Saturday 31 December 2022
Treason | Official Trailer | Netflix
REVIEW
Treason, Netflix, review: rollicking spy drama doesn't
stop to check if it makes sense
3/5
Russian spies, double-crossing British spooks, a
baby-faced head of MI6 - this 100mph thriller is loopy, self-serious and a lot
of fun
By
Jasper Rees
22 December
2022 • 6:00am
In recent
years, thrillers about the British state have asked us to swallow some
totteringly tall stories. The Home Secretary who has a hot affair with her
bodyguard. The secret agency that frames its victims with faked-up video
footage. How about this from Treason (Netflix): the newly installed head of
MI6, the one in charge of that big ugly building by Vauxhall Bridge in London,
is a double agent working for the Russians and nobody seems to have noticed.
Too
far-fetched? What makes Adam Lawrence (Charlie Cox) even more wildly
implausible is his über-youth. The nation’s new chief spy is easily young
enough to be his own protégé. He’s also handsome in a stubbly yet somehow
clean-cut way. You can see him as one of a superannuated boyband, reuniting in
their late 30s to rake it on the road. The Spooky Boys, perhaps. It’s easy to
imagine him at a photoshoot. A shoot-out, less so.
Anyway,
Lawrence has been elevated to his new role after his boss, Sir Martin Angelis
(Ciarán Hinds in full dastard mode), is poisoned at his club by a rogue Russian
operative, Kara Yerzov (Olga Kurylenko, who first did this sort of thing
wearing a gown in Quantum of Solace). Sir Martin is a dealer in kompromat, a
bulging cache of intel on the peccadilloes of the higher-ups that enables him
to bend them to his will: a Supreme Court judge here, a Foreign Secretary (Alex
Kingston) there. So we know he’s a rotten apple from the off. But who else is?
Lawrence
has his own skeletons which date back 15 years to five deaths in Baku. Before
you can blurt “why on earth are the Russians and, hello, the Americans so
interested in, if you will, his Baku story?”, that’s exactly what is playing
out. No one on screen seems to believe anyone else: friendships and marriages
and political alliances are all part of a complex and shifting cat’s cradle of
every-which-way distrust.
This isn’t
good news on the domestic front. Lawrence’s teenage daughter, Ella (Beau
Gadsdon), manages to slip away from her (evidently crap) security detail and
soon finds herself kidnapped. “Everything is alright,” Lawrence keeps
reassuring his second wife, Mattie (Oona Chaplin). Fortunately his missus is a
veteran of Afghanistan, which may just come in handy a few episodes down the
pipe.
The script,
which plays out in five craftily plotted episodes, is by Matt Charman. You may
recall him as the young playwright who was edging into TV before a screenplay
of his about swapping spies in the Cold War reached Steven Spielberg, who asked
the Coen brothers to sprinkle further fairy dust on it. In this, Charman’s
first significant work since Bridge of Spies, it’s possible to guess what the
Coens may have brought to the party: an indefinable charm, a seductive wit
that, on his own among spies, Charman has no time for.
Instead he
has plenty to say about Russian meddling in the British body politic – in
particular a Lebedev-like figure who is bankrolling a would-be prime minister.
This would have looked more searingly up-to-date before the invasion of
Ukraine, mention of which has been parachuted into the script.
But the
business of making this story look like it belongs in the here and now on the
whole plays second fiddle to pace. Nor does the story hang around worrying
about drag-anchor stuff like feelings. People look scared or worried or brave
as and when required. But never for long. When a big death happens, there isn’t
even time to mourn. This is a plot in a hurry to deliver, which – if you can
accept a Pop Idol contestant as head of MI6 – it pretty much does.
Treason is
available to watch on Netflix from Boxing Day
Review
Treason review – say hello to TV’s cuddliest spy
Gripping as this fun, frenetic espionage thriller is,
its lead isn’t exactly a hard nut. Think cheerful lectures to schoolkids and
channelling the personality of a lovely labrador …
Stuart
Heritage
@stuheritage
Mon 26 Dec
2022 06.00 GMT
Although
just about every actor on the face of the Earth has enjoyed a stint as the
frontrunner to play the next Bond, Charlie Cox seems to be the sole exception.
Despite
sharing an age, a gender and a race with every screen Bond so far – not to
mention a handy sideline as a superhero given that he plays Daredevil in the
Marvel cinematic universe – for some reason he hasn’t quite made the cut.
The reason,
it seems, is Treason (Netflix). A big part of the Potential 007 audition
sequence is to play someone slightly Bondy on the small screen, as Tom
Hiddleston did with The Night Manager and James Norton did with McMafia.
It’s an
opportunity for them to dress the part, brood in a variety of opulent locations
and occasionally mess around with guns. Treason – a spy thriller written by the
Oscar-nominated co-writer of Bridge of Spies – sounds as if it should have been
cut from the exact same cloth.
And yet our
first meaningful introduction to Cox’s spy comes during a scene in a school
library where he cheerfully tells a bunch of primary-age kids what it’s like to
be a spy. Which, however you cut it, isn’t something you can imagine Daniel
Craig doing.
Indeed,
throughout the course of Treason, Cox is less an international man of mystery
and more a lovely labrador who has somehow gained the skill to operate a
humanoid robot.
But Cox is
no mere spy. Despite looking like a particularly meek supply teacher, he is in
fact second in command at MI6. And when his boss (Ciarán Hinds, thankfully
given slightly more to do than he was in The English) is incapacitated during
an errant whisky-poisoning accident, it falls to Cox to run the ship. This is
plainly ridiculous, since the man looks like his natural calling is to host a
CBeebies series about the importance of cuddles, but let’s go with it.
It is
extremely difficult to mention anything specific about the plot from this point
onwards because that would unravel the entire series, but it is safe to say
that things don’t go well. Hinds’s poisoner is Olga Kurylenko, who has a past
with Cox, and things get knottier and knottier until his whole family ends up
involved in the mess.
I can tell
you that the plot involves a full English of contemporary references –
kompromat, shady Russian lords, a Conservative leadership campaign – and that
the show is set in London, because this is one of those shows where scenes
don’t count unless there is an immediately recognisable central London landmark
in the middle of the screen. Any more than that would destroy the ride.
It’s a
pretty good ride, too. Treason manages that brilliant television trick of
sucking you in with its labyrinthine plot so effectively that you don’t realise
quite how stupid it is until long after the credits roll, at which point it
hits you like a ton of bricks. But, still, it has the air of unfulfilled
promise.
It’s weird,
in this age of Far Too Much Television, to wish that a show went on for longer,
but this is the case with Treason. It’s a five-part, fairly finite limited
series, but it feels as if it was set up to be something far more substantial.
What it
feels like, in fact, is one of those big old-fashioned American network shows
that ran for half a year at a time. One of those pacy, inexplicable spy
thrillers like 24 or Homeland that never managed to run out of complicated
conspiracies that went all ... the … way … to … the … top.
I dare say
I would have enjoyed Treason a lot more if this had been the case. Instead,
with less than four hours total running time, Treason hits all of its requisite
beats in nothing less than a blind panic.
Someone
gets abducted, but then they’re found before anyone has the chance to start
worrying. There’s a government mole, but that’s all sorted out with the wave of
a hand. If anyone seems in any way suspicious or mysterious, their true motives
are usually explained within a scene or two, so that the show doesn’t have to
drop its mad clatter to the finish line.
It’s fun,
but frustrating. A few more episodes spent with Labrador Bond and all his
stupid problems, and Treason could have been a belter.
Friday 30 December 2022
Thursday 29 December 2022
REMEMBERING: Jacksons of Piccadilly
Jacksons of
Piccadilly was a London tea house, tea wholesaler and retailer, grocer, wine
merchant, and deluxe department store, founded by Robert Jackson in Piccadilly
in 1700. It is now a brand owned by R. Twinings and Company Limited, a former
tea business rival.
By 1815, Jacksons had earned a reputation for selling pre-blended teas direct to customers, which was uncommon at that time because people blended different teas themselves at home. The Jacksons trade empire expanded and earned several Royal Warrants for tea from numerous royals through the 19th and 20th centuries. By 1905, Jacksons had moved to 171-172 Piccadilly.
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An example
of Jacksons' blending ability was its "The Lady Londonderry Mixture
Tea". It was a blend of teas from the foothills of Ceylon (now Sri Lanka),
the hills of Darjeeling district (in West Bengal state in India), and the tea
gardens of Formosa (now the island of Taiwan, Republic of China). The blend was
originally prepared for the Marchioness of Londonderry, Edith
Vane-Tempest-Stewart (1878-1959), and in 1932 she gave her permission for the
blend to be registered in her name.
Under
Twinings, the Jacksons of Piccadilly brand offers six tea varieties, three of
which are actually tisanes (herbal teas).
The company
also claims (although this is contested) to have invented the
"original" recipe for Earl Grey tea, Grey having given the recipe to
Robert Jackson & Co. partner, George Charlton, in 1830.
Wednesday 28 December 2022
Battistoni ROMA
https://www.battistoni.com/battistoni-world/
Battistoni World
Our House
kept its original residence since birth and never swayed from its mission
statement, a credo of classical elegance.
Friends
While all
the connaisseurs were to pay a visit and
tribute to Battistoni’s talent in perfecting a suits’ cut and shirts collars
(the inimitable reverse-stitched rim), quite a few artists, writers and actors
unconsciously, by the frequency of their visits, became “adopted” by
Battistoni. So much so that Guglielmo yesterday – and Gianni and Simonetta
today – undersigned ‘certificates of friendship’, with well targeted
generosity. They consist of a sort of chivalric order, with no emblems or
decorations, but behind which only talent and personal qualities count. It is
so that when Mr. and Mrs. Chaplin chose their neckties and shirts, they would
just add onto their tab at the shop; when Steinbeck was to take notes for his
‘East of Eden’, he would do so at his favourite Battistoni desk, wearing his
famed Battistoni check shirt.
Humphrey
Bogart kept a bottle of his preferred
whiskey in a cabinet at the shop, as if he had joined a club, while Gentilini
and his circle of friends would keep long tabs, indirectly having the House of
Battistoni sponsoring their trips and their art. Roman style pouring down from
Trinita’ dei Monti and the Spanish
steps, to the heart of the city, like a
river touching Piazza di Spagna and
streaming down Via Condotti, the Caffe’ Greco, the silversmiths’ shops, and in front of
Palazzo Torlonia, designed by Bernini,
by the Sovereign Military Order of Malta,
by the old Alinari shop, dwelling of Roman iconography. Arrived so far, facing
the seraphine in the limpid courtyard’s fountain, and near the unique works of
art adorning the Battistoni atelier, here they come. Princes and queens,
tycoons, aristocrats, the actor of the moment, the writer, the celebrity, the
poet and the entire Beau Monde! One after the other, the most charming
(possibly Kirk Douglas) along with the shyest (almost certainly Ben Kingsley),
all equally treated by Guglielmo Battistoni, with that spontaneity and disenchantment that makes the true Roman perfectly at ease in front of a head of state
or a peasant.
The list
would be endless: Luchino Visconti and John Ford, Gianni Agnelli and
Rockefeller, Moravia, Malaparte and Jean Cocteau, Tyrone Power and De Sica,
Ingrid Bergman and Audrey Hepburn,
Josephine Baker and Anna Magnani, Hermes and Lagerfeld, Dado Ruspoli, Prince
Torlonia, Prince Orsini, and the list carries on. Today these stories, at times
narrated by old clerks or Mr. Battistoni, are silently reflected into the walls
and mirrors, and they charmingly
permeate Battistoni’s Rome store with their subliminal tales.
Heritage
In the
distant year of 1946, only a handful of people knew of 61A, Via Condotti. It
was at this address, tucked away from the sight of passers-by, that Guglielmo
Battistoni started out as a shirt maker. He was first and foremost a dreamer. A
creator at heart, whose passion for details and style mingled his form of art,
with many other fields. His atelier was, and still is, the mirror image of its
owner.
Battistoni
never believed in following trends. Instead he believed that “to try to set the
trends and dictate the norms, albeit for one single season, in something as
fickle and fanciful as fashion, is like forcing a swallow to fly in a straight
line instead of letting it follow its arabesques.” Perhaps hidden in these
words we can find hints of the creativity that fueled Guglielmo Battistoni and
his friends to infuse into Via Condotti an alternative way of being. They are
credited with transforming this stretch of land into the destination for its
infamous habitués.
It was a
gradual and natural procession for this street to be transformed into a place
to be, and the Battistoni store became a much sought-after club-house scene. A
haven for monarchs past and present, for magnates of industry and finance, for
aristocrats, artists, writers, actors, and directors. But, with all due respect
to Federico Fellini, it should immediately be said, that Via Condotti never
wanted the fame of the Via Veneto of “La Dolce Vita”. They were two different
streets with two different ethos. Via Condotti’s public was quite different and
far from the impulsive crowds of Via Veneto. Battistoni’s acolytes were focused
on turning their (Battistoni clad) backs on the exhibitionism and advertising
found on Via Veneto. Because of this, the daily salons of Via Condotti became
the natural home for the hard core of Café society and the workshop at No. 61A
kept a record of all its illustrious customers, jealously protected, of course.
Tuesday 27 December 2022
‘Glass Onion’ Is Actually About Living in the Age of Musk, Ye and Trump / Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery | Official Trailer | Netflix
‘Glass Onion’ Is Actually About Living in the Age
of Musk, Ye and Trump
The new movie is a murder mystery — but it’s also
about why we all willingly submit to the rules of billionaires.
.jpg)
By CALDER
MCHUGH
12/24/2022
07:00 AM EST
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/12/24/glass-onion-musk-trump-ye-00075002
If you’re
interested in “eating the rich,” the past few years have provided a veritable
big-screen buffet.
This year
alone, there have been films that satirize influencer culture (Triangle of
Sadness), phony relationships among rich kids (Bodies, Bodies, Bodies) and fine
dining itself (The Menu).
The wealthy
people depicted in these films are awful in all of the by-now-expected ways:
They’re selfish; they mistreat anyone outside of their milieu without a second
thought; they wreak havoc on everything and everyone in their vicinity.
The other
significant entrant into this quickly growing canon came this year in the form
of Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, Rian Johnson’s sequel to 2019’s Knives
Out. In the original movie, the crafty detective with a flair for the dramatic,
Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig), solves the murder of wealthy mystery novelist
Harlan Thrombey (Christopher Plummer).
In Glass
Onion, Blanc is back when a murder mystery game on an island quickly turns
deadly. Johnson also adds a new dynamic to the satire: The rich are not only
evil; many of them are preternaturally stupid, their legitimacy propped up only
by the deference of those around them. The result is an allegory for all of us
living with the omnipresent Elon Musk, Donald Trump and Jeff Bezos. (Warning:
spoilers ahead).
The film
begins with a group of old friends — a politician (Claire Debella; played by
Kathryn Hahn), a half-canceled model (Birdie Jay; Kate Hudson) and her
assistant (Peg; Jessica Henwick), a men’s rights internet personality (Duke
Cody; Dave Bautista) and his girlfriend (Whiskey; Madelyn Cline), a scientist
(Lionel Touissaint; Leslie Odom Jr.) who works for a tech billionaire (Miles
Bron; Edward Norton) and Bron’s former business partner (Andi Brand; Janelle
Monáe) — receiving a mysterious, beautifully designed package from Bron at each
of their homes. The package also comes to Blanc, who’s never met the group.
All of
these people have known Bron for years, and many of them quickly make reference
to his brilliance while solving puzzles inside the package, which ultimately
reveal an invitation to his private island in Greece for a murder mystery
party. They travel to the island ostensibly to solve the (fake) murder of Bron
himself. But after Blanc instantly figures out the game, a real murder happens
on the island. Cody is poisoned and dies.
Then, a
twist: In a flashback, we learn that Brand is already dead, and her murder will
soon be reported. The “Andi Brand” on the island is her twin sister Helen, who
has hired Blanc to solve the murder. After some running around the house and an
attempt on Helen’s life, Blanc brings everyone together and declares his
findings: It was Bron who murdered Andi and Cody, the former because she knew a
new invention of his was dangerous and she had information that could allow her
to take back his company; the latter because he’s the only one who saw Bron
leaving Andi’s house after committing the murder. Sometimes, as Blanc’s
character explains, the simplest answer is the truth.
Blanc
admits that he began to suspect that Bron was not all that he seemed when the
billionaire immediately began to misuse phrases, mispronounce words and farm
out any creative or original tasks to someone else, both in devising the fake
murder mystery (he hired Gone Girl author Gillian Flynn to write it) and coming
up with a plan to confuse the guests by turning off the lights (Blanc himself
references “turning out the lights” to Bron at another point in the film).
According
to Blanc’s reveal, this lack of originality and smarts is proof of Bron’s
motivation: to conceal the extent to which others, especially Andi, are
responsible for his company’s successes.
For the
viewer, Bron’s dimness comes as a legitimate surprise. The structure of the
film holds up Bron from the start: He’s frequently referred to as a genius; not
only has he designed the puzzles that determine how the friends spend their
days, but they’re also on his island, in his domain. He has the money and the
power. The more billionaire-skeptical among the audience might not like him,
but on first viewing it’s unlikely that they catch all of his verbal stumbles
because of the confidence with which he delivers them.
Under
direct scrutiny from the clever Blanc, though, all of the myths that Bron’s
friends and followers build up around him quickly vanish. For all of the
artifice, Bron is not playing 4D chess. He doesn’t have a secret plan. He’s
just bumbling along.
This point
suggests there’s something more to billionaires’ power over all of us than just
how they spend their money. It’s not only how they use their money to dictate
modern work life or bankroll politicians. The ultra-wealthy are increasingly
empowered to exert their influence on politics and culture at least partially
thanks to many of the rest of us, who are convinced that, by dint of their
riches and power, they must know something we don’t.
As a
result, Americans often become legitimate fans of rich people, particularly
ultra-wealthy entrepreneurs, and submit to their rules, mostly voluntarily.
This fandom partly explains why efforts to rein in the political influence of
wealthy people, for instance, have been weak, and it’s why people like Elon
Musk can feel compelled not just by money but by popular goodwill to take over
companies like Twitter, which only furthers their social influence.
In reality,
rich people are no smarter than everyone else; their plans and even downfalls
are simple. Peter Thiel is funding artists in New York City and politicians in
Arizona because he thinks they’ll influence culture and politics toward his
vision of a new right. Neither is going well for him. FTX founder and large
political donor Sam Bankman-Fried at some point bought the boy-genius myth that
he was selling to everyone else, lost a lot of money and landed himself in court.
Musk made an offer for Twitter because he was addicted to the platform and
thought it would be good to have an even bigger megaphone and now, his
companies and his own brand seem to be in freefall. Donald Trump ran for
president so that he could watch himself on cable television more, stumbled
backwards into the job, tweeted through it and is now hawking NFTs while he
tries to dodge prosecutions. Ye, better known as Kanye West, embraced shocking
behavior until it lost him lucrative business deals and, reportedly,
billionaire status.
At some
point, all of these men accrued enough capital that they found themselves
surrounded by people who fanned their egos in the hopes of a kickback. But as
they settled into these carefully constructed worlds that were built to
reinforce their supposed genius, any creative spark or understanding of
business or American culture that helped them in their journey to the top is
bound to dim.
Glass Onion
is not particularly groundbreaking. It’s not really news that rich people can
be stupid. But just like Benoit Blanc tells the audience, there’s no point in
overthinking it. A simple explanation of a phenomenon (or a murder), stated out
loud, is often the truest.
.jpg)
Review
Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery review – Daniel
Craig’s drawling detective is back
Benoit Blanc returns, with a cast of A-listers from
Edward Norton to Janelle Monáe, in Rian Johnson’s ingenious new whodunnit romp
Peter
Bradshaw
@PeterBradshaw1
Wed 23 Nov
2022 13.00 GMT
The first
one was good … this one is better: an ingenious, headspinningly preposterous
and enjoyable new whodunnit romp featuring Daniel Craig as the legendary
detective from the deep south, Benoit Blanc. Writer-director Rian Johnson has
established his own murder-mystery working model, positioned equidistantly
between the Agatha Christie approach, in which the culprit is revealed at the
very end, and the Columbo approach, in which it happens at the very beginning.
Here, as in the first film, the guilty party’s identity gradually emerges in
the second half – not so much a twist as an unfurling pirouette. But Johnson
and his enigmatic, drawling sleuth keep us guessing.
Edward
Norton is an insufferable tech bro called Miles Bron who has become a
multitrillionaire through his stake in Alpha, an online network fusing data,
news and cryptocurrency. He invites a whole bunch of pals and fellow
“disruptors” to his private island with its giant domed building called the
Glass Onion for a murder-mystery themed party: these include politician Claire
Debella (Kathryn Hahn), supermodel turned designer Birdie Jay (Kate Hudson),
YouTuber and men’s rights activist Duke Cody (Dave Bautista), scientist Lionel
Toussaint (Leslie Odom Jr) and – most uncomfortably of all – Cassandra Brand
(Janelle Monáe), who had the original idea for Alpha but was ousted from the
company by Miles and his lawyers with hardly a dollar.
But also
among the guests is Benoit Blanc himself. Bron says he didn’t invite Blanc, but
lets him in anyway, amused by whatever prank his guests are apparently playing
on him. His idea is that someone will fictionally “kill” their host and the
guests have to figure out who and why. Things turn deadly serious and of course
the ashen-faced guests turn to Benoit to save them.
Glass Onion
is never anything less than entertaining, with its succession of A-lister and
A-plus-lister cameos popping up all over the place. And Johnson uncorks an
absolute showstopper of a flashback a half-hour or so into the action, which
then unspools back up to the present day, giving us all manner of cheeky
POV-shift reveals. Craig’s outrageous leisure-themed outfits are a joy and
Monáe gives a tremendously likable comic performance as the woman with more
than one secret to reveal and more than one grievance to hold against Norton’s
loathsome Musk-ish plutocrat. Are eccentric detectives the new
superheroes?
Sunday 25 December 2022
The King's Christmas Broadcast / King Charles highlights cost of living crisis in first Christmas broadcast
King Charles highlights cost of living crisis in
first Christmas broadcast
Monarch pays tribute to the volunteers and charity
workers helping those in financial difficulty
Caroline
Davies
Sun 25 Dec
2022 15.10 GMT
King
Charles has highlighted the cost of living crisis and the “great anxiety and
hardship” of many struggling to “pay their bills and keep their families fed
and warm” in his first Christmas broadcast.
In the
message, with the nation in the grip of economic woes and against the backdrop
of the war in Ukraine, the king dedicated a major part of his broadcast to
those helping to ease the plight of others.
Footage of
food banks and meals being distributed to the needy featured prominently as he
praised “the wonderfully kind people” who had donated food or their time.
Delivered
from the quire of St George’s Chapel, Windsor, where the late Queen Elizabeth
II had also broadcast her Christmas message in 1999, the monarch paid tribute
to his mother, and recognised others who had lost loved ones.
Addressing
those of all faiths and none, he said religious communities were among those
helping others in financial difficulties. He also praised the volunteers,
charity workers, healthcare workers and others who had stepped up to help in
times of adversity.
On his
central theme of “selfless dedication” he said, it could be seen “in our armed
forces and emergency services who work tirelessly to keep us all safe.
“We see it
in our health and social care professionals, our teachers and indeed all those
working in public service, whose skill and commitment are at the heart of our
communities.
“And at
this time of great anxiety and hardship – be it for those around the world
facing conflict, famine or natural disaster, or for those at home finding ways
to pay their bills and keep their families fed and warm – we see it in the
humanity of people throughout our nations and the Commonwealth who so readily
respond to the plight of others.
“I
particularly want to pay tribute to all those wonderfully kind people who so
generously give food or donations, or that most precious commodity of all –
their time – to support those around them in greatest need, together with the
many charitable organisations which do such extraordinary work in the most
difficult circumstances.”
Of his own
Anglican faith, he shared the profound impact on him of visiting the Church of
Nativity in Bethlehem some years ago, the place Christians celebrate as the
birthplace of Jesus. “It meant more to me than I can possibly express to stand
on that spot where, as the Bible tells us, ‘The light that has come into the
world’ was born.”
The
pre-recorded message began with him reflecting on standing “so close to where
my beloved mother is laid to rest with my dear father” in the George VI
Memorial Chapel as he thanked the public for the “love and sympathy” expressed
in cards and messages of condolence.
Of his
personal loss, he said: “Christmas is a particularly poignant time for all of
us who have lost loved ones. We feel their absence at every familiar turn of
the season and remember them in each cherished tradition.” He shared the late
Queen’s “faith in people” , and the religious belief of the “power of light
overcoming darkness”, he said.
The
broadcast included footage of the armed forces and emergency services at work.
It also showed the core of the royal family as it now is. The Prince and
Princess of Wales were shown on a visit to Swansea. Other members of the royal
family were shown at various events, including the Earl and Countess of Wessex.
But there were no images or references to the Duke and Duchess of Sussex.
Charles
hosted Christmas Day at Sandringham with members of the royal family making
their traditional Christmas Day walk to St Mary Magdalene church on the Norfolk
estate.
The king
and the queen consort led members of the royal family as they walked to St Mary
Magdalene church, Sandringham, for a first Christmas Day service since the
death of Queen Elizabeth II. The Duke of York walked with them as a family
member, though he no longer has any public role and is no longer a working
royal.
For the
first time, the Prince and Princess of Wales brought their youngest son, Louis,
four, who joined his siblings George, nine, and Charlotte, seven. Other royals
who walked into the church past a small group of members of the public,
included Andrew’s daughters, Beatrice and Eugenie, and the Earl and Countess of
Wessex.
Saturday 24 December 2022
French baguette gets Unesco heritage status – BBC News
A Slice of France, the Baguette Is Granted World
Heritage Status
More than six billion baguettes are sold every year in
France. But the bread is under threat, with bakeries vanishing in rural areas.
By
Catherine Porter and Constant Méheut
Nov. 30,
2022
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/30/world/europe/france-baguette-unesco.html
PARIS — It
is more French than, perhaps, the Eiffel Tower or the Seine. It is carried home
by millions each day under arms or strapped to the back of bicycles. It is the
baguette, the bread that has set the pace for life in France for decades and
has become an essential part of French identity.
On
Wednesday, UNESCO, the United Nations heritage agency, named the baguette
something worthy of humanity’s preservation, adding it to its exalted
“intangible cultural heritage” list.
The
decision captured more than the craft knowledge of making bread — it also
honored a way of life that the thin crusty loaf has long symbolized and that
recent economic upheavals have put under threat. UNESCO’s choice came as
boulangeries in rural areas are vanishing, hammered by economic forces like the
slow hollowing out of France’s villages, and as the economic crisis gripping
Europe has pushed the baguette’s price higher than ever.
“It’s a
good news in a complicated environment,” said Dominique Anract, the president
of the National Federation of French Bakeries and Patisseries, who led the
effort to get the baguette on the UNESCO heritage list.
“When a
baby cuts his teeth, his parents give him a stump of baguette to chew off,” Mr.
Anract added. “When a child grows up, the first errand he runs on his own is to
buy a baguette at the bakery.”
A French
delegation celebrated the announcement, delivered on Wednesday in Rabat,
Morocco, in classic French style — by waving baguettes and trading “la bise,”
the traditional two kisses, one for each cheek.
President
Emmanuel Macron of France reacted to the news by describing the baguette on
Twitter as “250 grams of magic and perfection in our daily lives.” He attached
a famous photo by the French photographer Willy Ronis of a beaming boy running
with a baguette, almost as tall as he is, tucked under his arm.
Though just
one of many breads that can be found in a typical boulangerie, the baguette is
by far the most popular in France. More than six billion are sold every year in
the country, according to the federation, for an average price of about 1 euro.
(Until 1986, it had a fixed price.)
The
baguette has set the pace for French life for as long as anyone can remember,
from the smell of baking bread wafting through neighborhoods at dawn to people
munching on the pointy nub of a hot “tradition” on their commute home at the
end of the day.
The
baguette’s creation is the source of many urban legends: Napoleon’s bakers
supposedly created it as a lighter and more portable loaf for the troops;
Parisian bakers were said to have made it a rippable consistency to stop knife
fights between factions building the city’s subway system (who could rip the
bread apart with their bare hands and did not need knives to cut it).
In truth,
historians say, the bread developed gradually — elongated loaves were already
being produced by French bakers in 1600. Originally considered a bread for
better-off Parisians who could afford to buy a product that went stale quickly,
unlike the peasant’s heavy, round miche that could last a week — the baguette
became a staple in the French countryside only after World War II, said Bruno
Laurioux, a French historian specializing in medieval food.
But it was
not the French who initially tied the baguette to French identity.
“The first
to talk about how the French were eating baguettes — this very strange and
different bread — were tourists at the beginning of the 20th century who came
to Paris,” said Mr. Laurioux, who led the academic committee overseeing the
baguette’s pitch to UNESCO. “It was an outsiders’ view that tied the French
identity to the baguette.”
Since then,
the French have embraced it, hosting an annual competition outside the
Notre-Dame cathedral in Paris to judge the best baguette creator in the
country. The winner, announced with flourish, wins not just prestige, but also
a yearlong contract to serve the Élysée Palace, where the president resides and
works.
The
baguette’s ingredients are limited to four: flour, water, salt and yeast. But
specialty yeasts were developed to inspire the bread’s long fermentation stage;
special knives are used to score its surface, creating the trademark golden
color; and long-handled wooden paddles are deployed to gently remove the bread
from the ovens. The baguette is eaten fresh, so most boulangeries make more
than one batch a day.
The
American-French historian Steven Kaplan, perhaps the baguette’s most dedicated
and famous chronicler, stunned the talk-show host Conan O’Brien on “The Late
Show” in 2007 when he rhapsodized about the sensual experience of touching and
eating a good baguette, with its “appealing line,” “geyser of aromas” and air
pockets, and the “little sites of memories” that “testify to a sensuality.”
In
comparison, he described Wonder Bread as “tasteless,” “insipid,” “charged with
chemicals” and “without any interest.”
France
submitted more than 200 endorsements for the baguette’s UNESCO bid, including
letters from bakers and children’s drawings. One testimonial poem by Cécile
Piot, a baker, read: “I am here / Warm, light, magical / Under your arm or in
your basket / Let me give the rhythm / To your day of idleness or work.”
The list of
fellow winners reads like a cultural tour of the world, including mansaf, the
traditional dish of mutton and rice from Jordan; winter bear festivals in
Pyrenean villages; and Kun Lbokator, traditional martial arts in Cambodia.
With the
baguette’s new status, the French government said it planned to create a
Bakehouse Open Day to “enhance the prestige of the artisanal know-how required
for the production of baguettes” and support new scholarships and training
programs for bakers.
Still, the
baguette is under threat, with the country losing 400 artisanal bakeries a year
since 1970 — a decline that is especially significant in France’s rural areas,
where supermarkets and chains have overtaken traditional mom-and-pop bakeries.
To make
matters worse — and in a sting to French pride — sales of hamburgers since 2017
have exceeded those of jambon-beurre, sandwiches made with ham on a buttered
baguette.
Some
Parisian bakers expressed skepticism that the news on Wednesday would do much
to alleviate their most pressing fear that the high costs of wheat and flour
would continue to rise because of Russia’s war in Ukraine, forcing them to
raise the price of the beloved bread sticks even further.
“This
UNESCO recognition is not what will help us get through the winter,” said
Pascale Giuseppi, who was behind the counter of her bakery near the
Champs-Élysées, serving a lunch rush for baguette sandwiches. “We still have
bigger bills to pay.”
Nearby,
another baker, Jean-Luc Aussant, said he was “not really in the mood to
celebrate anything” and, brushing flour from his fingers, grumbled that the
recognition would change “nothing.”
“Now that I
think about it,” he added, “I might use this as an excuse to increase the price
of my baguette.”
Tom Nouvian
contributed reporting.
Catherine
Porter is an international correspondent based in Paris. She was previously The
Times’s Canada bureau chief. She is the author of “A Girl Named Lovely.”
@porterthereport
Constant
Méheut reports from France. He joined the Paris bureau in January 2020. @ConstantMeheut
Friday 23 December 2022
What happened to the vintage showroom in London? / VIDEO: The Vintage Showroom - Archive Visit with Doug Gunn
https://thevintageshowroom.com/about/
SEE ALSO: https://tweedlandthegentlemansclub.blogspot.com/2021/04/these-are-very-sad-news.html
ABOUT US
The Vintage Showroom™ was formed in 2007 by long time
collectors and dealers Roy Luckett and Doug Gunn. The appointment-only showroom
in Buspace Studios, near Portobello Road in West London, remains one of the
leading resources for vintage menswear globally with an extensive, curated
archive that continues to develop and grow.
In September 2012 a selection of the collection was
presented in the award-winning title ‘Vintage Menswear – A Collection from The
Vintage Showroom’, published by Laurence King Publishing. The second title,
'The Vintage Showroom – An Archive of Menswear' followed in December 2015. Both
books along with other publications from the company can be found here.
ABOUT THE SHOWROOM
Our West London showroom is available by appointment.
The collection is available for hire, sale, or as digital high-resolution image
packs. The company also offers a number of bespoke services to clients for
creative and concept consultation, and archive acquisitions and management.
A full
shipping service is available for our clients when required and payment is
accepted by all major credit cards including American Express.
General
Enquiries and Showroom Appointments:
info@thevintageshowroom.com
+44
(0)028-964-8785
ABOUT THE SHOP
The Vintage Showroom Earlham Street store operated
from May 2009 to April 2021. The Store was located at 14 Earlham Street, Seven
Dials, an area rich in history where we soon established ourselves as a
much-loved London institution. Though we were sad to leave the property we look
forward to future opportunities which we will be announced in due course.
14 Earlham
Street was formerly FW Collins & Sons Ironmongers, a much-loved London
institution since 1835. F.W.Collins™ is now the name of our in-house clothing
line, and the legacy and association with the company will continue.
Thursday 22 December 2022
How UK honours list system has become 'politicised'
Controversies
A scandal
in the 1920s was the sale by Maundy Gregory of honours and peerages to raise
political funds for David Lloyd George.
In 1976,
the Harold Wilson era was mired by controversy over the 1976 Prime Minister's
Resignation Honours, which became known as the "Lavender List".
In 2006,
The Sunday Times newspaper revealed that every donor who had given £1,000,000
or more to the Labour Party since 1997 was given a Knighthood or a Peerage (see
Cash-for-Honours scandal). Moreover, the government had given honours to 12 of
the 14 individuals who have donated more than £200,000 to Labour and of the 22
who donated more than £100,000, 17 received honours. An investigation by the
Crown Prosecution Service did not lead to any charges being made.
The Times
published an analysis of the recipients of honours in December 2015 which
showed that 46% of those getting knighthoods and above in 2015 had been to
fee-paying public schools. In 1955 it was 50%. Only 6.55% of the population
attends such schools. 27% had been to Oxford or Cambridge universities (18% in
1955).
The lack of
racial diversity continues to attract criticism, with 89.6% of all award
recipients identified as white, and only 3.2% of higher award winners (inc
Knighthood and Damehoods) identifying as BAME in 2019. Although the trend has
been positive, with an increase in ethnic minority recipients between 2014 and
2019 from 6.5% to 10.4%, there continues to be a significant gap in the
ethnic diversity of the honours recipients versus corresponding census data at
any point in recent years.At the same time, 87.1% of the United Kingdom is
composed of white people, according to the 2011 census. This would suggest that
the racial diversity of the honours reflects the racial diversity of the United
Kingdom.
How to get an OBE: the opaque process by which Britain
chooses its honorees
February
10th, 2020
https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/how-to-get-an-obe/
In the 20th
century, the British Crown appointed around 100,000 people to honours and
titles. Throughout the century, this system expanded to include different kinds
of people. Toby Harper writes that the process nevertheless continues to be
confusing and tells us little about who honorees really are.
Suppose you
meet a man on the train who introduces himself as ‘Sir James’. What does this
mean? He could have done some distinguished professional or philanthropic
service; he could be a famous artist; he could be a retired civil servant who
won his title through long service; he could be a major political donor to one
of a number of different governments in the Commonwealth; or he might not in
fact be a knight but a baronet, and is thus entitled to call himself ‘Sir’
because he is the head of a male line whose ancestor won the title (probably
through large donations to some government at some point in the last five
hundred years). Alternatively, he could have changed his name so that his first
name is “Sir” in the hope of getting respect, attention, more frequent upgrades
to first class on flights, or some other rumored advantage to having a title.
He could also simply be lying. Titles have many sources, few of which reflect
anything on the personality or talents of its owner.
The
knighthood, the damehood, and the baronetcy are three of the many different
titles and honours that the British government gives to its citizens. The
terminology and hierarchies of this system are confusing, with a deep,
complicated history. The Order of the Garter, the oldest and one of the most
exclusive of these honours, dates back to the 14th century, but most of the
system’s components are more recent creations. For example, in the aftermath of
the formation of the largest single order of chivalry – the Order of the
British Empire – in 1917, many recipients were confused by the names of the
medals they received. Working class recipients of the low-ranking Medal of the
Order of the British Empire reasonably thought that they were entitled to use
the letters OBE after their name. In fact, the medal granted no rank, no formal
membership in an order of chivalry, and no precedence: it was for working-class
heroes. The right to use the postnominals OBE fell to middle class ‘Officers of
the British Empire’, which was the fourth rank of the order.
Many
different factors shape the choices the British state makes in honouring
people. Broad shifts of policy, individual political debts, and opaque personal
preferences all play a part. Public nominations are and have been an important
part of the system, but there is a long route from nomination to selection.
Multiple different parties are involved, including politicians (especially
whips), civil servants in various departments, and royal servants, even perhaps
the monarch themselves. The greatest amount of control has traditionally rested
in the hands of civil servants in the Treasury and, more recently, the Cabinet
Office. There are usually far more nominees for honours than spots available. This
shortage is artificial, with numbers kept low in order to maintain exclusivity.
Throughout
the 20th and into the 21st century committees of civil servants have done the
main part of the work of assessing nominations from government departments,
processing public nominations, and integrating political priorities. The scale
and rank of honours that they have worked with has been shaped by centralized
policies that were only occasionally been subject to direct political scrutiny
and change, although exceptions to this pattern created major shifts in who
received what. From these committees honours lists go to the Prime Minister’s
office, where a few names are added and subtracted, then successful nominees
are invited to accept the honour, and finally the monarch signs off the lists
for public proclamation, usually twice yearly, in the London Gazette. Although
the monarchy’s role is limited, recipients and the wider public closely
associate honours with royalty because of their symbolism and because of honours
investitures, where recipients receive the medals from the hands of a royal.
Some people
decline the opportunity to take on honours, out of principle, because of
political objections to the current government, or for more obscure reasons.
Reasons for rejecting honours have been almost as diverse as the reasons for
giving them, and are secret: whether or not someone reveals they were offered
an honour but declined is at their discretion because this is one of the many
secrets about honours that the government defends vigorously. Some artists,
musicians and anti-monarchists have declined them for political reasons. Poet
Benjamin Zephaniah rejected an OBE in 2003 because of the imperial connotations
of the order’s name, and because he disagreed with the government’s social
policies.
Others
rejected titles for more personal reasons. Physicist A.V. Hill rejected a
knighthood in 1941 out of principle and aesthetics. He railed against the
competition and enmity that he alleged knighthoods introduced among scientists.
At the same time, had Hill, as he went by with friends and colleagues, been
knighted he would have become known as ‘Sir Archibald’, and would have thus had
a first name he disliked forcibly exposed to the public and to friends. P.G.
Wodehouse made a similar joke in Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit (1954) about a
character named Mr. Trotter, who dodged a knighthood because he did not want
his embarrassing first name (Lemuel) exposed.
Jokes like
these abound in the lives of honours recipients, their friends, and those who
aspired to win honours. The system has been and continues to be a topic of fun
and levity. But behind the jokes is a serious business. In modern, anonymous,
fragmented societies these centralized systems are all the more important
because they aim to bring people together under one set of rules and labels
that have widespread currency. Contemporary societies readily confuse and
conflate success, greatness, size, fame, and volume with rightness. In the last
few years this confusion has had increasingly absurd results, but it has been
around for a long time, in many different cultures and contexts. This is why it
is so important to understand exactly how modern states celebrate their heroes,
and especially to understand the limitations, omissions and other quirks of
this process – to disenchant the mysticism of honours. The process by which
Britain has chosen and continues to choose its honorees has been opaque,
confusing, and poorly understood. Sir James may be a modern knight, but that
tells you little about who he really is.
________________
About the
Author
Toby Harper
is Assistant Professor in the School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious
Studies at Arizona State University. His forthcoming book, ‘From Servants of
the Empire to Everyday Heroes: The British Honours System in the Twentieth
Century‘ will be published by Oxford University Press in March 2020.
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