Top winemaker ‘may have to leave its Spanish vineyards due to climate crisis’

 

Top winemaker ‘may have to leave its Spanish vineyards due to climate crisis’

 

Familia Torres has been making wine in Catalonia since 1870, but says it may have to move to higher altitudes in 30 years’ time

 

Sarah Butler

Sat 17 May 2025 07.00 CEST

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/may/17/top-winemaker-spanish-vineyards-climate-crisis-familia-torres

 

A leading European winemaker has warned it may have to abandon its ancestral lands in Catalonia in 30 years’ time because climate change could make traditional growing areas too dry and hot.

 

Familia Torres is already installing irrigation at its vineyards in Spain and California and is planting vines on land at higher altitudes as it tries to adapt to more extreme conditions.

 

“Irrigation is the future. We do not rely on the weather,” said its 83-year-old president, Miguel Torres. “I don’t know how long we can stay here making good wines, maybe 20 or 30 years, I don’t know. Climate change is changing all the circumstances.”

 

The family business has been making wine in Catalonia since 1870, but Torres said: “In 30 to 50 years’ time maybe we have to stop viniculture here.

 

“Tourists are very important for Catalonia and we are very close to Barcelona. This area could be for activity for tourists but viniculture, I don’t think is going to be here.”

 

The group, which invests 11% of its profits every year to combatting and adapting to the climate crisis, may instead have to move at least some of its vineyards “more to the west because it is cooler and we have to have water”.

 

Familia Torres has more than 1,000 hectares of vineyards in Catalonia, mainly in the Penedès region, as well as sites in other parts of Spain, Chile and California.

 

It is now expanding to higher altitudes, producing grapes in Tremp, in the Catalan Pre-Pyrenees, at 950 metres, and acquiring plots in Benabarre, in the Aragonese Pyrenees, at 1,100 metres, where it is still too cold to grow vines. It is also using a variety of techniques to reduce or reuse water in its growing and processing practices.

 

That came after the family recorded a 1C rise in the average temperature in the Penedès region over the past 40 years. The change is causing the harvest to take place 10 days earlier than it did a few decades ago, while the family employs a variety of techniques to slow the ripening of the grapes to protect the right qualities for winemaking.

 

Torres’s comments come after a difficult few years for European vineyards. He said production was down as much as 50% in some of the winemaker’s regions in 2023 – “the worst year I have ever seen” – and still down on historic averages last year amid extreme heat and drought.

 

This year so far has been better – amid winter and spring rains and wider use of irrigation – but Torres said he was concerned that damper conditions bring the threat of mildew.

 

“In the future if we want to have more continuity in the harvest we have to stop the warming,” he said. “The warming is killing the trade.”

 

The additional costs of irrigation are eating into profits in a highly competitive market with potential threats from US import tariffs on top of additional duties imposed on wine in the UK in recent years, as well as a new packaging tax which is particularly high for glass bottles and jars.

 

Torres said exports to the UK have fallen by as much as 10% and absorbing some of the cost increases has further knocked profits.

 

“We have no profit in exports to the UK, that is the reality. Hundreds of thousands of English people come to Spain on holiday and know the brand. We have to keep it alive in the UK.”

 

He said Torres was considering bottling some of its cheaper wines in the UK in order to reduce cost – as it is less costly to import in bulk in tankers.

 

“At least by next year we should be already importing that way in the UK,” Torres said. “British consumers are paying more for wine and there is not another possibility [to importing]. Production in the UK is very little.”

Who is the best dressed in Guy Richie’s The Gentlemen

Savile Row To Community Clothing: Britain's Most Interesting Man - Patri...

Community Clothing by Patrick Grant

 

Grant’s episode on Desert Island Discs will air on BBC Radio 4 at 11.15am on Sunday.

 

PILLAR

OF THE

COMMUNITY

Men's Fashion & Outfit Ideas

India Price

-Menswear Editor

https://www.johnlewis.com/content/fashion/men/patrick-grant-community-clothing

 

From juggling huge brands to helping deprived communities, Patrick Grant has had an incredible career. As John Lewis becomes the first to stock his Community Clothing line, we talk to the groundbreaking designer about his life and work

Patrick will be kickstarting the My John Lewis Festival of Sewing with an event on Wednesday 21st of March, starting at 6pm. Please join us for an evening of conversation and an open Q&A with Patrick.

 

There are those who say that they want things to change, and then there’s Patrick Grant. A man so invested in improving the British fashion and manufacturing industry that he has moved his entire life from London to Blackburn in order to devote more time and effort into effecting that change. 

 

It’s hard not to be aware of the man and his work. You may recognise Patrick from his role as a judge on The Great British Sewing Bee. Perhaps you’re a fan of the brands he heads, which include Savile Row tailor Norton & Sons, menswear pioneer E. Tautz and the basics brand that we’re talking to him about today, Community Clothing. You may well have worn a piece of clothing made at Cookson & Clegg, a manufacturer that he saved from going under six years ago. Safe to say his influence is hard to overstate.

 

We sat down with Patrick over Zoom to discuss the fashion industry and much more, including what it means to have Community Clothing – the five-year-old brand that he founded in a bid to restore prosperity to the UK manufacturing industry – join the John Lewis family for the first time.

 

On the

IMPORTANCE OF HONESTY

Patrick’s 15 years in fashion have seen him cover off pretty much every role available – from creative director and designer to manufacturer and factory owner – giving him a unique insight into what’s really important in the industry.

 

‘John Lewis has a strong sense of honesty and trust, two things which are really important both for me and Community Clothing,’ Patrick explains. ‘In everything that we do for the brand, we try to be completely transparent and honest, right down to the way we shoot our product.’ Retouching and unrealistic beauty ideals are, refreshingly, out of the window. ‘We want people to be able to relate to Community Clothing and we want our clothing to represent our community.’

 

 Patrick Grant

On

COMMUNITY CLOTHING

Community Clothing was born when Patrick spotted a gap in the market that desperately needed to be filled. ‘You used to be able to go anywhere on the UK high street and buy really high-quality, affordable clothing,’ he says. ‘Now, you can get affordable clothing but it’s just not the quality that it used to be. Long-lasting, high-quality, affordable clothing was missing from the British clothing landscape.’

 

The Blackburn-based brand launched five years ago. It is defiantly local – right down to the homegrown photographer and the models, who are from a nearby school and the wider community. Patrick is particularly fond of Bob, a retiree and now model, who he met at the bowling club in Blackburn. Bob’s wife Barbara also comes to the shoots to make the tea and hand out biscuits.

 

“Long-lasting, high-quality, affordable clothing was missing from the British clothing landscape”

Patrick Grant

 

‘I understand the price that British shoppers are prepared to pay for clothing, so I started to think about how we could make the product in British factories, using great quality cloth, and still keep it affordable.’ Patrick realised that people wanted something that went against the grain of traditional seasonal pieces and standard manufacturing practices.

 

‘There’s a fixed model in the clothing industry and everyone does the same thing, to a greater or lesser extent. It’s based around designing new stuff season after season and always moving around to find a cheaper way of making those pieces. But I understood that in order for a factory to work, it needed to be operating on a high level of output 365 days a year.’

 

Patrick Grant

On the

POWER OF COMMUNITY

‘We set out to create as much economic value in the town where we manufacture as we can,’ Patrick explains. ‘The reason that we shoot with local photographers, local models, and use a local Blackburn studio is so that the money we pay everyone actually goes into the pockets of those in the local community.’

 

And it’s not just the shoots that Community Clothing does locally. The Cookson & Clegg manufacturer that Patrick owns is also in Blackburn, so he’s created a community of factory workers to make the clothes, using locally crafted materials. ‘The manufacturing industry used to be the beating heart of a community. The sense of purpose and pride, as well as the economic prosperity and cohesion that came from the industry, has disappeared,’ explains Patrick. ‘The loss of these industries has resulted in a lot of things, but most importantly the breakdown of community.’

 

 Patrick Grant

On

BRITISH-MADE CLOTHING

The rise of fast fashion and a declining British textile industry gave Patrick the push to start Community Clothing. But how does he keep prices down, without losing quality or, indeed, using materials or labour from abroad? ‘We want to encourage people to slow down their consumption,’ he argues. ‘We have two design principles: simplify the purchasing process for the customer and make things easier for the factory. Where other brands might have seven different fabrics for seven different coats, or a slight variety in their material for different pieces like a hoodie or joggers, we almost always use the same fabric within each category.’

 

And rather than importing fabrics, 90% of those used by Community Clothing are made in the UK. ‘The only thing that we don’t get in this country is our denim, and that’s because there’s only one very expensive producer of denim in the UK,’ says Patrick. ‘Instead, our denim is sourced from two super-sustainable and ethical firms – one in Turkey and one in Portugal.’

 

“Everything that we do is to sustain and create jobs in the UK textile industry and to help restore economic prosperity in some of the most deprived communities”

Patrick Grant

Patrick can reel off the names of his local suppliers without having to consult a phone or notebook. There’s the raincoat material from British Millerain in Rochdale, the jersey for sweatshirts and T-shirts from Leicester, the rugby shirt cloth from a specialist in the midlands.

 

Patrick proudly declares that ‘the yarn for our T-shirts is spun in Manchester, the jersey is knitted and dyed in Leicester, and then it’s cut and sewn in our factory in Blackburn. We have a tiny, tiny footprint. The fundamental goal of everything that we do as a brand is to sustain and create jobs in the UK textile industry and to help restore economic prosperity in some of the most deprived communities in the country.’

 

Patrick Grant

On the

FUTURE OF FASHION

‘We’ve got modest ambitions, but each year we want to continue to grow and improve, and to have a positive impact on the people that we work with and the dialogue that surrounds the industry,’ he says. At last count, Patrick and his team had created 140,000 hours of work since 2015, with that number doubling every year. So far, they have 28 factories in 24 different towns, a number that they also aim to keep growing. The aim is to create 5,000 full-time jobs.

 

So, what’s next for Community Clothing and Patrick? ‘We want to make big social change,’ he answers. ‘We’ve already had a very positive impact for Blackburn, and we hope to do the same for lots of other communities. It’s genuinely incredibly rewarding to be working in a business where everyone who comes into contact with it says great things.

 

‘I’m lucky enough that, because I’m on TV on The Great British Sewing Bee, I’ve managed to talk about sustainability, reuse and repair and get those issues to a much broader audience,’ he says. ‘I’m fortunate to have a voice that can help move the discussion of clothing in a positive way because it really can be a positive thing. We’ve seen how it can create good jobs, prosperity and happiness in communities all across the UK.’

Norton & Sons / Patrick Grant: My life on Savile Row

SAVILE ROW CONCOURS31ST MAY 2023

Patrick Grant: My life on Savile Row

By Daniel Evans

https://savilerow-style.com/lifestyle/savile-row-concours/patrick-grant-my-life-on-savile-row/

 

As the sun beats down on Savile Row, bouncing off the prestige and classic cars on display outside Britain’s finest tailoring establishments, Patrick Grant, director of Norton & Sons, is very much in his element. He is delighted to see the Row packed with enthusiasts of both fine clothing and exotic cars as the second Savile Row Concours gets underway and he feels the future is looking good for the home of high-class tailoring. “I started at Norton’s in 2005 and, back then, the number of young people looking for apprenticeships on this street was pretty low,” he says. “We probably got one person a month coming in to ask about apprenticeships. I was then involved with a BBC documentary about Savile Row which sparked a lot of interest. After it went out, the phone was ringing off the hook. Making things is becoming cool again and I think, for many young people, a job with your hands where you are using your skill and your brain to produce something of exquisite quality is now seen as a cool job to have in a way for a long time it wasn’t.

 

“After we made that documentary, there was an immediate change in the number of people who were coming to apply for jobs here. We went from about one a month to two or three a week. Now, happily for Savile Row, the position with apprenticeships is very buoyant. There are far more people applying for apprenticeships than we have places to teach.”

 

Patrick is certainly one of the more high profile tailors on the Row. As well as his involvement with Norton & Sons, he fronted a TV documentary about military uniforms ahead of the Coronation, has been presenting The Great British Sewing Bee since 2013 and is currently doing some work with King Charles (about which more later).

 

First, Patrick tells how he became involved with Norton & Sons. “I was finishing off my post grad and I happened to be reading the Financial Times and there it was, at the back in the businesses for sale section,” he recalls. “I couldn’t believe it! There was this little advert – For Sale, tailors to emperors, kings and presidents. I thought this can’t be real but it was. I flogged everything I could find to sell, including my house and my car.

 

“This year, we are 202 years old which makes us one of the oldest tailors on the street. We have always done tailoring. It’s a wonderful business. We’ve never been one of the big, shouty ones. It’s always been the one that connoisseurs will track down. We’ve enjoyed being almost under the radar but not quite. We were big on making clothes for people who travelled and explored. Even today we have some customers who are polar explorers and people who do mad things like take pianos to tribes in the middle of the Amazon.

 

“Lord Carnarvon was a customer so Tutankhamun’s tomb was opened by a man wearing a lightweight suit – although it didn’t look that lightweight, to be honest. It looks like it’s about 25 ounces from the photographs. We’ve always made lightweight, unstructured stuff. Everyone thinks the Italians were the only people to do lightweight tailoring but Brits, for good reason and for bad, spent a lot of time in hot places and they needed clothes to wear too and Norton’s was one of the houses that specialised in lightweight, unstructured stuff that you could wear in countries where it was 40 degrees all the time. We still have those skills in-house today.”

 

Patrick knows the fashion industry does not have a good reputation when it comes to green credentials and is aware that sustainability has shot up the agenda. “We need to buy fewer things,” he says. “We need to consume less and we need to consume better things that are going to last longer and are not going to have any damaging effects on the environment on the way in and certainly aren’t going to have any damaging effects on the environment on the way out.

 

“We need to get out of the habit of buying lots of inexpensive things. The inexpensive stuff has got so cheap. You can go and buy a pair of shoes for a tenner – polyurethane top glued on to a plastic bottom. Horrible stuff that’s doing terrible things to the environment at every stage of its production then when the sole falls off, which it will do after you’ve worn it about three times, it goes in the bin and ends up in landfill and never biodegrades. Instead of that, you could get a pair of shoes that are made out of something that’s a by-product of our food industry, that’s totally natural and biodegradable and will last you for ages and every time it needs repairing, you can take it to somebody who can fix it for you. So, you’re putting more money into the economy.

 

“I still have a dinner suit of my dad’s which was made in the 1930s by a tailor in Edinburgh. It’s a bit agricultural but it is bombproof. I wore it all through university, both under grad and post grad, I’ve crawled through hedges backwards in it but you give it a brush and it looks as good as new. It’s coming up for its 90th birthday and it’s still in perfect nick. I’ve got a couple of other pieces from my dad which were made in the 1930s and jackets from my grandad made in the 1950s which are still great. It’s not just that the clothes are good but the more you wear these things, they pick up history and become part of the story of your life, your interactions with your friends. We can remember wearing things at a particular occasion and that gives them value too. Every time you repair something, it adds to its value.”

 

Patrick saw a great example of longevity while he was making the programme about uniforms for the BBC ahead of the Coronation. “As part of that documentary, we went to a firm in Birmingham called Firmin which makes buttons. It’s the most incredible place on earth. There is equipment in that factory which dates back to the 1650s. They help make the Household Cavalry helmets and they have an old blacksmith’s elm that was there when the business was formed in 1655 and they still use it. After seeing it on TV, a lot of people got in touch, all saying the same thing: ‘Isn’t all of this craft wonderful and shouldn’t we all do more to preserve it?’ Of course we should, but that means putting your money where your mouth is. Don’t buy ten cheap things, buy one good thing and care for it. Make it last and enjoy it because you will enjoy wearing that one good thing so much more than ten inexpensive things.”

 

More recently, Patrick has talked about working with King Charles. “I’ve met him on many occasions,” says Patrick. “He is a lover of beautiful things – a lover of clothes and a lover of craftsmanship. He is a great example of how to live with stuff for a very long time. He was having some new dress shoes made by Tricker’s (in Northampton) but he loved the ribbon on his old dress shoes so he asked Tricker’s to take the ribbon off the old shoes (which were probably around 50 years old) and put them on his new shoes. It was the connection with the past, with everywhere those old shoes would have been. There’s something intangible there that adds to the value of our clothes – the more we wear them, the more we keep them.”

 

In 2018, Patrick became co-chair of the Prince of Wales’ charity Future Textiles, an organisation that works towards creating jobs in the UK’s garment making industry. “It’s an amazing charity,” explains Patrick. “It teaches young people to sew. The main sewing school is in Dumfries House up in Ayrshire. So far, we’ve taught more than 6,000 kids how to sew. They come for a day or they come for a week and they learn how to sew with some brilliant people. We’ve also got a sewing school at Trinity Buoy Wharf in east London and now we have a school in the King’s home at Highgrove in Gloucestershire. The King believes we should all know how to fix our clothes and do these basic things so he set up a school to teach people to do it.”

 

As the crowds continue to teem up and down, Patrick’s words of optimism regarding the future health of the Row sound well founded. “Savile Row is unique because everyone understands that what we do here is incredibly special. People are prepared to pay for the skill of those who are making your suit,” he says. “Everyone who is a customer on Savile Row appreciates what that is worth – it is the skill of the human beings who crafted that suit, the skill of the weavers who have created that cloth, and the finishers and the spinners, and the famers who have raised the sheep or have grown the cotton. All of that stuff we need to value in a very different way. We’re lucky on Savile Row because people already do value it but we need to learn to have that same respect for craftsmanship and materials in everything we buy and ensure that Savile Row remains the absolute pinnacle of hand tailoring anywhere on the planet.”

The End of Fast Fashion?

 

 

The End of Fast Fashion?

Even as President Trump steps back from his larger trade war with China, he has closed a loophole that enabled $2 shirts and $3 bikinis.

 

May 15, 2025

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/15/podcasts/the-daily/tariff-shein-temu-china-fast-fashion.html

 

Hosted by Katrin BennholdFeaturing Meaghan TobinProduced by Rikki NovetskyShannon M. Lin and Anna FoleyWith Clare ToeniskoetterEdited by Maria Byrne and Paige CowettOriginal music by Marion LozanoDiane WongRowan Niemisto and Pat McCuskerEngineered by Chris Wood

 

For years, American consumers have been able to spend next to nothing on the latest fashion trends, thanks in large part to Chinese clothing companies like Shein and Temu. These businesses have long used a loophole to send millions of packages a day into the U.S. from China tax-free.

 

Now, President Trump is closing that loophole, even as he de-escalates his larger trade war with China, and prices are going up.

 

Meaghan Tobin, who covers business and technology in Asia, discusses whether this might be the end for fast fashion.

The price of Paris: What does it cost to live in the French capital? • F...

Why the SAVILE ROW Suit is a MENSWEAR ICON – Jeremy Irons style breakdow in Damage./ REMEMBERING "DAMAGE" (1992)

 

REMEMBERING "DAMAGE" (1992)

Damage is a 1992 romantic psychological drama film directed and produced by Louis Malle and starring Jeremy Irons, Juliette Binoche, Miranda Richardson, Rupert Graves, and Ian Bannen. Adapted by David Hare from the 1991 novel Damage by Josephine Hart, the film is about a British politician (Irons) who has a sexual relationship with his son's fiancée and becomes increasingly obsessed with her. Richardson was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress and won a BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role for her performance as the aggrieved wife of the film's main character.

 

Plot

Dr. Stephen Fleming, a physician who has entered politics and become a minister, lives in London with wife Ingrid and daughter Sally. Their adult son, Martyn, a young journalist, lives elsewhere in London. At a reception, Stephen meets a young woman, Anna Barton, the daughter of a British diplomat and a four-times-married Frenchwoman. Anna introduces herself as a close friend of Martyn's; she and Stephen are instantly attracted to each other. Some time later, Martyn brings Anna to meet his parents at their elegant townhouse and reveals they are romantically involved. The sexual tension between Stephen and Anna is apparent, although Martyn and Ingrid seem unaware.

 

After Anna calls his office, Stephen goes to her flat, where they have sex. The following day, Martyn is promoted and Ingrid arranges a celebratory dinner. There, Ingrid seems suspicious and interrogates Anna about her childhood. Anna says her brother, a year older, committed suicide over "love" when he was 16. After dinner, Martyn drives Anna home and Stephen follows them. Once Martyn leaves, Stephen enters and tells Anna how much he "wanted to touch her during dinner", leading to them having sex again. Anna describes her brother's death, after he had expressed incestuous desire, saying "he wanted me all to himself and not to grow up." She says that damaged people are dangerous, and that she hates possessiveness.

 

Stephen's obsession with Anna deepens; on a whim, he leaves a conference in Brussels to go to Paris, where Anna is spending the weekend with Martyn. While Martyn sleeps, Stephen and Anna have sex in a doorway. Afterwards, Stephen moves in opposite Anna and Martyn, spying on them; he now wants to be with Anna permanently, even if it destroys his family. Anna dissuades him, assuring him that, as long as she is with Martyn he will always have access to her. Visiting Anna's home, Stephen finds Peter Wetzler, her former lover. A jealous Stephen assumes Anna is cheating and, when Peter leaves, confronts her. Anna denies it and recounts that, when she witnessed her brother's suicide, she had fled to Peter and slept with him as a reaction.

 

The Flemings visit Edward Lloyd, Ingrid's father and Stephen's political mentor, to celebrate her birthday. Martyn announces that Anna has accepted his proposal of marriage, which visibly disturbs Stephen. That night, Sally observes him leaving Anna's room. An anxious Stephen lies about it, telling Sally he was talking to Anna about the marriage because Ingrid was upset. Later, the Flemings have lunch with Anna's mother, Elizabeth, who disparages the marriage, saying that Martyn doesn't seem like Anna's 'usual type' but noting how closely he resembles Anna's dead brother. Elizabeth notices the strained behavior between Anna and Stephen. She deduces the affair and warns Stephen to end it.

 

Stephen initially complies and ends the relationship. He tries to confess to Martyn and Ingrid, separately, but in the end does not do it. He phones Anna, but hangs up when Martyn answers. Anna sends a key to Stephen's office, with the address of a flat where they can meet. She tells Stephen that she could not marry Martyn without being with him. They meet at the flat and begin another tryst, but Martyn—having discovered about the flat by chance—finds them in bed. Stunned, he accidentally falls over a railing to his death. A devastated Stephen runs down the stairs naked and clutches his body, while Anna silently leaves.

 

Stephen's affair is exposed and becomes a media frenzy. An anguished Ingrid questions whether he had ever loved her and tells him she wishes they had never met. Stephen resigns his government position. Meeting Anna's mother, he discovers Anna is staying with her, but he and Anna are silent in their last meeting. Stephen, leaving his wife and daughter, retires to a rented room in a southern European town. In narration, he reveals that he saw Anna only once more, in passing at an airport, and that she has a child with Peter. Stephen stares at a huge blowup on his wall of a photo Martyn gave him of Stephen, Anna and Martyn together. He ends with a calm note: "She was no different from anyone else."

Cast

Jeremy Irons as Dr. Stephen Fleming

Juliette Binoche as Anna Barton

Miranda Richardson as Ingrid Fleming

Rupert Graves as Martyn Fleming

Ian Bannen as Edward Lloyd

Peter Stormare as Peter Wetzler

Gemma Clarke as Sally Fleming

Leslie Caron as Elizabeth Prideaux

Julian Fellowes as Donald Lyndsay, MP

Tony Doyle as Prime Minister

Ray Gravell as Dr. Fleming's chauffeur

Susan Engel as Miss Snow

David Thewlis as Detective

Benjamin Whitrow as Civil Servant

 

Critical reception

Damage received many favorable reviews. On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 81% of 26 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 6.9/10. On Metacritic the film has a score of 71 out of 100 based on reviews from 28 critics, which indicates "generally favorable reviews".

 

Gene Siskel considered it one of the year's best films upon its release, commenting that it is "written smart, written with a topicality, so the characters seem credible". He went on to say that "Damage is a real special film".Roger Ebert described it as "one of the most compelling films [he'd] ever seen"[6] and gave it 4 out of 4 stars.

 

Kenneth Turan, in a review for the Los Angeles Times, had much praise for the film, and for the performances of Irons, Binoche, and Richardson; writing: "working together with great seriousness of purpose and a considerable amount of skill, this team has turned Damage into high-class entertainment, carefully controlled, beautifully mounted and played with total conviction. Its lurid soul may have more in common with Jackie Collins than Jane Austen, but its passionate nature and convincing performances can't help but draw you in."

 

Peter Travers of Rolling Stone praised Malle's direction of a "faithful film version" of Hart's original novel. Of the cast, Travers was most favourable toward Richardson's portrayal of Ingrid: "Richardson is extraordinary; it's a brave, award-caliber performance."

 

Todd McCarthy's review for Variety was somewhat more mixed, stating that "Damage is a cold, brittle film about raging, traumatic emotions. Unjustly famous before its release for its hardly extraordinary erotic content, this very British-feeling drama from veteran French director Louis Malle proves both compelling and borderline risible, wrenching and yet emotionally pinched, and reps a solid entry for serious art-house audiences worldwide. But more mainstream Yank viewers led by publicity to expect a hot or romantic time will be in for a dry two hours."

 

In a mixed review for Empire magazine, Matt Mueller gave the film 3 out of 5 stars, while leveling a few criticisms: "Walking a precarious line between stark, penetrating drama and pretentious twaddle, Louis Malle's terribly British vision of erotic obsession, adapted from Josephine Hart's bestseller, is alternately compelling and risible, hypnotic and remote." He praised Richardson, in particular for a scene near the end of the film: "In that single scene, Damage achieves a level of gut-wrenching emotional intensity that had previously been absent."

Can King Charles Heal a Royal Family Crisis Before It’s Too Late?

 

Can King Charles Heal a Royal Family Crisis Before It’s Too Late?

 

Prince Harry’s desperate plea to reconcile with his father highlighted a rupture that could undermine the monarchy’s attempts to model unity.

 

Mark Landler

By Mark Landler

Reporting from London

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/11/world/europe/charles-harry-royal-family-crisis.html?searchResultPosition=10

May 11, 2025

 

King Charles III was busy last week marking the 80th anniversary of the Allied victory over Nazi Germany and preparing to fly to Canada to open its Parliament later this month. But his public schedule was eclipsed yet again by a highly publicized eruption from his estranged younger son, Prince Harry.

 

It has become a familiar pattern for the 76-year-old monarch. Two years after his coronation, his reign is shaping up as both eventful and oddly unchanging in its core narrative: that of a beleaguered father managing a messy brood.

 

Harry’s emotional plea to be reconciled with his family — made in a recent interview with the BBC, in which he mused about how long his cancer-stricken father had left to live — resurfaced bitter ruptures within the royal family, which has yet to find its footing in the still-fledgling Carolean era.

 

“There is an overhang in the way we see Charles’s reign,” said Ed Owens, a historian who writes about the British monarchy. “It hasn’t really gotten going, nor are we sure how long it will last.”

 

To be sure, the king has done a lot. Despite undergoing weekly treatments for cancer diagnosed last year, he traveled to France, Australia, Poland and Italy. He found time to curate a playlist for Apple Music (Kylie Minogue and Bob Marley feature), played host at state banquets and posed for portraits.

 

But Harry’s comments, which came after a legal defeat over his security arrangements in Britain, dragged attention back to the rift that opened in 2020 when he and his wife, Meghan, withdrew from royal life and moved to California.

 

Some royal watchers warn that unless Charles finds a way to heal that rift, it could define his reign, undercutting the messages of tolerance and inclusiveness that he has long championed.

 

“When history comes to be written about the king, this will reflect badly on him,” said Peter Hunt, a former royal correspondent for the BBC. “He represents an institution that is about family, unity and fostering forgiveness. His role is to bring people together, and yet he can’t bring people together on his doorstep.”

 

Buckingham Palace has declined to comment on the king’s relationship with his son. But it pushed back on Harry’s contention in the BBC interview that his father could have done more to spare him the loss of automatic, publicly funded police protection when he visits Britain.

 

“All of these issues have been examined repeatedly and meticulously by the courts, with the same conclusion reached on each occasion,” a spokesman for the palace said in an unusually tart statement.

 

An appeals court ruled on May 2 that a government committee had acted properly in denying Harry automatic protection after he stopped being a working royal. He said he does not think it is safe to bring his wife and children home without such security.

 

The palace appealed to journalists not to focus on the family drama during a week dedicated to V-E Day commemorations. Far from calming the waters, Mr. Hunt said, that had the effect of keeping the spotlight on Harry longer than necessary.

 

“It’s a private issue but they are using the full weight of the institution to respond to him,” Mr. Hunt said.

 

Harry remains estranged from his older brother, Prince William, as well as his father, which adds to the portrait of a family divided and diminished. When the royals gathered on the balcony of Buckingham Palace to watch a flyover of war planes last week, their ranks were noticeably sparse.

 

The king’s younger brother, Prince Andrew, is still in internal exile, following the scandal over his ties to the disgraced sex predator Jeffrey Epstein. Andrew’s history also resurfaced in recent weeks with the death of Virginia Giuffre, a woman introduced to him by Mr. Epstein, with whom he later settled a sexual abuse lawsuit. Her family said she died by suicide in Australia.

 

For William, the loss of Harry and Andrew, as well as his father’s illness, has thrust him into a more conspicuously public role.

 

He met with President Trump last year at the reopening of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. He rode on a tank during a visit to British troops in Estonia. And he represented his father at the funeral of Pope Francis last month, which came only days after Charles and his wife, Queen Camilla, met Francis at the Vatican.

 

“William has sometimes been seen as work-shy, but we see him gravitating toward bigger, more media-friendly events,” said Mr. Owens, the historian. “He’s burnishing his reputation as a statesman.”

 

William has put much of his energy into a program to tackle homelessness in six cities across Britain and Northern Ireland. Like his father, he continues to be active on climate change, though Mr. Owens said both had modulated their voices as net-zero targets have become politically fraught.

 

The heir to the throne made perhaps his biggest splash with the British public when he offered astute sports commentary last month before a Champions League game pitting his favorite soccer club, Aston Villa, against Paris Saint-Germain. One of the hosts, Rio Ferdinand, joked that he could take his job.

 

The job that William does not want, at least for now, is his father’s. But fears over the king’s health have made talk of succession inescapable. In late March, Charles was briefly hospitalized after a reaction to his medication. The palace insisted it was a minor bump on the road to recovery, but it set off alarm bells at British broadcasters, for whom the passing of a monarch sets in motion substantial coverage.

 

Nothing in the king’s calendar suggests he is slowing down. If anything, he has embraced his duties with a zeal that royal watchers say is either evidence of a robust recovery or the mark of a man who knows he has limited time.

 

When he opens Canada’s Parliament on May 27, it will be no ordinary royal visit. Charles, who is king of Canada, will be a symbol of Canadian sovereignty at a time when Mr. Trump is calling for it to become the 51st American state.

 

By all accounts, Charles relishes his role as an agent of British soft power. He recently played host to President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine and sent Mr. Trump a letter inviting him on a second state visit to Britain.

 

But such high-profile engagements, royal watchers say, do not disguise the fact that his illness has hindered him from pursuing the kinds of reforms to the British monarchy that many expected after his coronation.

 

“The man has had the wind taken from his sails,” Mr. Owens said.

 

Mark Landler is the London bureau chief of The Times, covering the United Kingdom, as well as American foreign policy in Europe, Asia and the Middle East. He has been a journalist for more than three decades.

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The Story Of Cracking The Enigma Code In 2 Hours / Today’s AI can crack second world war Enigma code ‘in short order’, experts say

 

Today’s AI can crack second world war Enigma code ‘in short order’, experts say

 

Crowning achievement of Alan Turing’s codebreakers is now ‘straightforward’, according to computer scientists

 

Nicola Davis Science correspondent

Wed 7 May 2025 05.00 BST

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2025/may/07/todays-ai-can-crack-second-world-war-enigma-code-in-short-order-experts-say

 

The Enigma code was a fiendish cipher that took Alan Turing and his fellow codebreakers a herculean effort to crack. Yet experts say it would have crumbled in the face of modern computing.

 

While Polish experts broke early versions of the Enigma code in the 1930s and built anti-Enigma machines, subsequent security upgrades by the Germans meant Turing had to develop new machines, or “Bombes”, to help his team of codebreakers decipher enemy messages. By 1943, the machines could decipher two messages every minute.

 

Yet while the race to break the Enigma code has become famous, credited with shortening the second world war by up to two years, and spawning various Hollywood films, experts say cracking it would be a trivial matter today.

 

“Enigma wouldn’t stand up to modern computing and statistics,” said Michael Wooldridge, a professor of computer science and an expert in artificial intelligence (AI) at the University of Oxford.

 

The Enigma device used by the Axis powers was an electro-mechanical machine that resembled a typewriter, with three rotors that each had 26 possible positions, a reflector that sent the signal back through the rotors and a plugboard that swapped pairs of letters.

 

Its set-up meant that even if the same key was pressed twice, a different letter would be produced each time. What’s more, the initial settings were changed every 24 hours.

 

“Essentially the enigma devices got their power because the number of possible ways in which a message could be encrypted was astronomically large. Far, far too large for a human to exhaustively check,” Wooldridge said, adding that the “bombes” were crude hardwired mechanical computers, searching through enormous numbers of possible alternatives to decrypt Nazi messages.

 

Dr Mustafa A Mustafa, a senior lecturer in software security at the University of Manchester, added that the key to the success of Turing and his colleagues was that Enigma had a number of weaknesses, including that no letter would be represented as itself once enciphered.

 

“It was [a] brute force attack, trying all different combinations out. But with these weaknesses of the Enigma, they managed to do that. They managed to automate this to do it fast enough to be able to crack the code,” he said.

 

Today, however, the process would be far less arduous, not least because of a technology Turing himself pioneered: AI.

 

“It would be straightforward to recreate the logic of bombes in a conventional program,” Wooldridge said, noting the AI model ChatGPT was able to do so. “Then with the speed of modern computers, the laborious work of the bombes would be done in very short order.”

 

Wooldridge added that a range of modern statistical and computational techniques could also be deployed. “And the power of modern datacentres is hard to imagine,” he said, noting modern computing power would have astounded Turing. “Enigma would not remotely be a match for these,” he said.

 

Using a slightly different approach – that Wooldridge suggested might be slower – researchers have previously used an AI system trained to recognise German using Grimm’s fairytales, together with 2,000 virtual servers, to crack a coded message in 13 minutes.

 

But while modern computing would have rapidly defanged Enigma, techniques such as the Rivest-Shamir-Adleman (RSA) cipher – a system initially developed in 1977 and based on large prime numbers – remain robust.

 

“In the case of RSA, it’s the problem of factoring very large numbers. Brute force techniques – looking through all the alternatives – just won’t work on these problems,” said Wooldridge, although he noted such techniques might not hold up against future developments. “If quantum computers ever deliver their theoretical promise, then we may need completely new techniques to keep our data safe,” he said.

 

But while the Enigma code would not stand up long to modern technology, Mustafa said cracking it during the war was a huge achievement, not least as it was considered unbreakable.

 

“To be able to crack it – it took them months, more than a year – but to be able actually to do this within the lifetime of the war, it was a huge thing,” he said. “God knows what would have happened if we hadn’t cracked Enigma in time.”

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'Shocked' Royal Family can't trust Harry anymore

Prince Harry's 'incendiary' remarks catch the King off guard

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Prince Harry says king ‘won’t speak to him’

 

Prince Harry says king ‘won’t speak to him’ and he would ‘love’ to be reconciled

 

After losing personal security challenge, Duke of Sussex says he wants to make peace as he does not know how long Charles has to live

 

Caroline Davies

Fri 2 May 2025 18.04 BST

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/may/02/prince-harry-wants-reconciliation-royal-family

 

The Duke of Sussex has said it is “impossible” for him to bring his wife and children back to the UK after losing his legal challenge over personal security, and revealed he would “love” a reconciliation with his family.

 

In an emotional interview with the BBC, Prince Harry said his father, King Charles, will not speak to him “because of the security stuff”, but said he wanted reconciliation as life was “precious” and he did not know how long his father, who has been diagnosed with cancer, had left to live.

 

Speaking in California, where he now lives, Harry, 40, said: “For the time being, it’s impossible for me to take my family back to the UK safely.”

 

He added: “I can’t see a world in which I would be bringing my wife and children back to the UK at this point, and the things that they’re going to miss, is, well, everything. I love my country. I always have done, despite what some people in that country have done.

 

“I miss the UK. I miss parts of the UK, of course I do. And it’s really quite sad I won’t be able to show my children my homeland.”

 

Harry had sought to overturn changes to his security provision while in the UK, which were made after he and the Duchess of Sussex stepped away from royal duties in 2020.

 

He was offered “bespoke” security, which he felt was “inferior” and claimed the Executive Committee for the Protection of Royalty and Public Figures (known as Ravec), which authorises security measures, had breached its own terms of reference by not conducting a risk management board (RMB) before making the decision.

He insisted his father could help solve the issue, though he had not asked him to intervene. “I can only come to the UK safely if I am invited, and there is a lot of control and ability in my father’s hands.

 

“Ultimately, this whole thing could be resolved through him, not by intervening, but by stepping aside and allowing the experts to do what is necessary and to carry out an RMB,” he said.

 

It is understood it would have been constitutionally improper for the king to intervene while the matter was being considered by the government and reviewed by the courts.

 

Although the royal household provides representation and input into the Ravec decision, Friday’s judgment laid out that the chair of the Ravec committee was the decision maker on the provision of security. Royal private offices and private secretaries should be consulted as to the practicalities of the protection measures agreed, the ruling said.

 

Harry also appealed to the prime minister, Keir Starmer, saying: “This all was initiated under a previous government. There is now a new government. I have had it described to me by people who know about the facts that this is a good old-fashioned establishment stitch-up. And that’s what it feels like.”

 

Asked whether the prime minister should “step in”, he replied: “Yes, I would ask the prime minister to step in.

 

“I would ask Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, to look at this very, very carefully and I would ask her to review Ravec and its members, because if it is an expert body, then what is the royal household’s role there, if it is not to influence and decide what they want for the members of their household?”

 

On his family rift, he said: “There have been so many disagreements, differences between me and some of my family. This current situation, that has been ongoing now for five years with regard to human life and safety as the sticking point. It is the only thing that’s left.

 

“Of course some members of my family will never forgive me for writing a book, of course they will never forgive me for lots of things, but … I would love reconciliation with my family.

 

“There’s no point in continuing to fight any more. Life is precious. I don’t know how much longer my father has. He won’t speak to me because of this security stuff. But it would be nice to reconcile.”

 

He added: “If they want that, it’s entirely up to them.”

 

Harry said he could never leave the royal family, though he had left the “institution” because “I had to”.

 

He continued: “Whether I have an official role or not is irrelevant to the threats, risk and impact on the reputation of the UK if something was to happen.

 

“What really worries me more than anything else about today’s decision, depending on what happens next, [is that] it set a new precedent that security can be used to control members of the family, and effectively, what it does is imprison other members of the family from being able to choose a different life.”

 

He claimed that, through the court disclosure process, he had “discovered that some people want history to repeat itself, which is pretty dark”. Asked who he meant, Harry declined to answer.

 

He said he was “devastated” by the court’s decision, adding: “Not so much devastated with the loss [as] about the people behind the decision feeling as though this is OK. Is it a win for them? I’m sure there are some people out there, probably most likely the people that wish me harm, [who] consider this a huge win.”

 

He indicated that he would not be seeking a further legal challenge, saying Friday’s ruling had “proven that there was no way to win this through the courts”.

 

A spokesperson for Buckingham Palace said: “All of these issues have been examined repeatedly and meticulously by the courts, with the same conclusion reached on each occasion.”

Prince Andrew should never be allowed to return to public life

Prince Andrew should never be allowed to return to public life

Polly Hudson

The death of Virginia Giuffre - who accused the Duke of York of sexual assault - surely makes his desire to resume royal duties out of the question

 

Thu 1 May 2025 11.00 BST

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/may/01/prince-andrew-should-never-be-allowed-to-return-to-public-life

 

Everyone talks about Prince Andrew’s “fall from grace” but that raises an awkward question. When exactly was his grace period? Admittedly, even the most cynical among us aren’t immune to royal wedding fever, and when he married Fergie the nation was still high on the fumes from Charles and Diana’s nuptials, so perhaps he was briefly popular in 1986. But other than that? Pretty confident recollections wouldn’t vary here. Nada.

 

So technically we can’t call the events that have transpired since that brief moment in the sun a fall from grace. It’s more accurate to classify them as many falls from “meh”.

 

With that in mind, it is genuinely baffling that there are still any conversations at all about Andrew returning to royal life, especially when many think Harry should be locked in a tower just for daring to pursue an alternative future. Yet the discussion has somehow rumbled on. Now, with the death of Virginia Giuffre, it must stop for good.

 

When Giuffre alleged that she had been sexually assaulted by Andrew on three occasions when she was 17, he promised to fight to clear his name in court. His lawyer described her accusation as “baseless” and claimed she was seeking a “payday”.

 

Andrew went on to settle out of court in the US civil case for an estimated $12m, while making no admission of guilt. His lawyer declined to comment. David Boies, representing Giuffre, said of the settlement: “I believe the event speaks for itself.”

 

The teenager had been recruited to Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking ring by Ghislaine Maxwell in 2000 while working as a locker-room attendant at President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach. Giuffre told the Miami Herald: “Before you know it, I’m being lent out to politicians and academics and royalty.” In a later interview with the BBC, she chillingly described being “passed around like a platter of fruit”.

 

Last weekend, her family announced that she had “lost her life to suicide, after being a lifelong victim of sexual abuse and sex trafficking. In the end, the toll of the abuse is so heavy that it became unbearable for Virginia to handle its weight.”

 

With a few jaw-dropping exceptions, when it comes to royal scandals we don’t usually hear from the royal at the centre of the storm: never complain, never explain, and all that. But, unfortunately, thanks to his infamous Newsnight interview, we’re under no illusions about the precise level of remorse Andrew feels for his involvement with Jeffrey Epstein, which continued after Epstein was convicted and sentenced to eighteen months in prison in 2008, for procuring a minor for prostitution. Remember, as Andrew said in that interview, the only thing he’s guilty of is a “tendency to be too honourable”.

 

The mea non culpa also showcased Andrew’s superpowers: a staggering degree of tone-deafness and complete illiteracy when it comes to reading rooms. As producer Sam McAlister revealed in the aftermath: “As the interview ended, and I looked at the floor, unable to comprehend what we’d just witnessed, it became clear that Prince Andrew actually thought it had gone well. Very well … Those historic photos of him and Emily [Maitlis] walking in the palace corridors that you saw? Taken after that terrible interview took place … You can see how well he thought it had gone.”

 

It’s the same story every time he pops back up, cold sore-style and just as welcome. From when he bowled down the aisle with the late Queen, unselfconsciously centre stage, at Prince Philip’s memorial in 2022, to most recently at a public appearance at an Easter church service in Windsor. (His first since the furore over his links with businessman Yang Tengbo, accused of being a Chinese spy.)

 

Whenever we see Andrew, his expression is that of a dog who’s not bothering to beg for a treat because he’s so certain it’s coming his way. “Ugh, haven’t I waited long enough?” drips from every pore. Sorry, would drip from every pore, if only that were medically possible.

 

Never being allowed back to royal duties, into the spotlight he so clearly relishes, means he will spend the rest of his days languishing in the lap of luxury. As punishments go, it’s hardly harsh. But there is a sting in the tail. It’s highly likely Andrew will be for ever denied the public approval he still seems to feel he is entitled to and deserves. It’s not a life sentence as most of us understand it, and it’s certainly nowhere close to the one Virginia Giuffre endured, but at least it’s not nothing.

 

 Polly Hudson is a freelance writer