Kensington, Chelsea & Westminster Today March Edition 2016 by Kensington, Chelsea & Westminster Today

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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 Emily Eaton, Jonathan Macnabb, Derek Wyatt Classical Music James Douglas Crossword: Wolfe Dining Out: David Hughes

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US Presidential Primaries

Editorial: Fergus Coltsmann, Henry Jones, Fahad Redha Events: Leila Kooros, Jeanne Griffiths, Fahad Redha Food & Flowers: Limpet Barron The Dandy John Springs Marketing & Business Development: Caroline Daggett, Niki Devereux, Cassandra Donovan Antoinette Kovatchka, Johan Thomsen Motoring: Don Grant, David Hughes, Fahad Redha News Editor, Online Editor & Arts Correspondent: Max Feldman News Editor: (managing) Fergus Coltsmann Poetry and Literary Editor: Emma Trehane MA Ph.D Sub-Editor: Leila Kooros Sporting Calendar Compiled by Fahad Redha Travel: Lynne McGowan, Cynthia Pickard

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here is as ever increasing excitement at the US primaries which are now in full swing. This is partly because both camps the GOP (Grand Old Party aka as the Republicans) and the Democrats both have to choose their candidates for the Presidential elections in November 2017. Last week Nevada and South Carolina declared. Donald Trump won easily for the GOP and Hillary Clinton nudged it for the Democrats. But neither

Boris and the EU By Max Feldman

Whilst the Labour party in recent years has frequently been rent by debilitating internal strife and power struggles between differing ideologies, the Conservatives have, at least on the surface, been able to keep their power plays within the path laid out by David Cameron (or at least keep any major disagreements out of the public eye). The EU referendum however has proved catnip to rebels of all stripes and with Boris Johnson throwing his considerable (political) weight behind the Out campaign, Cameron’s strictly enforced party loyalty seems in danger of stuttering to a degree never before seen. Behind the curtain of the referendum however lies another struggle for supremacy, with many both within the Conservatives and without who view Boris’s championing of the Out campaign as simply a cold-blooded political stepping stone for the Mayor’s longed for anointment as post-Cameron leader. There are few who doubt other Tory rebels such as Michael Gove’s sincere beliefs in the goals of Brexit, but Boris’s enthusiasm for the anti-Europe

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online: www.KCWToday.co.uk can be certain of the bigger prize just yet. Voters are always enthralled by the primaries even if turn out is frankly woeful. As they gain momentum state by state a greater realism begins to dawn about whether the front runners are really presidential material. This has not quite kicked in and this may be why Michael Bloomberg, the former Mayor of New York, may stand as an independent. Independent runners are rare. Two stand out from previous elections. In 1972, 1992, 1996 and 2000 Ralph Nader, the campaigning environmentalist, stood as an independent and then as a green party candidate but had no visible success. But in 1992 Ross Perot managed 18.9% of the popular vote and 8% in 1996 which probably cost George Bush Snr a second term of office in 1992. Should Bloomberg stand he will likely score in the low teens which will have a critical effect on the Republican ticket. Perhaps, he is really looking for a nod to become the running mate and potentially Vice President if the Republican candidate wins. Although there has been much hyperbole surrounding Donald Trump and his megaphone diplomacy he is not all bad. But it is truly hard to see the GOP nominating this towering inferno of a politician. He is not Presidential material. If that is the case then who is

going to come through on the rails? That is a much harder question to answer. Of the other candidates none really have made much impact just yet. One though is bound to come out of the pack. It ought to have been Jeb Bush, a former Governor of Florida, but he has pulled out. Of the others Carly Fiorina, who spent $100m on a failed bid to become Governor of California, dropped out after Ohio but could just be nominated as a running mate for Vice President should Hillary Clinton win the Democratic nomination. This leaves Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Ben Carson and John Kasich. Rubio is the outsider but has many of the qualities of Obama and may yet pull through despite being only 44. Carson and Kasich will surely fall soon leaving Marco Rubio as the possible only other option to Donald Trump. This is not something anyone would have predicted three months ago. Hillary Clinton is the consummate politician who has been in the public firmament since 1991 when Bill her husband won. The book about Hillary written by Gail Sheehy (1999) basically concludes as follows; “What do Bill and Hillary have in common? They both love Bill”. And like it or not Bill’s shadow is an issue for Hillary. She was the consummate managerial secretary of state from 2008-2012 and now is bidding

for the highest honour. In 1983 on a visit to America, I said to Sarah, a girlfriend at the time, would we see a Women President before a Black one. She said “Yes”; I said “No”. Now I hope we will see a woman President. But nothing is ever easy for the Clintons. The issue over those emails remains and you have to assume they will be leaked nearer the time. Of course, Bernie Saunders is gaining some credibility as her opponent but you cannot see him as a President and anyway Hillary is already a long way ahead in nominations. She still has work to do but my sense is that she will gain the nomination. A Clinton v Trump final would see Clinton sail home.

cause has certainly been examined with a particularly sharp feeling of cynicism. Whether or not this will end up mattering in the long run remains to be seen. Whatever his reasons and true beliefs the public has frequently polled Johnson’s influence on the European question to be second only to Cameron, with recent studies by BMG Research finding that up to 9% of voters willing to change their mind on the strengths (or weaknesses) of Johnson’s arguments for leaving Europe. Whilst the press has been presenting Boris as effectively the defacto leader of the Leave Campaign, it is far from a unified movement and some within it are fiercely suspicious of the Mayor’s motives. Boris along with six other cabinet ministers are fighting for Brexit; Ian Duncan Smith, Michael Gove, John Whittingdale, Chris Grayling, Theresa Villiers and Priti Patel,(nicknamed the Gang of Six), have sided with Vote Leave who are one of the main rival Eurosceptic camps along with the GO Movement. Previous merger attempts between Leave EU (one of the predecessors to the GO Movement) and Vote Leave were scuppered by what appeared to be personality clashes and differences on tactics. Considering that Nigel Farage sits on the GO Movement’s board it seems unlikely that the fight between the

Euro-sceptic groups will be short lived or bloodless. The Electoral Commission will make its decision after the PM calls the poll, which could be held as early as June 2016. Considering the stakes of Brexit, this isn’t so much a hill as a vertiginous mountain that Boris has chosen to make his stand on. The exact extent of Boris’s always slightly opaque level of popularity with the people will be forced into the light and, by the referendum, political fortunes will be gained or lost forever. For both the Mayor and the country. Cameron must have so many darts in him at the moment that it is surprising he is still standing.

the news bulletins over the past week and I have had a large number of queries as to my views. I supported the Prime Minister in his efforts to renegotiate Britain’s relationship with the European Union. It was a once in a lifetime opportunity to fundamentally change Britain’s relationship with the EU. Regrettably, in spite of the Prime Minister's best efforts it appears that other Member States did not want to use this excellent opportunity to bring the EU into the 21st Century. As a member of the EU, Britain sends £50 million a day of British taxpayer’s money to Brussels. I believe that this money would be better spent on tackling poverty in Britain, on additional funding for our NHS and supporting the most vulnerable in our country. I believe in localism: local people deciding where their money is spent and decisions being made as close to voters as is logical. I do not believe this can be achieved by handing the purse strings and decision making to the EU. Over the coming months both Remain and Leave will set out their views and it will be down to British voters, not politicians, to decide whether we Remain or Leave. I look forward to the British people delivering their verdict. Victoria Borwick MP

Victoria Borwick MP comments on the EU referendum With the European Referendum hitting the headlines over the past month, we reached out to Kensington’s Conservative MP, Victoria Borwick, to see what side of the fence she came down on: The EU referendum has dominated

Illustrations © Jono

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Photograph © Royal Trinity Hospice

Hundreds of operations in London cancelled as junior doctors’ strike By Henry Jones

By Henry Jones

he Duchess of Cornwall yesterday unveiled a plaque commemorating the 125th anniversary of Britain's oldest hospice on the 10th of February. HRH Camilla Duchess of Cornwall, who has been a patron of the Royal Trinity Hospice in Clapham for over 10 years, met with staff and patients while touring the hospice's 'uplifting' grounds and facilities. The Royal Trinity Hospice also marked the occasion by announcing a fundraising drive which it hopes will raise £3.5 million for a new facility north of the Thames. In order to offer free, end-of-life care to the 750,000 people who require it, the Royal Trinity wants to open an innovative new centre to provide new services for patients suffering from 'progressive and life-limiting illnesses.' Primarily the centre will enable patients in the boroughs of Hammersmith & Fulham, Kensington and Chelsea, and Westminster, to more easily access the facilities and therapies which they struggle to reach in South London. While visiting the Art therapy room, the Duchess congratulated Outpatient, Peter Copeman, on his watercolour of an Italian landscape. Copeman, who is known for his good humour, replied by joking with Camilla about Prince Charles' artistic ability after he was recently discovered to be one of Britain's most profitable painters.

When asked if Charles had ever painted her, Camila replied: “No, he isn't very good at people”. The Royal Trinity Hospice grounds and location make it a peaceful haven on the northern edge of Clapham Common, the perfect place for patients to spend time with their families and make use of facilities and treatments they urgently require. Eunice, a Healthcare Assistant working on the 28-bed Inpatient ward, called the hospice an “oasis of calm”. After meeting with some of the hospices’ inpatients, many of whom are entirely bed-bound, Camilla finished her trip by unveiling a plaque commemorating the 125th Anniversary. Before leaving the Duchess spoke warmly about the Royal Trinity hospice as an 'uplifting place' which seemingly 'goes from strength to strength'. Rubén, 6, who is the grandson of a patient at the facility then handed her a bunch of flowers which the Duchess said she was 'honoured' to receive.

London now has more estate agents than butchers, greengrocers and fishmongers By Max Feldman

More than 200 estate agents have opened in London in the past year, at a rate of one every 1.6 days. The number of estate agents in the capital has grown to eclipse the combined number of London’s independent butchers, greengrocers, and fishmongers despite a

Earlier this month, junior doctors walked out as part of a planned 24 hour strike, affecting thousands of patients throughout the capital. Up to 3,000 surgeries and procedures were cancelled but emergency care was covered by consultants and doctors during the walk out. In the boroughs of Westminster, Kensington and Chelsea, and Hammersmith and Fulham, where there are numerous hospitals which offer care to patients from across London it is estimated that as many as 1000 procedures were affected by the strike. Jeremy Hunt, Minister for Health, claimed that 43% of junior doctors crossed picket lines and “actually turned up for work” therefore lessening the impact of the strikes. NHS England disputed the figure, saying that it incorporated doctors who had never intended to strike, including those working in emergency care. The Chelsea and Westminster Hospital said in a statement “only those patients with appointments deemed to be non-urgent by senior clinical staff were affected”. Nevertheless, this still meant that the hospital was forced to reschedule over 220 outpatient procedures, one elective appointment, and ten day case procedures. Similarly, Guy's & St. Thomas

Hospital was forced to reschedule 15% of its day’s non-urgent operations and as many as 400 outpatient appointments. The Imperial Healthcare trust which manages the Charing Cross, Hammersmith, Queen Charlotte’s & Chelsea Hospital, St. Mary’s, and Western Eye Hospital had to cancel 17% of its planned outpatient procedures. The Royal Brompton & Harefield NHS, which does not provide emergency care, only had to rearrange “11 nonurgent procedures [and] operations” as a consequence of the junior doctor’s strike. Cancelled non-emergency operations and procedures are estimated to have impacted in the region of 20,000 people nationwide. When asked about the backlog created by the strike the Imperial NHS trust said that all cancelled operations would be “rescheduled to take place within two weeks.” Dr Johann Malawana, BMA junior doctor committee chair, said that they “deeply regret the disruption caused to patients.” He added: “Junior doctors already work around the clock seven days a week and they do so under their existing contract. If the Government want more seven-day services then, quite simply, they need more doctors, nurses and diagnostic staff, and the extra investment needed to deliver it.” growing awareness of a crippling lack of supply and a decline in transactions. The City of Westminster has the largest number, with 228 outlets throughout the borough, having seen a 27.4% increase in estate agents opening over the course of 2015. Online estate agent HouseSimple.com carried out the research that found there are some 2,900 estate agents in the capital. Other boroughs which have seen steep rises in the number of estate agents include Islington (26.1%) and Hammersmith and Fulham (15.9%). Regardless of declining trends or the housing crisis that has dominated the capital’s cultural conversation, the only borough where there was a decline in the number of agencies was Enfield. House prices in London last year grew 9.4% during 2015, according to the Office for National Statistics, compared with the UK average of 6.7%.

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Help and Advice for independent living and health

hether you want help or advice to sort out an issue in your life, or want to find new things to do, there are plenty of options available locally. But it’s not always obvious how to find out what they are. However, there is now a great way to get the information you need, when you need it. Nick Marchant, Website Manager at People First said “We aim to give you the information you need. If that means finding out about support in your home, tips on weight loss, help with financial advice, or where to learn French, it’s all on People First. And with January coming, and perhaps thoughts of a new year’s resolution, we have plenty of ideas” The website is colourful and easy-to-use and aimed at adults in Westminster, Kensington and Chelsea and Hammersmith & Fulham, as well as their families, friends and carers. The People First website has three main sections, all of which are jargon-free, and provide easy to read information about a range of issues and subjects (including lots of tips on good health), a list of agencies and organisations that can help, and a comprehensive list of local events and activities for everybody, whatever their interests. There’s over 100 things happening every day for adults of all ages, and all kinds of activities from art groups, through gardening, to zumba classes. There are also activities for people who are housebound. A superb feature of the website is that as you look at one subject, other related topics will be suggested to you – or you can just search for things that interest you! Marchant explained “We treat people as experts on their own lives and what they want to achieve – no-one likes being told what to do!”.The website is funded by the local councils’ adult social care department, and you can find out more by visiting www.peoplefirstinfo.org.uk or contact Nick.Marchant@rbkc.gov.uk

The Serpentine Galleries Architecture Programme revealed

Photographs © Bjarke Ingels Group

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Camilla celebrates the 125th anniversary of Britain's oldest hospice

March 2016

Kensington Gardens W2 3XA

On the 24th of February, the Serpentine Galleries revealed designs for the Pavilion and four Summer Houses. This year, the Serpentine is running an expanded Architecture Programme that aims to introduce contemporary architecture to a wider audience through built structures rather than models and sketches. The 16th annual Pavilion has been designed by the Bjarke Ingels Group, and will be used as a café and family activity area during the day and a space for the Serpentine’s Park Nights programme in the evenings. The four Summer Houses are all designed by architects who don’t have a complete permanent structure in the UK. They are inspired by the nearby Queen Caroline’s Temple, and are produced by Kunlé Adeyemi, Barkow Leibinger, Yona Friedman, and

Asif Khan. Serpentine Galleries Director Julia Peyton-Jones and Co-Director Hans Ulrich Obrist said: “We are delighted to reveal the designs for our expanded Architecture Programme. As you can see from the architect’s renders, Bjarke Ingels has responded to the brief for a multi-purpose Pavilion with a supremely elegant structure that is both curvaceous wall and soaring spire, that will surely serve as a beacon, drawing visitors across Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens to visit the Pavilion, the Summer Houses and our major exhibitions by Alex Katz and Etel Adnan. The response to design a Summer House inspired by the 18th Century Queen Caroline’s Temple by our four international architects has been equally inspired and has produced four unique spaces for visitors to explore.

Photograph © Asif Khan

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News Olympic pay still RBKC Bans Laser attacks on outstanding Basement Works planes sky rocket By Fahad Redha By Emily Eaton on Weekends

At least eleven stewards and security guards that worked during the London 2012 Olympics have said that they have yet to be paid for their work. Four years after the games, they are owed up to £1,800 each. BBC Inside Out London spoke with the woman who hired them, Rukhsana Kauser, who claims that she “never directly recruited anyone” for the games. However, some of the workers have texts, emails, and Skype footage proving that she did employ them, though none have met her in person. The workers are taking legal action, saying they will not give up. “She ran away with the money,” Mohammad Anwar, who worked as a security guard for the firm Britannia Security Service Ltd, said. Mr Anwar worked 12-hour shifts and expected to be paid £7-8 per hour and says he has not received the £1,800 he is owed by the company. The workers are each owed a minimum of £1,000. “The amount of money I was looking to get is around £1,500, for the work I did," said Jatinder Ghuman, another worker. "We were doing 12 to 13 hour shifts and we were told that if we did five days in a trot, without breaking it…. We will actually get a £250 bonus as well. We didn't even get that.” Mr Ghuman worked at the Paralympics for the same company. He was a steward overseeing crowd control and claims he worked for 14 consecutive days but is still owed all of his wages. Aamir Rafique, another unpaid worker, said he had to take out a loan that has, so far, cost him £3,000 in repayments and interest. During the Olympics, Miss Kauser was the sole director of Britannia Security Services which has since been dissolved. It was sub-contracted to recruit and manage staff for the Olympics by another firm, AP Security, which says it gave Britannia the necessary funds to pay off the employees but those who tried to chase Miss Kauser for their wages say they have received no reply to emails or phone calls.

a major part of the new laws are meant to ensure that developers and builders adequately communicate with local areas about the noise pollution their work will cause. Kensington and Chelsea’s Cabinet Member for Environmental Health, Councillor Tim Ahern, said: “We completely recognise the importance of building and construction work in the borough. However, we must appreciate that for people who live close by it can have an enormous impact on their lives. “This is why we have introduced this new Code of Practice. It will help bring peace on the weekends and require developers to work far more closely with people who live close to their sites to mitigate, wherever possible, the problems associated with noise, dust, and disturbance.”

Photograph © Josh Hallett

By Henry Jones

Airline pilots are renewing their calls for laser pointers to be reclassified as offensive weapons, as the number of laser attacks on planes sky rockets. Around 1800 laser attack incidents were reported to the Civil Aviation Authority in 2015, up from 746 incidents in 2006. Pointing a laser at a plane “so as to dazzle or distract the pilot of the aircraft” is an offence under an Air Navigation Order, as is “recklessly or negligently” endangering an aircraft. In response to the rising incidents, the National Police Air Service is trialling protective eye wear for its pilots, which it announced in a statement which also explained the risk of laser attacks posed to them: “The increasing number of laser attacks on aircraft worldwide is a source of serious concern to the aviation industry. In an attack, a laser pointer is deliberately or recklessly shone at airborne aircraft, sometimes persistently over a period of minutes. The impact on a pilot is at the very least distracting, but can be serious enough to cause temporary ‘flash’ blindness and in some cases; lasting eye damage.” Following an attack on Sunday 14th of February, in which a plane was forced to land just after take off when a pilot fell ill after a laser was shot into the cockpit, the British Airline Pilot Association said: “Modern lasers have the power to blind, and certainly to act as a huge distraction and to dazzle the pilots during critical phases of flight. “We are sure the police will do everything in their power to find the culprits of this attack and prosecute them. “We repeat our call to the Government to classify lasers as offensive weapons which would give the police more power to arrest people for possessing them if they had no good reason to have them. This incident shows why this is becoming more-andmore urgent. Another incident occurred on the evening of 22nd of February, as a laser was shone into a BA pilot’s eyes as he came into land at Heathrow.

Photograph © Basement Campign

Complaints about noisy neighbours in the Royal Borough may be a thing of the past, after the announcement that Kensington and Chelsea council has banned building work on ‘mega basements’ over weekends. Basement construction works have long been the cause of anger and complaints in the Royal Borough and West London generally. However, Kensington and Chelsea Council hopes that its decision to ban noisy works on weekends will address some of the major concerns raised by residents. After the Council Cabinet agreed a new “code of construction practice”, the permitted hours of “noisy works” will now no longer include any time on Saturdays. Moreover, the new code will also further restrict high impact activities such as “demolition and concrete breaking”. Using the Control of Pollution Act 1974 powers to enforce the code, the Council Cabinet has emphasised that

Photograph © EDVVC

ondon Mayor Boris Johnson has announced that he will back the planned axing of 13 fire engines in London to save money. Fire stations in Ealing, Hammersmith, Chelsea and Willesden are amongst stations that will lose at least one fire engine. This is following the temporarily withdrawal of some vehicles. The London Fire Commissioner recommended this in November 2015 in a bid to save money from the 2016/17 budget. The Mayor announced in February that he backed the plans. “Frontline services and the safety of Londoners remain the Mayor's top priority,” said a spokesperson for the Mayor of London, adding, “and after carefully considering the issues raised by the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority and the results of the public consultation exercise, he has decided to direct LFEPA to follow the Fire Commissioner’s preferred option. “Fires and fire deaths in London remain at a record low as the London Fire Brigade continues to do an excellent job”. According to the Fire Brigades Union (FBU), a public consultation from the 7th December to the 1st February found that only 18% of Londoners support the measure. “This consultation shows that the public acknowledge the dangers to life that will be posed by cutting appliances in our capital so severely. Paul Embery, FBU Regional Secretary for London, wrote to the London Fire Commissioner. “No-one wants this,” he wrote, “and the LFB Commissioner has to now accept that public opinion does matter. Boris Johnson’s awful, unpopular idea to save money isn’t a good one. Lives and safety have to come first.” “Since the last round of cuts in 2014, attendance times in London have got worse and it's only going to get worse as more fire engines are cut,” Stephen Stephenson, Fire Brigade Union Representative at Chelsea fire station, told Get West London. He went on to say “with the next round of cuts on the horizon, it's only going to get worse. “Londoners are being put at risk to meet the mayor’s unreasonable budget demands. There must be a suspension of further cuts before more lives are lost.”

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High earning council tenants to pay full market rent

By Henry Jones

ouncil house tenants who earn up to £40,000 could be liable to pay the market value rent of their

home. The so called "pay-to-stay" Housing and Planning Bill before parliament will tackle what the government is calling a "subsidised below market rent level" for council tenants throughout the UK. The changes which were outlined as part of last year’s budget could affect up to 27,000 lower-income families in London who will be forced to move out of areas where private rents are far higher than the rates they currently pay. In Kensington and Chelsea, which is currently the most expensive borough in which to rent a property in England, the average monthly rental price is £2,235. Up to 25% of the households in the borough rent their properties from the council or housing association which is also much higher than average in London. However, according to the borough’s

Cycle logical When I was a younger (and significantly less wise) man, I used to live in fear of my parents suggesting going “for a nice walk”. Whilst my parents seemingly could have briskly walked from London to the Isle of Skye in about 4 hours (including a break for lunch) my feet seemed to go numb before we’d even left the house and by the time we’d left the park they seemed as likely to fall off as carry me home. Whilst most of my teenage aversion to exercise disappeared around the time that I stopped viewing Monster Munch as a suitable substitute for dinner, I still found myself going out of my way to find excuses to avoid walks, long or short. This lasted until I found myself swept off said sore feet by a fitness fanatic who made it clear almost immediately that my avoidance tactics weren’t going to cut it with her. Soon I found myself being frogmarched to Altimus, a combination high end sports and shoe store on High Street Kensington. Rather than just measuring my feet like I expected, they treated me to a full biomechanical assessment, completely mapping my feet and getting to the root of a problem I didn’t even know I had: my treacherous tootsies were slightly misaligned, which was the root cause of all my woes. Provided with a new pair of perfectly aligned walking boots, I took my first steady steps and soon felt a massive alleviation of stress from my knees all the way up to my back. Soon I’d fallen in love with walking with an ardour that made my

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News

Boris backs unpopular fire engine cuts By Fahad Redha

March 2016

own housing policy document, many of its properties are not fit for purpose as many of their "existing households are overcrowded" while others "are too big" for the families inhabiting them." With only 500 properties available in Kensington and Chelsea for new tenants last year, "the number of people in Kensington and Chelsea who need to be rehoused is much larger than the number of properties available to the Council for letting each year". Any income generated by the rent increase will be

returned to housing associations with an expectation that the additional funds will be reinvested in new housing which is urgently required. London mayoral candidates, Zac Goldsmith and Sadiq Khan, have both criticised the pay-to-stay proposal and agreed that rents should be capped at a third of household income. For a household earning the current proposed lower limit of £40,000, this would make rent in Chelsea £1,125 a month cheaper than the current market value. Brandon Lewis, the Minister for State housing and planning, has already sought to "water down" the policy. While indicating that this has always been the Government’s aim, he said: "it is absolutely right that we come up with a deal that is also fair for taxpayers." Before adding that the scheme may be introduced gradually so as to avoid a backlash similar to the one created last year by the ‘Bedroom tax’. Moreover, this policy comes just weeks after the popular launch of London specific help to buy scheme which 15,000 people have already joined. The squeeze on social housing is a clear product of the Government’s preference for homeownership and development schemes. In the midst of what many call a "housing crisis" record numbers of housing association flats are being sold to subsidise mortgage deposits for first-time buyers.

lover more than a little jealous. interpret the terrifying amount of data Whilst the fitness fanatic has long and come up with the ideal bike balanced since gone her own way, I’ve developed to my physique. The Velosport bikes offer what would otherwise be an intimidating more than enough fanaticism of my own amount of customization if not from to make up for her. In the last days of February though I found myself wondering the shopping list worth of my data the staff had to work from. Considering if my new zest for walking might only that Altimus work from the body to the be the first step. Returning to Altimus I felt it was time to give cycling (another method of exercise I’d treated like bubonic plague) a proper spin. Looking into their intimidatingly high-tech selection of Electro-bikes, I greedily started to pick my favourite before a helpful shop assistant informed me that there was a similar free process to the biomechanical assessment that had served my feet so well to help me find the perfect bike. I excitedly agreed only to be shown into full body machine that seemed to be straight out of 2001: A Space Odyssey, which quickly and completely scanned my entire body from the length of my fingers to the stretch of my thighs. Whilst I couldn’t quite overcome the irrational fear that the machine would then go onto clone 138 High Street Kensington, me, it was a quite amazing London W8 7RL experience and Altimus were able to quickly Tel: 020 7937 7177

Daily bike trips equal to fifth of Tube trips By Fergus Coltsmann

On the 26th of February,Transport for London revealed figures showing that the daily number of bike trips in the Capital is equal to a fifth of daily Tube trips, and are now proclaiming cycling as a “major mode of transport”. The number of bike trips equate ten per cent of all bus passengers a day, and slightly under the combined number of trips on the DLR and Overground. TfL then set a challenge for the next Mayor by setting the goal of doubling the number of daily bike trips to 1.5 million a day by 2017. Photograph © Richard Croft

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bike rather than vice versa by the time I pedalled off, my totally customized bike already felt like an extension of my body rather than anything I needed to adapt to. As I weaved (semi)expertly through the traffic I already found myself having so much fun I wondered where I’d ever find the time to walk again...

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Campaign to save Turner's Twickenham Villa By Henry Jones

Photograph © Fernando Pascullo

The Turner's House Trust has launched a campaign to raise the £2.4 million they need to save a villa designed and built by the nation's favourite artist. After securing funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund, Architectural Heritage Fund, and generous donations from its supporters the Trust now only

Earl’s Court residents stave off demolition for now By Emily Eaton

The Earl’s Court Area Action Group (ECAAG) have been granted a temporary reprieve in their fight to save threatened Victorian terraced homes in Empress Place and two pubs. The properties were due to be demolished by Capital & Counties Properties Plc (Capco) adjacent to the Earls Court Masterplan.

News needs £125,000. An ‘urgent’ crowdfunding campaign to “meet the funding gap” has already raised over £9,000 and will end on 7th March 2016. Sandycombe Lodge, which was left to the Turner’s House Trust in 2010, is a unique part of London’s art history. Catherine Parry-Wingfield, chairman of Turner’s House Trust, said the building “is a rare three-dimensional work of art by Turner, England’s internationally renowned landscape painter. We must save it for future generations.” The Grade II listed building will be restored to its original design and will entirely remove some unsightly later additions. However, major problems with damp and general decay have recently led to it being placed on English Heritage’s at risk register. When it reopens in 2017, Sandycombe will allow visitors to explore everyday life in regency England and experience some of the ways Turner was influenced by the landscapes around him. The Trust will also expand its educational programmes both for the local community and wider audiences. The demolition of Empress Place and two adjacent parades of shops on the Lillie Road by Capco entity Earl's Court Partnership Ltd was due to start on the 11th January 2016. Thanks to outraged Hammersmith and Fulham residents’ application to list the Prince of Wales pub as an Asset of Community Value, demolition of this area has had to be temporarily stayed. To raucous cheers from participants and spectators, Capco staff pulled down their marketing suite’s blinds when residents in Victorian fancy dress sang the national anthem outside their Lillie Square showroom opposite Empress Place. Empress Place comprises two rows of attractive Victorian workers’ cottages in Hammersmith and Fulham. On the corner is the Edwardian Prince of Wales public house and a few doors up on the Lillie Road is The Imperial Arms. Linda Wade, Chair of ECAAG attended as did Andrew Slaughter MP for Hammersmith. Wade said, "We are losing so much of our built heritage and sense of place in London that appreciating what we still have takes on an added significance".

Plans to cut the last family planning clinic in Chelsea By Henry Jones

Chelsea may soon be losing its last remaining family planning clinic in plans being drawn up by the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea (RBKC) and the NHS, residents and staff have reported. This is despite sexual health diagnoses running at a three year high. If plans to relocate the Violet

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launched a petition to halt the process. Managers are alleged to have told staff at the clinic that they “are developing some rooms within the existing building that will provide a range of primary care, voluntary sector, and social care services to the local population. The new ‘whole systems hub’ will seek to join up care for local residents and deliver improved healthcare outcomes within West London”. However, despite already collecting hundreds of signatures, it may already be too late to prevent the closure of the clinic. Reports from staff have indicated that renovation work on the building which the clinic operates out of have began, and staff have been told that they are being “relocated to Lisson Grove,” a

for foreign residents

Photograph © ATG

Photograph © Turner's House Trust

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March 2016

Melchett family planning clinic are executed, Chelsea will be left without a dedicated primary family planning clinic. Furthermore, despite the potential closure scheduled to happen at the end of March, the clinic’s patients have still not been officially informed. KCW Today has learnt that any plans to commission a new adult sexual and reproductive health service for the tri-borough area are scheduled to begin April 2017, which means the closure of the Violet Melchett clinic in March this year could leave the area without essential services. According to statistics provided by Public Health England, Kensington and Chelsea is currently facing an increase in the number of sexually transmitted infections (STIs). Somewhat paradoxically, however, staff at the Victoria Melchett Family Planning clinic have been told by their commissioner the clinic is due to be decommissioned because of the increase STI diagnoses. Among the other seemingly contradictory reasons given for decommissioning the Violet Melchett Family planning clinic are increasing occurrences of high risk sexual activities and current services not meeting the demands of the “current sexual health needs”. Staff at the Violet Melchett who first raised concerns about the effect of the closure on the local population have

larger hub clinic in Marylebone. Confusingly, official statements from Kensington and Chelsea Council and the NHS both attempted at first to deny any knowledge of the plans, then seem to blame each other for the decision. In a statement Kensington and Chelsea Council said that they “are not aware of any plans Central London Community Healthcare (CLCH) has to reduce its satellite service.” The Council added “if the core service at Violet Melchett was changed we would expect satellite clinics to continue to deliver family planning services to the levels which the borough has commissioned”. However, RBKC are currently reviewing their “community based clinical reproductive health services” which they operate “through a contract with CLCH”. This reportedly to “address changing needs and trends” in the borough. Likewise, the Central London Clinical Commissioning Group (CL CCG) said in an official statement: “We are looking at options for future use of some of the space at Violet Melchett Health Centre, but as yet no decisions have been made.” When asked to clarify the confusion over who is actually responsible for the closure, the CL CCG blamed Kensington and Chelsea council for the decision, saying: “family planning services are commissioned by the council, not the CCG.”

London is gearing up for the Mayoral elections on May 5th. The main contenders are Zac Goldsmith for the Tories and Sadiq Khan for Labour. Both Goldsmith and Khan have been at pains to paint themselves embracing London’s multicultural identity. London is a city built on migration and multiculturalism, and this can be seen from the gleaming skyscrapers of the City to the cosiest enclaves of our heritage museums. But many migrants living and working in the capital now may be unaware of how much of a say they can have in their local communities. It is the right of every European and Commonwealth resident of the UK to vote in elections of local authorities, devolved legislatures, and the European Parliament. Some qualifying Commonwealth citizens, who are resident in the UK, even have the right to vote in a general election. Marie Cecile Boulle, of Boulle International, works with those who have migrated to London on a daily basis. Many, she attests, do not know that they have a chance to have a say in who is running their local communities. Boulle was so shocked to discover this,

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online: www.KCWToday.co.uk she approached KCW Today to highlight how simple it is for some migrant UK residents to register to vote. The website, gov.uk/register-to-vote, is the simplest way to register your name on the electoral register and takes about five minutes to do. For this you will need to be over the age of 18 and have your National Insurance Number. There are other advantages, beyond having a say in your local elections, for registering to vote. Perhaps the most significant of these is if you are trying to buy or rent a property. One of the first things that property agents check, is whether your name features on the electoral register as this acts as proof of address. It could be the difference between securing a mortgage or not. Registering to vote is one of the ways in which you can easily be assimilated into British life and have your say. In addition, the streamlined British service means you can register to vote in an election right before it takes place, unlike other countries where you must be on the register at least a year before an election. If you are a European or Commonwealth subject resident in the UK, you will likely be paying council tax. To have a say in how this money is spent, it is essential to be involved in local politics as these can affect everything from what day your rubbishis collecteds, to what school your children will attend. Visit: gov.uk/register-to-vote to sign up!

Unique and gifted Sales and Marketing people needed for KCW Today newspaper Kensington, Chelsea & Westminster Today is an established, monthly London newspaper with exceptional editorial content and advertisers from some of the country’s most venerable institutions and leading businesses.

We are seeking sales and marketing candidates to support and extend our existing business development team and our rapid growth in readership and stockists. Successful applicants will have prior experience in sales and marketing, and print advertising. They will be involved in contributing to the success of our unique publication. A dynamic personality and motivation; a love of the written word, Arts & Culture, News, Education, and Business are all essentials, plus a first-class ability to communicate on the telephone. To find out more about our team and publication please visit our website on www.kcwtoday.co.uk and click on our current issue to see the print edition. There is also a video on the About us link. All candidates should submit their CVs to the Deputy Editor: Dr Emma Trehane at: emma@kcwtoday.co.uk or ring 020 7738 2348 www.kcwtoday.co.uk

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Royal staff consider strike Royal staff at Kensington Palace, the London residence of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, have claimed that changes to their working hours could see a loss in salary of £3,000. These changes, they claim, will put their earnings below the London living wage. Because of this, workers are considering strike action, after rejecting plans which would force them to accept the cut. Despite the fact that the Public and Commercial Standards Union (PCS) held talks on 22nd February, a ballot to strike means workers will vote on whether to walk out or not. All of the employees involved in the strike are wardens who look after exhibits, man ticket offices, or show visitors around. The Sunday Times reported that many of the staff members have held their jobs for over a decade. In a statement, Historic Royal Palaces said, “The changes to working hours affect a small number of colleagues in the front-of-house team at Kensington Palace. “We have given a year’s notice of the planned changes and are currently in discussions with the PCS union. “We value our staff very highly and hope to reach a mutually satisfactory agreement.”

March 20162011 April/May

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Photograph © Vincent van Zeijst

ver the past two years the International Criminal Court (ICC) has been conducting an investigation into whether British troops committed war crimes in Iraq between 2003 and 2008. For the UK public, any prospective international criticism of our otherwise esteemed armed forces is shocking. Because of this, the actions of the Hague-based court have come under real scrutiny for the first time since the International Criminal Court Act 2001, which recognised the legitimacy of the ICC in the UK. Senior government official, Joyce Anelay, recently came out with public comments stressing capability of the British legal system to deal with British military actions in Iraq: "British justice has perhaps the best and longest tradition in the world of being able to be robust and independent. If anybody thinks British justice can be swayed by national prejudice, they will be 100 percent wrong." Anelay, like others with vested interests, downplays the necessity of an international court meddling in what are seen as ‘British’ affairs. This isn’t the only kind of criticism the ICC has inspired. From the offset, Russia and the United States refused to ratify the statute which brought the ICC into existence, leaving the court with no automatic jurisdiction in those two countries. China refused to even sign. With such heavy hitters abstaining from participation, the ICC has faced lame duck accusations. Alongside this, claims of victor's justice and a perceived

To find out more about the work of the ICC visit: www.icc-cpi.int

Painting © Lewis Hazelwood-Horner

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Columbia Threadneedle Prize winner

also voted “Visitors’ Choice” Columbia Threadneedle Investments and Mall Galleries have announced that this year’s Columbia Threadneedle Prize exhibition, Lewis Hazelwood-Horner, has also won the 2016 Visitors’ Choice Award of £10,000. Hazelwood-Horner also won the major Prize of £20,000 plus a solo show at Mall Galleries during 2016. This is the first time in the eight-year history of The Columbia Threadneedle Prize that the public vote for best work in show has gone to the Prize winner chosen by the exhibition’s Selection Panel. Hazelwood-Horner’s Salt in Tea was painted following a two-year residency at London West End’s famous bespoke umbrella shop James Smith & Sons. The title refers to craftsmen jokingly putting

Westminster most visited borough by Air Ambulance By Fergus Coltsmann

London’s Air Ambulance service treated 1866 patients in 2015, figures revealed on the 26th of February, with paramedics and trauma doctors treating on average five critically injured people a day. Westminster was the busiest borough for the service, where 115 patients were treated, followed by Lambeth and Hackney, where 112 and 111 patients were treated respectively. Thirty patients were treated in Kensington and Chelsea. A third of the injuries the service were called out for were caused by road traffic accidents, 29% by stabbings and shootings, and a quarter by falls. Graham Hodgkin, CEO of London’s

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salt or too much sugar in one another’s tea. “The ambition and pictorial qualities of Hazelwood-Horner’s painting attracted huge visitor support,” said Lewis McNaught, Director of Mall Galleries. “There were several remarkable works in this year’s exhibition, which continued to draw large numbers of visitors, but this work secured the admiration of visitors and other artists alike.” The winning work, along with a selection of other works from the 2016 Columbia Threadneedle Prize exhibition, will go on display at Palazzo Strozzi in Florence in an unprecedented exchange, between the 1st and 24th July 2016 Hazelwood-Horner’s solo exhibition, which forms part of his Prize, will be held at Mall Galleries from 19 to 24 September 2016. He attended the Byam Shaw School of Art (2010-11) and the London Atelier for Representation Art (2012-14). For more information, please visit www.columbiathreadneedleprize.com

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Air Ambulance, said: “The charity is here to serve everyone in London. While our statistics show that we were busier in some areas of the capital than others, trauma can happen to anyone, anywhere, at any time. Trauma doesn’t have a postcode and neither do we. By releasing these statistics we are hoping to raise awareness of that fact.” Photograph © Matthew Bell

by Emily Eaton

relentless focus on Africa have trailed the court’s every action. And with the recent news that South Africa and Uganda want to quit the ICC for good, it could seem to outsiders that the work of the relatively young court is being dangerously undermined. But that would be woefully underestimating the effect its existence has had on the fabric of international justice since its inception. Just twenty years ago, an international court with the scope and breadth of the ICC was utterly unimaginable. This was despite the fact that the establishment of an international justice body was first proposed during the Paris Peace Conference of 1919 and again in Geneva in 1937, but nothing ever manifested. Following the Second World War, and the ad-hoc Nuremberg trials, it was proven that international justice, and a fair trial even for the most heinous of war criminals, could be done. The trail was blazed by Roosevelt and, to a much lesser extent, Stalin. Unfortunately Churchill was more of a mind to simply shoot Nazi war criminals without trial. Had the British government got their way at Yalta, the meticulous record of the Holocaust that trial archives provide, would be lost forever. Following on from these ad-hoc trials, talk of an international body completely died down for a good number of years. It was not until 1989 that the Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago revived the idea of a permanent international court, to deal with illegal drug trade and offences that his domestic legal system couldn’t handle. Two coincidental international tribunals set up by the UN in the early nineties, Yugoslavia and Rwanda, to deal with the gravest of international crimes fomented real interest again. However it would prove near impossible to draft any legislation that all the states’ members of the UN could agree on. It was a long and arduous road, with plenty of back forth over what an international court should, or even could, look like. Much debate centred on what crimes the court could prosecute, various definitions of genocide were in, explicit reference to nuclear weapons were out. Finally a conference in Rome in 1998 saw the completion of what came to be known as the Rome Statute and the ICC was ushered into existence on 1 July 2002, with the rather miraculous support of 123 countries. It would be 2005 before the first arrest warrants were issued and the court began properly functioning, 86 years after it was first proposed. As a court of last resort, the ICC will never supercede national systems that are operating genuinely. And although the field of international justice remains a work in progress, the successful prosecution of a number serious international war criminals is a testament to its functionality.

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MARIUS BRILL’S

MEMEING OF LIFE Meme: . An element of a culture or system of behaviour passed from one individual to another...

Bremain to fight another day.

Illustration © Alice Stallard. www.alicestallard.com

ot only does it sound like something full of fibre you might have with milk for breakfast, this month’s meme, the ‘Brexit’, is set to stir the bowels of the country and, no doubt, unleash an unholy amount of sh** from the mouths of politicians, dinner bores, and people with comical accents over the next months. The leave campaign has already won the first battle in framing the debate with the catchy Brexit name. It’s not, after all, the Bremain debate, or the EurO.K. vote, we’ve not even got a mock Beatles anthem exhorting us to, ‘Let it G.Be’. Forty years ago the campaign stickers against joining the European Union said “EEC Ugh!” which was either too clever, or too Beano, to convince the UK to remain out of Europe. Even using a word that struck terror into Tories across 70’s Britain didn’t seem to stem the country’s enthusiasm for joining the ‘Common Market’. But even as our ties with Europe have grown and we’ve got used to their filthy food and foreign ways, our relationship has never been less than dysfunctional. We’ve always acted like the moody teenager who whined to be let into the party only to spend the rest of the night sulking in the corner complaining about how rubbish the music is. And on that one note, as it often is, we do have a point; as Eurovision proves time and again. In the four decades since we joined, did Europe ever become us? Or has it always been ‘us and them’? Seventy years after WWII, the animated map in the opening credits of Dad’s Army still reflects our attitude to Europe more accurately than any number of thinktanks or focus groups. You can count on the leave campaign posting a YouTube rehash of the animation, within minutes of a referendum date being set to the tune of “Who do you think you are kidding Mr. Juncker”. Because, like a nation of Basil Fawltys desperately trying not to mention it, I don’t think any of us have really been able to get over the war, or at the very least put it in context. We see Germany at the centre of the ‘European project’ and it feels like we’ve never been able to forget our exasperation at Britain’s post-war policy of magnanimity in victory (implemented to avoid a repeat of the German

resentment after the reparations for WWI fuelled WWII). As Noel Coward echoed the annoyance of the time, “We must be sweet, And tactful and discreet, And when they've suffered defeat, We mustn't let them feel upset, Or ever get the feeling, That we're cross with them or hate them, Our future policy must be to reinstate them. Don't let's be beastly to the Germans”. And reinstate we did. But instead of feeling proud of the seventy years of peace in Europe that have ensued, our distrust of Germans, and by extension Europe, is as sceptical and shellshocked as ever. Even Merkel’s attempt to open doors to Syrian refugees, which could be from the most honest of humanitarian motives, is seen completely differently from this side of the channel: it’s guilt, obvs! Clearly an over-reaction trying to right the wrongs of the Holocaust. Too little too late Fräulein! Forty years in Europe and we’ve never stopped sneering, we’ve delighted in mocking the garlic snail eaters and the lederhosen sporters. Modern Europe, as far as the national dialogue reflected in the tabloids seems to go, is a cultural dustbin. Europop will always be ludicrous; as long as we make an exception for the likes of Snap!, Abba, Roxette, Ace of Base, Daft Punk, Kraftwerk, and, let’s face it, U2. The whole concept of Eurotrash, and the TV programme that examined it for over a decade, brilliantly exploited our sneering; all those odd Germans wifeswapping, and doing peculiar things to their genitals. We Brits wouldn’t do any

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Opinion & Comment of that, we’re far too superior. It’s not like this is the nation that invented dogging or anything. Oh hang on. The online Urban Dictionary defines Eurotrash: “A human subphylum characterized by its apparent affluence, worldliness, social affectation, and addiction to fashion. Males are characterized by a semi-slovenly appearance (including half-shaven faces), greasy hair, rib-hugging shirts, tight jeans, and loafers worn without socks. Women are easily distinguished by anorexia, over-bleached hair, gaudy jewelry, plastic surgery (particularly breast-enlargement), and their attachment to the male species. Both sexes greet each other with ‘air kisses’, immediately speak of their last trip (often Paris, Rome, Majorca), spend hours at ‘see-and-be-seen’ restaurants, and exhibit a world-weariness and pained sense of irony.” If that doesn’t sound like everyone featured, right now, on the aspirational ‘side-bar of shame’ on the nation’s most read ‘news’ website, Mail Online, I’m not sure what does. The truth is that our clear vision of Eurotrash has been quietly slipping away as we have gradually embraced café culture, the Shoreditch Hipster, cheap Ryanair flights to obscure European airports, George Clooney’s Grand Tour, and motorways clogged with Vorsprung durch Technik. We still sneer, but maybe with a little less venom than we did in the last century. Psychologists will tell us that sneering is a very human way to deal with fear, a way to assert our superiority over the things that scare us. And maybe the Brexit question is born out of being afraid, not just of losing sovereignty or adopting straight bananas but, perhaps, that there is some long buried latent distrust, an uneasiness, that there’s a Blitz waiting to happen all over again. With the croissant and coffee quaffing, Audi driving ‘urban elite’ (a hate-phrase beloved of the Daily Mail) lined up to vote to stay, and the jobshorted UKIP supporting working class desperate to change things, it looks like we’re in in for a classic British, classlines drawn, North-South, ding-dong. It will no doubt be decided, as ever, by the huge swathe of Britain that considers itself middle-class caught between reality and the delusion that they share the same aspirations as the one percenters. The Brexiters will attempt to reignite the sneer and the fear, whilst the fay southern poshos will adopt a Kiss-AKraut message. Personally, and maybe because I’m one of the ‘soft Southern shites’, I get the feeling it’s all a little too late. Just as it seems impossible to all, except the most extreme xenophobes, to imagine the return of an exclusively white anglosaxon Britain, can we really construct a British identity that doesn’t include, at its heart, is the Tesco baguette sitting next to the crusty farmhouse loaf? Let’s see.

The price of Independents By Peter Burden

The problem for journalists anxious to be even-handed in their commentaries on events is that it’s tougher to give a piece a hard edge for the punters to catch hold of by being fair than it is for fiercely partisan journalists like, say, Littlejohn or Toynbee. I know I’ve mentioned before the difficulty of writing a review of anything, book, restaurant, vacuum cleaner, that is as witty as it is uncritical. To sharpen the edge requires taking a position as a love’em or hate’em hack, the more shamelessly bigoted the better. Taking a position, as a newspaper, was something the soon-to-be-deceased print version of The Independent completely failed to do, as a matter of principle, and now it’s paying the price for that even-handedness. The depressing conclusion one might be tempted to reach is that Jo/Joanna Public only ever wants a press that confirms his/ her own prejudices. That, frankly, seems to be the case, especially for the more polarised press. But this is encouragingly contradicted by the fact that The Independent’s smaller and significantly cheaper sibling, the i, has not only thrived but, despite its commendable lack of political bias, is to be purchased from Evgeny Lebedev for $24.4m by The Johnston Press, which is not a philanthropic organisation.Lebedev showed the sharpness of his instincts in his 2013 appointment of Oly Duff, who, as editor, has hustled the i along, managing to keep it informative but still impartial. Lebedev also took a lead from Rupert ‘Rumplechops’ Murdoch by successfully seducing the punters with a lovely slender cover price. I imagine, though, that the Johnston Press will not be inclined to go the whole hog, as Rupert has done recently with the Sun, in offering free copies of the smutty little chip-wrapper to anyone who wants it, a strategy with a pleasing pong of pessimism to it. Back in the early 70s when I was an over-sanguine bright-eyed young fashion hustler, one of my least favourite words was ‘serendipity’, maybe for its weasley imprecision, but mainly because at the time every other tacky provincial ‘boutique’, if it wasn’t called ‘Ruby Tuesday’, was called ‘Serendipity’. In fact I only grew to dislike the word less some thirty years later when I worked, for the last few months of his life, with the late and lovable David Hemmings, he of the sparkling blue eyes and unruly one-eyed trouser snake. David, or ‘H’ as he was called by his friends, loved ‘serendipity’, word and phenomenon. Quite a lot of his early

success and notoriety, he claimed (with some justification) was due to this elusive aide-vivre, a concatenation of unrelated events which, for no clear reason, turns out for the best. These days, I enjoy a happy thoughtprovoking coincidence, like a few weeks ago when I bought a couple of boxes of potentially interesting, random books at an auction sale. One of these was a pleasing looking novel published in 1971 called Think Inc., by Adam Diment, whom I faintly recalled from gossip columns but whose four novels I’d never read. Diment had had big hits with his post-Bond, dope-smoking, reluctant spy, Philip McAlpine in The Dolly-Dolly Spy, and The Bang Bang Birds: sharp, clever, hip, and well on the bow-wave of spy writing at the time. Still under thirty, he was set, it seemed, for a great career. But shortly afterwards, he dropped out of sight and, mysteriously, has never been seen since. Looking further into it through Messrs Google I came across blog about Diment, with a lot of contemporary shots of him, including one with my autobiographical subject, David Hemmings, (wearing a moustache, possibly in the midst of playing Nolan in Charge of the Light Brigade), who, it was said, had been signed to play Diment’s anti-hero in a movie of The Dolly Dolly Spy. I’d spent three happy months in 2003, rambling with Hemmings through the sixty odd years of his life up until then. We talked a lot about the period when The Dolly Dolly Spy would have been discussed, but sadly he never mentioned the project, probably because he’d forgotten all about it. It would have been an obvious role for him, although, oddly, he never had much time for hashsmoking, which was a key element of McAlpine’s persona, and was probably the reason the film was never made, though now it would make a great period piece. Sadly, when Hemmings died filming on location in Romania, we had accumulated enough material for only half a book. I had to scuttle around and talk to a load of people who knew and loved ‘H’, as he was called, to get BlowUp & Other Exaggerations published in 2004. Right now, I’m giving it a polish and hoping to see it reissued this year to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the release of Antonioni’s Blow-Up in New York in December 1966.

online: www.KCWToday.co.uk

Bad for our pockets, bad for our health By John Furse

‘Infrastructure’ is a polite word for services that ‘we the public’ own or once owned: hospitals, schools, railways, utilities. Last year I spoke to a Big Beast of the debt markets. He’d started an infrastructure financing company, the kind that feeds off the publiclyowned assets and services handed over to the private sector by successive UK governments. I wanted an insider’s perspective on the crippling costs of the Private Finance Initiative (PFI) hospital projects that have landed the taxpayer with debt repayment costs of £80 billion on private sector investments in the NHS of only £11.6 billion. For the private investor/financier this is a lot more lucrative than investing in the stock market and it’s low-risk given the consistent demand for healthcare. But for the taxpayer the PFI debt repayments are far higher than for State financing of the NHS. Tory and Labour governments wanted ‘experts’, the Big Beast explained confidently; “It’s the old story that if a government drives a business, it will drive it into bankruptcy. Governments don’t know how to run projects.” As for the taxpayer? “You’re stuck with it. You can’t get out of it. That’s the beauty of the capitalist system! There’s always somebody on the right side of the trade and somebody on the wrong side!” he concluded brightly. The PFIs are just part of the government’s ongoing dismantling of the NHS and the surrendering of its profitable services and assets to private companies such as Virgin, Serco, and US giant UnitedHealth, who hide behind the NHS logo. Valuable NHS buildings and land are being sold off to property developers, often as a result of the exorbitant costs of paying for new hospitals built under PFI. But privatised services cost the NHS and taxpayer far more than when provided by our publicly-owned and publicly-run NHS. That’s because public health systems don’t seek profits. They don’t need to pay dividends to shareholders. They don’t have the management fees that private companies charge. And they don’t have the added costs of private sector borrowings. The State can finance at lower interest rates, even at near zero rates if they deploy ‘quantitative easing’, the money-printing scheme with which they’ve bailed out the bust banks. A public NHS also doesn't have the huge marketing and contract administration costs using extra lawyers, accountants, consultants, and management that privatisation incurs. A conservative estimate puts these at

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£4.5 billion annually and rising. The Shaping A Healthier Future (SaHF) plans for ‘reshaping’ our local health and care services involve mega business consultants like US corporate squid McKinsey, who are being used to oversee NHS privatisation. The costs of the SaHF plans have escalated from £112 million in 2012 to £1 billion, including spiralling consultancy and management fees, according to the recently published Mansfield Commission report on NW London healthcare. Just cutting costs like these, not NHS services, would go a long way to cover the shortfall between government underfunding and the needs of the NHS over the next five years. Our local hospitals would not need the SaHF cuts in staff, beds and services, the A&E closures, the selling-off of their buildings, and the desertion of doctors, nurses and GPs from a public service whose vocational work we rely on and cherish. NHS services, including A&E, maternity, and provision for children and the elderly, have been deliberately underfunded since 2010. The comprehensive care we’ve had continues to be cut back. The huge commercial costs and the chaos caused by the ongoing NHS fragmentation are the direct result of privatisation and a stark refutation of the Big Beast’s claims of the free market’s superior efficiency. This is endangering the quality and safety of our public healthcare. NHS privatisation isn’t just bad for our pockets. It’s bad for our health. It’s also bad for other services, assets and amenities which we value for their benefits to our society and communities across the social spectrum; the BBC, schools, social housing, libraries, public spaces. These are actually our services and our assets. We the public own them. And they’re being handed over to the private sector without a proper mandate from us, even when there is clear support for their public ownership, polls repeatedly show that most of us want to

keep our NHS. That’s why protesters and campaign groups need to band together to oppose the onslaught of the privatisers with their schemes for the NHS, the Paddington Pole/Shard 2, Chelsea Crossrail, and public housing. Central & West London Action (CAWLA, www. cawla.wordpress.com) is a Chelsea and Fulham 38 Degrees Group initiative providing a non-party forum for combined public actions on key local issues. 38 Degrees HQ say that the NHS is their members’ major issue. Campaigners are rallying to the NHS Reinstatement Bill (www.nhsbill2015. org) which provides the legislation needed to remove the costs and waste of privatisation and to restore the NHS as a publicly-funded and publiclyrun NHS. Green MP Caroline Lucas has presented it to Parliament with the cross-party support of 76 MPs. The growing number of objectors to unfettered privatisation can sign the 38 Degrees petition Support The NHS Reinstatement Bill To Bring Back Our NHS. They can pressure their MPs to support the Bill and to act on other issues which matter to them. They can take their resistance to the streets, council chambers, privatisers HQ’s, and mayoral hustings. The Skyline Campaign’s recent success in obstructing the Paddington Pole/Shard 2 plans shows that people power can have an effect. Don’t just seethe. Do something! www.johnfurse.wordpress.com

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Deep in Conversation

Image © Westminster Abbey Institute

with Claire Foster-Gilbert, Director of The Westminster Abbey Institute By Henry Jones

f you have never heard of The Westminster Abbey Institute, initially it will sound like the kind of place where the Church of England sends its vicars to retire gracefully. However, if ever there has been a part of the church, which is bucking the antiquated stereotype it is the Institute. Claire Foster-Gilbert, the Director of the Westminster Abbey Institute, is in no small way responsible for creating this modern Institute in the middle of the most ancient part of the Abbey. To explain; the Institute “is a forum for lively truth-telling and provocative conversation on issues of morality, faith, politics, and policy-making.” In its own words, it is primarily a lecture and seminar series to “revitalize the moral and spiritual values” of our public servants. These public talks may only attract audiences of a few hundred, but within that number are MPs, Peers, Senior Judges, and Officers in the Metropolitan Police force, and heads of the Civil Service. Drawing on the Abbey’s “unique geographical location” in Parliament Square, the Institute has taken up a mission to make public service a vocation, not just a job. On first discovering the mission one might feel rather uncomfortable as all the worst images of Westminster bubble back room conversations might spring to mind. When an institution can list: Baroness Butler-Sloss, General Dannatt, Baroness D’Souza, MP Dominic Grieve, Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, Sir Bob Kerslake, Lord Saatchi, MP Jack Straw on its Council of Reference, accusations of cronyism may not be far behind. However, it is precisely this naïve view of public servants which Claire Foster-Gilbert created the Institute in 2013 to dispel. “The Institute,” Claire claims “is the answer to the question: What’s the abbey doing for public service?” While the abbey has always done “big grand services for the public” to many it has simply become a great convener at big national moments. The perceived role the Abbey plays in public life is best exemplified by the recent bid to get the late Sir Terry Wogan a ceremony in the Abbey like his fellow broadcaster Sir David Frost. When asked about the Wogan

Feature campaign Claire laughs and asks “Really?” As the Director of the Institute, she is not concerned with what the perception of the Abbey is to the everyman in general. In fact, she said as much. “I’m not really interested in the general public. We don’t advertise to the general public.” Eighty percent of the audiences at the Institute’s talks are public servants. The Institute actually only sends its marketing material to civil servants, MPs, and Peers, Clerks in the Houses of Parliament, the Judiciary, senior officers in Met. It is here that Claire is most deft about the role of the Institute. “We have very carefully positioned ourselves not as a think tank, not commenting or suggesting policies” she explains. “It’s about championing what is good in these institutions” as opposed to assuming the very worst. The best way to explain the role of the Institute is to recognize that its mission might be for you, but it resolutely isn’t about you. When the Institute’s high profile speakers and audiences convene they are having intellectual and critical conversations about the pressures of public service. As Claire says “I’m interested in people of good will who are public servants.” While the Institute “can’t just be fawning courtiers to the establishment” she is determined not to descend into divisive party politics. “With the Institute,” she says “we are trying to get that spirit of sticking with the right thing to do because it’s the right thing to do, and just trying to spread that message to the institutions around the square.” “I often imagine the Abbey spilling its guts out on to the Square,” Claire says invoking the very best medieval ecclesiastical imagery. From this point of view, she is at her most animated and an almost brutally intelligent champion of a patch of grass and architecture in the middle of London which is extraordinarily unpopular with the general public today, but essential to the safe, happy lives we all wish to lead. The honest truth, she tells us, is that in spite of what the public think public servants “really aren’t corrupt. There is so little corruption around here.” We don’t have a “corrupt administration” and we certainly don’t have “a corrupt democracy.” The deep commitment to carrying out the Institute’s mission inspires one to feel inclined to agree with Claire. In order to maintain a balanced and healthy public service we really need to have the type of “critical conversations” that the Institute hosts. Furthermore, there is nothing clandestine about the fact that Claire and the institute aren’t concerned with how “the general public.” view the Abbey. Her mission is to ensure, thanklessly and in part on your behalf, that public servants see service as a vocation and not a labour.

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Shakespeare in the age of Elizabeth By Max Feldman

To celebrate the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death Max Feldman examines how the Elizabethan age shaped the life and work of England’s most famous playwright. Prior to the 1530s English drama was mostly restricted to plays based on ecclesiastical matters, but in the aftermath of the Reformation of the Church, the role and range of playwrights and actors expanded inexorably. The theatre truly flourished under the auspices of Queen Elizabeth 1st, when James Burbage (the father of Richard Burbage, Shakespeare’s principal actor) was able to acquire through his patron the Earl of Leicester, Robert Dudley, (a lifelong confidant and rumoured lover of Elizabeth), the first royal patent ever bestowed on a troupe of actors. The patent allowed the troupe to travel between cities without being subject to prosecution as vagabonds (a very real danger previously), and also, and more importantly, cancelled out previous policies that allowed local officials to censure or disallow plays. Soon other troupes began to receive royal patents identical to the Burbage’s original and the capacities of actors to perform unmolested exploded. The only relationship that was absolutely vital to a playwright’s ability to produce and perform work was to the Crown and it was into this melting-pot that Shakespeare first ingratiated himself into Elizabethan society. This was not the last time that James Burbage’s actions helped shape the fledgling bard’s destiny. In 1576 he built The (somewhat tautologically named) Theatre, the second permanent playhouse built in London. The Theatre was in the centre of an area of such illrepute that it was dubbed “the suburbs of sin”, a wretched hive which overflowed

with brothels, gambling joints, taverns, and casual violence (the area is now the hipster Mecca of Shoreditch, whether or not this is an improvement is up to individual taste). Theatres were generally found in such areas of ill repute, since in 1572 the Mayor and the Corporation of London had banned all plays from the City in an attempt to prevent the spread of plague. The authorities went a step further by formally expelling all actors in 1575, causing them to spread through the suburbs, bringing prostitutes and booze with them in the exact inverse of modern gentrification. It was in this filthy and violent London backwater that Shakespeare’s troupe The Lord Chamberlain’s Men set up shop, with The Theatre hosting the first performances of famed plays such as A Midsummer Night’s Dream. This lasted until the lease on the theatre ran out in 1597 and rather than be evicted, Shakespeare literally stole the theatre plank by plank and reassembled it south of the river as The Globe in a bizarre incident previously covered by KCWToday. By 1593 Shakespeare had become one of the pre-eminent playwrights in the land (he was often thought of as a lesser, more populist talent by the intelligentsia of the time, who held up Ben Johnson as England’s playwright laureate) but his hold on the public was shattered by external pressures; plague forced the playhouses to close between 1592-1594 and, more troublingly, rebellious dissenters had a tendency to congregate in theatres, with members of the conspiracy that would explode into the 1601 Essex rebellion, paying the Lord Chamberlain’s men to put on a performance of Richard II in what turned out to be the signal for their attempt at armed revolution to start. Shakespeare was able to escape any fallout from his (presumably) unintentional association with the armed revolutionaries but it served to remind him of how much he owed to his monarch’s potentially capricious favour. So when Elizabeth died in 1603 and James 1st of Scotland ascended to the English throne, he was well aware that he would have to prove himself to the superstitious King... See the April edition of KCWToday for our feature on Shakespeare under the Stewarts

Royal Trinity Hospice celebrates its 125th anniversary By Kate Hawthorne

oyal Trinity Hospice provides free, skilled, compassionate care and support to people with progressive, life-limiting illnesses and those close to them. It is the only dedicated end-of-life care provider for 750,000 people living in central and south west London. The Royal Trinity opens a new Centre on the north side of the Thames next year to make access to outpatient and community services easier. The catchment area covers parts of Wandsworth, Hammersmith and Fulham, Kensington and Chelsea, and Westminster. Trinity realised that the river acted as a barrier. Patients who lived north of the Thames were less inclined to travel out of their current base, especially for outpatient appointments. “Opening in Fulham or Chelsea makes sense and gives us an opportunity to do more”, says Dallas Pounds, CEO of the Royal Trinity Hospice, who wants to change the conception of hospices. “There is still a misunderstanding of hospices, from professionals through to the public. Opening a new centre and

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Image © Sam John

Feature

March 2016

seeking to bring change to the age-old taboo associated with hospices and dying is one of the driving forces behind the opening of the ‘Royal Trinity Centre” “Many people still consider them to be death houses, as places you don’t come out of but they aren’t buildings, they are philosophies of care, a place of safety and comfort. They are open for anyone to come into and enjoy the garden, and there for anyone who has a condition which may shorten their life; not just those at the near end of life. The centre will be a place to talk about bereavement, somewhere welcoming and friendly which will empower people to overcome the all too present societal anxiety about dying. It will be a one-stop-shop for Trinity's work: outpatient care, the social campaigning, counselling, advice and all that we aspire to do.” Dallas’s personal motto is “a business head on a charity heart”. She recently won the Third Sector magazine’s Rising Chief Executive award, a category requiring nominees to be within the first two years of their first CEO position. Dallas was nominated for this by her team at Trinity winning over three others

candidates. She has high hopes for Trinity and intends to raise £3.5 million, over the next three years, to cover the initial purchasing and running costs of the new centre to tie in with Trinity’s 125 campaign, in celebration of their 125th anniversary. Dallas’s goal for the new centre is that it will take the conversation about death and dying onto the high street. That it will be a place where people can go for a coffee, perhaps they may pick up literature about wills, or speak to a volunteer about how to raise legacy issues with loved ones. Many people do not consider the complications of digital after-life for example. Digital passwords, needed to access private affairs and protected information are sometimes not shared, leaving matters difficult for families to resolve. “Dying is a very complicated matter. There are financial considerations, legal considerations, care considerations, and all manner of bereavement considerations. People do not realise that there are all sorts of complex areas associated when they die. By having a conversation, uncertainties can be answered, and unnecessary confusion avoided.” “Death is sadly still very much a taboo subject. Nobody has died and come back to tell us how it is, it’s a finality, and as mortals we’re scared of that finality.” It is clearly something Dallas takes personally, and her assault upon social taboos is profound. She describes her role as chief exec as “accountable for everything, responsible for very little”. Pounds has swaths of frontline experience, first as a palliative nurse in the NHS and later at the Terrence

Higgins Trust. Sexual health and sexuality are another of society’s taboos. Sexual health was first brought into Dallas’s portfolio by a regular NHS shuffle and she became aware of, and intrigued by it being such a taboo subject. But it was her experience as a nurse that remains with her most. Palliative, and end of life, care attracted Dallas as it allowed for “building a relationship, and giving the time and care you really want to give as a nurse. It allows for the privilege of becoming a part of a person’s community; whereas on the wards people were in, people were out. This clearly influenced her as a CEO and her management experience, with the requisite business acumen and nursing experience gave her the compassion needed to head and run a charity. “Time is the most important thing I can give as a chief executive; whether it is a minute in passing to ask a nurse on the ward how their day is going to a formal lecture or a fundraising event. Time is what people want from you”. Dallas is very much in touch with all aspects of the work of the Hospice. “If people are characters and feisty when they are fit and well, their characters are feisty when they are dying too”. The personal connection she mentions shines through, but there has to be toughness too; “It takes a certain resilience of character to build these close relationships and that resilience comes out of a feeling of making a difference”. Experience helps of course but there are never any similar circumstances to draw from. It is different with all patients. It takes, Dallas admits, a lot to not take it home. It does affect one’s perspective on life, Dallas says. “One is always trying to bring something better to the table if one possibly can.” But she opines “being alongside people who die does give you an appreciation of life... as something precious, to make the most of and to make a difference... you hear a lot of ‘if onlys’”. This plurality of views from the staff is reflected in their patients, and in turn reflected by the individualised care Trinity offers. Some religious groups handle death, their own or a loved one’s but ultimately, in every group, there are individuals and death is approached as an individual, regardless of background or life experiences. People find a god, people turn from theirs, but the common thread is facing it personally. Breaking the stigma around death, and facing it in a healthier way, is one of Trinity’s ultimate goals. Part of their targets are the taboos; colleagues who still see “death as a failure”, the media that views it as ‘a fight’; or death that is a battle lost. Trinity receives less than a third of its income from the NHS and must raise over £8 million each year to continue its services. Visit: www.royaltrinityhospice.london to find out more.

Images © Royal Trinity Hospice

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Statue & Blue Plaque

Photograph © Don Grant

STATUES

Sir Henry Irving,

Charing Cross Road, By Sir Thomas Brock R A

he statue was erected by the Irving Memorial Committee, on behalf of ‘English actors and actresses and others connected with the theatre in this country,’ on land donated by the City of Westminster in December 1906, a year after the great actor died. Sir Thomas Brock, one of leading sculptors of his day, was commissioned, but, as with any committee, there was a great deal of debate as to how he should be dressed, which certainly hindered his progress. Irving was not only an actor/ manager; he was an academic and a man of letters, with honorary doctorates from Cambridge, Dublin and Glasgow Universities. His inscription on the plinth reads: ‘HENRY IRVING. ACTOR. Born 1838. Died 1906. Knight, B.Litt. Dublin. D.Litt. Cambridge. LL.D Glasgow.’ He was born in 1838, the year of Victoria’s accession to the throne, but his mother, a staunch Methodist, was very much against him going into the theatre, a profession that was littered with unscrupulous and untrustworthy chancers. His career slowly took off, until, after thirty years, he was at the epicentre of Victorian theatre. In 1878 he engaged Ellen Terry as his leading lady and so began one of the most famous partnerships in the history of the

English stage. Their theatrical qualities complemented each other admirably; his brooding presence, strange diction and odd mannerisms against her charm and impulsiveness, led to a number of runaway successes, including Hamlet and Ophelia, and Shylock and Portia. He was unconcerned about the critics, who were unimpressed by the sumptuous staging and elaborate costumes that became his trademark, and, indeed, one young critic George Bernard Shaw, said that he regretted that an actress as talented as Miss Terry, should waste her time with such trifles. He gave his play The Man of Destiny to Irving, hoping that he and Terry might perform it. Irving gave Shaw a retainer, then apparently forgot about it, thinking that it was a helping hand to a young, struggling author, but Shaw felt snubbed and the two men became arch-enemies. After Shaw had tried, unsuccessfully, to introduce Irving to the plays of Henry Ibsen through Ellen Terry, matters only got worse. Brock resolved the question of dress by putting Irving in a gown, over a well-cut suit, which gave him a certain ‘costumed’ look, something the committee were advocating. Brock came to prominence when he completed the statue of the Prince Consort for the Albert Memorial when the original designer John Foley, whom he was assisting, suddenly died. His next big commission was the Victoria Memorial outside Buckingham Palace, which was an enormous undertaking, and Victoria’s son Edward VII, who was due to crowned on 26 June 1901, developed perityphlitis, and everything was postponed. His most famous sculpture outside London must be The Black Prince in Leeds City Square, an heroic piece of work executed in 1902. After the Victoria Memorial was unveilled in 1912, he was offered the chair of sculpture at the British School in Rome, and, two years later, he was re-elected as President of the Royal Society of British Sculptors, a postion he held until 1920. His son Frederick wrote a biography of his father, entitling it The Forgotten Sculptor of the Victora Memorial, which is a sad reflection of this deeply talented man. Don Grant

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Business & Finance Blue Plaque: Elizabeth Barrett Browning 1806-1861 Elizabeth Barrett Browning is honoured by a Blue Plaque at 50 Wimpole Street, Marylebone, W1 8SQ, which was erected by the London County Council in 1936, replacing an earlier plaque. She was a prominent, romantic poet of the Victorian era who promoted the rights of women and abolition of slavery. Her ancestors were wealthy sugar plantation owners in Jamaica who relied on slave labour. Their daughter, Elizabeth, grew up in England. Her father, Edward Barrett Moulton-Barrett, also owned sugar plantations. Her mother was Mary Grahame Clark. They lived in Co, Durham, where Elizabeth and her eleven siblings were born. The family lived a social life with county friends and country activities. They were religious and active in the Church. Elizabeth was quite zealous as she grew older which is reflected in her writing. In 1809 the family moved to Hope End, a big estate in Ledbury, Herefordshire. Her father built a new mansion house there in a Turkish style that was most unusual and it inspired Elizabeth’s famous work, Aurora Leigh, a verse novel. Elizabeth, educated at home with her brother, was a very advanced reader and wrote verse at an early age. She studied ancient Greek and her knowledge of the Classics is reflected in her poetry. Sadly, she suffered severe, unidentified spinal pain which at times led to immobility. Later, she developed lung disease. She took laudanum and morphine which has been said to have affected her imagination. The family ran into financial problems necessitating Hope End being sold and they moved to Wimpole Street and settled there in 1841. At this address Elizabeth wrote prolifically, her work included poetry, prose, and translations. Her first collection of poems was published in An Essay on Mind and Other Poems in 1826 which reflected her deep admiration of Byron and his Greek Politics. She also translated Prometheus Bound of Aeschylus. The Cry of the Children drew attention to the horrific conditions of children working in coal mines and help to bring about child labour reforms. How long they say, how long, o cruel nation, Will you stand, to move the world, on a child’s heart, Stifle down with a mailed heel its palpitations,

and tread onward to your throne amid the mart? Our blood splashes upward, o our tyrants and your purple shows your path; But the child’s sob curses deeper in the silence Than the strong man in his wrath.

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The Cry of the Children, published 1842. Two volumes of poetry appeared in 1844 which included A Drama of Exile, A Vision of Poets, and Lady Geraldine’s Courtship. Two further poems, The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim’s Point and A Curse for a Nation highlighted the barbarity often meted out to slaves and promoted abolition. Aurora Leigh her famous verse novel was published in 1856 which was a long poem about a female writer making her way while balancing love and work. It was based on Elizabeth’s own experiences when she was married. It reflected her great learning and formidable genius. Her imagery has been compared to Shakespeare and her use of Italian form to Petrarch. Elizabeth Barrett Browning was a rival to Tennyson to be Poet Laureate when Wordsworth died. Robert Browning, a young poet, was inspired by her work. He wrote to her, visited and secretly married her. He praised her poems for “their fresh strange music, the affluent language, the exquisite pathos and brave new thought”. They lived in Italy and had a son, Robert. Rome was their home for a time and then Siena followed by Florence. Elizabeth Barrett Browning died in Florence in June 1861. She is buried in the Protestant English Cemetery in Florence. A Vision of Poets (extract) The poet who with spirit-kiss Familier, had long claimed for his whatever earthly beauty is, who also in his spirit bore A beauty passing the earth’s store,Walked calmly onward evermore. Marian Maitland

SCI’s e-Membership - Benefits

Where Science meets Business and offers education to all By Emma Trehane

CI was established in 1881 as The Society for Chemical Industry. The founder members were inventors, entrepreneurs and philanthropists, all with a passion for science. Many were pioneers of the day and progressive in that they went on to establish significant businesses which formed the heart of the industrial revolution in the early 1900s. In order to understand the profound influence that SCI had on science and industry we need only look at the distinguished names of some of its early members. William Lever, who went on to form Lever Bros (now Unilever), Henry Tate (Tate and Lyle), George Matthey ( Johnson Matthey), Earnest Solvay (Solvay), Arthur Albright (Albright & Wilson, now Solvay), Chas Tennant MP (Tennants), the Pilkington family (Pilkington Glass), members from both the Procter and Gamble families and Ludwig Mond, ICI plc. SCI was established to promote and foster innovation through networking, education, and information. Early meetings were in the form of lectures promoting new technologies and innovations, and discussing how these discoveries could be turned into everyday products. Debates were often lively with experiments conducted during the lectures, occasionally causing some disturbance. SCI’s members come from different disciplines including biology, physics, environmental science and food science. The Society was established to be both multi-science and multidisciplinary and engineering was inevitably represented. This multi-science approach is still represented today in the diversity of SCI’s Technical Interest

Groups – including food, agrisciences, biotechnology, colloids, fine-chemical, materials and process engineering. With early meetings being held at Westminster, the political connections have always been very strong as have links with enabling professions, such as patent lawyers and publishing. All of these aspects were seen as important to help turn science into everyday products. Products that developed by the companies from where SCI members came, include photographic paper; paludrine, a widely used anti-malarial and Bakelite, the first synthetic plastic. Today SCI achieves its charitable objectives through facilitating networking; helping recruit, train and develop young scientists interested in industrial careers. The Society also encourages the applications of science through many historical medals and promotes the benefits of applied science to the public through regular series of

Connect with scientists and business people who are interested in innovation Learn about new innovations via electronic issues of our magazine C&I Access to the archive of online articles Inclusion in SCI’s Members’ Directory

Be part of the network - for only £10 per year To receive further benefits such as discounted conference rates, why not sign up for a full membership at £75 per year.* *Direct Debit rate

Join today! www.soci.org/membership SCI, 14-15 Belgrave Square, London SW1X 8PS, T: 020 7598 1503 KCWT_e-membershipAD-Final03.indd 1

public evening lectures. The next lecture is to be delivered by Sir Paul Nurse, a former Nobel Prize winner and currently Director of the Francis Crick Institute on Wednesday 30th of March at 6.30pm. The lecture will examine “tackling the

26/02/2016 13:56:02

world’s biggest health problems faster”. The Society for Chemical Industry 14-15 Belgrave Square, London, SW1X 8PS. T: 020 7598 1500

Business & Finance

was once told that you know you are grown up when you have to make real choices. Not the Mars bar or Twix kind of choice but the big stuff. Which university? Which course? Do I accept this job offer? Is it what I really want to do? Will it make me happy? Will it allow me to achieve the lifestyle I would like? Is it right for me? There is only one person who knows the answer to the last question. We are all constantly faced with choice. Do we ever take the time to think about the choices we have made and how we made them? The choices that have led us to where we are now? Or those we need to make in the future? Choice is generally driven by having a goal and a plan to achieve that goal. Success i.e. reaching the goal, is determined by having made the right choices. Some goals we achieve and some....well.....some we don’t. Best not to think of a missed goal as a failure but rather as having made a suboptimal choice. Perhaps that choice was made without considering all the available options and being clear about the desired result. Having a clear vision of what you would like to achieve can be challenging so setting goals is a good start. Wanting to enjoy your retirement with a good pension by the time you are a certain age is a goal, the choices are to regularly put more money into the pension, earn more, work harder...or not any of those. Buy a bigger house (with a bigger mortgage) before your children start secondary school is a goal. What do you need to do to achieve it? How far ahead are you looking? Where will it be? There are numerous choices to be made in order to reach that one. Goals and the choices that have to be made are not always clear because it is not easy to see past where we are now and visualise the future. So why not start by considering your money values, rather than becoming fixated on the specifics. Take some time working on individual long term financial goals. This is not necessarily an easy task but spending time thinking about them and discussing your thoughts with your partner can be very valuable. What I mean by ‘money values’ is not a specific goal but your overall thoughts about money. Ask yourself and your partner some questions along the following lines:

• Why do I go to work every day? Think beyond your salary. • Do I want to help future generations of my family?

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A question of growth

• How do I feel about money? • Do I worry about running out of money? • How do I feel about having a large debt? • Is money a means to an end or do I just try to accumulate financial assets? • What do I want to have achieved before I stop having to work? • In an ideal world when would I like to be able not to work and what would I like to do? • What would I like to do if I could take some time off paid work? You may find that you and your partner have similar thoughts or you may discover something about each other which explains why you each feel differently about certain financial decisions. Having articulated your money values this will enable you and your partner to decide on some statements that describe your views on money and your overall attitudes. We like to call these your ‘high level policy statements’ (HLPS). HLPS can then be used to help you to decide on your specific financial goals that have a timeframe and an estimated financial cost; for example ‘buy a larger house in five years for c.£1m in today’s terms’. ‘Take more holidays when I can afford to’ is not a specific goal as it lacks any cost or timescale component. They also provide you with a check and balance for when you are making financial decisions and are not sure what to do. In the future you can revisit and look at your HLPS and they may guide you further in your decision making. A financial plan should always start with your values which will lead to your financial goals and it is on these that the plan needs to be based. In our experience this approach is more productive than trying to stick to one-off financial resolutions or startinsg a savings plan or pension because you think you need to but have not taken any time to consider what outcome you are trying to achieve. Choosing an experienced financial planner who will work with you to make sense out of your goals and your values will allow you to make the financial choices you need to take in order to achieve them. Then you can concentrate on the ‘take more holidays’ choice..... Mauritius or St Lucia? Charles Wood

Charles Wood BA (Hons) FPFS IMC is a Chartered Financial Planner and Wealth Planning Manager at multi-award winning City-based wealth management firm Bloomsbury Wealth. He has been advising successful individuals and their families on wealth management strategies for over 20 years.

By Caroline Copland

“I Self driving cars By Fahad Redha

Eight new projects have been awarded £20m to boost development in autonomous cars. The scheme, part of the government’s £100m Intelligent Mobility Fund, aims to “develop enhanced communication between vehicles and roadside infrastructure or urban information systems, including new ‘talking car technologies’.” A portion of this will go to Bosch and Jaguar Land Rover ( JLR) for the purpose of creating self-driving cars that “drive like humans, not robots.” “A fleet of Jaguar and Land Rover vehicles will be driven daily by employees of the London Borough of Greenwich,”

JLR said, “to establish how a range of different drivers react to real-world driving situations, including heavy traffic, busy junctions, road works and bad weather. “Data from sensors in these cars will reveal the natural driving behaviours and decision-making that drivers make whilst driving, including complex and stressful scenarios. These include giving way at roundabouts and intersections, how drivers ease forward at junctions to enter a flow of traffic, or how they react to an emergency vehicle coming up behind their car whilst in a traffic jam.” The reason for this, the company says, is trust. “If an autonomous car can be programmed to have a very similar reaction to a real driver, then the autonomous experience will be more natural, and the driver more likely to allow the car to take control.” Trials are currently being worked on in Bristol, Coventry, Milton Keynes, and Greenwich to test driverless cars. Heathrow airport meanwhile uses autonomous vehicles to shuttle passengers, though these are on designated tracks. “Our cars of the future will be equipped with the technologies that will make getting from A to B safer, faster, and cleaner,” Business Secretary Sajid Javid said. “Britain is a world-leader in research and development in such innovative technologies which improve lives and create opportunity for all.”

March 2016

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Business & Finance

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Choices, choices, choices

Kensington, Chelsea & Westminster Today

t’s rare to meet a lady taller than you Em” says one friend to another as we make small-talk conversation juggling coats, bags, and paperwork. The lady in question is the warm yet mesmerising Julia Langkraehr who we follow through an internal door from Gail’s Bakery into the My Bloomsbury Hotel and down the stairs to Central Working, an entrepreneurial story in itself, for another time. Business coaching is today’s subject and 2 friends and myself have a complimentary 90-minute session with Bold Clarity, started by Langkraehr in 2014. The cynic in me assumes that this vivacious lady in her 40s with a mid-West American dialect, will lure us slowly into purchasing expensive services; the proverbial lunch is never complimentary. Slow it is not. Speaking extraordinarily quickly, but with trademark clarity, Langkraehr relates her credentials from employment developing new revenue streams for European shopping centres, through redundancy, to building a similar business alone with emphasis on start-up retailers. Her mouth moving with spellbinding speed we hear the entrepreneurial rollercoaster of failure, restart, expansion, and finally, in 2014, exit from a business turning over +£30m across 3 countries. Within this verbal CV is encapsulated that of Gino Wickman, who inherited a failing family business at 21, turned it around and sold it after 2 years. While showing others how to do the same he created the ‘EOS’. This is the first of many acronyms we scribble down in our learning experience. It is the Entrepreneurial Operating System® that Bold Clarity fosters. Langkraehr’s website describes EOS as an ‘effective management system, now operating in over 1,500 businesses worldwide’ and that she is ‘The First Professional EOS Implementer in the UK’, her home since 1999. During my own career I’ve met numerous business coaches, and I have been that person running from pillarto-post but achieving, well, not the right things fast enough, so I recognised

instantly in the system ‘process’. That vital faculty that underpins every successful business and that Coaches work to instil. The ‘process’ is always ‘simple’, but leaders are often reluctant to find the time to review or implement. Mostly it is those most overwhelmed by their task who are unable to believe that running their organisation differently from the way in which it has built its historic success will raise the trajectory. EOS operates with six core components. Each component involves one or more processes and all the ‘issues’ faced, those ones that wake you up in the middle of the night, fall into place. Not least thanks to the ‘issues list’ which keeps all stumbling blocks in a metaphorical holding pen until the weekly IDS (Identify Discuss Solve), later we meet the VTO but I’ll leave you to explore that elsewhere. According to Langkraehr, issues are just “symptoms of the root cause”. My cynicism depletes, I know her to be right. “Rather than applying quick fixes to individual departments it completely transforms a company from top to bottom” she explains. With simple (that word) tools your organisation will align around a common vision, and a cohesive leadership team will divvy up responsibility for a regular check box within the process. Mentoring sits within my own offering but I work with individuals who have lost sight of their contribution and work to create their own (yes, you guessed it) processes to (yes,) simplify their task, and gain enjoyment and esteem from achieving and owning success. Is there something deliciously obvious about rehabilitating a leadership team to ensure a cascade of best-practice? Is that ‘deliciously obvious’ or just ‘Bold Clarity’? At the end of our, now 120 min, session Langkraehr states that her client must be ready to do things differently, to be “open,

honest, and vulnerable”. You can lead that horse to water but you cannot make it drink, I recognise there is still a call for mentoring at all levels. While speaking proverbially, no lunch is included but a copy of Gino Wickman’s book Traction is a welcome gift and EOS strategy was divulged in swathes. A more useful introduction I can’t imagine. It is human nature that employs Bold Clarity, Julia Langkraehr is engaging, experienced, highly professional, and appears equally competent. She is her own marketing tool and a recommended programme of eleven days over a two year period Langkraehr will establish,

implement, and coach processes. The wood and the trees are boldly clarified for growth to prevail. Our host’s final words, “I live by the philosophy of grow because standing still is not an option”. And yes, it is rare to meet a lady taller than Em.

And I will strike down upon thee

your backside, giving you a pep-talk, and getting you back in the system) is fear. Our typical enquiry client is frightened of losing their matrimonial home, getting thrown out of their professional body, or losing their liberty, and usually all three. What they don’t need is a government that uses language redolent of 1930s Berlin or Moscow to strike more terror. What the fear does do is drive the recalcitrant recidivists underground, taking unscrupulous advisors with them. The sad truth is that the Exchequer knows this perfectly well, but for all the tax that’s lost as a result a few decent show trials is what the citizens at the Colosseum are baying for. The LDF’s key feature for clients we advised to use it (advice taken by them all) is that it offered immunity from prosecution. Forget the image of Private Walkers and suitcases of cash on Channel ferries to Switzerland; the dreary reality is that offenders are ordinary people who get caught up, often by oversight, in, what are for them, terrifying situations. The worst of it all is that their fear is so greatly exaggerated by an apparently arbitrary judicial system. Under the LDF we could offer great peace of mind. Own up; pay your tax; your penalties will be set at this; you won’t face criminal prosecution; best of all we’ll liaise with your regulatory body and try and protect your livelihood. By scrapping the immunity from prosecution the government has greatly hindered our honest endeavours to help collect more tax; sadly, I suspect, in the hope that this will win votes, almost certainly in vain. If you’re even remotely worried you need to speak to a tax enquiry specialist now; the leaves in HMRC’s tea cups tell us it’s only going to get worse.

For more information or to book your 90 minute complimentary session email: pa@ boldclarity.com For details on marketing strategy and staff mentoring services email: hello@carolinemary.com Image © Diliff

March 20162011 April/May

Image © smoothgroover22

with Great Vengeance & Furious Anger. Pulp Fictions & the twilight world of Tax Fraud

Selling by fear is unprofessional, distasteful, and probably counterproductive, a lesson learned in a fifteen year career as sales and marketing partner at well-known accountancy firms. Instinctive distrust of the state over the unfair and inconsistent (and at times unconstitutional and retrospective) application of tax laws (read the baffling case of Gaines-Cooper and gasp) has been heightened by Brown’s incompetence exacerbated by Osborne’s spite. Unless you’re a tax specialist you are probably unaware that currently there is a tax disclosure vacuum created by the scrapping of the excellent and successful Liechtenstein Disclosure Facility. In a move which would appear to be designed to appeal to the mythical reader of the right wing tabloid with the famous women’s section, the valiant sensible and peculiarly British LDF has been brought to a close, its sin? Being too successful; reminiscent of being told by a former partner they couldn’t cope with all the new work. The problem isn’t that it wasn’t bringing in enough tax. What really irks the politicians, or worries them that it might be costing votes, is the lynch mob that wants to hang tax avoiders and burn tax evaders alive. The appeal of the LDF is its Achilles’ heel. Disclosure work is my day job. We do the other things but the reason you’d choose us or any other well-recommended enquiry specialist (we use the term remedial tax advisors, straightening you up, wiping

Douglas Shanks DSC Metropolitan llp Chartered Accountants 07718 752 577

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Bright Young Things

udging by the outpouring of negative media directed at young people in London recently, you’d be forgiven for assuming that 99% of people under thirty are sitting around on their parents’ sofas, unemployed, in debt and probably hungover. Despite the bleak outlook for Generation Y, increasingly so if you happen to be female and therefore earning on average 24% less than your male counterparts, more and more young women are rejecting the narrative offered to them by society and setting up businesses in an array of industries. From fashion to food to lifestyle brands, the innovative ways these young Londoners are making their ambitions a reality is an inspiration to the rest of the jobless, homeless, boozing lot. What’s more they’re doing it all without any formal training or prior experience. We caught up with three such people, Coco Fennell, Alice Straker, and Georgie Olley, to find out what their businesses are and how they went about pursuing their dreams in the face of adversity. Coco grew up in Chelsea and started her eponymous fashion business from the flat she rents in East London. Alice works in film production but a year ago she picked up a paintbrush to try to express her strong feelings about a particularly stunning meringue she encountered. She has been creating and selling food-themed pieces ever since. Georgie worked in interior design for three years before realising she could turn her love of sewing and textiles into a business, Nomad Design. The common theme with all three ventures is that they began with passion.

Image © Coco Fennell

Coco had an interest in fashion from an early

Q How have you continued to build it? What marketing tools do you use? Social media, especially Instagram. Also press, celebrity endorsements, and my email address list. [Coco’s dresses have been worn by a plethora of discerning public figures.] Q Did you have a business plan? If so, did you stick to it and do you have one moving forward? I’m in the process of writing my first one now, after five years it’s about time! Q What have people’s reactions been to you as a young, female business owner? Have you experienced any limitations as a result of gender or the economic climate? My business is run by a woman for women, so people have been incredibly helpful, kind and encouraging. It’s only ever been run online with low overheads so I haven’t found myself affected by the economic state. As I set it up in 2011, I don’t really have anything to compare it to before then.

Q What have people’s reactions been to you as a businesswoman? Most people are really interested. I’ve surround myself with positive people who have been supportive and encouraging when I’ve needed it. Q What is the best thing about what you do? When you’re not worrying about the number of orders coming in, the best thing about it is the autonomy, the independence. Seeing people fall in love with the product and working with one of the oldest and most beautiful fabrics. Ikat has survived thousands of years of change and even revolutions, I feel honoured to play a part in keeping this culture alive.’

Georgie began sewing aged nine when her mother recruited her to help sew name tags on to her and her siblings’ school clothes. Rather than finding it a chore she enjoyed the task and it set her up for years of experimenting with clothing alterations as a teenager. She studied Languages at university, so it was her work in interior design that properly acquainted her with fabrics and textile design.

One day, Georgie was in a yoga class when someone approached her and asked about a bag she had made herself to carry her mat in. I completely blagged it and told her I had a business making them. She ordered two on the spot and I rushed home to my sewing machine via a fabric shop. When it became a regular occurrence,

Q How do you find being London-based? What relationship do you have with the city in terms of your business? I find London really inspiring, creatively. There’s great art and inspiration at your fingertips all the time. My paintings are very British in humour and tone so London is the perfect place for them. Q What effect has your lack of training had on the whole process? A curator described my approach as free spirited and raw. I do it because I love it, not because I know how to do it. I suppose it’s quite refreshing. Q What advice would you give someone wanting to start their own business? Coco: Start small. Don’t rush into doing too much too soon. Trust your gut instincts. Georgie: Make sure it’s definitely a financially viable project; is there a market for it? Can you afford to run a business, both financially and emotionally? Alice: follow your passion. Passion is a great foundation for building a business, and when you’re doing something you love, your work is most authentic.

Q What are you the most proud of? That I’ve built up a successful and selfsufficient business. Also Rihanna wearing one of my jumpsuits!

Q How did you turn your passion into a business? It was a combination of events. It began with finding a solution to transporting my yoga mat whilst cycling around London, combined with my interest in sustainably made textiles.

age and increasingly found that there was a gap in the market for affordable womenswear that focuses on fun, friendliness and positive body image. She wanted to create a brand that had distinctive prints and a flattering

Georgie realised that she was no longer blagging it, she’d built a website, set up an Instagram, and sold out at the OM Yoga show, she did, in fact, have a business.

Alice. With a twin brother who’s a professional chef and mother whose skills formidable in the kitchen must’ve helped to inspire his career, Alice has always been surrounded by impressive food. Alice did

t seems there is hardly a day that goes by without the media making some reference to the economic, social, and political impact of the UK’s ageing population, and the increased dependency of older members of society on those of working age. Today there are more than eleven million people aged 65 and over in this country, almost 20 percent of the total population. But while this figure has increased by more than ten percent over the past 15 years, the number of older people living in residential/nursing homes has remained static. Of those living in care homes, the proportion of those over 85 has increased with a corresponding drop in the numbers under aged 65 to 85. So why is this? One possible theory is that standards of health among the over 65s has improved, while another is that senior citizens and their families are becoming more alert to the financial and emotional benefits of deferring a move into care. It’s become clear that finding alternative means of meeting the

will be made on the family but the independence of both generations won’t be lost. Increasingly, elderly parents are moving in with an adult child and their family or, conversely, the next generation is moving in with Granny; a large proportion of single elderly people live in a bigger house than the next generation. And many cross-generational living arrangements can be structured to achieve significant inheritance tax savings as well; family and finance secure under one roof! Jim Sawer, Private Client Partner, Thrings changing living needs of older relatives has replaced the obsession with identifying ways to saddle the state with the cost of accommodating Mum or Dad. Successive governments have stressed they can not, and will not, meet the accommodation costs of those who can afford to pay their own way. Many elderly people who sought to offload their assets to bring their worth below the proscribed limits (and leave their local authority to pick up the tab for the nursing home) find the “deliberate deprivation” rules make them still liable to pay. And when their modest retained

funds run out, they could be faced with the prospect of the local authority making them bankrupt and having any gifts/trusts set aside. The best planning is a combination of delaying the moment at which residential care is necessary/desirable, and taking financial advice on how the cost of such care might effectively be met. Retaining independence within familiar surroundings works financially and helps maintains emotional wellbeing. Paid care at home or downsizing to assisted living accommodation near where the children and grandchildren live ticks both boxes; increased demands

Image © Alice Straker

London based female entrepreneurs By Alice Burden

Image © Nomad Design

Today’s Entrepreneurs

Home from Home

History of Art at university but never considered the prospect of being an artist, even when she found herself rummaging around her sister’s art supplies. It was only when she had tentatively posted some of her work on Facebook and Instagram and received a positive reaction that she began to see it as a potential moneymaking enterprise. Alice convinced her brother to let her mount a mini exhibition of her work in his restaurant in Notting Hill. A woman who was having lunch there asked me about the art and I found myself telling her that I was an exhibiting artist. It turned out she was curating a show the following week and wanted me to install. I ran home and ripped all my pages out of my sketchbooks, bought a hundred frames from Ikea and took them down to her. That was my first proper exhibition and I’ve done a load more since.

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nature, working with the female body rather than not against it. Coco was working as a graphic designer when she started her business as a side project in 2011. “I started with £1000 and grew the business slowly. I made a small amount of dresses in India, set up a website using Shopify and photographed the dresses on a friend in my flat. They sold quickly so I reinvested all the money and went from there.”

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Promotion

March 20162011 April/May

Image © Simon Perth

www.cocofennell.com Instagram: @cocofennell www.nomaddesign.co.uk Instagram @nomad.design www.alice-straker.squarespace.com Instagram: @alicestraker

Business doesn't have to be complicated or stressful. Entrepreneur Julia Langkraehr will teach you a simple system to transform your business from top to bottom. Take the ﬁrst step. Book a complementary 90 minute meeting. Email us on hello@boldclarity.com.

www.boldclarity.com | hello@boldclarity.com

YOU WON’T FIND US PLAYING HIDE AND SEEK Kinnaird House, 1 Pall Mall East, London, SW1Y 5AU Tel: 0207 766 5600 www.thrings.com

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Astronomy

Horology

The Liquid of Life

A Time for Tea

March 2016

Kensington, Chelsea & Westminster Today

online: www.KCWToday.co.uk

By Jonathan Macnabb

Where did Earth’s water come from? By Scott Beadle FRAS

Outgassing on Comet 67P/ Cheryumov-Gerasimenko

NASA

ur home world, the ‘Blue Planet’, is the only known planetary object where substantial bodies of liquid water exists at the surface, creating the conditions for life as we know it. In total, oceans and lakes cover 71% of the Earth’s surface. Forms of water are abundant throughout the universe, and H2O from the original solar nebula accreted along with other elements and molecules as the planets were forming. But the young Earth formed from colliding planetesimals, heating the planet and its rocks to high temperatures. This, along with Earth’s proximity to the blazing-hot young Sun, should have boiled off our world’s original water supply, suggesting that something must have delivered water later, as the planet was cooling. As the Solar System’s dust and minerals accreted about 4.6 billion years ago, rocky and metallic agglomerations near the Sun condensed into small, dry objects such as the terrestrial planets and asteroids. In the frigid outer solar system gas and water (in the form of ice) were

Comet Hale-Bopp. Photograph © Wally Pacholka

Dwarf planet Ceres in the asteroid belt. NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA

abundant, and this material turned into large gaseous planets, or icy clumps of rock, such as comets and moons. Since Earth presumably formed hot and dry, researchers long suspected that impacting comets were the main objects that filled the oceans. Comets are water rich and they originate beyond the so called ‘snow line’, which lies somewhere near the outer edge of the asteroid belt. But when astronomers spectroscopically analysed the water sublimating (vaporising) from several bright comets such as Halley, Hyakutake, and more recently 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, they found a significantly higher ratio of deuterium to hydrogen (D/H) than occurs in Earth’s oceans. So where did our different ratio of D/H come from? Recent discoveries in the asteroid belt suggest alternatives to comets. Whereas comets are roughly defined as rocky ice balls in highly elliptical orbits that spend most of their time in the frigid outer solar system, asteroids are rocky protoplanets in roughly circular orbits in the warmer inner solar system. The

largest of them is dwarf planet Ceres which may contain as much water as all the lakes, rivers, streams, and ponds on Earth. With the snowline blurred, major comets are a bad match for Earth’s water, and with the new main belt asteroids and Ceres as potential candidates for hosting water, astronomers began to wonder if our planet’s water might have come from comets’ ancient cousins: the asteroids. Water was crucial to the rise of life on Earth and is also centrally important in evaluating the possibility of life on other planets. Identifying the original source of Earth’s water is key to understanding how life fostering environments come into being and how likely they are to be found elsewhere. Comets, asteroids, and meteorites in particular are, being primitive objects, natural ‘time capsules’ of the conditions during the early days of our Solar System. Some meteorites show a good match to Earth’s deuterium to hydrogen ratio. Regardless of how much water was delivered (and geologists speculate there

may be up to 10 ocean masses more in Earth’s mantle) the discovery of ice in the asteroid belt strengthens the evidence that water may have come to us via asteroids, at least in part. The oceans probably have multiple sources: from water in the asteroid belt, water in comets from the Kuiper Belt, and water in the original dust grains that went on to make up the Earth. Recent research into the deuterium hydrogen ratio in interstellar water-ice shows a high ratio of D/H compared to the D/H ratios in meteorite samples, Earth’s ocean water and time capsule comets cannot be reconciled. This suggests that a significant fraction of our Solar System’s water, the most fundamental ingredient to fostering life, is older than the Sun, which may indicate that abundant, organic rich interstellar ices should probably be found in all young planetary systems, with profound implications for the likelihood of life elsewhere.

he first moments of wakefulness in the Edwardian bedroom may have been prompted by the family maid striking a match to light a fire in the grate, before setting a small tea tray on the bedside table, on which stood the newly available electric light. The arrival of electricity in the cities gradually gave rise to the variety of domestic clocks which were driven directly from the mains by 220 volts AC. Due to the innovative combination of synchronous movement with an electromagnetic armature these clocks were accurate and required very little maintenance. As different applications, such as alarm buzzers and school bells, were introduced in tandem; a field of gadgetry, which was still in its infancy, rapidly became popular, not only with Newly Weds but with the gift market for Retirees. A slow awakening from the early experiments with gas fuelled models rapidly became a quest for market leadership, which led to some unusual creations, one being the ‘Goblin TeasMade’. The common elements of the device are an alarm clock with a shaded electric light above, incorporating a stand which holds a small chrome plated electric kettle and a teapot of the right size which receive the water. The design of the kettle in the earlier models has a screw-on lid which allows the boiling water to escape under steam pressure through a pipe directly into the teapot, where brewing commences. The kettle is turned off when it is light enough to be raised by a sprung platform containing a switch. The Goblin Teas-Made was a household name for many years. They were made by BVC (British Vacuum Cleaners) and were made in 34 various styles for over 40 years. Before they were taken over by Swan in the 1970s, they were still producing 4,000 units per week in the factory in Leatherhead and in Castlereagh in Ulster. Their main rivals included Swan Pifco who produced a similar but less stylish version. The product eventually reached international popularity with a line Australian TeasMade produced by Breville. Clearly the Teas-Made captured a global zeitgeist, as shown by the discovery of a patent application for an enormous electro-mechanical Samovar tea-urn applied for by a Mrs Virmani via the Bombay Radio Co in 1932. With the onset of the digital age and the arrival of instant coffee, the modern Tea Maker has changed in relying less on

Top: A timeline of Teas-mades in the Science Museum. © Cory Doctorow Above: The ultra-collectable white bakelite model with desirable lamp shade! © Henry Boyd Above right: The more modern version. By this time, the clock has disappeared. Circa 1970. © Mortimer Cat Right: Right up-to-date, for the digital age, Heston Blumenthal's take on the genre.

the light and alarm, competing through speed of delivery of the boiling water, which can be adjusted by volume of hot water and number of cups, and can be programmed to switch on at various different times. A reduced version of the traditional Teamaker is endorsed by Heston Blumenthal and is a programmable glass kettle with an infusion basket. Currently Swan lead in the high street for tradition whilst the simple Timed Glass Kettle is also available at a cheaper price.

March 20162011 April/May

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Education London math teacher shortlisted

for Global Teacher Award

London maths teacher in the final ten shortlist competing for a prestigious international teaching award, with a prize of $1 million. The Global Teacher Award, set up by the Varkey Foundation, recognises an exceptional contribution to the field of teaching. Its stated purpose is “unearthing thousands of stories of heroes that have transformed young people’s lives.” Colin Hegarty, a teacher at the London comprehensive, Preston Manor School in Wembley, is the only UK finalist. He has been recognised for his work in making online videos designed to help students grasp basic to tricky maths problems. The shortlist was announced in London by Professor Stephen Hawking, who said “there was a teacher behind every great artist, every great philosopher, every great scientist. However difficult life can be, teachers have always been there, behind the scenes, showing us the way forward”. Hegarty came up with his idea when a student had to go overseas but wanted to keep up with his school work. The

Woldingham School

The perfect school choice for busy London families

Nestled in 700 acres of the English countryside and within the M25, Woldingham School is a girls’ Catholic boarding and day school which welcomes girls of all faiths. The school was founded in 1842 and has been on the Woldingham site for 70 years. It is a member of the international network

020 7738 2348

Education quick-thinking maths teacher uploaded his lessons online and the student passed his exams. Realising what this could mean for other students he began uploading regularly and his videos now number in the thousands and are used as teaching aids in schools all over the country. Hegarty, who quit a lucrative career with Deloitte to go into teaching, told the BBC that being a good teacher, like being a good student, was about “hard work. If you get stuck, just try harder”. Were he to win, Hegarty would invest the money in furthering his website and content, taking a leaf out of last year’s winner Nancie Atwell’s book; who donated her prize-winnings to her school. Amongst the other nominees this year are Aqeela Asifi, who teaches refugees in Pakistan, and Hanan Al Hroub, who grew up in a Palestinian refugee camp and is now a teacher. Robin Chaurasiya, a nominee from India, set up a not-for-profit school in Mumbai to educate girls from the city’s red light district. The awards were set up by Sunny Varkey, founder of the Varkey Foundation, who said he wanted the prize to “shine a powerful spotlight” on the incredible work teachers do around the world every day. Since setting up the prize, Varkey has announced he is signing up for the Giving Pledge, where the super-rich promise to give away most of their money to philanthropic causes. of Sacred Heart schools, with over 140 schools in 41 countries. The perfect choice for busy London families, Woldingham pupils benefit from a direct commute from London Victoria (35 mins) or Clapham Junction (27 mins), to be met by the School’s courtesy minibuses at its very own Woldingham train station, on-site. The school has a “longstanding reputation for creative excellence now matched by burgeoning academics” (Good Schools Guide). In 2012, the Independent Schools Inspectorate awarded the School ‘excellent’, the top mark, in every category. In 2015, 77% (including WJEC Latin) of GCSE grades were A* or A and 42% of grades at A*. At A level, almost 59% of grades were A* and A, representing a 3% improvement on 2014. Woldingham is a happy and successful school developing confident and compassionate young women. Alumnae include: Vivien Leigh, Lady Vanessa Musgrave, Caroline Wyatt, Louise Mensch, and Carey Mulligan. Saturday Open Mornings in 2016 are 11 June and 1 October, by appointment only. To reserve your place, please contact the Registrar, Mrs Linda Underwood on 01883 654206 or email registrar@ woldinghamschool.co.uk. For further information, please visit www.woldinghamschool.co.uk.

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Open Mornings 11 June and 1 October 2016 By appointment only, please call the Registrar

Girls’ Catholic boarding and day school 700 acres in Surrey Flexi boarding available 25 minutes from Clapham Junction 100% ‘excellent’ in every category ISI Inspection Report 2012

T: 01883 654206 woldinghamschool.co.uk

Chelsea Nanny: Feminism ‘What’s feminamism?’ asks the Middle One on the walk home from school. ‘Feminism?’ ‘That’s what I said – feminanism.’ Apparently Tallulah’s mother told Tallulah that she mustn’t be a feminist and this has sparked much debate among the year sixes. Mostly surrounding the definition of the word, rather than the politics of the stance. ‘It’s the belief that men and women, girls and boys, should all be treated equally,’ I say, hoping this information is sufficient for the Middle One. ‘Does that mean I’m a, a feminanist?’ ‘Do you think you are?’ ‘Yes. It’s not really fair. Today in break time, all the boys were playing British Bulldogs but Miss Amelia said I wasn’t allowed to play because it’s unladylike but I’m way better than the boys at Bulldogs.’ I’m so taken aback by the fact that eleven year olds are still playing British Bulldogs in the Digital Age that I momentarily forget to focus on the main issue. I want to reassure her that things will improve but I’ve declared 2016 a year of honesty. The Eldest and Small One are dealing with girl problems of their own. The Eldest came home from the school ski

trip to find several Valentine's Day cards waiting for him, all from American Mom, as usual. I ask him what his generation do for Valentine's Day but he grunts and turns red and retreats to his room. The Middle One tells me in a very loud whisper that he is in love. Apparently he met a girl skiing, she goes to St Paul’s, and is amazing at Lacrosse. They’ve been Whatsapping but won’t be able to meet up until next Exeat, a whole torturous month away. The Small One is suffering from lovesickness too, with a much lesser chance of success. Sophie, the new tutor, comes to the house once a week to help him prepare for his Eight Plus exam. I’ve never seen him so attentive. American Mom is delighted. She’s pinning all of her hopes on Sophie to get the Small One into the top (read: most pretentious) prep school in West London. I wonder how much long term psychological damage it does to a child to make them wear a velvet cummerbund to school every day until the age of thirteen. The selection process for American Mom’s dream school is more rigorous than for Oxbridge. Sophie does a mock interview with the Small One in the kitchen while I’m cooking supper. She asks him to use three adjectives to best describe himself. He drops his Frube on the floor and bursts into fits of hysterical laughter. I can’t help thinking I’d give a similar response if I were in his position.

Private school pupils dominate top jobs Private school pupils continue to dominate the majority of elite jobs in industries including; law, politics, journalism, and the arts; according to a new report published by the Sutton Trust on the 24th of February. While there are ‘small signs’ of narrowing inequality, as much as 70 percent of the most prominent jobs in professional fields go to those who have benefitted from a private education. This is despite the fact that only 7 percent of British youngsters attend fee paying schools. A massive 74 percent of judges and 71 percent of military officers in the highest rank come from a privately educated background. Journalism is dominated too, as 51 percent print writers, as well as 61 percent of doctors, are former private school pupils. Of the rest in the medical profession, 22 percent attended grammar schools. The gap has most noticeably narrowed in the political industry, with just 32 percent of MPs attending private school. However, when looking specifically at the ruling Tory cabinet it

becomes clear the percentage is much higher, at 50 percent. In the Labour shadow cabinet it is only 13. The Sutton Trust report also looked into those from an Oxbridge background, and found that the prevalence of those alumni in top ranking positions was noticeably high. In the legal industry, Oxbridge graduates make up 74 percent of the top positions. In addition, 54 percent of journalists also attended the two universities. This was also true of the Conservative cabinet, where 47 percent attended Oxford or Cambridge. This is more than 10 percent higher than the shadow cabinet, 32 per cent of whom were Oxbridge educated. The report also looked into the arts, particularly the background of awardwinning British actors and actresses, of which 50 percent more than other arts industries had a private education. Sir Peter Lampl, chair of the Sutton Trust, pointed out that the report illustrated the ongoing need for more social mobility, saying, “Our research shows that your chances of reaching the top in so many areas of British life are very much greater if you went to an independent school. The key to improving social mobility at the top is to open up independent schools to all pupils based on merit not money... as well as support for highly able students in state schools.”

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Education

Rejected sex education plan

University of Westminster

emphasis on the core subjects. Responding to a letter signed by four chairs of Select Committees, the Education Secretary said: “Every state-funded school in creates awkward conversations England must offer a broad and balanced for the Government curriculum which promotes the spiritual, moral, cultural and physical development By Henry Jones of pupils and prepares them for the opportunities, responsibilities and Select Committee experiences of later life.” recommendation to make “In doing so, we expect schools to sex education compulsory in make provision for personal, social, schools was rejected by the government health, and economic education earlier this month leading to anger and (PSHE)” confusion. However, Morgan adds that, while However, according to an article the government agrees that sex education by Channel 4 News presenter, Cathy is “a crucial part of preparing young Newman, in the Telegraph, the decision people for life,” they were concerned that was only reluctantly made by the the advocated changes “would do little to Education Secretary, Nick Morgan, after tackle the most pressing problems with the Prime Minister ignored her pleas to the subject”. reconsider. Amongst the most serious of the Reputedly Morgan was not alone problems raised by the Secretary was a in her appeals to the PM. According recent Ofsted report which found that to Newman, the Education Secretary was supported by senior female cabinet 40% of “PSHE teaching is less than colleagues including: Justine Greening, good.” Anna Soubry, and even Home Secretary Neil Carmichael, the Chair of the Theresa May. Education Select Committee, said In a statement, the Government that the government’s decision was said that it did not feel that making “disappointing.” He also commented compulsory sex education would on the alleged disagreement between appropriately solve the issues raised. the PM and Nicky Morgan saying: “it However, it has been speculated that is unclear why it should have taken the David Cameron did not want to detract Government so long to publish such a KENSINGTON_CHELSEA_AND_WESTMINSTER_AD_FINAL.pdf 1 22/02/2016 17:01 from the party line pushing for a greater feeble response.”

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Education

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opens new Institute of Advanced Studies

My Best Shakespeare Teacher By Emily Eaton

Announced in February, TES is partnering with the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC), to ask famous faces of the stage and screen to recall their school experiences in a series of blogs called My Best Shakespeare Teacher. A spokesperson for the RSC said, “It is estimated that around 50 per cent of the world’s population first encounter Shakespeare whilst at school. “We want to celebrate the role that teachers play in making those early experiences as inspirational and enjoyable as possible.” First to share was Sir Patrick Stewart, who reminisced over ‘Mr Dormand’, the teacher who paid for a course allowing the thesp to tread the board for the first time. Stewart also brought up Dormand’s not-entirely-PC approach to classroom discipline, saying, “He had a deadly aim with pieces of chalk and, though rarely, with a blackboard rubber.” Clearly, the Bard isn’t about to wiped from the English Literature syllabus anytime soon, but with blackboards giving way to smartboards, has the way we introduce pupils to his work changed all that much? As it stands, many primary school age children get an early glimpse of the playwright, through initiatives like Shakespeare Week, launched by the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust. Shakespeare Week covers not only the plays but activities like period dancing and performance. However, for most, the real introduction occurs in secondary school, where a whole topic is devoted to just Shakespeare on the KS3 (Years 7-9) syllabus. In my own experience, this involved

huge swathes of old staple Romeo & Juliet being recited to an increasingly slumberous class. Indeed, the iconic love story remains a firm favourite, but it is being utilised in increasingly ingenious ways. “Shakespeare Lives”, a global festival of events celebrating the 400th anniversary in 2016, aims to introduce a whole new generation of children to the essential themes, whilst also bringing in modern issues such as sexual health. Emma Harrison, head of communication and engagement at VSO (organising the festival) said, “Volunteers will be asked to think about how they can work within Shakespeare to create ways to tell the story and then use that to talk about certain issues. “They can be used to discuss HIV, sex, love but also race and cultural imperialism. In a lot of the schools we work with there is no inspiration and we want to change that.” One very adventurous teacher of mine actually ventured the whole class out onto the school grounds for an in-situ reading of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Unfortunate proximity to the A420 slightly dispelled the enchantment, but many schools are experimenting with alternatives to the traditional classroom setting to bring the Bard to life. The Globe Theatre educational branch, Globe Education, has partnered with Hodder Education to bring the vivacity of Shakespeare to life, with multi-touch books for the iPad (the must-have classroom staple of the teenies). The RSC now offers free online broadcasts for schools, allowing pupils to join the ‘world’s biggest Shakespeare classroom’, especially those who don’t have the opportunity to visit Shakespeare’s hallowed hometown of Stratford-upon-Avon. And with open-air theatres like the Globe and Regent’s Park offering increasingly discounted tickets to school groups, the living breathing world of Shakespeare is perhaps closer than ever before.

new research institute set to foster interdisciplinary and independent critical thinking has been founded by the University of Westminster. The Westminster Institute for Advanced Studies aims to support the development of critical, innovative, and creative research to contribute towards understanding the challenges and issues that society, culture, nature, art, and technology face today. Based at the University’s Westminster School of Media, Art, and Design at the Harrow Campus in London, the institute will be led by Professor Christian Fuchs, Professor of Social Media and Director of the Communication and Media Research Institute at the University. Geoffrey Petts, Vice-Chancellor and President of the University of Westminster, said: “The Westminster Institute for Advanced Studies is a key development in enhancing our ability to conduct and deliver research with originality, significance and a critical impact on the global society. It addresses the need for interdisciplinary exchange, collaboration, learning and research and plays a key role in achieving our 2020 strategy that sets out to enhance our world-leading

March 2016

Kensington, Chelsea & Westminster Today

online: www.KCWToday.co.uk interdisciplinary research activity.” Prof Christian Fuchs, Director of the Westminster Institute for Advanced Studies, said: “The Westminster Institute for Advanced Studies stands for three ‘I’s: Interdisciplinarity, Internationality, and Intellectual engagement in the public. It provides an exciting opportunity for international and interdisciplinary cooperation beyond borders. “Our inaugural research theme ‘Critical Digital and Social Media Research’ aims to better understand how digital and social media, such as Facebook, Google, Twitter, and Wikipedia as well as cloud computing, big data, and free and open source software, can change our society. This area tends to be oversimplified, neglecting the complexity of interactions between digital media and society. Our research will question the role of digital and social media in society, the economy, politics, and culture. In order to do so, we need to ask critical questions and develop new research methods and theories.” Among the research projects that the Institute will be involved with is the EU project ‘netCommons: Network Infrastructure as Commons’. This brings together social scientists, computer scientists, and legal scholar from Italy, France, Spain, Greece, and the UK to study Internet infrastructure and community networks in Europe, contributing to the development of key themes for Internet Science. Further information about the Westminster Institute for Advanced Studies is available on: www.westminster.ac.uk/wias

LAST POST by Carol Ann Duffy In all my dreams, before my helpless sight, He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning. If poetry could tell it backwards, true, begin that moment shrapnel scythed you to the stinking mud … but you get up, amazed, watch bled bad blood run upwards from the slime into its wounds; see lines and lines of British boys rewind back to their trenches, kiss the photographs from home – mothers, sweethearts, sisters, younger brothers not entering the story now to die and die and die. Dulce – No – Decorum – No – Pro patria mori. You walk away. You walk away; drop your gun (fixed bayonet) like all your mates do too – Harry, Tommy, Wilfred, Edward, Bert – and light a cigarette. there’s coffee in the square, warm French bread and all those thousands dead are shaking dried mud from their hair and queuing up for home. Freshly alive, a lad plays Tipperary to the crowd, released from History; the glistening, healthy horses fit for heroes, kings. You lean against the wall, your several million lives still possible and crammed with love, work, children, talent, English beer, good food. You see the poet tuck away his pocket-book and smile. If poetry could truly tell it backwards, then it would.

The University for World-Class Professionals

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Creative Writing Join the most successful Creative Writing course in the UK and complete a full-length book under the guidance of established writers directed by Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy. Available through campus-based study or online distance learning. Find out more: mmu.ac.uk/english/postgrad or email: postgradenglish@mmu.ac.uk The Manchester Writing Competition is now accepting entries for the 2016 Poetry Prize and the 2016 Fiction Prize. Both prizes are open internationally and offer the chance to win £10,000*. Find out more: manchesterwritingcompetition.co.uk * Terms and conditions apply

March 20162011 April/May

Kensington, Chelsea & Westminster Today

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Crane Drawing by Nouneh Sarkissian Pen and ink on handmade paper

N Photograph by Jason Bell

Nouneh with Kolo, the family dog

schools by the state so children were able to access opera, music and the theatre throughout their early education. They were brought up to appreciate Culture and to study and comprehend the importance of the written word in society. Nouneh’s love of language and her relationship with words, music and books fostered an early interest in performance and at the age of seven years old she studied music alongside school life. At eight she wrote to a local radio station requesting an audience with the producers in order to obtain a working role there. This bold approach, seeking to contribute to and be a part of a medium she loved, has stayed with her ever since. At 16, she appeared in; Pygmalion, Cinderella, Shakespeare’s Hamlet, King Lear, Romeo and Juliet and plays by Shaw and other English writers. She became a presenter for Armenian Radio for children programmes, and for television where she presented Inchooik which means WHY. Nouneh explains; “It was a programme about a little person, a puppet, who asks ‘why’ all the time. It was really intriguing and very informative for young ones. A

little Google if you like, songs, musicals, puzzles and much more”. It was a very creative medium in spite of the times when censorship was part of everyday life and strict punishment was meted out for wrong doings. In 1971 Nouneh entered the Faculty of Philology to study foreign language and literature for 5 years. Following this, she worked at the Research Institute of Ancient Manuscripts. Armenia places high value on translations. Many of early Greek works, that were destroyed have survived in Armenian translations. These works, with their beautiful illustrations, created by illuminators, have recently been shown in the Bodleian Library. Nouneh Sarkissian married her university sweetheart, Armen, in 1978 and moved to England in 1991. Their first son Vartan was born in 1980 and the second, Hayk, in 1984. Savannah, Nouneh’s granddaughter, is a constant creative source and inspiration to her childrens’ books. Nouneh returned to her love of music and formed a partnership with Steinway putting on concerts for aspiring and talented musicians, including a piano recital by Kit Armstrong, 23, who she has supported since the age of 15. Steinway created a limited edition of 150 pianos for its 150th anniversary. Nouneh, an amateur pianist plays regularly on one of these rosewood instruments for pleasure and for friends and family. She went on to study for a Masters in 20th Century Modern Art, her thesis being Arshile Gorky (founder of abstract expressionism in America), and, with her husband, Armen Sarkissian, the current Armenian Ambassador, (former Armenian Prime minister 1996-1997), they supported an exhibition of Gorky’s work at the Tate Modern. Nouneh was the Cultural Counsellor for the Armenian Embassy and then Chargé d’Affaires. Her role with the Embassy has seen her provide a platform for many artists as well as contributing to some extraordinary and diverse exhibitions such as; Fabergé which she transferred from the Kremlin to Las Vegas, through to Symbols and Mysteries; Art in Transition in Kensington. In between the worlds of Art, Culture and writing Nouneh draws and paints. Her work varies from highly vibrant, colourful paintings to stark and complex images in black ink on parchment paper. No set idea is fixed before these are drawn.

Illustration by Ruben Grigorian

By Kate Hawthorne

It is not surprising that after a background steeped in arts, culture, study and children that her own creativity found a platform in writing. Her earlier books have been printed in several languages and are hugely popular in Armenia and Russia. They have enchanting tales and wonderful drawings in all of them. There is the Dragon Nessie, who loved her Red Shoes, but her feet were too big for them. So she cried so much that her tears flooded the village where she lived, and therefore she lived under water. One day a cobbler made red shoes just for her and her tears subsided, as did the water and people came from far and wide to see her. There is the story of the Baby Bald Hedgehog, who, yes, was born with no spikes. All the villagers and animals rallied round to help him and with their friendship and the good food they found for him, he grew some spikes. And there are The Three Dragons, one born brown, not at all a Dragon’s colour, who is teased endlessly, until he becomes the colourful one… and so on. Lessons in life and on bullying and teasing are carefully thought through with a gentle educational process here. In 2015 one of Nouneh’s earlier books, The Magic Buttons, was published in the UK by Quartet Books. It is an enchanting and creative tale, packed full of the sorts of stories, mysteries and happenings that children love to hear about. The process of reading, and being read to, will find a natural home here and imaginations heightened as the text brings intrigue and vision to the reader. What more can you want; a story about people turning blue because of a Blue Magical Powder. Who IS going to find the cure? Tiny little people as your friends.Witches good and bad whose powers are robbed from them at an International witches’ and wizards’ conference. A forest packed full of more magic. Izzi Berton a villain who holds a book of all human secrets, and yes, the Magic Buttons and all that they can do. The story is suitable for 4-13 year olds, whether of reading age or reading to age. Published by Quartet Books, the ISBN number

is 9780704373839. It has black and white illustrations and is available from all good bookshops, www.amazon.co.uk and www.ebay.co.uk. priced at £12.50 Nouneh’s next book in line to be published is Prince Baziliscus. It is the story of two brothers and the Lizard World and how they save humanity from destruction. Now we could all do with learning a little bit about that…….. Published by Quartet Books

Tales of Enchantment

ouneh Sarkissian is Armenian by birth. Her mother was a teacher and her father a journalist. Nouneh “who was brought up in a book”, has written 13 books for children, is a mother and grandmother, a supporter and author of works of arts and culture, and an artist herself. Her upbringing in a strict communist regime did little to inhibit her love of words. Visits to concerts were gifted to

Kensington, Chelsea & Westminster Today

Literature Illustration by Arsen Janikian

Literature

March 2016

Henry VI (Part 2)

Scout’s Honour Harper Lee

reat art stands on the shoulders of the giants that came before it, each month in Literature we take a look back on a famous book that was released on this month in history that has helped to broaden the literary canon. This month in honour of the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death we take a look at Henry VI (Part 2).

Shakespeare chronology can be a bit of a tricky proposition. On 12th March 1594 a book seller by the name of Thomas Millington entered a play into the Stationers’ Register (the Elizabethan equivalent of a patent office for dramas) with the catchy title of, deep breath, The First part of the Contention betwixt the two famous Houses of Yorke and Lancaster, with the death of the good Duke Humphrey: And the banishment and death of the Duke of Suffolke, and the Tragicall end of the proud Cardinall of VVinchester, vvith the notable Rebellion of Jacke Cade: And the Duke of Yorkes first claime vnto the Crowne. However there’s also evidence that the play had actually been written and performed several years earlier, mainly due to a pamphlet by Robert Greene written in 1592 that contains (among other savage digs) the “upstart crow” insult that holds pride of place on this month’s Poetry introduction (In later centuries perhaps scholars may look on the broad contemporary dismissal of 50 Shades Of Grey’s ‘artistic qualities’ with similar bemusement, or perhaps not.) Regardless of when Henry VI actually came into being, it tends to be an overlooked part of Shakespeare’s oeuvre. One of the first plays based on history

that didn’t simply ‘print the legend’, Shakespeare instead seemed to have drawn heavily from two of the leading contemporary historians on pre-War of The Roses English history, Edward Hall and Raphael Holinshed. Whilst Henry VI (Part 1) deals with the loss of England’s French territories in the aftermath of the Hundred Years War and the subsequent political machinations that would eventually lead England into bloody civil war, and Henry VI (Part 3) deals with the war itself, Part 2 is a more unusual beast with constantly simmering tension as the order of the day. Henry, a deeply pious man who seems as if he’d be happier as a scholar then a warlord, is unable to quell the constant scheming of his nobles and steadily finds himself undermined and isolated, with his Queen, Margaret, embroiled in an affair with the wolfish Earl of Suffolk. Henry VI has the largest cast list of any Shakespeare play, which is certainly more than a little daunting, but considering its status as the play where a young Shakespeare redefined what a historical interpretation could be, it deserves more than just a passing mention in the schoolbooks. Max Feldman

DUDLEY SUTTON’S I WISH I HAD WRITTEN THAT Sanctity by Patrick Kavanagh To be a poet and not know the trade To be a lover and repel all women Twin ironies by which great saints are made The agonising pincer-jaws of Heaven

1926-2016

Whilst not quite beating J.D. Salinger for the top spot on the ‘famed literary recluse’ totem pole, Harper Lee, the author of To Kill A Mockingbird, certainly comes pretty close. The novel's dual themes of the childhood adventures of tomboy Scout Finch (an avatar for the young Lee) and the seething racial strains, which emerge in a small Southern town during the unfair trial of a black man, endeared the book to generations of readers and instantly catapulted Lee into literary superstardom, a role she was deeply uncomfortable in. “I never expected any sort of success with Mockingbird, ” Ms. Lee told a radio interviewer in 1964, “I was hoping for a quick and merciful death at the hands of the reviewers, but, at the same time I sort of hoped someone would like it well enough to give me encouragement”. A majority of To Kill A Mockingbird has its roots in Lee’s upbringing in Monroeville, Alabama, where her father, Amasa, practiced as a lawyer. Her mother, whose maiden name of Finch became that of the widowed family in the novel, was a huge woman who apparently suffered from psychological maladies and obsessed over crossword

puzzles, and twice tried to drown the future writer, a fate from which she was saved by a sister (at least according to her childhood friend Truman Capote, who served as the inspiration for Dill in the novel; Lee always denied the anecdote.) She retired back to Monroeville in the aftermath of Mockingbird’s voracious publicity, only occasionally emerging to receive awards at ceremonies where she was known to almost never make speeches. The literary world was therefore justifiably surprised by the 2015 release of Go Set A Watchman, the ‘sequel’ to To Kill A Mockingbird, which portrayed an adult Scout and Atticus and attracted controversy over questions whether the then 88 year old Lee was of a sound enough mind to consent to the novel's release. The author’s subsequent death will almost certainly lead to further questioning of the murky circumstances of Watchmen’s release, but for now it has simply thrown Mockingbird’s brilliance into sharper relief. MF

A Rose By Any Other Name Umberto Eco 1932-2016

To a neophyte, Umberto Eco’s novels (particularly his first two doorstops The Name of The Rose and Foucault’s Pendulum) are generally approached as most people prepare for marathons. You can hear endlessly about how lifechanging and affirming the experience is, but it takes one hell of a push for you to actually try it yourself. When The Name Of The Rose was released in 1980, people read it in droves, selling over 10 million copies in 30 languages. Eco (a towering intellectual who liked to relax by reading dictionaries) became an instant sensation. The novel was so successful that his English translator, William Weaver earned enough to build an extension onto his home (which he fittingly dubbed ‘the Eco chamber’). Much like Harper Lee, Eco the urbane academic was unprepared for the level of fame that his first novel had brought him, complaining that he could “barely open the door” of his flat due to the sheer number of interview requests

Image © Aubrey

on his welcome mat. Unlike Lee however he was able to come to terms with his renown and continue writing alongside his teaching and remained a public figure until his death. Eco was born in Alessandria, a small city in the northwestern Italian region of Piedmont, where he graduated from the university in 1954 in medieval philosophy and literature. His first published book, The Aesthetics of Thomas Aquinas (1956), was written during Eco’s military service. Plunging into the academia that would be his home for nearly all his life, Eco rose to the position of first professor of semiotics at Bologna university, where he returned to writing half out of idle boredom and started playing with the ideas that would lead to The Name of The Rose. Perhaps more great minds could stand a little boredom, now and again, if such literature is the result... MF

March 20162011 April/May

Poetry

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HORTLY BEFORE HIS DEATH IN 1592, the Oxbridge educated Pamphleteer, Robert Greene, wrote in the Groatsworth of Wit “Yes, trust them not, for there is an upstart crow, beautified with our feathers, that, with his Tygers heart wrapt in a Players hide, supposes he is as well able to bumbast out a blanke verse as the best of you; and being an absolute Johannes Factotum, is in his owne conceit the onely Shake-scene in a countrie.” The ‘upstart crow’ to whom Greene is referring here was none other than Mr William Shakespeare Esq. Greene was not at all comfortable with this provincial player and one time poacher from Warwickshire (Shakespeare got caught poaching a deer from the Charlecote estate, 4 miles east of his birthplace at Stratford upon Avon) outwitting him and his literati chums on the stage and the page! Little was it known at the time that Greene’s cause for concern would be realised as Shakespeare rose to become the most prolific and revered of all our national poets and playwrights. Shakespeare’s genius has touched every continent and his influence on Arts, Culture and Society remains unmatched to this day. In this first of two months poetry pages dedicated to the Bard of Avon we celebrate the 400th anniversary of his death. Here we present two of Shakespeare’s finest works and a sonnet by William Wordsworth. The Sonnet is a 14 line lyric-poem and was popularised by Petrarch in the Italian Renaissance. Petrarch divided the 14 lines into 2 parts: eight lines known as an octave and the final 6 lines called a sestet. In the 16th Century Shakespeare changed the nature of the sonnet by taking these 14 lines and dividing them into 3 parts of 4 lines known as quatrains and ending in a final two line couplet. This has become the staple of English sonnet writing. Sonnet 60 is one of 154 sonnets written by Shakespeare (thought to have been written from 1593 over the course of a dozen years) and an example of the Shakespearean sonnet at its best. The major themes running through these sonnets are love and the passing of time. All the World’s a Stage is an example of how Shakespeare uses the sonnet form to great success in his plays as well as independent verse. Act II, Scene VII of As you Like it examines the passing of time from birth to death through the seven ages of man and is played out through the theatrical lens. Our final offering this month is from William Wordsworth who pays homage to Shakespeare’s influence on the sonnet form in Scorn not the Sonnet. We hope you enjoy the selection!

Scorn not the Sonnet By William Wordsworth

Scorn not the Sonnet; Critic, you have frowned, Mindless of its just honours; with this key Shakespeare unlocked his heart; the melody Of this small lute gave ease to Petrarch's wound; A thousand times this pipe did Tasso sound; With it Camöens soothed an exile's grief; The Sonnet glittered a gay myrtle leaf Amid the cypress with which Dante crowned His visionary brow: a glow-worm lamp, It cheered mild Spenser, called from Faery-land To struggle through dark ways; and, when a damp Fell round the path of Milton, in his hand The Thing became a trumpet; whence he blew Soul-animating strains—alas, too few!

Sonnet 60 Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore, So do our minutes hasten to their end; Each changing place with that which goes before, In sequent toil all forwards do contend. Nativity, once in the main of light, Crawls to maturity, wherewith being crown’d, Crooked elipses ’gainst his glory fight, And Time that gave doth now his gift confound. Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth

Literature The Illustrated, Children’s & Modern First Editions Book Fair

date for your diary book lovers! Saturday 19th March more than fifty of the UK’s top booksellers will be exhibiting their books at the Hilton Olympia Hotel on Kensington High Street. Not one but two book fairs running in tandem! The Illustrated, Children’s and Modern First Editions Book Fair and The Travel

Kensington, Chelsea & Westminster Today

online: www.KCWToday.co.uk Visitors can browse amongst the thousands of books on offer. Books you grew up with; books brought to life by some of the greatest artists in their field; the magical first edition of a beloved author; books that changed the world. This gathering of the UK’s finest specialist book sellers are happy to offer advice and give valuations on books from your own collection. John Bonham runs Britain’s premier antiquarian Travel Fair: ”This will be our 21st fair and we’ll have an interesting mix of important travel narratives, such as Livingstone’s Missionary Travels and Wilfrid Thesiger’s Arabian Sands. We are very excited to have Patrick Leigh Fermor’s original typescript with corrections and accompanying letters of his thrilling account of the abduction of a German general on Crete during

Book Fair

Children’s, Illustrated & Modern First Editions

Act II, Scene VII

Saturday 19th March 2016

All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances, And one man in his time plays many parts, His acts being seven ages. At first, the infant, Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms. Then the whining schoolboy, with his satchel And shining morning face, creeping like snail Unwillingly to school. And then the lover, Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier, Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard, Jealous in honor, sudden and quick in quarrel, Seeking the bubble reputation Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice, In fair round belly with good capon lined, With eyes severe and beard of formal cut, Full of wise saws and modern instances; And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts Into the lean and slippered pantaloon, With spectacles on nose and pouch on side; His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide For his shrunk shank, and his big manly voice, Turning again toward childish treble, pipes And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all, That ends this strange eventful history, Is second childishness and mere oblivion, Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

Hilton London Olympia Hotel 380 Kensington High Street London W14 8NL

Feeds on the rarities of nature’s truth, And nothing stands but for his scythe to mow: Praising thy worth, despite his cruel hand.

March 2016

From As you Like it,

And delves the parallels in beauty’s brow,

And yet to times in hope my verse shall stand,

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Compiled and edited by Dr Emma Trehane PhD.

11am - 5pm

TRAVEL & EXPLORATION BOOK FAIR The premier antiquarian travel book fair Saturday 19 March, 2016 11am-5pm Hilton London Olympia Hotel

and Exploration Book Fair will be held in neighbouring rooms. Winnie the Pooh will be rubbing shoulders with Captain Scott; James Bond and Eric Ravilious just a hop and a skip from Lawrence of Arabia. Manager of the Illustrated Book Fair, Deborah Davis, underlines the diversity of books on offer: “There really will be something for everyone at prices to suit all book lovers. Amongst the highlights will be a rare first edition of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory signed by Roald Dahl; Enid Blyton’s first book Child Whispers and a very scarce WWI title: The War the Infantry Knew, one of only 500 copies printed, plus a first edition of Daphne Du Maurier’s Rebecca signed by the author herself.”

WWII.” “Exhibitors also offer maps, photographs, and guidebooks. There might even be the odd piece of equipment - we once had a portable expedition bed for sale!" The two book fairs take place on Saturday 19th March at London Hilton Olympia Hotel 380 Kensington High street London W14 8NL 11am -5pm. Complimentary tickets can be downloaded from www.pbfa.org otherwise it’s £2 on the door covering both fairs. There is a carpark on site as well as cafe’s and bars. Underground to Olympia or High Street Kensington; buses 9, 10, 27, 28.

For more information visit www.pbfa.org

Dining Out

Motcombs By David Hughes

ur destination is one of those surprising streets that rubs away the feeling that the area around Belgravia Square has somehow died. It’s all too easy to form the impression that after 6pm it’s become a faceless bastion of buttoned up embassies and houses mostly bought for investment by those elusive ‘businessmen’ who never seem to want to do business in the area, but there are a couple of oases in this desert. Motcombs eschews crashy music and pared down modernity, and instead takes you back a few years: the bar upstairs holds a crowd of well-heeled locals, and the restaurant downstairs has an eclectic mass of artwork on the walls, discreet waist level mirrored panels and a ceiling in bold red crisscrossed with wood beams. Positively 70s darling! But in a good way, and with the kitchen abutting the dining area, you can throw in the influence of the noughties too. Madame and I were being treated, so we opened with a fine glass of champagne. After half a glass I was gently tilting back in my chair, feeling the tensions of the day relax, and surveying the room like I owned it. Good champagne and fine wine have a wonderful effect on the soul. The fabulous Tatiana from Florianopolis (Brazil, not Russia, I had to know) was serving our table. Lesser men would have block booked for the next 3 months, but I have fortitude, and the sure knowledge that M can kill with a single blow. For starters I went with the Scallops, asparagus and ginger. A little edgy on the pairing perhaps, ginger and asparagus not being usual bedfellows, but creamy scallops, and crunchy fine chopped ginger of just the right heat blended very well with the out of season asparagus. M’s Prawns in filo with sweet chilli sauce continued the Asian influenced starters. Not so rad, but competent and enjoyable, and the Chateau Tour de Mirambeau white Bordeaux earned her double thumbs-up

approval. A brief pause, and a real cast of characters arrived at the next table: the fashion bod, the friend, the fiancée, daddy darling, Mumsie, a mate of a wellknown nightclub owner and the birthday girl. Unbidden, I thought Country House Party, and in what order Agatha Christie would have bumped them off. The arrival of my lobster Linguine broke this reverie, which needed only a dash of black pepper, and like M’s Poached Halibut was fabulous value for money. Lobster is a premium item and there was no shortage of it on the plate, and M’s halibut with spinach and hollandaise would have sent the chef off for his biggest pan. Don’t come here to push your food around, hoping to lose a few pounds. My eyes flicked around the room, past paintings of flowers, a serious looking Peter Langan, a rural idyll, Household Cavalrymen on duty, and a vertigo inducing interior of unusual perspective. Who would be first, the fashion bod, or the girl? You need to start with shocking good looks, before you get onto the older members of the cast with dark secrets to hide. A chink of bottle on glass saw M topping up with Santenay, and me back from my plotting. Ordering a single dessert and a cheese plate was the pleasure part of the brain winning an easy victory over the conscience, which I have to say has very little influence on these occasions. Over the cheese, I decided on the girl. One piercing scream in the middle of the night, and the sure knowledge that nobody would be blowing out the candles. It was a wrench leaving, but fun as you are led up the back stairs past photos of 60s and 70s stars who once sat where you have. There’s almost a feeling of stealing off with your lover into the night, well sated, but perhaps game for some more fun before the clock strikes. Verdict : Recommended, and well worthy of its good reputation. Motcombs, 26 Motcombe St 020 7235 6382

Almost so slowly as to be undetectable American sports have begun to push their tendrils through British society. Perhaps it’s an inevitable side-effect of the Premier League being so swollen with money that the same four teams will effectively win everything until the heat death of the universe, but events like the Super Bowl are gathering together larger and larger cabals of English sport fans keen to sink their teeth into something fresh. Bodean’s seems very much built to order for these Yankee Doodle fifth columnists. A Texan BBQ style steak-house that serves quantities of meat beyond the most fevered gluttonous imaginings replete with televisions showing seemingly any and all varieties of American sports. Never afraid to bite off more than we could chew, my companion and I opted for the largest offering on the menu, the faintly Deliverance sounding “Boss Hog Sharing Platter” (yes really) which, considering the fact that the platter contained roughly half a barnyard’s worth of animals, was fairly cheap at £38.00 to pay between the two of us. The platter itself consisted of a heart attack inducing selection of *deep breath* Spare and Baby Back Ribs, Burnt Ends, a Jacob’s Ladder Beef Rib, Pulled Pork, Chicken Thighs, and two smoked Sausages, served with fries and coleslaw. Even with a cursory look at the groaning platter it was clear that the ribs were the main event here and my companion and I had soon abandoned any pretence of civilised behaviour

Kensington, Chelsea & Westminster Today

Food & Flowers

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This month’s recipe

By Limpet Barron

Navarin of lamb

Put a large casserole dish on a medium to high hob, toss the meat in the vegetable oil, and salt generously before browning the meat for 5-7 mins. You will need to turn it several times to make sure it is evenly coloured. If there is sufficient space in the dish to add some of the bones, then do so after this stage as it will add an extra richness to the dish. Add 500ml of water to a medium sized pan, together with the wine, peppercorns and stock cube and bring briefly to the boil, stirring to dissolve the stockcube. Pour into the casserole dish, adding the chopped tomatoes and bouquet garni. Add sufficient water to just cover the lamb, bringing briefly to the boil and skim off any scum that rises to the top. Put the lid on the casserole and put in a preheated oven (110C) for 1.5 hours. After this initial cooking time has elapsed, take the casserole from the oven, add the vegetables and garlic and bring back to the boil on the hob for a couple of minutes, before returning it to the oven for a further hour. Season to taste, and serve direct from the dish.

A slow cooked, Winter-intoSpring dish that utilises some of the cheaper cuts to produce a delicious and hearty meal. Feeds 4-6 1.5 kg new season’s shoulder or neck of lamb, dice into 4 or 5 cm cubes, trimmed of excess fat. 200ml red wine 1 large stick of celery, chopped into 2 cm slices 2 onions, cut into 6 slices each 5 plum tomatoes, rough chopped 2 large carrots, each cut into 8 3 large (quartered) / 8 baby turnips 8 cloves garlic, peeled 1 stock cube Sea salt, teaspoon of peppercorns Bouquet garni 2-3 tablespoons sunflower oil

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and were digging into the BBQ with Neanderthal brio. Considering the fact that no-one in the history of humanity has ever managed to eat ribs and seem sophisticated or (god help you) seductive, Bodean’s should definitely be at the bottom of your list for potential date venues, but provided you don’t mind looking like you’ve only just crawled out of the swamp, the ribs are flavourful, tender, and moreish enough that the stack of meat on the platter never seems overly intimidating. The chicken thighs were definitely the next favourite on the list, fiery with a smoky aftertaste, however at only one each on the platter they were gone in seconds and could certainly have stood for some extra servings. After those highlights the rest of Bodean’s fare served perfectly adequately but certainly wasn’t anything to write home about (indeed the pulled pork overshot average and ended up in the actively lacking category, being fairly limp and flavourless, thought it did provide ample opportunity to drown them in BBQ sauce). In regards to washing down the meal I worked my way through a selection of four separate Jim Beam bourbons which I picked up for a positively generous £12 whilst my companion sucked down a Kentucky Bourbon Barrel Ale, a bourbon flavoured ale that, whilst not exactly the kind of thing you’d order in a bar (unless you’ve recently had a severe head injury), complimented the various meats perfectly. To our despair, the speciality cocktail menu isn’t available in the Fulham branch (where we loosened our belts, there are also four other outlets in Soho, Clapham, Balham and Tower Hill with a fifth opening soon in Old Street) which is worth bearing in mind considering there is a two for £10 cocktail offer on Sundays. Overall Bodean’s shouldn’t be on the top of anyone’s fine dining list but with the quality of the ribs coupled with extremely fast service and some pretty cheap prices, it’s definitely worth seeing what America can do for you. MF

Celery Swede Turnips Rhubarb Purple Sprouting Broccoli Spring Cabbage Image © Bodean's

Image © Motcombs

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March 2016

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Garlic & Garlic Chives Parsley, Borage & Thyme Forsythia Lilly of the Valley Fritillaria Waxflower Anemone Ranunculus Tulips Daffodils Narcissus

Purple Broccoli

Daffodils Photograph © David Hughes

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Dining Out

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Go East, go Vietnam www.temtep.co.uk Change your lunch and dining experience to Vietnamese in Kensington Freshly prepared with a touch of spice. A healthy and tasty menu, that delivers flavourful and beautifully presented food

Maxims Casino Club, Restaurant & Whiskey Lounge

1a Palace Gate, London, W8 5LS 020 7581 0337 By Emma Trehane and Wolfe

Image ©Maxims

axims Casino Club restaurant is one of London’s secret gems. Not least because of its unique history. Charles Dickens’s biographer, John Foster, lived here and housed an entire library of his works and research up until relatively recently. Enter this grand building and you will be pleasantly surprised by the warm reception received at the door, and relaxed atmosphere. Our first port of call was the Whiskey Lounge bar which holds 120 gleaming Malts and Blends from all over the world. Between us we got to sample over 6 of these magnificent Whiskeys and were not disappointed. The sommeliers had a keen knowledge about the characteristics of each whiskey, the fermentation, distilling and maturation processes and clearly loved their job! A favourite was a 10 year old Lagavulin and it was explained that during the malting process peat and seaweed is used to influence the flavour of the spirit and

define the regional taste. Savoured with a dash of water these flavours from Islay did not go unappreciated. The Irish and Japanese Whiskeys can be highly recommended in particular. Maxims also houses a casino with 3 gaming rooms that includes roulette tables, 3 card poker, Baccarat and Blackjack. The restaurant caters to gamers and is open from 7pm- 3am. It offers members the opportunity to sample food from an extensive menu into the wee hours of the morning. The menu ranges from Classic English Cuisine to European, Asian and Middle Eastern and is cooked, we were told, by 9 chefs specifically trained in the country of origin. The menu is not designed to offer new and unique delicacies from various continents but instead takes familiar recipes known to the Western palate and cooked to a high standard. The Capital Baby Back Ribs at £10 were delicious and half Crispy Aromatic Duck at £28 was succulent, full of mouth-watering flavours and beautifully presented. The 3 course Club Menu is very reasonably priced at £30. What is most special about the restaurant is their fine Wine list and price. The Sauvignon Blanc, Rapaura, Malborough is particularly nice and only £25 a bottle. If you have not been to Maxims, do go. The service is exceptional and offers a lovely atmosphere in which to enjoy a fine dining experience. The membership here is unique in that once you have been elected it is free. A complimentary drink will be served to any Kensington, Chelsea and Westminster Today reader.

This is different and delightful. Don’t forget the delicious Vietnamese filtered coffee from Trung Nguyen

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March 2016

Imbibing Out Believe the hype: Craft Beer

Craft beer has brewed up a storm in London and it’s showing no signs of clearing. By Rosie Quigley

he hype surrounding craft beer has bubbled and fizzed to the top ever since it first appeared on the scene in 2010, and it would seem that the city of London is love drunk on the artful beverage. Venture out into any of London’s cultural hot-spots and you are bound to find a craft beer brewery, or several. The clue is in the name, craft beer is crafted. Recipes are carefully concocted and the beer itself is usually brewed for a longer time than the more popular, mass produced brands. It’s true that craft varieties are a fraction more expensive than mainstream brands, but that’s because craft brewers don’t cut back on the crucial ingredients. No two craft beers will ever taste the same, making it a much more spontaneous beverage. Some brewers add seasonal ingredients to their beers to give them their authentic taste; Partizan Saison, brewed in Bermondsey, contains lemongrass, giving it a distinctly sweet kick. “The number one reason for the rising popularity is because craft beer tastes much better than the ‘beer water’ that is mass produced by big beer companies. Craft brewers spend their time focusing on the quality of their beer,” says Nick Gibbens, who works with pioneering craft beer brand Bluebeards Revenge; a brand which offers both male grooming products and beer. “One of the coolest benefits of drinking craft beer is that you can visit a local craft brewery where your favorite craft beer is made and actually meet the people making the beer.” Figures from the Office for National Statistics reveal that sales in beer and cider have risen by £3.4 billion since summer 2014 and the craft beer market is currently worth approximately £45 million. The rise in unique brews has been so rampant that one craft brewery is opened in the UK every other day, 78 of them being in London. “The number of microbreweries that’ve popped up in Hackney is pretty phenomenal. It might have been a product of general creativity, people were looking for something different,” says, Rob Berezowski, director of Hackney’s BrewClub, just one of London’s microbreweries which offers budding brewers a hands on experience in making their own beers. While mainstream beer brands

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online: www.KCWToday.co.uk seem to master generality, London’s Brewpubs innovatively tune into their niche audiences and offer drinkers a more tailored experience. Trendier craft fans flock to the famed Camden Brewery for its signature beverages, including Camden Hells Lager (brewed on site), and its variety of sumptuous street food. One Mile End brewery is famed for its traditional pub experience and gastropub food, attracting a more sophisticated crowd. Terry McGowan, 45, from Pimlico says “I always enjoy a trip to a brewery. There’s something about having the beer you’re drinking brewed right in the place that is just great. I regularly go to a brewpub but also get my favorite beers delivered to my door.” When looking for a quality beer to enjoy in London, you’re spoilt for choice. The city boasts a broad selection of unique beers which have been carefully crafted in its different districts. From Peckham Pils to Howling Hops (brewed in Hackney), it seems as though every borough has its own staple libation! Brits guzzled over 600 million pints of craft beer in 2014 (Cask Report 2014) and 43% of keen drinkers are willing to pay more for higher quality beverages. With craft beer promising something for everyone, artisan beverages are in high demand across London. “It’s about something more unique. Craft beer doesn’t really stick to the mould, a craft beer make will think ‘how can I express my style or my flair through my beer?’ so you get a little more creativity and variety” says Berezowski. The plethora of London beers and breweries tempts drinkers to find their own signature craft beer. It’s not enough to simply find your own signature style or taste in music; you must now drink a beer that defines the very fabric of your being. Perhaps there is something about glugging a beer native to your post code which makes craft options more popular than mainstream labels. Or maybe it’s down to the fact that ordering a Corbyn Pony (my own made-up craft ale) at the bar is a lot more impressive than sheepishly asking for a Strongbow.

The Glasshouse Store

Jazz After Dark By Fergus Coltsmann

By Fergus Coltsmann

The Glasshouse Store, a Samuel Smith’s, sits on Brewer Street, a couple of roads north of Piccadilly Circus. I like Sam Smith pubs, they have a traditional, historic vibe to them, and are usually joyously devoid of TVs and music. The Glasshouse Store is cut from this cloth, ramping it up a notch with a bar billiards table, and I have a certain amount of respect for pubs that still have troughs. Set across two floors, it's deceptively big, the stairs down somewhat hidden in an odd cranny by the door. The downstairs leans more toward a bar atmosphere than the pub upstairs: Low ceilings, darker walls and dimmer lighting, with more nooks to tuck away into: a nice sort of place that easily inspires conversation, offering an aura of seclusion despite sitting in the beating heart of our grand old mega-city. The crowd, this being central London, is inevitably young-ish, though thankfully not yuppie-ish. I imagine that price has something to do with this, with a pint of smooth Old Brewery Bitter or Taddy Lager (which has a bit of kick to it, for a lager) available for just over three quid. After a couple pints, I switched to gin and tonics, the price of which escapes me. The staff know how to serve a G&T, namely just handing over the gin and a bottle of tonic so one can dilute to one's own taste (early in the evening: one part gin, two parts tonic; as you start to get down to business, 'The Gentleman's Ratio': one part gin, one part tonic). The tonic was top notch, bringing out the flavour of the gin, too often poor tonic choice makes drinking a nice gin somewhat pointless. Overall then, The Glasshouse Stores is a surprising little gem for central London, increasingly dominated by soulless bars and pubs, where soulless people go to drink.

The first thing you notice about Jazz After Dark are the frankly terrible portraits of Amy Winehouse which adorn the walls, with ludicrous price tags shamelessly hanging from the frames. We're talking sub-GCSE art student acrylic paintings up for one and a half, sometimes two grand. As far as I could tell from some of the photos next to said paintings, she was apparently a bit of a regular, or at least that’s what the decorator decided. The second thing you notice about Jazz After Dark is the awkward break up music mixed with a few romcom soundtracks emanating from some hidden speaker. A companion commented that it was like someone had described a romantic hole in the wall type joint to aliens who were unable to properly grasp the concept of human seduction. The third thing you notice about Jazz After Dark is the incredibly reasonably priced cocktails. Six fifty for a Cosmopolitan that was more cranberry flavoured vodka than anything else, and it's nice to see a venue that doesn't skimp booze and overload on mixer to sdisguise that fact. We also tried a couple of

Image © Ian S

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'Pink Pussies' (yes, all the home mixed cocktails have sex based names, a trend that should be stamped out wherever it rears its juvenile head), comprised of Bacardi, Malibu, and fraiche topped with cream, which could have used a damn sight less cream and fraiche. As a place to drop into, Jazz After Dark's hole in the wall atmosphere is only enhanced by all the aforementioned characteristics. As a jazz bar destination, let's not pretend that there aren’t more esteemed establishments near-by, and while this small bar flies strong on its hole in the wall credentials, small quickly becomes uncomfortable when busy, and nothing about the place would justify the alleged ten quid cover charge on a live music night except some truly mind blowing jazz. But if I were going for a proper music themed night out and already spending that much on the door, I don”t know why I wouldn’t pop down the road.

Image ©Bluebeard's Revenge

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Fashion

Gentlemen’s Fashion Illustrations ©John Springs

Dandy About Town

National Portrait Gallery Until 22 May 2016 Admission £17 www.npg.org.uk

Death & The Dandy

By John Springs

he Grim Reaper shadows the Dandy, always at the ready with his particular sting to put an end to the performance. Death is the true Gentleman on business from Porlock, inducing a shock to the system that really is such an interruption to the masterpiece. In a sense that the life force of Dandyism can be ephemeral and eternal, much the same can be said of the not too affable, size-zero figure in the Dolce and Gabbana black sack coat and scythe who has the bad taste and lousy timing to interrupt the flow. But a good performer knows when its time to leave the stage and head for a footnote in a history book. With his enhanced capacity of awareness the Dandy has a level of expertise in Death and all of the fine and Dandy ways of dying, which he does unsurprisingly well. These include, but are not restricted to; falling off a horse (or bitten by one), losing a duel, suicide (due to financial constraints only), assassination or murder (not a mugging), hit by a meteorite (which happened a few weeks ago to a chap in India), boredom (lengthy and most painful), exotic disease, collapsing snooker-cue stand (1920’s), exploding celluloid collar (also 1920’s), slow poisoning by Cremnitz White paint (artists), freezing (tobogganing season), or choking on a good joke (House of Lords, 1903). Of all the disciplines of copping it, duelling must remain the method of choice although heaven forbid he uses it as a vehicle to carve out his own demise. Count d’Orsay countered that one adversary of plain appearance naturally had less to lose and called it a mismatch, “...But if he were to wound me, ce serait vraiment dommage!” D’Orsay won that encounter. Sometimes even dressing up like a fop can lead to one’s demise. James Maclaine was a shopkeeper, entry-level Dandy, and rather inept highwayman. In June 1750, he robbed a stagecoach near Salisbury and stole the various gaudy clobber of well dressed Lord Eglinton. Maclaine couldn’t resist parading Eglinton’s irresistibly beautiful, pale blue

Vogue 100: A Century of Style

and saffron silk waistcoat on a visit to his haberdasher Higden, who also happened to be His Lordship’s personal lace man. Recognizing at once his own handiwork and the unmistakable smell of peppercorns Eglinton used to keep mice at bay from his clothes, Higden informed the authorities and Maclaine was arrested and duly hanged. The foppish rogue Lord Cardigan, having survived the Charge of the Light Brigade and numerous duels finally succumbed to the inevitable after being thrown from a young horse, a few days after the Pytchley Hunt in 1868. In two days 2,000 people filed past the coffin in stony silence. His distraught widow took to dressing up in the late Earl’s cherry red military trousers with cuirass and draped in his leopardskin cape, which she explained was the ideal bicycling garb. Her loyal butler, Knighton, would lift her into the coffin she kept for herself in the inner hall most evenings to see if it was still comfy enough , not an uncommon event in those days as securing a decent casket in advance, especially in Scotland, was considered a prudent investment. If it was duelling for you in the 19th century, Ireland provided the best opportunities to indulge in this particular sport, part of the game meant goading someone to fight on the flimsiest of excuses, even if it meant throwing clods of earth at strangers. Coaching Inns often kept a pair of pistols for

unequipped travellers rather like a charger for your smartphone nowadays. The most handsome man in Ireland, Beauchamp Bagenal of County Carlow entertained lavishly enough but had pistols ready for those who failed in his view to have drusnk enough. Along with ‘Hairtrigger’ Dick Martin and John ‘Fireball’ MacNamara, he advised that having pistols at the ready was ‘absolutely indispensable’. George Hanger, a notorious duellist in his autobiography of 1801, radically suggested that women should settle their disputes by duelling amongst themselves rather than involving men, not to mention taxing Scotsmen who spent too much time south of the border. Assassination has the value of novelty and surprise in fairly equal measures. Spencer Perceval, Prime Minister in 1812 was shot at point blank range by John Bellingham, shipping merchant. Bellingham dispatched the last Prime Minister to wear a powdered wig. Lincoln had his trademark beaver fur ‘stovepipe’ top hat, made by J.Y. Davies of Washington DC, complete with black mourning band by his feet when he was killed by Wilkes Booth at the theatre. He had already survived one shooting attempt, the bullet piercing his already battered hat. But it’s at the undertakers where the final dressing up happens, getting dolled up for the final function. You may find your favourite Huntsman suit doesn’t quite hang as elegantly as

it should. A dead body changes shape and ‘squares up’; they may split open the back of the suit and lay it on tucked in. You’ll need a bit more make up than usual, the mascara will work fine but the pan-stick will streak because there’s no body-heat for it to adhere to, so they’ll use an airbrush of the type used by artists on 1970’s album covers. They’ll even add flattering shadow effects but not before they stuff cotton wads down the throat and fill out the cheeks then finally sew up the mouth to prevent the embarrassing open gape. It was the writer William Gerhardie who carried around a glass stiletto with him in case he died suddenly. Due to fear of being buried alive, he invited those present to plunge it through his heart, just in case. No such jitters for cravat-wearing and camp-foppish Carry On star Charles Hawtrey. On being told by the specialist that if he doesn’t have his legs amputated he might die at any moment, he replied, “F*** off! I’m going to die with my boots on!” John Springs is a painter and caricaturist. He has worked for major newspapers and magazines such as The Sunday Times, The Sunday Telegraph, The Spectator and The New Yorker. Limited edition prints of his Dandy drawings are available from the artist. www. johnsprings.com

t is probably easier to say who is not in this show than who is. Certainly, the list of contributors reads like a Who’s Who of photographers going back over the last hundred years, with names like Cecil Beaton, Lee Miller, Mario Testino, Norman Parkinson, Herb Ritts, Helmut Newton, Irving Penn, Snowdon, Nick Knight, and David Bailey. British Vogue was founded in 1916, after a shortage of paper and transatlantic shipments of the original American magazine became impossible during the First World War. It was an immediate success and for the next century, it remained one of the most influential fashion magazines in the world. It was also a barometer of fashion, design, and culture in the twentieth century, and featured many of the makers and shakers of the cultural landscape, including such artists and writers as Henri Matisse, Francis Bacon, David Hockney, Lucian Freud, Sir John Betjeman, Truman Capote, Edith Sitwell, Virginia Woolf, Aldous Huxley, Gore Vidal, Walter Sickert, and Damien Hirst. Amongst the actors, film makers, and performers are The Beatles, Fred Astaire, The Rolling Stones, Alfred Hitchcock, Peter Sellers, Morecombe and Wise, David Bowie, Charlie Chaplin, Marlene Dietrich, Tallulah Bankhead, and Vivien Leigh. Martin Amis and Bruce Chatwin by Snowdon and Terence Stamp by Donovan are absolutely gorgeous in black and white, while Jude Law positively smoulders in colour by Albert Watson. Then there are the models, some of the most beautiful women ever to walk on God’s catwalk. Without doubt, one of the most beautiful of them all is Kate Moss, and there are dozens of photographs of her, from the controversial ‘grunge’ shots of her wandering about in her knickers in 1993 taken by her mate Corinne Day, who died tragically young of a brain tumour at the age of 48, to her in a Tulle Britannia dress, again showing her knickers, by Mario Testino in 2008. There are no knickers at all in the photograph by Nan Goldin; in fact, she is seen riding a white stallion literally bareback à la Godiva. Moss must now be the most photographed and recognisable woman’s face in the world, other than HM the Queen, and before that,

March 2016

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online: www.KCWToday.co.uk Princess Diana There is a whole section devoted to Jean Shrimpton, who dominated the fashion scene for the decade known as the ‘Swinging Sixties,’ and other notable beauties include Giselle Bündshen, Linda Evangelista, Kiera Knightly, and Claudia Schiffer. Many of the classic photographs were there, including Horst’s eroticallycharged Where there’s a will, there’s a waist, and Andréde Dienes iconic image capturing Fred Astaire mid-dance, both taken in 1939. Earlier in the decade, Edward Steichen took the dramatic picture of Joan Crawford wearing Schiaparelli, while, during the war, Cecil Beaton had the quirky idea of placing a model in the ruins of the Middle Temple in 1941, and entitling it Fashion is indestructible, with the caption “Her pose unshaken, she reads about the other fire of London in which the earlier Temple was destroyed”. The extraordinary Lee Miller was another photographer working for Vogue during the war, not only taking pictures on the Home Front, but also travelling to Germany to witness the burning of the Berghof, Hitler’s redoubt at Berchtesgaden, set on fire by retreating SS troops in July 1945, and the liberation of Dachau and Buchenwald concentration camps. She was famously photographed in Hitler’s bath in Munich by David Scherma. As an art student, she was saved from stepping into oncoming traffic in New York by the founder of Vogue, Condé Nast, who, struck by her beauty, and she not by a car, immediately put her on the front cover of the magazine in 1927. The layout of the exhibition is a bit confusing, with a number of seemingly random galleries at the start, in a sort of reverse chronology from the present day, until one reaches the sixties, then it’s plain sailing back in time to the 1920s. Lee Miller. There is a long gallery with vitrines down each side containing a copy of Vogue from each year up to the present day from the Condé Nast Archive, which is a fascinating feature. It is estimated that we are uploading 1.8 billion images to social media sites like Facebook, Instagram, Flickr, Snapchat, and WhatsApp every day; that’s 657 billion photos per year, with those captured by mobile phones being 560 billion. Every two minutes, we take more photos than ever existed in the first 150 years since photography was invented. At the press view, there more people taking photographs of people taking photographs than there were people looking at photographs, which will presumably bump up the figures even more. For those that thought that Vogue was only about frocks, handbags, and shoes, think again. British Vogue has been at the sharp end of fashion, society and sport, as well as health, beauty, travel, and, particularly, art and culture, for a century.

Image © Mario Testino

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Image © Edward Steichen

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Unhappy Feet A thousand years of foot binding By Lynne McGowan

he tiny shoes stand like embroidered ducklings in a row, fancy little shoes fit for children, except of course these are no kid’s footwear, they were designed exclusively for full grown Chinese women sashaying in exotic silk gowns. Sepia photographs of women with painted, expressionless faces masking pain with their little pointed shoes peeping beneath silken hems are fascinating to our western eyes. How could such an extreme practice of crippling and controlling women been allowed for such a long time? Let’s go back to the beginning. The practice is said to have started as early as the Han Dynasty (206BC24AD) with many myths and stories as to why it held the country in such thrall. One of my favourite legends is that the last Empress of the Shang Dynasty in 12BC had a clubfoot and wanted her deformity to be a model of beauty and so forced all young girls of the court to bind their feet. Foot binding became highly fashionable around the late Five Dynasty (907-960AD) and early Song Dynasty (960- 1279AD) and continued with unquenchable fervor until a more enlightened monarch (Empress Dowager Cixi) under increased Western pressure, helped bring the practice to an end with her 1902 edict. Emancipation was finally won via a rural revolution and The Natural Foot Society ‘female barbarians with unbound feet’ paving the way to freedom. In between there was much binding, unbinding and rebinding that not even the severe, conquering Manchus of the Qing Dynasty could wipe out, during their reign from 1644 the less extreme ‘cucumber seed’ shape was still much sought after. The most popular story is of Li Yu, 2nd Emperor of the Southern

March 2016

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Tang Dynasty (937-978AD) who requested his favourite concubine Yaoning (Fragrant Girl) to dance with small feet bound in silk on an image of a large lotus flower. Men were aroused and captivated by the delicate, mincing steps, the measured, swaying gait conjuring a graceful willow in the wind. Not unexpectedly, eroticism was said to play a supreme role in the tenacity and perseverance of binding feet, a man might dwell on the teasing, tiny foot then follow his fancy to the forbidden ‘Jade Gate’. Hence the name lotus or lilies to describe the dainty feet, becoming the source of fetishistic fantasy to many men known as lotus lovers. The girls with lotus feet were muses to aesthetes, artists and aristocrats alike. Devotees drunk wine from the shoes, they scribed rapturous essays and poems in addition to holding numerous contests assisted by customised ivory rulers and charts to find the smallest, the most sublime, the ultimate 3" golden lotus (kin lien). Wonderful is the golden lotus Pure rapture in bed at night Two lotus petals fresh from the pond Two soft jades untouched by stain The tinier the more thrilling The delicate lotus of the bound foot became a desired prize; envy and obsession was rife but golden lotus feet were a rare and precious find. ‘Golden Girls’ could be more selective and sometimes caught the roaming eyes of a powerful Emperor but even at this level there were many different golden lotus shapes to choose, from Hairpin Golden Lotus to Jade 1- Pedestal Golden Lotus. Walking normally was difficult so sedan chairs were at the ready for girls from noble families but concubines, courtesans and prostitutes all had bound feet. For poor peasant women with Duck Feet or Lotus Boat Feet working in the paddy fields, teeny feet were not practical so not binding or binding for a more moderate shape was preferable. Foot binding was not only confined to girls, some Empresses insisted their male concubines and eunuchs had

bound feet as did sometimes beautiful female impersonators, as described by a Ming Dynasty author in 1480, who lived the lives of exotic women. Foot binding was not only confined to China, both the Taiwanese and Koreans practiced the custom and right up until the 1930s many middle-aged and elderly women sported bound feet. Some families started binding their daughter’s feet at the age of three, some later, but it was universally agreed the earlier the better as bones were more malleable. It was a grim business but mothers and grandmothers would pride themselves on their binding skills, using silk or the finest cotton binding up to twenty feet long with alum. Auspicious days would be chosen, a broth made from monkey bones consumed, lambs slaughtered and incense burned as the binding ceremony would commence and, despite bitter tears and howls of protest the older women would not relent. It was imperative their daughters should

marry well. Weeping and complaining were not tolerated and so in time the girls learnt to keep the excruciating agony bound up like their feet, they became complicit, competitive and harsh on themselves. Caring properly for bound feet became paramount with hot water immersions in the morning, rebinding with proper pressures using fragrant jade powders and centipede infection ointment. To distract the mind special techniques were taught and feet were inserted into sleeping slippers and placed on soft cushions in bed. Though unbelievably brutal, it is important to put foot binding in context, against a backdrop of successive warring dynasties, magnificent yet despotic emperors, famines, atrocities and cruel imperial punishments like ‘death by a thousand cuts’ (Ling Chi). Torturous enhancements and mutilations have always been used worldwide to attract the admiration of men; from the longnecked Karen women of Burma to the saucer-lipped women of the Congo. Our own obsession with youth, beauty and fashion in the west is not without pain and even modern day pointy stilettos with vertiginous heels producing a high arch and muscle tension give an illusion of tiny feet and a subtle nod to the lotus foot.

Sartorial Secret

if absolutely on the mark, will even do to your complexion what ‘colour consultants’ will charge a small fortune for.

By Poppy Ferguson

Every time the charabanc of London Fashion Week waltzes out of town, taking with it the new model army of sculpted cheek bones and impossibly perfect confections of couture, I ask myself: what about us mere mortals who can’t cab it to the catwalk every morning? Most of us are painfully aware that there is more we should be doing to achieve a pulled-together look for work and play: for the big interview, or significant birthday, or those landmark personal moments when we really would like to ‘look our best’. According to my new image consultant friend: “A perfect scarf is an above-the-waist wave at fashion without destroying your hard won reputation for being above it,” quoth she. A scarf is more than a simple textile for keeping warm. These days, a beautiful scarf is a super clever way of keeping your monochromatic go-tos on the go. A scarf gives a quick colour injection that makes you look new again every season (while cunningly reinventing your investment pieces so no one will notice!). Chosen well, it really should have that extra something; it gives you instant attitude, discreet aplomb and,

Lynne McGowan

A beautiful cashmere/silk unisex scarf by Wallace Sewell. Tip: Choose your favorite coloured stripe and match it with a similarly coloured top for impact at work or weekend.

Found at: Lily Gardner, a store full of exquisite scarves and other temptations. Chelsea Farmers Market, 125 Sydney Street. SW3. lily@lilygardner.com T: 020 7352 8786

Fashion Rules. Restyled. Kensington Palace.

hich designers were awarded the privilege and challenge of dressing royal ladies and sending them forth to momentous occasions looking ‘happy and glorious’? The glamorous exhibition Fashion Rules. Restyled displays the designers’ creations across five rooms in the newly opened Pigott Galleries at Kensington Palace. It illustrates how the designers negotiated dressing fashionably, without going beyond the bounds set by the Palace wardrobe. There is a nostalgic atmosphere as the exhibition commences in the 1950s, which proceeds through to the 1960s and 1970s and ends with the 1980s. During those years, era defining creations were born and breathtaking changes took place in the world of fashion. The exhibition is accompanied by excellent film and photography, giving a feeling of the times when the dresses were worn. A photograph beside the dress shows the event at which it was worn. The 1950s were an extraordinary, unprecedented time for fashion design because in 1949 clothes rationing ended. We moved into an age of joy and innovation with no more dreary utility clothes. The 1960s and 1970s saw Princess Margaret at the forefront of fashion. This was the time when pop music stormed the world, fuelled by a powerful, new culture of youth. Carnaby Street and the Kings Road blossomed. Princess Margaret and her fashion photographer husband revelled in the atmosphere. Louis Armstrong described her as a “one hip chick”. In the 1970s, a ‘hippy’ culture emerged bringing religious and ethnic styles together, with added Eastern influences. During the 1980s, there were further changes in fashion with the arrival of smart gear for power dressing at the office. This was the ‘yuppy’ age, which favoured broad shoulders and sparkling embellished evening wear. The great designer Norman Hartnell (1909-1979) created many important designs for the Queen and other royal ladies. He designed the Queen’s wedding dress and coronation robes. His designs, always elegant, were often embellished with intricate embroidery; he once said

Kensington, Chelsea & Westminster Today

online: www.KCWToday.co.uk “I despise simplicity, it is the negation of all that is beautiful”. Many of his creations are displayed at the exhibition. His ‘new look’ fine cotton evening dress, designed for Princess Margaret, typifies the trend for full skirts introduced in the late 1940s. Norman Hartnell’s creations adorned the Queen at many state visits, royal tours abroad, and numerous home events. Sir Hardy Amies (1909-2003) established his own fashion house in Savile Row in 1946. He had worked with Norman Hartnell. He favoured smart, classical designs for men and women. In 1955 he was awarded a Royal Warrant as official dressmaker to the Queen. He designed the gown for her Silver

Jubilee Portrait which he said, “was immortalised on a thousand biscuit tins”! A fine example of his work, the evening gown worn by the Queen for her state visit to Paris in 1972, is on display. The satin of the heavily decorated bodice is covered with two layers of chiffon embroidered with small beads that form swirling cloud patterns, with further embellishment in diamante. Ian Thomas worked with Norman Hartnell for seventeen years and set up his own business in 1969 in Lowndes Street. He designed much day and evening wear for royalty, which had a restrained elegance, a relaxed style often with flowing chiffon. Marc Bohan was chief designer at the great House of Dior so favoured by Princess Margaret for its ‘New Look’. He presented his own first collection under the Dior label entitled ‘Slim Look’. It was inspired by the straighter silhouettes of the 1920s. He also designed for many famous ladies including Princess Margaret, who always remained faithful to him and the House of Dior. His 1966 Collection based on the film Dr Zhivago brought him much fame. Bruce Oldfield launched a couture

Bottom: Hardy Amies for HM The Queen. 1970s. Detail. Historic Royal Palaces © Fashion Museum Bath Left: Catherine Walker for Diana Princess of Wales.1992. Detail. Historic Royal Palaces © Museo de la Moda Right: Norman Hartnell for Princess Margaret. 1949. Detail Historic Royal Palaces © Fashion Museum Bath Below: Princess Margaret Sunglasses © Lord Linley & Lady Sarah Chatto

line in 1978 and opened his London Boutique in 1984 to sell both ‘ready to wear’ and couture designs. Oldfield created glorious gowns for Princess Diana for ten years. He used crushed velvets, taffeta, mink, printed sequins, crêpe, chiffon, and lamé. His traditional sculpted shapes were exquisitely manufactured. He had a distinctive method of colour blocking and favoured curvaceous feminine tailoring, and once commented: “true elegance is effortless”. Catherine Walker (1945- 2010) was French born and designed many creations for Princess Diana. They were photographed by Vogue in 1982. This lady designer specialised in plain colours and applied decorative beading, she liked military style embroidery. Her famous green velvet evening dress designed for Princess Diana is on view. It was for use at private family occasions and is in the

style of a smoking jacket. The Princess was wearing it for the famous Vanity Fair photo shoot by Mario Testino in June 1997 to raise money for charity. The Pigott Galleries are a splendid venue for displaying the creations of great designers. Fashion Rules. Restyled is about more than fashion, it brings back the spirit of bygone ages with their innovative ideas and the lives of our Royal family at home and overseas. Marian Maitland Kensington Palace Kensington Gardens London W8 4PX Open Daily 10am to 5pm Tel: +44 844 7777 Telephone Booking Only for entry (includes the exhibition) 0203 166 6000

March 20162011 April/May

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March 2016

WESTMINSTER ABBEY INSTITUTE

BUILDING

COMMUNITIES THE ONE PEOPLE DIALOGUE Tuesday 15th March, 6.30pm The Nave, Westminster Abbey Speaker: Professor Mary McAleese, former President of the Republic of Ireland Interlocutor & Chair: The Very Reverend Dr John Hall, Dean of Westminster

Join us in the glorious setting of Westminster Abbey as Dr Mary McAleese gives the 2016 One People Dialogue, asking how peace can be built in divided communities. To Book (free): westminster-abbey.org/institute/staying-power

March 23 Akedemi presents Amina Khayyam Dance Company Rich Mix A Thousand Faces in a special adaptation of the Company's work explores what independence has meant for Bangladeshi women 'using classical dance and costume presents a story of a thousand faces...'. 35-47 Bethnal Green Road E1 6LA 020 7613 7498 March 28 - April 1 Ballet Black Barbican Theatre International dancers of black and Asian descent collaborate with three choreographers; the centrepiece Christopher Hampson's Storyville is set to Kurt Weill's music. The two other pieces are choreographed by the BritishTrinidadian Cassa Pancho. Silk Street EC2Y 8DS 020 7638 8891 March 29 - 30 An Italian in Madrid Sadler's Wells Richard Alston's Dance Company performs a quadruple bill including world premier An Italian in Madrid set to Scarlatti's sonatas, and Mazur a duet for two men using Chopin's Mazurka.

Rosebery Avenue EC1R 020 7863 8000 March 30 & 31 Cultural Explosion Rich Mix Uchenna Dance presents a night that celebrates dance and explores the use of club and social dances with work by Joseph Yvan Toonga, Shelley Maxwell, Akosua Boayke and others. 35-47 Bethnal Green Road E1 6LA 020 7613 7498 EXHIBITIONS Ends March 6 Magical Lantern Festival Chiswick House and Garden Using 58,000 light bulbs in handmade lanterns one can explore the gardens and see 52 illuminated tableaux which have been shipped over from China and include a 66 metre dragon, an eight-metre-tall imperial palace and an Animal Kingdom section full of elephants, zebra and flamingos. Burlington Lane W4 2RP Ends March 13 Frank Auerbach: Retrospective Tate Britain The exhibition features paintings and drawings from the 1950s to the present day. His work is some of the 'most vibrant, alive and inventive paintings of recent times.' His subject matter is rooted in the people and urban landscapes around his

Camden Town studio. Millbank SW1P 4RG 020 7887 8888 Ends March Samuel Pepys: Plague, Fire, Revolution National Maritime Museum The turbulent history of Stuart London as seen through the words of Samul Pepys' Diary. The exhibition has 200 paintings and objects from other museums, galleries and private collections. Park Row Greenwich SE10 9NF 020 8858 4422 March 4 & 5 Shakespeare: Son et Lumière Guildhall Yard The Library and the School of Music & Drama host this light and sound production to celebrate the City's connection with Shakespeare on the 400th anniversary of his death. The façade of the building will have a 3D projection mapping technology and a special composition from the Guildhall School, the Guidhall Art Gallery and the London Heritage Gallery will be open until 9pm where Shakespeare's signature on his mortgage deed, and the Library's

copy of the First Folio and Visscher's 1616 engraving of the pre-Great Fire City, are on show. Gresham Street EC2V 5AE 020 7332 1313 March 10 Affordable Art Fair Battersea Evolution Over 100 contemporary galleries selling work from £100 to £5,000 from recognised artists and emerging ones; paintings, photography, sculpture and prints. Battersea Park (Chelsea Bridge Entrance) SW11 4NJ affordableartfair.co.uk March 15 - March 17 Oceanology International 2014 ExCel Members of industry, academia and government come together to share knowledge and connect with the marine technology and ocean science community, 1 Western Gateway Royal Victoria Dock E16 1XL 020 7069 5000 March 16 - April 1

All are welcome www.westminster-abbey.org

Houses of Parliament DANCE March 1-19 Immortal Tango The Peacock Cornejo and dance partner Gisela Galeassi lead 14 world-class dancers accompanied by a live band in an evening "smouldering dance moves, scintillating steps and whirlwind twirls." a post-show tango class. Portugal Street WC2A 2HT 020 7863 8222 March 6 Ave Maya Gala in Memory of Maya Plisetskaya Coliseum A ballet gala in memory of the legendary Russian ballerina who would have been 90 in November 2015. World renowned dancers will perform her favourite roles as choreographed especially for her as well as a special flamenco number which was her passion. St Martin's Lane WC2N 4ES 020 7845 9300 March 2 - 12 Institute: Gecko Theatre The Place Four male performers use movement,

imagery, humour and a range of choreographic styles to explore the complexity of human behaviour; an award winning and internationally acclaimed programme. 17 Duke's Road WC1H 9PY 020 7121 1100

Houses of Parliament

March 10 & 11 After the Rain, Strapless, Within the Golden Hour Royal Opera House A celebration of the work of the choreographer Christopher Wheeldon with a programme of three one-act ballets which includes his new work Strapless inspired by the art of John Singer Sargent with music by Mark-Anthony Turnage. Bow Street Covent Garden WC2E 9DD 020 7304 4000 March 18 - 20 Move It: the UK's Biggest Dance Event EXcel Bringing together over 20,000 dancers in three days of celebrating all forms of dance; watch or take part in one of the 230 classes. Celebrity interviews and signings and dance career opportunities. Royal Victoria Dock 1 Western Gateway London E16 1X

5 March – 3 July 2016 BOOK NOW V&A Members go free Victoria and Albert Museum #BotticelliReimagined

Visit one of the world’s most iconic buildings

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Andy Warhol, Details of Renaissance Paintings (Sandro Botticelli, birth of Venus, 1482(detail), 1984. Collection of The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh.©2015 The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York and DACS, London. The exhibition is organised by the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Gemäldegalerie – Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Garden Paintings:Jean-Marie Toulgouat Messum Gallery Monet's step great grandson who used his childhood memories to help recreate Monet's famous garden at Giverny, now exhibits 40 paintings of his own work which is also based on themes of that garden. 28 Cork Street W1S 3NG 020 7437 5545 March 24 & 25 Fashionably Late Madame Tussaud's An evening of waxwork celebrities, cocktails and a chance to see what happens behind the scene. Marylebone Road NW1 5L0 0871 894 3000 madametussauds.com/London Ends March 31 We Are Stars Planetarium Narrated by Lord of the Rings actor, Andy Serkis, ' this unique show explores the secrets of our cosmic chemistry and explosive origins'. Royal Observatory Blackheath Avenue SE10 8XJ 020 8858 4422 March 4 - 6 Women in Focus: All about my Mother Royal Academy

An exhibition of the work by students and alumni of the RA Schools, alongside the work by Eileen Cooper RA. Burlington House Piccadilly W1J 0RD 020 7300 8090 FAMILY EVENTS March 19 Ongoing Dinosaurs: Monster Families Horniman Museum The exhibition shows how dinosaurs cared for their nests’ eggs and babies. The replica of baby Louie, a near complete skeleton of a hatchling, can be seen and a real dinosaur leg-bone touched. 100 London Road, Forest Hill, SE 23 3PQ 020 8699 1872 Ongoing Kidzania Children explore a child-size city in Westfield, London where they can play any of 60 life-role activities from banking to being a fireman. Some activities are run by the high street names which lets children have a go at changing tires on a scale version of a Formula E racing car!! Also a British Airways terminal houses an aircraft that is home to the Aviation Academy and Cabin Crew Training. Westfield London 4006 Ariel Way W12 7GF Leaper: A Fish Tale Lyric A little girl sets out to find why fish are

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March 19 Easter Fair Holy Trinity Church of England Primary School in the Cadogan Gardens building.

Children’s, Illustrated & Modern First Editions in the same venue next door; a 'treasure trove of literary and visual treats' with many beautiful rare editions, illustrated antique and modern and antique prints and ephemera. A trip down memory lane to indulge in nostalgia for old favourites. Café and Restaurant and bar on site. 11am- 5pm 07967 583 148 March 25 The Passion of Jesus

St Paul's Cathedral

EASTER MARCH 25 - 28 Easter Cadbury Egg Hunts and Activities Telephone or go on line for information about exact dates Fenton House and Garden Hampstead Grove NW3 6SP 020 7435 3471 Hunt cost £3.00 Morden Hall Park Morden Hall Road SM4 5JD 020 8545 6850 Hunt cost £4.00 Sutton House and Breaker's Yard E9 6JQ 020 8986 2264 Hunt cost £1.50 Battersea Park Zoo Albert Bridge Road Battersea SW11 4JN 020 7934 5826

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Patron HRH The Duchess of Cornwall

Box Office 020 7222 1061 sjss.org.uk www.westminster-abbey.org

‘K O 10% CW N (V AL D MA ID A I L U L SC RC N TI TI O H L 31 U 16 C M N ’ AR K E C TS T FO H

BACH, VIVALDI & DUPHLY with soprano Rowan Pierce as part of London Festival of Baroque Music 2016 Tue 17 May 1.05pm

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FRENCH PIANO TRIOS with the Fidelio Trio Sun 24 April 3.00pm

JOO YEON SIR Young Artists’ Series Thu 5 May 1.05pm

Find out more at westminster-abbey.org/association

Booking fees apply (online and telephone bookings only)

Booking 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

MOZART L’OCA DEL CAIRO Mozart’s abandoned opera with the London Mozart Players & David Parry Thu 14 April 7.30pm

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Join today and you will receive a wealth of benefits including free entry to the Abbey. Speak to a member of staff, email association@westminster-abbey.org or telephone 020 7654 4843.

Tickets £40; £32; £24 £20 & £16 (restricted view) £12 (no view)

COMPLETE CHOPIN CYCLE with Warren Mailley-Smith Fri 29 April 7.30pm

Fi d

For the first time in 1000 years, Westminster Abbey is proud to offer membership of its Association

THE CHOIR OF WESTMINSTER ABBEY St James’s Baroque Mark Dobell Evangelist | Jonathan Brown Christus | James O’Donnell conductor

THE GREAT PIANO QUINTETS with Martino Tirimo & Minguet Quartet Wed 13 April 7.30pm

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COME & SING HANDEL’S MESSIAH with the Smith Square Voices Thu 24 March 1.30pm workshop, 7.00pm concert

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BE PART OF OUR FUTURE

March 7 - 13

March 18 - 20 Chorus Southbank Centre This festival celebrates the power of the voice and the spirit of communal singing; Come and sing with other people of all ages. Try singing something new, or enjoy more familiar music. Try Karaoke, or play a villager in a new opera, or sing in the Bach chorales or Balinese Kecak! To find out more southbankcentre.co.uk/whatson/ festivals-series/chorus Belvedere Road SE1 8XX

Westminster Abbey Holy Week and Easter Services March 20 Palm Sunday: Blessing of Palms, Procession, and Sung Eucharist. March 22 A concert for Holy Week: Bach's St Matthew Passion with St James's Baroque. Tickets 020 7222 1061 March 24 Maundy Thursday: The Washing of the Feet commemorates the last Supper. March 25 Good Friday : A ecumenical procession which goes along Victoria Street from Methodist Central Hall to Westminster Cathedral and from there finally to the Abbey. A solemn Liturgy of the Passion and Death of Jesus. March 26: Holy Saturday, Virgil, Baptism and First Eucharist of Easter, one of the most ancient liturgies of the Christian church. March 27 Easter Day with a sung Eucharist at 10.30 and Evensong and Procession at 15.00 20 Dean Yard SW1P 3PA 020 7222 5152

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WESTMINSTER ABBEY ASSOCIATION

March 6 - 10 Asia House Fair The eighth annual Asia House Fair has many exhibitors representing the arts, crafts, fashions and design from across the Asian region. Venue will resemble a bustling bazaar where shoppers can buy unique and unusual items of jewellery, textiles, arts and crafts. A pop-up café will sell refreshments. 63 New Cavendish Street W1G 7LP 020 7307 5454

March 9 - 15 BADA Fair Duke of York Square For the 24th year 100 of the most respected fine art, design and antique dealers will assemble in a purpose built pavilion on the King's Road. On display will be modern contemporary and antique objects, all vetted by a panel of experts to ensure quality and authenticity. This year an exhibition Gordon Russell: A Legacy of Design shows examples of this pioneering designer's work. During the course of the Fair join a series of informative lectures. For more information visit badafair.com or call 020 7589 6108. King's Road SW3 4LY

EASTER CHURCH SERVICES

March 25 & 26 Family Weekend Sadler's Wells Something for every member of the family in this two-day dance festival

March 3 - 6 The Spring Knitting and Stitching Show Olympia Knitting and stitching equipment, crafts, designs, textile arts, crochet, embroidery, patchwork and quilting, felt making, ‘shibori’ dyeing, jewellery and card making. Hammersmith Road W14 8UX 020 7385 1200

March 19 The Travel and Exploration Book Fair Hilton London Olympia Hotel 380 Kensington High Street W14 8NL Now in its 21st year, the fair has a huge selection on Travel and Exploration with the chance to browse and purchase antiquarian narratives of discovery alongside maps, photos and ephemera from all over the world. In particular it will celebrate Shackleton's Endurance expedition and Wilfred Thesiger's first crossing of Arabia's Empty Quarter in 1946. T: 020 7402 7064

March 12 Innovation Lab: Digital Workshop British Museum

March 19 Soundhoppers Family Workshop British Library Families get a chance to play with specially constructed Soundboxes and take part in games exploring the different qualities of sound. NB places are limited to 40 per session on a first come, first served basis.13.00 - 14.30 96 Euston Road NW1 2DB 01937 546060

FESTIVALS AND FAIRS

Sloane Dtreet SW1X 9BZ 020 7730 7270

March 16 The Cathedral choir will perform Bach's St John's Passion with orchestra, conducted by Simon Johnson Tickets free of charge book: stjohnpassion2016eventbrite.co.uk March 20 Palm Sunday Procession 11.00 March 24 Liturgy of the Day and Watch until Midnight 5.00pm March 25 Good Friday Choral Mattins and Litany in Procession,10.15 The Three Hours with Padraig Tuama,12 Good Friday Liturgy with the Veneration of the Cross 5.00pm March 26 Easter Vigil For Diocesan Confirmation March 27 Easter Day Dawn Eucharist 5.45am and services at 8.00, 10.15, 11.30am and 3.15, 6.00pm

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March 5, 9, 19, 23 Babies Corner: Little Maestros French Institute Baby tales and rhymes and games. Ages 3 -6, 11.00am for 45 minutes in (easy) French. Drawing Workshop for Ages 3 - 6, 2.30pm drawing to music. 17 Queensberry Place SW7 2DT 020 7871 3515

March 13 Make a Manga Comic British Museum Learn the secret of the Manga comic and create Manga comics using characters from the Museum, print and take it home. Great Russell Street Wc1B 3DG 020 7323 8299

March 13 - 17 St Patrick's Day Trafalgar Square The actual day is March 17, but since this year it falls on a Thursday, the parade takes place on the Sunday closest to that day which is March 13. It features floats, pageantry, marching bands from around the UK involving sports clubs and Irish dancing schools, artisan Irish food, comedy and film festivals, and there are plenty of activities for children.

Trafalgar Square A full-scale re-enactment of the crucifixion of Jesus with an extremely moving performance from the Wintershall Players with a cast of more than 100 with horses, doves and donkeys to help. Two 90-minute performances during the afternoon and the action will be visible on two big screens.

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March Rainforest Month London Aquarium Family friendly games and activities to raise donations for the Worldland Trust and celebrate the amazing and important rainforests and huge number of strange, exotic and wonderful animals who live in that threatened diversity. County Hall Westminster Bridge Road SE1 7PB 0871 663 1678

Test new technologies and ideas Great Russell Street WC1B 3DG 020 7323 8299

Women of the World Festival Southbank Centre The largest women's festival in the world which tackles such subjects as honourbased violence, alcoholism, rape and criminal justice. Highlights include Inga Beale who is the first woman to run the insurance market in its 327-year history, Annie Lennox talking to Jude Kelly about her career campaigning for women's rights and people who live with HIV/AIDS. Other names who will be there include Shazi Mirza, Bridget Christie, Charlotte Church and BBC's Radio 1 DJ Gemma Cairney and Paralympian Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson. Belvedere Road SE1 8XX 020 79604200

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disappearing and how she can help. Lyric Square, King Street W6 0QL 020 8441 6850

aimed at audiences between 4 to 104. Snow White, a mystical adaptation of the Brothers Grimm by balletLORENT and Digitopia, a visually stunning mix of dance and digital technology. These shows are complemented by dance workshops for parents and children, a stay and play session on the stage with performers and free activities in the foyer Roseberry Avenue EC1R 4TN.

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March 20162011 April/May

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March 2016

GARDENS AND PARKS March 31, April 1 & 2 London Spring Plant Extravaganza RHS Lindley Hall Orchid societies, botanical gardens, and professional growers from around the world gather to see a spectacular display of exotic orchids, learn about their extraordinary history and buy some highly collectible and new species. One can find the very best plants to buy, get advice from the growers themselves and listen to a full programme of talks. Elverton Hall SW1P 2QW 020 7821 3650 From January 1 to December 31 A free introduction to Kew Gardens daily at 11.00 am and 1.30 am Tours start and finish at the Guides Desk, Victoria Plaza 020 8352 5655 Ends March 6 Orchids: a spectacular carnival of dazzling Brazilian colours Kew Gardens Richmond TW9 3AB 020 8332 5655 March 12 Wimbledon Farmers' Market A school playground is the venue with about 20 stalls selling everything from rare breed meats, pies, nuts, Italian products, to home grown flowers, and stands offering advice from experts, informative talks and craft work. 9.00am-1.00pm Park Primary School Havana Road off Durnsford Road SW19 8EJ March 23 London Bird Club: London's Birdwatching Sites Education Centre Peter Warne, nature photographer and author recalls stories about the walled

garden, the competition for life in a compost heap and other matters. Book your place or simply turn up on the day. £2.00 19.00- 20.30 Hyde Park W2 2UH 020 736 8056 ROYAL PARKS Discover the hidden secrets of London 's historic Royal Parks on a Royal Parks Walking Tour. Go at day break and listen to the dawn chorus or go at night and meet Hyde Park's bats, or find out what role the park played in the World Wars. For more information 020 7036 8040 or supporttheroyalparks.org/about_us/contact ISIS Education Centre at the LookOut North of the Serpentine, South-west of Speaker's Corner W2 2UH Tours on the hour 12pm-3pm max. 20 per tour 020 7036 8040 PHOTOGRAPHY & FILMS March 9, 10 &12 Raiders of the Lost Ark Royal Albert Hall The popular film on the very big screen with the music of John Williams played live by the 21st Century Symphony Orchestra. 020 7589 8212 March 15 - 20 Espacio Gallery T.R.I B.E Photography, Poetry and Immersive art Exhibition Rarely photographed tribes from remote regions of Southern Ethiopia who have survived they way they are for thousands of years, poetry and videos. Bethnal Green Road E2 7DG 07815 319073 March 16 London LGBT Film Festival BFI Eleven days of screenings, talks and interactive film workshops, showcasing the best in lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender from around the globe and the festival begins with The Pass a British film about a gay footballer, starring Being Human's Russell Tovey and East Enders' Arinze Kene. South Bank Waterloo SE1 8XT 020 7928 3232 March 19 Not So Silent Movies French Institute Laurel and Hardy: The Battle of the Century Laurel and Hardy get involved in an epic battle of cream pies in this classic short film revived by Neil Brand's gripping piano accompaniment.

Ends March 30 Jacques Audiard Retrospective Cine Lumiere A retrospective of this director's work; See How They Fall, A Self-Made Hero, Read My Lips, The Beat That My Heart Skipped, A Prophet, Rust and Bone and a preview of his 2015 Palme d'Or winner Dheepan. 17 Queensberry Place SW7 2DT 020 7871 3515 Ends March 16 Jean-Luc Godard British Film Institute An examination of the past six decades of the work of this extraordinary man whose work included short films, video essays, self-portraits, commercial commissions, TV films and series, books, a major exhibition and 35 features. bfi.org.uk/jeanlucgodard Southbank 020 7928 3232

LOVE RUNNING LOVE THE PARKS

Ends March 28 Gathered Leaves: Alec Soth Science Museum This photographer '... is by general consensus “the greatest living photographer of America's social and geographical landscape, the modern heir to a tradition of documentary photography that goes back to the Depression era....' and this is his first major exhibition in Britain. The photographs have been taken in the past 16 years and are drawn from his four American projects; Niagara, Mississippi, Broken Manuel and Song Book. Exhibition Road, London SW7 2DD SHAKESPEARE 400 On the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death. March 3 Shakespeare Son et Lumiere The Dance Porch Guildhall will be illuminated accompanied by compositions from Guildhall School of Music and Drama to celebrate the City's collection. 8.15pm Gresham Street EC2P 2EJ 020 7332 1313 March 5 Barbican Weekender: PLAY ON Barbican Centre Drop in or spend a day dipping in to a multitude of surprising events for all the family from Shakespearean bingo to

RHS

Shakespeare-inspired hairdos. The door is open to celebrate the playwright's legacy. 11.00am-5pm Choose a family crest and make a badge featuring LED lights. Codasign believe that digital technologies have the same creative potential as paint and canvas. Age 6+ Silk Street EC2Y 8DS 020 7638 8891

The church orchestra and 57 members of OSJ Voices join the soprano Nardus Williams and acclaimed counter tenor Roderick Morris, tenor Christopher Turner and bass Bozidar Smiljanic with John Lubbock conducting. Smith Square SW1P 3HA booking on line: sjss.org.uk/booking-info 020 7222 1061

March 6 Shakespeare and the Silent Screen: Hamlet Barbican Cinema A special performance of Sven Garde's 1920 production of Hamlet; one of the most absorbing and innovative Shakespearean film adaptions of the silent period. Danish diva Asta Nielson stars as the Prince of Denmark. Live musical accompaniment of a new original score by Robin Harris performed by the composer and Laura Anstee. 16.00 Silk Street EC2Y 8DS 020 7638 8891

March 18 Early Opera Company and Music from the 17th and 18th Century St John's Sophie Bevan soprano in Handel's Silenti Venti and the music of Wassenaer, Biber and Muffet conducted by Christian Curnyn. Smith's Square SW1P 3HA 020 7222 1061

March 6 A Hum About My Ears Barbican Hall Shakespeare’s The Tempest set in new surroundings in a performance by vocalist and composer Clara Sanabras. Taking some of the ideas and themes of loss and retrieval, exile and reunion relating them to Sanabras’s own experience as an emigrant. 6.00pm Silk Street EC2Y 8DS 020 7638 8891 March 18 - 23 Go, Make you Ready Silk Street Theatre Guildhall School Using The Sonnets as a springboard the new piece directed by Patsy Rodenburg explores theatre acting, passions and the politics of Shakespeare's life. Silk Street EC2Y 8DT 020 7628 2571

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LOOKING FOR A NUTTY RUNNING CHALLENGE? ‘Conker’ the Royal Parks Foundation Half Marathon 2016 with Team Squirrel – sign up now for a guaranteed race place! Run past London’s world-famous landmarks while raising funds to help keep London’s eight magical Royal Parks safe, clean and bursting with life!

SUNDAY 9 OCTOBER 2016 HYDE PARK For further information phone Marion on 0207 036 8055 or email teamsquirrel@royalparksfoundation.org

/ROYALPARKSFOUNDATION @RPFOUNDATION

SupportTheRoyalParks.org Registered charity, no.1097545

March 22 St Matthew Passion Westminster Abbey 6:30 Westminster Abbey, 20 Deans Yard SW1P 3PA March 4 Concert 6: The Complete Chopin Cycle St John's Warren Mailley-Smith playsThe Four Impromptus Smith Square SW1P 3HA 020 7222 1061 March 5 Handel’s Messiah St John’s

March 2, 7 & 11 Norma Coliseum The ENO 's production of Christopher Alden's critically acclaimed Bellini opera, originally created by Opera North, premieres with Marjorie Owens taking the title role. St Martin's Lane WC2N 4ES 020 7845 9300 March 3 Ashkenazy: Rachmaninov Project Royal Festival Hall One of the composer's greatest interpreters conducts the final Symphony No 3 with its trademark sweeping romanticism. Esther Yoo plays Sibelius' Violin Concerto. South Bank Centre Belvedere Road SE1 8XX 0800 652 6717 March 6 First World War Commemoration Royal Festival Hall The evening features renowned film composer John Powell's new oratorio A Prussian Requiem. Cellist Sol Gabetta performs Elgar's cello elergy for the lost in the Great War. Vaughan William's 'The Lark Ascending' completes the programme. South Bank Centre Belvedere Road SE1 8XX 0800 652 6717 March 7 & 8 Benny Golson Quartet featuring Antonio Farao Ronnie Scotts Multi-talented and internationally famous jazz legend; composer, arranger, lyricist and tenor saxophonist who has played in the bands of Benny Goodman, Dizzy Gillespie, Lionel Hampton, Earl Bostic and Art Blakey. He has composed and arranged music for everybody from Count Basie, John Coltrane, Miles Davis Sammy

LONDON

London Wetland Centre Queen Elizabeth Walk Barnes SW13 9WT 020 8409 4400 Clapham Common Easter Funfair Windmill Drive SW4 9AR 020 8795 4282 Dulwich Picture Gallery Gallery Road Southwark SE21 7AD 020 8693 5254 Horniman Museum 100 London Road SE23 3PQ 020 8699 1872 Bank of England Museum Bartholomew Lane EC2R 8AH 020 7601 4878 Kew Gardens Brentford Gate Kew Richmond TW9 3AB 020 8332 5000 Museum of Childhood Cambridge Heath Road E2 9PA 020 8983 5200 Design Museum 28 Shad Thames SE1 2YD 020 7403 6933 Shepherds Bush Green Easter Fair W12 8TT 020 8748 3020

Ends March 11 'Camera, Lights, Music!' Musical Museum A new exhibition that celebrates the iconic personalities from the movie musicals. 399 High Street Brentford Middlesex TW8 0DU 020 8560 8108

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SHOWS

RHS London Spring Plant Extravaganza featuring RHS London Orchid Show 1-2 April Late event 31 March

Royal Horticultural Halls St James’s Park London Victoria Public entry from £9, RHS members from £6, Late event £5

rhs.org.uk/londonshows RHS Registered Charity No: 222879/SC038262

The

ENGLISH GARDENING SCHOOL C H E L S E A

Long established as the leader in all design and gardening tuition

Chelsea Physic Garden

ONE YEAR GOOD GARDENING DIPLOMA COURSE September 2016 – June 2017 Covers the best in planting design while training in the more serious aspects of horticultural techniques. Working sessions at Sissinghurst with head gardener Troy Smith and lectures by many leading gardening personalities. Regular visits to outstanding private gardens. (1 day a week (Tues), 10.00am–3.15pm, over three 10 week terms) 10 WEEK INTENSIVE GARDEN DESIGN DIPLOMA COURSE January – March 2017 Covers all you need to know in this diverse subject, including TWO real design projects and CAD tuition. Drawing skills, estimating, plant knowledge, water features, garden lighting and visits to the work of leading designers with Rosemary Alexander and other tutors. (3 days a week in school, 10.00am-3.15pm, plus 2 days homework)

and based at the unique and historic Chelsea Physic Garden GARDEN DESIGN & CARING FOR YOUR GARDEN Distance Learning Courses - study anytime, anywhere in the world. A stepping stone to a new career. These two courses are a step by step guide to either designing your own garden or learning how to plant and maintain an existing garden: drawing up plans, hard landscaping, site analysis, planting, month by month tasks etc. Taught through a comprehensive course book, with projects submitted by post. 1-3 years to complete and individual assessment. Not sure which course is for you? Come along to an Information Session to see our location and find out more. 10% discount off both our Diploma Courses if we receive your deposit by end of May 2016. For full details, dates, prices visit our website www.englishgardeningschool.co.uk Email: info@englishgardeningschool.co.uk Tel: 020 7352 4347

March 20162011 April/May

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March 2016

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18th - 21st Century Davis Jr., Ella Fitzgerald through to Diana Ross, the Animals. George Shearing, and many others as well as scores for TV series and films. 27 Frith Street W1D 4HT 020 7439 0747 March 8 The Doctors' Orchestra Cadogan Hall A fundraising concert in aid of Freedom from Torture. Gemma Rosefield on the cello and Stephen Brearley conducting a programme which includes an Overture to Tannhauser, Brahms Symphony No 3 and Tchaikovsky's Variations on a Rococo Theme. 5 Sloane Terrace SW1Q 9DQ 020 7730 4500 March 11 Western Music in Concert Royal Albert Hall Classic western themes from John Barry, Elmer Bernstein and Ennio Morricone including The Magnificent Seven, Dances with Wolves, and High Noon. Performed live to big-screen footage from these legendary films. Kensington Gore SW7 2AP 020 7589 8212 March 15 Scottish Ensemble Wigmore Hall Award winning pianist Gabriela Montera joins the Ensemble for an exploration of works from two different continents which include such diverse composers as Bach, Villa Lobos, Mozart, Piazzolla, and Osvaldo Golijov 36 Wigmore Street W1U 2BP 020 7935 2141 March 17 J.S. Bach: St John Passion Holy Trinity Church The Schola Cantorum and the Belgravia Chamber Orchestra with Nicholas Mulroy Evangelist, Jerome Knox Jesus and Scott Price conducting. Sloane Street SW1X Box Office 020 7730 4500 or 020 7605 0046 March 18 - 20 It's All About Piano French Institute Celebrations of 150th anniversary of Satie's birth is centre stage this year with a programme of mixed genres, young talent alongside international stars of the keyboard, family fun, recitals jazz and classical, workshops learn how to play the piano and attend a public master class. Early booking advised 17 Queensberry Place SW7 2DT itsallaboutpiano.co.uk 020 7871 3515

March 23 Handel Singing Competition Foundling Museum A concert by the international prizewinners of the 2015 Handel Singing Competition which celebrates emerging talent. 40 Brunswick Square WC1N 1AZ 020 7841 3600

T he Chelsea A ntiques Fair

March 8 Fashion and Fiction: Joanna Trollope V&A The speaker is one of the UK’s most prolific and popular authors. he has written 18 bestselling novels, from A Village Affair to The Rector's Wife (both televised), and more recently The Soldier's Wife.

ART DESIGN ANTIQUES

TALKS March 7 Conversion of Manners The Lady Chapel The Speaker Claire Foster-Gilbert and the Chair, Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police. The title refers to a Benedictine practice; not denying inconvenient or incompatible truths takes mature reasoning and a lot of courage. Booking required. On line: westminsterabbey.org/institut Westminster Abbey 20 Dean’s Yard SW1P

17 - 20 March Chelsea Old Town Hall www.penman-fairs.co.uk

March 15 The One People Dialogue Staying Power: Building Communities The Nave The speaker, Dr Mary McAleese is the former President of the Republic of Ireland and the Interlocutor and Chair is The Very Reverend Dr John Hall. Booking is essential: Westminster-abbey.org/institute Westminster Abbey 20 Dean's Yard SW1P 3PA 020 7654 4872 March 7 After the Age of ‘Starchitects’ The Geological Society Panel examines what life might be like after the @signature-style, icon-obsessed, and arguably male-dominated age of the ‘starchitect’. the panel explores. 6.30 - 8pm Piccadilly W1 March 3 Look Closer: Paul Gauguin The Courtauld Institute Emma Jansson in Room 6 holds an informal lunchtime talk about Gauguin (1897) and his painting Nevermore. Somerset House Strand WC2R 0RN 020 7848 2777

CLASSIC & VINTAGE CARS & MOTORCYCLES

March 10 An Evening with Alexei Sayle £20 including book £5.00 entry only Waterstones Piccadilly 6.30pm Waterstones.com/events or email piccadilly@waterstones.com

March 30 Folk Rising: Spectral Chorus, Collectress and Guests Cecil Sharp House This is the English Folk Dance and Song Society's national showcase for a new generation of folk music artists with up and coming bands from all over the U.K. showcasing a slightly more experimental side. 2 Regent’s Park Road NW1 7AY 020 7485 2206

March 9 Islamic Talismans and Amulets from the Asian Department. V&A Lunchtime lecture join Behnaz Atighi Moghadddam, Assistant Curator in the Asian Department to find our about the wonderful collection of talismanic objects such as amulets charts, magic mirrors ad magi-medicinal bowls. 13.00pm-13.45 The Lydia and Manfred Gorvy Lecture Cromwell Road SW7 2RL March 9 Huxley Memorial Lecture: Alien Species and Citizen Science Gavin de Beer Lecture Theatre Professor Helen Roy will provide an overview of invasion biology, focusing on recent trends and future predictions; There are now more than 2000 established nonnative species in the UK , and about 15% of these threaten biodiversity, the economy and/or society. Anatomy Building UCL Gower street WC1E 6BT 020 7679 2000 March 10 Juliet Nicolson: A House Full of Daughters The speaker who is the grand-daughter of Vita Sackville-West talks about her latest book which covers the history of seven generations of the women of her remarkable family which ranges from 19th century Malaga via Bloomsbury and 20th century New York. John Sandoe Bookshop sales@johnsandoe. com £10 (incl wine) 020 7589 9473

Chelsea Old Town Hall Kings Road, SW3 5EE Thursday Noon - 8pm Fri / Sat 11am - 6pm Sunday 11am - 5pm £6 first day, £5 thereafter or get a Complimentary E-Ticket via www.penman-fairs.co.uk

Kensington, Chelsea & Westminster Today

35 stands of Stylish Decor for Home, Collection & Investment. All authenticated & sold by reliable British Dealers

March 12 Ramlila British Museum Tales from Ramayana told by the talented storyteller Seema Anand, together with live performers she brings one of the world's oldest epics to life and a live dance performance from Kathak dancer Nehal Bhogaita. 14.30 - 16.00 96 Euston Road NW1 2DB 01937 546060

March 13 Botticelli and Treasures from the Hamilton Collection Courtauld Institute Millie Knight gives an informal talk about the special display on Botticellli in front of the objects in the gallery and is a way of looking more closely at the works on display. Somerset House Strand Wc2R ORN 020 7848 2777 March 16 Deadly volcanic flows: understanding pyroclastic density currents with the speaker Rebecca Williams. The Geological Society Burlington House Piccadilly W1J 0BG 020 7434 9944 March 17 & 18 One Health for the Real World: zoonoses, ecosystems and wellbeing London Zoo A symposium bringing together leading experts from different fields to discuss the topic 'healthy ecosystems, healthy people'. Understanding the interactions between ecosystem change, disease regulation and human wellbeing is an interdisciplinary challenge which the scientific community is only just beginning to address. There will be leading experts from different fields to 'present new interdisciplinary frameworks for a real-world One Health approach. 2 Highlight evidence from field-based settings in Africa and beyond and debate implications for policy and practice. Regent’s Park NW1 4RY 020 7722 3333

CLASSIC MOTORING

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Free Public Evening Lecture and Reception Prof David Mottram: Doping in Sport – what does the future look like? 18:00, Tuesday 26 April 2016, SCI, Belgravia

March 18 Paranormal Beliefs and Antibiotic Resistance Royal Institute An afternoon of talks 6-9 Carlton House Terrace SW1Y 5AG March 18 Edmund de Waal V&A Join the ceramicist and writer in a discussion about his new book The White Road at the Lydia and Manfred Gorvy Lecture Theatre. Cromwell Road SW7 March 21 Is Hearing Believing? Royal Society Join Dr Jenny Bizley to explore the neuroscience of our hearing and the crossover of our senses.18.30-20.00 First come first served. 6-9 Carlton House Terrace SW1Y 5AG 020 7451 2500 March 22 Battle of the Arias Clore Studio Upstairs

Doping in sport goes back as far as there has been sport; dangerous substances, such as Strychnine and Nitro-Glycerine, were used until the early 20th Century. In November 2015, six countries were ruled to be in breach of the World Anti-Doping Agency codes and a further six countries were placed on the watch list. The scale of the problem now seems to be getting bigger. Prof David Mottram, education advisor for UK Anti-Doping and Emeritus Professor of Pharmacy Practice at the School of Pharmacy and Biomolecular Sciences, Liverpool John Moore’s University, will review some of the key events in the evolution of doping and anti-doping that have influenced our present approach to the problem. Having served on the pharmacy planning committee for the 2002 Manchester Commonwealth Games, Prof Mottram was a member of the Medical Services Group for the London Organising Committee (LOCOG) in preparation for the 2012 London Olympic and Paralympic Games. He has also published the book Drugs in Sport, which is currently in its sixth edition. Join us on 26 April to hear from Prof Mottram about what the future holds for doping in sports.

Register for the free lecture and reception E: conferences@soci.org T: 020 7598 1561 W: soci.org/events SCI, 14-15 Belgrave Square, London SW1X 8PS KCWTv2_ProfMottramAd.indd 1

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March 2016

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Raymond Gubbay Ltd and Rainbow City Broadcasting Ltd presents

What's the greatest aria ever written? Three experts of the ROH Music Staff, go head-to-head to win your vote. The three present their favourite pieces and it's down to the audience to decide the winner. 7.309.00pm £14/£7 students Covent Garden WC2E 9DD 020 7212 9460 March 30 Sir Paul Nurse The Crick Institute Tracking the world’s biggest health problems faster. 14/15 Belgrave Square London, Gt Lon SW1X 8PS March 31 Modigliani: Bohemian Prince French Institute A discussion between Laurent Seksik and Fabrice Le Henanff moderated by comic expert Paul Gravett about the power of visual storytelling and the exploration of history; the new graphic novel covers the last three years of Amadeo Modigliani's life until his first success in London. 7.00pm 17 Queensberry Place SW7 2DT 020 7871 3515

THEATRE Ends March 5 Funny Girl Menier Chocolate Factory Sheridan Smith takes over a role made famous by Barbara Streisand, and makes it her own. So successful, it is due to transfer to the Savoy Theatre April 9 and to remain there until October 8. 53 Southwark Street SE1 1RU 020 7378 1713 Savoy Theatre Savoy Court WC2R 0ET 0844 871 7687 Ends March 19 A Midsummer Night’s Dream Lyric Theatre Co-directed by Sean Holmes and Stef O’Driscoll. Critically acclaimed in 2012 a riotous reinterpretation of one of Shakespeare’s best loved plays. Lyric Square, King Street W6 0QL 020 8741 6850 Ends March 19 The Master Builder The Old Vic A late masterpiece of the Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen, and a new adaptation by David Hare, the play is

Kensington, Chelsea & Westminster Today

KARL JENKINS THE ARMED MAN A MASS FOR PEACE with readings from special guest

TONY ROBINSON

Karl Jenkins conducts his highly acclaimed music.

THE ARMED MAN FOR THE FALLEN excerpts from REQUIEM STABAT MATER EUPHONIUM CONCERTO Sir Karl Jenkins conductor David Childs euphonium Kathryn Rudge soprano Zands Duggan hand percussion

ROYAL CHORAL SOCIETY

ROYAL PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA

Sunday 3 July at 3.00pm ROYAL ALBERT HALL

Box Office 020 7838 3109 royalalberthall.com

an exploration of control, power, life, death, age and youth. Ralph Fiennes, the Master Builder stars as the self-made man who has become successful without any qualifications, but who wields the power in the town. He increasingly fears failure as he grows old and of being replaced by the young. A young woman (Sarah Snook) appears from the mountains claiming she had known him ten years earlier and reminding him of promise he made to her when she was thirteen. The Cut SE1 8NB 0844 871 7628 Ends March 26 A Girl is a Half-Formed Thing Young Vic The stage adaptation by Annie Ryan of Eimear McBride’s extraordinary stream of consciousness novel with a ferocious monologue that covers the young girl's wild and miserable life. Aolfe Duffin is brilliant as the troubled young girl. 66 The Cut SE1 8LZ 020 7922 2922 Ends March 26 Merit Finborough Theatre

Captivating Scents: fresh, floral, fœtid at Chelsea Physic Garden 2016 By Nick Bailey

Make Hay While the Sun Doesn’t Shine….

Chelsea Physic Garden has one of the longest growing seasons in the country. The Gardens unique microclimate ensures the site rarely dips below zero meaning many plants which are hibernating in the rest of the country are in growth here. This coupled this with a bizarrely warm autumn and winter means some of our plants are a little confused. Camassia, a North American bulb which normally flowers in May, was in full bloom back in December and one of our Californian Lilacs (Ceanothus) is in flower now, a full three months early. Despite these seasonal oddities work at the Garden continues apace. The low season between November and March always gives us an ideal window to carry out large development projects such as the Garden of Medicinal Plants and World Woodland Garden. This year is no exception, but we’ve turned our attention to the glasshouses. In addition to a major restoration programme we are also in the

The London Premiere of this play by Alexandra Wood, directed by Tom Littler set in Spain where a subtle game of cat and mouse, split loyalties, and questionable morals are explored 118 Finborough Road SW10 9ED 020 7244 7439 Ends April 2 The Argument Hampstead Theatre Downstairs The brilliant William Boyd returns with a darkly comic play exploring how words said in the heat of the moment can create embers that burn long after the apologies are made. Why are the most hurtful burns inflicted by our nearest and dearest. Directed by Anna Ledwich. Eton Avenue Swiss Cottage NW3 1EU 020 7722 9301

6th Annual PESGB Stoneley Lecture with Professor Robert Winston Central Hall Westminster Tuesday 8 March 2016 6-7pm followed by a Drinks Reception

‘To promote for the public benefit, education in the scientific and technical aspects of petroleum exploration’

Uncertainty - Is Technology the Solution? Registration for this public lecture is now open on Eventbrite at https://goo.gl/ Nj0yja £15

(£5 student conc. on the door)

Events compiled and edited by Leila Kooros with assistance by Fahad Redha and Jeanne Griffiths.

process of creating a new terrestrial South African planting. The project, headed up by our glasshouse manager Tom McCarter, aims to display a selection of some of the horticultural wonders South Africa has to offer. We already have a range of species from the region growing outdoors but this new planting under glass offers refuge to more tender species such as the dramatic king protea and huge-flowered ericas from Table Mountain. South Africa has the most concentrated flora diversity on earth, so much so that the region around Table Mountain is classified as its own floral kingdom. To put this in perspective the whole of the northern hemisphere is a single floral kingdom! This gives us the not unpleasant problem of selecting species from the tens of thousands available. Outdoors we are in the process of expanding our poisonous plants collection. This group of plants has long been a favourite of Garden visitors so we are taking the opportunity to extend the range of some of the most toxic plants. It may seem odd that this collection sits next to our medicinal plants and odder still that many plants are grown both in the poison and medicinal beds. The reason for this is that like many things in life one should err on the side of moderation. In the right dose many plants are highly useful medicines, but get the dose wrong and they become a poison. There is a great irony in people’s paranoia about poisonous plants. The fact remains and has done for many years…. The most common plant-related hospitalisation is people eating too many carrots, which can lead to beta-carotene poisoning; no, really!

Captivating scents: fresh floral fœtid

A Scented Season at London’s Secret Garden Events & Tours • Award-winning Café • Shop 66 Royal Hospital Road, London SW3 4HS

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March 20162011 April/May

Kensington, Chelsea & Westminster Today

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Arts & Culture

Dulwich Picture Gallery Until 15 May 2016 Admission £12.50 www.dulwichpicturegallery. org.uk

hen asked to name ten famous Belgians, most people can probably come up with six: René Magritte, Peter Paul Rubens, Eddy Merckx, Adolphe Sax, Inspector Poirot, and TinTin, ignoring the fact that the last two are fictional. When asked the same question of Norwegians, they may fair a little better, even though the population is less than half that of Belgium. Some of those that may spring to mind could include Thor Heyerdahl, Henrik Ibsen, Edvard Munch, Liv Ullmann, Edvard Grieg, Roald Amundsen, and possibly another Roald, in this case Dahl, although he was born in Wales of Norwegian parents. If the curators of the latest exhibition at Dulwich Picture Gallery have their way, they could add another, Nikolai Astrup. The first thing that hits the visitor when entering the exhibition is how colourful the wild Norwegian landscapes are, and how verdantly green and lush the vegetation. Astrup was born in 1880, the son of a Lutheran pastor in Ålhus in the Jølster district of western Norway, and spent his childhood in the damp and insalubrious parsonage, resulting in a catalogue of illnesses, including asthma, tuberculosis, and pneumonia, from which he died at the age of 47. Although he travelled to Paris, London, Copenhagen, Stockholm, and Algeria, he returned to his native Jølster, where he finally settled in Sandalstrand, in a

March 2016

Arts & Culture Left: Midsummer Eve Bonfire, Before 1915 The Savings Bank Foundation DNB The Astrup Collection KODE Art Museums of Bergen. Photo © Dag Fosse/KODE Below: A Morning in March. c.1920 The Savings Bank Foundation DNB The Astrup Collection KODE Art Museums of Bergen. Photo © Dag Fosse/KODE

Painting Norway: Nikolai Astrup.

020 7738 2348

house perched precariously above the lake. From here he painted the views across the lake, or up to the menacing mountains looming above, scenes he had known since childhood when he had a strong sense of the magical qualities and folklore of his country. As a child, his father refused to allow the boy to take part in the pagan festivals, particularly the bonfire celebrations on Midsummer’s Eve, which were erotically charged and involved the devil’s work of music, dancing, and drinking. Some of his most vivid and dramatic paintings are of these fires, with the flames licking up like dragons, strange troll-like figures lost in the smoke, and a lone fiddler playing for the dancing couples, while in one, a pregnant girl surveys the scene, a symbol of fecundity. Astrup married a local girl of 15 years old, when he was 27, which caused more than a little stir in the small community, and he went on to father eight children. The couple grew rhubarb, from which he produced an excellent wine, which lubricated the locals at the many weddings held across Jølster. He described himself as “a naïve naturalist painter”, who had been formally trained in Oslo and Paris, and used this to good effect when painting the parsonage in fine detail with a great understanding of perspective, but it is his landscapes that capture an almost childlike memory, combining mood, light, and myth. Whether a scene dominated by a large May moon, ploughing at night or the perennial twilight around the middle of June, he manages to capture a sense of place and quietude. Great swathes of yellow in the form of a contagion of marsh marigolds, or kingcups, are splashed across the canvas, while the ominous mountain Kleivafjellet, sits brooding in the background. He would return to the same view again and again in both painting and, more importantly in terms of a source of income, print-

making. To say that his techniques were radical would be understating what he achieved, and how. For instance, he did not use a press, but instead, using oilbased pigments, he would lay the paper face down on the block, and rub the back

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with a cotton reel or a piece of wood covered in rags. Astrup used up to four different blocks, sometimes more, and he would retouch the final impressions with oil paint applied with a brush. He would also incorporate a linocut, making it doubly difficult: “Yes, I call it a ‘woodcut’, it should perhaps be called ‘a modern oil impression’, as it has been produced by printing layer upon layer of slightly different (thick) colours, an attempt at a material effect in woodcut”. He was greatly influenced by the Japanese prints he saw when he was in Paris, and his Morning in March is a nocturnal landscape with a willowgoblin stretching by the lake as though in anguish. These prints are amongst his best works, variations on a motif, with tiny differences between them to capture moods, making each one unique. This exhibition is an eye-opener for anyone who thought that Norwegian painting began and ended with Munch. In fact, although they were contemporaries, Astrup did not regard him with anything approaching awe. “Edvard Munch, I cannot abide” he wrote. “Everything that he does is supposed to be so brilliant that it doesn’t have to be more than merely sketched”. Waspish, or what? Don Grant

Left: The Death of Sardanapalus © Philadelphia Museum of Art. Below: Eugene Delacroix. Self-portrait. © Musée de Louvre

Delacroix and the Rise of Modern Art Sackler Wing National Gallery Admission £16 nationalgallery.org.uk

he title of this exhibition says it all: ‘The Rise of Modern Art’. He was certainly one of the first modern Romantic masters, pre-empting Impressionism and influencing a generation of French painters, including Gustave Courbet and Théodore Chassériau at the time, and later Manet, Cézanne, Renoir, Van Gogh, and Matisse. The poet and critic Charles Baudelaire was a great champion of his work, which sometimes caused a sensation by challenging traditional rules and practices, which dictated that the question of form took priority over the artist’s emotional, sensual, and intellectual expression. His was all about passion, energy, use of colour, and a talent to achieve in a few brushstrokes a composition that was both sensual and shocking. His first submission to the Paris Salon in 1822 was the large-scale Barque of Dante, illustrating Canto VIII

of the Inferno, which was first derided, and then purchased, by the French State. Although too fragile to move from Le Louvre, in its place is a smaller copy by Manet made in 1854, which lends the viewer a flavour of the desperation of those clinging onto this vessel. More of those in peril on the sea with his Christ on the Sea of Galilee, with the terrified occupants being buffeted by threatening waves, while Christ is fast asleep in the stern. Another marine painting that was too fragile to ship across La Manche was The Shipwreck of Don Juan, painted in 1840, but we can see see his Shipwreck off a Coast, a dramatic composition as viewed from inside a cave. The whole subject of shipwrecks was sparked off by the Romantic painter Théodore Géricault in 1816, who painted The Wreck of the Medusa, which marked a deeply embarrassing episode in French maritime

history due to the total incompetence of the captain, after the ship went aground off the coast of Mauritania, and 147 survivors boarded a makeshift raft. After 13 days at sea, starved, parched and demented, only 15 men were still alive by means of throwing their companions overboard or killing the weakest, and then eating them. The vast, 4m x 5m canvas of The Death of Sardanapalus was also deemed too fragile to transport from La Musée

du Louvre, so the curators borrowed a much-reduced replica, also painted by Delacroix twenty years after the original, from the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Presumably, it was only what the National Gallery could borrow that is the sum total of this exhibition. Of the sixty-two works on display, twenty-four are by Delacroix. Another celebrated painting, Liberty leading the People, 28th July, also stayed at home, as did Hommage à Delacroix by his friend Henri Fantin-Latour, painted the year after his death in 1864, and included the painter himself, Charles Baudelaire, Alphonse Legros, Edouard Manet, and J.M. Whistler, ranged in front of a portrait of Delacroix. Cézanne painted ‘a sarcastic version’ of Sardanapalus, with a nude, blinded female presiding over an assembly of men thronging around her canopied bed, including wrestlers, trumpeters, a bishop, a banker, a soldier, and a painter, either Cézanne himself, or possibly Delacroix. As an alluring beauty, she certainly does not coupez le moutard. He then flirted with orientalism, after France had colonised most of North Africa, first visiting Algeria in 1830, and Tangiers in 1838, where he painted Convulsionists of Tangiers, a riotous frenzy of the Aïssaouas, a Sufi brotherhood, as Théophile Gautier later described, “rolling on embers, eating snakes, grinding glass, chewing fire, slashing their bodies . . . writhing in their convulsions of sacred epilepsy . . . hideously demented”. One can see the appeal of this exotic and alien culture to Europeans, and nearly fifty years later, Renoir journeyed to Algeria, having studied the works of Delacroix, including making a copy of The Jewish Wedding in Morocco. This painting is on display, not so much as to illustrate his influence on later painters, but presumably because, once again, the curators could not secure a loan of the original from the Louvre. Renoir’s Arab Festival is a whirling and flickering scene that perfectly captures the twirling mass of dancers and musicians in the morning sunlight. On display is a version of Women of Algiers in their Apartment (not the one from the Louvre, of course, but the later version from Musée Fabre in Montpellier) and this inspired a number of ‘harem’ paintings, including those by Frédéric Bazille, Thódore Chassériau, and Renoir. Picasso was later to paint 15 variant interpretations, one of which was sold at auction last year for a record £115m, but how many Picassos were in this exhibition? None. Curious, particularly in the light of his entreaty that some of his paintings be displayed in the Louvre in 1947 and compared to those of du Zurbarán, Courbet, and Delacroix, especially his Women of Algiers. When asked how he felt about the comparisons, he grudgingly answered, “That bastard. He’s really good”. Don Grant

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March 2016

Arts & Culture

Botticelli and Treasures from the Hamilton Collection

Pre-Raphaelites On Paper

The Courtauld Gallery Somerset House Until 15 May 2016 Admission £9.50 Courtauld.ac.uk/gallery

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Victorian Drawings from the Lanigan Collection 12th February-29th May Leighton House Museum 12 Holland Park Road London W14 8LZ

Photograph © Kupferstichkabinett Berlin Botticelli. Paradiso 6 Hamilton Bible

Photograph © Kupferstichkabinett Berlin Botticelli Paradiso 6 Hamilton Bible

here is a saying about the first generation building success, the second keeping it safe, and the third blowing the lot. Well, the 10th Duke of Hamilton, an art connoisseur, amassed a vast collection of drawings, paintings, objects, books, and illuminated manuscripts from his fortune made in coal. Amongst these was the truly magnificent 14th century Hamilton Bible, which is regarded as one of the most important illuminated manuscripts in the world, to rival The Book of Kells, Boccaccio’s Decameron and the Vienna Genesis. Such was its fame, it is even depicted in Raphael’s painting of Pope Leo X, which is hanging in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. His grandson, the Twelfth Duke, was less of an art lover; in fact, all he really thought about was huntin’, yachtin’, and horse racin’, and he gambled away a fortune on bad cards, fast women, and slow horses, placing enormous bets on nags, until, in 1867, when he was close to financial ruin, his own horse Cortolvin won the Grand National at Aintree. The prize money, and the £16,000 in bets, helped to stabilise his finances, until he blew the lot again, and ran up debts of over a million pounds. In 1882 the Duke put the entire collection of ‘priceless’ manuscripts up for auction, and it was sold for £397,562 in July of that year in ‘the sale of the century’ that lasted over two weeks. The main beneficiary was the Berlin Kupferstichkabinett, who bought nearly all of the collection for £80,000 in a separate deal, including Botticelli’s drawings from Dante’s epic poem, the Divine Comedy. Now, they are back in London for a three month exhibition. Ascending the Nelson spiral staircase at Somerset House can feel a bit like climbing the icy flanks of Lucifer, but there is promise of Heaven at the top. Of course, to get to Heaven, or Paradiso, Dante and his travelling companion Virgil have to pass through the Nine Circles of Hell, which include Limbo, Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Anger, Heresy, Violence, Fraud, and Treachery. Only then can they pass into Purgatory, which they do just before dawn on Easter Sunday, beneath a sky studded with stars.The drawings are not for the squeamish, they include any number of sinners being tortured, boiled in tar, dismembered, frozen in ice, crucified, or just tormented and humiliated, with special attention being paid to soothsayers, usurers, traitors, men of violence, and simonists, who were clerics who sold absolution and other priceless heavenly favours for money. They are buried upside-down in holes the size of baptism fonts in bed-rock with their feet protruding, only to be burnt by flames in an eternal round of suffocation and immolation. En route to the very bottom of Hell, Dante and Virgil witness a truly gruesome sight of two sinners submerged close together, so that one man is actually chewing the skull of the other. The chewer is Count Ugolino and the man being eaten is Archbishop Ruggieri, a really nasty piece of work. When Dante and Virgil finally reach Dis, they come upon Lucifer, a giant creature with three faces and flapping bat wings that create an icy wind, who is devouring three prominent arch-traitors, namely Judas Iscariot, and Brutus and Cassius, who both betrayed Julius Caesar. The duo clamber up his shaggy pelt to reach Purgatory, where they encounter proud artists, negligent rulers, and gluttons. In spite of the somewhat gruesome nature of the drawings, they are exquisite, delicate and, in the case of those of Dante’s great love Beatrice as they pass through the celestial spheres, quite beautiful. Queen Victoria was quite upset at the Hamilton Collection being sold abroad, and tried to put a stop to it, but even having a daughter who was married to Prince Friedrich of Prussia, she could not prevent the sale. The upside is that they are at least being properly conserved and curated and on show to the public here in London. Don Grant

Kensington, Chelsea & Westminster Today

his exceptional exhibition of a privately assembled collection of Pre-Raphaelite work is being shown in the UK for the first time, organised by the National Gallery of Canada and curated by Sonia Del Re. The development of the exhibition was partly supported by a Jonathan Ruffer Curatorial research grant from the Art Fund. The exhibits clearly illustrate the accomplished draughtsmanship of the Pre-Raphaelites. The collection of over one hundred drawings and sketches of the PreRaphaelites was assembled by Dr Dennis T Lanigan, a Canadian, and it includes works by the outstanding artists of the period; Edward Burne-Jones, John Everett Millais, William Holman Hunt, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Edward Poynter, and Lord Leighton. William Morris is represented by his only known easel painting, La Belle Iseult. Dr Dennis T Lanigan addressed the preview saying: “I originally visited Leighton House in 1976 when I was a medical student and fell in love with the house and Leighton’s art. I never imagined that forty years later pieces from my collection would be exhibited there”. During that time, he was also inspired by a Burne-Jones retrospective at the Hayward Gallery. Dr Lanigan visibly loves drawings of all sorts and is particularly interested in how artists are influenced by one another. This exhibition has a special link with Leighton House because many of the artists whose work is exhibited were Lord Leighton’s friends, whom he entertained in his home together with leading celebrities and Royal Academicians of the day. The exhibition shows portraits, landscape, allegories, religious scenes, and literary works. Some are preparatory studies for such famous paintings as Burne-Jones’ The Wheel of Fortune, The Eve of St. Agnes by Holman Hunt, and Leighton’s Cymon and Iphigenia. The Victorian artists used drawing to further their artistic abilities and it is interesting to see the preparatory stages of great works. Some of the completed drawings are works of art in their own right.

Above: Frederic Leighton, Study of Iphigenia for Cymon and Iphigenia, 1883, Promised Gift from the Lanigan Collection ® NGC Right: Alfred Hassam, Softened Luster in Her Eye, 1866, Promised Gift from the Lanigan Collection ® NGC

The drawings on display are plainly drafted with superb craftsmanship and contrast strongly with the paintings that followed. These are highly coloured and elaborate, symbolising abundance, nature, ever present myth, death, and love. The exhibition shows how their style developed, breaking all bounds of the rules set by the Royal Academy. They portray realistic figures in flat light,

with no foregrounds or backgrounds. The Academy favoured idealised compositions. Victorian artists mostly depended on their surroundings for models. Portraits often depict wives and lovers and there were often stories surrounding them. John Millais, Effie Grey, and her husband John Ruskin had a triangular relationship, Holman Hunt illegally

married his deceased wife’s sister, and the beautiful Ellen Terry married the much older G. Watts. Aspects of societal values present in the Victorian era are shown by Walter Crane’s Freedom and Commerce, and two costume designs for the exhibition, Beauty’s Awakening. Louis Fairfax Muckley’s illustration for Edmund Spenser’s Faerie Queene shows the artist’s interest in literary themes. Evelyn De Morgan’s Mater Dolorosa shows interest in Biblical subjects, Edward BurneJones’s The Raising of Lazarus is a fine example too. Classical themes feature in the Victorian Pre-Raphaelites’ subjects. On display is Thomas Matthews Rook’s study of Two Classical Maidens Dancing and several studies of by Lord Leighton of Iphigenia for his famous painting Cymon and Iphigenia are also displayed. Philosophy is not forgotten as can be seen in Simeon Solomon’s Mors et Amor and Earth and Spring by Walter Crane. There is no better place for this exhibition than Lord Leighton’s artistic home and the connections between his house and the exhibits is a remarkable interplay. Marian Maitland Booking not required. T: 020 7602 3316 Monday-Friday, 020 7471 9160 Saturdays and Sundays. E: museums@rbck.gov.uk Open daily 10 am to 5.30 pm.

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Arts & Culture

James Ioelu, Rosangela Flotta, Céline Forrest, Amber Rainey, William Wallace, Ben-San Lau, William Morgan, Dingle Yandell, Romanas Kudriaovas, Laetitia Ruccolo, Eirlys Myfanwy Davies, Alison Rose, Gareth Brynmor John, He Wu Lieder ohne Grenzen (songs without borders) St Lawrence Jewry 5th February 2016

t’s hard to know where to start praising Iain Burnside and the NOS for an evening of unsurpassable quality of selection, presentation, and exposition. The opening Schumann, The Two Grenadiers was a robust platform upon which a variety of styles, all exquisite, were expressed by the young

opera professionals and their flawless accompanists. It set a lyrical theme of occasionally breathtaking incorrectness over quite magical musical settings. Ultimately the whole ensemble came out just about equal, each putting their mark on some of the highest spiritual moments, all deserving to see their

name in lights. Burnside’s choices were excellent; the running order perfect; a delightful evening of the highest artistic achievement. From the powerful opener to the ethereal and multidimensional closer none of the performers took their foot off the gas. Some of the most surprisingly beautiful music I’ve

National Opera Studio. Opera Roots: Chinese New Year

Deputy Ambassador of the Chinese Embassy. The omens for a musical extravaganza had been set fair. Waiting for Robin at Home I found myself sharing the bar with Roger Daltrey, my generation’s rockest of gods. As with the Royal College of Music alma mater, for many of the National Opera Studio singers and répétiteurs these concerts offer excellent value for money and a range of both mainstream and more obscure performances. Have a look at the website. There’s at least a couple of events a month. Take your lawyer or maybe give your dentist a treat.

Spring approaches

He Wu and chums China Exchange, Gerrard Street, Soho 17th February 2016

If NOS showed us how entertaining high art can be with Lieder ohne Grenzen, fittingly in a church in the Guildhall’s yard, led by He Wu, much the same team put on a rollocking entertainment lighting up a rainy night in Soho. The swaggering event called for a starring individual and He Wu stepped up to the mark from charming introduction and then throughout a strong set. I’d met up with Home House’s polymath cultural leader (from fencing to creative writing) Robin Dutt and it was he who pointed out the extraordinary sustained coloratura of He Wu’s Moonlit Night by the Spring River. The whole event was a huge triumph, with a list of dignitaries that included the High Commissioner of New Zealand and the

Contact Alice Clayton alice@nationaloperastudio.org.uk or 020 8874 8811)

Looking ahead St John’s Smith Square continues with its strong 2015/16 programme. John Lubbock conducts the Orchestra of St John’s on Saturday 16th April 2016 at half past seven, as part of a series with well-known personalities, this time David Mellor choosing the pieces. KCW Today is committed to supporting the Royal Borough and its neighbours’ amateur groups, unpaid perhaps but achieving professional standards. I’m off to see Kensington Philharmonic’s Viennese Concert (half seven, 13th March, Chelsea Town Hall), putting a potentially bleak Sunday night to good use. At the upper end of the professional scale, Wigmore Hall’s spring programme testifies to its status amongst artists as well as music lovers and hacks, with to pick one that catches the eye on Monday the 28th March, again at half seven: Pinchas Zukerman on violin and Angela Cheng piano offering an evening of Mozart, Beethoven, and Brahms. The Cadogan Hall is an increasingly popular and successful local venue; like the others it sets its stall out with a useful and informative website. Cadogan Hall’s programmes manage to combine

ever heard. By finishing with Schubert’s setting of Goethe’s equally divine The Wanderer’s Nightsong, Burnside deftly provided a metaphysical conclusion sending us away with psychedelic nuances his audience is unlikely ever to forget. And I nearly didn’t bother. It was cold wet Friday night and I seem to have run out of plus ones but I thought what the hell and dragged myself out. I had thought St Lawrence Jewry might be a gorgeous backdrop and was proved right. St Lawrence Jewry is the official church of the Lord Mayor of London and the City of London Corporation and stands in the Yard of the Guildhall. It’s in that guildhall tradition, discreetly displaying masonic and other ancient symbols, black and white tiles, that sort of thing. Chatting to some of the artists (they’re a friendly bunch) after the show they made the point that the NOS is one of the few bodies able to field professional musicians for an evening as esoteric as Burnside’s Lieder ohne Grenzen. The cost for one of the commercial opera houses would be prohibitive. interesting mainstream productions with more esoteric offerings. I suppose the Wednesday 20th April (are all these events at half seven) The Tallis Scholars’ O Death, come close mine eyes falls somewhere between the two. The Royal Opera offers something different with Ramin Gray directing Gerald Barry’s operatic adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s classic The Importance of Being Earnest (Barbican Theatre, 29th and 30th March, and 1st, 2nd, and 3rd April at half two and half seven). Back in tune with the half seven kick offs during the year of the 50th anniversary of Revolver the Royal Albert Hall offers us The Bootleg Beatles on Thursday 24th March. And finally in this brief roundup of the amazing opportunities for entertainment and education on our doorstep back to St John’s Smith Square for the British premiere of Stephen Oliver’s completion of Mozart’s Unfinished Opera The Goose of Cairo (L'oca del Caïro) on Thursday the 14th of April, led by the acclaimed British conductor David Parry and the London Mozart Players. Only having been previously performed twice in its original form, this masterpiece has been newly translated for the occasion, so will mark the first time it has ever been performed in English. Again at half seven so the start dates should be easy enough. If lawyer and dentist aren’t available, I’d take your accountant. James Douglas

Kensington, Chelsea & Westminster Today

English National Ballet dazzles audiences

Sir Frederick Ashton’s Rhapsody

at The Coliseum with Le Corsaire By Andrew Ward

oosely based on Lord Byron’s epic tale, Le Corsaire recounts the adventures of Conrad, chief of the pirates, and Medora, the young Greek woman he loves. Premiered in Paris in 1856, the ballet was first conceived by Joseph Mazilier. Petipa’s production soon took over, premiered by The Imperial Ballet, St. Petersburg with revivals in 1868, 1880, and 1899. Over the years, there have been numerous revivals of Petipa’s 1899 version around the world but the English National Ballet (ENB) was the first UK company to present the full-length work with Anna-Marie Holmes’ production that premiered earlier in 2013 by American Ballet Theatre in New York. The ballet, in three acts, is certainly action-packed with pirates, slaves, kidnapping, love, devious plotting, high leaps, and shipwrecks (and that’s just in the first Act!). The story line is, to say the least, highly complicated and takes a full page in the programme to even explain. A note to the programme editors would be to make the font larger and summarise the plot… too many people in the audience were losing the plot before the curtain had risen. But all was forgiven once the curtain went up on this swashbuckling production that showcases ENB’s dancers, particularly the strong male line up that takes centre stage. The choreography is fueled like a series of supercars… high octane aerial jumps with twists and turns that dazzle the audience before performing panther like landings as smooth as a Bentley Corniche coming to rest for the week in its Chelsea garage. Both home and guest dancers performed these exhilarating virtuoso tricks in equal measures and it would be hard to separate out which pirate deserved the honours! Performances to note from two casts: Conrad guesting from Washington Ballet Brooklyn Mack and ENB’s Lead Principal Isaac Hernádez; Lankendem Junor Souza and Jinhao Zhang; Ali guesting from Norway Ballet Osiel Gouneo and again Junor Souza. Also to note on the male front is the baddie pirate Birbanto who happily rolls up his sleeves to reveal quite a few tricks too; Max Westwell and Cesar Corrales both dancing with zest, speed, and numerous cunning tricks and turns to keep the audience at the edge of their seats. The men did not have it all their own

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at The Royal Opera House By Andrew Ward

Iain Burnside. National Opera Studio

Arts & Culture

March 2016

way. Laurretta Summerscales danced the lead ballerina, Medora, with a deliciously crisp command of the fast darting posé turns and fouettés in the solos. Her musical phrasing of both the quick virtuoso solos in the early acts as well as the slower adagio choreography in the Vision scene marks her out for stardom on the international stage. Tamara Rojo, stepped in for the injured Alina Cojocaru. She suits the role of Medora with her commanding virtuosity for all to see. Rojo also has an authoritative stage presence that portrays the role for the audience to stay abreast of the plot. Other performances to note were from Shiori Kase, and Ksenia Ovsyanick’s superb and convincing portrayal of Medora’s friend Gulnare. Hollywood designer (Batman), Bob Ringwood, cleverly creates sumptuous costumes with vibrant colours and textures like a painter using his whole palette. He also creates sets that work a treat, with brilliant use of perspectives, the close foregrounds of the market bazaar and opulent palace scenes juxtapose the distant vistas with amazing

effect! Why does this ballet work so well… it has the three elements of 19th century ballet that endure the test of time to this day: classical ballet; character dances; and some pantomime too. What keeps it in the here and now of today’s demanding society of the instant multiplex entertainment experience is the amazing ‘wow factor’ displayed by the vibrant and athletic male ballet dancers so craved by many… even the top footballers cannot perform or score the aerial twists and turns executed by ENB’s male dancers night in night out! Cirque du Soleil might also have to catch a glimpse if they want to add another string to their bow to keep up with the entertainment value of the ballet world! www.ballet.org.uk Le Corsaire on tour at the Royal Opera House Muscat 10-12 March; Palais Garnier Paris 21-25 June; and She Said at the Sadler’s Wells 13-16 April, Triple Bill by International Female Choreographers.

In 1980, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother was given an unusual 80th birthday present; a trip to see The Royal Ballet perform at Covent Garden. At the suggestion of Princess Margaret, the Royal Gala evening was to be something special. Both were close friends with the celebrated British choreographer Sir Frederick Ashton, who had created some 70 ballets but had not been inspired to create in the recent past. By Royal command, he was asked to create a ballet on the Russian star dancer, Mikhail Baryshnikov. Rhapsody was born with Misha (as he was called by the dancers) partnering the exceptional ballerina, Lesley Collier, alongside six soloist ladies and six soloist men. I have to confess for once… Sir Fred chose me to be one of the six soloist men, so Rhapsody is a piece very dear to my heart, especially as it was Sir Fred’s last major creation. Rhapsody is very much a party piece celebrating the spectacular bravura and virtuosity of the lead male role. Ashton contrasted this with the lyrical fluidity and speed of footwork that he created on Collier with expansive use of upper body and épaulement. This, combined with the musical phrasing, was the embodiment of the British style which Ashton played a major part in creating for The Royal Ballet. The music was by Rachmaninoff and the set designs by Ashton himself. Costumes, originally by William Chappell, were superbly re-imagined by Natalia Stewart. Back in 1995, Patrick Caulfield re-designed the sets and costumes with disastrous results. He completely lost the party celebration feel to the work and made it hard to see Ashton’s opulent yet lyrical and sublime choreography. Returning to the original sets and re-worked costumes was a very welcome stroke of good sense. The opening matinee cast was danced by Francesca Hayward and James Hay. Hayward fared better as she develops her ballerina qualities each time she performs. Hay danced with assured technique and is indeed a British soloist dancer with a promising future… but the ballet does need a star. The charismatic Steven McRae performed the piece later in the run and would have made the best use of his fire power and virtuosity, together with the witty and sometimes naughty engaging looks that Misha also enjoyed to almost tease the audience with excitement! www.roh.org.uk

Images © ASH

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Arts & Culture

March 2016

Arts & Culture

States of Mind: Tracing the Edges of Consciousness

Left: The Nightmare, Henry Fuseli, 1781. © Trustees of the British Museum. Below: Vladimir Nabokov's Alphabet in Colour. © Jean Holabird. Bottom: A practictioner of Mesmerism using Animal Magnetism. © Wellcome Library, London.

The Wellcome Collection. Until 16 October 2016 wellcomecollection.org

BRICKS AND BRICKBATS BY EMMA FLYNN

Creation from Catastrophe

online: www.KCWToday.co.uk Elemental, helped the citizens and local government rebuild their city following the earthquake and tsunami of 2010. The resulting proposal presents a radical model for contemporary urban planning under the increasing threat of natural disaster. Involving the community from the get go, Elemental presented three options to the people: firstly, the destroyed land could be left fallow and rebuilding prohibited. Secondly, a protective wall could be built between the estuary and the city. Thirdly, the land could be expropriated, turning it into a forest as a sustainable buffer against future tsunamis. Courageously, the citizens selected the third option, the

have divided the community, the forest united them. For the displaced families, Elemental designed a new typology of half-built housing that allowed the occupants to finished them over time, when they could raise the finances. The residents in effect became ‘co-architects’, key participants in the re-development of their city. Elemental’s response to catastrophe is one that values cross-disciplinary collaboration as key to unlocking the answers to future sustainability. By looking to ecology for solutions, they transferred knowledge developed by the forest industry to urban design. By acknowledging design as a democratic process, they considered social and

ne doesn’t need a BSc in neuroscience to visit this exhibition, but it may help, if only to help thread one’s way through this mind-bending landscape of consciousness and unconsciousness. The exhibition examines sleep, dreams, sleep paralysis, and nightmares, as well as dualism, retrograde and anterograde amnesia, prosopagnosia, which is another word for face blindness, synaesthesia, language, and memory and, more to the point, memory loss. It is quite a learned exhibition, with some lengthy, and sometimes hard-to-read captions, and quite a few books, open at a page, in well-lit vitrines. Synaesthesia, a condition where one sensation may trigger another, utilises Vladimir Nabokov’s experience of seeing letters as colours, or ‘coloured hearing’, illustrated by Jean Holabird as an Alphabet in Colour. There are also some elaborate displays, with seemingly no expense spared, to illustrate one small point, like Carla Mackinnon’s Squeezed by the shadows, and a number of screens on which one can witness patients being anaesthetised to the point of unconsciousness, or watch an excerpt from The Cabinet of Dr Caligari, the early German Expressionist horror flick. Alongside this, somnambulism is

examined, using the case of a man who committed a murder while allegedly sleepwalking and who was subsequently acquitted. The case of Binjamin Wilkomirski is examined in the section Language | Memory under the heading False Memory

Archive. He wrote a book entitled Fragments: Memories of a Childhood (1939-1948), which was described as “one of the great works about the Holocaust”, written “with a poet’s vision; a child’s state of grace”, and everyone agreed it was a masterpiece, which was

translated into 12 languages, won the National Jewish Book Award in the US, the Jewish Quarterly Literary Prize in the UK, and the Prix de Mémoire de la Shoah in France. There was one problem; his memoir of surviving as a Jewish child alone in the Nazi concentration camps of Majdanek and Auschwitz was a complete fabrication. After he was unmasked as a hoaxer by a journalist, the publishers withdrew the book and apologised for being duped by this deeply troubled and emotionally scarred man, who was actually living in the lap of luxury in the home of his adopted parents in Switzerland at the time. In the chapter Being | Not Being, The Whisper Heard is a multi-media installation in a curtained off area by the artist Imogen Stidworthy, which contrasts a child learning the language with that of a stroke victim with aphasia, responding to the same passage from Jules Verne’s Journey to the Centre of Earth, to explore language, meaning, and identity, which is both moving and totally absorbing. The erasure of memory and amnesia is explored in Shona Illingworth’s project Lesions in the Landscape, following Claire on her visit to St Kilda, an island whose population was evacuated in 1930. She explores the realities of living with amnesia for Claire, who describes “the past existing as a space you can’t enter or feel, the future a space you can’t imagine”. This engrossing exhibition looks at what we understand as consciousness through historical material, artworks, diagrams, philosophy, literature, and film, and although some of it appears impenetrable, ultimately it is a rewarding experience. Don Grant

How Architecture rebuilds Communities

present-day projects in Nepal, Japan, Pakistan, Nigeria, Chile, and the US. These contemporary projects focus on an altogether more collaborative way of working in which architects in countries around the world draw on vernacular traditions, local expertise, and building materials. This approach results in an expanded role for architects, as they become builders, community facilitators, and activists, working alongside local residents. Here we find the champion of disaster relief architecture, Pritzker prize winner, Shigeru Ban, with his cardboard tube housing structures for Nepal, A home for all, the collaborative initiative by Japanese ‘starchitects’ including

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sunamis, earthquakes, and flooding are becoming almost inevitable annual fixtures of our headlines. With climate change ramping up, amplifying extreme weather conditions and frequency, new visionary ideas and approaches are needed in the built environment. In response to this urgency, a new exhibition at the Architecture Gallery of the Royal Institute of British Architects examines how destruction and devastation can provide opportunities to radically rethink how we design and inhabit our cities. Posing questions about our relationship to nature, and the power of the architect to instigate change, the exhibition asks whether “we are facing a paradigm shift in the way that cities and communities recover from destruction, from top down planning to a ground up approach.” Throughout the centuries and around the world there have been many ways that architects have responded to catastrophe. Starting with the alternative plans for London created after the Great Fire of 1666, the exhibition introduces five schemes that would have drastically reconfigured the city as we know it. One proposal by the great architect Sir Christopher Wren imagined driving grand boulevards through the city, transforming London’s essential medieval character with Baroque magnificence. As the exhibition evolves, this ambitious top-down thinking is reflected in the plans for 18th-century Lisbon, 19th-century Chicago, and 20th-century Skopje. Unifying these historic proposals for the city is a strong international awareness and a tabula rasa approach by a sole author to designing and implementing master plans. The exhibition then jumps to

Toyo Ito and Sou Fujimoto, following the earthquake and tsunami in Japan; and Yasmeen Lari, Pakistan’s first female architect, for her extensive humanitarian work, including building over 36,000 homes for those affected by floods and earthquakes in Pakistan since 2010. Whilst all very worthy initiatives, one is acutely aware of the accompanying infrastructural and civicscale planning that has been overlooked in the forceful curation of the schemes. There were a few projects that stood out: NLÉ’s (an Amsterdam based architecture group, meaning ‘at home’ in Yoruba, a West African language) floating school in Lagos; the Office of Metropolitan Architecture’s post-Hurricane Sandy masterplan for Hoboken, New Jersey; and the post tsunami plans for Constitución, a city on Chile’s west coast. These projects begin to deepen the discussion, hinting towards the interrelated shifts in sustainable thinking and multidisciplinary collaboration; key themes that remain under-represented. The plans for Constitución provide an ideal opportunity through which to explore these themes in more depth. Led by this year’s Pritzker prize winner, Alejandro Aravena, his practice,

Mitigation Forest. Aravena thought this was a wise decision. The first option was unrealistic since informal occupation would have been very hard to prevent. The second option was also unfavourable as, in his own words, “the experience of the Japanese tsunami of 2011 showed us that protective walls don’t always work. They can’t withstand the force of nature. A forest, on the other hand, doesn’t try to resist the power of a tsunami. It dissipates the impact instead. In the face of geographical threats, you have to find geographical solutions”. Elemental decided to work with nature, not against it. In doing so, the Mitigation Forest was able to double as a public park, providing well-needed social space in the city. Whereas a wall might

environmental responsibility alongside economic growth. The exhibition’s narrative conveyed a generalised movement from large masterplans to small handcrafted gems, from imposed civic planning to improvised single houses, and the tendency to distort the primary definition of ‘bottom up’ and ‘top down’ approaches. A ‘bottom up approach’ to urban design can occur independently to those implied criteria. It can operate at multiple scales and be both strategic and tactical in nature. Today’s approach is one in which cities are no longer shaped solely by town planners and authorities, but are transformed by the interplay of a multitude of voices. We have moved into a new age of sustainable design in which an evolving relationship with nature is generating new responses to natural disasters. It is an ecological response that incorporates nature as the only truly sustainable and resilient example we have. The architect’s role is changing. It requires a new capacity to let other voices speak, be it the local community, specialists from other disciplines, or nature itself. This is a ‘bottom up’ approach to creation from catastrophe, which has the potential to radically reinvent our cityscapes. Creation from Catastrophe: How Architecture Rebuilds Communities: Closes 24 April, at the Architecture Gallery of the Royal Institute of British Architects. Admission free.

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Arts & Culture

By Fergus Coltsmann

them. They are anxious that it, for the very reason they are put off it, is what makes them want a punk lifestyle: the rejection of the square world embodied in punk offends them as it is a rejection of them and that which gives their lives meaning, an insult; but it attracts them because that rejection is born of bravery and freedom, and a rejection of all the mundane concerns which weigh them down and which they wish they didn’t have. Maybe, just maybe, a ‘what if ’ enters the mind: have the punks seen behind the curtain? Seen there is no wizard and copped that obeying the man is all joke? And thus, in a fit of angry contradiction, the squares play play the

By James Pallas

Submission

influenced him most. Handel & Hendrix in London opened to the public on 10th February 2016. Tickets to the joint house are £10 for adults or individual house tickets cost £7.50 per adult. Last admission is at 5 pm.

Punk

Punk is a lot of things to a lot of people, something that Punk London: 40 Years of Subversive Culture aims to celebrate, with events, gigs, films, talks, and exhibits lined up take place in 2016. The whole thing is a bit of a hilarious paradox: Supporters like the Heritage Lottery fund and the Mayor of London, and partners such as the British Library, Universal Music, and the BFI hardly scream anti-establishment, anti-authoritarian, and anti-mainstream. While the line-up looks undoubtedly informative and interesting to the culturally curious peruser or nostalgic sell out; by its very nature a carefully planned out calendar of events seems necessarily incapable of capturing the anarchic energy of Punk. So this is a character study? Even if it is one masquerading as celebration, the more accurate term might be indulgence. A chance for the squares to bust out a pair of docs, a leather jacket, and some safety pins (no hair dye, still have to turn up to the office on Monday) and josh the punks, rather than the other way around. Certainly the punk lifestyle holds a certain allure over those that reject it, the secret, jealous worry that it is a liberation they will never know, even if it repulses

Sharia by stealth by Michel Houellebecq William Heinemann 2015 250pp Hardback £18.99

he Art-Design-Antiques Chelsea Fair comes back to the Kings Road The old stereotype of a lover of antiques as a fusty obsessive has become so inaccurate that it’s almost a joke these days. The Art-Design-Antiques Chelsea Fair, which will be returning to the haute-environs of Chelsea Old Town Hall on the Kings Road, is definitely an example of this new chic face of antiques, taking place from 17-20 April. “Today’s art and antiques buyer is not only a collector, but an interior designer, home furnisher, and admirer of fine design,” explains organiser Caroline Penman, “Today’s buyers are more knowledgeable and discriminating than ever and to meet this demand the fair has assembled specialists with stock chosen to emphasise design and authenticity, whilst being affordable. In the surroundings of Chelsea’s most popular public venue, the Old Town Hall, we have a varied and fascinating collection of stylish exhibits at prices to suit every pocket”. Among the exhibitors will be Hayloft Mid Century, who specialise in British and Danish furniture from the 1950s, 60s, and 70s, focussing on the work of Danish designers including Vodder, Juhl, Moller, Klein, Hovmand Olsen, and Kofod Larsen, and British mid-century pieces by Archie Shine and Gordon Russell. Art specialists include London dealer Nicholas Bagshawe with British and European Paintings, including PreRaphaelite and 20th century works by Noel Laura Nisbet, E.R.Hughes, Arthur Dixon, John Singer Sargeant, George Spencer Watson and T.C.Dugdale. Art-Design-Antiques Chelsea Fair runs for four days. Public Admission is £5.00.

It’s a curious thing that two musicians as essentially different as George Frideric Handel and Jimi Hendrix lived in the same building on Brook Street in London. Handel’s Zadok the Priest has been played at every English coronation since 1727 whereas Jimi Hendrix is famous for playing electric guitars with his teeth. The twin blue plaques for Handel and Hendrix give a false impression of equality for both the classical legend and the rock god all under one roof. Until recently Hendrix’s flat was being used by the staff of the Handel House museum as an office. After a £2.4 million, twoyear redevelopment of the museum, Hendrix’s home has finally been restored to the public. Using photographs to ‘painstakingly’ recreate Hendrix’s 1960s bedroom, Handel & Hendrix in London has created the first permanent ‘Hendrix home’ in the world. Unfortunately, it is just Hendrix’s

bedroom which has been restored and not the whole flat. Two attendant rooms have instead been turned into rather bare exhibition spaces with lots to read and very little to see. The bedroom itself is colourful and crooked but in truth has more in common with a vintage furniture shop than it does rock and roll history. Most of the items used to create the bedroom are sourced from eBay and have no direct connection to Hendrix. The few authentic touches like Hendrix’s mirror which was recovered from Australia and his guitar which has been loaned by a private owner in America, are not enough to complete the illusion that this is Hendrix’s flat in any meaningful way. To get the most out of your Hendrix pilgrimage, you should explore the Soho establishments which most influenced his London years. Visit 48 Margaret Street, formerly the Speakeasy Club where he, Eric Clapton, The Who and many, many other rock legends used to meet up and play. Alternatively, drop in for a drink at the Bag o’ Nails, or Ronnie Scott’s and enjoy some of the live blues and jazz which

Arts & Culture

The Art-Design- Handel & Antiques Chelsea Hendrix in Fair comes back London By Henry Jones to the Kings Road By Max Feldman

March 2016

punk and undo it by dragging it into the mainstream, making something to be played. Or is this the ultimate punk moment, the ultimate anti moment, by being anti itself? A final fling back to its Dada grandfather (in spirit if not genetics)? And, by pointing out the punchline, have I ruined the joke or made it better? It seems we have two choices to celebrate punk. We can put on ripped jeans, shave our heads, and drink larger from a tinnie in the park, or join in with Punk London. Only one of those options has central heating. For more information, please visit www.punk.london

hen terrorists shot dead 12 innocent people in the Paris offices of Charlie Hebdo, a satirical magazine rather in the manner of Private Eye, just over a year ago, who featured on the cover of the current issue? A poet and novelist called Michel Houellebecq, who’s day job is being an intellectual. Few in this country will have heard of him, unless they happened to have read his last book, Atomised. But then the British have always been wary of intellectuals, those who are considered to be too clever by half. In France they are lauded rather in the manner of Premier League footballers. Rarely do they make such an impact, however, as Houellebecq with this book. The subject matter and the timing were perfect. First it became a national bestseller, then an international one. Members of ISIS and other terror groups, whether Sunni or Shia, tend to give Islam a bad name when exporting their hatred and bloodshed. Yet imagine the impact a moderate mullah may have, someone who sounds eminently reasonable, is media friendly and whose pragmatism defines his politics. Such a man is the fictitious leader, Muhammed Ben Abbes, of the fictitious Muslim Fraternity. “A man we can do business with,” as Mrs Thatcher said of President Gorbachov. So when the real leader of the Front National, Marine Le Pen, threatens to win the French general election in the year 2022, strange

bedfellows enter a Faustian pact: the Socialists and the Islamists. This requires real compromises on both sides, just ask Nick Clegg. What France gets is sharia by stealth. All this is told in a novel, which is highly readable as such, and makes the key message more palatable and more convincing to your normal reader. The protagonist is a middle-aged academic, François, who is tired of life, tired of work and whose love-life is defined by a string of affairs with his students. Their encounters are typically gallic, as perfunctory as they are graphic. His hero is Joris-Karl Huysmans, an obscure nineteenth-century novelist as well as a government bureaucrat, on whom he wrote his dissertation for the University of Paris IV-Sorbonne, also his employer. “I am good for nothing,” wrote Huysmans in En route and François shares the same self-loathing. Indeed his sense of nihilism reminds the reader of another French author still, Albert Camus. Excessive smoking and hard drinking are de rigueur, local anaesthetics for his soul. His parents are dead, their passing dismissed as a matter of small consequence. Restless, he goes on a quest: to Rocamadour to see the Black Virgin, the most famous religious icon of the Middle Ages, and sits there every day for more than a month, before returning to Paris in a state of resignation. Huysmans wrestled with his conscience about converting to Catholicism, a matter of life or death. But our academic, François, is simply resigned to the pragmatic, the inevitable fact that his country has submitted to the rule, and rules, of Islam. He meets Professor Robert Rediger, author of Ten Questions on Islam, a bestseller with three million copies sold. Power was shifting south, from Brussels and Strasbourg to countries skirting the Mediterranean, Libya and Syria, Italy and Greece, where the Muslim Fraternity was also making serious inroads, rejuvenating old ties with the likes of the Muslim Brotherhood, founded, and currently suppressed, in Egypt. To continue teaching François must convert to Islam. It’s not all bad news: there’s polygamy for a start, and no shortage of young brides, of an age considered paedophilia in this country. And the wages have quadrupled thanks to those nice Gulf Arabs and Saudis. Female academics quietly disappear, pensioned off; other women swap distracting skirts and dresses for sensible trousers. What the veil hides is more than compensated for by the lingerie beneath. Houellebecq quotes Ayatollah Khomeini as saying, “If Islam is not political, it is nothing”. If there are two practical lessons to be learned from this book they are: • Don’t say you haven’t been warned. • Never underestimate your opponent.

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Body of Art

Phaidon £39.95 (hardback) 440 pages. 500 colour illustrations ISBN 9780714869667

Body of Art is a massive body of work, not just in terms of being a mighty tome, weighing in at over three kilos, but the scope is as wide as it could possibly be, from the Venus of Willendorf from c. 24,000 years ago to the present day. The book is divided into ten chapters: Beauty; The Absent Body; Religion and Belief; Bodies and Space; Sex and Gender; Emotion Embodied; The Abject Body; Identity. Within these broad parameters it would be difficult not to find a theme into which to place an image, and also one that complements, or challenges, another. Most of the usual suspects are there; Gustave Courbet’s Origin of the World is juxtaposed with Tom Wesselmann’s Great American Nude, No. 62, with her pert nipples and tan-lines; Titian’s Venus of Urbino is ranged with Goya’s The Naked Maya and not, as one might expect, with Giorgione’s Reclining Venus or even Edouard Manet’s Olympia, above which is Yasumasa Morimura’s Portrait (Futago), a rather obvious choice, as it merly parodies the French version. We are asked by the authors to question and re-evaluate our perceptions of Asian cultural identity, whereas, surely, the artist is just having a laugh? As he himself states, “Art is basically entertainment... I am an entertainer and I want to make art that is fun”. There is a photo of the celebrated Chinese artist Ai Weiwei naked amongst four of his assistants entitled One Tiger, Eight Breasts (surely ten, if one counts his?) and is laid out alongside the iconic Eugène Delacroix painting of Liberty Leading the People, an allegorical portrait about the triumph of the tricolour-waving and

bare-breasted Liberty over the tyranny of the corrupt Bourbons. The connection is rather spurious, other than they have got their tits out, although we are told that it is the relationship between the clothed artist and nude model that is being questioned. The book boasts some 400 artists, but there are so many more that could have been featured. Where is Sir Peter Lely with his Nymphs by a Fountain or Van Dyck’s Cupid & Psyche? What about Laura Knight, or Dora Carrington, or Mark Gertler, and Paul Delvaux Les Mains could be an inclusion? Not a squeak out of Lawrence Alma-Tadema or Lord Leighton or Edward Poynter, all of whom were very much proponents of the body in art. Bernini’s Rape of Proserpina is placed next to Nan Goldin’s photograph of herself Nan-One Month after being Battered from her collection of images entitled The Ballad of Sexual Dependency. A few pages earlier we have Artemisia Gentileschi’s graphically shocking and blood-thirsty Judith Slaying Holofernes, which readdresses the balance of male violence, but manages to do it in spades. All three of the editors are women, namely Deborah Aaronson, Diane Fortenberry, and Rebecca Morrill, as is Jennifer Blessing, who wrote the opening essay, so maybe there is a hidden agenda or even a hidden gender about female sexuality? Naturally, Sarah Lucas is included with her childish and overemphatic mattress Au Naturel, and Tracey Emin continues the bedtime theme with My Bed, while Judy Chicago has something to eat first with her enormous Dinner Party. Georgia O’Keefe seemed to be in denial that her pretty floral paintings resemble vaginas. You could have fooled me. Certainly the editors are not duped either and positively gush with a lush description of Grey lines with black, blue and yellow as evoking “a vulva, executed in luscious tones, drawing the viewer in through the full parted lips and fleshy layers to the pink clitoral sliver at the centre”. Don Grant

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Arts & Culture

Arts & Culture REVIEWS

The End Of Longing

Playhouse Theatre Ticket prices: From £15.00 to £125.00

Image © ATG

s one of the most successful sit-coms in history, Friends inspired the kind of obsessive brand loyalty more commonly seen in devotees of suicidal cults or Countryfile viewers. To a certain kind of person, the bubbly sit-com about five young New Yorkers struggling to get by whilst living in improbably spacious centrally located apartments could do no wrong and those kinds of people are ones to be avoided in social situations wherever possible. Whilst this love is primarily reserved for the show itself rather than the actors (see Jennifer Aniston's post-Friends career, or rather don’t) occasionally the right wires will cross and a crushing wave of nostalgia will drive them on mass to see whatever project an ex-Friend is currently working on. Banking on this lemming-like urge seems to be the only possible reasoning behind the existence of The End Of Longing, a dark romantic comedy (all of those words are very debatable) written, directed, and starring Matthew Perry, who played the acerbic Chandler in Friends currently showing at the Playhouse. The Friends connection cannot be ignored considering that Perry has written Jack, his alcoholic lead, as a limp combination of Chandler and elements of Perry’s own well known struggles with addiction. The other line

of connection comes from the play’s sitcom ready premise: Jack, who uses alcohol and deadpan sarcasm to deflect attention from his inner turmoil, and his only friend, the self-described ‘stupid’ yet caring Joseph (whose name and character description come so perilously close to ‘Joey’ it’s actually kind of breathtaking in its audacity), meet two women: one a happy go lucky prostitute, the other a shrill neurotic. Mis-matched and problematic relationships ensue. Hilarity does not. Part of the problem comes from the fact that Perry has given himself the best lines, yet barks them in a strange and almost non-naturalistic monotone, which manages to almost totally blunt the desired effect. It doesn’t help that the other three characters are about as stock as you can get; The Wise Fool, The Whore With A Heart Of Gold, The Neurotic with the ticking biological clock: these are closer to Tarot cards than people. The thespians involved do their best to overcome the limits of their characterisation, with Lloyd Owen’s Joseph having the most success imbuing his Hollywood idiocy with a kind of zen integrity but there’s only so much the cast can legitimately accomplish. The End of Longing’s depiction of the battle of the sexes seems strangely regressive and its portrayal of romance conquering all can feel naive and not in a particular endearing way. The strongest moment of the piece where Perry delivers a striking monologue at an AA meeting where suddenly the limitations of the play fall away and the drive and reason behind The End of Longing’s existence become (all too fleetingly) apparent. It’s clear that Perry has something to say about his experiences with substance abuse (apparently there are entire seasons of Friends he has no memory of ) it’s just a shame that he chose to say it through this play. All but the most dedicated Chandler obsessives should stay as far away as possible; at this point this isn’t a review, it’s a warning. MF

Unexpected Eisenstein

GRAD: Gallery for Russian Arts and Design 3-4A Little Portland St, London W1W 7JB Until April 30th

Whilst today filmmaking notoriety might be restrained to the brain trust who created the Human Centipede franchise (or to individuals like Roman Polanski or Woody Allen for those who prefer their scandal more...personal), in the early 20th century the western world had painted the Russian director Sergei Eisenstein as one of the most legitimately dangerous filmmakers in the world and all he’d done was make a film about a boat. In 1925 Eisenstein directed the silent film Battleship Potemkin, a film that was both Soviet propaganda and one of the first masterpieces of cinema (so much so that even Goebbels couldn’t help raving about it) depicting a shipbound mutiny that inspires a greater revolution against the forces of Imperial Russia. The film was banned in Britain until 1954 (and remained X-rated until 1978) out of the fear it would foment revolution. As a result of his status as a filmmaker often more heard about then viewed, it’s easy for the uninitiated to have a misguided image of Eisenstein as a fiery-eyed humourless genius whose revolutionary fervour was echoed in his life as much as his art. Unexpected Eisenstein, an exhibition which looks beyond Eisenstein’s cinematic achievements, thoroughly overturns these expectations, revealing the once notorious director to be an endearingly enthusiastic artist/tourist/ correspondent and a significantly more than amateur draughtsman. Entertainingly, considering the terror he was held in by the British Establishment, he is also revealed as a genuine anglophile with an obsession with Sherlock Holmes that stretches beyond mere appreciation into territory that can only be described as positively

during his whirlwind six week tour of England to his berserk sketches for the never completed Ivan The Terrible Part 3, which feature a giraffe necked Elizabeth 1st with a serpentine grin who wouldn’t have looked out of place in a graphic novel adaptation of Alice In Wonderland. Taking us even further behind the curtain of the man’s life is a series of sketches of a naked and languorous Arthur Rimbaud, modesty (barely) covered with a bedsheet. Whilst homosexuality was decriminalised under Lenin and openly gay individuals were allowed to serve in government, by 1933, however, Stalin had recriminalised it with a punishment of five years hard labour. Eisenstein took advantage of this temporary window of sexual freedom during his English travels in 1926 by making a pilgrimage to Rimbaud and (fellow poet and lover) Paul Verlaine’s shared house on Camden’s Royal College Street, which presumably inspired the sketches. Ideal for either neophytes or devotees GRAD’s immersive exhibition gets right to the heart of a man who has in recent times seemed overshadowed by his own work. Eisenstein might have helped to define cinema, but Unexpected Eisenstein succeeds in redefining the man. MF

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Director: S. Craig Zahler Running Time: 142 minutes

Trumbo

Director: Jay Roach Running Time: 124 minutes

f there’s one thing that Hollywood loves celebrating, it’s Hollywood. The allure of ‘classic Hollywood’ has been cinematic catnip going back as far as the classic Hollywood era itself; but the exact setting of Trumbo skews the usual self-congratulatory atmosphere to what initially seems to be a less masturbatory angle. Said angle is that Trumbo deals with the Hollywood blacklist enacted by the House of Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), who hunted down any actor or director with any communist sympathies and had them either publically inform on their friends and co-workers or face what amounted to a lifetime in the cinematic wilderness with no hope for employment that side of the twentyfirst century. It was McCarthyism at its most rabid and unforgiving and was fully supported by the Hollywood establishment and as such is not exactly the kind of story that makes the land of dreams look particularly good. The eponymous Dalton Trumbo was one of the highest paid screenwriters of his day until his membership of the American Communist Party and unwillingness to give up fellow travellers in the industry led him to be blacklisted. Refusing to let a little thing like being barred for life from his chosen profession get in the way of his passion, the ‘swimming pool socialist’ continued writing , gifting his finished scripts to screenwriter friends who had managed to avoid the HUAC purges and published them in their names (whilst providing Trumbo with a healthy kickback). Famed films ranging from It Happened One Night to

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Bone Tomahawk

nerdy. The exhibition covers huge swathes of the man’s life from his middle-class upbringing in Riga, where he first harboured dreams of becoming an artist (the selection of his youthful line drawings are a particular highlight of the exhibition, with the centrepiece of a winding queue so detailed that a magnifying glass is required to pick out each of tiny figures charming individual actions); through to brilliantly creative sketches for various unrealised projects; from an almost cubist approach to costumes for Macbeth or joyfully strange sketches for a film where his beloved Sherlock Holmes would meet contemporary dime-novel detective favourite Nick Carter (unintentionally predicting Freddy Vs. Jason by over fifty years). The drawings (all of which are rarely seen and many of which have never been exhibited, even in Eisenstein’s native Russia) show an artist with an exuberant flair and a sense of humour and fun that can be obscured by more famous (and certainly more dialectical) cinematic work. Whilst there is plenty of crossover with his film work, with excited letters from communist film buffs requesting his presence at their society meetings Images © Russian State Archives of Literature and Art

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March 2016

Spartacus sprung from his disguised pen, until finally Hollywood was forced to acknowledge the open secret and lift the blacklist. Whilst this story should read as the triumph of an individual over an oppressive system, instead something unpalatably self-congratulatory creeps into Trumbo. Hollywood manages to pat itself on the back over the triumph of one of its own over the system, wringing their hands about how unpleasant McCarthyism was without truly accepting the zealousness with which the Hollywood machine willingly purged its own ranks. This would be significantly more of an issue if Trumbo hadn’t found its perfect leading man in Breaking Bad’s Bryan Cranston, who inhabits the screenwriter so completely it’s almost slightly unnerving. Hunched over, as if perpetually behind a typewriter and never without his cigarette holder, the man oozes debonair verve as he effectively takes Capitalism on at its own game. The film does acknowledge that the cinematic version of Trumbo has more snappy dialogue than the real one. One of his friends, exhausted by his unwavering focus, wearily asks him to “stop talking as if everything you say is going to be chiselled into stone”. The supporting cast are mainly overwhelmeds by the lead, but Helen Mirren’s acid gossip columnist cum gleeful informer Hedda Hopper holds her own and gives some back as a spiky wit who could tear out your life from underneath you with a soft snarl in the right ear. Whilst Trumbo is never as fun as it feels that it should be, it’s a sturdy and amusing tribute to a man who wasn’t afraid to take chances and who would never be silent in regards to his beliefs. Considering the homogenised mess that mainstream blockbusters have been condemned to by modern Hollywood’s desperate search for the lowest common denominator, it’s a lesson they could well learn from. MF

Kurt Russell seems to be enjoying something of a well-deserved renaissance in 2016, with the caveat that said renaissance seems to be happening entirely within the context of brutal westerns where he has an obscenely luxurious moustache. Bone Tomahawk, a film with a name that sounds like a Slayer deep-cut, is no exception, with the brutality and the moustache being delivered with equal aplomb. Considering that the first two months of 2016 has also seen cinemas play host to The Revenant and The Hateful Eight (which also featured the vaunted Russell plus walrus moustache combo), two of the darkest and blackly unforgiving westerns of recent memory it seems that the Western itself is going through something of a process of savage redefinition this year. Bone Tomahawk is the first film from novelist-turned-director S. Craig Zahler, though its bizarre, almost existentialist atmosphere makes it feel more like a late career oddity than a bold new voice. The plot is theoretically predictable but in practice just so weird that the viewer’s expectations are confounded at every turn. A degenerate tribe of cave dwelling Native Americans (literally referred to as ‘The Troglodytes’) is terrorizing the unfortunately named frontier town Bright Hope. Most of the women and children have fled, leaving the men to prop up the bar at a local saloon called the Learned Goat, where they wax philosophical over whiskey whilst attempting to ignore the menace brooding in the hills. This fragile peace is shattered when the Troglodytes seize some of the local settlers, including Samantha O’Dwyer, woman doctor, (Lili Simmons); and Sheriff Franklin Hunt (Kurt Russell in sheriff regalia is a deeply

pleasing sight) organizes a small posse and rides off in hot pursuit with the yawning maw of the Troglodytes cave awaiting them. So far so horror film, but curiously Bone Tomahawk is far harder to pin down than a plot synopsis might suggest. Admittedly once it gets to its Grand Guignol-esque third act all bets are off, but for most of the film the sniping between its struggling characters instead offers a decidedly comic spin. Indeed the first two-thirds seems far more heavily indebted to John Ford’s The Searchers than Cannibal Holocaust. There is a (laudable) trend in recent Westerns which feature antagonistic tribal Native Americans to avoid the blatant demonization which was their lot in classic-era cinema; however Tomahawk inverts that trend by almost literally demonising the Troglodytes, who seem to intentionally have far more in common with the mutants from The Hills Have Eyes than Dances With Wolves’ ‘noble savages’. Clearly aware that criticism was going to be levelled, Tomahawk somewhat overcompensates by not only playing its white characters as the most unrealistically enlightened settlers this side of the Rio Grande but also by having the aforementioned cannibal tribe be disowned by a (nonsubterranean) Native American character who disgustedly decries them as “a spoiled bloodline of inbred animals who’d rape and eat their own mothers” just to make sure there’s absolutely no ambiguity there. Whilst gorehounds will find plenty to enjoy in the last fevered twenty minutes, the real joy of the film comes from the rambling dialogue and unexpected characterisation (Veteran Richard Jenkins is particularly good as the gnomic deputy sheriff ). Whilst certainly a bit overlong at two hours and twelve minutes Bone Tomahawk has its own strange pleasures and has the fortune to be an unusual Western at a time when the parameters of the genre are in flux. Get in on the ground floor. MF

March 20162011 April/May

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Health & Beauty

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128 clinical and scientific studies. Aesthetically, Endermologie is a nonsurgical, non-invasive treatment used as a toning therapy for cellulite and stubborn fatty areas as well as improving lymph drainage. Treatments are performed by trained therapists with a hand-held massaging head that intermittently rolls over and sucks the affected areas and kneads subjacent soft tissue. This combination of gentle suction and deep reaching massage is applied to the body in a manner that isn’t replicated by any other treatment. It works by physically stretching and loosening the interconnected web of fibrous tissue under the skin that holds the connective tissue together. By softening the bonds between these strands and by stimulating circulation, the process eradicates any unsightly dimples and fatty deposits. Through generating a massive surge of oxygen and blood to affected areas, the treatment mimics the behaviour of your body's healthy tissue, thus increasing the lymphatic drainage of stagnant, toxic waste within your system. Furthermore, extensive medical research has conclusively revealed that in addition to arousing deep circulatory activity, Endermologie increases the level of collagen, the super protein that keeps the skin looking youthful. It is the combined action of these several key factors that ultimately results in a

significantly tighter, smoothly contoured body. The body treatment itself takes no longer than 45 minutes and involves changing into a cotton bodystocking that allows the Endermologie rollers to run smoothly without you having to endure sticky creams or gels. Initially, the therapist discusses and establishes your problem areas before concentrating on them during the procedure. Importantly, there is no discomfort and clients often describe the experience as relaxing, much like a deep body massage. Following the session, it’s important to drink lots of water, flushing out the toxins in your body. Also, you should stay away from alcohol and rich foods for the rest of the day to avoid replenishing the toxins! The results are apparent after the very first session. Treated areas are less compact, less voluminous, and decongested. Your skin is smoother and softer. After six sessions the results are intensified: your orange-peel skin is smoother and your figure is being reshaped and toned! Depending on the extent of your problem areas, the therapist will recommend how many treatments are necessary for the results you want. The cost of a session is from £50 to £75 and usually a little less for a course. There are a number of clinics and trained health and beauty professionals in London equipped with the latest generation of Endermologie (LPG) machines. The newest models have an attachment that focuses on the face and neck. This procedure, known as the Endomolift, produces fast and surprising results: the face is re-shaped, refined, fuller, firmer, and the skin quality is greatly improved even after one session, but quite spectacular over a number of treatments. More about Endermologie can be found at : www.lpgendermologie.co.uk

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Health & Beauty

March 2016

Kensington, Chelsea & Westminster Today

online: www.KCWToday.co.uk

Looking to quit smoking or improve your health this year?

Your local private hospital can help every step of the way

ith 2016 well under way, there’s no better time to assess your health and wellbeing. Whether you want to lose weight, address niggling aches and pains, or get a full health MOT, Kensington’s Bupa Cromwell Hospital can help you achieve your health goals. Philippa Fieldhouse, General Manager at Bupa Cromwell Hospital, comments: “For anyone wanting to focus on their health this year, a health assessment can be a great place to start. These give a detailed picture of your physical health, a practical action plan, the opportunity to discuss any concerns you may have with a doctor, and prompt referral, if needed, to our consultant specialists. ”Your assessment begins with a consultation with one of our hospitalbased private GPs, who would also

supervise your plan. Diagnostic tests are carried out by nurses and specialist clinical staff using the latest equipment. The results are provided at your follow up consultation, which would usually be within seven days.” Bupa Cromwell Hospital offers a wide range of health assessments to suit every budget, from general health MOTs

to specific diagnostic tests for diseases such as lung, bowel, or breast cancer. The hospital also offers health screening packages that are designed specially for women at its Women’s Health Centre. “Whatever your needs” Philippa continues, “there has never been a better time to be proactive in improving your health. We are here to help, and

our services are available to everyone, whether using private medical insurance or self-funding.” Many people plan to quit smoking as a new year’s resolution, and if you've already 'given up on giving up' the Cromwell can help, with a walk-in Smoking Cessation Clinic for anyone looking to quit. A recent patient commented; “I had wanted to quit smoking for years and the nurses at Bupa Cromwell Hospital made it so easy. We agreed on a time goal and worked together to make sure I didn't fall back into old habits. I haven't smoked since and feel so much healthier.” The hospital also has a lung cancer screening programme for long-term heavy smokers. A quarter of heavy smokers above the age of 55 have an abnormality that can be detected on CT scan, and early detection of lung cancer saves lives. Bupa Cromwell Hospital is centrally located in the heart of Kensington and Chelsea, just a short walk from High Street Kensington, Gloucester Road or Earl’s Court. Call 020 7460 2000 or email info@cromwellhospital.com to discuss your health goals. www.bupacromwellhospital.com Health screens will only include CT or other diagnostic scans where there is a clinical need for these.

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Health & Beauty

HELP

Mental Health Matters By Fergus Coltsmann

Anxiety UK Charity providing support if you've been diagnosed with an anxiety condition. Phone: 08444 775 774 (Mon-Fri, 9.30am-5.30pm) www.anxietyuk.org.uk

“F

or far too long, people of all ages with mental health problems have been stigmatised and marginalised… too many people have received no help at all, leading to hundreds of thousands of lives put on hold or ruined, and thousands of tragic and unnecessary deaths. But in recent years, the picture has started to change. Public attitudes towards mental health are improving, and there is a growing commitment among communities, workplaces, schools, and within government to change the way we think about it.” Paul Farmer and Jacqui Dyer, Chair and Vice Chair of the Mental Health Taskforce, foreword to The Five Year Forward View for Mental Health report. Unlike physical illness or injury, mental illness is, by its nature, far less visible in society. It is far too easy to only see the extreme cases of mental illness as we go about our lives, and assume that all those who suffer from mental health issues are of that type. However, looking at the numbers, it becomes clear that this is not the case, and one starts to appreciate the scope of mental illness.

Tortured Artists, Tortured Stereotypes By Fergus Coltsmann

“I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity” Edgar Allen Poe It’s a familiar line, ‘suffer for your art’, or ‘genius and madness are two sides of the same coin’, both used to romanticise plight and insult the happy uncreative. Numerous studies can be wheeled out to support or undermine the position, but journalists all too often produce overly simple copy without the understanding for these studies to be taken seriously outside of the medical profession. It almost doesn’t matter if it’s true. If it were the case that misery equals creativity, or if the paradox of self destruction leading to success were true; the glorification of that fact isn’t going to do anyone any good. Some will try to emulate it as part of their edgy, undergrad Fine Art student persona, only serving to further confuse the social narrative around mental health;

Virginia Woolf

Health & Beauty

Before Spring has sprung, get expert advice on how to treat your allergies

Bipolar UK Charity helping people living with manic depression or bipolar disorder. www.bipolaruk.org.uk

One in five mothers suffers from depression, anxiety, or psychosis during pregnancy or in the first year after giving birth. Suicide is the second highest cause of maternal deaths after cardiovascular disease. Suicide is on the rise after years of decline, peaking in 2014 when 4,882 people took their own lives. Suicide is the leading cause of death amongst men aged 15 to 49. Men are accounted for four out of five suicides in 2013 and are three times as likely to commit suicide as women. One in five older people living in the community, and double that for those living in care homes, suffer from depression. and others will pick up on that, and think that whatever issues they’re going through are par for the course. Neither is helpful, and each only feeds the cycle. The brutal truth is that we find it easier to wrap suffering of this sort up in something that gives it meaning. Consider this (very incomplete) list: Plath killed herself, as did Woolf, and Rothko too along with Hemingway, who was later emulated by Cobain. Winehouse and Poe drank too much, as did Pollock. Nietzsche suffered a mental breakdown after seeing a horse flogged. And we haven’t even come round to the most famed example, Van Gogh. Without suggesting that it was ‘all for their art and genius’, is it just a list of incomprehensible anguish? From a critical point of view, it’s tempting to search for the influence of any mental health issues in these creatives life and works, and whilst we shouldn’t necessarily deny it, that was how we got into this whole mess: psychologically untrained hacks making massive leaps. Turning ‘this is the way it is in this case’ into ‘this is the way it is’. When a mental illness does influence a person to produce something wonderful, that of course should be celebrated, that they could take something so debilitating and make something out of it. What we should avoid is to only see the good, and blind ourselves to the bad, and perpetuate a damaging stereotype.

March 2016

A half of all mental health problems are established by the age of 14, and three quarters by the ages of twenty four. One in ten children aged five to sixteen has at least one diagnosable problem. Children from low income families are three times more likely to suffer from a mental illness than their richer peers. The homeless are twice as likely to suffer from a mental health problem, and fifteen times as likely to be affected by psychosis. One in four people experience mental health problems each year, and three quarters of them receive no help. Following the publication of the afore quoted report, the Government and NHS England have committed to overhauling the mental health services by spending an additional £1 billion a year by 2020 on support and treatment for those with mental health issues. Currently £9.2 billion a year is spent on mental health services, less than ten percent of the NHS’s budget. Ministers and NHS England believe that the expansion of services will allow an additional one million people access to them, including an additional 600,000 people gaining access to talking therapies for conditions such as depression, anxiety, and stress. Mental health teams will be placed into all Accident and Emergency units as opposed to the minority they are currently in, and greater support will be available to recent mothers. Community crisis care teams will be rolled out across the country, as currently they are active in less than half the nation. Speaking to the Radio 4’s The Today Programme, Paul Farmer, who chaired the task force and is the chief sexecutive of Mind, said that the plan was “feasible and affordable”, would help combat the “patchy” availability of services, and added “We are saying to the NHS, to government, to industry, to local leaders and to the public that mental health must be a priority for everyone in England”. If you or a loved one has been affected by any of the issues discussed on this page, the following helplines and websites can offer expert advice:

CALM CALM is the Campaign Against Living Miserably, for men aged 15-35. www.thecalmzone.net Depression Alliance Charity for sufferers of depression. www.depressionalliance.org Mental Health Foundation Provides information and support for anyone with mental health problems or learning disabilities. www.mentalhealth.org.uk Mind Promotes the views and needs of people with mental health problems. Phone: 0300 123 3393 (Mon-Fri, 9am-6pm) www.mind.org.uk OCD Action Support for people with obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). Phone: 0845 390 6232 (Mon-Fri, 9.30am-5pm) www.ocdaction.org.uk No Panic Voluntary charity offering support for sufferers of panic attacks and OCD. Phone: 0844 967 4848 (daily, 10am-10pm) www.nopanic.org.uk PAPYRUS Young suicide prevention society. Phone: HOPElineUK 0800 068 4141 (Mon-Fri,10am-5pm & 7-10pm. Weekends 2-5pm) www.papyrus-uk.org Rethink Mental Illness Support and advice for people living with mental illness. Phone: 0300 5000 927 (Mon-Fri, 10am-2pm) www.rethink.org Samaritans Confidential support for people experiencing feelings of distress or despair. Phone: 116 123 (free 24-hour helpline) www.samaritans.org.uk YoungMinds Information on child and adolescent mental health. Services for parents and professionals. Phone: Parents' helpline 0808 802 5544 (Mon-Fri, 9.30am-4pm) www.youngminds.org.uk

pring is on its way and whilst many will enjoy the lengthening days and milder temperatures, some people dread the onset of their allergies, the most common of which are hay fever and food-related. At Chelsea Allergy Clinic, we can help alleviate your sneezing, runny nose, sore throat and itchy eyes by assessing your symptoms, analysing the causes of your allergy and prescribing the best course of treatment.

What is an allergy?

Allergy is an abnormal reaction to naturally occurring substances called allergens. If an allergic person is exposed

Kensington, Chelsea & Westminster Today

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to these allergens, the body’s immune system reacts to them. A food allergy causes your immune system to react to a particular food, often leading to an inflammation of the body’s tissues, which can be life-threatening in some cases. People with other atopic diseases like eczema and asthma are genetically predisposed to food allergies.

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Allergic symptoms

Some of the most common allergic symptoms are caused by airborne allergens, such as pollens, moulds, dust mites and pets. Rhinitis is inflammation of the nose, which is recognised by symptoms such as sneezing, a blocked or runny nose, itching and ‘post-nasal’ drip. Hay fever is the most common of all the allergic diseases – about 15% of the population in industrialised countries suffer from this condition. Symptoms usually appear in childhood and then lessen by the age of 30 – 40. Food allergies are varied and symptoms can appear either immediately after eating the wrong food, or be delayed, making identification of the cause more challenging.

Hay fever symptoms

Hay fever sufferers are more vulnerable to other allergic respiratory problems like asthma, and to sleeping difficulties like chronic fatigue (as a result of blocked nasal passages and snoring).

Symptoms include:

• Itchy, watery eyes • Frequent sneezing, a blocked or runny nose • Itching on the roof of the mouth • Coughing • Wheezing.

Treatments include:

1 Antihistamine sprays to relieve a blocked nose 3 Nasal steroids to reduce inflammation 4 Immunotherapy to develop tolerance and prevent sensitisation upon exposure 5 Food avoidance to treat a food allergy.

Help is at hand for your allergies

As a resident, you’re very welcome at Chelsea Allergy Clinic in The Lister Hospital, where we offer a comprehensive, multi-disciplinary approach to your allergies. Your treatment will involve a detailed initial

Teenage Acne Clinic in Chelsea Acne is a skin problem that affects a lot of teenagers. It is caused by inflammation of hair follicles and oil glands due to hormonal changes and possibly improper skin cleansing and dietary triggers. Acne affects an estimated 85% of teens, usually starting at the age of 11 for girls and a few years later for boys. Acne can cause severe psychological distress and problems with social functioning. Teenagers with acne on the face or hands can experience decreased sense of body image, lower self-esteem, avoid situations where skin is exposed, feel anxious about people judging them, withdraw from social interactions and have longer term sexual and relationship issues. Effective acne treatment involves deep cleansing, exfoliating, dietary change and using effective medications and addressing the psychological aspects of acne. Dr. Oksana Nesterenko is the Medical Director of Advance Skincare Aesthetic and Well-being Clinics @ Stamford Bridge. She is a G.P. working for the National Health Service and privately with a special interest in Dermatology. In her practice, she has

assessment in the form of a consultation and allergy tests, including skin prick tests. You’ll be guided through your treatment regime, which might include nasal sprays, antihistamine medication and/or prescribed custom-made allergen specific immunotherapy. We understand the impact that any allergy can have on your quality of life and are keen to help you to establish a cause and subsequently improve your condition in the most effective way possible.

Make an appointment to see an Allergy Consultant today; before Spring arrives! t: 020 7730 8298 e: lister.appointments@ hcahealthcare.co.uk

successfully prescribed internal and external medication along with advising skin care solutions to control and in some cases, clear acne and prevent scarring. As an encouragement to help suffering teenagers, the clinic is offering a Free Consultation for their acne problems every Saturday morning during the months of March and April. If you want to take advantage of this special offer, phone 0333 200 7216 or 0787 230 3528 (clinic mobile) to make an appointment or email, info@ advanceskincare.co.uk

March 20162011 April/May

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competitors and grabbing all the headlines, which irritated not only the crews, but the general public, as well. They managed to make it as far as St Flour, in the Auvergne. The rally crews all flew out to Warsaw on a BEA Viscount and, to add to the frisson, were ‘buzzed’ by three MIG fighters in the Polish corridor. When they arrived at the airport there was absolutely no snow, something that had not happened in the previous 40 years in January. That same evening, the Brits were received at the British Embassy and then entertained at a ball given by the Polish Automobile Club. Dad had another mild drama when the East Germans

From the Back Seat - Part 30 By Don Grant

n 1961 dad drove from Warsaw to Monaco in the Monte Carlo Rally in a works Sunbeam Rapier he was co-driving with Mike Parkes, the Ferrari wunderkind, or prodigio, as they say in Italian. In those days, there were numerous starting places from all over Europe, including Athens, Stockholm, Monte Carlo itself, Lisbon, Frankfurt and Glasgow. They all set off on their various routes and drove to a meeting point in Charbonnières, in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region in eastern France, near Lyons, and then took part in a 440-mile drive to Monte Carlo which was split into five stages, in which were five special tests on closed roads, which were effectively flat-out blinds. It was the third time a starting point had been inside the Eastern Bloc, and indeed it was the first time dad had been behind the Iron Curtain. The Berlin Wall was started in August of that year, known as the Antifaschistischer Schutzwall by GDR authorities. He attended many briefings with the Rootes Group team about what one could and could not do in Poland, the latter being a much longer list. Apart from taking his own bath plugs, in varying sizes, soap and shampoo, the only other vital pieces of equipment were a couple of bottles of whisky, one for the purposes of drinking and the other for the purpose of bribery, should the occasion arose. There was palpable excitement in the Grant household as more maps, pace-notes, entry papers, carnets and visa forms were laid out on the dining room table. Mike would drop by during the weeks leading up to the Rally, and

he came across as being a good-looking, frightfully polite, self-effacing English gent, with Vyella shirts and floppy hair. In those days, the Rally was regarded as a big sporting event, and there would be reports along the route broadcast on the BBC Light Programme into the night, with updates on the progress of (mainly) British entrants. We would sit around the stove in the kitchen in our pyjamas, dressing gowns and slippers, listening to the Bsakelite wireless. As a bit of a gimmick, the BBC had entered a London taxi, to be driven by the racing driver Tony Brooks, navigated by Willy Cave and partnered by their Grandstand and Sportsview presenter and broadcaster Peter Dimmock. Peter would give the listeners further reports along the route with Robin Richards, Raymond Baxter, also starting from Warsaw in another works Rapier with Peter Proctor, Eric Tobitt from Glasgow and dad’s old mate Tommy Wisdom from Paris. The taxi stunt caused a great deal of controversy, as it reduced a world-class event to a farce, holding up ‘proper’

returned his passport, complaining that it had not enough blank space for a visa, but the British Embassy re-issued it at record speed, so all was well to travel. The following morning, they set off in brilliant, but freezing, sunshine from the Grand Hotel, to the skirl of the pipes, played by Donald McLeod from the Rootes équipe, much to the amusement of the large crowds gathered to see them off opposite the giant Palace of Culture and Science. On a crackly line from somewhere in Germany, we heard that dad, in number 117, had gone through without a hitch. They joined up with the cars who started in Stockholm and then took the same route as they travelled south from Hanover, and then to Frankfurt, Nürburgring, Liège, Gerardmer, Dole, Chalons-sur-Saône, Saint-Claude and Charbonnières, where the fun started. We plotted dad’s progress on a map in the kitchen as we avidly listened to the reports coming in from all over Europe. His photographer, Phil, had driven out to Warsaw in a Singer station wagon

with a couple of cronies, and, as soon as they left Poland, they made a bee-line for the Alpes Maritimes behind Monaco, where they would lie in wait for the cars to come sliding past. Still number 117 was on schedule, without any time penalties, and the next excitement would be the special stages, taking them down to the Principality. These comprised a 30-kilometre test over the snow-covered Col de Cucheron, a 33-kilometre test over another pass, and a further three tests in the last stage, including the long haul over the infamous 1600 metre Col de Turini, which has caught many competitors out. Both Sunbeams had Dunlop tungsten-steel spiked Duraband tyres, which were amazing on ice, but slowed the car up on tarmac, making an appalling din, and had the downside of throwing spikes through the windscreens of following cars. Dad and Mike arrived in Monaco penalised, and were in eighth position overall and in the list of 120 qualifiers to the ‘Round the Houses’ timed test around the GP circuit. After a quick half, or two, in the Monte Carlo Rally British Competitors’ Coach, they set off to the Metropole Hotel for a hot bath, where Dad had no need for his travelling bath-plugs, and lunch. The following day produced some pretty fast driving from Peter Harper, Paddy Hopkirk and Gunnar Anderson, with the former in his Sunbeam clocked at 2 mins. 15.1 secs. Then it was Mike’s turn, and on his second lap, he was timed at 2 mins. 14.4 secs, the fastest time of the day. Then disaster struck. Flying into Ste Devote, a front wheel sheared at the hub and the car smacked into the Armco barrier on the outside and then careered across the road and into the wall on the inside. Mike was unhurt, but it scuppered their chances of making it into the top ten. They were eventually classified in 108th position. A trophy was awarded for the fastest lap by the Ville de Monaco, but the organisers declined to award it to Parkes, as he did not complete the test. They could never have won the Rally, anyway, as the French had come up with the ‘R’ Factor, a formula that favoured small-capacity, four-strokes with fairly poor power-to-weight ratios, to the disadvantage of medium to high-performance cars, so it came as no surprise that the first three places went to Panhards, which are French cars, naturellement. That was nothing to the furore surrounding the 1966 Rally, when the first four cars to cross the finishing line, namely Timo Makinen in a Mini-Cooper, Roger Clark in a LotusCortina, and two other Minis driven by Rauno Aaltonen and Paddy Hopkirk, were disqualified, along with six other British cars, for alleged infringements of complex regulations about the way their headlights dipped. The official winner was announced as Pauli Toivonen, a Finn who lived in Paris, driving a Citroën, which is a French car. Quelle surprise.…

Photos (c) GPP Archives. Warsaw 1961. L to R. Mike Parkes, Gregor Grant, Peter Wilson, Donald McLeod, Peter Hasrper, Peter Procter

Motoring

March 2016

Kensington, Chelsea & Westminster Today

Motoring

online: www.KCWToday.co.uk

London Classic Car Show,

What’s in a logo?

Excel E16 By David Hughes

ith over 33,000 visitors, this event is rapidly becoming a major player. The mix is the new norm for shows trying to capture the glitz of yesteryear, moving away from the image of affable tinkerer who is as happy to root amongst dusty old pamphlets as he (or occasionally she) is to admire a flawless paintjob. The second hall catered to this to a degree, but the main event was for buyers of investment quality cars, and those of us with our noses pressed firmly through the bubble of reality admiring £2.3 million Ferraris and the like. It’s become a win-win situation inviting top level dealers to these events: the organisers get a stunning array of cars, and the dealers get a terrific bit of market exposure, but that game you play starting with “If I won the lottery…” that used to start at a million or two now needs to begin a decimal place to the right. For a start you’d need a decent house and grounds to put in your quadruple garage and workshop, because, let’s face it the Maserati you had your eye on will not appreciate being the daily driver, the Lotus is probably too small to get the shopping in, and the Ferrari… well, that’s probably away getting something done by a man in a crisp white coat who charges £150 per hour. So, the Audi estate gets to keep its day job, and you get to wonder if your last mill or two will indeed last. I came to the conclusion that it’s highly likely a second visit to Camelot HQ to pick up one of those 4 ft long cheques would be needed sooner rather than later, though there is an alternative way. For those not playing at the top table, there are some very tasty replicas out there. If you stood an original GT40 alongside one of the later copycats you would be able to tell, but how often does that happen? Ditto the type 57 Bugatti or the various AC Cobras on show at the Total Headturners stand. For around £45K you can have a supercar, though it may not have the pub bragging rights of the real thing. If a modest inheritance ever comes my way before I become too old and decrepit, there will always be a space on the driveway for something fast and fabulous looking no matter how ludicrously impractical.

By David Hughes

Ever since the first craftsman to want his work to be known and authenticated as an original scrawled his name, improvements have been sought. Those with a more artistic bent saw the possibilities, and the logo was born. Like national flags, the motorcycle logo has become a source of pride, and for some, an identity too. Mods and Rockers had their styles and brands,

Mods dressed to the nines in sharp suits needed to keep themselves as immaculate as possible, so chose Italian Vespa and Lambretta scooters with their protective leg shields and running boards. Rockers revelled in the noise and speed, and sheer mechanical poise that the biggest and best that Britain could produce at the time : think Norton, BSA and Triumph. But let's not forget those lesser known marques : the soaring eagle of Moto Guzzi has endured through several generations, MV Augusta’s racing flash earned 37 world championships, and Velocettes classic 30s script always marked it out as a hand built gentleman’s express full of innovative engineering. One of the joys of viewing (or better yet owning) one of these bikes is the heritage revealed in these stylised and evocative tank badges.

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Sporting Calendar

Rugby Six Nations becomes Two by Derek Wyatt

Touch, Pause, Engage Eddie Jones takes over By Fahad Redha

“Arrogance is only bad when you lose” says Eddie Jones. “If you are winning and you are arrogant, then it is self-belief. Eddie Jones’ career as a player was short lived, but the same can’t be said for his coaching. Beginning with Australian club Randwick in 1994, he has now signed on to coach England’s national rugby team. Judging by his record, this could be a good thing. In 2001 he coached Australia to win against the British & Irish Lions, leading him to become head coach for the Wallabies, taking them to the Australian World Cup Final in 2003. His contract would last until 2005 following a loss to Wales. After this, Jones worked for various clubs until 2007 when, after turning down an offer from Fiji, he was appointed by Springbok coach Jake White to be the technical advisor of the South African team at the 2007 World Cup in France. This attracted criticism for helping Australia’s rivals. South Africa went on to win the World Cup

poor Ireland, in a desperate game, lost 10-9 to France. For 39 minutes of the first half England were duffed up by the Italians and could have gone in at halftime behind but for a wayward penalty. I was at the Olympic Stadium at

Rome and felt Italy could beat anyone. They reminded so much of the resurgent Argentinians in the World Cup. However, a little bit of luck, and some judicious substitutions by new coach Eddie Jones, suddenly in a 15 minute

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burst England were away and won handsomely 40-9. This seemed a little unfair on Italy but I doubt the England supporters minded. Back in Cardiff, Scotland were giving Wales a run for their money. But here's the rub, everyone knows they are the least fit team in the Six Nations and have a tendency to blow up after sixty minutes. And so it proved and Wales with another wretchedly poor refereeing decision just edged it. As I have suggested in the past, captains should be allowed to call for a review by the Television Match Official (TMO) (as in cricket and tennis) once in each half. So after Round Two, a very poor French side find themselves with two wins out of two (both at home) whilst an improving English XV also have won two from two (both away). The Welsh look the best side and they may yet win the tournament on points difference. To do this they need to beat England at Twickenham. Round Three beckon as KCW Today goes to press, so treat the following as speculative. England ought to beat Ireland, France will struggle against Wales, and Italy should put Scotland to the sword. This would mean England could win the Championship, the Grand Slam, and the Triple Crown. Pinch me: this cannot be so! Looks to me as if the last game in Paris (again) could be the clincher.

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London Home Football

March 2 Arsenal v Swansea City, 19:45 March 5 Chelsea v Stoke, 15:00 March Fulham v Burnley, 19:45 March 8 QPR v Derby, 19:45 March 9 Chelsea v PSG, 19:45 March 12 Arsenal v West Bromwich Albion, 17.30 March 12 Fulham v Bristol City, 15:00 March 12 QPR v Brentford, 15:00 March 19 Chelsea v West Ham, 15:00

Rugby Six Nations and Jones was praised for his role in their success. Jones who had been assisting Japan’s previous coach, Osamu Koyabu, returned to Japan in 2012 to take over from Koyabu and take the squad is a new and positive direction. “If Japan can reach the quarter-finals,” he said, “I can retire.” Under his reign, they would win the Asian Five Nations four years running, from 2012 to 2015, and the 2014 Pacific Nations Cup. "We’ve come to this World Cup to gain some respect for Japan. At the end of the tournament we want people to say that Japan is a respected rugby country.” Jones takes no prisoners: “Let’s be honest, before this tournament Japan were one of the joke teams. Teams would put out their B team against Japan and win by 80-90 points.” Finally, on the 20th of November 2015, Jones was announced as the new England Head Coach having signed a four-year deal. “There are no world class players here,” he said, “not at the moment. But there will be in four years.” “They need to put in extra work on fitness and if they don’t then England won’t be a dominant country.” Only time will tell. “I’ve coached long enough not to have any regrets. We all make mistakes, I’ve made mistakes coaching Japan the last four years. I’ve tried to learn from them but I don’t have any regrets.”

he opening weekend of the Six Nations did not go as planned. Italy should have beaten France, Ireland could and should have taken Wales whilst Scotland failed to turn up at Murrayfield. As it was Ireland drew with Wales and at a stroke both countries cannot now win the Triple Crown or Grand Slam. For England after a disastrous World Cup they could not afford to slip up against Scotland. The critics had unanimously thought that Scotland were, after their unlucky defeat against Australia in the last minute of extra time with an unwarranted penalty in the quarterfinals of the World Cup, back at the top table. Had England lost to Scotland they would have lost the Calcutta Cup and ended any hopes of a Triple Crown and Grand Slam. So no pressure then! Of course, they hardly started afresh but managed to suffocate Scotland and win in the end more comfortably than the score suggested. In Round Two of the Six Nations

February April/May 2016 2011

March 12 Ireland v Italy, 13:30 March 12 England v Wales, 16:00 March 13 Scotland v France, 15:00 March 19 Wales v Italy, 14:30 March 19 Wales v Scotland, 17:00 March 19 France v England, 20:00

London Rugby Fixtures

Courtesy of England Rugby March 19 Bracknell v Wimbledon East Grinstead v Chichester Hertford v Guernsey Shelford v Colchester Tonbridge Juddian v Gravesend Westcliff v Eton Manor Westcombe Park v London Irish Wild Geese

Athletics

Courtesy of BBC Sport March 17th-20th IAAF World Indoor Championships, Oregon Convention Center, Portland, Oregon, USA.

Motorsport

and Track Days March 3 WRC, Rally Guanajuato México March 12 Formula E, Mexico City, Mexico March 18-20 Formula 1 Australian Grand Prix, Melbourne March 22 BTCC Season Launch, Donnington

Basketball

in the UK March 4 Leeds Force v Worcester Wolves, 19:30 March 4 Newcastle Eagles v London Lions, 19:30 March 4 Newcastle Eagles v Leeds Force, 19:30 March 4 Plymouth Raiders v Sheffield Sharks, 19:30 March 4 Worcester Wolves v Cheshire Phoenix, 19:30 March 5 Bristol Flyers v Sheffield Sharks, 19:30 March 5 Leicester Riders v Sheffield Sharks, 19:30 March 5 Leicester Riders v Surrey United, 19:30 March 6 Glasgow Rocks v Manchester Giants, 17:00 March 6 Cheshire Phoenix v Surrey United, 17:30 March 11 Leicester Riders v Manchester Giants, 19:30 March 11 Newcastle Eagles v Worcester Wolves, 19:30 March 11 Sheffield Sharks v London Lions, 19:30 March 12 Bristol Flyers v Glasgow Rocks, 19:30

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online: www.KCWToday.co.uk March 13 Surrey United v Newcastle Eagles, 15:00 March 13 Leeds Force v London Lions, 16:00 March 13 Plymouth Raiders v Glasgow Rocks, 16:00 March 13 Cheshire Phoenix v Leicester Riders, 17:30 March 13 Manchester Giants v Bristol Flyers, 18:00

March 18 Bristol Flyers v Cheshire Phoenix, 19:30 March 18 Glasgow Rocks v Leeds Force, 19:30 March 18 Newcastle Eagles v Leicester Riders, 19:30 March 18 Worcester Wolves v Plymouth Raiders, 19:30 March 18 Saturday, 19 March 2016 March 18 Leicester Riders v London Lions, 19:30 March 20 Plymouth Raiders v Bristol Flyers, 16:00 March 20 Cheshire Phoenix v Sheffield Sharks, 17:30 March 22 London Lions v Surrey United, 19:30 March 23 Sheffield Sharks v Leeds Force, 19:30 March 25 Sheffield Sharks v Bristol Flyers, 19:30 March 25 Surrey United v Leicester Riders, 19:30 March 26 Leicester Riders v Bristol Flyers, 19:30 March 27 Plymouth Raiders v Cheshire Phoenix, 16:00 March 27 Glasgow Rocks v Leeds Force, 17:00

March 27 Manchester Giants v Surrey United, 18:00 March 30 Leicester Riders v Surrey United, 19:30 March 30 London Lions v Cheshire Phoenix, 19:30

Golf in March

Courtesy of BBC Sport 2nd-6th LPGA Tour: HSBC Women’s Champions, Singapore. 3rd-6th World Golf Championships-Cadillac Championship, Trump National Doral, Miami, Florida, United States of America. 10th-13th European Tour: True Thailand Classic, Black Mountain GC, Hua Hin, Thailand. 10th-13th USPGA Tour: Valspar Championship, Innisbrook Resort (Copperhead), Palm Harbor, Florida, United States. 10th-13th Ladies European Tour: 2016 World Ladies Championship,

Mission Hills (Olazabal Course), China. 16th-20th LPGA Tour: JTBC Founders Cup, Phoenix, AZ. 17th-20th European Tour: Hero Indian Open, TBC, India. 17th-20th USPGA Tour: Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by MasterCard, Bay Hill Club & Lodge, Orlando, Florida, USA. 18th-20th USPGA Champions Tour: Tucson

Conquistadores Classic, Omni Tucson National, Tucson, Arizona, USA. 23rd-27th World Golf Championships-Dell Match Play, Austin Country Club, Austin, Texas, USA. 23rd-27th LPGA Tour: Kia Classic, Carlsbad, CA. 24th-27th USPGA Tour: Puerto Rico Open, Coco Beach Golf & CC, Rio Grande, Puerto Rico. 30th-3rd April LPGA Tour: ANA Inspiration, Rancho Mirage, CA. 31st-3rd April USPGA Tour: Shell Houston Open, GC of Houston, Humble, Texas, United States.

Tennis in March

Courtesy of BBC Sport 4th-6th Davis Cup World Group 1st Round, Germany v Czech Republic, Hannover, Germany. 4th-6th Davis Cup World Group 1st Round, France v

Canada, TBD, France. 4th-6th Davis Cup World Group 1st Round, Great Britain v Japan, Birmingham, Great Britain. 4th-6th Davis Cup World Group 1st Round, Serbia v Kazakhstan, TBD, Serbia. 4th-6th Davis Cup World Group 1st Round, Belgium v Croatia, Liege, Belgium. 4th-6th Davis Cup World Group 1st Round, Australia v USA, TBD, Australia. 4th-6th

Davis Cup World Group 1st Round, Italy v Switzerland, TBD, Italy. 4th-6th Davis Cup World Group 1st Round, Poland v Argentina, Gdansk, Poland. 9th-20th ATP & WTA BNP Paribas Open, Indian Wells, California, USA. 22nd3rd April ATP & WTA Miami Open presented by Itau, Miami, Florida, USA.

Horse Racing Kempton Park March 2,9,16,23,30 AWTTwilight March 19 Silver Cups Day March 26 Easter Family Fun Day kempton.thejockeyclub. co.uk

March April/May 20162011

Sandown March 11 Grand Military Gold Cup Day March 12 Imperial Cup Day sandown.thejockeyclub. co.uk

Marathons in the UK

March 6 Cambridge Boundary Run, Cambridge March 6 Steyning Stinger Marathon, Steyning, West Sussex March 18 Jurassic Coast Challenge, Lyme Regis, Dorset March 19 Sussex Coastal Marathon, East Dean, Sussex marathonrunnersdiary. com

England Hockey

Until March 13 Men’s Hockey League Until March 19 Women’s Hockey League englandhockey.co.uk

Cresta Run, St Moritz Until March 6 cresta-run.com

Compiled by Fahad Redha

March 20162011 April/May

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Crossword & Marketplace

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5 Sounds like a special talent held by the SS to prevent hunger between meals. (6) 7 Bucolic worker made from vegetables and insect (7) 9 Steffi ‘it one on the wall. (8) 10 Run masculine period of history. (6) 11 Where to find a hand among a real Kraut mob. (6,6) 13 Girdle maybe heavier than air visitor to France in June 44. (6) 15 Upset about a couple of pence for a type of raspberry icecream. (6) 18 Let rascal cry it’s obvious! (7,5) 21 Held by kidnapper I should die. (6) 22 Send telegraph to vehicle going up the mountain. (5,3) 23 Fuel is my mixing of water and oil. (8) 24 If you need accuracy you need the i’s dealt with. (6)

Down

1 Sold around common eatery temporarily holds up the crew. (8) 2 Money man losing a hundred looks a little greyer. (6) 3 Weal mark deformed legislator. (8) 4 Greedy bird took off time from a tangent. (6) 6 Wisdom may have been addressed as such by friend ordinarily. (8) 7 Top rim always held the most original. (6)

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Between a Rock and a Hard Place

11 12 13

17 18

20 21

8 Clothing that describes bed covers effectiveness. (4) 12 Nab a feel of a member of the Aster’s family. (8) 14 Rich myth maybe occuring regularly. (8) 16 Little tree being part of hand with

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Politicians from across the capital met with Angela Rippon, an Alzheimer’s Society ambassador who has championed the cause of people with dementia, at the Wellcome Collection on the 17th of February. The parties used this as a chance to present their manifestos for May’s elections, focusing on how to transform London into the world’s first dementia-friendly city. One in three Londoners currently over 65 will die with dementia, with the number of people diagnosed with the disease in London expected to double

tailless otter reversed. (8) 17 Shares unknown to be broad and sturdily built. (6) 18 R elaxes in the fridge? (6) 19 I ’d boil with this drive. (6) 20 Babe amused holding ray of sunshine. (4) over the next few years. Two-thirds of people with dementia live in the community and 39 percent of people with dementia report feeling lonely, compared with 24 percent of over-55s. There are an estimated 72,000 people with dementia living in London overall and the number is growing each year. People with dementia over 65 years of age are currently using up to one quarter of hospital beds at any one time, costing the NHS huge sums of money. For this reason, dementia care and understanding is a political priority, and prompting pledges to make serious improvements across the London, by establishing a better social care, a dementia-friendly transport system, instilling greater awareness of the disease, and increasing support for those living with the disease. Sian Berry, the Green’s mayoral candidate, has called for universal dementia training among public staff in London, for services such as the Metropolitan Police, TfL, and emergency services staff. Victoria Borwick MP, Conservative, called for called upon major London organisations, such the Met and the Greater London Authority, to consider how they could enable people with dementia to live their lives to the fullest. Camden Labour Councillor Theo Blackwell highlighted that it was close when Local Authorities set their budgets, and that now was when “we have to find a way that we can invest in the early prevention of dementia”.

I hope you enjoyed last months edition. Mrs J Keene of London W8 is last month’s winner. Congratulations! (The best clue provided for last months 24 down was Mr J Thomson with “A Chinese pan requires energy to get up.” 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. 211 Kensington Church St, London W8 7LX. T: 020 7221 1982. Contact Sandor. 1

Chess & Bridge

Across

This is the forty fourth Wolfe Cryptic Crossword

March 2016

nterprising Royal College of Art design students have, under the indefatigable and dynamic tutelage of Dr. Harriet Harris, developed a much needed aid for refugees, in the way of a transformable garment. It can be worn as a protective coat, and can also be transformed simply and easily into tented accommodation. It comes with many pockets for personal items, and is being manufactured from a very tough and resilient material. I was invited to speak with them and proposed that a game plan in the way of a 64 square board could also be printed on the garment as a flap, which contained fabric chess pieces, with chequer pieces printed on their reverse, and these stored away under the flap could also double up as a cushion for their heads when sleeping. The Syrian exodus of refugees was a catalyst in this worthy project, but all refugees can benefit from this important RCA contribution, and the world’s media has recognised this by way of going viral in every which way one turns. The historical source of chess, in the way it is now played, owes a tremendous amount to the Middle East. In the 7th and 8th centuries, Damascus and then Bagdad transformed their board game of Shatranj through the first known written notations of actual games played, and codified its rules and opening theory. Scholars like as-Suli have left an indelible mark in the transformative knowledge we have today in the great journey chess has been through. It was therefore with added enthusiasm that the RCA students could see an added depth to include what was a Syrian cultural development that gave the world one of its finest board games those many centuries ago, and which was introduced into European Spain, mainly through the Iberian peninsular via Gibraltar by the Moors. The Rock of Gibraltar, formerly one of the Pillars of Hercules, the other sited at Jebel Musa on the African side of the Straits, were in ancient Greek times the limit to the known world. Gibraltar has just concluded its annual Tradewise International Chess Tournament, and their Sports Minister, Mr. Linares, commented that the Government of Gibraltar was proud of the Tradewise Insurance Chess Festival and its continued annual growth in numbers and reputation over the years: “It had forged a distinct and unique identity in the world of chess integrating the best features of an elite event into

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the contours of a truly open tournament”. He went on to comment that it showcased many of the greatest players of our era and provides unrivalled opportunities to young grandmasters who could pit their skills against the big name players. (See the game featured in this issue). Hikaru Nakamura, the U.S.A’s top player and ranked worldwide sixth, won after a play off against France’s top player, Maxime VachierLagrave, who finished runner up. This was Nakamura’s third chess title for this competition, having won in 2008 at the age of 20 and again in 2015. This also equals Nigel Short’s previous record of three wins for this tournament. Former world champion Viswanathan Anand made a disappointing start in the tournament after sbeing held to a draw by Lazarne Vajda of Hungary, but more was to come in the guise of International Master Gledura Benjamin, also of Hungary and a rating of 2515, who with White defeated the Indian champion. (See puzzle). The first prize of £20,000 for the winner of the open tournament, is complimented with £15,000 for the best woman player, and this encourages some of the best women players in the world to attend. It is more the pity that in this country our purse for women players is so miserly at the national level that few women are bothered to enter! The Middle East continues to engage with chess, despite the war torn atmosphere presently enveloping it. The Women’s FIDE Grand Prix Series is currently holding its second leg in Teheran, Iran, with top world women players in hot pursuit of the title. These include Humpy Koneru, India; Hou Yifan, China; Mariya Muzychuk, Ukraine; whilst Europe is represented by Pia Cramling, Sweden, and Almira Skripchenko, France, amongst others. The following winning move is from round 7 of the Tradewise tournament between Benjamin Gledura versus Viswanathan Anand. It is White to move after Black had moved the Black Bishop to b6 attacking White’s pawn on f2. White could carry on defending this pawn with the White knight on d3, or move the pawn forward out of harm’s way. However, White chose a more direct path with the next move which led ultimately to a fine win. What was it? Answer upside down below.

Answer. 36.Nc5+,Bxc5.37.Kxc5,Kc7, and the pawn ending for Black is lost! 38.h4,Kd7.39.Kb6,Kc8.40.b4,Kb8.41. f3,Kc8.42.g4,hxg4.43.fxg4,Kb8.44. h5,f6.45.a4,Kc8.46.Ka7,Kc7.47. b5,a5.48.Ka8, 1-0.

Monthly Bridge Tip for Intermediates

with Andrew Robson

When a player has bid two suits, he is asking his partner to give a preference. It is important to point out that frequently partner will be choosing the lesser of two evils, with no great enthusiasm for either. Such preference, returning to the first suit at the lowest level, must not be confused with genuine support. Dealer South N-S Vul

♠ ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ ♥ ♦ ♣

♠

♠ ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ ♥ ♦ ♣

♠ ♥ ♠

(1) A preference bid – and eminently correct. Opener’s first suit must be at least as long as his second. (2) Mistake. Facing a 1NT response giving mere preference, it is clear for South to pass 2♠. But give him an extra ace (with the same shape) and he would bid 3♥, not 3♠; this would show his five-five shape and the values to try for game.

3♠ was not a happy contract. West led ♣K then switched accurately to ♠4, trying to remove dummy’s trumps so that declarer could not trump ♥s. Declarer won East’s ♠Q with ♠K and led ♦4. West rose with ♦A, cashed ♣Q, then led ♣3 to dummy’s ♣9, East’s ♣10 and declarer’s ruff. Short of options, declarer cashed ♠A and tried a third ♠, hoping for an even split. Not so - West won ♠9, cashed ♠J, drawing declarer’s last trump (East discarding ♦5 and ♦J), then switched to ♥J. This ran to declarer’s ♥Q, but all declarer could do at this juncture was cash ♥A and exit with ♥4. East won ♥10, cashed ♥K and his last card was ♣A. Declarer had scored just three trump tricks and ♥AQ - down four. ANDREW’S TIP: Do not confuse genuine support with mere preference.

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