concerns that this is simply gimicky publicity, the new process has “raised the cost of making a poor appointment.” While no Secretary General has so far been chosen from Eastern Europe, a large selection of Eastern bloc applicants could see this record changed. Likewise, as there have been no female leaders many expect that female candidates have the best chance of being elected. The Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), a collection of non-bloc-affiliated states has even suggested that only female candidates should be considered. While the Security Council will discuss the prospective candidates behind closed doors, and eventually suggest their
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recommendations to the UN General Assembly, the new informal dialogue format which was recently publicized is meant to give people a clearer sense of a democratic institution, while introducing some of the proposed plans and visions. Who is standing? Irina Bokova, Bulgaria, Director General of UNESCO Helen Clark, New Zealand, Former Prime Minister of New Zealand and an administrator for UN Development Progamme (UNDP) Natalia Gherman, Moldova, Former Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs António Guterres, Portugal, Former Prime Minister of Portugal and former UN High Commissioner for Refugees Vuk Jeremic´, Serbia, President of the Centre for International Relations and Sustainable Development, and a former Minister of Foreign Affairs Srgjan Kerim, Macedonia, Former Foreign Minister and former President of the United Nations General Assembly Igor Lukšic´, Montenegro, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Vesna Pusic´, Croatia, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Danilo Türk, Slovenia, Chair of the Global Fairness Initiative and the former President of Slovenia
International China Firewall By Max Feldman
The designer of China’s “Great Firewall” has been mocked online after he reportedly had to bypass the censorship system that he helped create during a public event. Fang Binxing was giving a speech on internet security at the Harbin Institute of Technology when he tried to access a South Korean website, but was blocked by the system, according to the Hong Kong-based Ming Pao website. To continue with his speech, he was forced to set up a virtual private network (VPN), a common practice used to skirt state censorship, in full view of the audience. Perhaps to avoid embarrassment, the university scrapped a scheduled question-and-answer session. Mr Fang was using South Korea
as an example of another country that, according to him, uses a similar system to China’s internet controls, the website reports. Government censors in South Korea are known to block some sensitive content, such as websites which praise North Korea, although nowhere near on the same scale as in China. As ‘father’ of the Great Firewall, Mr Fang has long been a controversial figure among Chinese internet users, and this latest incident quickly drew ridicule on social media. “Blocked by his own system… This is just too hilarious,” one Sina Weibo user writes. Another mocks Mr Fang for being so dedicated to his work that he didn’t leave a backdoor in the system, “even for himself ”.
Proposed Antonin Scalia law school hits a bum note ByMax Feldman
Senior staff at a US university have been left scrambling after a rename of their law school in honour of the late Supreme Court judge Antonin Scalia led to unintended consequences. George Mason University in Virginia received a donation of $30million (£21million) late last month from an anonymous benefactor (widely believed to be the Koch brothers). Attached to the generous cash offering was the condition that the university rename its law faculty the Antonin Scalia School of Law. Scalia, who was considered one of the most conservative judges on the US Supreme Court bench (and a frequent opponent of gay marriage) died on February 13th and Obama’s right to replace him is currently being fiercely contended by the Republican party (it is a tradition that if a supreme court judge dies in the final months of a presidency, the decision should be left for the next president). Unfortunately George Mason staff found themselves embroiled in the fierce debate over the divisive judge’s legacy due to the fact that they failed to spot that their chosen name, when abbreviated, would read “ASSoL”. With the cheque written and ASSoL confirmed as the name, social media swiftly pointed out their mistake. With ASSoL hitting a bum note with the online masses, the university quickly issued a statement acknowledging the error and the subsequent “controversy on social media”; it confirmed the department would now be named Antonin Scalia Law School (ASLS).
Designs to turn Central Park into the next Grand Canyon By Henry Tobias Jones
Yitan Sun and Jianshi Wu’s award winning plans hope to create an “inverted skyscraper” called the “New York Horizon”, which would involve the excavation of Central Park in its entirety. New York Horizon, which was designed as part of the eVolo Skyscraper competition, aimed to envision “a new paradigm by digging downward to Central Park’s bedrock”, revealing the “rugged natural terrain” below the city and creating “unobstructed views of the new underground park.” Central Park, one of the most famous and recognisable urban green spaces, nestled in the heart of Manhattan, which is one of the busiest parts of any city on the planet, would have to be dug down to the bedrock 1,000ft below the current landscape. Then 100ft wide walls create seven square miles of indoor space which could be used for residential or commercial properties. Designed over 150 years ago by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, Central Park, initially was a much more rugged landscape than the carefully crafted inner city park of today. While explaining the idea, Jianshi Wu, one of the designers, said: ‘Though it’s unlikely that any of the entries to the competition were submitted with the goal that they might one day be built, we believe it's the innovative thinking behind these designs that is important.’ Yitan, who graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design like Jianshi, added “the most abstract concepts could potentially contain the seed of a visionary idea that might otherwise never be discovered.” However, for those who believe that the New York Horizon is a good idea, Jianshi Wu, and Yitan Sun have both already admitted that their plans for New York’s Central Park will most likely never become reality. © eVolo
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Business & Finance
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Mossack Fonseca, Blairmore & Rosie the dog
300,000 people expected to sell their annuities
By Douglas Shanks
Illustration © Jonny
Stephanie Hawthorne, Editor, Pensions World
O
n 3 April 2016 the concept of secret offshore banking, already suffering from the craven betrayal of massed ranks of clients by the middle European banks, was delivered a devastating blow. Panamanian lawyers Mossack Fonseca having basked in the private glory of being a faceless face in the murky world of international tax planning was left wincing as investigative journalists crawled all over eleven and a half million documents; the firm achieved a lifetime’s coverage in a day. While those with something to hide don’t attract much sympathy, they will have given dangerous ammunition to nation states fuelled with tax-themtill-they-bleed crusading zeal. The politics of envy rarely satisfy, and there was a whiff of Greek inevitability as the usually smooth Cameron was outed. A perfectly legitimate and relatively modest fund was made tawdry by the naming own goal, the ancestral home Blairmore cruelly echoing in inverse parody Harry Rednapp’s dog Rosie. As with the PM neither Rosie nor Harry Rednapp was convicted of any wrongdoing, but Cameron’s payback was swift following his embarrassingly personal and savage criticism of Jimmy Carr. The argument put forward (most notably by tax commentator Richard Murphy) that tax avoidance is essentially immoral because practitioners exploit unintended loopholes is at first seductive, but on examination we fall back inexorably on whether the structure is it legal or not. If the state gives us ambiguous laws it’s for the courts to interpret not the church. Perhaps sadly or more probably inevitably there is little popular appetite for crusades against the state’s abuses. Retrospective taxation strikes at the very heart of human rights but the Exchequer started practising it with impunity long before Boadicea refused to pay unto Caesar and said it by torching Whitehall. My client has tax paid savings that he’d earned by working hard at his job in the city for thirty years. No-one’s going to weep; he earned a lot of money. He invested a chunk of his savings in a company during the dot com boom and
lost about £400,000. He knew it was a high risk investment so planned to lose his shirt. Tax rates vary but he budgeted on the basic right to offset any loss. Subsequently the Exchequer placed an arbitrary cap on what any individual can offset, currently £50,000 at a very real cost to him of £140,000. How can that be reasonable, ethical, fair? How have we let it become legal? I’d have a hard job persuading you that that’s unconstitutional but it smacks of it. When we let the state dictate what is moral we might as well dispense with the legal system altogether. Ethics, morality or what’s fair doesn’t enter HMRC’s mind. HMRC doesn’t have anything like the problems with deadlines their benighted customers do, and by and large ignores them anyway, but woe betide the taxpayer who misses an election. How is that ethical or moral? Perhaps the most blatant immoral revenue abuse is the Accelerated Payment Notice where tax payers have to stump up tax that may or may not be due just in case the revenue wins the case. No one’s going to embrace the war against APNs with missionary zeal but the British have a distrust of authority that borders on the healthy. Sooner or later we’ll wake up and realise we’re sleepwalking in our inertia towards a totalitarian state that’s backing up a monopoly on morality with exponential information technological leaps towards Big Brother. Douglas Shanks is consulting partner at DSC Metropolitan llp, Chartered Accountants. T: 07718 752 577
The HMRC tax consultation publication on the secondary annuity market is a further step towards the launch of this market on 6 April 2017. From that date pension investors who have previously bought an annuity will be allowed to sell their guaranteed income in exchange for a lump sum. In its regulatory impact assessment, HMRC has indicated a government expectation that 300,000 people will choose to take up this option. There are around six million annuities in payment, held by around five million retired investors. As previously stated in the Budget, the Treasury expects a tax windfall of £960m in the first two years of the new secondary annuity market (April 2017 to April 2019), though it also predicts a revenue loss in subsequent years meaning a net gain to the Chancellor of £665m.
Double win for the government
Tom McPhail, head of retirement policy, Hargreaves Lansdown, commented: “This is potentially a double win for the government, giving annuity holders the chance to exercise more control over their savings, and raising extra revenue in the process. Our own research indicates a healthy appetite for this market, though that will in the end depend on what kind of price investors are offered in exchange for their annuity income. There are still unanswered questions around the regulation of the market and how consumer protection could work; we need to make sure investors don’t end up getting ripped off by their insurance company, for some of them possibly not for the first time.” Andrew Tully, pensions technical director, Retirement Advantage adds: “There is no doubt some customers will find the sale of their annuity an attractive idea. People with very small annuities may find a capital lump sum more appealing than a small monthly income. “It is good to see a decent level of consumer protection being built in from the start, which is likely to be based around income levels. “Most people thinking of trading their income for a lump sum will benefit from taking advice. This will be a complicated market, as the decision whether to trade or not will depend on whether the amount offered is a reasonable and fair reflection of the income being given up. “People also need to consider the wider implications of a trade, for
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example if dependents are relying on the income, the tax being paid, other sources of income, and the effect on means tested benefits. This is a lot to think about without getting some specialist help. “We need to ensure that people who currently receive poor value annuities do not think the secondary market is their means of escape. Two wrongs will clearly not make it right; trading your annuity is not the panacea for the lack of shopping around at retirement. “Far too many people continue to receive poor value from their annuity purchase, with the most recent figures showing the number of people shopping around has fallen significantly since pension freedom was introduced. The Government and regulators need to take action to fix this and reduce what is extensive consumer detriment.”
China joins EBRD
By Henry Tobias Jones
China has had its application to join the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) approved, opening “up significant further opportunities for sustainable investment by Chinese groups” in Europe. Beijing’s recent request to become a shareholder of the bank, is part of Chinese President, Xi Jinping’s wider development strategy “One Belt, One Road” which will see the rebirth of a 21st Century Silk Road. As part of the application to join the EBRD, the People’s Bank of China Governor, Zhou Xiaochuan, said the bank “complemented” their desire to work more closely and invest in the regions which China sees as instrumental to their “One Belt and One Road Initiative.” EBRD President, Sir Suma Chakrabarti, said “China could greatly contribute to EBRD as a transition bank by sharing our own experiences of transition and use the Bank as a vehicle to exchange experiences and lessons learned with the Bank’s countries of operations.” Moreover, the EBRD has often been linked to Chinese investment opportunities, and has recently said that is is open to working with the new Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. Vice President of the European Commission, Jyrki Katainen, has added that, for its part, the EU would be encouraging greater collaboration with China.
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Business & Finance Second time around
couple dies, leaving their personal assets to the children of their own first marriage, any life interest trust of their late husband’s/wife’s estate will impact on the inheritance tax (IHT) calculation. Simply speaking, the children might find themselves sharing their own parents’ IHT nil rate bands with the adult children of, say, their mother’s second husband. So, where a couple on marriage number two talk to solicitors about their wills, they should make sure the IHT issues aren’t overlooked.
dilemma is how to fulfil the moral and legal duties to provide for the survivor while meeting the children’s expectations (unless modest assets combined with long life expectancy means that providing for the survivor of the married couple has to take precedence over the expectations of financially self-sufficient adult children). Traditionally, the father would leave his second wife a life interest in the estate. That gave her a right to live in the house and to an income produced by investments, with power for the executors/trustees of the will to advance additional cash to her as required. Such life interest trusts still work well. It does mean that the children of the first
marriage may have to wait a long time for their inheritance, especially if dad’s new wife is relatively young. Commonly, the surviving party to a second marriage between older parties will be content with their own income/ resources and a widow’s pension, provided they inherit the house (or the deceased's half share if they owned jointly), or are given a right to live there for life or for as long as they like. Such arrangements for continued occupation of the house will usually provide a mechanism for downsizing to free up useful cash. Further, the will might create a separate fund to cover insurance and repairs. When the survivor of the married
Michael Young, Private Client Partner, Thrings
Promotion
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n 2014 the Office for National Statistics reported that the largest percentage increase in the number of marriages was for men and women aged 65 to 69, rising by 25% and 21% respectively. It is likely that many of these, maybe even most, were second marriages. Second marriages between older persons present practical and emotional challenges when it comes to making wills. In many cases, one or both parties will have grown-up children from an earlier marriage. Those children will have an expectation of inheriting, say, their father’s estate despite his remarriage, especially if his assets contain monies inherited from their late mother. They may naturally harbour concerns that all the family money will be left to the new wife. Meanwhile, the new wife worries about being left high and dry if her new husband dies and leaves everything to those children. If both husband and wife are independently well off, they each might be comfortable leaving their respective estates to their children. If not, the
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Business & Finance It’s easier to get on the property ladder than you think
growth of online investment via peer-to peer and marketplace lending platforms has surged in the UK over the past five years. It’s not without risk, but neither is its offline counterpart buy-to-let. The difference is with an online marketplace your interest rate and income level can be fixed at a generous rate from the outset. Plus online investors avoid By Christian Faes, CEO & the risk of rental voids and can walk co-founder of LendInvest away when their term is up rather than having to try to sell the property. They avoid tricky tenants and burst boilers and can diversify their risk by spreading their cash across a number of different properties. LendInvest is free to use and designed to offer simple, secured property investment opportunities to investors. It helps fund property projects with loans and then places the loans onto its marketplace platform for investment. This allows people to invest in property with as little as £100. After investing, they earn regular payments t first glance, the property market from 5% upwards straight away, with holds a host of challenges for their investment returned to them when landlords and first-time buyers. the borrower repays the loan. And all According to Shelter, first-time buyers investors are first-charge debt holders. in London will need to earn £106,000 to This means in the event of a default, the buy a home by 2020. Meanwhile, buy-to- investor would be repaid first. let investors are faced with an increase of With savings rates in the doldrums 3% in stamp duty and a cut in mortgage and traditional property investment interest relief on their income. coming at a high cost, there is a way But widen the perspective and there’s to build a lucrative property portfolio huge potential to invest in property and online. Chances are it’s much easier than benefit from bricks and mortar. The you thought.
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UCL begins £1.25b investment programme
By Henry Tobias Jones
University College London (UCL) has begun an investment programme which aims to secure the institution £1.25 billion lasting until 2034. The so-called UCL 2034 strategy will allow the university to “support a diverse intellectual community that is engaged with the wider world and committed to changing it for the better.” A significant amount of this funding will be used to invest in the college’s estate and infrastructure, as well as creating a sustainable investment surplus which will give the university more independence. The £1.25b of capital investment is comes from a wide range of sources including a £150m ‘revolving credit facility’ with HSBC, Barclays, Lloyds, and RBS, and a £280m 30 year long term credit provided by the European Investment Bank (EIB). Many projects can now be funded by the university, such as the renovation
of the Bloomsbury Campus, and a new UCL East campus on the Olympic Park in Stratford. UCL Provost and President, Michael Arthur, said “we are in a very competitive market place for students and high quality staff and therefore the total package including the facilities in the estate is important,” adding that the investment programme will provide “something we haven’t had for a long time, which is spare land and spare space.” Jonathan Taylor, EIB Vice President, said the bank had supported “more university investment in the UK than any other country” with lending to 30 universities over the past six years.
Barclays 0% deposit family springboard mortgage By Henry Tobias Jones
After recent research indicated that 35% of first time buyers have to resort to the “Bank of Mum and Dad” in order to get
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a mortgage, Barclays have updated their “family springboard mortgage” to allow parents to help their children to buy. Barclays will no longer require buyers to contribute a deposit, heralding the return of the 0% deposit mortgage. Increasing the number of earners against which people can borrow in the bank’s “family springboard’ mortgage,” Barclays will instead accept a 10% contribution from parents. So long as the buyer keeps up to date on their mortgage repayments, the 10% deposit will be returned after three years with interest included. In a separate survey conducted by Experian, it was discovered that as many as 27% of those aged 55+ gave their children financial support when buying a property. Likewise, findings by Legal & General suggests that parents are anticipated to be involved in one in four property purchases in the UK in 2016. Barclays’ previous “family springboard mortgage” insisted that borrowers had to provide a 5% deposit with an additional “helper” contribution of 10% of the house purchase price. The high street bank has also increased the overall borrowing amount by a multiple of a purchaser’s income, meaning that house buyers earning £50,000 are entitled to borrow up to 5.5x their income
Netflix on British Airways flights By Henry Tobias Jones
British Airways (BA) have announced that next year they will spend as much as £250,000 per aircraft in order to provide the fastest Wifi connections for long haul flight passengers. By retrofitting planes with next generation satellite technology, soon passengers on 118 of BA’s fleet could soon be streaming music on Spotify, making calls on FaceTime, and watching Netflix. As part of a deal struck between BA’s parent company International Airlines Group (IAG) and tech firm Gogo, plans could cost as much as £30 million overall. However, many of the details of the plan are yet to be confirmed. It is thought that the service will be offered free to passengers, with additional fees for premium services and connections. Some other airlines can already boast in-flight Wifi, however, currently only 3 of BA’s jets offer the service.
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are 21% more likely than anywhere else in the country to get those grades. This is despite London appearing to have many of the hallmarks of a city that should get much lower results. “London’s schools have become extremely good at helping poor children succeed.” Said Jo Blanden, a senior lecturer in Economics at the University of Surrey. “This success is likely to lead to better jobs and more social mobility among those educated in the capital.” Coined ‘The London Effect’ by the Financial Times in 2013, other parts of the country have been trying to work out just what has worked so well for London - hoping to share in its success. Since the start of the 21st century, London has been used as a testing ground for education reforms. Education charity Teach First started putting talented graduates from top universities into challenging schools in 2003. This has blossomed into an acclaimed scheme now run across England and Wales. In London we have also benefited from the London Challenge, started in 2003. This scheme aimed at improving the level of education in previously substandard schools. It raised the quality of leadership in schools, having head teachers at outstanding schools mentoring those at low performing schools. The scheme also brought extra money, spent on the specific needs for each school rather than
on a one size fits all basis. But whilst it’s tempting to point to a handful of high profile public interventions, it might be more complicated than that. Research has suggested that London’s incredible diversity could be the key to its success. Professor Simon Burgess from Bristol University believes the ethnic composition of London schools could contribute, saying that as traditionally lower scoring white British pupils spend more time with higher performing ethnic minorities, there is potential for studious habits to be passed on. A report published by the Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion at the London School of Economics, and the Institute for Fiscal Studies says there is no one explanation. Instead schools have been gradually improving since the 1990s. Luke Sibieta of the Institute for Fiscal Studies said: “Our research shows that these improvements are not down to a single policy or factor. Instead, most of the improvements reflect gradual increases in the quality of schools stretching back to the mid-1990s. London’s primary schools have become particularly successful and London’s great secondary schools can then build on this success.” The report says that; “Many aspects of the school environment were changing in the mid-1990s in England,
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Education Why are London's Schools so good? By Charlie Haynes
T
he success stories of London’s schools are now being shared widely, but what is the secret to the capital’s school’s sudden and dramatic improvement in fortunes? London is a city synonymous with success. But 14 years ago, it appeared grim for poorer London schoolchildren. The inner city schools were widely considered sinkholes. Less than a quarter of children on free school meals achieved 5 or more A* to C grades including english and maths, the minimum for entry to many jobs or colleges. The odds appear stacked against London school children. The schools are bigger, and classes more crowded. An extraordinary high percentage (42%) of students speak English as an additional language. And London has more low income students eligible for free school meals than any other region. But now schooling can be added to the list of London’s long list of successes. The number of children getting 5 A*s to Cs has more than doubled and disadvantaged pupils in inner London
with school inspections, choice and competition, all recent innovations at that point, as well as specific interventions such as literacy hour.” It also points to the abolition of the Inner London Education Authority in 1990 when education was transferred to the boroughs, suggesting this may have empowered local leadership. This push towards localised power continued under Labour’s development of academies with independent state funded schools that get money directly from central government. Originally a policy aimed at enhancing failing schools, George Osborne’s March budget extended this to all English schools. The government argue this will free schools of bureaucracy and enhance leadership, but opponents say this will open up potential for lapses in standards.
Photograph © Le Cordon Bleu
Join the culinary elite this summer
What started as a weekly cookery publication in 1895 has now become the leading global network of culinary arts and hospitality management institutes that has taught many culinary stars including Julia Child, Mary Berry and Yotam Ottolenghi. Le Cordon Bleu London, located in Bloomsbury, offers prestigious cuisine, pâtisserie and wine Diplomas and Certificates, that are taught by a team of Master Chefs and expert lecturers, all of whom have gained their experience at the heart of some of the world’s most renowned establishments. Le Cordon Bleu also offers a variety of short courses that start from as little as a couple of hours or a day long, right through to a seven-week formally accredited certificates. Aimed at those with a keen interest in fine cooking, these
courses have been designed to provide the same high-level culinary excellence as their synonymous Diplomas and will give you the opportunity to learn the fundamental techniques. The perfect way to experience life as a Le Cordon Bleu student whilst gaining more confidence in the kitchen is the popular and unique three-week long Summer Essentials
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course. Through demonstrations, practical sessions, cheese and wine lectures and visits to some of London’s most renowned food markets with your Master Chefs you’ll work your way towards the creation of a celebratory buffet that you’ll prepare at the end of the course. One of last year’s Summer Essentials student says: “Summer Essentials has given me the chance to attempt dishes that I’ve always wanted to do at home but never had the confidence.” There really is something for everyone at Le Cordon Bleu. No experience is necessary, so there is nothing stopping you beginning your culinary journey this summer. For further information visit: www.cordonbleu.edu/london Kensington Newspaper Advert_outlined.indd 1
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Academies drop plan for longer school day after protests
WESTMINSTER SCHOOL
www.westminster.org.uk
By Anna Bromley
F
uture Academies, the educational charity that sponsors four Pimlico schools has dropped its plans to extend school days by 45 minutes after protests from parents and teachers. Academy officials wrote to parents in March to propose the new times, which would see the school day start at 8.45pm, instead of 9pm, and close at 3.45pm instead of 3.15pm. However, since then a spokeswoman for Future, the social enterprise that sponsors Future Academies, said admitted that the plans have been dropped. The new proposal from Future came after George Osborne drafted legislation for a radical shake up of school systems, saying “we’ll fund longer school days” to increase Britain’s standings in the global league tables for education. Future Academies was set up by John and Caroline Nash in order to “help young people achieve.” However, more
than 100 Millbank parents have signed a protest letter, which states that the proposal would result in tired children that would struggle to learn, rather than helping them. And teachers weren’t happy either. According to The National Union of Teachers (NUT), more than 20 teachers at Churchill Gardens primary academy and Millbank academy threatened to resign following the proposal. The NUT claimed that the 45 minute extension would force parents and teachers to travel at busier times and exhaust younger pupils, some of whom already fall asleep in assembly. “Westminster NUT is relieved to hear that the proposals have been suspended, and we trust that there will be a genuine consultation with the staff about the curriculum and the school day,” said Michael Parker, secretary of Westminster NUT.
16+ GIRLS AND BOYS ENTRY Online registration for entry in 2017 will open in June.
13+ BOYS ENTRY Register now for entry in 2019. To request a prospectus or find out about Open Days, please call 020 7963 1003 or email registrar@westminster.org.uk For information about entry to Westminster Under School at 7+, 8+ or 11+ please call 020 7821 5788. Westminster School is a charity (No. 312728) established to provide education.
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Education listings
The course attracts students from around the world and gives participants an understanding of the structure of courts, the law-making process, the organisation of the legal profession and much more. LSE, Houghton Street, London WC2A 2AE 020 7405 7686
KCW Today has put together a list of the very best educational events that are taking place between May and August. From beekeeping to business, crime to calligraphy; there’s plenty of activities to keep you occupied in the coming months.
May 14-May 15 Beekeeping The Idler £390. Children welcome at £25 each The Idler asks, “Want to keep bees this summer?” This hands on weekend beekeeping course will teach you everything you need to get started, even in a city! You’ll look inside hives, learn all about the life cycle of bees and how to harvest their honey and even how to build your own hive. Eastcourt House, Crudwell, Wiltshire SN16 9HP 020 7727 7799 June 20-August 22 Getting started: Beginners’ Fiction Faber Academy Fee: £300 Get “everything you need to call yourself a writer” from one of London’s most respected and historic publishers, Faber & Faber. Offering new writers “discipline, craft skills and a great group of people to work with” the Faber Academy will answer the “all important question: Can I write?” The Faber Academy provides some of the highest quality writing courses in the UK today, with award winning tutors, the best students, and a “warm and open, rigorous and supportive” environment to help writers “find their story.”
Getting Started: Beginners’ Fiction is the Academy’s online course which lets writers go from being “a curious scribbler to a disciplined writer” in just 8 weeks. During the bespoke course, participants will be taught to read like a writer, develop good writing habits, and then turn their ideas into engaging stories. Seven weekly online sessions will provide a mix of exercises, prompts, and at the end you will have a 3,000 word piece of fiction examined. Course tutor Helen Shipman has been teaching writing for more than 25 years. Her graduates include international prizewinners and she is fiction writer herself, currently working on her second novel The Engraver, a contemporary thriller about a child's murder. Online 020 7927 3868 June 28, July 5, July 12 Death in Foreign Climes: European Crime Fiction British Library Fee: £165
Harry M Weinrebe Learning Centre, The British Library, 96 Euston Road London, NW1 2DB 01937 546546
Indulge your Euro-crime obsession on this three-week evening course with acclaimed writer and broadcaster and leading expert in this field, Barry Forshaw. Vividly explore the most popular literary forms in crime fiction and experience information-packed guides to crime fiction.
This four week course is for the fashion lovers among us and has been designed to be fun, creative, and exciting. Classes are interactive and tutors have specialist skills in fine art, fashion, textile and jewelry design. You will build a sketch book and portfolio, visiting a number of galleries and museums to inspire your work. West London College, Hannah House, 13-16 Manchester St, London W1U 4DJ 020 7491 1841
July 4 – 22 Cass London Summer School Cass Business School, City University London Fee: £1500 Get an insight into the world of finance, accounting or shipping with this three week summer course. Lecturers are experts in their field and the teaching is comprised of lectures, tutorials and case studies. Note, too, that it is also “enriched by a social programme and networking events, giving you the chance to explore this great city.” 106 Bunhill Row, London, EC1Y 8TZ 020 7040 8600 July 4- 29 Certificate in Fashion West London College Fee: £1290
July 20- July 8 Introduction to English Law The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) Fee: £2600 This intensive three week course is for those who recognize the benefit of having a firm grasp of the English Law.
July 25-29 (5 days) Sculpture for All Fee: £310 The Art Academy From modelling in clay to working with plaster, this course is suitable for those with no previous experience in sculpture or those who want to develop their skills. Begin with practical and thought provoking exercises followed by your own creative time to develop your interest. Mermaid Court, 165A Borough High Street, London, SE1 1HR 020 7407 6969 July 25-August 12 Japanese Art: Objects and Contexts SOAS University of London Fee: £1450 This 3 week course explores the story of Japanese art through its objects, including religious and secular art from the sixth to nineteenth centuries. It also looks at architecture, sculpture and paintings with an emphasis on “how urban space was visualised and produced through the material and visual culture of elites; imperial court, warriors, and wealthy merchants.” Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square, London WC1H 0XG 020 7637 2388 August 8-10 Be Creative with Calligraphy Missenden Abbey Fee: £238 Calligraphy is an “artistic and expressive form”. In this relaxing and satisfying weekend course, set in the beautiful Missenden Abbey, you will learn at least one lettering style, how to experiment with colour and different techniques. You will even get to take home your own personal piece of work. Missenden Abbey, London Rd, Great Missenden HP16 0BD 01753 783 z756 August 15 – 19 Beginner’s Photography Evening Summer School City Lit Fee: £279 This introduction to photography, spread over 5 evenings, will give you all the technical know how to be able to shoot great pictures. You will learn about camera handling, exposure, aperture, shutter speed and both indoor and outdoor lighting. 1-10 Keeley Street, Covent Garden, London, WC2B 4BA 020 7831 7831
Photograph © Faber & Faber
Education
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Education
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was able to tap into something primal and powerful and has understandably (and with drastically varying degrees of success) spent the rest of his career trying to force that lightning back into the bottle. Welsh’s novel effectively serves as a collection of interrelated short stories each told from a vast cast of radically differing character’s varied perspectives. Characters’ histories and relationships are only gradually established so the new reader (particular one who hasn’t seen the film) is likely to find the early going
a minefield of “Who is that? Why is he punching that guy? What on earth is a ‘radge c*** ’” which is exacerbated by many of the central characters’ chapters being written in phonetic Scots; a choice that certainly provides an earthy punk edge but can also prove an amusingly uphill struggle to the middle class reader. The intense feeling of place and character is as vital to Trainspotting as the central substance that the plot revolves around: Heroin. Praised by critics and police officers alike for its intensely realistic approach, Trainspotting traces the fortunes of a core group of friends (plus an entire galaxy of family and acquaintances) who are firmly in the grip of the Class A substance. Whilst primarily junkies and thieves, they haven’t yet been reduced to homelessness or utter destitution, instead the drugs (or violence in fearsome psychopath Francis Begbie’s case) fills a psychological hole in these characters’ lives. Refusing to accept the boring hand that life has dealt them as another deadend member of a lost generation, the cast embrace their degradation with a combination of a fierce spiteful pride and mournful self-loathing. The book offers a brutal mirror up to the sordid realities of all encompassing addiction and far from
glorifying drug use (as it was accused of by parliament) is probably one of the best arguments against trying heroin to be found. The film by comparison, despite its myriad strengths, was a far more kinetic and bombastic experience and this coupled with a bevy of highly charismatic actors couldn’t help but lend more than a little savage glamour to the proceedings. With all this doom and gloom hanging over the book, the most unexpected quality lies in the fact that it’s often a laugh a minute. Whether from the acid observations of Mark Renton, the lounge lizard sleaze of Sick Boy or even Begbie’s bull in a china shop ferocity, Trainspotting delivers one hell of a good time to its reader, even as it drags its characters down into a very real hell. For what is quite a lithe read, there are huge chunks of storylines and characters that were brutally cut from the cinematic version so any who feel that their familiarity with the film precludes their interest in the original will find plenty of novelty to tide them over. Trainspotting was a bold, once in a generation piece of work that both kicked the door open for other writers to follow and still thrums with its own addictive vitality in the 21st Century .
over one hundred booksellers, and thousands of collectors, gathering at the ILEC Conference Centre in London for one of the most important book collecting events held anywhere in the world. Part of Rare Books London, in collaboration with the ABA (Antiquarian Booksellers Association), this fascinating two day event will showcase the finest selection of booksellers exhibiting a whole range of highly rare printed items from around the world, and a myriad of other fascinating works, from manuscripts and prints, to maps and ephemera. The other half of Rare Books London, is the ABA Olympia Fair, and a free shuttle service whisks customers (and their purchases) between the two venues.
Subject matter guaranteed to create the desire to become a collector includes: cookery, Japanese and children's illustrated, modern first editions, ancient engravings, arctic exploration, manuscripts and maps. The PBFA’s mission, since its creation in the 1970’s, has been to organise regular book fairs; ensuring the general public has access to the world of rare books and other printed collectables, no matter where in the UK they live. Peruse the calendar of all PBFA fairs by searching online at: www.pbfa.org/ book-fairs/2016 London International Book Fair Dates: Friday, May 27, 2016 and Saturday, May 28, 2016 Venue: ILEC Conference Centre 47 Lillie Rd, London SW6 1UD
Contact fair managers: Marc and Marcia Harrison on 07748775185
But try asking someone what a Ribosome is and the other person will likely balk and say (boastfully) that they don’t know anything about science. Well that’s just duff. I’m afraid, there’s no excuse for your ignorance of the special Ribosome cell. (Ribosomes are the protein builders of the cell by the way.) “I would like science to be more central to our society.” Said Venki Ramakrishnan, a molecular biologist and current President of the Royal Society. “There is a double standard. We accept that people don’t know anything about science and that’s perfectly okay, but we expect every educated person to know about music, history and so on.” “I often go to parties and if you tell people you are a scientist they immediately start feeling a little
intimidated. They immediately back off. But imagine the reverse, suppose I had said to them that I don’t really know anything about literature or music. They would think I was some ignorant bore.” I’m no expert, but my solution would be for more people to start writing about science for a wide audience. That is, in a comprehensible way for those outside the field. Mixing science and literature isn’t easy. It takes impeccable understanding and an ability to bring to life difficult concepts with imagery. I imagine good science in literature would look a little like this section of an article written by Brian Greene for Newsweek called Welcome to the Multiverse. “If space is now expanding, then at ever earlier times the universe must have
been ever smaller. At some moment in the distant past, everything we now see, the ingredients responsible for every planet, every star, every galaxy, even space itself, must have been compressed to an infinitesimal speck that then swelled outward, evolving into the universe as we know it. “The big bang theory was born…” Here, Green is explaining sophisticated cosmology and physics, but you wouldn’t even know it! Some scientists may be ‘lab rats’, but they are sick of being ignored. If you wish to learn about the behaviours of man turn to the Ethnologist. If you want explanations about the universe turn to the scientist. But if you want these ideas to be brought together and to life, turn then to the writer.
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Literature
Trainspotting by Max Feldman
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hen Trainspotting was published in 1993 the (admittedly more than slightly partisan) Rebel Inc hailed it as “the best book ever written by man or woman” and crowed that it “deserves to sell more copies than the bible”. All rather heady praise to offer a debut novel but, drastically hyperbolic or not, in Trainspotting Irvine Welsh
London International Book Fair The UK based PBFA (Provincial Booksellers Fairs Association) is currently the world’s largest trade body for second hand book sellers. Operating a busy schedule of regional book fairs across the country throughout the year, their annual London International Book Fair is acknowledged as a major attraction for bibliophiles worldwide, due to its sheer size and scope. The last weekend in May will see
Is literature the solution to scientific ignorance? By Anna Bromley
The gulf between science and society is wider than the Pacific Ocean. It’s true that Science just isn’t as integrated into our culture as other subjects. This is a problem because the majority of people therefore think it’s okay not to take an interest. Let’s take art as an example, you couldn’t say (without cowering) that you didn’t know who the Mona Lisa was painted by.
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Poetry
online: www.KCWToday.co.uk At the window the infants with eyes like dark ringed moons/ stare endlessly towards the open gate awaiting the benevolence of some passer-by or priest to place a morsel or husk on the plate/ The lanes and byways are deserted say for the crossroads/ the odd wretched bag of bones, young yesterday’s women swindled of their prime/ now possessed by stooping shuffling crones/ men wearied, barely able foray far-a-field, scavenging the emptiness of bite or crust to earn/ while the offspring like fledglings lie hapless in their drafty dwellings unsure of their return.
Portrait of John Armstrong by Emma Hopkins. www.emmahopkinsartist.tumblr.com @emma_hopkins_artist
A Review of Word from the Mountain: Poems of Mayo by John Armstrong (2016)
To listen to our interview with John Armstrong and hear some of his poetry, download the KCW Today Podcast from iTunes.
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ord from the Mountain: Poems of Mayo is a new collection of poetry by John Armstrong that takes the spoken word to new performance heights. Armstrong’s conception of Western Ireland offers a moving and distinctive portrayal of the lives, histories and characters of the common man set amidst the gruelling yet striking landscape of County Mayo. The region has a particularly dogged history and for anyone familiar with the political implications of British rule on Irish culture during the mid-nineteenth century to early twentieth centuries, the poems are an eerie reminder of a catastrophe that left Ireland deeply scarred. In The Hunger Armstrong describes Mayo children, women and men barely alive with ‘nought but poisoned rot’ to eat. It’s a harrowing scene where:
The great famine saw the demise of over 60,000 of Mayo’s inhabitants (18451852) and was almost stripped of its Gaelic identity. In the decades that followed, W B Yeats, Lady Gregory and John Synge were just a number of writers that reacted to the horrors Ireland endured at the hands of the British. By forging an individual Irish Identity through arts and culture these writers gave birth to the Irish Literary Revival. Scratch the surface and it is not hard to see the influence of these writers within this collection. However, we would be underestimating the full range of Armstrong’s accomplishments if we see them as merely revisiting or saluting writers of the Celtic Revival movements. Yeats and his contemporaries were rebuilding an Irish culture separate to an English one and as a means of stimulating new interest in Irish heritage. In Words from the Mountain Armstrong observes this period of Irish history with great intelligence and with feet firmly placed in both Irish and British cultural camps. He draws on the spirit, mood and mysticism of the Celtic Revival movement yet incorporates age old customs of the English folk tradition etched into many childhood memories. His songs free us to wander about in nature rather than trap us in a staged Romantic or Idealistic world view. Instead, he invites us to join him on his journey of Mayo and examine the contours of his descriptions. It is clear he loves the story telling, the folk-tale, the sounds, smells and qualities of nature and its character within. In The Ghillie of Lough Conn, for example, Armstrong writes:
Across the wide water a twilight silence was trespassed by the rattle of the rollick and the dipping of the oar/ As the lonely rowing boat turned about/ and with the measured strokes of the metronome made headway for the shore/ Out there stepped an old angler, a master of rod and line/ Sporting the tweed of Donegal and waste-high waders on. There is more an echo of Thomas Hardy or John Clare here in how Armstrong engages with the natural landscape and sketches provincial characters in sound. Old country customs also feature heavily in his work. The beautiful image of the ‘tickle dozing trout’ in The Ghillie of Lough Conn cannot fail but to raise a smile on the face of any one listening and who remembers hours spent as a child trying to perfect this art much to their parents amusement and gratitude for a few hours of peace. It should be noted that the collection is greatly enhanced by Armstrong’s strength as a performance poet and natural County Durham brogue. His delivery is powerful and the recitals made more believable by their closeness to a Celtic or Gaelic upbeat rhythm and style. In Once More with Catalin for example he delivers a stirring, sensual and sinister recital loaded with dramatic meaning and imaginings. Finally it must be noted that it is the passion and pleasure with which Armstrong delivers his verse which make this collection stand out. ‘I love reading poetry aloud’ Dylan Thomas once confessed in 1937, and it is clear Armstrong shares the same sentiment with equally compelling effect.
Disc sponsored by Easigrass available: info@johnarmstrongpoet.com
Compiled and edited by Emma Trehane MA, Ph.D
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www.KCWToday.co.uk
Ladies who take Tea By Jayne Beaumont
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wo delicious yet contrasting teatime venues have redesigned their menus for the Spring and Summer and both are well worth a visit. The Conrad London in St. James is offering the fresh seasonal flavours of ‘An English Country Garden’. It includes such delights as chicken and basil tarts, pea panna cotta with whipped feta, mint and peashoots together with open and finger sandwiches filled with avocado, chicken, salmon and cream cheese. Individual roses bloom vertically in the form of apple and elderflower tarts. Miniature window boxes burst with sweet flowers growing from a bed of chocolate ganache and crisp wafer decorated with baby macaroons, pistachio sponge and chocolate leaves. Afternoon tea would not be complete without scones. The Conrad’s unique selection includes lemon thyme and candied black olive served with jams, clotted cream and raspberry and rose curd. Sumptious! Available until June 19th at £39 per person or £65 with free-flowing Mumm champagne. www.conradhotels.com/ London for reservations Across town at La Suite West, the Anouska Hempel designed hotel in Inverness Terrace W1, is where an elegant ‘Vegan Afternoon Tea’ is served.
It is always surprising to non-Vegans that such seemingly limited ingredients can be transformed into delicious and visually delightful savouries and cakes. The finger sandwiches include scrambled tofu and mustard cress, Portobello mushroom pate with cashew nut butter, avocado chilli mousse and rocket, lemon & thyme tahini with cucumber to name but a few. The warm home-made scones are served with fresh strawberries and whipped coconut cream. The loose leaf teas such as Jasmin Silver Needle, Darjeeling 2nd flush and Chamomile flowers are especially flavoursome. There are also glasses of Alcohol-free fizz served in champagne flutes so you can tease yourself into thinking you’re drinking the real thing! The tea is available for £27 per person and can be taken inside or outside on a secluded terrace. www.lasuitewest. com for reservations.
dish, then one simply has to order another drink and wait for the chef to cook your order. As to drink, there was a light and fruity Yumi Dry beer at £2.50 for a half pint, or a little carafe of Fukuju Kobe Classic Sake at £9, which was served cold, much to my consternation. I blame Sean Connery as James Bond, who, in You Only Live Twice, stated that sake should only be served at the ‘correct temperature, 98.4F,’ which is human body heat. The American Steve Wright said that no matter what temperature a room is, it is always room temperature.
Yumi Izakaya
Raw Cake!
If you are tired of teriaki or saddened by those little trays of homogenous sushi from M & S, Waitrose, Prêt à Manger, your local takeaway or wherever, with a platter comprising the usual red pepper or king prawn nigiri, or yellow pepper, carrot, ginger or cucumber maki, all served perched on, or wrapped in, a sort of compressed sushi rice slug, then Yumi is the food for you. We have grown so used to thinking that sushi is authentic Japanese cuisine, but it has been bastardised and Americanised so much that it bears no resemblance to the original. Izakaya is more like a Japanese ‘tapas-tavern’, with the emphasis on drinking, and the delicious nibbles supplying sustenance and having the effect of slowing everything down. The reasonably-priced menu at Yumi
My gluten-free, dairy-free friends and I have been testing the very beautiful looking uncooked cakes produced by ex pharmacist Carmen Ngan for her new company, Honey & Date. These cakes are actually more like a dessert, being
67 Shaftsbury Avenue www.yumirestaurants.com By Don Grant
Cynthia Pickard investigates new treats for food intolerances.
equivalent to a layered cheesecake in construction. Guaranteed free from gluten, dairy and refined sugar, that much I understood, but some of the ingredients were unknown to me. My research told me that Kanten is another name for agar agar which is used as a gelling agent, Acai, Maqui, Lucuma, and Yuzu are all fruits. Pandan is the name for the screwpine tree whose leaves give a delightful pistachio colour and spirulina is an algae. So what are these weird ingredients doing in these cakes? Apparently providing us with amazing super-food properties, increased fertility and energy, boosting the immune system, good for stress and the health of all the internal organs, preferable alternatives to the empty calories of conventional cakes. I asked my testers how these cakes compared with the majority of gluten free offerings that seem to be made of tasteless cardboard and sawdust. Tester A loved the unexpected flavours and textures, the ‘holiday feel’ of the Pandan and the ‘refreshing’ Yuzu and Orange, the general smoothness and nuttiness and the lack of sugary sweetness, she could see a larger version of one of them being great to share for an occasion. Tester B on the other hand felt that although they looked lovely, she found them bland and thought the flavours could be stronger. Even though they presented a healthy alternative and were undoubtedly aimed at the market for food that is ‘good for you’, for a sweet treat they weren’t as much fun to eat as a cup cake! I’m a person who can tolerate most foods; I liked the Raspberry cake perhaps because of the fresh and dried raspberries in it, the Tiramisu had a pleasant light coffee taste. Overall I too would have liked stronger fruit flavours, especially in the Blueberry cake, to counteract the less favourite coconut, and I have to say that there was something about the texture of the cakes that reminded me of oldschool milk puddings. Studying the nutritional information on the packaging we discovered that each 100gram cake actually contained on average around 400 calories! So, not to be taken as an everyday treat. Lets hope that the amazing health properties prevail over the weight gained! Available at Selfridges and on line at www.honeyndate.com.
Photograph © Yumi Izakaya
has settled on a number of staples, namely grilled skewers of chicken, all at £2.50 each, whether breast with tare and lemon, hearts with spring onion and ginger or wings with sea salt and shichimi, a seven-flavour chilli pepper. The warm mushroom salad (£6.50) with eroki, shimeji and soy was sweet, without being sour, and had a pleasantly gentle kick at the end. The steamed and pan-fried pork and ginger gyoza (£6) was probably the most interesting taste, whereas I found the larger dish of Caramelised Pork Belly with tempura’ed Egg (£15) just a little weighty. As with any Japanese meal, it is easy to overorder and end up with more than one really wanted, and more than one really wanted to spend, but the pace of the izakaya is such that, if one wants another
Photograph © Raw Cake!
Photographs © The Conrad Hotel
Dining Out
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May 2016
Kensington, Chelsea & Westminster Today
yoghurt that delivered another surprisingly successful blend of sweet, sharp and smooth. Nathan’s signature Red Gurnard Soup contrasted the Sea Robin’s firm white flesh with sweet orange bits and salty sea purslane, continuing the Outlaw appeal to as many of our taste receptors in a single bite as possible. For my main, for my name, I went for Brill. A dish which could have comfortably included ‘iant’ after it. Resting on celeriac, dipped in a tarragon and roast chicken gravy, it seemed a very British Surf ’nTurf. The Brill’s earthy, meaty, flavour was offset with a sweet parsnip-like celeriac and a light umami chicken juice. Claire decided she’d get turbot charged, which was served with asparagus and a creamy potato tureen and flavoured with a tang of lemon and the gentle bite of shallots. For pudding it was a divine Chocolate Mousse with Cornish Stout Cake, topped with a Cream Cheese Ice Cream smoother than David Cameron’s body oils, and possibly richer than him too. There is no doubt that Tom Brown’s
From quays to the Capital
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Dining Out Outlaw’s at The Capital Hotel Photograph © Capital Hotel
By Marius Brill
Photographs © Outlaws
Nestled behind Harrods in the heart of Knightsbridge is Outlaw’s Michelin starred restaurant in the Capital Hotel. Catches that come into the Cornish village, caught by local fishermen, are expressed to London and “on the plate within twelve hours,” according to Outlaw’s at the Capital’s keenly articulate Head Chef, fellow Cornishman, 28-year-old Tom Brown. And recognising that London itself is a port, a few fishes and dishes, including some poor soles (Lemon and Dover), arrive even fresher from the Kent coast. Our Spring Menu featured a shoal of diverse marine creatures from flatfish to shell dwellers. Rather than gently easing into the flavours, an hors d'oeuvre of cod’s roe dip loudly announced the fish theme with a powerful tang of the sea. The accompanying breads were as soft as southerner on a Geordie night out and rich in taste and texture. Ronald, our Maître d' and a man who might have given Tom Hiddleston lessons in poise and composure, proudly told us that even this was an Outlaw production: Clive, Nathan’s dad, baked all the breads for the restaurant. Ronald also neatly disposed of the hoary commonplace of wine-with-fish apartheid, offering wines of colour but still recommending a fruity Sauvignon Blanc from The Capital Hotel’s own vineyards. It was served so crisp and chilled the initial swig exploded like that first bite into a Granny Smith. My starter was cured monkfish draped with fennel, parsley and lemon providing an incongruous but delicious combination of an almost savoury umami with tiny dashes of sweetness leaping around the mouth. Claire went for a pickled mackerel with grapes, verjus and a horseradish
city incarnation of Outlaw’s restaurant, 250 miles away in Cornwall, is worthy of its Michelin star. He is a passionate advocate of sustainable fishing and what he calls, “cooking that lacks pretension.” Even if it is a far cry from what most of us mortals usually eat, in or out, within the context of top restaurants the food does have a certain homeliness. Certainly I can see how, for Brown who has been wrapped up in this world of gastronomic excellence from an early age, this menu seems down-toearth, or at least down-to-the-sea-bed. Tom Brown’s school days were relatively short, leaving at 17, to fish and cook, but he is plainly a man of passions. An autodidact and inspired classicist, tattoos of Prometheus, Icarus and Socrates writhe around his arms while he carries a copy of Plato to read on the tube into work. Brown is a thinking man who instinctively, and from long experience, knows how the sea’s flavours work. So if you want to excite your taste buds, stimulate your gustatory perceptions and arouse your olfactory receptors, all without paying a heavy price in calories, head to Outlaw’s at the Capital. Outlaw’s at the Capital The Capital Hotel 22-24 Basil St, London SW3 1AT, Phone:+44 20 7591 1202 Hours: Open today · 12–2PM, 6:30– 10PM Reservations: bookatable.co.uk Two Course Menu £45 Three Course Menu £55 Five Course Tasting Menu £75
By Henry Tobias Jones
The British fish menu comes with a romance that is hard to replicate in Knightsbridge. It takes quite a character be as comfortable with the shopping bags of the Royal Boroughs, as he is the cottages of Cornwall. Cue; Nathan Outlaw. When Outlaw barrelled into a little reception room for our interview at the Capital, I expected to stand on ceremony for the Master & Commander of British Fish. But this is not at all Nathan. Instead, he is the bloke you want cooking your fish. “I’ve sort of just become the fish guy” Outlaw says, (assumedly only half joking) “this is the only place you can get decent fish in London.” Listening to him talk about sustainable sourcing and experimenting with menus, you quickly realise how extensive his knowledge of fish is. But, it hasn’t always been smooth sailing, as Outlaw explains “there are certain things that won’t work in London, but which are very successful” in Port Isaac, Outlaw’s two Michelin starred Cornish restaurant; “with a lovely sea view” and “nice clean air, simple cooking works, but on a street in Knightsbridge, the dishes don’t have that romance.” That is really the truth of
Nathan Outlaw’s Everyday Seafood
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tep forward all the people with no time, those who have time but would rather be doing something else, and those who only ever read the summary at the end. Now step forward all of you who love provocative statements such as “seafood is the best convenience food ever” and the assertion that Nathan is “determined to dispel the myth that fish is tricky to deal with” Good, now sit down. This won’t take long, it’s 3am, I’m due to fly to Kathmandu in 2 hours and I’ve only got 300 words to tell you how good this book is. It opens with a couple of stunning shots of a dreamily good looking poached salmon, and a lobster seemingly suspended in a twirling universe of diced shallot, bay leaves, carrot and herbs, followed everybody’s favourite cheeky chappie Jamie Oliver telling you how brilliant
Knightsbridge. It does have its own, distinct romance. In Cornwall you might chat to Callum who catches the crabs that you eat. But, in Knightsbridge Outlaw’s restaurant is “one minute to Harrods, two to Harvey Nichs.” The religion of Knightsbridge is service and quality, and the romance relies on the service. “Albeit what we do is fine dining,” Outlaw explains, “it’s informal and approachable.” The ethos is “if you want to fill your restaurant and to have a buzzing atmosphere, people have to be comfortable.” Shedding the old Knightsbridge “robotic service” Outlaw has married the approachability of a Cornish village with the fine dining experience the world expects in Knightsbridge. “In the past a stuffy, very, very formal” restaurants defined Knightsbridge “and I personally don’t think there is any place for that when you are dining out today, whether you are in Cornwall, Kent or Knightsbridge.” This is the key to Outlaw and why his restaurant is so successful. Knightsbridge is proudly considered by its inhabitants as a London village. Just like in villages up and down the country, patrons are actually just “regulars” and Outlaw has plenty. People know each other, they meet up and eat with each other, recommending places to friends. When you walk into Outlaw’s restaurant, regardless of whether you are in Knightsbridge or Cornwall, the warm service you’ll receive will put you in mind of only the very best, and most quintessentially British of establishments.
his pal Nathan is. Nice one mate. Then it’s Nathan’s turn for an intro, claiming to feel pride and pleasure when someone cooks his recipes differently, and allegedly improving on them. Stay with me, and take a breath. You are never going to read those two pages again in the entire time you own this book, and it gets immeasurably better from here on in. The next few pages deal with why you should eat fish and shellfish, buying and storing, fish prep, the best equipment and pairing wine with seafood, all done in the clearest, easy-to-read style that should be a model for all seafood books everywhere. Planning a fish Menu is condensed into one page. Brilliant, and a reward everyone mentioned in paragraph 1. Next we are into the recipes, and the photography is outstanding. This isn’t a book for complete cooking dunces, but most dishes barely cover the page, and a modicum of skill and application should see you producing something good enough to impress everyone from foodie friends to first time dates. The addition of a few dessert recipes at the end makes this a winner, and well worth the cover price. Highly recommended. DH Get your copy of Nathan Outlaw’s Every Day Fish from The Capital Hotel.
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Food & Flowers
Kensington, Chelsea & Westminster Today
www.KCWToday.co.uk
online: www.KCWToday.co.uk
Photograph and recipe by kind permission of Nathan Outlaw & Quadrille Publishing
This month’s guest recipe by Nathan Outlaw Mussels with sage, cider and clotted cream When I opened Outlaw’s Fish Kitchen in Port Isaac I wanted to do a new mussel dish that screamed out ‘Cornwall!’ and showed off our fantastic mussels. This is that dish: a marriage of cider, apple, sage and clotted cream; flavours that to me work wonders with the plumpest and juiciest mussels. A simple, quick dish that really impresses every time I cook it.
Serves 2 as a starter or light lunch 1kg live mussels A drizzle of cold-pressed rapeseed oil 2 small white onions, peeled and sliced 8 sage leaves, finely sliced 100g Cornish clotted cream 200ml medium dry cider 1 Braeburn apple, peeled, cored and diced 2 tbsp chopped flat-leaf parsley Freshly ground black pepper
Photograph © David Hughes
Another stunning urn by Limpet Barron at the Tangerine Cafe. For your enjoyment we have Delphiniums Foxglove Alchamilla Lilac Wax flower Berried Ivy
TANGERINE DREAM
C afé Fo o d & Wi n e Fl ow ers Ev ent s The renowned Tangerine Dream café based in Chelsea Physic Garden SW3 is currently recruiting for:
• An apprentice to help with admin & bookings • Assistant chef • Full and part time waiting staff
Our season runs until the end of October, with opportunities after this for key staff. Please email David at tangerinefig@aol.com with a brief resumé and contact details.
Telephone: 07720 008201
Wash the mussels and pull away the hairy beard attached to one end of the shell. Discard any mussels that are open and refuse to close when pinched back together, and any that have damaged shells. Place a large pan that has a tight-fitting lid over a high heat. When it is hot, add the oil, followed by the onions. Cook, stirring frequently, for 3 minutes, until they soften and singe at the edge. Add the mussels, sage and clotted cream, cover and cook for 30 seconds. Lift the lid, pour in the cider and re-cover. Cook for 3 minutes. Lift the lid to check if the mussels are open. If not, put the lid back on and cook for a further 30 seconds, or until all, or most of the mussels are open. Add the diced apple and chopped parsley and toss to mix. Divide the mussels between 2 warmed bowls and pour over the tasty liquor. Serve at once, with crusty bread and butter.
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May 2016
Dining Out
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Photograph © Toby Allen. Instagram @toby_allen_photography
Instagram @mrjackbaker
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Bill, Beak & Ink
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ill or Beak was founded by Josh Paterson and Lucy Mee. The duo moved to London three years ago to try and turn their passion into a living and decided to give it a try in the London Street food scene. Their innovative burger stall serving Vietnamese duck (Bill) and Chicken Caesar (Beak) buns took off and within 3 months they landed a place at London’s most exciting street food collectives KERB, where they now trade all over the city offering lunch at; Kings Cross, West India Quay, the base of the Gherkin and more. Throughout last year they have been trading with Street Feast, a wellknown out door dining spot for excellent street food. They also regularly trade at the award winning Brockley Market on a Saturday serving their seasonal brunches. The young couple have also been successful within London’s street food scene as well as landing private events for Nike, Amazon, Facebook and The Financial Times to name a few. Bill or Beak has been nominated by;Time Out Top 3 street food stalls in the people’s choice section, Buzzfeeds Top 20 Sandwiches to eat right now, and best of all their extremely popular ‘Bill’ burger, was named ‘best street food dish’ In London by The Evening Standard. This year Josh Paterson has taken on the responsibility for Bill or Beak and is focusing on developing the menu for the numerous events the company is involved in. He has taken two excellent chefs on board, one whose previous experience includes Noma, The Fat Duck
and the recent Albilie 50 day pop up, and the second who has previously worked at Dinner by Heston. Together they are in the process of creating innovative specials, brunches and more for Street Feast, KERB and Brockley Market. Bill or Beak are also branching out into the festival scene this year with a few under their belt including Wilderness and Port Elliot. It doesn’t stop there. Lucy Mee is in the process of launching a brand new concept called ‘Ink’ selling Salt and Sichuan crispy squid with Asian dressings and pastel mayonnaises. Ink focuses on the all-time loved crispy squid with a beautiful and intricate spin on it by creating delicious and colourful mayonnaises (Inks) to choose from. The menu is very simple. Choose your size, choose your ink. This brand will be situated at Street Feast Model Market starting June 3rd every Friday and Saturday) for 1 month. She aims to have this in several of their sites by next year. Small will be £6 including 1 ‘ink’ (Mayo), and a large will be £10 with a choice of 2 ‘Inks’ There will be three flavours of mayos at one time. These include Thai Basil, Black Garlic and Kewpie. One will be replaced with a new flavour each week. You can currently find Ink on: Instagram @inksquidbar Or email Lucy Mee at: luce@ inksquidbar.com Street Feast, Model Market, Lewisham SE13 6LS Bill or Beak trade with KERB every Thursday on the King Cross Boulevard 12-2pm. Every Friday at West India Quay 12-2: West India Quay,Hertsmere Road, Canary Wharf, E14 4AE and every Saturday at Brockley Market 10-2: Kings Cross Boulevard, N1C 4UR
They will be starting their Street Feast run on May 20th on Friday and Saturday at the Lewisham Model Market site: Model Market, Lewisham, SE13 6LS They are also available for private hire throughout the year. You can find Bill or Beak:
Twitter @billorbeak Instagram @billorbeak Website www.billorbeak.co.uk Email: hello@billorbeak.com Brockley Market, Lewisham College car park, Lewisham Road, SE4 1UT
Good Dining, Vietnam! www.temtep.co.uk A new lunch and dining experience: Vietnamese in Kensington Freshly prepared with a touch of spice. A healthy and tasty menu, that delivers flavourful and beautifully presented food Different and delightful. Don’t forget the delicious Vietnamese filtered coffee from Trung Nguyen
Home Delivery: Deliveroo
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135 Kensington Church Street, London, W8 7LP for reservations & takeaways: 020 7792 7816 Mon-Thurs 11.30-15.00. 1700-2230 Fri 11.30-15.00. 1700-2300. Sat 11.30-2300. Sun 11.30-2230.
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Undressed: A Brief History of Underwear V&A Until 12 March 2017 Admission £12 www.vam.ac.uk/undressed
D
ON'T MENTION UNMENTIONABLES. You can call them knickers, camiknickers, pantihose, panties, pantalets, scanties, corsets, smalls, bloomers, crinolines, drawers, undergarments, underclothes, underwear, unders or just plain undies. Men have their own unders, like Y-fronts, boxers, trunks, hipsters, long-johns, thongs, briefs, slips, cacks, budgie smugglers and, grundies, but this show concentrates more on the ladies. From the 19th century, underwear fashion has ricocheted about from crinolines and corsetry to hoops and drawers, with the emphasis, certainly amongst the elite, on luxury and expensive materials, like lace, chiffon and satin. Body shape could be dictated by a judicious use of whalebone stays, laces, hooks and eyes, so that the wearer would have an eyewatering 18-inch waist. The dangers and restrictions were not considered worth thinking about when weighed up against the ‘look’. By displaying illustrations alongside x-ray photographs of what was actually happening inside the body, the true constriction is revealed, even though corsets were also beneficially used for certain medical conditions and problems with posture. Controlling one’s shape was the main thrust of corsetry, and one can chart its history through innovations and inventions in elastication technology, particularly rubber in the 19th century, which did away with whalebones and metal. Latex was invented in the 1930s, followed by Lycra in the late 1950s, both of which had a radical impact on ‘shapewear’, culminating in Spanx in 2000, devised by Sarah Blakely, the greatest proponent of these ‘control pants’ being Bridget Jones. Just as in the thirties, the name of the Bren gun came about through the amalgam of Brno in Czechoslovakia where it was devised, and Enfield, where it was made, so it was said that the name nylon was meant to represent New York and London. Sadly, not true, but nylon, a silky thermoplastic material made by DuPont, changed the look and the feel of underwear for many decades. The V&A have rummaged through their drawers for examples by Schiaparelli in the 1950s, as well as period ads. In the same way that bosoms were thrust upwards, separated, pushed together or strapped down, depending on the fashion, the cut of the dress and their size, so, too were men’s underwear designed to enhance the package, as shown by David Beckham's H&M trunks from 2012, which were modest compared to the aussieBum briefs from 2015, which could violate the trade descriptions act and lead to an anticlimactic end to an evening. Certainly, a pair of overstuffed cacks has nowhere the same allure as a pair of candy-coloured cheekfrills, with what they contain, or certainly not to me. The relationship between under- and outerwear is examined, with some designers challenging notions about sex, gender, nudity, and what is regarded as public and private, while some items of underwear were previously being partially revealed as an indication of wealth, quality and, of course, sexual allurement. One dress by Antonio Beradi and worn by Gwyneth Paltrow features a trompe l’oeil corset printed onto a white dress, which could reveal what she was wearing underneath, although she was probably wearing nothing at all, which would have been a much more exciting prospect, a bit like when Marylin Monroe was asked what she wore in bed, she replied, “Why, Chanel No. 5, of course”. Bras and bra straps used to be hidden, as though it was all done by gravitydefying magic, although thongs have been waving their whaletails at passers-by for a number of years. A cartoon recently appeared in Private Eye of some lads taunting one of three young women with the jibe, “we can’t see your knickers.” There are some very sexy items on display, with pieces by Rigby and Peller, La Perla, Stella McCartney, John Galliano and Calvin Klein, and there are clips from catwalk shows on a big screen by Agent Provocateur, Cadolle and Fifi Chachnil, who seems to have brought a healthy slice of fun and bounce back into lingerie design. Some items are alluring, provocative, seductive and playful, while others have the opposite effect and do as much for one’s libido as a pair of granny’s damp hessian drollies. Don Grant
Photographs © V&A Museum
Fashion
May 2016
Fashion A timeless tailor By Lynne McGowan
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Photographs © Margaret Howell
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Margaret Howell
he look is buttoned up and pared down, with crafted attention to collars and cuffs, buttons and tucks and all those devilish details that make her clothes a ‘must buy’ from Richmond to Shibuya Tokyo. Her disciples border on obsessives following a mystic, I should know because I’m one of them. I remember gleefully purchasing my very first MH shirt in a pale rose pink poplin with wing collar costing half a term’s grant but not realising then I’d be wedded to the brand for the next 40 years! The addiction is both compelling and uncompromising, devoted fans are not easily lured away with blowsy flowers or fake leopard skin. Those two are a big no no in the Margaret Howell oeuvre. MH clothing and accessories are about as far away as you can get from the flamboyant Italians and’ frou frou’ French brands. Quiet good taste prevails with a basic tight colour palette of black, french navy, stone, cream and white. Splashes of vibrancy sometimes hit the rails; tomato reds, jewelled blues and citrus greens whilst nautical stripes and demure plaids are perennial favourites. Cloud for grey and Celery for pale lemon are just two of the creative descriptions for hues detailed on the labels, together with spare buttons in a card envelope. Hers is the quintessentially English look of the boyish sixth former with a nod to prevailing trends, androgynous in cut but working well for both men and women wanting their sensuality enhanced with a fleeting rather than
Kensington, Chelsea & Westminster Today
a flaunting touch. ‘Ploughing her own furrow’ in the English countryside but sourcing from all over the British Isles for cashmere wools, pure cottons and linens Howell makes good use of northern mills and ‘old school’ manufacturers. Though Made in Britain is an important factor in the ethos of the company it adds to the cost - a whiff of ‘Guardian’ piety with a price tag of the FT ‘How To Spend It’. Margaret Howell is more than aware of what she doesn’t do, graciously responding some years ago to a request from my husband to write me a 60th Birthday greeting. She wrote ‘I am rather flattered to learn you have been buying my clothes for at least half your lifetime, although for your special day you may be wearing something more colourful and exotic’. She was right of course, for that occasion the label was briefly deserted for more glamorous party attire. The kitchen in a Blackheath flat was Margaret Howell’s first working space when she set up shop in 1972, originally inspired by well- tailored pin stripe city shirts. 40 years later the brand remains as natural and authentic as ever and I always get the feeling Howell herself oversees individual pieces, honing the details and imparting her own unique design prowess with a passion as fresh today as it ever was.
Church’s
A lasting legacy By Lynne McGowan
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liding your foot into a Church’s leather loafer for the first time is like a hearty hug. It takes a mere 8 weeks to make a pair of Church’s shoes and they are so well made with leather so lustrous they have an enduring quality and look like the sort of shoes James Bond might wear, in fact, he did just that in several films. This dynastic English family business began with Stone Church, a Master Cordwainer or artisanal shoemaker. Born in 1675 and hailing from Northampton,
the heart of the leather industry, it was he who passed on his skills down the generations. Great grand-son Thomas Church and his then two sons Alfred and William founded the Church’s brand in 1873 from a modest workshop in Maple Street. Beginning as a homebased craft, employee cordwainers would work from their own homes until they all moved under one roof to the larger Duke Street premises. The English word ‘cordwainer’ is a professional craftsman who makes shoes from new leather as distinct from a cobbler who repairs them. The word itself originates from cordovan superior leather produced in medieval Cordoba, Spain, evolving to the AngloNorman French cordewaner. In the City of London, the livery company The Worshipful Company of Cordwainers dates back to the 13th century and Cordwainer is a ward in the City of London where cordwainers lived and worked. Today Cordwainers College based in Hackney is part of the London
wear allowing water to drain from the small punched holes when crossing a wet peat bog. The word originates from Old Norse evolving to Old Irish brog meaning ‘shoe.’ Brogues are now accepted as city as well as country footwear and come in a variety of wing tips and different lacing closure styles like Oxford and Derby. There is a whole vocabulary dedicated to shoes, from crafting techniques, leather finishes, lacings and styles and they all have fascinating beginnings. If you don’t know what gimping is, neither did I, some of Church’s brogues look as if the edges have been cut with pinking shears but in fact, have undergone a process called gimping, a machine method of cutting a saw tooth edge to prevent leather from fraying. Many of Church’s shoes use patent leather; patenting being a process of glazing and varnishing aimed to create a protective yet shiny, dressy appearance. Several 18th century British inventors
School of Fashion and offers a BA (Hons) in Cordwainers Footwear: Product Design and Innovation. Church’s flourished with the Victorian age of expansion and industrialisation and won a gold medal at 1881 Great Exhibition in Crystal Palace. Exporting to countries of the Empire, Europe and later to the US, business was brisk and the Duke Street workshop expanded into a six storey factory. Sport wear and casual shoes were added to the traditional ‘Businessman in the City’ shoe lines. The youngest son Thomas was made an associate partner and in 1921 Church’s opened a shop in London offering a woman’s shoe for the first time. An example of the timeless quality of Church’s shoes is the iconic Shanghai brown & white brogue, initially launched in 1929 and designed for gentlemen living in the Far East. This classic piece of footwear was impressively resurrected again in 2009 and is a currently trending shoe in 2016. Brogues can be traced back to Ireland and were originally designed for rural
contributed toward perfecting this method but Seth Boyden from New Jersey finally came up with the best solution, though ironically not getting round to patenting his patenting! Held in high regard for making hard wearing footwear, Church’s made boots and shoes for the armed forces in the Second World War and shortly afterwards branches opened across the world from Italy to Hong Kong achieving the Queen’s award to Industry in 1965. In recognition of fine craftsmanship the Prada Group acquired the brand in 1999 introducing new marketing strategies and opening further boutiques including a women only shop in New Bond Street. Years ago, I bought a pair of classic black loafers from Church’s in Hong Kong, although they had to be men’s shoes as the women’s shoes were far too tiny, strictly Chinese foot sizes. They were marvellously comfortable but call me ‘old fashioned,’ I never felt entirely at ease knowing they weren’t proper women’s shoes but men’s.
Photograph © Churchs
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Ends May 27 Frankenstein Royal Opera House The world premiere of Liam Scarlett’s new full-length ballet inspired by Mary Shelley’s Gothic masterpiece. designed by John Macfarlane, with the orchestra of the ROH, playing the music of Lowell Lieberman. Conducted by Koen Kessels. Bow Street Covent Garden WC2E 9DD 020 7304 4000 May 10 - 14 Rambert Ballet Company Sadler’s Wells ‘Tomorrow’ an innovative take on Macbeth, ‘Terra Incognito’ a dance journey with music by Gabriel Prokofiev, and ‘Linha Curva’ a ‘sexy, percussion-
May 13 Salaam: Sonia Sabri Company Rich Mix A double program with a dialogue between the music of a solo tabla and the Kathak dancer, Sonia Sabri 35 - 47 Bethnal Green Road E1 6L 020 7613 7498 May 17 Emerging Dancer Palladium Theatre An annual event that celebrates the talent of tomorrow. Selected by their peers, six of the most promising dancers perform in front of an eminent panel of expert judges. 19.30 - 21.30 Argyll Street W1F 7TF 0844 412 4655 May 17 - 20 Nederlands Dance Theater Sadler’s Wells A winning combination of exuberance and athleticism from one of the world’s most celebrated dance companies offering a mixed repertoire.
Rosebery Avenue EC1R 020 7863 8000 May 19 - 21 International Week The Place Dance crosses borders in a week of performances by four dance conservatoires from London, Leeds, Austria, and Switzerland. 17 Duke’s Street WC1H 9PY 020 7121 1100
1984: Northern Ballet Sadler’s Wells After their sell-out success of ‘The Great Gatsby’ this ballet company returns with a ballet based on another literary classic George Orwell’s 1984 created by the Guest Choreographer, Jonathan Watkins with a score by the Tony nominated composer Alex Baranowski. Rosebery Avenue EC1R 4TN 020 7863 8000
May 20 - 28 Jekyll & Hyde The Old Vic Theatre A new dance version of Robert Louis Stevenson’s familiar story by the choreographer Drew McOnie and marks the start of Matthew Warchus as Artistic Director at the Old Vic. 103 The Cut SE1 8NB 0844 871 7628
May 24 - June 11 The Merchants of Bollywood Peacock Theatre A Bollywood dance extravaganza choreographed by the celebrated dance impresario Vaibhavi merchant: a tale of family life: love and tradition combine in a story that celebrates the very different types of traditional Indian dance. Hypnotic Indian music, brilliant costumes, and spellbinding dance. Portugal Street WC2A 2HT 020 7863 8222
May 21, June 1, 7 & 10 The Winter’s Tale The Royal Ballet Christopher Wheeldon’s brilliant ballet based on one of Shakespeare’s enigmatic late plays. A story of a marriage destroyed by jealousy, an abandoned child, remorse and the final reconciliation . Designed by Bob Crowley and music by Joby Talbot. For casting details roh.org.uk/winters Covent Garden WC2E 9DD 020 7304 4000 May 24 - 28
June 1 - 12 Swan Lake in the Round Royal Albert Hall Derek Deane’s fabled original 1997 production was a success around the world. Tchaikovsky’s score is played by the English National Ballet with the Hall transformed into a lake especially for his spectacle. Kensington Gore SW7 2AP 020 7838 3100
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Ends May 21 Into the Hoods: Remixed Peacock Theatre A contemporary twist on a classic story, this musical transports the audience to the Ruff Endz Estate where two lost children find iPads, hoodies, and Li’l Red as well as DJ Spinderella. Performed by the ZooNation Dance Company. Portugal Street WC2A 2HT 020 7863 8015
fuelled explosion of samba-flavoured dance’ performed by the consistently interesting ballet company. Rosebery Avenue EC1R 020 7863 8000
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EXHIBITIONS Ends May 14 Barry Flanagan: Animal, Vegetable, Mineral Waddington Custot Galleries Best known for his bronze hares, this exhibition is a chance to see the artist’s work with other subjects. 11 Cork Street W1S 3LT 020 7851 Ends May 15 Nikolai Astrup: Painting Norway Dulwich Picture Gallery The first major exhibition of the work of this Norwegian artist (1880-1928) explores his paintings and his radical printmaking. Gallery Road Dulwich SE21 7A 020 8693 5254 Ends May 15 The London Original Print Fair Royal Academy Prints to view and buy with works from all periods and styles of printmaking. Burlington House Piccadilly W1J 3ET 020 7300 8090 Ends May 20 Eardley Knollys 2016 Messum's celebrate Eardley Knollys, an artist and dealer of taste and charm with the ability to spot talent. 28 Cork St, London W1S 3NG 020 7437 5545 Ends May 20 Royal Society of Portrait Painters Annual Exhibition 2016 Mall Galleries A show which includes some of the most ‘outstanding and innovative portraits by artists working in GB and around the world today’. The Mall SW1Y 5BD 020 7930 6844 Ends May 29 Tall Tales: Women Artists’ Playful Exploration of the Human Experience The Freud Museum A national touring programme bringing together the work of 17 international women artists who employ the use of storytelling techniques in the making of their work. Installations and performance and videos. 20 Maresfield Gardens NW3 5SX 020 7435 2002 Ends June 3 William Heath Robinson’s Life of Line Royal Academy The RA presents the artist’s evocative book illustrations which reveal his mastery of black and white line. Burlington House W1J 0BD 020 7300 8090
Ends June 5 In the Age of Giorgione Royal Academy 'A highly original exploration of the Venetian Renaissance which brings together works by Titian and Giorgione. Burlington House W1J 0BD 020 7300 8090 June 14-18 The Drayton Arms The performance is inspired by Bulgarian culture and reveals to the audience the characteristics of Bulgarian folklore, traditional dances and costumes. It explores the relationship between the Gadulka (a Bulgarian musical instrument) and its owner. With humour and sarcasm, the musician tells a story about his relationship with the Gadulka. An instrument often overlooked and unremarkable in its appearance, it is in fact the backbone of the Bulgarian folk orchestra. 153 Old Brompton Road, London SW5 0LJ Ends June 19 Vanilla and Concrete Tate Britain Recent work by emerging artists Marie Lund, Rallou Panagiotou and Mary Ramadan who use painting and sculpture to bring new perspectives to everyday life. Bankside SE1 9TG 020 7887 8888 Ends June 26 Astrazione Oggettiva The Experience of Colour Estorick Collection A celebration of the work of a group of artists who in the 1970s contributed to the evolution of abstract art in Italy. 39a Canonbury Square N1 2AN 020 7704 9522 Ends July 3 Rubens Ghost Dulwich Picture Gallery Through the use of a life-size X-Ray of Venus, Mars and Cupid, the creative process and working methods of Rubens show the changes the artist made during his process of painting. Gallery Road SE21 7AD 020 8693 5254 Ends July 3 Botticelli Reimagined V&A More than 50 of the artist’s original work displayed among other paintings and works from design, fashion and photography by artists like Andy Warhol, Gabriel Rossetti, William Morris and Rene Magritte who were influenced by him. Cromwell Road SW7 2RL
Ends August 14 Sicily: Culture and Conquest The British Museum Sicily’s 400-year history is one of invasion by waves of Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, Arabs, and Normans all adding to the rich cultural mix. Temples, churches, and palaces, coinage and gold jewellery, textiles, sculpture, pottery, architectural decoration all demonstrate Sicily’s amazing diversity. Great Russell Street WC1B 3DG 020 7323 8181 Ends August 21 Mona Hatoum Tate Modern The first major survey of this artist’s work in the UK which covers 35 years from her early radical performance and video pieces to sculpture and large-scale installations. Juxtaposing opposites such as beauty and terror, she arouses conflicting emotions like fear and fascination. Bankside SE1 9TG 020 7887 8888
Ends August 29 Dutch Flowers The National Gallery This exhibition follows the Dutch obsession with flowers from its beginning in the early 17th century to its peak in the late 18th century. Trafalgar Square WC2N 5DN 0800 912 6958 Ends August 29 Conceptual Art in Britain 1964 - 1979 Tate Britain The exhibition explores the moment in the 1960s when artists started to move from traditional forms and made ‘ideas the essence of their work’. Milbank SW1P 4RG 020 7887 8888 Ends September 4 The Empress and the Gardener Hampton Court Palace A celebration of the 300th anniversary of Capability Brown’s birth which explores the influence the Hampton Court’s chief gardener had on the Russian Empress, Catherine the Great through a collection of watercolours. Hampton Court Road Surrey KT8 9AU
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uses gardening to build communities. Artists include Lynn Chadwick, Ann Christopher, William Tucker, Peter Randall-Page and many others. Kings Place 90 York Way NI 9AG 020 7520 1480 0844 482 7777 Ends September 4 The Rolling Stones: Exhibition Saatchi Gallery Years of planning with input by Mick Jagger, this exhibition contains 500 artefacts from the band’s history and includes iconic costumes, original posters and album cover artworks, unseen video clips, personal correspondence and work from their collaborations with Andy Warhol, Alexander McQueen, Ossie Clark, Tom Stoppard and Martin Scorsese. Duke of York HQ Kings Road SW3 4RY Tickets 0844 453 9020
May 28 -29 The American Air Show IVM Duxford Tells the story of American and British collaboration over 100 years and shows the impact of the American forces on Duxford. Flying displays are combined with living history enactments with the sounds and voices of the men and women who lived and worked Duxford. Cambridge CB 22 4Q MUST BOOK in ADVANCE 01223 499 353
May 19-27 November Sunken Cities: Egypt’s Lost World British Museum Hidden under the sea at the mouth of the Nile for over a thousand years are two lost cities in ancient Egypt which were discovered recently. In these highly cultured centres, wonderful objects have been discovered. Great Russell Street WC1B 3DG
May 13-October 2 Punk 1976 - 78 British Library The exhibition celebrates the 40th anniversary of this exciting musical phenomenon starting with the impact of the Sex Pistols in 1976 and the breadth of influence that spread to Fashion, print, and graphic design styles nationwide. Showcasing a range of fanzines, flyers, recordings, and record sleeves, it celebrates the influence of punk as a radical musical, artistic and political movement. The Entrance Hall 96 Euston Road NW1 2DB 01937 546 546
May 24 -27 Minerva Mall Galleries Over 200 works by Japanese artists for the annual exhibition featuring paintings and sculpture. The Mall SW1Y 5BD 020 7930 6844
May 28 - September 4 Captured at Kew The outdoor exhibition near the Shirley Sherwood and Marianne North Galleries showcases winners from the Beauty at Kew category of the Annual International Garden Photographer of the Year’ Competition. Royal Botanic Gardens Richmond TW9 3AB 020 8332 5655
May 27 - August 29 Above and Beyond National Maritime Museum Explored through the five themes ‘up’, ‘faster’, ‘higher’, ‘farther’ and ‘smarter’ a hands-on retrospective with forward thinking views on the innovation and science behind flight. Many interactive experiences using flight simulation, augmented reality and virtual reality
May 13-July 9 Sculpture in the Garden Pangolin London An exhibition that brings the ‘outdoors in’ with the gallery space divided into woodlands, formal and walled gardens complete with trees and water sculpture. the gallery had collaborated with the local charity ‘global Generation’ which
June 1 - November 6 Bhupen Khakhar Tate Modern The artist (1934 - 2003) played a central role in modern Indian art and this exhibition brings together work from five decades. His work combined Pop art
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Ends September 6 Shakespeare in Ten Acts The British Library A landmark exhibition of the performances that made an icon, charting Shakespeare's constant reinvention through 400 years of history from the first productions of ‘Hamlet’ and ‘The Tempest’ to today. the exhibition showcases 200 unique and rare items such as the only surviving play-script in Shakespeare’s hand.
96 Euston Road NW1 2DB boxoffice@bl.uk 01937 546 546
including a simulated space elevator ride. Greenwich SE 10 9NF 020 8858 4422
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GREAT PIANO QUINTETS with Martino Tirimo and the Rosamunde Trio Wed 22 June 7.30pm
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ORGAN SERIES continues with David Titterington Thu 16 June 1.05pm
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THURSDAY LUNCHTIME CONCERTS chamber music by Schumann & Franck Thu 9 June 1.05pm
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Dr Faustus: The Duke of York Theatre Running until June 25th 2016. Price: £15-£85 with ‘painterly aesthetics.’ Bankside SE1 9TG 020 7887 8888 FAIRS AND FESTIVALS Ends May 20 Hola Mahalla: The Forgotten Festival Rich Mix With prints and videos, an exploration of the significance of this little known Sikh festival which celebrates fighting powers and bravery with military-style processions, music, and poetry. 35-47 Bethnal Green E1 6L 020 7613 7498 May 6 - 22 London Burlesque Festival Dingwalls Celebrating its 10th Birthday, the festival showcases vaudeville, glitz, and striptease and includes the Big Burlesque Day Out which includes a vintage market, cocktails, and music. Camden Lock Soho NW1 8AB May 11 - 15 Royal Windsor Horse Show The show is in its 73rd year and is the UK’s largest outdoor equestrian event
with over 3,000 horses and ponies competing in international jumping, dressage, driving and endurance along with 100 showing classes plus cafes, shops, bars and restaurants held in the grounds of Windsor Castle. Info at Royal Windsor Information Centre. the Old Booking Hall Thames Street Windsor SL4 1PJ 01753 743900 windsor.tic@rbwm.gov.uk May 15 Urban Village Fete Greenwich Peninsula Street food vendors, music, designer marketplaces, art and design workshops, dance classes, quirky events, talks, and an en-masse drumming workshop, hula hoop sessions and more. 1 Green Place SW10 0PE May 15 &16 RAW Artisan Wine Fair The Old Truman Brewery with 160 producers from around the world who come to promote their wine it is the UK’s biggest organic wine fair. Heaven for ordinary wine lovers and also for the connoisseurs, and there is nourishment
JAMIE LLOYD’S KALEIDOSCOPIC ride of pop-culture and hedonism, dressed as Christopher Marlowe’s sixteenth century morality tale, occasionally feels in danger of regressing into a particularly psychedelic episode of Skins in its constant bid for youthful currency. Kit Harrington takes the role of the titular academic turned magician who (no doubt tired of knowing nothing) makes a pact with the devil, exchanging his soul for knowledge and power. Lloyd’s contemporary version transforms Faustus into a rock-star magician. The frenzied performance and the speed of its delivery leaves the moral through-line feeling under-wrought and desperately grasping for relevance. The original theological exploration maybe outdated in our secular society, but the fame versus love dichotomy to which it is reduced, seems overly simplistic. Purists will no doubt be enraged at the reworking of acts three and four in favour of a modernised script from Colin Teevan. It follows an outline of the original text but revs up the tale’s tendency towards gratuity to a fever pitch, creating at best an entertainingly frantic ensemble and at worst a string of heavy-handed satire. It is an admirable attempt to update the script with self-reflexive moments that flirt with the fringes of post modernity, but the overall impression is one of condescension, as though the tender years of the target audience wouldn’t suffer a reference the wrong side of this millennium. Harrington’s incarnation of the good doctor channels the socially awkward, inexplicably sweaty, roommate, the throwback from first year university. Whilst he certainly proves he can be more than the dour Westerosi we’ve seen him commit to for the last five years, Jenna Russell is the show stealer as a dry but troubled Mephistopheles. Equal parts melancholic, jealous, wrathful and humorous, Russell is a magnetic stage presence whose performance, ironically, seems the most human. The shear ferocity of Jamie Lloyd’s Dr Faustus should be commended on it’s own merits. This is clearly a production that doesn't do half measures. It is certainly fun to watch and contains moments that are genuinely disquieting but, much like it’s protagonist, seems to have exchanged something substantial for that which is fleeting and flashy. By Rowland Stirling. Tickets available from www.atgtickets.com/shows/doctor-faustus/duke-of-yorks
★★★★★ ‘A WORK OF EXTRAORDINARY
QUALITY AND INTENSITY’
The Independent
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Events
Concerts at Westminster Abbey
Thrill to the splendour of Handel and the majesty of ‘The King of Instruments’ in the magnificent setting of Westminster Abbey
Handel Israel in Egypt
Summer Organ Festival
Tuesday 17th May at 7.00 pm
Tuesdays from 12th July at 7.00 pm
The Choir of Westminster Abbey St James’s Baroque James O’Donnell conductor
Henry Fairs, Winfried Bönig, James O’Donnell, Daniel Cook and David Goode showcase the magnificent Abbey organ in this five-concert series which concludes on 9th August.
Handel’s rousing oratorio is presented as part of the London Festival of Baroque Music Tickets £12–£45 www.lfbm.org.uk
Single tickets £12 (concessions £8) Season tickets £48 (concessions £32)
Booking information Online: www.sjss.org.uk | Telephone: 020 7222 1061 (Mon–Sat, 10.00 am–5.00 pm) In person: The Box Office, St John’s Smith Square, London SW1P 3HA, and on the door
www.westminster-abbey.org
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SPRING/SUMMER PROGRAMME for the brain with talks by industry experts and "artisan food” to eat. 91 Brick Lane Spitalfields E1 6QL 020 7193 05959 May 16 - 20 Birbank Art Week More than 50 public events in around the School of Arts, 43- 47 Gordon Square with workshops, performances, screening, tours, book launches, cinema, literature, poetry and Art in all its many guises. FREE BUT BOOKING ESSENTIAL. For Full Programme www.bbk.ac.uk/ artsweek May 20 - 30 Alchemy: Festival of Indian and South Asian Culture Southbank Centre “the largest festival of this sort outside India” which includes music, comedy, theatre, and dance. May 20, 21 & 22 BBC Good Food Summer in the City ExCel Celebrity interviews, recipe demos, panel discussions on food trends and health topics, shopping opportunities from all the exhibitors. Celeb. chefs will cook live on stage. Guests include Paul Hollywood, Davina McCall, and John Torode. One Western Gateway Royal Victoria Dock E16 1XL May 27 – 28 London International AntiquarianPBFABook Fair As Part of Rare Books London, the PBFA’s London International Book Fair brings together over 100 dealers from around the world, presenting many thousands of books, maps, prints and items of ephemera, to suit every pocket and interest. A great two day book fair for any book lover. ILEC Conference Centre IBIS London Earls Court 47 Lillie Road London, SW6 1UD www.pbfalondonbookfair.org Friday 27th : 1:00pm – 7:00pm Saturday 28th : 10.00am – 4.00pm
Alexander Palace In the city’s biggest beer garden, street food traders with a wide range of treats ‘for discerning foodies’. Wash it all down with craft beer or cocktails and Pimms and listen to DJs with live music to keep the party lively. 11am - 10.00pm Saturday 11am - 9pm Sunday Alexandra Palace Way N22 7AY 0124488 1895 May 28 & 29 The Great British Tattoo Show Alexander Palace Over 300 of the world’s greatest tattoo artists, vendors and traders, converge in the Great Hall accompanied by music and a new 'fashion element’. Alexander Palace Way N22 7AY 0124488 1895 Tickets by email: tickets@ greatbritishtattooshow.com
10/05/16 WHO OWNS THE MOON? MICHAEL MORRIS FRANKS LLB FBIS | PARTNER WILLIAM STURGES LLP
17/05/16 BUSINESS CYCLES AND INVESTMENTS: DO YOU UNDERSTAND THEM? NEIL POOLE | PARTNER AT ST. JAMES'S PLACE WEALTH MANAGEMENT
01/06/16 FINE WINE INVESTMENT – THE PLEASURE, THE PITFALLS AND THE PROFIT MARCUS ALLEN
14/06/16 THE POST WAR TEXTILE VISIONARIES OF MODERN ART ASHLEY GRAY, FINE ART SPECIALIST
23/06/16 DISRUPTIVE TECHNOLOGY OR IS IT MARK WILSON MBA, FOUNDER, NEWBEANS COFFEE UK AND BIGONIT
13/07/16 INVESTING LIKE WARREN BUFFETT. CAN YOU? SHOULD YOU? IF SO, HOW? JONATHAN DAVIS | AUTHOR, COLUMNIST, INVESTMENT DIRECTOR
VENUE: 9 ILCHESTER PLACE, LONDON W14 8AA
June 11 The Queen’s Official Birthday: her real one was on April 21 Trooping of the colour: A Military Parade attended by the Royals Horse Guards Parade Events begin at about 10am The Two Full Dress Rehearsals are held two weeks Before the Real Thing. The Major General’s Review is held on the Saturday two weeks before the parade. The Colonel’s Review (this year it will be the Duke of Edinburgh) is held on the Saturday the week before the `parade
London InternatIonaL Book FaIr (part of rare Books London) Friday 27th May - 2:00pm - 7.00pm Saturday 28th May - 10.00am - 4.00pm
MUSIC May 10 Inside the Score: Berg’s Lyric Suite Wigmore Hall The Tana String Quartet and soprano Julia Sitkovetsky join the writer and broadcaster Gavin Plumley to explore Berg’s ‘Suite for String Quartet’ in this musical illustrated lecture recital. 36 Wigmore Street W1U 2BP 020 7935 2141
May 24 - 28 RHS Chelsea Flower Show Chelsea Royal Hospital As usual many exciting new ideas including an “Acoustic Garden’ designed by the percussionist Dame Evelyn Glennie, "the British Eccentrics Garden”. As usual, fascinating. Royal Hospital Road SW3 4RS 020 52007881
May 11, 14, 16, 19 Lucia Di Lammermoor The Royal Opera Donizetti’s gripping Scottish opera based on a novel by Walter Scott returns in a new production by Katie Mitchell designed by Vicki Mortimer with Damrau and Aleksandra Kurzak as Lucia. Bow Street Covent Garden WC2E 9DD 020 7304 4000
May 28 & 29 Street Food Craft Beer Festival
May 12 & 15 Tannhauser
ILEC Conference Centre IBIS London Earls Court 47 Lillie Road, London SW6 1UD www.pbfalondonbookfair.org
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Royal Opera House Richard Wagner’s opera of sensuality, virtue and salvation follows the trials of the troubled legendary medieval songwriter and singer. A powerful production by Tim Albery with Peter Seifert as Tannhauser, Christian Gerhaher as Wolfram, Sophie Koch as Venus and Emma Bell as Elisabeth. Bow Street Covent Garden WC2E 9DD 020 7304 4000 May 12 The Viennese Salon St John’s Church The Francoise-Green piano duo plays Schubert, Mozart, Schoenberg and a world premiere of a new work by Christian Mason. St John’s Smith Square SW1P 3H0 020 7222 1061 May 12, 13, 14 Pleasure Lyric Composer Mark Simpson collaborates with the writer Melanie Challenger in his first opera; thriller set in a gay club; designed by Leslie Travers and directed by Tim Albery. Kings Mall Kings Street Lyric Square Hammersmith W6 0QL
Ditchling Museum of Art & Craft
020 7304 4000
Admission £6.50 ditchlingmuseumartcraft.org. uk
May 14 Faure Requiem Holy Trinity Church the organist Colin Walsh in this performance of Faure’s perpetual favourite. On the same program is Vierne’s ‘Messe Solennelle”, and Durufle’s ‘Quatre Motets sur des Themes Gregorian’. Sloane Street SW1X 9BZ 020 7730 4500
H
May 14 Mozart’s Requiem by Candlelight St Martin-in-the-Fields The Belmont Ensemble of London with Peter G Dyson conducting a program that includes Handel’s ‘Coronation Anthem’, Mozart’s ‘Ave Verum Corpus in D’ and Vivaldi’s ‘Gloria in D’. Trafalgar Square WC2N 4JJ 020 7613 7498 May 15 London Festival of Baroque Music Servant of the Words 3.30 Roberta Invernizzi one of the finest
igh on the Downs above Brighton sits Ditchling, a village which would tick all the boxes for an American tourist - village pond, supplied with ducks, a 13th century church, a couple of low-beamed 16thcentury pubs, and a grade1 listed Tudor house, described by Nikolaus Pevsner as ‘eminently picturesque in a watercolourist’s way’. In a converted schoolhouse opposite the half-timbered Wings Place and next to the pond is the Ditchling Museum of Art + Craft, which two sisters, Joanna and Hilary Bourne founded in 1985. After a £2.3m redevelopment, it re-opened in 2013, and has won architectural acclaim for its sensitive use of timber, both on the outside of the refurbished barn and the oak boards throughout, combining the old and the new in a seamless way. Since the beginning of the last century, Ditchling had attracted artists and craftsmen, including such names as Eric Gill, the notorious sculptor, printmaker and letterer, and the graphic designer Edward Johnston, creator of the iconic sans serif typeface for London
Underground. Gill set up the Guild of St Joseph and Dominic, a loose community of craftspeople, which attracted the weaver Ethel Mairet, silversmith Dunstan Pruden, printer Hilary Pepler, the strange visionary artist-poet David Jones, who at one point was engaged to one of Gill’s daughter Petra, and the painter Frank Brangwyn, who hired local girls as life models for the murals he was creating for New York’s Rockefeller Center. Gill’s predilictions were even closer to home, and in the current climate of Operation Yewtree, he would probably have been banged up. However, these two great letterers left a legacy of pure, clean and legible typefaces that have lasted a century. Both are well-represented in the Museum, as is Gill ‘s beautiful relief carving Nude Girl with Hair, which is currently on display for only its third time. The process of letterpress is fully explained within the permanent exhibition, and it is astonishing how far we have come in typography and printing techniques, even in the last 50 years. As a student at the London College of Printing, we were typing on Linotype and Monotype machines, using something called ‘hot metal’, which now seems so incongruous as to be antediluvian. Don Grant
Captivating scents: fresh floral fœtid
A Scented Season at London’s Secret Garden Visit our scented outdoor exhibition this summer. Pick up the scent trail which will lead you around the scented displays in the Garden. Discover displays showcasing the plants used in aromatherapy and perfumery. If you’re feeling brave visit the Abhorrent Arbour which features some of the worlds stinkiest plants!
Events & Tours • Award-winning Café • Shop 66 Royal Hospital Road, London SW3 4HS
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Baroque sopranos sings Monteverdi, Caccini, D’India, Carissimi and others. 7.00 Iestyn Davies countertenor with bass viol Jonathan Mason Alex McArtney on the lute and Jonathan Cohen on the harpsichord play Purcell’s music. 9.30 Olivia Charney: the singersongwriter is joined by special guests for freshly arranged and interpreted Purcell program, folk ballads, and her Baroqueinspired songs St John’s Smith Square SW1P 3HA 020 7222 1061 siss.org.uk May 16 Haleluyah Music from Hashirim Li’Shloma, a collection of psalm settings in Hebrew by Salome, an Italian-Jewish contemporary of Monteverdi and some of his secular madrigals. St John’s Smith Square SW1P 3HA 020 7222 1061 May 17 God Spake the Word Westminster Abbey Handel’s Israel in Egypt is performed by
the Choir of Westminster Abbey. 20 Dean’s yard SW1P 3PA 020 7222 5152 Magic 18 Music, Magic and Mayhem The Clement James Centre Award-winning actor and composer Simon Slater brings an exciting show from the West End to W11 to raise money for the Centre; a charity devoted to helping the deprived with education and employment. 95 Sirdar Road W11 4EQ 020 7221 8810 18th May Conducting Tchaikovsky’s Operas’ Ballroom, Lansdowne Club, Mayfair W1 Seminar, Recital & Dinner with Edward Gardner OBE. The renowned maestro and former Music Director at ENO will discuss the particular demands of conducting opera. Rising star baritone Gareth John will perform arias to illustrate. You will have the opportunity to dine with our star speaker and performers. Seminar, recital & three-course dinner with wine - £150 - £100
Seminar & recital only £49 Contact: Lucy@divasandscholars.com www.divasandscholars.com May 19 Symphonic Divas Cadogan Hall A tribute to Liza Minelli, Judy Garland, Barbra Streisand, and Julie Andrews with presenter Petroc Trelawny. Sloane Terrace, SW1X 9DQ 020 7730 4500 May 20 Tony O’Malley 606 Club The vocalist performs everything from Jazz and Blues through to Country and Western-Gospel.
90 Lots Road SW10 0QD May 23, 26, 30 June 2, 4, 8 Oedipe Royal Opera House A spectacular production of Enescu’s dramatic telling of the Oedipus myth from the innovative Catalan theatre group La Fura dels Baus. The cast includes Johan Reuter and Sarah Connolly and Marie-Nicole Lemieux. Bow Street Covent Garden WC2E 9DD 020 7304 4000 May 24 Cedric Tiberghien 36 Wigmore Hall The pianist includes selections from
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Bartok’s Mikroskosmos and Gyorgy Kurt’s Jatekok. Wigmore Street W1U 2BP 020 7935 2141 May 24 ‘Faustian Pact’ Cadogan Hall An introduction to the Faust legend and its music with Mark Austen conducting. 10.30-12.30 Sloane Terrace SW1X 020 7730 4500 May 24, 25, 27, 28 4.48 Psychosis: Music on the Page Lyric Hammersmith The composer Philip Venables adapted the final work of the late radical British playwright Sarah Kane which details the dark experience of clinical depression to his music. Lyric Square King Street W6 0QL 020 7394 4000 May 26 Alain Souchon & Laurent Voulzy in Concert Eventim Apollo 45 Queen Caroline Street W6 9QH 0844 249 1000 eventim.co.uk
May 27 & 28 Space Spectacular Royal Albert Hall An evening of lights, lasers and fireworks with music by Holst, Strauss and John Williams. Covent Garden Bow Street WC2E 9DD 020 7589 8212 May 28-31 Symphony of the Lost Generation LSO St Luke’s With 250 performers including Sergei Polunin and Natalie Osipova dancing together for the first time in the UK as a couple. it is also the world’s first fully holographc production and centre on World War 1. 161 Old Street EC1V 9NG 020 7638 8891 Friday Lunchtime Concerts Royal Academy of Music Pay a modest charge and take advantage of the chance to listen to promising musicians of the future. 020 7873 7300 PHOTOGRAPHY AND FILM Ends May 8 2016 Sony World Photography Awards
Italian Summer Bazaar 2016
Tuesday 7th June, from 12.30pm to 8pm Wednesday 8th June, from 10.30am to 8pm
YOU ARE INVITED Chelsea Old Town Hall King’s Road London SW3 5EE
Ends May 15 The Champ: My Year with Muhammad Ali Proud Camden An intimate photographic portrait of the great boxer as a friend, father, and inspiration taken by his close friend and award-winning photographer Michael Gaffney. The Horse Hospital Chalk Farm road NW1 8AH 020 7482 3867 Ends June 19 Strange and Familiar Barbican Centre This is Britain as seen by 23 foreign photographers including CartierBresson, Robert Frank and Evelyn Hofer who catch the ordinary and not so ordinary man on the street. Silk Street EC2Y 8DS 020 7638 8891 Ends July 3 Deutsche Borse Photography Prize the Photographer’s Gallery The most prestigious photographic award exhibition which gives the £30,000 top prize for the best exhibition by a living photographer of any nationality. As usual, this year’s shortlist reflects the current concerns of migration, identity, and political turmoil. 16 - 18 Ramifies Street W1F7LW 020 7087 9300 Ends July 31 'Unseen City: Photos by Martin Parr Guildhall art Gallery Magnum photographer martin Parr records the pomp, ceremony and behind the scenes activities that go on behind-the-scenes in the City. He has documented life during the course of three Mayoral reigns. City of London Ec2P 2EJ 020 7606 3030 Ends August 14 Barjeel Art Foundation Collection: Imperfect Chronology Whitechapel Art Gallery Photography and video made between 1990 and 1998 including the work of Yto Barrada and the Lebanese artist dup Joana Hadjithomas anthill Joreige’s photographic series ‘Faces’ (2009). Whitechapel High Street E1 7QX 020 7522 7888
Fund raising event in aid of Il Circolo’s projects and charitable funds, featuring Italian Food, Jewellery, Home Décor, Cashmere, Leather Accessories, Beauty Products and much more. Entry: £3
ilcircolobazaar@gmail.com
Somerset House Over 500 of the best contemporary photographs including wildlife, landscapes, portraits and everyday life. The Strand WC2R 1LA 020 7845 4600
Registered Charity No.1108894
Ends September 26 Painting with Light: Art and Photography from the Pre-Raphaelites to the Modern Age Tate Britain A celebration of the relationship between early photography and British Art. 020 7887 8888
June 1 - June 6 Pele: The Collection Mall Galleries An exhibition and ultimately and auction to see and in some cases buy from a vast collection of memorabilia, his awards, personal property and iconic items: Over 2000 items to do with the amazing footballer. 17 Carlton House Terrace SW1Y 5BD 020 7930 6844 June 5 Breaking Stones 1963 - 1965 Proud Chelsea A band on the brink of superstardom photographed by Terry O’Neil which shows them in the formative years with candid shots on and off the stage. Keith Richards said, “Nobody knew at the time that 1963 was a pivotal year….” Social changes were happening with the young working class becoming the new artists in literature, music, and art. 161 King’s Road SW3 5XP 020 7349 0822 Ends May 6 Keiji Uematsu: Simon Force Simon Lee Gallery Ends May 7 Slim Aarons: Poolside Getty Images Ends May 8 Stephen Gill: Myeyefellout The Photographer’s Gallery
TRAFFIC WATCH London Home Football in May May 15 Arsenal v Aston Villa 16:00 May 15 Chelsea v Leicester City 15:00 Ladies London Home Football May 14 Arsenal v Chelsea, Wembley Stadium, FA Cup Final May 19 Chelsea v Man City 19:30 May 25 Chelsea v Sunderland 19:45
Games may go to extra time and take longer than 90 minutes. Full sports fixtures on page 69
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Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra SATURDAY 18TH JUNE
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THE STATE APARTMENTS VIP DINING BY RESTAURANT GORDON RAMSAY, ROYAL HOSPITAL ROAD & PETRUS
• FULLY SEATED AUDITORIUM SITUATED IN THE SIR CHRISTOPHER WREN DESIGNED COURTYARD • • BARS AND ARTISAN FOOD COURT SET WITHIN THE GROUNDS OF THE HOSPITAL, OPEN FROM 5PM •
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Doping in Sport at SCI TALKS May 11 How to: an Evening with Germaine Greer Conway Hall The How to Academy welcomes Germaine for an outspoken discussion about equality, gender, and sex in contemporary public and private life. The audience can ask all kinds of questions covering all kinds of subjects serious or frivolous. Book NOW. 6.45 8.00pm 25 Red Lion Square WC1R 4RL conwayhall.org.uk 020 7405 1818 May 11 Lunchtime lecture: From Bustles to Boxers V&A From luxury lingerie to the most everyday of objects, underwear combines the practical and personal with the sensory and fashionable: a brief history of Underwear by Susanna Cordner who will explore some of the innovations and anecdotes behind underwear from 1750 to today. 13.00-13.45 The Lydia and Manfred Gorvy Lecture Theatre Cromwell Road SW7 2RL 020 7942 2000
May 12 What Does Your Voice Say About You? Wellcome Collection Voices are unique; as soon as we open our mouths to speak we reveal a lot about ourselves - biology, status, geography, and state of mind. Take part in a discussion on the relationship between voice and identity. FREE Booking from April 29 183 Euston Road NW1 2BE 020 7611 2222 May 14 The Craft of Medicine: Illumination through Conversation Wellcome Collection What can a surgeon and a tailor learn from each other? According to Professor Roger Kneebone, more than you might think. A chance to mingle with clinicians and craftsmen and the Professor for an ‘unconventional day of informal conversation and even try some handiwork of your own. 11.00 - 17.00
May 18 Key Words St John’s Mahan Esfahani on the harpsichord with the help of the tenor Thomas Hobbs plays and explains the ways of the composer from Frescobaldi to Froberger and Cabezon to J.S. Bach have applied expressiveness and rhetoric of words to the keyboard and introduces C.P.E, Bach’s ‘Fantasia ‘with an unexpected Shakespearean connection.7.30 Smith Square SW1P 3AH 027222 1061 May 19 Art Music and Orientalism British Museum Writer and broadcaster Gavin Plumley and the pianist Sholto Kynoch discuss the wider impact of Orientalism in the early 19th century and the composers who were drawn to this subject including Berlioz, Widor, Franck and Saint-Saens. 1.00 - 1.45pm Sainsbury Wing Theatre Trafalgar Square WC2N 5DN May 21 A Day of Reflection Mediated through the poetry of George Herbert and Seamus Heaney.12.00 17.00 St Margaret’s Church Westminster Abbey May 25 - 27 Leonardo in Britain: Conference Birkbeck College, the National Gallery, and the Warburg Institute hold a a three-day conference, with each day, held at the different partner institutions. Explore the important role and impact of Leonardo’s paintings and drawings in key British private and public collections. For more info on time and place and cost visit Leonardo in Britain:collections and receptions Lunchtime Talks on the Courtauld Collection Starting at 1.15 the 15-minute talk is delivered by students at The Courtauld in front of the object or painting. Somerset House, The Strand WC2R ORN 020 7848 2777
Located on a leafy edge of Belgrave Square, nestled among the many embassies, SCI is a forum connecting science and business and advancing the commercial application of science for public benefit. Their evening lectures are free and open to all. Their latest lecture was entitled: Doping in Sport – what does the future look like? It was delivered by Prof David Mottram who is currently an education advisor for UK Anti-Doping and expert on the use of drugs in sport. He begins the lecture by asking whether we were all suitably performance enhanced after our caffeinated tea and coffee reception. With this he makes his point: drugs are pervasive. There has been a long standing culture of trying to find an edge in sport. The example Mottram offers is that of Tommy Simpson in 1967, who took Amphetamine and died whilst ascending Mont Ventoux in the Tour de France, in the process proving that performance enhancing drugs (PED) can be fatal. “Testing alone is not enough to lead the fight against doping in sport,” claims World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) President John Fahey. Mottram suggests that in the future, WADA need a four-fold focus to reduce the chances of athletes doping. Focusing on the
By Anna Bromley
RHS
LONDON
May 11 No Need for Geniuses The Royal Institution Steve Jones, professor of genetics at UCL takes a look at Paris at the time of the French Revolution when it was the world capital of science with the scholars who laid the foundations, in the age of the guillotine. 7.00 - 8.30 pm 21 Albemarle Street W1S 4BS 020 7409 2992
FREE Drop In 183 Euston Road NW1 2BE 020 7611 2222
supply and demand of drugs, new research, innovations in detection such as athlete biological passports, and raising awareness of WADA regulations to athletes and their personnel. There are some fascinating statistics that aren’t often highlighted in the media, by those who prefer to overemphasize the use of drugs in sport; engendering fear in athletes that they are the only ones not using. Out of 283,304 samples analyses in 2014 by WADA, 3,866 tested positive. This equates to 1.36% of athletes doping. These official statistics are unlikely to offer us an entire perspective. But still, I’d rather take stats over hyperbole any day. Nevertheless, Mottram concedes “I do fear for the future of sport.” Will we be watching sport or watching freak shows? “We’ll never stop cheating in sport, but we [WADA] owe it to the sports fans to keep fighting.” Doping in sport is not a new phenomenon, but still, the topic couldn’t be more relevant to today. SCI aim to be an inter-disciplinary forum, sharing “information, ideas, new innovations and research.” Both the content and the delivery of this lecture was excellent. If you’re interested in looking a little closer into topical matters, the next free, public, evening lecture hosted by SCI is with Prof Jack Winkler and Dr Robert Winwood entitled: Fat Lies, Thin Truths. Find out more by visiting www.soci. org or contact 020 7598 1500.
SHOWS
RHS London Rose Show 3-4 June Special guest: TV gardener and rose expert Rachel de Thame
Royal Horticultural Halls St James’s Park London Victoria Public entry £6 in advance, £9 on the door, RHS members free
rhs.org.uk/londonshows Compiled and edited by Leila Kooros with assistance by Fahad Redha and Guitty Peymanfard
RHS Registered Charity No: 222879/SC038262
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Arts & Culture
Left: Branch of West Indian Cherry with Achilles Morpho butterfly, 1702-3 Above: Grapevine with Vine Sphinx moth and satellite Sphinx moth. 1702-3
Maria Merian’s Butterflies Queen's Gallery. Buckingham Palace. Until 9th October. 2016
M
aria Merian, pioneer, artist and entomologist immortalised the amazing beauty, colour and the delicate designs of some of nature's most brilliant creations in her paintings and drawings. Butterflies at the Queen’s Gallery exhibits some of her brilliant work in a much needed retrospective, displayed on the dark blue walls. Maria Merian (1647-1717) was
German born and her family (who were originally Swiss) made their fortune as the founders of a publishing house. She was trained to paint by her stepfather, Jacob Marrel, a still life painter. Maria Merian’s first published book was of natural illustrations: Neues. Some years later after much study and painting, she was given a wonderful opportunity. Cornelis Van Aerssen Sommelsdijck, then Governor of the Dutch colony of Surinam in South America provided her with a grant to make a scientific visit to the colony to study insects and metamorphosis, her specialist subjects. She was accompanied by her artist daughter, Dorothea. At the time it was most unusual for women to travel to remote places. They were there for two years until ill health forced Maria to return home. She collected many specimens along with several important discoveries. She deserves credit for
having brought the wonders of South America to Europe in the early 18th century. In 1705 Merian’s momentous study, Metamorphoses Insectorum Surinamensium, was published. It contains fifty exquisite water colours and detailed records of the fauna and flora of Surinam. Luxury versions of the plates were acquired by George III and today they belong to the Royal Collection. Insects were not exactly popular at that time, much like today they were considered to be revolting. However, Merian proved, in her own words, “that they were not born of mud”. In her Pineapple with cockroaches she renders the cockroaches as almost attractive as they climb about the spiked, red leaves of the pineapple. (Pineapples were then seen as a fashionable luxury) The Exhibition reveals the full range of Maria’s unusual choice of muses:
Snakes, spiders, iguanas, lizards, tropical beetles and butterflies. She gave them all beauty. Nothing is revolting and the lizards are really quite endearing! The centrepieces of the fluttering butterflies are unfettered and free. Their intricately edged wings glow with colour and confirm Maria Merian’s status as a great artist. Merian’s greatest interest was metamorphosis, which she studied in depth, paying attention to the life cycles of both butterflies and moths. She found food for her insects and recorded the entire lifecycle of the Red Cracker butterfly. Her famous illustration; Frangipani Plant with Red Cracker Butterfly is on view. The Branch of an Unidentified Tree with the Menelaus Blue Morpho Butterfly shows Merian’s fixation off to fine advantage through intoxicatingly shining colouring. It is almost surpassed in beauty by Branch of West Indian Cherry with Achilles Morpho Butterfly, which has fine edging on its wings. A visitor to the exhibition would be advised to keep an eye out for gallery highlight Cassava with White Peacock Butterfly and young golden Tegu. The golden Tegu Lizard is native to Surinam, one of the largest varieties in the world, aggressive and agile. It feels most appropriate to display a copy of Ovid’s narrative poem, Metamorphoses, which chronicles the history of the world with metamorphosis serving as its the unifying theme, telling of many myths where forms are changed into new entities. This splendid Exhibition gives a wonderful opportunity to evaluate the work of the great Lepidopterist, Maria Merian. Marian Maitland
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Kensington, Chelsea & Westminster Today
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Arts & Culture
Scottish Artists. 1750-1900. From Caledonia to the Continent. Queen's Gallery. Buckingham Palace. Until 9th October. 2016
Meet nurse for a poetic child! Land of brown heath and shaggy wood, Land of the mountain and the flood, Land of my Sires! What mortal hand Can e'er untie the filial band That knits me to thy rugged strand. From The Lay of the Last Minstrel by Walter Scott.
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ome Scottish artists never left the land of their Sires and they painted its glorious scenery. Others left its rugged strand, travelled overseas and painted foreign places. There were those who did both. Their paintings, drawings
and miniatures have been brought together at this ambitious Exhibition at the Queen’s Gallery. Monarchs from George III to Queen Victoria admired and acquired their work and many treasures are now owned by the Royal Collection. The Exhibition shows how their work represented the Scottish Enlightenment and the emergence of an individual School of Scottish Art. The Scottish landscape was their inspiration, together with literature and folklore, and it was characterized by naturalness and being true to life. The artists were influential and they had royal patronage. Queen Victoria and Prince Albert saw their roles as Patrons of the Arts as a duty of Monarchy. Birthday and Christmas presents exchanged by them were often paintings by Scottish artists. Queen Victoria loved Scottish scenery. In the 19th century some artists travelled to Europe and the East. An artist, David Wilkie, referred to the “wild, unpoached game reserve of Europe.” Their paintings of these areas are vivid and exotic. Some artists specialised in the development of the miniature during the 19th century. Robert Thorburn and
mourning black. David Roberts was the first independent artist to travel to the Middle East, visiting Egypt, Syria, Palestine and Nubia. His View of Cairo in the Exhibition is atmospheric. Queen Victoria commissioned two of his Spanish works, A View of Toledo and the River Tagus and The Fountain on the Prado, Madrid. Roberts had worked as a scenery painter for theatres in London which helped him to portray the monumental proportions of Egyptian monuments, towns and desert vistas. He had an ingenuous choice of viewpoint. Images courtesy of Royal Collection Trust © Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2016
Kenneth Macleay are famous names. There are several paintings by Allan Ramsay in the Exhibition. He was significant in Europe travelling to Rome and Naples. After his commission to paint George III’s state portrait, he was the first Scot to be appointed to the role of Principal Painter in Ordinary to his Majesty. His portraits show grace and excellent draughtsmanship and reveal French elegance and soft colours. It has been said his flesh painting is a little hard and has opacity. Two of his greatest works are on view, George III in his sumptuous, gold Coronation costume and robes captures his power and authority. Queen Charlotte with her two Eldest Sons is a perfect composition and the detail of her pink dress is simply amazing. The painting combines grandeur and family intimacy. Sir David Wilkie is well represented in the Exhibition. He was successful at home and abroad. His early works are mostly scenes of everyday life owing a debt to the Dutch Flemish genre. He had a gift for rendering character. He favoured subdued colours and excelled at silvery grey skies. Following foreign travel his style changed, becoming richer and fuller as he was influenced by the Italian masters; also Diego Velasquez and other great Spanish artists. His colours became more powerful. An early work, The Penny Wedding is on view, also Blind Man’s Buff both showing family life. His most famous work, The Entrance of George IV to Holyroodhouse is displayed. This depicts the first visit to Scotland by an English Monarch for two hundred years; a momentous occasion represented by a powerful painting. This long gap hardly contributed to cementing the union of the English and Scottish crowns. Another very important painting by Wilkie is The First Council of Queen Victoria which she attended on the same morning as her Accession. An earlier study for it is on view. She was annoyed Wilkie portrayed her in a white dress when she was actually wearing her
He was interested in the permanence of a place not transient atmospheres. Interest in Spanish culture is further reflected in the Exhibition by John Phillip’s A Spanish Gipsy Mother, a poignant mother and child painting and his Letter Writer of Seville. His work is fluent and colourful. Later he followed the style of Millais. Examples of James Giles’ work are exhibited; A View of Balmoral and A view of Lochnagar. Both are brilliant depictions of Scottish scenery with its brown heath, shaggy wood, mountain and flood. However, travel gave artists a taste for classic landscape painting. Being versatile he also did portrait painting. His skies over Venice and Florence are spectacular and his moonlight effect in the Borghese Garden live on in one’s memory. Other great names among the Scottish artists are Alexander Nasmyth, William Dyce, William Ross, Robert Adam and Peter Graham. The latter’s works, Caledonia, Stern and Wild and O'er Moor and Moss epitomise Scotland. The Scottish artists saw beauty at home and abroad and captured the heart and soul of different races. Did their hearts burn when they turned for home after wandering on a foreign strand? Marian Maitland
May 2016
Arts & Culture
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British Museum Until 14 August 2016 Admission £10 britishmuseum.org/sicily
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by Roger from the Arab cartographer Muhammad al-Idrisi. Sicily continued to flourish and was later ruled by Roger’s grandson Frederick II, who was also Holy Roman Emperor, but based his court in Palermo. In the light of history, Sicily flourished as a Mediterranean power and cultural centre only when it was ruled by someone who was actually on the island, and not by some absentee potentate from another land. Earlier,
one of the most enlightened rulers was Hieron II, who tried to unify Greek Sicilians, a patron of poets, writers and scientists, including one of the most famous of them all, the Syracuse-born Archimedes, who actually uttered one of the most well-known lines in the history of science on the island. For much of the Greek period, the settlements on the island were run by quasi-democratic tyrannoi, tyrants, who indulged in the ostentatious sport of chariot-racing, the Greek equivalent of Formula 1, of which there is a fine marble relief of a charioteer and his four-horse chariot from 400 BC. When Rome conquered the island in 241 BC, it used the might of its navy, and on display is a bronze battering-ram from one of its ships, only recently excavated from the west coast. Because there were no minerals or marble on the island, everything was imported, initally, from Greece, although Concordia, one of the finest Greek Temples in the world in Akragas - modern-day Agrigenta was constructed of a golden sandstone that positively glows in the evening sun. The largest Doric temple ever constructed in antiquity, the Temple of Zeus, also in the Valley of the Temples, was one and a half times the length of the Parthenon. The Sicilian craftsmen also used terracotta to great effect, and one example is a roof ornament from about 500 BC showing a Gorgon, the notorious female Greek monster,s having a very bad hair day. Another Greek piece is an imported marble statue from ancient Agrigento - of a scarylooking helmeted warrior. When under the rule of Rome, Sicily’s role was primarily that of being the bread-basket of the Med, supplying its population and armies with grain, grown in the rich volcanic soil around Mount Etna. It was the Arabs who introduced new crops, including oranges, cotton and sugar cane, which revolutionised agriculture, and the Greeks introduced grapevines as well as olives, and the island became famous for its wine, particularly Marsala. Sicily is not noted for her painters, other than Antonella das Messina, who is represented by one on loan from The National Gallery, a delightful Virgin and Child. There is certainly more to Sicily than honey, lemons, the slap-head detective Montalbano, Di Lampedusa’s The Leopard, Greek ruins better than any ruins in Greece, the Cosa Nostra and a stonking great volcano. The exhibition is presented in quite an academic way, but has some some fascinating and surprising objects, and could just fill that awkward gap between the Greeks and the Italians. Don Grant
Images © British Museum
online: www.KCWToday.co.uk
Sicily: Culture and Conquest
lthough I am still learning, and will hopefully continue to do so, there are enormous gaps in my education, particualar about history of art - great chasms of ignorance that open up like a Dantesque infernal view of the abyss. Well, thank goodness for the British Museum, who have ridden to the rescue in Selene’s chariot. So, every schoolboy knows that the Normans invaded Britain in AD1066 with William the Conqueror at the helm, but how many schoolboys, or even grownups, know that they went to Sicily five years earlier and invaded this strategic island, the largest in the Mediterranean, and conquered it all by AD1091 and ruled it for two hundred years? From the 7th century BC, the Greeks had ruled Sicily, and Byzantium regained Sicily from the Goths in 535 BC, while the Roman Empire continued in the east as Byzantium, with Constantinople as its capital. Other than the Goths, many more would tramp across its fertile soil, including the Phoenicians, Romans, Carthaginians or Punic settlers, who lost to the Romans in the Sicilian Wars of 265-146 BC, Vandals, Byzantine Christians, Byzantine Greeks, Muslim Arabs, Jewish and Norman people. It has been a melting pot for 4,000 years, and, under the rule of King Roger II (can one really take seriously a king called Roger?), it became a centre for cross-cultural exchange and made it a major European power. Under Roger an extraordinary mélange of Arab and Norman architecture emerged, as well as sculpture, jewellery, Norman mosaics and textiles, and Sicily was envied for its wealth and cultural patronage. One of the stars of the show is the glorious 12th-century Byzantine-style mosaic of the Virgin Mary from Palermo cathedral. As a mark of respect for the four cultures and religions at the time, a marble, porphyry and glass tombstone (1149) has a funerary eulogy written in the JudaeoArabic spoken by medieval Sicilian Jews, Latin, Greek and Arabic. Roger also welcomed scholars to his court from all over the Mediterranean, including Egypt and North Africa, and took a genuine interest in scientific innovation. One highlight of the show is one of the oldest surviving copies of a new world map commissioned
Kensington, Chelsea & Westminster Today
Temple of Concordia © Regione Siciliana
020 7738 2348
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May April/May 2016 2011
Kensington, Chelsea & Westminster Today
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CLASSICAL MUSIC BY JAMES DOUGLAS
The Complete Chopin Cycle
Warren Mailley-Smith The Four Ballades St John’s Smith Square 8 April 2016 (Half past six preconcert events and then half past seven 29 April, 27 May, 17 June, and 15 July 2016)
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here’s good and differently good. Warren Mailley-Smith’s The Four Ballades was differently good. I hope there’s a heaven; if I’m in I’ll ask Mozart his views on Chopin. Mozart would like Chopin very much, and Chopin would have enjoyed the beauty, sensitivity and intellectual nous that Warren Mailley-Smith brought to his performance on this the seventh of his eleven night Complete Chopin Cycle marathon. (Three million notes usually flat out in complex arrangements by the greatest virtuoso composer-musician … from memory, in front of an informed audience that will recognise every bum note.) The Cycle, like so much of SJSS’s recent output has been an unqualified five-star success, and we now see Mailley-Smith entering the home straight, on the cams, full chat, tape in sight, entering stage right with all the swagger of a performer in his prime greeting a huge turnout expectant and onside. In an era of virtuoso pianists which included his friend Franz Liszt, and of which the ultra-flamboyant Mozart and his older sister Maria Anna had been pioneers, Chopin, generally recognised as the most gifted of them all, was usually restrained, delicacy of touch reflecting fragility of health. For one glorious night Warren Mailley-Smith put together an incandescent programme that blew the audience’s socks off. The tone of the evening was set by the positively acrobatic and quite delightful polonaise infused multiple-key Bolero in C. Chatting from centre stage with the ease of a Fry or a Bowie, Warren described the Mazurkas “showing off Chopin’s intense and unique harmony”, continuing his championship of the Mazurkas so often overshadowed by the Nocturnes, the Studies, and the Preludes,
turning symphonic sequence on its head opening with the dramatic No31 in A flat and closing with the reflective No35 in C Minor. The choice of order of the Mazurkas was exquisite on hearing them as a group, and must have been considered. I put it to Warren that it couldn’t have been coincidence that he stuck to the order in which they were written: Recognised as fundamental, the Mazurkas have not been neglected but they do need to be fine-tuned when played as a block. I have spent more time ordering the fifty-eight Mazurkas over the eleven nights than anything else. They lend themselves to a wide range of interpretation each with its own stamp, a unique fusion of traditional sounds and rhythms. The biggest challenge for the pianist is finding the individual voice and colour during the one-shot opportunity to persuade the audience there is variety within strict rhythmical constraints. Given the importance Chopin gave to the Mazurkas it’s not surprising that they evolved so that any given block will fall naturally to be played in chronological order. The first half closed with a rare treat. As Mailley-Smith explained in his urbane and erudite conversational manner the Rondeau in C Op73 was
originally composed for two pianos. 29 April’s pre-concert event will include the two piano version and while these somewhat overlooked pieces are being played of necessity they should nevertheless be regarded in their exuberance as essential to an understanding of their complex composer’s life and times. Mailley-Smith
goes further: While the return for similar technical demands isn’t the same as it is for say the Ballades, once the Rondeaus are under your fingers you can feel Chopin’s youthful delight in the ease with which he would have played his own music. The advantage of The Complete Chopin Cycle is that it forces out what have become hidden gems like the Rondeaus and the Bolero. So, the first half closed on joyful virtuosity for the hell of it. Following the interval the main feast, The Ballades. Mazurka-schmazurka. Roll out the big beasts. Perhaps the greatest sustained genius of composition and exposition I’ve ever heard. Mailley-Smith’s engaging manner was once again highlighted as he returned to his seat, setting himself to open with Ballade no.1 in G minor op.23 (1835) before returning front-stage for another chat. Echoing what I’d already noted Warren said once again that although ending up with chronological order (reflecting as do the Mazurkas the purity of Chopin’s own musical evolution) he’d given a lot of thought to ordering The Ballades deciding in the end to break the intensity after Ballade No.2 in F op.38 (1839) with Largo in E-Flat, Op. posth. Chatting to Warren after the show we agreed that The Ballades have an effervescent hallucinogenic quality, dancing on the aural palate like Tobermory Scotch. With the Largo calming like a water-biscuit the opening intensity ratchets up with Ballade No.3 in Ab op.47 (1841) while of the final Ballade No.4 in F minor op.52 (184243) John Ogden said it is “the most exalted, intense and sublimely powerful of all Chopin's compositions... It is unbelievable that it lasts only twelve minutes, for it contains the experience of a lifetime”. Warren had seriously considered spreading The Ballades each one of which is sufficiently dramatic to close four evenings: In the end I decided to do what I’ve done elsewhere in the programme. Having decided to play them as a block albeit with the Largo break I knew I had to pace myself. With works as intense as emotionally and technically demanding as any in the standard repertoire there is a very real danger of burning oneself out. It needs real stamina to take on Chopin at the physical and intellectual peak of his art. The Four Ballades, which reference lightly throughout a fusion of the Nocturnes and the Studies, are the very peak of poetic virtuosity. They need to be approached with due trepidation particularly as they are the most familiar. Successfully executed together they make for the most enjoyable programme. A packed St John’s Smith Square agreed. As for Mull’s dictum which seems to be doing the rounds: please let me carry on writing about music; I’ll commit more to dance about architecture.
Photographs © Warren Mailley-Smith
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Photographs © Wellcome Collection
online: www.KCWToday.co.uk
This is a Voice Wellcome Collection Until 31 July 2016 wellcomecollection.org/ thisisavoice
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his is a Voice is yet another innovative exhibition staged by the Wellcome, following on from States of Mind, Sexology, Forensics and the Anatomy of Crime and Tantric Buddhism. Mainly drawing on their own collection, they have also borrowed objects and artworks from the Science Museum, the British Library, and the Pitt Rivers and Fitzwilliam Museums. The human voice is, as the guide states, the original instrument, and is more energy than object, and more force than form. It relies on a power source (breath), a vibratory source (vocal chords) and resonators (throat, mouth and nasal passages), which, when articulated by the tongue, palate and lips, give it a character as individual as a fingerprint. It is both elusive in its nature, as well as being beautiful, rich, threatening, coaxing and soothing, and something that can induce fear or laughter. The exhibition designers have created a number of chambers into which visitors can go, either to sing a single note in a professional recording booth, which is added to a chorus of others, or to listen to three different vocal types used to simulate the castrato voice. The most fascinating display, however, is that produced by Marcus Coates, entitled Dawn Chorus. With the help of a sound engineer and an animal behaviourist, he recorded the dawn chorus using multiple microphones, which he then slowed down 16 times and asked 19 people to imitate the different birdsongs, from a robin and a blackbird to a chiff-chaff and a yellowhammer He then speeded them back up to reach the true pitch of the birds, and the result is quite remarkable, in how close the human voice is to that of birds. There are literally dozens of headsets dotted about, with directional speakers,
playing anything from a 90-minute film by Ted Kotcheff called The Human Voice and starring Ingrid Bergman as a woman having an interrupted telephone conversation with her ex-lover, to a Laurie Anderson video called O Superman of her experimenting with a synthetic voice recorder. Billie Whitelaw’s disembodied mouth is filmed delivering Samuel Beckett’s monologue Not I from 1973, while, in another looped video, a computer is constantly re-dubbing a Woody Allen clip, which evolves from gibberish to New York Jewish and back. This being the Wellcome, there is a plethora of medical manuscripts, diagrams, books, ethnographic photographs, prints and specimens, including a sequence about sign language and the deaf and blind American author and lecturer Helen Keller. The whole exhibition is broken down into five main sections, starting with a soundproofed anechoic chamber, and leading visitors through Voice is the Original Instrument, Melodic Contours, The Strains of the Voice, Egophony and The Unlocated Voice, dealing with ventriloquism, robotics. and a machine from 1939 called the Vodor, which could generate the human voice electronically. One small grouse about the graphic design is the illegibility of the captions; some of which are barely readable due
to poor lighting, poorer positioning and the use of an indistinct and particularly small typeface. At one point, I was on my knees, peering at one, two foot from the ground, using the torch on my iPhone to try and read about Asta Gröting’s Inner Voice film.
Edward Johnston, the designer of the typeface for London Underground exactly 100 years ago, gave a lecture on signwriting in which he emphasised the necessity of ‘Readableness, Beauty & Character’. It’s that simple. Don Grant
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Kensington, Chelsea & Westminster Today
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Nabucco
Royal Opera House 6-30 June Tickets £10-£185
My Mother Said I Never Should By Charlotte Keatley St James Theatre Until 21 May 2016 www.tinyfires.co.uk
The opening scene of this tight drama, where four adults scream onto the stage as children, sent a little frisson down my spine, with memories of Colin Welland’s large bottom shoehorned into a pair of boy’s shorts in Dennis Potter’s chilling Blue Remembered Hills back in 1979. Before this, as the audience were taking their seats, the soundtrack was all about female empowerment, with tracks like Who Runs the World? from Beyoncé, Frankie Valli’s Big Girls Don’t Cry and Respect by Aretha Franklin, and it transpired that Keatley’s play, written in 1989, is the most widely performed by a female playwright. Can that mean in the world? Sexual equality and motherhood are at the heart of this four-hander, which, is, in turn, poignant, funny, raw and desperately sad. It charts four generations of females, as they struggle with marriage, relationships, parenthood, single motherhood and attitudes to women, as the play hops about across the decades. Each of the actresses (actors?)
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n the horror and confusion of conflict, friend and enemy can become indistinguishable. This tension is explored in Verdi’s epic opera Nabucco, which comes to the Royal Opera House stage this June. The opera follows Nabucco, King of
makes her role her own as they grow up. Thankfully, all the children do except one, Rosie (Serena Manteghi), who exudes an irritating energy whatever her age. Doris the grandmother figure, played by Maureen Lipman with a combination of pathos and acerbity, has some tremendous put-down lines, which suits her comic timing to perfection. Margaret (Caroline Faber) is obsessed with her career, but takes over the role of mother, when her daughter, Jackie (Katie Brayben), becomes pregnant, and brings Rosie up as her second daughter, unbeknownst to her. The second act has been cranked up to the ‘will-she-won’tshe?’ denouement between mother and daughter, with Jackie wanting to reveal all when Rosie reaches sixteen, while Margaret is very much against it. The tensions and resentments simmer away on the back-burner, while there are still a couple of
Babylon, who believes he is god. This power leads him to wage war on the Hebrews and capture Jerusalem, only to be struck down by a lightning bolt. His daughter Fenena takes the opportunity to release the Hebrew prisoners from capture, including her lover Ismaele. Meanwhile, her half-sister Abigaille tricks the king into signing a death warrant for all Hebrews, including Fenena and Ismaele, in a vengeful plot to claim power for herself. Nabucco must decide who to trust, and attempt to restore his health and sense of humanity. Based on biblical stories from the Book of Jeremiah and the Book of Daniel and Auguste Anicet-Bourgeois and Francis Cornue’s play, Nabucco is widely accepted as the start of Giuseppe Verdi’s artistic career. After the failure of his previous opera, Un giorno di regno and the death of his wife and two infant children, he had vowed never to compose again. However, a chance encounter with La Scala Milan’s impresario Bartolomeo Merelli persuaded him to eventually start working on Nabucco. The opera opened to hugely successful reviews in 1842 at Teatro alla Scala, Milan, and eventually reached London four years later under the title Nino, as the depiction of biblical characters on stage was deemed inappropriate. Following Nabucco’s success, Verdi went on to compose works
such as Il trovatore, La traviata, Don Carlo, Otello and Falstaff. Daniele Abbado’s production updates the setting of Nabucco, bringing the story into the second half of the 20th century to explore its continual relevance. Alongside conductors Maurizio Benini and Renato Balsadonna, Abbado ensures that the epic story receives grand musical treatment. The many numbers portraying the conflicting Babylonians and Hebrews ensure that the Royal Opera Chorus play an especially prominent part, including the aria Va pensiero, the Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves, which is considered to be Italy’s unofficial national anthem. The title role is shared by two of today’s most renowned Verdi baritones. Plácido Domingo returns to the role after making his debut in 2013 to critical acclaim at the age of 72. He shares the role with Greek Dimitri Platanias, who most recently performed in Cavalleria Rusticana and Pagliacci in December. They are joined by Liudmyla Monastyrska and, making her Royal Opera debut, Tatiana Melnychenko in the dramatic soprano role of Abigaille.
surprise turns before the end. Maureen Lipman, a few weeks short of her seventieth birthday, is always watchable, playing a range of ages from a timid but energetic five-year old, to a wise old gran in her, well, seventies. The set design is what an architect would call minimalist, but to anyone else, unfurnished, with a grand piano reduced to three turned legs, and numerous flickering period TV sets dotted about the stage, showing various clips from newsreels and TV shows
across the years, to establish some sort of chronology, which does dart all over the place at times. I did sympathise with some members of the audience, sitting in the front row, as they had television sets placed on the edge of the stage a mere foot or so from their eyeline. As the lights came up, we exited to Someone Like You by Adele, with the line ‘Sometimes it lasts in love but sometimes it hurts instead’ echoing in one’s head. Don Grant
www.roh.org.uk/nabucco T: +44 (0)20 7304 4000 Mon-Sat 10am-8pm.
Serena Manteghi and Maureen Lipman
Photograph © Royal Opera House
Arts & Culture
May 2016
Arts & Culture The Winter’s Tale
eing at the helm of The Royal Ballet is like being the Captain of a cruise liner. You steer the vessel majestically knowing that most of your working day you’re only really tinkering at the edges to keep your audience sitting comfortably and on a predetermined
path to their chosen destination. A journey of entertainment but taking risks isn’t an option. Now this is where artistic directors have to be different if they want to put their stamp on the artistic future of a dance company. Monica Mason’s directorship of The Royal Ballet was what was required at the time… steadying the ship. Kevin O’Hare is quietly ambitious and not one to make waves but he is very brave and will, in decades to come, be seen as someone who actually made a difference and was happy to push the boat out to alter the course of history! MacMillan’s Romeo & Juliet was created in 1965 for The Royal Ballet. Fifty years later Christopher Wheeldon’s Winter’s Tale is the next Shakespeare ballet to be created for the company. Like MacMillan’s piece a ‘Classic’ is born. We should celebrate Wheeldon’s genius! Not surprisingly it is a complicated plot but Wheeldon is the master of the narrative ballet: engaging the dancers and audience alike with his ability to tell such a complex story with a beginning, middle and end that has a shape and focus so important in a full length work; creating a ballet that audiences will want to see again and again defining it as a true Classic. Winter’s Tale had the same opening
with assurance as she stepped in for the injured Laura Morera; finally the corps de ballet danced like their lives depended on it, bringing joy and refreshingly colourful exuberance to light up the stage with Wheeldon’s clever cocktail of playful patterns in the village scene. Wheeldon skillfully surrounds himself with a creative team putting the pieces together to create a puzzle that sets this full length as a ‘Classic’ that will see the test of time: music by John Talbot, whose score has glorious melodies in Act 2 as well as percussion that matches the anguish as the drama unfolds, with Lecontes’ jealous rage burning for all to see in Act 1; designs by Bob Crowley with his iconic Oak tree in Act 2 laying down its roots to secure the perfect backdrop for Wheeldon’s masterly divertissement to shine brightly, with Natasha Katz’s lighting designs at their best. Like all Classics the production could be tinkered with at the edges. Wheeldon’s choreography works on so many levels including from the amphitheatre but the projections onto the silk screens only show you half the story from ‘the Gods’ when the ship sets sail. Treat yourself to a balcony seat or better so you can see all the scenery for the whole voyage!
Photograph © Johan Persson
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online: www.KCWToday.co.uk cast as the world premiere in 2014. The second night saw numerous outstanding performances showing that The Royal Ballet has several rosters of world class dancers: Marianela Nuñez danced with sublime authority as Hermione; Valeri Hristov as Polixenes and Bennet Gartside as Lecontes both danced with purpose and precision like any leading actor at the RSC; Vadim Muntagirov showed his virtuosity as he soared through the spring time festival as Folrizel in Act 2; Beatrice Stix-Brunell with her stunning beauty gave a youthful feel to her role as Perdita making a perfect partnership with Muntagirov in Act 2; Itziar Mendizabal danced Paulina
A Classic is born! By Andrew Ward
Kensington, Chelsea & Westminster Today
She Said
By Andrew Ward
ENB Artistic Director and ballerina Said She has never danced in a ballet created by a woman. So she decided to reverse this and She Said was born. A PR coup for Rojo, creating a buzz before, during and after the event! Three very different choreographers took to the stage to create an evening of dance that engaged the audience but importantly attracted a new audience too! Walking from Angel Tube to Sadler’s Wells I was asked by a group of ladies in their mid 20s where the theatre was. They admitted they had never been to the ballet before but they had heard about She Said and booked straight away. Broken Wings, choreographed by Annabelle Lopez Ochoa, opened the evening with a work on the life of Frida Kahlo. Rojo wanted a piece based on a female figure in history or literature. Annabelle’s Belgian-Columbian roots and affinity with Latin American culture made it easy for her to decide on Kahlo. A volatile life full of illness, tragedy, torment and suffering took Kahlo to painting as a means to express and release her anguish for all to see. This roller coaster ride of emotions was a perfect match for Tamara Rojo to play the lead role. Kahslo’s husband Diego Rivera, also a painter, was danced by Irek Mukhamedov. At 56, Mukhamedov has not lost his ability to partner and command an audience. Begoña Cao danced flirtatiously for an all too brief moment as Diego’s mistress. As second cast to Rojo, Cao danced the lead role at
the matinée. As an accomplished prima ballerina Cao has an artistic engagement that draws in an audience akin to Lynn Seymour. M-Dao, choreographed by Yabin Wang was a piece based on the Greek story of Medea giving it a very different feel to the first piece. The under current and inspiration of this next piece came from a saying in China “A Woman is like the ocean. Because the ocean may look quiet and peaceful on the surface, underneath the currents could be roaring and turbulent”. Lauretta Summerscales, recently promoted to Principal, danced with surprising maturity for her young years. Fantastic Beings, choreographed by Aszure Barton, ended the evening with a plotless ballet that was very much a group dance with nobody standing out from the crowd except some fleeting moments from the ever stylish Ksenia Ovsyanick. The ensemble danced with a deep intensity that defied gravity at times. The middle section was let down by poor lighting on stage, so even if you wanted to see who was who it was not possible. The finale raised the barre with all the dancers on top form working up a frenzy to end with something to talk about gauging from the buzz in the audience as they left their seats! The evening collectively was top notch. The first piece would be perfect if ENB could find a sponsor to upgrade this piece to a full length work. Rojo is making noises in the ballet world and deserves support so that she, like O’Hare, can put a much needed Classic on the stage. Rojo has commissioned Akram Khan to create a modern day version of the iconic Giselle for the start of the new season. She Said has the mileage to be an on-going launch pad for female choreographers to have their voices heard. Rojo should be applauded for thinking outside of the box! Photograph © ENB
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Arts & Culture REVIEWS
80 Days
Price: 6.99 Available on Steam
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Photograph © Inkle
’ve introduced 80 Days to four different people so far, and watching their expression shift, slowly admittedly, from scepticism towards surprise and then excitement has been almost as rewarding as playing the game itself. It’s not often said, but writing about games is only ever something you want to do because you want to share these experiences, to criticise and evangelize in turn, and engage people in something they otherwise would ignore or be unaware of. In the course of two weeks, 80 Days has given me more stories than any other game I can think of in the past couple of years. There’s the pirate airship that tried to kidnap Fogg and me on the way to Berlin. The world champion boxer I sparred with on the Transcontinental train across America. The accidental boarding of a ship that was supposed to go to Chittagong, but ended up with me in Singapore, somewhere I had not researched, had definitely not prepared for, and had no idea how to proceed from. 80 Days does something that is wholly new, wrapped in a format that is wholly familiar. It’s vignettes, miniature novellas woven together into a narrative that encircles the globe, and keeps the constant pressure of time in the back of your mind. You are Passepartout, the
valet of the famous Phileas Fogg, and you have to organise and accompany him around the world before the eponymous 80 days are up, so that he can win a wager and the better part of £20,000. What makes 80 Days so good is the simultaneous use of self-contained plots which can also slip in and out of the greater narrative, giving you as much freedom as possible while also filling the world with engaging stories. Inkle Studios, the game’s developer, have created in their own version of the late 19th Century; filled with automatons, airships, mechanical horses and walking cities.This even extends to the way that the mechanical elements weave into the narrative. 80 Days is played mostly through three interfaces; you have your luggage, which can be filled with travelling clothes (sold and bought for each appropriate climate, from the Russian cold to the African heat), you have your map, where you select your route as well as pay for tickets and embark on trips, and you have the stories that happen, told through text and riddled with branching paths, where you can not only select what your Passepartout will say, but also quite often dictate the events of the story. So perhaps you have entered the dining car of the Orient Express, and 80 Days will present you with a choice of whether you saw an elderly gentleman or a young lady, or perhaps no one at all. What this does is make it very clear, from a fairly early point, that this is about your choice as a player, at every turn, rather than you simply making choices along a predestined path. It’s that freedom that makes 80 Days feel instantly compelling, pushing you through a narrative that is, yes, pre-written, but with such a range of variety that you never feel as though it’s the same story as any other player is experiencing.
Midnight Special
In the opening scene of Midnight Special, two armed men sneak a boy out of a motel room and into a customized ’72 Chevelle before peeling off into the dusk. The mulberry sky turns blue-gray with twilight, and then pitch black. The driver hits a toggle switch wired behind the steering wheel, cutting off the headlamps and taillights. The car disappears into the darkness. It will be about 40 minutes before the viewer even finds out how the men, Roy (Michael Shannon) and Lucas ( Joel Edgerton), know each other, though by then they will have ditched the Chevelle for a plumber’s white Ford Econoline van and, later, an Isuzu Trooper. Midnight Special is very particular about its cars, just as it’s very particular about its setting; the gas stations, motels, and workingclass suburbs of the Bible Belt; and the
by the score’s piano motif, a repeated bum-dum-da-dee-da-dee-da-du-da-du. It is plainspoken in its treatment of the fantastic. It knows its metaphors. Take the Chevelle. Its unfinished coat of primer gray betrays it as a project car, which is to say, the kind of thing a man puts off, presuming he’ll have all the time to finish it, and then finds himself pressed to use. Perhaps one could even read the movie’s odyssey of cars as a play on its theme of parental responsibility: the dream car, never to be finished, swapped for a work van and then a mid-size SUV. The bad guys trace it through an insurance bill left on a kitchen counter, because even Midnight Special’s sense of conspiracy is grounded in the commonplace. The only explicitly poetic line the movie allows itself is spoken by the cult’s neckless goon, played by character actor Bill Camp. Sitting in his truck, he says, “I was an electrician, certified in two states. What do I know of these things?” This is the most the viewer will ever learn about him. Midnight Special defines characters through what they can’t understand, contrasting fear of the unknown with
cautious speech of its characters. In every other respect, Jeff Nichols’ compelling sci-fi chase film is terse and elliptical, showing little and telling less. It was Nichols’ sophomore feature, Take Shelter, that first brought attention to the writer-director. It starred Shannon as a construction worker in Lorain County, Ohio, who is troubled by visions of an impending apocalypse. The film introduced Nichols’ unique take on contemporary Americana; it was part Old Testament, part psychological character study, set in a flat landscape dotted with propane tanks and pickup trucks. Midnight Special, nominally about a supernaturally gifted child pursued by the government and by a Texas doomsday cult, is more of a genre piece than anything Nichols has done, carried by its steady momentum and its engrossing sense of mystery. It has car crashes, shoot-outs, and bursts of digital effects, but is carefully minimized, its mood set and sustained
faith in it, and flipping the supernatural into a metaphor for the everyday. “You don’t have to worry about me,” says the boy late in the film. “I like worrying about you,” responds Roy, succinctly and poignantly defining the best of parenthood in a single line of dialogue. The parents’ relationship to Alton is Midnight Special’s destination, and it’s carried there by Nichols’ measured style and an embarrassment of wonderful performances: Edgerton’s laconic but complicated Lucas; David Jensen’s small role as a fellow exile from the Ranch; Driver’s funny, sympathetic Sevier; and Dunst’s Sarah, who seems secondary at first, but becomes the emotional focus of the final act, unexpectedly conveying tumult and catharsis in a single climactic reaction shot. Midnight Special’s ending dispels much of its potent mystery and tension; it risks coming off as ridiculous to try for the transcendent. There are many moments when it reaches it.
Director: Jeff Nichols Running Time: 111 minutes
Photograph © Entertainment One
Feldman MAX
May 2016
Arts & Culture
Kensington, Chelsea & Westminster Today
online: www.KCWToday.co.uk
Photograph © Sony Pictures Classics
People Places & Things Wyndham Theatre Until June 4th Tickets from £17.75
Miles Ahead
Director: Don Cheadle Running Time: 100 minutes Virtually every biopic about a creative genius suffers from the same fundamental problem: creative genius doesn’t lend itself well to dramatization. If the subject is a famous writer, for example, there’s not much excitement in showing her tapping away at a keyboard (or staring glumly into space, which is what writers do most of the time). Movies about actors and musicians are generally a bit more dynamic, since there’s an element of performance involved, but they also suffer much more from the limits of impersonation. These inherent drawbacks force biopics to largely ignore their subjects’ actual work, which is to say, the reason why anyone was interested in them in the first place, in favor of their personal lives, the details of which rarely transcend cliché. So give Don Cheadle credit for innovation, at least: His Miles Davis biopic (which he directed, co-wrote, and stars in), Miles Ahead, tackles the problem head-on… by inventing cinematic things for Davis to do when he’s not playing music, including ludicrous car chases and gunfights. Cheadle goes so far as to set the film’s present-tense narrative sometime during the late 1970s, when Davis was essentially retired (and living on a massive retainer from his label, Columbia Records). Wandering about his New York apartment in a drug-fueled haze, he does little apart from make angry calls to radio stations playing his old work and hallucinate visions of his exwife, Frances (Emayatzy Corinealdi), though there’s a single reel-to-reel tape of recent session work, which Columbia is understandably eager to acquire. That tape eventually turns into the movie’s MacGuffin after a Rolling Stone reporter named Dave Braden (Ewan McGregor) shows up at Davis’ door, saying that he’s been assigned to write the musician’s big comeback story. Braden tries to steal the tape at one point, but it instead winds up
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in the hands of another trumpet player’s sinister manager (Michael Stuhlbarg), who plans to… sell it on the black market? Wait several decades and sell it to Martin Shkreli? It’s not really clear. In interviews, Cheadle has said that he intended this almost wholly fictional storyline (even Braden, the Rolling Stone writer, is made up) to capture an idea of Miles Davis, as a welcome alternative to the usual practice of merely skimming over a few biographical highlights. That’s admirable in theory, and it sort of works for a little while, though Cheadle hedges his bets with repeated flashbacks to Davis in the ’40s and ’50s, material that’s focused mostly on his tempestuous relationship with Frances, and which resembles every other biopic of a legendary musician ever made. Eventually, though, the whole stolen-tape saga, which does indeed find Davis and Braden driving frantically through the streets of New York, exchanging gunfire with bad guys, gets to be just plain silly. Avoiding monotony and cliché is one thing; turning Miles Davis’ life story into a lame buddy movie about the adventures of a monomaniacal badass and his dorky sidekick is another. That’s a shame, because Cheadle demonstrates some talent behind the camera, especially in the film’s deliberately jagged leaps from present to past and back again (which often pivot off of violent movement in the frame). He’s also predictably charismatic as Davis, capturing the man’s raspy voice, hard stare, and infinite swagger. Had Miles Ahead taken a different unorthodox approach, focusing exclusively on Davis’ lost years, for example, without all the pseudo-gangster nonsense, Cheadle’s performance alone might well have made the result worthwhile. Instead, his onscreen electricity gets continually short-circuited by the sheer idiocies of the story in one timeframe and by the usual biopic quagmire (burnout, drug abuse, shouting matches with an abused spouse, etc.) in the other. This genre’s minefield is almost unavoidable, no matter how strenuously one tries to find a unique path through it. Cheadle did try. Give him that.
At first glance People, Places and Things seems like it’s going to be a bit of an ordeal. Following the travails of a troubled drug addict (admittedly something of a tautology) struggling to get clean in a sterile clinic (whilst refusing to surrender so much as an inch of her nihilistic world view in the process.) hardly promises to be a barrel of laughs, and the punishing length (the first half alone is an hour and a half ) makes cold turkey withdrawal sound like a far less painful option. However what could be an unmitigated slog is hypercharged by a not-so secret weapon: Denise Gough’s starring turn as the addict (Emma) who electrifies from the moment she staggers wide-eyed onto the stage with seemingly every drug known to civilised man coursing through her overworked veins. She is present in practically every scene and does the kind of dramatic heavy lifting (both understated and histrionic) that would crush a lesser actor into a shell shocked ruin. She is aided and abetted by a surprisingly unpredictable script which flips audience sympathies like a demented acrobat and turns the Hollywood ideal of ‘closure’ so corrosive it could eat through metal. It must be said that, whilst possessing every emotionally crushing beat one expects from such a dispiriting subject matter, the play finds unexpected
comedy, though the humour does rather tend towards the blacker end of the spectrum. Whilst there are plenty of outré moments that seize the attention (of which multiple Emmas bursting through the walls of the clinic as she struggles with the first bleak flush of withdrawal is clearly People’s favourite) the show is at its best when it strips away the artifice and allows the audience to climb inside Emma’s itchy skin and get a sense of how her mercurial mind ticks (or doesn’t as the case may be). In our current age of cynicism, it’s easy to empathise with Emma’s refusal to kowtow to the rehabilitation program’s insistence in acknowledging some kind of higher power or authority (albeit not necessarily a religious one) or relate her past to strangers in group therapy and People is able to expertly explore the idea that high intelligence can help make addiction into a prison that is nearly inescapable. The issue with the People comes from its supporting cast, which is more of a fault with the script than the thespians, in that they are notably thinly written compared to Emma. Her fellow patients in her self-help group have been necessarily underwritten in order to fit in the sheer amount of text and action that so develops People’s protagonist. This is certainly not a deal breaker and the play’s finale manages to be so wrenching that any reservations developed over the (admittedly very very long) running time have a tendency to be blown right out of the audience’s mind. People doesn’t pull many of its punches and if there is any justice will create a bona fide star out of Gough (without who the play is frankly unimaginable). Regardless of one’s feelings about drugs and addiction, People, Places and Things has plenty to offer its audience; give it a try, you might get hooked. Photograph © National Theatre/Headlong
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Photograph © Gold Experience
Arts & Culture
Prince Rogers Nelson 1958-2016
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uddenly he was gone, vanished into a cloud of glitter and glorious guitar riffery. Always an enigmatic icon who both repelled and magnetised with equal force; Prince, above all was a magnificent musician and showman. If his father Nelson had been a classical instead of jazz musician, Prince would have been a latter day Mozart. Like him, he composed from an early age, mastered multiple instruments with unrivalled virtuosity, worked relentlessly and showed off whenever he could. At times, his behaviour could be flippant and
Luciano Guibbilei The Art of Making Gardens Merrell Publishers £45 (hardback). 304pp. ISBN 978-18589-4646-7
Luciano Guibbilei is very, very pleased with himself. He tells the reader again and again that he won gold medals at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show for his Laurent-Perrier gardens and he devotes no less than 34 full-colour pages to the 2014 one which won Best in Show for what many regarded as a neat, but deeply conventional design. It is hard to imagine who would gain most from forking out forty-five quid for this divot of self-indulgence. Perhaps someone who likes moody snaps of the photogenic, floppy-haired Italian, posing in Hunters ‘n’ Barbours in and around the beds of Great Dixter, where he spent some time with Fergus Garrett, the head gardener, and his team, helping lay out a border. The first half of this 300-page book is devoted to a photographic essay of this extraordinary Sussex garden, with purple prose by Guibbilei to match the lupins, and the images taken throughout the seasons by Andrew Montgomery are
narcissistic but songs like Nothing Compares 2 U reveal a tender soul. Who can forget the cover version video from Sinead O’Connor or the lyrics to When Doves Cry? Everybody loves a prodigy; we are drawn to their brilliance like clumsy moths to a flame. But beneath the dazzle, Prince suffered much loss. His mother left the family home when he was ten and as a teen was ejected from the family home by his disciplinarian dad. His only child with his first wife Mayte died from a rare illness and sadly their marriage didn’t survive her later miscarriage. He married again but (perhaps not surprisingly) the union only lasted five years. Prince possessed an outrageous sex god persona on stage, supremely confident in stilettos, slashed shirts and eyeliner but often appeared shy and reticent in interviews. To be so gifted and passionate about achieving perfection amongst regular folk must have been a lonely road and like many giant stars Prince had his self-doubts and demons. It is alleged he was no stranger to prescription medication (though was contemptuous of illegal drugs) and took them by the bucket load for many reasons including painful joints. His anxiety was alleviated by opiate based painkillers and despite being addictive they helped boost his confidence and energy for public performances. Though Prince was someone who thrived on minimal sleep he reportedly hadn’t slept for six days prior to his death; excessive even for him. As more tell-tale information spills forth, Prince’s demise is looking more like the drug overdose death that claimed former pop kings such as Michael Jackson and Elvis. Amongst other prescriptive drugs they too were addicted to the same heroin based medication. Potentially hazardous in their own right and taken in large amounts over many years, but adding yet more powerful painkillers into the mix may have contributed to the final bowing out. The words to Let’s go Crazy written in 1984 are ominously prophetic...
In this life You’re on your own And if the elevator Tries to bring you down Go crazy, punch a higher floor
Lynne McGowan
a delight, from close-ups of hellebores and valeriana, to lush beds of euphorbia and selinium in high summer and the amorphous box sculptures lightly dusted with frost in the winter. The second tranche of the book contains essays by his friends, like the minimalist designer, John Pawson, the Spanish artist Guillem Nadal and the German Ursula von Rydingsvard, sculptor of texturally complex pieces, including a large, limocine-looking bronze, which was chosen for the Chelsea show stand. He has surrounded himself with these craftsmen, a sort of raffia-mafia, who clearly influence his designs, and a further inspiration has been the designer and ‘tastemaker’ Sir Paul Smith, who has written one of the forewords. In a way, this book is a sort of love-in, with very little to inform or instruct the reader as to the ‘art of making gardens’; its approach is a more philosophical and creative process, and
he quotes the Italian-American writer and academic Alain Elkann, who said to him: “What is beautiful about what you do is that you can explore yourself through it.” He is also a furniture designer, and has created a terrace restaurant at a central London hotel, using woven willow baskets and heated love-seats. In his Epilogue, Luciano states that he is not a gardener, but when he is gardening he feels connected to his true self and inspired, “not just in my work, but in a broader, all-encompassing sense.” It does not matter whether it was Abraham Lincoln, Max Beerbohm, Artemis Ward or Muriel Spark, who first coined the phrase, which is apposite to this book, “For people who like this sort of thing, this is the sort of thing they’ll like.” Don Grant
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Arts & Culture
BRICKS AND BRICKBATS BY EMMA FLYNN
London’s high-rise future
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report released last month reveals that there are an additional 119 new tall buildings planned for London since this time last year. This takes the total number of tall buildings in the pipeline to 436. The research, which is updated annually, is published by New London Architecture (NLA) in collaboration with property consultancy GLHearn (a subsidiary of Capita Real Estate) and includes buildings of 20 floors and over. NLA completed its first investigation into London’s tall buildings in 2014. This triggered the launch of the Skyline Campaign, whose quoted aim is to “stop the devastation of London by badly designed tall buildings”. Following fierce debate both within the industry and the wider public, this 2016 version of the report marks a more extensive look into the current tall building development in London. It reveals that despite widely publicised attempts to prevent the proliferation of skyscrapers, the number of planned high-rises has significantly increased. For the third year running, aptly named Tower Hamlets, leads the way as the London borough with the majority of tall buildings in the pipeline; 93 in total. Greenwich is next in line with 67 projects, a significant increase from the 8 schemes last year. It is clear to see that the majority of tall buildings remain clustered in key boroughs. However a number of outer London boroughs have an increasing number of tall buildings; 23 towers are proposed in Barnet and 18 in Croydon. In the City, the iconic cluster of highrise towers will see several new additions. The proposed 1 Undershaft will become the tallest in the City at 73 floors high, and a new design for 22 Bishopsgate will replace the ill-fated Pinnacle skyscraper. In line with the findings from last year, approximately 60% of the tall buildings in the current pipeline are between 20-29 storeys with just 6% extending above 50 storeys. The average height of London’s new tall buildings is stated to be 30 storeys. Also aligning with previous years, the trend towards residential tall buildings continues, with 73% of the proposed tall buildings designed primarily for living accommodation. City Pride in Tower
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Hamlets is set to become the capital’s tallest residential tall building at 75 floors. NLA chairman Peter Murray described the results of the report as “significant” and called for better interaction between planning departments and the public to ensure that London residents are made fully aware of proposals. He said: “It is increasingly important that the planning and development community improves the way it communicates with the wider public.” Emphasising the importance of well-designed, and strategically located skyscrapers, he continued: “We believe that well-designed tall buildings in the right place, and well-coordinated clusters, are acceptable.” He goes on to suggest that the situation could be better monitored digitally, saying: “We continue to press for the Mayor to prepare a three-dimensional computer model of the whole of London to better assess the impact of these buildings.” Edward Lister, London's Deputy Mayor of Planning, also acknowledged Current view of the City of London
Future view of the City of London
http://www.archdaily.com/783638/ survey-results-show-more-tallbuildings-planned-for-london Photographs ©Visualhouse and photographer Dan Lowe
that tall buildings are vital to London’s growth: “London is in the middle of a population boom that shows no sign of slowing down and it’s important we look at a range of options to achieve both the housing and work space need. Tall buildings can play a role in meeting some of that demand and the Mayor has ordered a strategic approach to securing the world-class architecture of the capital’s skyline to ensure they sit well in their surroundings and are of the highest standards possible. Tall buildings are positioned in the right areas of London in planned clusters which work well together and ensure they make a positive contribution in delivering much-needed homes, affordable housing and jobs.” While there are a large number of tall buildings in the pipeline, the report also reveals that only a small proportion are currently being delivered. The completion of tall buildings in the capital is still relatively small with only 19 tall buildings completed over the last year, up from 6 in the 2015 report. It is clear that the slow pace of London’s residential
development is holding back many of the planned towers. According to Murray, “The 436 tall buildings in the pipeline is a significant number. However, with the much publicised softening of the housing market, it remains to be seen how quickly they are delivered.” GL Hearn planning director, James Cook believes the low level of delivery could be down to “the significant development and investment risk required to commit to construct tall buildings”. He said: “It is clear that delivery is a long way behind the pipeline and the planning system needs to continue to ensure any scheme that comes forward is carefully designed with architecture of the highest quality”. With increasing pressures on housing delivery, planning departments will have a tough task ensuring design quality while encouraging development. As part of the report NLA has collaborated with visualisation experts Visualhouse to create a series of specially commissioned images of the future London skyline, as seen in this article.
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nestled in the valley at the heart of Derbyshire’s Peak District National Park. It’s a great jumping off point for all the varied activities nearby, so many opportunities for walking; from Hope paths lead you up through pastures, over stiles and past inquisitive sheep to the surrounding peaks where you will be rewarded by stunning views in all directions. There’s Win Hill from whose summit you can look down on the Ladybower Reservoir, (a beautiful alternative location for a 13 mile bike ride). Or take the track up to the top of Lose Hill and follow the 3-4 hour circular walk along the scenic ridge to Mam Tor, descending down the vertiginous Winnats Pass to the ruins of 12th century Perveril Castle, past the Speedwell Cavern where you can take a boat trip along an extraordinary underground river. Another of the many local caverns is the source of Blue John, a unique type of fluorspar banded in different colours that’s made into jewellery and ornaments that fill the local gift shops. Onwards into Castleton for a well-earned pub lunch before returning to Hope. But beware, the portions are huge; it’s assumed you’ve walked a long way! Edale is the centre for serious walkers; the Pennine Way and Jacob’s Ladder lead you up to Kinder Scout, at 2088 feet the highest of the peaks where bad weather can descend without warning.
Climbers are well catered for in attempting the challenging ‘Edges’, Derbyshire’s cliff like ridges. From the top of Froggatt Edge near Baslow the views take in the Dukes of Devonshire’s stately Chatsworth House with its gardens of fountains and cascades landscaped by Capability Brown and greenhouses by Crystal Palace designer Joseph Paxton. Nearby is the famous village of Eyam where the inhabitants selflessly cut themselves off from the outside world to avoid spreading the Plague in 1666 and many died. One of Britain’s traditions from the 1600s that still flourishes is the ancient craft of Well Dressing. Natural art supplies such as leaves, petals, moss and twigs are used to construct detailed pictures to adorn wells in a huge variety of styles, some show religious themes, others subjects specific to their locations. http://www.visitpeakdistrict.com has a really useful list of around eighty villages throughout the area with the dates from May to September of each of their well dressings as well as opportunities to watch
them being created. The spa of Buxton is one of the highest towns in England specifically built in a style to rival Bath. Ashbourne and Bakewell, home of the legendary tart, are lower down in the Derbyshire Dales where another beautiful but nontaxing walk is that alongside the River Dove at Dove Dale, famously fished by the Compleat Angler, Izaak Walton. Derbyshire is full of interesting towns, and villages such as Hartington for cheese and Hathersage for walkers’ requisites, masses of impressive scenery, but any visitor to this area should not miss out on Haddon Hall, the perfect example of a fortified medieval manor house. Used as a setting for many films, it has its own romantic history, the story of Dorothy Vernon’s elopement with John Manners on her sister’s wedding day. The building, parts dating from the 11th century, is constantly being restored and is full of atmosphere. It features windows patterned by inventive angled diamond panes, Elizabethan terraced gardens, original furniture, medieval murals as well as a pleasant café. Chatsworth House is grand, but Haddon Hall’s smaller scale allows it to display more of a human heart, so characteristic of Derbyshire.
had become visible even behind a bold face. ‘I’d had a difficult few years, and I’d been fairly unhappy,’ she admitted when we ran into one another last summer, and I found a woman morphed into an exuberant and outwardly warm person; a whole new version of her former self. The reason for it was soon evident; she’d advertised her lovely cottage on Airbnb, and life had become fulfilling and actually therapeutic. Her day job is arranging wedding flowers, running workshops and painting on textile. ‘I’m really keen on working with light, through lamp shades. I
like up-cycling, painting on silk.’ She prints on wool blankets, she paints oil on canvas, and she creates some of the most original flower arrangements you could ever see, all in a 150 year old, brick cottage, amidst an exquisite cottage garden in North Herefordshire. Living singly with two spare bedrooms, she has loved the process of creatively sprucing up the cottage as an Airbnb. ‘I was always completely uninterested in housework,’ she says, ‘and never cleaned particularly hard.’ Now she does, and she’s realised it’s not a bad thing to lay into your space with a cobweb thingy. Obviously, she explains, for someone who lives perilously on the earnings of her own creative output, the money comes in useful, but even if that didn’t matter, she would still do the Airbnb; as a woman living alone, with two daughters leading their
own lives elsewhere, it has provided her with a practical daily focus which takes her out of herself and works well with all her other activities. “Actually,” she says, “there’s a lovely holistic element to it, which has led to a lot of cross over in the things I do; people come to stay for weddings, where I’m doing the flowers. Others have come and asked to see my studio, then booked a print-making workshop; people see my textiles lying about and like to buy them.” So far she’s had a varied crowd, some truly engaging, usually staying for a couple of nights for weddings or local arts festivals. “Although I am quite a private person, I have loved having the contact with all the people. So much of this is to do with what you put out. I’m doing it with all my love and I’ll do everything I can to make sthem comfortable. I find having people in the house easy because I’m not particularly possessive, and I’m happy to let them into my world; my house is theirs; I give them breakfast at the kitchen table, then I usually leave them to it while I take the dog for a walk. I suppose as a single woman there is a slight risk, although I’ve never felt that. There’s no question that life has altered for me since I opened up the house, and in entirely positive ways.” If you’d like to sample the Welsh Marches, Carrie Ede’s website isis:roughacrebandb.co.uk/
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Photographs by Cynthia Pickard and Visitpeakdistrict.com
Travel
Well Dressing, Walks & Stately Homes in Derbyshire By Cynthia Pickard
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part from its charm, there’s another reason why I often return to the village of Hope
A Breath of Fresh Air By Peter Burden
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nyone with the merest fingertip on the pulse of the zeitgeist knows about Airbnb but, for those who don’t, it’s a way of travelling anywhere in the world and finding a place to stay, someone’s attic, spare room, garden shed, generally more cheaply than comparable accommodation in a commercial hotel. You may not always get an ensuite bathroom, or a minibar, or a 24 hour porn channel, but you should get a warm welcome that’s rare in modern sleep factories. This is an internet phenomenon which doesn’t provoke condemnation for its isolating tendencies, because the communication achieved through Air BnB is real, up close and personal. The very nature of the relationship demands that both parties to the arrangement must be as agreeable to one another as possible. The benefits to the general well-being of the Airbnb host were made especially clear to me by a friend who lives close to Presteigne in the Welsh Marches. She’d had to untangle a disagreeable relationship, and her frustration at this
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Art lessons in Florence
By Tanya Kovatchka St James Senior Girls’ School
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love art. I haven’t always but it has become a passion that has been flowering gradually. History on the other hand, has remained a constant source of fascination. Somehow, in my introductions to history of art, they weren’t the match made in heaven that I had assumed. But Florence is the city that has changed it all. As soon as I was greeted by the Italian sunshine reflecting off impressive Renaissance architecture, I knew immediately that I would love this trip. We had only 4 days to live, breathe and absorb this unique city. There is no other place in the world where so much culture and genius are packed into such a tiny place. The first example of this skill we witnessed was Donatello’s David in the Bargello Museum. I am sad to say that until then I had never considered the artistic adroitness required to make a bronze statue. I didn’t realise you had to make a clay model and then cast it in bronze, nor that marble cannot support itself properly hence the tree stumps
Italian Enchantment The enchantment of Italy lies in the variety of its environments and landscapes, reflecting the people who live there and their culture. Carla Gariboldi, the owner of Anteacum, is the perfect guide for choosing a location and property that really fulfills your expectations. A deep knowledge of her native country and its regulations, a passion for good architecture with the eye of a designer is her key to selecting the best properties in the right location for you, in a market where there is currently a lot on offer. Carla : ‘Initially, we listen carefully
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at the bases of statues. Small details and facts are what struck me most and helped me start to really appreciate the artwork. This was no more obvious than when we saw the city’s numerous frescos. I had always heard about them but only after seeing the walls covered with colour and the beautiful paintings did I understand why they are so appreciated. The skill required was obvious; you had to paint while the plaster is still wet meaning to what you want and search for real possibilities. Once you have made your choice of property, we can recommend a specialised lawyer to ensure the documents about the property are in order. Then we organise a surveyor’s visit to the property and if these two steps are positive, we negotiate the final offer on your behalf ’. Negotiating in a foreign language is daunting but, as a native Italian, Carla can discuss any details of concern and get you the best conditions for purchase. Refurbishing is sometimes what transforms a new house into a home and Anteacum can arrange appropriate architects and reliable builders or directly manage any redecoration for you. Anteacum will keep in touch with all the professionals and tradesmen employed in the transition and ensure you are constantly updated and aware of each step taken. Carla : ‘Ultimately, we are available until you move in and longer if necessary because making the whole process successful and smooth and as stress-free as possible is the essence of Anteacum’. info@anteacum.com www.anteacum.com
that each brushstroke is permanent. I sometimes struggle with quick drying acrylic paint, so I find the process used to create these astounding. Almost as incomprehensible, is the skills involved in the architecture. I had to constantly remind myself that, during the Renaissance, builders didn’t have modern scaffolding or building equipment. Climbing up the Duomo in the centre of the city, I was aware that I was literally climbing pure genius
married to engineering. After about 400 stairs I was able to soak in the view of the city as a whole. Michelangelo’s David was originally meant to be placed at the top of this dome. All I can say is that I am extremely grateful it wasn’t, because David deserves to be appreciated from close up. When we went to the Galleria dell’Accademia the atmosphere in the room was of complete awe as everyone stared in disbelief at the statues. From every angle all we saw was true perfection. We often forget from a photo that these are statues which are meant to be viewed from every direction and what a majestic presence the huge size makes. This does not, however, take away any of the value of paintings. Botticelli’s Primavera and The Birth of Venus remain as enchanting as ever, mesmerising you still. These are luckily fairly famous pieces of work, but it does sadden me that people do not know about the beautiful Baptistery Doors or Fra Angelico’s Annunciation. The tiny golden details on the door captivated me just as much as the surprising sparkling red pigment on the Annunciation. I wish I could mention the beauty of each painting, statue and structure but this city is an overwhelming crucible of culture, one that by some miracle has been preserved. You may not love history or art as much as I do, but I urge you to go, because the beauty will enthral you nevertheless.
RARE Opportunity to own an Outstanding Hilltop Tuscan Period Villa
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Guide: €2.100.000/£1.650.000 This unique south-facing property enjoys outstanding views across Barga and surrounding areas. Beautifully maintained 1000sqm four floor property:
6 Double Bedrooms 4,500 sqm private garden
• 3 Double bedroom 250sqm self-contained guest apartment
Liberty Villa Barga is located near Lucca, Forte dei Marmi ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Contact Rosanna for more information on this and our other properties: t: 0039 0583 711225 m: 0039 340 4505922 rosanna@tuscanhomes.com
www.tuscanhomes.com
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Health & Beauty
& BEAUTY
Photographs © The Spa in Dolphin Square
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HEALTH
Very refreshed and
Affordable Luxury in SW1
relaxed, you are led along the warm stone
by Jayne Beaumont
passageways to either a quiet room complete with low cushioned sofas, Arab rugs and subtle lighting or
D
elve into a world of tranquillity imbued with an air of exotic spices and enriched with the deeply sensual colours of Morocco. This is an experience designed to relax, cleanse and revive at The Spa in Dolphin Square. The treatments are enticing and can be adapted to suit the individual. They are enhanced by perfume and healing qualities of organic oils developed over generations by a Moroccan family and now produced by their Parisian company, La Sultane de Saba. They can also be purchased at The Spa. The journey into the Etihad, Arabic for ‘your home’, begins with the cleansing ritual of a rosewater hand wash in the inner courtyard before entering the Hammam where one is gently washed and dowsed with warm water and a little later, exfoliated with a mixture of black and green olive soap with salt. The sound of bubbling water from a fountain nearby seems to flow through your body taking away any unwanted thoughts and tensions. The mineral-rich water used in The Spa comes from the only working artisan
another rest room with beautifully curved and heated beds well in the City of Westminster, It’s important to remember that in many European countries spas are prescribed for their medicinal properties and treatments as they have been proved to be excellent for asthma, skin conditions, muscles and joints as well as more serious conditions. A visit to a spa is more than just a treat! Now very refreshed and relaxed, you are led along the warm stone passageways to either a quiet room complete with low cushioned sofas, Arab rugs and subtle lighting or another rest room with beautifully curved and heated beds allowing the body to be supported without any personal effort. In both places, herbal teas and reviving pieces of fresh orange are served. Other snacks are also available if you are feeling at all peckish. Throughout your visit, a Hammam specialist is there to ensure your wellbeing and to answer any questions
you may have. It’s very reassuring for a Hammam novice! A wealth of ancient and contemporary massages are offered here such as the popular Shea butter massage with a choice of orange blossom, rose or green tea and ginger oil. There are also 2 new massages; Warmth of the Sands Relaxing massage that uses hot Lava Shells and the Rescue massage that combines hot and glacial shells and is used for deep tissue work. Body wraps, facials, and a selection of bespoke treatments exclusive to The Spa including exotic-sounding rituals such as the Moroccan Majorelle and the Arabian Nights Manicure can also be enjoyed. Whatever you choose, you are taken into one of the six luxurious treatment rooms that continue the theme of timeless tranquillity. It becomes very difficult to leave the comfort they provide. How fortunate to have such a sumptuous yet comprehensive day spa
so close to the West End. Close enough to drop by before or after work with an underground car park for easy access. It’s also a novel day out for a hen party or simply a group of friends or even as a gift for either sex. There is a special treatment for beards! This award winning spa, the Best London Spa 2014, according to the Good Spa Guide, also offers spa weekends using the smart serviced apartments available at the Dolphin Square complex with its excellent restaurant, swimming pool, gym, squash and tennis courts. The other most fortunate aspect of this spa is its affordable treatments. A visit to the Hammam and use of the spa relaxation areas costs £42pp, a Shea Butter massage £77 for 55 minutes and a day at The Spa, including a visit to the Hammam as well as a massage is £95pp. There is a special price for group bookings. In May, a treatment called The Moroccan Rose Indulgence has been selected to reflect this year’s RHS Chelsea Flower Show. It includes a full body scrub and body hydration together with an essential oil facial. What a perfect way to end a day after hours of walking the Flower Show pathways! The Spa in Dolphin Square Dolphin Square Chichester Street London SW1V 3LX Opening times: 10 am-8pm T: 020 7798 6767 www.dolphinsquare.co.uk/spa
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King Edward VII’s Hospital welcomes anyone aged 16 and over seeking the best of London’s private healthcare Across a range of specialities, our consultants are considered leaders in their fields of expertise. Offering the highest standards of medical and surgical care, every patient we look after receives personalised care in a supportive, comfortable and safe environment. Dedicated to outstanding patient care since 1899. For more information please contact us at: 0800 975 8383 enquiries@kingedwardvii.co.uk Charity No. 208944
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Suffering from a sports injury or something more serious? Bupa Cromwell’s Therapy team can aid your recovery.
W
hether you’ve sprained an ankle on your morning run, or need ongoing treatment following surgersy, many of us will require a form of physical therapy at some point in our lives. Kensington’s Bupa Cromwell Hospital offers a wide range of therapy treatments using state of the art equipment, and they focus on both physical recovery and maximising quality of life. The Therapy team gained 100% satisfaction in its latest patient survey. ‘Physio’ is probably best known for treating conditions like back and neck pain, sports injuries and rehabilitation after surgery. According to the Chartered Society of Physiotherapists, up to 7 million appointments are made each year in the UK for musculoskeletal physio, and treatment can be vital in preventing a new acute problem becoming chronic
and long lasting. But there are a host of other conditions that can benefit from different types of physical therapy, and Bupa Cromwell’s highly experienced team covers all the bases. People who have had a stroke or head injury, or suffer from a neurological condition such as Parkinson’s disease, can improve their motor neurone skills, which in turn gives them more independence. For more commonplace conditions such as chest infections or asthma meanwhile, therapy can help overcome breathlessness to help people to get on with their daily tasks. Cancer patients also benefit greatly from therapy, which can counter the side-effects of the disease and its treatment. Exercise programmes help with daily activities, relatives are given guidance on supporting their loved one, and massage therapy can reduce pain, swelling, tension and stress. A recent patient comments; “My experience of Bupa Cromwell’s physiotherapy department has been extremely positive. They always show a high degree of professionalism and great personal warmth, and explain the reasons for each treatment exceptionally well, which makes it much easier to continue with exercises outside the hospital environment.” Physios and other therapists can help children as well as adults, whether
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they need to address movement, congenital problems, recovery after surgery, speech or swallowing issues, delayed developmental milestones, or help develop fine motor skills like hand writing. Henriette Du Toit, Therapy Manager at Bupa Cromwell Hospital, comments; “Whether you are recovering from a serious illness, have a young child with feeding problems, or are caring for a relative who’s struggling with daily tasks after a stroke, we can help. “Our highly trained team offers
everything from Physio and massage therapy to Speech and Language Therapy and Occupational Therapy. We take a holistic approach which focuses both on physical recovery and quality of life, as helping people regain their independence can be just as important as restoring their physical wellbeing.” To discuss your treatment needs, contact Bupa Cromwell Hospital’s Therapy Department on 020 7460 5749. Opening hours are 9am to 5.30pm, Monday to Friday, with evening appointments by prior arrangement for some specialties.
the spa PIMLICO SW1
INSPIRED SPA
MOROCCAN ROSE INDULGENCE The Moroccan Rose Indulgence commences with a full body exfoliation designed to renew the skin, revealing a fresher smoother texture. Your therapist will apply an application of Aromatherapy Associates’ Rose Hydrating Body Gel followed by a combination of Rose Massage Body Oil and Rose Body Cream to nourish and hydrate the skin. While the body is cocooned, allowing the skin to absorb the ingredients of the Rose Range, a rejuvenating facial will leave you feeling positively radiant. rounded off with Moroccan Mint Tea served in the warmth of our relaxation room.
COINCIDING WITH THE RHS CHELSEA FLOWER SHOW
BOOK IN MAY TO SAVE £25
YOURS FOR £132 | RRP£157 FOR 1 HR 40 MINS AND
15% OFF ROSE RETAIL PRODUCTS IN MAY @ DOLPIN_SQUARE
DOLPHIN SQUARE SW1
020 7798 6767 THESPA@DOLPHINSQUARE.CO.UK WWW.DOLPHINSQUARE.CO.UK/SPA PIMLICO – 5 MINUTES
VICTORIA – 15 MINUTES
VAUXHALL– 15 MINUTES
Terms & Conditions: All reservations at the Spa in Dolphin Square are booked subject to availability and are pre-paid on a non-exchangeable & non-refundable term. These offers are not in conjunction with any other offers.
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May 2016
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THE LISTER H O S P I TA L I S O N YO U R D O O R ST E P
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exceptional people. exceptional care.
How far would you want to travel for exceptional healthcare? Not far is our guess. Fortunately, you live in an area where one of the world’s leading hospitals is right on your doorstep.
You can find out more about the hospital on your doorstep at listeronyourdoorstep.co.uk
At The Lister Hospital, Chelsea, London’s top consultants will quickly diagnose your condition.
And because you never know when you might need us, why not put our number in your phone? 0203 544 5164
We have a wide range of specialists who will treat you using some of the most advanced medical equipment available. And you’ll have the reassurance that you’re never far from home.
There, you’re feeling better already.
The discovery that DNA damage triggers cancer was made here in Chelsea. We’ve been making discoveries to defeat cancer on the Fulham Road since 1909 – Find out how you can help us make more.
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A NDR E W R OB I NSON
Quality carers in Chelsea
Search “HomeTouch”on Google and sign up for free
Browse all of our vetted carers in your area and read their reviews
To find out more, visit myhometouch.com
HomeTouch, 2nd Floor, White Bear Yard, 144a Clerkenwell Road, London, EC1R 5DF
Book a carer! They could be with you soon as tomorrow.
How a doctor from Chelsea & Westminster Hospital is changing the way we nd care
H
ow can you nd affordable and well-matched care in your own home? at’s the problem Dr Jamie Wilson, a memory specialist from Imperial College and Chelsea & Westminster Hospital, was inspired to solve while practicing at his NHS memory clinic. Dr Wilson saw how a lack of access to good care affected his patients in their day-to-day lives with many struggling to cope at home, but unable to nd quality, affordable care locally. In 2015, Dr Wilson founded HomeTouch with a vision to raise the standard of home care, ensuring improved continuity of care, tracking of carer performance, better working conditions for carers, and better outcomes for patients. Dr Wilson comments, “Normally, you will receive no guarantees about who will be delivering the care and you probably won’t meet your carer before they start. At HomeTouch, you can select your own carer by viewing their video proole, reading customer reviews,
‘Ministry Of Waxing’ comes To the Kings Road by Jayne Beaumont
Already a success in Covent Garden, Holborn, Islington and Mayfair, this unique waxing ‘spa’ has arrived in SW3 fronted by its healthy cowboy-themed café, The Wanted Man. Here, on the ground floor you can leave a friend to enjoy an exceptionally good coffee and a light bite, while you disappear up the stairs to the reception of the Ministry of Waxing. Greeted by friendly smiles and efficiency, you are assigned to your waxing therapist who has been trained in this well-guarded recipe and method of waxing that champions quality, speed and hygiene. The wax and its application was developed in 2002 by leading Singaporean entrepreneur, Cynthia Chua, as the next stage in her lifestyle company, the ESPRIT SPA GROUP. Having subjected myself to waxing over many years, I know when a wax is exceptionally good and when the practitioner is really adept. Without a doubt, this is the best waxing I have
assessing the carer’s experience and skills, and interviewing them face to face beforehand.” Traditional agencies typically charge £16 £25 an hour and pay carers minimum wage for short visits leading to high staff turnover
and absences. Dr Jamie Wilson is committed to ensuring carers earn above the London Living Wage and technology allows HomeTouch to charge much lower rates of commision meaning care is more affordable, carer earnings are higher and continuity of care is improved. Dr Wilson continues “e aim was for it to be as simple as selecting a carer whilst sitting with your GP in a clinic appointment. And this is what you can now do with HomeTouch — nd a carer who matches your needs in a matter of minutes.” Once you‘ve found a suitable carer, you can message them directly and arrange to meet. Contract set-up and payment can all be done via the secure online platform. HomeTouch plans to expand to the South East this summer and the rest of the UK by 2017. If you’re looking for a carer for you or your loved one you can visit www.myhometouch.com.
ever experienced. Why? The smooth consistency and the temperature of the wax is such that you hardly feel it being applied. It quickly sets and is peeled off (no strips) without the skin being tugged along with it. Perhaps it’s the aroma of the chocolate added to the wax that distracts and confuses the senses so any possible discomfort is replaced by the imaginary taste of a hot chocolate! In the summer, the added flavour is strawberry and changed to mulled wine in winter. A cool and smooth unique laser technique is also used for semipermanent hair removal and is equally popular between men and women. The Ministry of Waxing offers unrivalled expertise in its field and makes this necessary experience chic and fun. Quite an achievement! I shall be returning. The Ministry of Waxing, 330 King’s Road, London SW3 5UR Tel : 020 7351 5121 Chelsea@ministryofwaxing.com
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May 2016
Health & Beauty FDA to put e-cigarette industry under federal oversight for the first time
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ew federal rules announced this month have the potential to permanently damage the US’s multibillion-dollar electronic cigarette industry just as it is attempting to position itself as an alternative to traditional cigarettes. E-cigarettes are battery-powered devices that turn nicotine into an inhalable liquid vapor. Though nicotine can be addictive, e-cigarettes lack the chemicals and tars of burning tobacco. Under the long-awaited rules issued by the Food and Drug Administration, hundreds of e-cigarette brands will have to undergo a lengthy federal review to stay on the market. The rules will bring the burgeoning industry under federal supervision for the first time. The changes will restrict e-cigarette sales to
minors and require new health warnings. In a shift vigorously opposed by the industry, manufacturers must seek federal permission to continue marketing all e-cigarettes launched since 2007, making up the vast majority of the market. Most companies will have to submit pre-market applications that will assess their impact on the “public health”. Those that don’t submit the required information or don’t meet federal standards would have their products removed from the market. The regulations “will cause a modern-day prohibition of products that are recognized worldwide as far less hazardous than cigarettes”, said Gregory Conley, president of the American Vaping Association. “If the FDA’s rule is not changed by Congress or the courts,
Anxious? Depressed? Stressed? Worried? We’re here to help Take Time to Talk is a free and confidential NHS service for people aged 18 and over who are registered with a GP in Kensington & Chelsea, Queens Park and Paddington. We provide a range of psychological therapies and support to help you feel better if you’re anxious, depressed, stressed or worried.
What We Offer
We offer a variety of therapies including Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) and Counselling. CBT is practical, evidence based therapy that supports you to develop strategies, tools and techniques to tackle distressing feelings, thoughts and behaviours. Counselling is a ‘talking therapy’; a chance to talk and think about your difficulties with a trained professional. Counselling can help you with experiences such as bereavement, relationship problems, abuse as a child or adult, depression or low mood, or changes in life such as divorce, getting older or retirement.
How To Refer
If you would like to refer into our service to receive support you can sign up by filling in and submitting the form on our website, www.take-time-to-talk.com This is the most direct way of referring in. If you would prefer to speak to your GP about your needs first, you can, it is completely up to you. What Happens Next? Once we have received your form we will give you a call to talk about your needs; this usually happens within three working days of us receiving and processing your form. From this first contact we can discuss the options available for treatment based on your difficulties, needs and goals. Contact Us For more information or to self-refer, please visit our website www.take-timeto-talk.com You can also contact us by telephone on 020 8962 4748.
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online: www.KCWToday.co.uk thousands of small businesses will close in two to three years.” The devices haven’t been extensively studied and there’s no scientific consensus on any potential benefits or harm from “vaping”, including whether it leads young people to become regular smokers. The FDA action comes five years after the agency first announced its intent to regulate e-cigarettes and more than two years after it floated its initial proposal. The new requirements are likely to set up a legal showdown with manufacturers, many who have warned that the costs of complying with FDA regulation could wipe out their industry. The agency has stumbled before in its efforts to regulate this product. In 2010, a federal appeals court threw out the agency’s plan to treat e-cigarettes as drug-delivery devices, rather than tobacco products. The ruling was seen as a win for manufacturers who opposed the stringent and expensive requirements of conducting pharmaceutical-style studies. House Republicans are already pushing back. A House spending committee last month approved industry-backed legislation that would prohibit the FDA from requiring retroactive safety reviews of e-cigarettes that are already on the market and exempt some premium and large cigars from those same regulations. E-cigarette products introduced in the future would still undergo the safety reviews.
BEAUTY TIP
from the Beauty Editor iS ACTIVE SERUM This is a concentrated serum for all skin types developed by a leading US skin brand, iS ClinicaL whose world-renowned, innovative pharmacologists produce advanced formulas that are FDA approved. It dramatically reduces fine lines and wrinkles, brightens dark spots and altogether provides a longlasting radiant complexion. You only need use 3-4 drops mixed into your night cream, every night. This small bottle goes a long way! Available from www. facethefuture.co.uk/shop or call 0113 282 7744 Price : £66
Olverum,
the Ultimate Bath Oil by Jayne Beaumont
Once a well-guarded secret passed around a privileged circle including Europe’s royalty, Olverum has recently become more widely available here after being bought by the British Orange Square Company. This is excellent news for those of us who need to de-stress, relax our aching muscles and get a good night’s sleep. Developed in Germany in 1929 by Franz Otto Klein, an affluent wine merchant in the Mosel valley, its combination of ten aromatic essences work on a number of levels. After pouring a capful into my bath, the invigorating oils of eucalyptus, rosemary and pine immediately fill the air and my breathing becomes slower and more even. Wallowing for a while, I can feel the tension in my muscles dissipating and I become aware of the aromas of lemon and lavender. Juniper and verbena are also part of the mix. So far, it’s proved very effective! The history of Olverum shows its benefits to be numerous: ‘it can clear congested sinuses and improve breathing; it soothes aching muscles and rheumatic
pain; relieves tension and stress; it encourages deep sleep and restores dry skin to a more soft and supple condition. It can be particularly helpful in recovering from colds and flu.’ Olverum is also recommended for use after strenuous physical activities such as gardening or any sport. Undiluted it may be used as a massage oil and applied directly on the skin to soothe sore muscles. The final test came at bedtime and was passed effortlessly as I slipped easily into sleep. I didn’t wake until the following morning. Olverum Bath Oil is available at Harvey Nichols, Fenwicks and House of Fraser online as well as directly from the company, www.olverum.co.uk RRP : £23.50 for 125ml (enough for 25 baths) and £36.95 for 200ml (enough for 40 baths),
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Astronomy LIGO nails Gravitational Waves
By Scott Beadle FRSA
I
was at a birthday party last month for Enid the mother of a friend of mine, she was 100yrs old, bright as a button, surrounded by her friends and grandchildren and it got me thinking. She was born one year after Einstein proposed his general theory of gravity which predicted the existence of gravitational waves and now in her hundredth year, they have finally been detected by the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory, after a billion year journey. I decided not to tell her at the party because I didn’t want Enid to get over excited. I’ll wait for her three grandsons each with a science brain the size of Jupiter to show her the beautiful computer simulations of two merging black holes that triggered this event. The merger was of a binary black hole system (previously only theorized) and it was detected by the Advanced LIGO twin instruments in Hanford, Above: C.Henze/NASA Ames Research Centre. Simulation frame of the gravitational waves emitted by the spiralling in and merging of the two black holes. The coloured contours around each black hole represent the amplitude of the gravitational radiation; the blue lines represent the orbits of the black holes and the green arrows represent their spin. Left: Two black holes merge into one. Simulated by LIGO Lab Caltech. MIT. (For actual animation see our website: www.kcwtoday.co.uk)
Washington and the other 3000kms away in Livingstone, Louisiana, USA. In about a fifth of a second the collision released fifty times more energy than all the stars in the observable universe. The signal detected in Sept 2015 and confirmed in Feb 2016 is believed to have come from the merger of orbiting black holes of 36 and 29 solar masses. An instant before this collision they were estimated to be moving at half the speed of light and completing 75 orbits per second. They then merged to form a 62 solar mass and releasing 3 solar masses of pure energy. Although Einstein predicted the existence of gravitational waves he was not convinced they would ever be
observable as they would be on a scale so slight as to be virtually undetectable on Earth. Scientists have been trying to detect them for the last 50yrs. The Advanced LIGO uses lasers to measure minute movements, changes in the length of the 4km long arms caused by gravitational waves. Lasers are bounced back and forth by mirrors hung in the arms before finally returning to detectors at the junction of the arms. If there is no change in the length of the arms the two combining light waves will match, cancelling each other out. But if a gravitational wave stretches one arm and compresses the other by the smallest amount( about 1/1000th the diameter of a proton) the two light beams won’t match and the light detector will pick up
a light pattern. This pattern will reveal information about the changes which can shed light on the source of the gravitational waves. The next upgrade will deliver sensitivity to the order of 10,000th width of a proton! To get this accuracy, every wobble of the tunnel has to be accounted for. That includes the tiny movements of the ocean, the rumble of passing cars, or the vibrations of a distant train. Even strong winds can tilt the building housing the seismometers so that scientists have to be able to nudge the mirrors in real time to compensate for all these potential earthly disturbances. A billion years ago an event of such magnitude occurred that the very fabric of space-time itself was disrupted, shaken about. An event which warped space releasing a storm of energy in which time slowed down and speeded up again, finally something powerful enough for the upgraded sensors to detect. In one detector in Washington one mirror moved imperceptibly relative to the other while 7000th of a second later its matching partner in Louisiana did the same. The era of gravitational wave astronomy had just arrived. This event marks one of the greatest scientific breakthroughs of this century, probably greater than the discovery of the Higgs Boson and comparable to the day Galileo first observed the stars with a telescope. Already there are more sensitive detectors being designed both here on Earth and in space better able to detect gravitational waves caused by the death spiral of two neutron stars, or possibly explore the nature of dark energy, which is thought to be causing the expansion of the universe to accelerate. It potentially heralds a whole new science of understanding and the observing of a completely new window on the universe. One day another Enid will be celebrating her 100th birthday in 2116 and will also be surrounded by her friends and grandchildren. One of her smart grandchildren, a girl this time, will say, “Grandma, dark energy has finally been revealed and now we know the expanding universe will stop and collapse on itself and life will expire in a cataclysmic implosion”. “Ooh I wouldn’t worry about that darling, is there any more of that lovely birthday cake left.”
May 2016
Horology Re-inventing the Wheel By Jonathan Macnabb
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17th Century wheel. Private Collection
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Plastic Movement. Private Collection
Photographs © Calixo
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he collecting of clocks and watches has, in a small way, attracted interest in the design of gearing, specifically for the purpose of transmitting power at a constant rate over a relatively long duration. There is a good opportunity to look at the general style of early geared engineering in the form of the Leonardo da Vinci drawings which partially comprise the current exhibition at the Science Museum in South Kensington. The exhibition features a good impression of how powered gears are cut to work efficiently. In Horology,the story begins historically with the weightdriven clocks of Europe. The late 14th century clocks of Wells and Salisbury Cathedrals still have much of their original gearing and although hand-cut, retain a robust accuracy which has allowed them to turn for generations with minimal wear. Wheels within early clocks and watches are defined as being original by evidence of the punch-marks at the tip of the teeth where the clockmaker has measured the divisions by marking a disc with a compass and a pair of dividers. This process, although laborious, continued until the mid 17th Century and as clock-making recovered popularity after the Great Fire of London, the appearance of a new machine called a ‘Dividing Engine’ greatly improved the accuracy and standardisation of clock and watch wheels and pinions. Attributed to Thomas Tompion and Robert Hooke, the engine consisted of a turntable with a choice of wheel counts marked around the disk above, on which the wheel blank could be mounted centrally and a fixed rotating cutter brought down over the outer edge to cut each tooth the same, the ‘table’ would be clicked on to the next position after each cut. Varieties of these hand-driven machine were developed for different manufacturing tasks and refined to standards where they could finish precision parts for marine chronometers. By the end of the 18th century, the makers in London and Paris had refined the accuracy of tooth and pinion counts to eliminate as much friction as possible and maintain a standard of interchangeability. The train count for a Longcase clock remained the same for nearly two centuries.The exception being that a precision watch has a higher train count than a run of the mill one, a fact prioritised by the American watchmaking industry, who produced their own tooth form, finer than the British Engineering Standard and different from the continental modular (Metric) system. The development of the wristwatch allowed a greater accuracy in reducing wear in fine winding mechanisms until the 1950’s when the automatic selfwinding watch became more reliably constructed. The development of polymers had little effect on the watch and clock industry initially but as the first patents were lodged the use of plastic for retaining rings, cheap dials and case parts slowly gained popularity. Seiko and other Japanese makers realised the it was possible to use injection moulding to make more robust parts such as calendar rings and date setting wheels. The Swiss response was a pioneering all plastic watch movement by Tissot, the now rare and collectable Astrolon Calibre 2250. Whilst these were popular for a short time in the early 70s as a fashion/disposable watch, they could not be dismantled for servicing. The few steel parts included were the mainspring and hairspring and some of the winding parts. The escapement was well moulded enough to work without jewelling. The disappearance of these watches from the market was hastened by the overall demise of Swiss watchmaking as the marketing of the Battery Quartz watch overtook them. The quartz watch has a mechanical advantage over the spring driven watch in that the train is “passive” needing only to turn with the 1 second pulse of a tiny armature (stepping motor) which drives the train as far as the hands in a reverse ratio which creates negligible friction.The finest quartz movements are highly finished and have fine jewelled gearing, whereas it has become possible to produce a movement with the minimum of steel parts, usually the hand setting and battery clip, with the plates and train entirely of plastic and the toothed wheels formed as individual mouldings. They are made with no need for repair or adjustment and therefore are replaceable as a unit. The gradual miniaturisation of accurate plastic moulding combined with the development of appropriate plastic alloys has allowed the basic watch to become an accurate timekeeper in its own style of nanotechnology.
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rudely shattered by a shriek of tyres and the unmistakable sound of bouncing valves. “Just some budding Bandini on the way home”, everyone thought, till he came round the square again - and again. As he drifted round the Virage du Globe for the third time, elbows pumping furiously in dodging the odd mo-ped, a mighty cheer went up. It was a local Frenchman in a Peugeot 404. The gauntlet was thrown down and it was soon picked up, for on the next lap the square was buzzing with Minis, R8 Gordinis, Alfa Giulias and the like. The surrounding buildings echoed with the roar of noisy exhausts, the squeal of tortured rubber and the occasional raucous cheer as a particularly hairy manoeuvre was accomplished, or when a newcomer arrived to join the fray, flagged off with a napkin borrowed from one of the restaurants. On and on it went; some came, some retired breathlessly to a café for a drink and a cigarette to calm ragged nerves. ‘The Peugeot was still circulating, being driven fast and consistently, though by now it must have had a permanent wave in its suspension from the constant, Indy-type lefthand cornering. How there was not an almighty accident no-one will ever know, for there were cars parked all the way round the square and the shape of the course was determined by the hundreds of spectators who were standing round the outside inches from the sliding motor cars.There were some unlikely competitors, some of whom were obvious locals, coming through the square on their way home. Finding themselves on
a racing circuit with mad idiots flashing past at crazy speeds there was only one thing to do - join in! There was a girl in a 2CV Citroen cornering practically on the door handles, which drew massive applause, a man sliding his greengrocers’ van around with his wife and kids having hysterics beside him, and a game old boy with a pipe clenched between his teeth, who showed great skill at the wheel of a Maigret-type Citroën Light 15. ‘There were then three Mini-Coopers with GB plates dicing wheel-to-wheel, in one of which some intrepid type was leaning right out of the window like a sidecar passenger, and a red, open MGB appeared, did a couple of laps to learn the circuit, and set off to catch the Minis. As they passed La Chapelle de la Visitation, he was right on their tails, trying to find a way past. At the corner by the Globe, all three were coming round in echelon, back ends well out, when suddenly the MGB, in a beautifully-controlled power-slide, blasted past the lot of them to take the lead at La Bourse. He very nearly lost it outside the Automobile Club, but held on to his lead, and as he tore past Les Tribunes, he was cheered to the echo. A green Morgan did three or four laps completely sideways and then retired to the ‘pits’ with a badly misfiring engine. A car-load of crewcut GIs drinking cans of Schlitz beer rolled up in a beat-up convertible Chevvy. Naively they asked, “Say, fellers, where’s a good place to go?” A hundred fingers pointed - “Round the square, boys!” Soon it was reverberating to the thunder of the big V8 as they mixed it, too.
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Illustration © Don Grant
Motoring
From the Back Seat Part 32 By Don Grant
I
n 1965, dad had managed to get my brother, Gregor, his girlfriend Jeanie, our chum Tim and myself into a hotel in the middle of Le Mans, a ramshackle, slightly shabby-pas-chic building called Hotel des Ifs, which is French for yew trees. He also had a stash of passes for the 24-hour race, which itself turned out to be a bit of an anti-climax. For many people the best racing of the weekend was on the Friday night and nowhere near the circuit. Le Mans was then a fairly typical, middlesized French provincial market town. Like most of the others it has an old cathedral, a river, in this case, the Sarthe, a Rue de Napoleon, La Bourse and the ubiquitous Place de la République. This was of generous proportions, roughly the length of Sloane Square, but twice as wide, with a car-park in the middle, cafés round the outside and a smooth asphalt surface. As my brother Gregor recalled, ‘it all started at about 11pm. The pavement cafés were crowded with enthusiasts discussing the next day’s race, when suddenly the comparative peace was
‘Of course, it had to happen - the law arrived. Quick as a flash, cars were flagged down and hustled down back streets and people nonchalently stepped down from the tables. Les flics drove round once slowly and then, surprisingly, turned off. No sooner had their tail lights vanished down the hill when the boys were at it again, tearing round the little circuit flat out in second gear. The gendarmes came back twice more in the next hour, each time doing a slow lap accompanied by boos and a slow handclap, and finally they arrived for good at about 2.30 am.’ It was all over, but it had been great fun while it lasted. The surface of the road was coated with rubber and hot to the touch and several cars were steaming merrily and crackling like a full-English breakfast. An account of ‘The Other Le Mans’ appeared in Autosport in the Christmas issue and my brother was accused by some readers of making the whole thing up. The week following its publication there were a couple of letters in the magazine, one condemning it, saying it was irresponsible to condone such behaviour, and the other saying it was the best piece of motoring writing he had read in a long time. Our mate Tim was driving one of the Mini Coopers, and I was the ‘intrepid type’ leaning out of the window. Sheer madness, colossal fun and, as the man said, completely irresponsible. I did a drawing of the event from memory, and all those who were there said it was a fair representation of what had happened on that hot, balmy, June night.
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that owns the rights to the name will not let NEVS use the iconic Swedish nameplate. But MG Rover and Saab have both been around for a while, there are thousands of them on Autotrader right now. What about a brand that has been long forgotten? No, I don’t mean Bugatti which was revived in the 1990s by VW. It was gone but certainly not forgotten. There’s a saying that you die twice, the second being when your name is uttered for the very last time. You could say that happened with the German Borgward, which went out of business in 1961. But in 2008, Christian Borgward, grandson of founder Carl F. W. Borgward, resurrected the name and in 2015, with financial backing from Chinese truck maker Foton, took the wraps of the BX7 SUV, and BX5 and BX6 concepts. A website has been set up that says “the rebirth of Borgward is undoubtedly the most exciting event in the international automotive market.” Time will tell how well it will do. But even Borgward, despite how obscure it may have been, has some heritage attached to it that it can exploit. What if one of those risky start-ups we discussed last month were to go bankrupt? You thought you’d heard the last of Fisker and Gumpert? But it seems that they’re both going back into production, or so they claim. The plugin-hybrid Fisker Karma is supposedly headlong back to the showroom while Gumpert appears to have split into Gumpert, building the Tornante, and Apollo with its Arrow. Some might see it as a chance to use a relatively wellknown brand name while others would say that if it failed before, why would you buy it now? Time will tell how well all of these do but one thing is for sure. If your favourite brand closes its doors, it might not be forever.
Motorsport Calendar
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Motoring Not going without a fight By Fahad Redha
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here used to be a time when if a car manufacturer went bust, it stayed that way. When was the last time you heard about AMC or Morris? But the recent trend is to keep this from happening. Nissan for example has brought Datsun back from the dead. Last month we looked at the difficulty in entering the brutal mosh pit that is the car industry. You can have a great product but it takes a lot to convince the Jones’ to trade in their Ford Mondeo for something they’ve never heard of. One way is to use an established brand that people will recognise. China’s Nanjing Automotive saw the power in this. In 2005 it bought MG Rover with the goal of bringing production back to Longbridge. What began with just the outdated TF roadster is now an ever expanding model range with a Fiestasized supermini and a Golf-baiting hatchback. Saab was in limbo for a long time after General Motors pulled the plug. There was talk that supercar makers Spyker and Koenigsegg were both interested, but holding company National Electric Vehicle Sweden (NEVS) bought it in the end. In December 2015, Road & Track reported that NEVS signed a $12 billion deal with a Chinese leasing company to supply 150,000 electric 9-3s and 100,000 other electric cars. The most recent news is that Saab AB, an aerospace company
Formula 1 May 15 Spanish Grand Prix, Catalunya May 29 Monaco Grand Prix World Rally Championship May 19 Rally de Portugal June 9 Rally Italia Sardegna July 1 Lotos 73rd Rally Poland July 28 Neste Rally Finland 21 August Adac Rallye Deutschland 11 September Rally China World Rally Cross May 13 – 15 Jules Tacheny, Belgium May 27 Lydden Hill, Great Britain June 4 – 5 BTCC, Oulton Park British GT Championship May 28 Oulton Park June 11 Silverstone July 8 Spa-Francorchamps August 6 Snetterton September 10 Donington Park World Endurance Championship June 18 24 Hours of Le Mans July 24 6 Hours of Nürburgring September 3 6 Hours of Mexico September 17 6 Hours of Circuit of The Americas October 16 6 Hours of Fuji November 6 6 Hours of Shanghai November 19 6 Hours of Bahrain British Rally Championship June 25 RSAC Scottish Rally July 9 – 10 Nicky Grist Stages August 19 – 20 Ulster Rally September 15 – 17 Rally Isle of Man Hillclimb June 28 Pikes Peak International Hill Climb British Hill Climb Championship
May 28 – 29 Gurston Down, BARC S/West Centre June 4 – 5 Shelsley Walsh, Midland Auto Club June 11 – 12 Loton Park, Hagley & District LCC June 18 – 19 Doune Lothian Car Club britishhillclimb.co.uk Historical Motorsports Courtesy Octane May 13 – 15 Grand Prix de Monaco Historique May 13 – 15 Spa Classic 21 – 22 May Grand Prix de Pau Historique Pau, France June 3 – 5 Grand Prix de l’age d’or
June 7 – 12 Modena Cento ore Classic July 10 – 8 Le Mans Classic July 29 – 31 Silverstone Classic August 5 – 7 Vintage Prescott August 12 – 14 Oldtimer Grand Prix August 13 – 19 Bonneville Speed Week August 18 – 21 Monterey Motorsports Reunion September 1 – 5 Lime Rock Historical Festival September 2 – 4 Historical Grand Prix Zandvoort September 9 – 11 Goodwood Revival September 16 – 18 Spa Six Hours October 13 – 20 Carrera Panamericana October 23 – 25 Algarve Classic Festival December 3 – 6 Le Jog Compiled by Fahad Redhas
May April/May 2016 2011
Sport Sport needs less drugs but not more regulation By Anna Bromley
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Sunday Times investigation showed how Mark Bonar, a London based private doctor prescribed performance-enhancing drugs (PED) to elite sports professionals in football, cricket, cycling and tennis. Bonar told the Sunday Times he treated athletes for medical reasons and not to enhance performance. The problem is that many of these drugs serve a dual purpose. They treat medical conditions with the upshot of also enhancing performance. One such drug is Meldonium which is given to patients whose heart cells don’t get enough oxygen, such as those who have had strokes, and people with diabetes and angina. But the performance enhancing effect of the drug is questionable. “Meldonium cannot improve athletic performance, but it can stop tissue damage” claim Grindeks, the Latvian manufacturers of the drug. Maria Sharapova had been taking the drug legally for the past 10 years, but the drug was put on the World Anti-Doping Agency’s (WADA) banned list on 1st January 2016. Sharapova knew the drug as mildronate and only found out it was also called the banned substance meldonium when she got back her failed test results from the International Tennis Federation at the Australian Open. The news has divided professionals with one of tennis’s greatest players, Martina Navratilova announcing on Twitter that “It seems to be an honest mistake”, and that she “hopes this gets cleared up”. Tennis coach Brad Gilbert takes a firmer line saying “This is big time oversight” from Sharapova and her team. Mistakes happen and some have dire consequences. Nike has halted its relationship with Sharapova until the investigation is complete. Other sponsors including Evian, Tag Heur, and Porsche are uncertain of their continuing
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online: www.KCWToday.co.uk relationship with the star player. It is clear that Sharapova failed to observe the changes to WADA’s regulations, but this is a sport she has dedicated her life to since the age of 4. Her career shouldn’t end this way. A minority of people think there is a place for drugs in sport and that it is morally permissible for athletes to use them. One reason cited is that athletes need to use drugs to recover and protect themselves from the damage of high performance training and competing. But the heart of the debate is about fairness and athletes setting a good example. There is no doubt that we need tight regulations and transparency in sport, but tying committed athletes up in unnecessary red tape is hardly productive or beneficial for sport. It is true that sport is about showing dedication and overcoming distinctly human limitations such as injury, without PED. But most athletes work hard and want to be in the best condition. Still, there is a clear line between legal drugs, special supplements, the right nutrition and intentionally seeking PED from dishonest doctors. It is common knowledge that there is already inequality in sport, in terms of the physical shape of athletes, their ethnicity, facilities and financial backing. Allowing doping would see the likes of heavyweight pharmaceutical companies like GlaxoSmithKline and AstraZeneca competing to drug the athlete with the most notoriety. Just like Adidas and Nike want their gear on the best athletes, big drug manufacturers will want their gear in them. Then it will be the companies we’re championing, not the athletes. Pumped up athletes attaining meaningless successes just don’t do it for me. Few would want to watch sport if there is an even greater inequality brought about through the legalisation of PED. If drugs became the norm in sport, we would lose our ability to empathise with athletes as they become superhuman. Then there will be no entertainment in sport at all. But what’s clear to me is that the answer to the problem of doping in sport won’t be found by putting a straightjacket on athletes and inventing pointless regulations that can easily be flouted.
London Home Football
May 15 Arsenal v Aston Villa 16:00 May 15 Chelsea v Leicester City 15:00
Sporting Calendar
Ladies London Home Football May 14 Arsenal v Chelsea, Wembley Stadium, FA Cup Final May 19 Chelsea v Man City 19:30 May 25 Chelsea v Sunderland 19:45
Cricket
May 8-11 Middlesex v Nottinghamshire 11:30 May 19 Interservices t20 tournament 10:00 May 22-25 Middlesex v Somerset 11:00
Athletics Courtesy of BBC Sport IAAF Diamond League May 14 Shanghai Stadium, Shanghai, China May 22 Rabat, Morocco May 28 Hayward Field, Eugene, Oregon, USA
Golf in May
Courtesy of BBC Sport 4-8 LPGA Tour: Yokohama Tire LPGA Classic, Prattville, AL. 5-8 European Tour: Trophee Hassan II, Royal Golf Dar Es Salam, Rabat, Morocco. Ladies European Tour Lalla Meryem Cup, Royal Golf Dar Es Salam, Rabat, Morocco. USPGA Tour: Wells Fargo Championship, Quail Hollow Club, Charlotte, North Carolina, United States. 6-8 USPGA Champions Tour: Insperity Invitational, The Woodlands CC, The Woodlands, Texas, United States of America. 12-15 Ladies European Tour Buick Championship, Shanghai Qizhong Garden Golf, Shanghai, China. USPGA Tour: THE PLAYERS Championship, TPC Sawgrass, Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida, United States.
European Tour: AfrAsia Bank Mauritius Open, Four Seasons GC, Mauritius at Anahita, Beau Champs, Mauritius. 18-22 LPGA Tour: Kingsmill Championship presented by JTBC, Williamsburg, VA. 19-22 USPGA Champions Tour: Regions Tradition, Greystone GC, Birmingham, Alabama, United States of America. USPGA Tour: AT&T Byron Nelson, TPC Four Seasons Resort, Irving, Texas, United States. European Tour: Dubai Duty Free Irish Open Hosted by the Rory Foundation, The K Club, Straffan, Co. Kildare, Ireland. 25-29 LPGA Tour: LPGA Volvik Championship, Ann Arbor, MI. 26-29 USPGA Champions Tour: Senior PGA Championship presented by KitchenAid, The GC at Harbor Shores, Benton Harbor, Michigan, United States of America. European Tour: BMW PGA CHAMPIONSHIP, Wentworth Club, Virginia Water, Surrey, England. USPGA Tour: Colonial National Invitation Tournament, Colonial CC, Fort Worth, Texas, United States.
Tennis in May
Courtesy of BBC Sport May 9-15 ATP & WTA Internazionali BNL D’Italia, Rome May 15-21 ATP Geneva Open, ATP Open d’Nice Cote d’Azur, Nice, France WTA Internationaux de Strasbourg May 22 – June 5 French Open, Roland Garros, Paris Horse Racing Kempton Park May 16
Afternoon Jump May 18, 25, June 2, 8 AWT - Evening
Newmarket
May 12 Evening Racing May 13 Newmarket Business Day May 14 Horse Play May 21 Family fun day
Sandown
May 19 Thursday Evening Raceday May 26 Brigadier Gerard Evening Windsor May 9 Spring Evening Racing May 16 HRH Queen Elizabeth’s 90th Birthday Racenight Ft The Beatles Revolution May 23 Monday Night Racing May 30 Family Fun Day - See Captain Barnacles & Kwazii
Marathons in the UK
May 21 Cape Wrath Challenge Durness, Highland May 21 White Peak Marathon Matlock, Derbyshire May 22 Brathay Windermere Marathon Ambleside, Cumbria May 22 Worcester Marathon May 28 Kent Roadrunner Marathon Gravesend, Kent May 28 Stornoway Half Marathon Stornoway, Western Isles May 29 Edinburgh Marathon May 29 EMF Edinburgh Half Marathon May 29 Liverpool Marathon June 5 Walled City Marathon Derry, Londonderry marathonrunnersdiary.com Compiled by Fahad Redha
Photograph © Prescott Pym
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Crossword & Marketplace Across
This is the forty sixth Wolfe Cryptic Crossword Jessica Streeting of SW1P was last month’s winner, congratulations. I hope you enjoyed last month’s edition. Commendation to Heather Petsopoulos for ‘Vaults more at sea next to brine, we hear (10)’ being her clue for ‘Somersault’ Please let me have any comments or suggestions you may have. Remember, even if you haven’t totally finished the whole crossword still send in your grids either by post to Wolfe, at Kensington,Chelsea and Westminster Today, 80-100 Gwynne Road London SW11 3UW, or scan it in and send by email to wolfe@kcwtoday. co.uk. as the first correct or substantially correct answer picked at random will win a prize of a bottle of Champagne kindly donated by: Lea and Sandeman. www.leaandsandeman.co.uk/Fine-Wine. 106 Kensington Church St, London W8 4BH. T: 020 7221 1982. Contact Sandor. 1 9
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8 Hold back the sound of precipitation. (4) 9 Multiple links stock this type of shop. (5,5) 10 Deactivate princess's limb (6) 11 Salt in naked arthropod. (8) 12 Mixing oil in an outlet from confined space is explosive. (7) 13 Alien not contributing to the exchequer. (3,3) 16 Hotchpotch casseroled meat and veg. (4) 17 One taught about Yuletide from the past, present and future. (5) 18 Naked polish. (4) 19 Involuntary expulsion from organ. (6) 21 Conservatives as a whole are OK. (3,5) 23 Individual princess’s colour about a hundred (8) 26 Lower yourself to rough bar in South Africa. (6) 27 May con turn around a bucolic chappie. (10) 28 In the beginning when in leaf they wither. (4)
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1 Alexanders mouldy preparation. (10) 2 Carved design from oil giant. (8) 3 Discernment reportedly bill you put before valets. (6) 4 Brag about clothing. (4) 5 Ten train making a private network. (8) 6 Saint on falling water pass through a sieve. (6) 7 Sound test unwritten. (4) 14 Crazy but not on the floor. (3-3-4)
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15 S mallest amount made by Galilean moon volunteers. (4) 17 I nventor of Brighton Rock took railway to growing plants. (8) 18 B ind wool when reducing liquid. (4,4)
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20 The limit old spouse goes to temporary accomodation. (6) 22 Epic tale what's afoot. (6) 24 Aid Olivier holding a screen legend. (4) 25 Break in to subdue. (4)
May 2016
Chess & Bridge CHESS
By Barry Martin
“Chocks Away!”
T
he decks have now been cleared and we can see clearly the new, indisputable candidate to challenge the Tiger from Norway, Magnus Carlsen, for his world title, Sergey Karjakin of Russia, formerly of Ukrainian descent. The stage has been set, and barring any further disputes between the FIDE president Kirsan IIyumzhinov and the USA’s persona non grata list which includes his name, New York is the city of choice; the venue there still to be announced, and set for later this year. The impending duel for the highest chess crown the world has to offer, has rekindled the East-West battle zone for chess supremacy, which for the past numbers of years had subsided in favour of the West and the Rest of the world, and fought out between nonRussian contenders such as Anand and Carlsen. However, Winter is Coming, as Kasparov’s recent book and title would have it, hints at Russia’s world aspirations, and success by Karjakin will undoubtedly fuel President Putin’s hopes and beliefs in Russian worldly domination. Magnus Carlsen is currently very upbeat and in good form, and 2015 was particularly good, as he finished it in a flurry of wins, sharing first place in the London Classic 3rd leg of the International Grand Tour, and in so doing winning the overall Grand Tour Trophy. This was followed by his victory in the Qatar Masters, during which he produced a game win against the Chinese number two player Li Chao, which will undoubtedly go down in chess history as not just one of his finest, but one of chess history’s greatest, and which forms the chess puzzle to follow. Carlsen has also, and particularly as a chess player, taken the aura of World Champion to new heights and global visibility with his image association connected to world consumer brands. Just recently his larger than life image in association with G-Star Raw menswear clothing products, was juxtaposed next to Liv Tyler, the transcendent beauty who played the unforgettable, magical Arwen in the film based on Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. Their images together were flown around London, and elsewhere, at giant size on the advertising hoardings attached to buses! The world ambassadorial role Carlsen plays has certainly brought the anorak out of the corner, shaken it and cast it out! World youth cannot get enough, it seems, of the stylish, intellectual, adolescent image that defines Carlsen and is the cut of his jib. This is successfully combined with innocence, truth and beauty, well
anyway, the latter particularly,with Liv Tyler. Carlsen followed this with a recent worldwide appearance advertising Porsche, but this one may not be so favourable overall, as co-starring alongside was Maria Sharapova, whose own star has descended at an accelerated rate of knots, as doping allegations have been made against her. Carlsen’s world visibility has maximised his profile in ways unknown to previous World Chess Champions, particularly through the world of fashion; an area recently elevated in status in which only godlike people can enter! It’s interesting that former World Champions, such as Bobby Fischer rejected any association whatsoever with commercial promotion, and Garry Kasparov’s well known political allegiances disallow him an entree to many sectors of the world's commercial trade. However, it shouldn’t stop a fashion design tailored to promote or highlight Kasparov’s areas of political interest from coming forward, after all, that is at least half the world! Of course the forthcoming world championship could change all that, if Sergey Karjakin, who has an outside chance, should win. It’s interesting to imagine what products and styles of clothes the Russian would wish to be associated with, particularly with Putin’s Russia bandstanding him in the full glare of the world’s interest and congratulatory applause? The chess history between the two puts Carlsen ahead by having twice as many wins against Karjakin, but interestingly the latter has more wins against Carlsen when playing the black pieces. Carlsen has won 17 times against Karjakin, the latter has triumphed 8 times against the former. However, and notwithstanding the strong lead Carlsen has in the voting stakes, Karjakin, who is in his midtwenties, has an illustrious career and several world titles South already. For example Deals in 2002 at the International N-S Vul Tournament in Sudak, he shocked the chess world by gaining his third grandmaster norm, making him the youngest grandmaster in chess history at the age of 12 years and 7 months, the record of which still stands! More interesting is his victory in 2013 at the inaugural Norway Chess Tournament, a 21 category event in Stavanger, with a score of 6 from a possible 9 points, half a point ahead of Magnus Carlsen and Hikaru Nakamura. And again in 2014 at the same tournament he repeated this victory with the same points lead over the field and again over Carlsen! But, Karjakin, who was due to play in the 2016 Norway Chess Tournament, starting on the 18th April has created a buzz in the chess world, by dropping out just 12 days before its start. Citing tiredness and preparation for his forthcoming world title match as reasons for his unavailability, the airwaves were abuzz with conspiracy theories and perhaps the intimation that meeting Carlsen before the world contest might jeopardise his
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online: www.KCWToday.co.uk morale should he lose on this occasion. Resourcefulness has, however, resulted in a substitute in the form of Li Chao, rated 15th. in the world, and mentioned earlier in this column with regards to Carlsen’s stupendous win against him in the Qatar Masters. Li Chao has, in accepting this invitation at such short notice, had to cancel his wedding. One hopes his impending game against Carlsen in this tournament throws up as stupendous an affair as their match did previously, with perhaps the result moving in his favour as a pre-wedding gift worthy of celebration! The following chess puzzle is based on Magnus Carlsen 2834, white, versus Li Chao 2750, black, Qatar Masters Open, December 2015. Black has played his Queen on move 16.....Qf7. strengthening his attack on white’s pawn on a2 combining three pieces in this onslaught, against white’s two defending pieces, including his King. White’s response was uniquely pulled out of the magician’s hat and most certainly wasn’t the response Li Chao had expected! It was the beginning of a devastating attack to come from white, and opened up the game into a fantastic series of attacking moves, counter moves
and commanding challenges, that is as exciting a game of chess one is ever likely to encounter! What was it ? Answer upside down below. Answer: 17.h4!,Bxa2. 18.h5!,Kg8.19. hxg6, hxg6.20.g4!, Bb3.21. Bd1!, a4.22. Qh2, Rfd8.23.Qh7+, Kf8.24.d5!, Nc4.25. Nxg6+, Ke8.26.e6!, a3.27.exf7+, Kd7.28. Ne5+, Bxe5.29. Qxf5+, Kc7.30. Qxe5+, Nxe5.31. Bxb3, axb2+.32. Kxb2, Nbd3+.33. Kb1, Nxc1.34.Rxc1, Kc8.35. dxc6, bxc6.36.f4..... 1-0. It’s interesting to note that between moves 27 to 35 there are 12 continuous captures, and at this top level of world rated chess that possibly makes this game unique in the history of the game.
020 7738 2348
Monthly Bridge Tip for Intermediates with Andrew Robson
When planning a trump contract, count up the number of sure tricks you have outside the trump suit. Provided you have no possibilities of extra tricks in those suits, you can calculate the number of trump tricks you need in order to fulfill your contract. Dealer South N/S Vulnerable ♠ ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ ♥ ♦ ♣
8762 K Q 10 9 32 KJ9
AQ53 J652 K Q 10 4 4 W
♠ ♥ ♦ ♣
N S
E
K J 10 9 4 A3 AJ A876
♠ ♥ ♦ ♣
— 874 98765 Q 10 5 3 2
West
North
East
Pass Pass Pass All pass
4 ♣1 5 ♦3 6 ♦5
Pass Pass Pass
South 1♠ 4 NT2 5 ♥4 7 ♠6
1. Splinter bid – a raise to (at least) 4♠ with a singleton (void) club. 2. Roman Key Card Blackwood – agreeing spades. 3. One or four of “five” aces (including ♠K). 4. Do you have ♠Q? 5. Yes – plus ♦K. 6. South can count 12 tricks: five trumps, three aces, three club ruffs in dummy, and ♦K. Bidding 7♠ is therefore a gamble, but there are good chances of a thirteenth trick (at worst ♦J finesse).
After using two of the best modern conventions – the Splinter and Roman Key Card Blackwood – you as South declare 7♠. West leads ♥K – plan the play. You can count one heart trick, four diamonds and one club; with no chance of any extra tricks in those suits, you need seven tricks from trumps. This means trumping (just) two clubs in dummy will suffice. Win ♥A, cash ♣A, and trump ♣6 (with ♠Q). Cross to ♠9, East discarding a ♦, and trump ♣7 (with ♠A). Then lead to ♠KJ10, drawing West’s three remaining trumps (and discarding two ♥s from dummy). Cash ♦A, overtake ♦J with ♦Q, cash ♦K10 discarding ♥3 and ♣8 from hand, and take the last trick, your thirteenth, with ♠4. Grand Slam made. The key was to avoid the temptation to ruff a third club. Worse than unnecessary, this would be fatal. Try it! ANDREW’S TIP: By counting your sure tricks outside trumps, you can plan how many trump tricks are required for your contract.
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