The World of the Personal Shopper ... Betty Halbreich.

"Personal shopper is an occupation where people help others shop by giving advice and making suggestions to customers. They are often employed by department stores and boutiques (although some are freelance or work exclusively online). Their focus is usually on clothes, although the number of non-clothing stores - such as furniture retailers - that offer personal shopping services is on the rise, and many freelance personal shoppers will help customers shop in whatever item they happen to be after.

Although there are no formal educational requirements to become a personal shopper, related retail experience is a must.

A personal shopper is typically employed by the store itself, which means that payment for the service is not required - only the items bought. Other stores will charge a small fee to use their personal shoppers. Only large department stores, such as Bloomingdales, Debenham's, Neiman Marcus, Nordstrom, and Macy's generally offer personal shopper services, although some smaller stores like Fenwick and Anthropologie also offer the service. Personal shoppers are also known as fashion stylists (or shop assistants, or sales assistants). There are also quite a few who work independent of any affiliation with any stores and can be found in large cities such as New York City, London, Paris, Los Angeles, Miami and Boston. Outside of agencies, personal shoppers can be found on auction websites such as eBay where they auction their services to obtain customized items such as men and women's clothing collections."

Inside the office of legendary personal shopper Betty Halbreich - whose 36-year career at Bergdorf Goodman is inspiring Lena Dunham's next project

By TAMARA ABRAHAM

PUBLISHED: 20:41 GMT, 8 March 2013 / http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2290318/Inside-office-legendary-personal-shopper-Betty-Halbreich--36-year-career-Bergdorf-Goodman-inspiring-Lena-Dunhams-project.html

 

Sanctuary: Personal shopper Betty Halbreich in her office at Bergdorf Goodman, where she has been advising some of the world's most stylish women since the Seventies

'I do my best work here; I can do anything here at my desk,' she said. 'Nothing distracts me.

'I'm pretty good at sizing up sizes after 36 years. I can tell you that you wear a two, and not a four or a zero'

Betty Halbreich, who has been the personal shopper at Bergdorf Goodman for the past 36 years, is already a New York legend. And news that Lena Dunham is to base her next project Bergdorf on the 85-year-old style expert promises to make her a household name across the globe.

But before we see a fictionalized version of her career, Mrs Halbreich has given Refinery 29 a tour of her work space at the store's Manhattan flagship - and a rare insight into her life.

The Chicago native's corner office features a large mirror and a rail of vintage gowns along one wall.

Display cases hold colorful jewelry, while art lines the walls and books and hand-written notecards dress available surfaces. Two cream chairs with plump cushions face an Eero Saarinen desk where she takes her meetings.

Mrs Halbreich who counted Estée Lauder as a client, and now dresses her granddaughter Aerin, as well as acerbic Fashion Police host Joan Rivers, says she only has to meet someone once to know what size they should be wearing.

'I'm pretty good at sizing up sizes after 36 years,' she said. 'I can tell you that you wear a [U.S. size] two, and not a four or a zero. But that's a little trick to the game, sizing someone up.'

And while many in the industry exist for the sole purpose of boosting a retailer's sales figures, money is not her goal - or indeed incentive.

Personal touch: Mrs Halbreich does not use a computer or own a cellphone. Instead her desk features stacks of books, magazines and hand-written notecards

She won't take commission, which might affect her judgement, and says she is price-conscious, mixing couture with more affordable pieces to create a look that is interesting and different.

'I'm not out to sell the most expensive dress in the store - that doesn't mean too much to me,' she explains.

In fact, every one of Mrs Halbreich's clients will look like an individual - she works hard to avoid dressing people in the same looks, instead taking their personalities and lives into account.

And this has earned her a loyal client base that spans generations - Estée and Aerin Lauder are not the only women to have passed Mrs Halbreich's number between various members of a family.

But fashion today is very different from what it was in years past. While Mrs Halbreich concedes that there are many innovative things happening in the industry today, she reminisces about the beautiful fabrics and workmanship that won't even exist in the finest creations these days.

Even a $10,000 dress, she says, won't have enough hem to let it down if necessary.

As well as her rail of vintage dresses - which includes designs by Christian Dior and Jean Muir - are display cases of jewelry, featuring items gifted by her daughter alongside Ruser jewelry from California and creations by one of her favorite designers, Meredith Frederick.

'I do my best work here; I can do anything here at my desk. Nothing distracts me. It's some sort of inner security'

And unlike many offices, there is no computer on Mrs Halbreich's desk - in fact she doesn't even have a cellphone. Instead, there are hand-written notecards and piles of books, all of which have some special significance.

Finishing touches: Also on show are display cases of jewelry, featuring items gifted by her daughter alongside Ruser jewelry from California and creations by one of her favorite designers, Meredith Frederick

For Mrs Halbreich, it makes Bergdorf the place she feels most secure - and indeed, most creative.

It's some sort of inner security. And, I think if I were to stop working, I'd just have to... go.'

Betty Halbreich Story from "Scatter My Ashes at Bergdorf's"

the return of ... the Striped Socks

Power & Style: A World History of Politics and Dress By Dominique Gaulme and Francois Gaulme

Power & Style: A World History of Politics and Dress By Dominique Gaulme and Francois Gaulme 

by Dominique Gaulme Francois Gaulme

Reviewed by Jeffrey Felner | Released: March 5, 2013 / http://www.nyjournalofbooks.com/review/power-and-style-world-history-politics-and-dress

Publisher: Flammarion (288 pages)

“. . . a fascinating read. . . . about the semiotics of fashion . . .”

Power and Style is not the usual photo heavy fashion volume but a serious study of what one can call an encyclopedia of “silent signals” that pertain to how a person presents themselves in matters of style.

The point of the study is simply that no matter what era of history is discussed, there have always been codes or visuals that served as an announcement to the public of what your hierarchical position was in a given society.

The Gaulmes have exhaustively covered from prehistoric times to present and have explored items of apparel that this reviewer has never read about unless with some sociological or historical references involved. The categories are vast and at times quite exotic.

Power and Style is chock full of esoterica about fashion as well as just facts that one might have never known and enough of both that the fashionista should find the book truly enlightening.

For example, Cartier was the jeweler of choice when platinum first became available, going so far as to reset the crown jewels from yellow gold to platinum—just because. And did you know that red shoes can signify royalty and that heel color and height once indicated your social standing? What about the fact that fringed garments originated in Mesopotamia or that Nero dispensed a mist of aromatic scents from a ceiling contraption onto his guests in his home to mask either the smell of food or the odors emanating from his guests? Do you know what a sarapech is or that Louis XV wore a 56-carat diamond as a hatpin or that there is such a thing as a red diamond?

So much fascinating information abounds in this exquisitely illustrated volume.

The “dress” that is spoken of covers everything from penis sheaths to diamonds, tail coats to cufflinks, loafers to All American style and who wore it, far enough back in time to include loincloths and fur pelts, tattoos and scarification.

The Gaulmes omit no thread, gewgaw, or button when considering, for instance, the difference between what we know as a flip flop sandal to a sandal that wraps around the ankle.

The reader of Power and Style must have a curiosity about the semiotics of fashion as well as an abiding interest in the sociological implications of what we demonstrate when we dress. Not your usual frivolous fashion coffee table book, Power and Style is a fascinating read.

Reviewer Jeffrey Felner is a dedicated participant and nimble historian in the businesses of fashion and style. Decades of experience allow him to pursue almost any topic relating to fashion and style with unique insight and unrivaled acumen.

Power & Style: A World History of Politics and Dress By Dominique Gaulme and Francois Gaulme (Translated from the French by Deke Dusinberre)

 by Heather. Posted on Tuesday, April 2, 2013 / http://fashionhistorian.net/blog/2013/04/02/power-style-a-world-history-of-politics-and-dress-guest-book-review/

Power & Style: A World History of Politics and Dress is a new book written by French journalist Dominique Gaulme and anthropologist and historian Francois Gaulme. It was translated from the French by Deke Dusinberre. This volume adds to the expanding literature discussing the history of dress and fashion from a global perspective. The authors emphasizes the role of dress as a symbol of power through history and discusses a variety of settings from tribal communities to monarchs and elected officials.

The work is organized chronologically in an easy-to-follow format with a vast number of illustrations for support. There are two main problematic issues with the authors’ approach. First, the authors almost exclusively discuss political power concentrating on individuals declared powerful by either a political system (Kennedy, Reagan) or themselves (Napoleon, Hitler).

The book, thus, equates power exclusively with politics and government institutions and ignores other power systems; not discussing, for instance, the impact of corporate power dressing and personal appearance management as well as the power achieved by celebrities in a variety of fields and how they exert a powerful influence through their wardrobe. Second, and more important, is the authors’ decision to include very little discussion on influential women and justifying the decision by stating that “… women’s access to legitimate political power is very recent.” Therefore the book virtually ignores women who have been powerful monarchs and rulers mostly casting aside an extensive list ranging from Cleopatra, Elizabeth I, and Queen Victoria to Golda Meyer and Indira Ghandi. These women, along with many others, held political power as appointed or elected rulers and cleverly used their appearance and dress to express and symbolize their authority. For instance, the authors choose to discuss the “Victorian” era by analyzing Prince Albert’s wardrobe in detail and just briefly mention Queen Victoria thus assuming that sartorial power at that time was mostly expressed through male dress.

So, the book would be better titled and promoted as what it really is: a history of men’s fashion told from the perspective of the connection between power, style, and dress. Once the reader accepts that limitation, then the work becomes an enjoyable read. The authors lay out a good case for the argument that dress plays functions that go beyond mere protection of the body and that decoration and indication of status are primary functions.

The authors develop connecting threads with pertinent examples in each chapter, easily capturing the attention of anyone new to dress history but they also provide a purposeful synthesis of the topic and a variety of relevant details for experts and students in the field.The book is lavishly illustrated in full color and often full page images in high quality reproduction that sometimes jump from the page almost as an actual canvas. There are numerous portraits of subjects discussed in the book, but in almost every instance the illustrations should be more directly related to and referred in the text with more specific descriptions of dress and sartorial symbols in the portraits selected to illustrate the chapters.

The historical research is thorough; the book is well organized and narrated in an appealing manner with elegant descriptive language that easily transports the reader to the places and periods described. The chronological approach cleverly and effectively carries the reader from what the authors call “naked societies” where the right to wear certain objects such as feathers was a symbol of power to ancient Rome and Byzantium. The authors, for instance, paint a clear image of Augustus in Imperial Rome, calculating the precise fullness of his toga as a way to manage the full transition of Rome from Republic to Empire, or Hitler rummaging in his mind about ways in which his adoption of modest forms of dress could distinguish him from the spectacular uniforms formerly used in Germany. It is then in the storytelling and sharing of anecdotes and factoids that the book is stronger.

Powerful male figures through history are highlighted as examples, including Constantine, Philip the Good, Louis XIV of France, and Charles II of England. Famous dandy Beau Brummell is one of the few men discussed in the book whose sartorial power did not arise solely from political power but from social power as Brummell promoted the idea of dressing as a moral exercise in simplicity and elegance.

Other notable figures discussed include Napoleon, Prince Albert, and Edward VII, who is portrayed as a man so passionate about clothing that he was often considered vain and wasteful. The book argues that Edward VII had a remarkable impact on the development of cosmopolitan wardrobe to accommodate twentieth century active lifestyles. Once the book reaches the twentieth century, however, it rushes in one chapter from Hitler to Mao emphasizing how totalitarian regimes and their leaders used dress as a symbol of power.

American style is discussed in one chapter, with John F. Kennedy marked as a leading figure in the casualization of the American look and the development of the country’s obsession with comfort and muscularity.  Most of the book emphasizes European and American trends and although one of the last chapters is titled: “The UN: Going Global” it still discusses current trends in men’s dress by analyzing two opposing schools of masculine elegance in the closing decades of the twentieth century: the English tradition with structured pieces and an air of formality, and the Italian tradition with lighter fabrics and cuts emphasizing the male body. The chapter also discusses the transition at the United Nations from representatives attending in their countries’ traditional or representative attire to a general acceptance of business attire.

The book closes with two chapters discussing current and future trends. The authors revert to the idea that women did not occupy positions of power until the twentieth century and expect the reader to be surprised upon receiving this information. Still, with a long list of powerful women in the twentieth century, the book devotes just mere sentences to some of them (Margaret Thatcher, Hillary Clinton, Benazir Bhutto, Angela Merckel) and ignores other powerful females such as Eva Perón and a long cast of female heads of state in Latin America and other areas of the world. The final chapter aims to predict how the relation between power and dressing will evolve in the future. The authors also include smaller sections at the end of each chapter discussing different elements of clothing and the function they have played throughout history in determining power and status for men. These sub-chapters include a wide range of objects such as the penis sheath, crowns, swords, cravats and neckties, top hats, whiskers, scepters, boutonnieres, and watches.

Overall the book is an enjoyable read and, as stated above, the illustrations are multiple and of high quality. It adds to the growing literature on men’s fashion and style. Perhaps to solve the issue of ignoring powerful women; the authors should compose a second volume addressing how women have used dress and style as a symbol and instrument of power through the ages.”

Introducing ... The Spartans by Bettany Hughes.

“Sparta and Athens became competing model of education, especially for those Enlightenment intellectuals who did not want to leave education under the control of the Catholic Church and other religious authorities. The contrast between the Athenian model and the Spartan model could not have been more clearly delineated. Athens, with its brilliant intellectual and cultural achievements, enjoyed a free market in education. Sparta, an intellectual and cultural wasteland, was dominated by a system of state education.”

GEORGE H. SMITH 

Why we need to make history cool again

Bettany Hughes

The Guardian, Wednesday 27 May 2009 / http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2009/may/27/history-schools-education-technology

Young people, apparently, have little interest in history. The number of those studying the subject for GCSE has dropped to fewer than one in three. Yet in August last year one could have stumbled across an unlikely set of videos on a YouTube site hosted by Queen Rania of Jordan - three gentle films that explored the shared medieval heritage of the east and west. We learned that Richard the Lionheart employed a Muslim doctor and that Henry VIII ate off Arabic dinner plates.

The response from bloggers was overwhelming. "These were things I simply did not know," from BigGirl, South Croydon; "Thank you for building bridges not boundaries," tapped Ahmed, Pakistan. Queen Rania has since been awarded YouTube's first ever Visionary award.

History was invented as a tool, an engineered road down which human society could advance. The original Greek definition of the word historia is a combination of "inquiry, analysis, observation and myth" (at a time when myth meant information, not just fairy-tales). The point of history was not an exhortation to live in the past, but to live with it, and to live better.

The massive grassroots success of movies such as Zack Snyder's Spartan gore-fest 300 demonstrates there is a vast appetite among 15-25 year olds to share in the experience of the long-dead. The film quoted Herodotus virtually verbatim, and has been watched by more than 150 million worldwide. Its success - aided by enthusiastic bloggers who promoted the film online and were later listed in the credits - has made educationalists think again. Maybe it is not just social history - the belt buckles and soup ladles - that connects us to the past, but a grander idea, an idea that shared memory is essential to being human.

At the end of the 20th century technology was all. History was a dirty word. But then the millennium came and went and the future did not hold all the answers. History instructs us in the cock-ups and triumphs of others. And new technology services that fundamental humanist benefit. Around 1,800 years ago, one man had the same idea. The Greek philosopher and medic Galen wrote that human civilisation develops best when techne (skill or craft) buttresses human enlightenment. The result: "Greater and better by far than our fathers it is our boast to be."

The technological revolution is itself a direct descendant of the Ancient Greeks' historia, and the web is populated by young people who want to dive into the past. We just have to jog their memories and remind them that a GCSE in history is one way to start.

The Spartans was a 3-part historical documentary series first broadcast on UK terrestrial Channel 4 in 2003, presented by Bettany Hughes. A book, The Spartans: An epic history by Paul Cartledge accompanied the series.

Part 1 deals with the arrival of the Dorian settlers into the Eurotas valley, with a discussion of the dark-age culture that lived there before, that ofMenelaus and his wife Helen (known to history as Helen of Troy). Once established, the Spartans expand westward into Messenia, enslaving the entire population, eventually becoming the dominant power in Laconia. During this time Lycurgus transforms the Spartan constitution into the militarised state we know of today. The training of Spartan youths is explained, from their enrollment in the Agoge system right through to their attainment of citizenship. The class structure of the Lacedaemonian state (Helots, Perioeci, and the soldier-citizens themselves) is also covered. The episode ends with the battle of Thermopylae, in which 300 Spartans, including their king, Leonidas, were killed in action defending Greece from aPersian invasion.

Part 2 opens with the retreat of the Persians, after Thermopylae and the battle of Salamis. Athens, which had been allied with Sparta against Persia, begins to experience an expanded economy (and democracy under the leadership of Pericles). His construction of the long walls - fortifications which connect Athens to Piraeus - is considered to be a hostile act by an increasingly paranoid Sparta, and is the basis for future discord between the two states. Meanwhile, Spartan marriage customs are discussed, and the differences in the role of women in Sparta and the rest of Greece is studied (Spartan women were relatively "free"). In 464 BC, a massive earthquake near Sparta causes massive disruption, allowing the Helots to revolt. A desperate Sparta asks Athens for help, only to change their minds once it is clear that Athens could side with the Helots. Sparta expels the Athenians and, eventually, war begins. The surprising surrender of a Spartan detachment on the isle of Sphacteria is a major blow to Sparta's reputation of invincibility.

Part 3 introduces Alcibiades, an Athenian statesman who defects to Sparta and becomes an adviser and strategist. In particular, he suggests that Sparta takes the war to Syracuse, in Sicily, during which Athens suffers a major blow (including the capture of their entire expeditionary force). The Spartan Lysander, chief of its naval forces, begins to rise in power, and he eventually defeats the Athenian navy (which enables him to blockade Athens) and finally ends the war by successfully invading and subjugating Athens. Agesilaus, who becomes one of the kings of Sparta, finally sees Sparta become the dominant power in Greece. But decadence and corruption follow, along with a drastic reduction in the number of Spartan citizens. In time, these events lead to an irreversible decline in Sparta's fortunes, leading to war with Thebes and, in 371 BC, the end of Spartan pre-eminence after the battle of Leuctra.

Ancient Worlds: The Spartans

Bettany Hughes chronicles the rise and fall of one of the most extreme civilisations the world has ever seen, one founded on discipline, sacrifice and frugality where the onus was on the collective and the goal was to create the perfect state and the perfect warrior.

Hughes reveals the secrets and complexities of everyday Spartan life; homosexuality was compulsory, money was outlawed, equality was enforced, weak boys were put to death and women enjoyed a level of social and sexual freedom that was unheard of in the ancient world.

It was a nation of fearsome fighters where a glorious death was treasured. This is aptly demonstrated by the kamikaze last stand at Thermopylae, where King Leonidas and his warriors fought with swords, hands and teeth to fend off the Persians.

But there was bitter rivalry between Sparta and Athens, two cities with totally opposed views of the 'good life'. When war finally came, it raged for decades and split the Greek world until, in a brutal and bloody climax, Sparta finally emerged victorious as the most powerful city-state in Greece.

But under King Agesilaus, the dreams of the Spartan utopia come crashing down. By setting out to create a perfect society protected by perfect warriors, Sparta made an enemy of change.

A collapsing birth rate, too few warriors, rebellious slaves and outdated attitudes to weaponry and warfare combined to sow the seeds of Sparta's destruction, until eventually the once great warrior state was reduced to being a destination for Roman tourists who came to view bizarre sado-masochistic rituals.

Fashion designers Dolce and Gabbana jailed for 20 months after being convicted for £850million tax evasion.

Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana each sentenced to one year, eight months in jail by an Italian judge for failing to declare £850million ($1.34billion) in income tax

Prosecutors Laura Pedio and Gaetano Ruta exchanged a glance prior to the sentence. The Milan court convicted fashion designers Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana of tax evasion

Fashion designers Dolce and Gabbana jailed for 20 months after being convicted for £850million tax evasion.

Famous designers found guilty of failing to declare £850m in income tax

Italian court heard that they used a Luxembourg company to avoid tax

Judge sentenced both to 20 months in jail - suspended pending appeal

By HANNAH ROBERTS

PUBLISHED: 16:04 GMT, 19 June 2013 | UPDATED: 06:41 GMT, 20 June 2013

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2344531/Dolce-Gabbana-jailed-20-months-convicted-850m-tax-evasion.html

Black and white stripes could be huge on the catwalks next season – for Dolce and Gabbana have been sentenced to prison for tax evasion.

The designers were both handed 20month terms for failing to pay the Italian authorities €408million (£350million).

In one of the few high-profile tax cases to reach court in Italy, Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana, who count Kylie Minogue and Kate Moss among their celebrity fans, were convicted of failing to declare royalties of about €1billion (£860million).

A judge in Milan ruled that they used a holding company in Luxembourg to avoid Italy’s corporation taxes for years. The designers and their accountant had already been fined €400million (£340million) in April in a related case.

Under the Italian justice system,  anyone found guilty of a crime is automatically granted at least two appeals. In the event of a final conviction, jail sentences of two years or less for non-violent crimes are typically suspended.

The convictions come days before the luxury brand opens a new shop in New Bond Street in London. They follow an investigation that began in 2008 as part of a tax-avoidance crackdown amid the eurozone crisis.

Dolce and Gabbana had initially been acquitted of tax fraud in 2011, when a different judge ruled there was insufficient evidence to indict them.

However, after an appeal to the country’s supreme court, prosecutors were able to re-open the case by dropping the fraud charges and pressing for convictions on tax evasion instead.

Dolce and Gabbana’s Milan office was last night still composing a statement for the media. When the charges were first made public, Mr Gabbana condemned the Italian tax authorities as ‘thieves’, and threatened to leave the country.

Tax evasion is thought to cost Italy €200billion (£170billion) a year. Several cases involving celebrities have led to out-of-court settlements; in 2000 opera singer Luciano Pavarotti paid 24billion lira (£8million) in back taxes, while MotoGP champion Valentino Rossi agreed to hand over €39million (£33million) in 2008.

Domenico Dolce And Stefano Gabbana Sentenced To Prison

Olé !! Lauren and his team looked to South America for spring/summer 2013.

IN VOGUE http://www.vogue.co.uk/fashion/spring-summer-2013/ready-to-wear/ralph-lauren/close-up-photos/gallery/844721

Ralph Lauren Spring 2013 Collection

The Roman Baths.Sanssouci Park in Potsdam.

The Roman Baths, northeast of the Charlottenhof Palace in the Sanssouci Park in Potsdam, reflect the Italiensehnsucht ("Sehnsucht/longing for Italy") of its creator Frederick William IV of Prussia. Various Roman and antiquated Italian styles were melded into the architectural ensemble created between 1829 and 1840.

Garden house with the Roman baths

While still a crown prince Frederick William commissioned both Charlottenhof (1826-1829) and the Roman baths (1834-1840). Coming up with numerous ideas and drawing many actual drafts, the artistically-gifted heir to the throne had great influence on the plans of the architect, Karl Friedrich Schinkel. Charged with managing the actual construction was one of Schinkel's students, Ludwig Persius.

The garden house (Gärtnerhaus) (1829-30) and the house for its keepers (Gärtnergehilfenhaus) (1832) were both built in Italian country house style (Landhausstil). The Roman bath for which the whole ensemble was named was styled after ancient villas. Together with the tea-pavilion (Teepavillon) (1830), modelled on temples of antiquity, it forms the complex of buildings, tied together by pergolas, arcades and sections of garden. The individual buildings were largely inspired by Schinkel's second trip to Italy in 1828. Thus the Roman bath, which has never been bathed in, came to be thanks purely to the romantic fantasy of the royal Italophile.

Inside view of the baths

The names of the rooms connote a mixture of antique villas and Roman baths. The atrium, the courtyard of a Roman house, is the reception area. The Impluvium, actually only a glorified rainwater-collection device, gives its name to the whole room in which it is located. The Viridarium (greenhouse) is actually a small garden. Names associated with Roman thermal baths are Apodyterium for the changing room, and Caldarium.

The whole nostalgic creation borders on an artificial lake created during Peter Joseph Lenné's formation of the Charlottenhof areal. The so-called machine pond (Maschinenteich) gets its name from a steam engine house and adjacent pumpstation torn down in 1923. The large hull of a well marks the former location of the building. The steam engine was not just responsible for keeping the artificial waters of Charlottenhof moving – its smokestacks were also a symbol of progress and what was at this time highly-developed technology.

Roman Baths & Old Dairy in Sanssouci Park in autumn 2012 | Canon EOS 60D

Bletchley Park: The Enigma Machine

The "enigma" of Alan Turing ...

 World War Two code breaker Alan Turing set to be pardoned for his gay conviction

Alan Turing, the World War Two code breaker who later killed himself after receiving a criminal conviction for his homosexuality, looks set to be pardoned.

By Christopher Hope, Senior Political Correspondent

5:22PM BST 19 Jul 2013 in The Telegraph / http://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/world-war-two/10191547/World-War-Two-code-breaker-Alan-Turing-set-to-be-pardoned-for-his-gay-conviction.html

The Government said it would not stand in the way of legislation to offer a full Parliamentary pardon for Turing, who helped Britain to win the Second World War as a skilled code-breaker.

Until now, the Government has resisted using the Royal Prerogative to pardon Turing for his conviction for gross indecency in 1952 because he was a homosexual.

Ministers had argued that because Turing was convicted of what was at the time a criminal offence, it is not possible to hand him a full posthumous pardon.

For years, campaigners have called on ministers to reverse the decision because of the part he played in winning the war after he invented the Colossus machine at Bletchley Park to crack the codes of German U-boats in the Atlantic.

Despite his work, he was convicted of gross indecency and as his punishment he chose chemical castration over imprisonment. Two years later he committed suicide at the age of 41.

In 2009 the then prime minister, Gordon Brown, made a posthumous apology to Turing, describing his treatment as "appalling", but he was not officially pardoned.

Last December Prof Stephen Hawking and other leading scientists wrote to The Daily Telegraph urging a pardon for Turing, whose work at Bletchley has been credited for hastening the end of the Second World War.

Speaking in the House of Lords on Friday, Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon, a whip, said the Government would not stand in the way of a Bill brought by Liberal Democrat peer Lord Sharkey, which offers Turing a full posthumous parliamentary pardon.

Speaking in the House of Lords shortly before the Alan Turing (Statutory Pardon) Bill received an unopposed second reading, Lord Ahmad said: “Alan Turing himself believed that homosexual activity would be made legal by a Royal Commission.

“In fact, appropriately, it was Parliament which decriminalised the activity for which he was convicted.

“The Government therefore is very aware of the cause to pardon Turing given his outstanding achievement and therefore has great sympathy with the objective of the Bill.

“That is why the Government believes it is right that Parliament should be free to respond to this Bill in whatever way its conscience dictates, in whatever way Parliament so wills."

He added: “If nobody tables an amendment to this Bill, the supporters can be assured that this Bill will make speedy progress and passage to the House of Commons.

“If there are no amendments tabled for committee there doesn't need to be any report stage so the Government can table third reading by the end of October.

“This will take place on the floor of the House. If no amendments are tabled for third reading it is formal and the Bill immediately goes to the Commons."

Lord Sharkey said earlier that if the Government was not going to act, Parliament should step in to ensure Turing's family received the pardon they were owed.

The peer, who was taught mathematics at university by Turing’s close friend Robin Gandy, said it was widely accepted by experts that the code-breaker's work had shortened the war by two years, saving possibly hundreds of thousands of lives.

Lord Sharkey said: "The Government knows that Turing was a hero and a very great man. They acknowledge that he was cruelly treated. They must have seen the esteem in which he is held here and around the world.

“It is not too late for the Government to pardon Alan Turing. It is not too late for the Government to grant a disregard for all those gay men convicted under the dreadful (legislation).

“I hope the Government is thinking very hard about doing both of those things. But while they are thinking, Parliament can act.”

Baroness Trumpington said she supported the call for the Government to go further than the apology issued by former prime minister Gordon Brown in 2009.

She said that when she worked at Bletchley Park during the war, there were strict rules which forbid any staff from going in to other listening stations they were not assigned to without receiving the permission of a supervising officer to deliver a message.

This meant she only ever met Alan Turing once, the peer said, adding the Government should now erect a statue of the code-breaker.

The Conservative peer said: “This is not about legal issues but recognising the debt this country owes to Alan Turing.”

She said Britain would have starved if Turing had not cracked the codes which revealed the locations of German U-boats operating in the Atlantic, which had been able to intercept convoys of merchant ships bringing supplies from the United States.

Baroness Trumpington added: “Although I knew that (Turing) invented Colossus, which turned the war around in our favour, I cannot claim that I knew him. But I am certain that but for his work, we would have lost the war through starvation.”

Shadow cabinet office spokeswoman Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town said it was ironic that the man responsible for helping to bring down Hitler, who prosecuted and gassed homosexuals, was himself then prosecuted by the British government.

Taking her place at the Despatch Box, she said: “The irony of Alan Turing being prosecuted for his sexuality when he helped fight Hitler, who prosecuted and gassed homosexuals, was surely not lost on him.

“And how he might have smiled to find us legalising same sex marriage, and seeking to pardon him in the same week and hopefully both to be affected by 2014 - 40 years after his untimely death.”

Benedict Cumberbatch in line to play Alan Turing in The Imitation Game

Sherlock star in talks to play tragic wartime codebreaker in Hollywood biopic

Ben Child

guardian.co.uk, Monday 4 February 2013 11.57 GMT / http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2013/feb/04/benedict-cumberbatch-alan-turing

Benedict Cumberbatch is in talks to play the British mathematician and codebreaker Alan Turing in forthcoming biopic The Imitation Game, reports Deadline.

The Sherlock star may step into the shoes of Leonardo DiCaprio, who was frontrunner to play Turing when the film was announced in 2011. The project has the ring of Oscar bait: it is based on a script by first-time screenwriter Graham Moore, which was bought by Warner Bros for a seven-figure sum after making 2011's Black List of the most popular unfilmed screenplays in Hollywood.

Turing was a wartime hero credited with cracking the German Enigma code at Britain's Bletchley Park codebreaking centre, but his life was destroyed by the period's anti-homosexuality laws. Police arrested Turing in 1952 after learning of his sexual relationship with a young Manchester man. He made no denial or defence during his trial and, rather than go to prison, accepted injections of synthetic oestrogen intended to neutralise his libido.

Turing continued to work part-time for GCHQ, the postwar successor to Bletchley Park, but his mental health is said to have suffered, and he was shut out of Britain's security operations as the country's alliance with the US increased over fears of cold war spying. He was found dead by his cleaner in 1954. The coroner's verdict was suicide, though Turing's mother believed he had accidentally ingested cyanide after a chemistry experiment. In 2009 Gordon Brown made a public apology on behalf of the British government for the way Turing was treated.

Cumberbatch is flying high in Hollywood after securing roles as the main villain in Star Trek into Darkness and as the dragon Smaug in Peter Jackson's Hobbit trilogy. He will also play Julian Assange in The Fifth Estate, a film about the WikiLeaks founder's early struggles, and is set for roles in Steve McQueen's highly anticipated Twelve Years a Slave and the film adaptation of Tracy Letts's Pulitzer prize-winning play August: Osage County.

Turing was excised entirely from the best-known recent film about Bletchley Park, 2001's Enigma. Michael Apted's film cast Dougray Scott as Tom Jericho, a character who seemed to have all the qualities of Turing, bar one vital fact: he was not homosexual and romances Kate Winslet's character.

Alan Mathison Turing, OBE, FRS ( 23 June 1912 – 7 June 1954), was a British mathematician, logician, cryptanalyst, and computer scientist. He was highly influential in the development of computer science, giving a formalisation of the concepts of "algorithm" and "computation" with the Turing machine, which can be considered a model of a general purpose computer. Turing is widely considered to be the father of computer science and artificial intelligence.

During World War II, Turing worked for the Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS) at Bletchley Park, Britain's codebreaking centre. For a time he was head of Hut 8, the section responsible for German naval cryptanalysis. He devised a number of techniques for breaking German ciphers, including the method of the bombe, an electromechanical machine that could find settings for the Enigma machine.

After the war, he worked at the National Physical Laboratory, where he designed the ACE, one of the first designs for a stored-program computer. In 1948 Turing joined Max Newman's Computing Laboratory at Manchester University, where he assisted in the development of the Manchester computers and became interested in mathematical biology. He wrote a paper on the chemical basis of morphogenesis, and predicted oscillating chemical reactions such as the Belousov–Zhabotinsky reaction, which were first observed in the 1960s.

Turing's homosexuality resulted in a criminal prosecution in 1952, when homosexual acts were still illegal in the United Kingdom. He accepted treatment with female hormones (chemical castration) as an alternative to prison. Turing died in 1954, just over two weeks before his 42nd birthday, from cyanide poisoning. An inquest determined that his death was suicide; his mother and some others believed his death was accidental. On 10 September 2009, following an Internet campaign, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown made an official public apology on behalf of the British government for "the appalling way he was treated." As of May 2012, a private member's bill was put before the House of Lords to grant Turing a statutory pardon.As of July 2013, it looks likely to succeed, having gained government support.

During the Second World War, Turing was a leading participant in the breaking of German ciphers at Bletchley Park. The historian and wartime codebreaker Asa Briggs has said:

You needed exceptional talent, you needed genius at Bletchley and Turing's was that genius.

From September 1938, Turing had been working part-time with the Government Code and Cypher School (GCCS), the British code breaking organisation. He concentrated on cryptanalysis of the Enigma, with Dilly Knox, a senior GCCS codebreaker. Soon after the July 1939 Warsaw meeting at which the Polish Cipher Bureau had provided the British and French with the details of the wiring of Enigma rotors and their method of decrypting Enigma messages, Turing and Knox started to work on a less fragile approach to the problem. The Polish method relied on an insecure indicator procedure that the Germans were likely to change, which they did in May 1940. Turing's approach was more general, using crib-based decryption for which he produced the functional specification of the bombe (an improvement of the Polish Bomba).

On 4 September 1939, the day after the UK declared war on Germany, Turing reported to Bletchley Park, the wartime station of GCCS. Specifying the bombe was the first of five major cryptanalytical advances that Turing made during the war. The others were: deducing the indicator procedure used by the German navy; developing a statistical procedure for making much more efficient use of the bombes dubbed Banburismus; developing a procedure for working out the cam settings of the wheels of the Lorenz SZ 40/42 (Tunny) dubbed Turingery and, towards the end of the war, the development of a portable secure voice scrambler at Hanslope Park that was codenamed Delilah.

By using statistical techniques to optimise the trial of different possibilities in the code breaking process, Turing made an innovative contribution to the subject. He wrote two papers discussing mathematical approaches which were entitled Report on the applications of probability to cryptography and Paper on statistics of repetitions, which were of such value to GCCS and its successor GCHQ, that they were not released to the UK National Archives until April 2012, shortly before the centenary of his birth. A GCHQ mathematician said at the time that the fact that the contents had been restricted for some 70 years demonstrated their importance.

Turing had something of a reputation for eccentricity at Bletchley Park. He was known to his colleagues as 'Prof' and his treatise on Enigma was known as 'The Prof's Book'. Jack Good, a cryptanalyst who worked with him, is quoted by Ronald Lewin as having said of Turing:

in the first week of June each year he would get a bad attack of hay fever, and he would cycle to the office wearing a service gas mask to keep the pollen off. His bicycle had a fault: the chain would come off at regular intervals. Instead of having it mended he would count the number of times the pedals went round and would get off the bicycle in time to adjust the chain by hand. Another of his eccentricities is that he chained his mug to the radiator pipes to prevent it being stolen.

While working at Bletchley, Turing, a talented long-distance runner, occasionally ran the 40 miles (64 km) to London when he was needed for high-level meetings, and he was capable of world-class marathon standards.

In 1945, Turing was awarded the OBE by King George VI for his wartime services, but his work remained secret for many years.

Turing–Welchman bombe

Within weeks of arriving at Bletchley Park, Turing had specified an electromechanical machine that could help break Enigma more effectively than the Polish bomba kryptologiczna, from which its name was derived. The bombe, with an enhancement suggested by mathematician Gordon Welchman, became one of the primary tools, and the major automated one, used to attack Enigma-enciphered messages.

Jack Good opined:

Turing's most important contribution, I think, was of part of the design of the bombe, the cryptanalytic machine. He had the idea that you could use, in effect, a theorem in logic which sounds to the untrained ear rather absurd; namely that from a contradiction, you can deduce everything.

The bombe searched for possible correct settings used for an Enigma message (i.e. rotor order, rotor settings and plugboard settings), using a suitable crib: a fragment of probable plaintext. For each possible setting of the rotors (which had of the order of 1019 states, or 1022 for the four-rotor U-boat variant), the bombe performed a chain of logical deductions based on the crib, implemented electrically. The bombe detected when a contradiction had occurred, and ruled out that setting, moving on to the next. Most of the possible settings would cause contradictions and be discarded, leaving only a few to be investigated in detail. The first bombe was installed on 18 March 1940.

By the Autumn of 1941, Turing and his fellow cryptanalysts Gordon Welchman, Hugh Alexander, and Stuart Milner-Barry were frustrated. Building on the brilliant work of the Poles, they had set up a good working system for decrypting Enigma signals but they only had a few people and a few bombes so they did not have time to translate all the signals. In the summer they had had considerable success and shipping losses had fallen to under 100,000 tons a month but they were still on a knife-edge. They badly needed more resources to keep abreast of German adjustments. They had tried to get more people and fund more bombes through the proper channels but they were getting nowhere. Finally, breaking all the rules, on 28 October they wrote directly to Churchill spelling out their difficulties. They emphasised how small their need was compared with the vast expenditure of men and money by the forces and compared with the level of assistance they could offer to the forces.

The effect was electric. Churchill wrote a memo to General Ismay which read: "ACTION THIS DAY. Make sure they have all they want on extreme priority and report to me that this has been done." On 18 November the chief of the secret service reported that every possible measure was being taken. More than two hundred bombes were in operation by the end of the war.

Conviction for indecency

In January 1952, Turing started a relationship with a 19-year-old unemployed man, Arnold Murray, whom he had met outside the Regal Cinema when walking down Manchester's Oxford Road just before Christmas and had invited to lunch. On 23 January Turing's house was burgled. Murray told Turing that the burglar was an acquaintance of his, and Turing reported the crime to the police. During the investigation he acknowledged a sexual relationship with Murray. Homosexual acts were illegal in the United Kingdom at that time, and both were charged with gross indecency under Section 11 of the Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885. Initial committal proceedings for the trial occurred on 27 February, where Turing's solicitor "reserved his defence". Later, convinced by the advice of his brother and other lawyers, Turing entered a plea of "guilty", in spite of the fact that he felt no remorse or guilt for having committed criminal acts of homosexuality. The case, Regina v. Turing and Murray, was brought to trial on 31 March 1952,where Turing was convicted, and given a choice between imprisonment or probation conditional on his agreement to undergo hormonal treatment designed to reduce libido. He accepted the option of treatment via injections of stilboestrol, a synthetic oestrogen; this treatment was continued for the course of one year. The treatment rendered Turing impotent and caused gynecomastia, fulfilling in the literal sense, Turing's prediction that "no doubt I shall emerge from it all a different man, but quite who I've not found out". Murray was given a conditional discharge.

Turing's conviction led to the removal of his security clearance, and barred him from continuing with his cryptographic consultancy for the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), the British signals intelligence agency that had evolved from GCCS in 1946. His passport was never revoked; although he was denied entry into the United States after his 1952 conviction, Turing was free to visit other European countries, although this was viewed by some as a security risk. At the time, there was acute public anxiety about homosexual entrapment of spies by Soviet agents, because of the recent exposure of the first two members of the Cambridge Five, Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean, as KGB double agents. Turing was never accused of espionage but, in common with all who had worked at Bletchley Park, was prevented from discussing his war work by the Official Secrets Act.

On 8 June 1954, Turing's cleaner found him dead. He had died the previous day. A post-mortem examination established that the cause of death was cyanide poisoning. When his body was discovered, an apple lay half-eaten beside his bed, and although the apple was not tested for cyanide,[99] it was speculated that this was the means by which a fatal dose was consumed. This suspicion was strengthened when his fascination with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was revealed, especially the transformation of the Queen into the Witch and the ambiguity of the poisoned apple. An inquest determined that he had committed suicide, and he was cremated at Woking Crematorium on 12 June 1954. Turing's ashes were scattered there, just as his father's had been.

Hodges and David Leavitt have suggested that Turing was re-enacting a scene from the 1937 Walt Disney film Snow White, his favourite fairy tale, both noting that (in Leavitt's words) he took "an especially keen pleasure in the scene where the Wicked Queen immerses her apple in the poisonous brew". This interpretation was supported in an article in The Guardian written by Turing's friend, the author Alan Garner, in 2011.

Professor Jack Copeland (philosophy) has questioned various aspects of the coroner's historical verdict, suggesting the alternative explanation of the accidental inhalation of cyanide fumes from an apparatus for gold electroplating spoons, using potassium cyanide to dissolve the gold, which Turing had set up in his tiny spare room. Copeland notes that the autopsy findings were more consistent with inhalation than with ingestion of the poison. Turing also habitually ate an apple before bed, and it was not unusual for it to be discarded half-eaten. In addition, Turing had reportedly borne his legal setbacks and hormone treatment (which had been discontinued a year previously) "with good humour" and had shown no sign of despondency prior to his death, in fact, setting down a list of tasks he intended to complete upon return to his office after the holiday weekend. At the time, Turing's mother believed that the ingestion was accidental, caused by her son's careless storage of laboratory chemicals. Biographer Andrew Hodges suggests that Turing may have arranged the cyanide experiment deliberately, to give his mother some plausible deniability

A complete and working replica of a bombe at the National Codes Centre at Bletchley Park