King Charles TOP 12 JOKES as he pokes fun at Trump and shares Churchill's NAKED White House story

The John Bull Magazine

The John Bull Magazine

The 1946 relaunch featured covers that encapsulated post-war Britain and employed some of Britain's finest illustrators. During this period, the magazine also included short stories by major British authors such as H. E. Bates, Agatha Christie, Nicholas Monsarrat, N. J. Crisp, Gerald Kersh, J. B. Priestley and C. S. Forester.

 

During John Bull's run it incorporated other magazines, such as Illustrated (1958), Passing Show, and Everybody's Weekly (1959).

 

End of publication

Following a sharp drop in circulation, the magazine was renamed Today, The New John Bull in 1960.[1] It attempted to appeal to a younger readership with features on aspects of youth culture, such as rock and roll. In 1964, its circulation was just over 700,000, but advertising revenue did not meet its costs, and it was closed.[25] Officially, it was merged with Weekend magazine.

 

Inside the Collection: Queen Elizabeth II’s Style | From Princess to Queen

 

The Indelible Style of a Queen Off Duty / "Queen Elizabeth II: Her Life in Style" / Exhibition: The King's Gallery, Buckingham Palace

 

Account

The Indelible Style of a Queen Off Duty

 

A new exhibition takes a closer look at Queen Elizabeth II’s wardrobe of boots, barn coats, head scarves and tartan skirts.

 

Yola Mzizi

By Yola Mzizi

April 25, 2026

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/25/style/queen-elizabeth-ii-exhibition-her-life-in-style.html?searchResultPosition=1

 

Queen Elizabeth II, the longest serving British monarch, showed her nature as a sartorial strategist from the very beginning of her reign: At her coronation in 1953, she wore a gown featuring embroidered motifs that nodded to places throughout the British Commonwealth.

 

Elizabeth’s rule, which ended in 2022 when she died at 96, coincided with the ascendance of the British fashion industry. She was loyal to homegrown brands and, in 2018, her patronage was immortalized with the creation of the Queen Elizabeth II Award for British Design, a distinction since given annually to a rising British designer.

 

In her later decades on the throne, Elizabeth was known to favor bright, monochromatic ensembles that she accessorized with hats, brooches and a black handbag at the crook of her arm. Something of a uniform, the queen’s colorful attire seemingly reflected a philosophy that she once told a biographer: “I have to be seen to be believed.”

 

But just as indelible as Elizabeth’s rainbow attire was her selection of understated rubber boots, barn coats, head scarves and tartan skirts, items she often wore on trips to Balmoral Castle, her family’s private estate in the rural Scottish Highlands. Many of those pieces, along with others from her expansive wardrobe, are featured in a new exhibition, “Queen Elizabeth II: Her Life in Style,” that opened at Buckingham Palace in London this month, timed to coincide with what would have been Elizabeth’s 100th birthday on April 21.

 

Elizabeth often opted for understated casual wear, like a gray Harris tweed jacket and a Balmoral tartan skirt, left, or a forest green overcoat, all of which are featured in the exhibition.Credit...Photographs by Royal Collection Enterprises Limited/Royal Collection Trust; Jon Stokes

 

Elizabeth’s casual wear typically featured neutral shades that blended in with the bucolic environments where she wore it, and it was more relaxed than the finery that she sported for public appearances. For many people, seeing how she dressed in laid-back settings held a unique allure, explained Elizabeth Holmes, the author of “HRH: So Many Thoughts on Royal Style.”

 

“Those choices feel less about how they play in public or for the photographers, and more representative of who that person is and what their style preferences are,” Ms. Holmes said.

 

The queen’s country attire also underscored her deep commitment to British fashion, said Caroline de Guitaut, the curator of the new exhibition. “It’s so British, and it’s so quintessentially the essence of some of the best clothing produced in this country,” Ms. de Guitaut said.

 

She added that the queen’s “off-duty” wardrobe was practical and inspired by her countryside pursuits — horseback riding, hunting and hiking. It included suede jackets from Simpson, Balmoral tartan skirts, Burberry capes, Barbour waxed jackets and Hermès handkerchief scarves (the rare item from a brand outside Britain).

 

The new exhibition showcases many of these garments, several of which Elizabeth routinely had repaired or altered because of frequent use, Ms. de Guitaut said. “That also goes back to the fact that she grew up during the Second World War,” she added, “where, of course, there was clothes rationing; there were shortages of things; and there was a lot of what we call the, kind of, ‘make do and mend’ philosophy.”

 

Elizabeth’s off-duty style has influenced designers in Britain and beyond. The English designer Richard Quinn — the first person to receive the queen’s namesake fashion award — said that her scarves were an inspiration for a coat in his spring 2018 collection. The Italian designers Miuccia Prada and Alessandro Michele have also nodded to the look: Mrs. Prada’s 2024 Balmoral collection for Miu Miu included tweed handbags and chore jackets, while a 2017 collection designed by Mr. Michele for Gucci featured tartan skirts and head scarves.

 

As part of the just-opened exhibition of Elizabeth’s fashion at Buckingham Palace, several British labels were tapped by its organizers to produce promotional merchandise.

 

It includes a Burberry trench coat with a dark green version of the brand’s signature check print, a homage to a style of tartan favored by the queen (2,190 pounds, or about $2,957); gloves made in collaboration with the leather-goods brand Dents (about $128); and tartan socks made in partnership with Corgi (about $24), a knitwear label that shares its name with Elizabeth’s preferred canine breed.

 

Though the queen’s casual wear incorporated luxury brands like Burberry, the fact that a person could walk into a store and buy the same boots or barn jacket owned by Elizabeth created a “personal connection to what she was wearing in a way that was accessible,” said Ms. Holmes, the author. “A lot of her other moments, especially the more glamorous ones, are not.”

"Queen Elizabeth II: Her Life in Style" is the largest-ever exhibition of the late Queen’s fashion, held at The King’s Gallery, Buckingham Palace from April 10 to October 18, 2026. Marking her centenary, the exhibition features over 300 items—including outfits, jewelry, and sketches—showcasing her style from childhood to her reign.

 

Key Exhibition Details

Location: The King's Gallery, Buckingham Palace (nearest station: Victoria).

Dates: April 10, 2026 – October 18, 2026.

Content: Over 300 items, including clothing worn in all ten decades of her life, from childhood to queen, including official royal news notes on "off-duty" attire.

Significance: Showcases her personal fashion archive, highlighting her active role in the design and symbolic meaning of her attire.

 

Exhibition Highlights

Garments & Accessories: Features clothing, hats, shoes, and jewelry.

Rare Items: Includes design sketches, fabric samples, and personal, handwritten correspondence.

Curator: The exhibit is curated by Caroline de Guitaut, LVO, FSA.

 

This "blockbuster" exhibition, as covered in visitlondon.com blog and NYT style section, explores how the Queen used fashion to shape her public identity.

The Old Boys: The Decline and Rise of the Public School by David Turner

The Old Boys: The Decline and Rise of the Public School by David Turner – review

An affectionate history of British public schools that fails to address the divisive elitism they represent

Jenny Turner

Thu 16 Apr 2015 07.00 BSTLast modified on Thu 22 Feb 2018 14.21 GMT

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/apr/16/the-old-boys-the-decline-and-rise-of-the-public-school-david-turner-review

Like contemplating Hamlet without the ghost: that’s what one historian calls anything about education in England that doesn’t mention the Endowed Schools Act of 1869. Before it, England had no such thing as a secondary-education system. If you were rich you might go to Eton or Rugby or Winchester or Harrow; if you were lucky you might live near a city merchant’s charitable foundation. But for most people there was nothing much at all. The 1869 act changed that by seizing the endowments that had been left, over the centuries, to the ancient grammar schools and distributing the money in what was, in some ways, a more sensible fashion: for example, by funding schools for girls. But the act also abolished provisions made for educating poor scholars completely free – this wasn’t the something-for-nothing society, this was Victorian England. And it helped split schools into three basic types, for working-class, middle-class and upper-class children – a divide, buried though governments have tried to make it, that continues to distort and disfigure the education system today.

There’s something else people need to know about the 1869 act. The heads of the endowed schools hated it, and set up a club, the Headmasters’ Conference, to defend themselves against it. It is now called the Headmasters’ and Headmistresses’ Conference, but it’s still the main body representing the elite education providers in Britain, the schools that, even now, can promise pupils a much better chance than average of gaining wealth, power, Ucas points, and membership of the mysterious old boys’ networks that continue to gird the globe. “More than half of the top medics, civil servants, lawyers, media figures and Conservative MPs” in Britain attended an HMC school, says David Turner, not to mention “pop stars – 22% of them, according to the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission”. Worse, the very fact such privilege exists causes many people to feel that state schools, no matter how good they are, are never good enough. Academies, free schools and grammar schools, and church places, music places and places for whatever else: all spring from a sense of inadequacy that goes back decades.

Neither the Endowed Schools Act nor the Taunton Commission on grammar schools that preceded it feature much in Turner’s history of the British public school. As his title implies, he’s an old boy himself, and comes not to bury but to prod gently at the institutions that made him (the book is coy about which school he went to, so I asked his publisher: King’s College, Wimbledon; followed by St John’s College, Cambridge.) Much of the book is anecdotal and affectionate: “I have suffered indigestion from trying to understand Notions, the Winchester College argot, while lunching with the scholars”, and so on. But even when it is making more substantial arguments, the book’s basic sympathy for the public-school system – poor plucky little mites, forced on the defensive by all those brawny state schools with their vulgar A-levels – makes it quite an odd and frustrating read.

 “From the beginning,” Turner states, “I need to establish my definition of a public school.” But the definition he plumps for – “a school independent of state control which has primarily educated members of the elite” – surely isn’t right. The reason public schools were called public in the first place was precisely because they weren’t entirely independent, but regulated by the statutes of their founders: there it is on the Charity Commission website, the Kynge’s College of Our Ladye of Eton Besyde Windesore, alongside Oxfam and Save the Children, and subject to the same tax breaks, even now. Pauperes et indigentes scholares: that is what it says on the founding documents of Winchester College. These schools have charitable status because they were set up to educate poor and indigent scholars for the public good.

The earliest public schools, though, had education of the poor as only their secondary purpose. The bigger aim was to make sure there were enough priests to run the church. William of Wykeham, according to Turner, had observed how church government was broken after the 1348 Black Death: in 1379 he established New College, Oxford, to repopulate the priesthood, then added Winchester as a feeder for it in the early 1380s. The founding statute famously allowed for 70 of the “poor and needy”, but also up to 10 fee-paying “sons of noble and influential persons, special friends of the said College”. Thus the distinction between the poor-but-brainy scholars subsidised by the rich-but-dim commoners was built into the system right at the beginning.

Cruelty, corruption and cheese-paring infested these places from the very start. In 1373, Turner reports, the bishop of Norwich forbade teaching in the churches of King’s Lynn, “on the grounds that the cries of beaten pupils distracted worshippers”. Scholars at Westminster three centuries later enjoyed thrashing the commoners, “not only to bruises and bloodshed, but often even to wounds, and Scarrs, that remain al the daies of their life”. And so, across the centuries, the violence and damage went on: master-on-boy, boy-on-boy and sometimes boy-on-master. Eton experienced six “full-scale revolts” between the 1770s and 1830s and Rugby five, including one in 1797 in which boys took prisoners at swordpoint. It was after a rebellion at Marlborough in 1851, Turner says, that the headmaster hit on the idea of team sports as offering “a sublimated violence which made it an especially powerful substitute for the knightly training of earlier centuries”, not to mention as a “prophylactic against certain unclean microbes” – in other words, sex. Then, when the schools belatedly started teaching maths and science, the violence became technological. “In the 20th century, public-school boffins and leaders of men invented the tank and worked out how to use it strategically … The improvements in the curriculum made the upper class a much more effective warrior class than before.”

 Cruelty, corruption and cheese-paring infested these places from the very start

Turner used to work as the FT’s education correspondent, and his book gets more searching the closer it gets to the present day. A “golden age” came in with the 1980s as successive Thatcher governments starved the state schools while subsidising private ones with the assisted places scheme. The schools used the extra money to begin “the facilities arms race” – “You should always have a building on the go, like your knitting,” as Heather Brigstocke, the former high mistress of St Paul’s girls’ school, advised. By the time New Labour abolished assisted places in 1997, a new global elite was emerging, prepared to pay almost limitlessly for a prestigious anglophone education. International pupils made up 36% of boarders by 2014, Turner points out, with close on half of that from China and Hong Kong. Average fees are now in real terms the highest ever: £28,788 a year for boarders, £12,723 for day pupils.

As Turner says, attempts the state has made to curb the power of these schools “have generally oscillated between mild and total incompetence”. Rab Butler had the best chance ever in his great Education Act 1944, but for all sorts of disappointing reasons, he blew it: “The first-class carriage has been shunted into an immense siding,” as he later wrote. A future government, Turner suggests, might try forcing top universities to take more state-school children, thus removing the public schools’ biggest competitive advantage. But instead of that, both Labour and the Tories are currently focused on the public-benefit requirement placed on the schools by charities law. Labour proposes what Tristram Hunt has called “a School Partnership Standard … if they want to keep their business-rates relief”; the Tories have funded the Independent-State School Partnerships forum, whose website is due to go live in May. Both parties have also encouraged public schools to sponsor academies, though so far the results are not auspicious. Wellington College’s Wellington Academy was given a “Requires improvement” rating at its Ofsted inspection last year, and in 2013, Dulwich College pulled out of sponsoring the Isle of Sheppey Academy in Kent.

Strangely, neither school seems to have experienced such problems when expanding overseas: Wellington International Tianjin opened in 2011 and the Shanghai branch last year; Dulwich has franchises in Beijing, Shanghai, Suzhou, Zhuhai, Seoul and Singapore. Strangely, too, Turner has little to say about either academies or overseas franchises, though, love them or hate them, such developments are surely what the future is all about. Instead of that, he concludes by noting that today’s public schoolboys “are cognisant of the fact that roasting boys [is] not morally acceptable”, which I suppose is always something, and that “the public schools deserve much of the credit” for teaching them “to embrace and master the modern world”.

The Old Boys by David Turner, book review

A sympathetic analysis of private education may amuse, but it fails to address the issue of inequality

James Runcie

Thursday 12 March 2015 15:00

https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/the-old-boys-by-david-turner-book-review-10103749.html

We live in a country where the Prime Minister, the Mayor of London and the Archbishop of Canterbury are all old Etonians; where public schoolboys shape more than half of Britain's "elite", and where even the entertainment industry has been taken over by toffs – Headmaster: Fry. S (Uppingham); Head Boy: Cumberbatch. B (Harrow); Senior Prefects: Redmayne. E (Eton), West. D (Eton) Lewis. D (Eton) Hiddleston. T (Eton).

If you are comfortably amused by this information, then David Turner's sympathetic history of private education may be just the ticket; but if you are worried by the long shadow of unearned entitlement, social injustice, bullying, paedophilia and casual racism present in the history of such establishments, then your response may be more nuanced.

The approach is broadly chronological, starting in the 14th century, with the big guns going first (Winchester, Eton, St Paul's; then Shrewsbury, Merchant Taylor's and Westminster). All of this is diligently done, and there are informative moments when it seems extraordinary that these schools got off the ground. The difficulty of finding teachers of sufficient quality and charging the fees necessary to sustain privilege was harder than everyone first thought.

"Another problem was more straightforward", Turner drily observes, "the public schools were beating their children too much."

An obsession with the classics at the expense of almost every other subject, a focus on sport to exhaust boys away from hormonal "vice" and an indifference towards troublesome assessment in the form of 'O' and 'A' Levels threw the future of such schools into doubt. But, as Turner tellingly points out, their hopes improved when state education became so appalling in the 1970s and 1980s and there was sufficient middle class "flight" to improve standards. This coincided with public schools finally getting their act together (mainly by admitting women) and realising that fagging and flogging were not the only means of building character.

In many ways, this book is a fascinating account of the rise of privilege, but I would have liked more context and analysis. If one is going to talk about the seed-beds of patriotism, then it might have been informative to discuss the Royal family's adoption of Gordonstoun as a favourite school; unhappiness and rebellion would have benefited from even a cursory mention of John Betjeman's Summoned by Bells or Lindsay Anderson's If; and the controversial business of charitable status, by which private schools enjoy beneficial tax advantages, is hardly mentioned.

The writer, like me, went to a public school (I went to Marlborough, Turner does not confess) and his position is more kindly than mine. I still find it bizarre that people are prepared to pay for their child's education three times over: once to the state, secondly in school fees, and then a third time for tutors to cram for re-takes. The cost is approximately one house per child (five years of secondary education at £35,000 a year is £175,000; twelve years if you start from prep school is £420,000; and as this is post tax income you might as well add 40 per cent. Even then this won't quite "do" in London.)

So why do people go through with it? It seems to me that, like business travel, the main purpose of private education is the avoidance of the poor. Set in secluded grounds, surrounded by playing fields less fortunate establishments have long since sold, public schools are havens of protection from the sordid business of getting on with people who are different. The child's upbringing is almost entirely outsourced, with mothers emailing proxy parents (otherwise known as "housemasters") to check on the progress of children they hardly see. When the little darlings do finally emerge, some 12 or 15 years later, they find jobs in politics or the law where they can still keep the poor at arm's length by sending them to prison or to war.

Staff are reassuringly, imperialistically, foreign; the divine Filipino does the cleaning, the Pole does the plumbing, the Indian the electrics and the necessarily fit and white New Zealand nanny doubles as eye candy for hubby. There's no need to meet the English working class at all. Job done. Pimms all round. Do we really want to live in such a country? And, if so, shouldn't books like this address the issue more critically?

The Old Boys: the Decline and Rise of the Public School by David Turner, review: 'a worthy effort'

Lewis Jones gets to grips with the colourful history of the British public school

4 out of 5 stars

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/bookreviews/11469980/The-Old-Boys-the-Decline-and-Rise-of-the-Public-School-by-David-Turner.html

David Turner introduces his history of the public school with a variation on Palmerston’s gag about only three people understanding the Schleswig-Holstein question. Over the course of the past century, he jokes, “it is highly unlikely that as many as three people have understood fully what a public school is”. A former education correspondent of the Financial Times, Turner has clearly looked into the subject, but even he seems unable to supply an adequate definition.

In the beginning were the grammar schools, which taught Latin, charged fees from those who could afford them, and went in for beating. The major public schools all began as grammars. Winchester, the oldest, was founded in 1382 by William of Wykeham for 70 poor scholars, with provision for as many as 10 “commoners” (ie fee payers), and with a curriculum based entirely on “grammar” (ie Latin). In 1440 Henry VI copied Wykeham at Eton. St Paul’s was established in 1509 as a day school for 153 scholars, occasionally supplemented by commoners. The ancient grammar school at Westminster was refounded by Elizabeth I in 1560 for 40 scholars. Merchant Taylors’, another day school, was founded the next year. Rugby was established as “a free grammar school” in 1567, and Harrow as a grammar five years later.

Turner argues that they became public schools when the poor scholars were outnumbered by fee-payers. At Winchester, for example, there were as many as a hundred commoners by 1412, and by the end of the 17th century Rugby and Harrow were mainly fee-paying. But St Paul’s took only occasional fee-payers until the late 19th century, and in 1976 Dulwich (founded in 1619) had 85 per cent of its places funded by local authority scholarships. His other criterion is that a public school educates “the nation rather than just local people”, but that would obviously exclude the day schools.

It may not be possible fully to understand what a public school is, but we know one when we see one, and there is a clear distinction between public and merely private schools, which are often more disreputable, and short-lived.

Turner’s subtitle echoes Evelyn Waugh’s Decline and Fall, and the more entertaining sections of The Old Boys cover the era of decline in the 18th and early 19th centuries – the days of corruption, fag-roasting and riots. The Winchester mutiny of 1710, over beer rations, was followed by five more; there were six at Eton, and five at Rugby. At Rugby in 1797 the Riot Act was read, and rebellion was suppressed by soldiers, special constables and farmers with horsewhips.

Even after Thomas Arnold’s headmastership of Rugby (1828-42), which reformed not just his school but all of them (23 of his masters became heads of other schools), in 1864 the Clarendon Commission judged that public-school education was generally bad, though not as bad as it had been. At Christ Church, Oxford, which then took more than a third of its undergraduates from Eton, and about 10 per cent each from Harrow and Winchester, the dons reported: “The answers we get to simple grammar questions are very inaccurate.”

Turner does not shirk the topic of homosexuality – “little pretty white-handed curly-headed boys, petted and pampered by some of the big fellows” (Tom Brown’s Schooldays) – and nor does he neglect the girls’ schools, with an account of how the Girls’ Public Day School Company (now Trust) was launched by four feminists at the Albert Hall in 1872. At Roedean, established in London in 1885, but soon moved to a windswept hill outside Brighton, the headmistress promised that “special pains will be taken to guard against overwork”, and the headmistress of Wycombe Abbey (1896) similarly guaranteed that the “hours of study will be strictly limited”.

In the Sixties, Empire and snobbery were on the wane, academic education was free at the grammar schools, and the public schools were in trouble. Then they were rescued by the Labour Party. In 1965 Anthony Crosland (whom Turner calls a Wykehamist, though actually he went to Highgate) set about abolishing the grammar schools, a mistake compounded by the abolition of direct grant schools in 1976, when most of them became public schools. Public school pupils accordingly rose from 4.4 per cent of the school population in 1977 to 6.2 per cent in 1981.

William Dawson, headmaster of Brighton College from 1906 to 1933, was once asked by his head boy why he admitted foreigners. He explained that he took two years’ fees in advance as surety for good behaviour: “They’re all highly sexed, and it’s only a matter of months before they sleep with a maid. Then out they go.” In recent decades fees have tripled in real terms, and since the crash the professional classes can no longer afford them, so the schools that began by being colonised by the indigenous rich are now overrun by Russians and Chinese.

And it’s a two-way process. Dulwich has three schools in China, and others in South Korea and Singapore. Haileybury has an outpost in Kazakhstan, and Harrow in – where else? – Bangkok. This, apparently, is the golden age.

Turner dutifully rehearses the somewhat tired arguments for and against the schools. He notes that “opponents attack the public schools for isolating their charges from native working-class culture”. Supporters presumably defend them on the same grounds. Others may wonder what native working-class culture is, to which the approved answer is: pop music.

According to the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission, though, 22 per cent of pop stars were educated at public school, which if true is quite the most shocking statistic in the book. The next most shocking is that the percentage of public-school Tory MPs has fallen from 70 per cent in 1983 to 54 per cent in 2010.

But there is never any real doubt whether Turner regards the schools as “dangerously dominant or benignly pre-eminent”, and for as long as 10 per cent of comprehensive school pupils take media studies at A-level many parents will agree with him.

The Old Boys is a worthy effort, but I could have done with less editorialising and more history.

Living Like Harry Potter - A Day At Boarding School

 

David Saxby talking about Tweed - Men's Style

 

Rescuing a true "Aristocrat" in distress . John G. Hardy / "Hacking Jacket" ...

I found this superb true "HACKING JACKET" fit for any "tweedy" circumstance in a lost and forgotten place ... I heard his voice calling in the middle of the greatest chaos ... Oh sublime moment of encountering ... rescuing a true "aristocrat" from oblivion !
Yours JEEVES/ António Sérgio Rosa de Carvalho.

 THE HISTORY OF JOHN G HARDY CLOTH

http://tweed-jacket.blogspot.nl/2007/12/history-of-john-g-hardy-cloth.html

Almost 100 years ago John G Hardy founded the company which today holds the undisputed position of market leader for the supply of elegant country fabrics. The founder, being something of an eccentric gentleman, became well known for having collected his fabric samples, he would return to London with them stacked under his top hat. He was on of the first cloth merchants to visit the Scottish Highlands and Islands, accordingly acclaiming to have been responsible for the introduction of both Shetland and Harris Tweed cloths to the major markets of the world.

In 1829 the Duke of York, who was to become His Majesty King George VI, used a John G Hardy cloth for the regimental Tweed of the Brigade of Guards. He was the Colonel in Chief of the regiment and the cloth consisted of Black and White, with Royal Blue and Crimson colourations.

King Edward VIII when, as the Prince of Wales, was known to acquire the distinct checked fabric that would later bear the name from John G Hardy. Today, the extensive fabric range still includes several Prince of Wales checks and the expression has become instantly definable.

The company is privileged to hold Royal Warrants granted in the mid 1930’s for the supply of Balmoral Tweed fabric to the Royal Household.

For the discerning purchaser John G Hardy offers a vast array of jacketings and trouserings for all occasions, including the famous Alsport Tweed. Based in Yorkshire, the heart of the UK textile industry, the company enjoys an enviable reputation as one of the worlds foremost cloth houses with its fabrics being sold in over 50 countries throughout the world.

Bookster now offer an introduction to John G Hardy Cloths with six new offerings of light medium and heavy weight Alsport Tweeds. More lightweight patterns will be on offer in the New Year.

http://www.tweed-jacket.com/

The Devil Wears Prada 2 | Official Clip

The long-awaited sequel to the 2006 cult classic is officially titled The Devil Wears Prada 2 and is set to hit theaters on May 1, 2026.

 

The "Core Four" Returns

The sequel reunites the original main cast, nearly 20 years after the first film:

Meryl Streep as the legendary Miranda Priestly.

Anne Hathaway as Andy Sachs.

Emily Blunt as Emily Charlton.

Stanley Tucci as Nigel.

They are joined by major new additions, including Kenneth Branagh as Miranda's husband, along with Justin Theroux, Lucy Liu, Simone Ashley, and Lady Gaga, who reportedly contributed an original song titled "Runway".

 

Plot: A High-Fashion Power Struggle

The story shifts the focus to a modern media landscape where print journalism is in a steep decline.

The Conflict: Miranda Priestly is struggling to keep Runway magazine afloat amid a changing industry. She finds herself forced to face off against her former assistant, Emily Charlton, who is now a high-powered executive at a luxury group that controls the advertising revenue Miranda desperately needs.

Andy's Role: Andy has evolved into a serious features editor. In the trailers, she is seen returning to the offices of Runway to help Miranda navigate a growing scandal that threatens the magazine's survival.

 

Production & Release Details

Directed & Written by: Original director David Frankel and screenwriter Aline Brosh McKenna are both back.

Filming Locations: Production took place between June and October 2025 across Manhattan, Newark, and Milan.

Dutch Release: For those in the Netherlands, the film is scheduled to premiere slightly earlier on April 30, 2026.

 

While the film borrows elements from Lauren Weisberger's sequel novel Revenge Wears Prada: The Devil Returns, the screenwriter has noted that much of the movie features original material tailored to how the fashion and publishing worlds have changed since the original.

Uncovering the Mystique of Château du Jonchet and Hôtel d'Orrouer - The WORLD of Givenchy

What a Pro Designer Buys at London’s Best Antiques Markets | Architectural Digest

Secret recordings? How the late Queen feared Harry and Meghan leaks | The Daily T

 

‘Threw It in her Face’: The Real Story Behind Queen Elizabeth & Meghan | Inside Royals Documentary

‘The Queen had seen plenty of narcissists’: Inside Meghan's rift with Elizabeth II | The Daily T / Elizabeth II: In Private. In Public. The Inside Story. 9 April 2026 by Robert Hardman

Elizabeth II: In Private. In Public. The Inside Story. 9 April 2026

by Robert Hardman (Author)

 

‘Sensational’ Daily Mail

 

Published for her centenary, Elizabeth II is a brilliant new portrait of the late Queen, full of fresh revelations. From the Sunday Times number one bestselling author of Charles III, it is the essential story of her life and record-breaking reign.

 

Biographer and royal commentator Robert Hardman has had unique access to the world of the late Queen – including family, staff, advisers and even the last state visitor of her record-breaking reign, President Donald Trump himself.

 

As daughter, wife, mother and sovereign, Elizabeth lived fascinating parallel lives, both in private and in public. But she remained something of a mystery – beloved, even revered, modest yet daunting, naturally shy but globally recognizable, inscrutable and also authentic. She was grand but so familiar that we felt we knew her. Yet we would always be left asking the same question: ‘What’s she really like?’

 

The only biographer to have interviewed all the senior members of the Royal Family, some of them several times, no one has written more authoritatively on Queen Elizabeth II than Robert Hardman. Here he has crafted a gripping story of drama, devotion, triumph, tragedy, humour and conflict; of an outwardly stoical, inwardly complex woman whose love of family, love of country and duty to the Crown might have pulled her in different directions but never derailed her; a global stateswoman who wielded her great authority with charm and understatement.

 

Elizabeth II will explain why the Queen was not merely the most famous woman in the world. She was one of history’s all-time greats.

 

‘If you read one biography on Elizabeth II, this is the one . . . magnificent’ – Simon Sebag Montefiore, author of The World: A Family History

Everything Lownie Has Said About What Kind of King William Will Be

ARUNDELLS: From Decay to Prime Ministerial Sanctuary Salisbury

Arundells, located in Salisbury's Cathedral Close, is a 13th-century medieval canonry transformed from a dilapidated state into the cherished home of former Prime Minister Sir Edward Heath. Purchased by Heath in 1985, this Grade II*-listed building serves as a curated sanctuary, displaying his extensive art collection, political memorabilia, and musical interests.

 

A History of Transformation

Medieval Origins: Originally constructed around 1213 as a canonry, the house retains its medieval foundation.

18th Century Facade: The building received a comprehensive rebuilding in 1718, resulting in its current Queen Anne classical appearance.

Neglect and Restoration: After periods of decline in the mid-20th century, the house was extensively restored after being purchased by Robert and Kate Hawkins, before Ted Heath bought the leasehold in 1985.

 

The Prime Ministerial Sanctuary

Sir Edward Heath (Prime Minister from 1970–1974) lived at Arundells from 1985 until his death in 2005.

 

Eclectic Collection: The house acts as a time capsule, showcasing paintings by Winston Churchill and John Singer Sargent, Chinese ceramics, Japanese prints, and cartoons.

Personal Interests: It features his Steinway piano and significant sailing memorabilia from his times as an accomplished yachtsman.

Walled Garden: The property includes two acres of gardens that stretch to the confluence of the rivers Avon and Nadder.

 

Visiting Arundells

Charitable Trust: Heath bequeathed the house to the Sir Edward Heath Charitable Foundation to allow public access.

Opening Times: It is generally open to the public, offering guided tours of the house and access to the gardens.

Location: Situated at 59 The Close, Salisbury, offering stunning views of the Cathedral.

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The Alvis Car and Engineering Company Ltd / VIDEO : International Alvis Weekend 2014 Abingdon Market Place

Alvis 12/70

Alvis Car and Engineering Company Ltd was a British manufacturing company in Coventry from 1919 to 1967. In addition to automobiles designed for the civilian market, the company also produced racing cars, aircraft engines, armoured cars and other armoured fighting vehicles.

Car manufacturing ended after the company became a subsidiary of Rover in 1965, but armoured vehicle manufacture continued. Alvis became part of British Leyland and then in 1982 was sold to United Scientific Holdings, which renamed itself Alvis plc.

The original company, T.G. John and Company Ltd., was founded in 1919 by Thomas George John (1880–1946). Its first products were stationary engines, carburetors and motorscooters. Following complaints from the Avro aircraft company whose logo bore similarities to the original winged green triangle, the more familiar inverted red triangle incorporating the word "Alvis" evolved. On 14 December 1921 the company officially changed its name to The Alvis Car and Engineering Company Ltd. Geoffrey de Freville (1883–1965) designed the first Alvis engine and is also responsible for the company name.

The origin of the name Alvis has been the subject of a great deal of speculation over the years. Some have suggested that de Freville proposed the name Alvis as a compound of the words "aluminium" and "vis" (meaning "strength" in Latin), or perhaps it may have been derived from the Norse mythological weaponsmith, Alvíss. De Freville however vigorously rejected all of these theories. In 1921 he specifically stated that the name had no meaning whatsoever, and was chosen simply because it could be easily pronounced in any language. He reaffirmed this position in the early 1960s, stating that any other explanations for the source of the name were purely coincidental.

Production was relocated to Holyhead Road in Coventry, where from 1922 to 1923 they also made the Buckingham car. In 1922 George Thomas Smith-Clarke (1884–1960) left his job as assistant works manager at Daimler and joined Alvis as Chief Engineer and Works Manager. Smith-Clarke was accompanied by William M. Dunn, who also left his job as a draughtsman at Daimler to become Chief Draughtsman at Alvis. This partnership lasted for nearly 28 years and was responsible for producing some of the most successful products in the company's history. Smith-Clarke left in 1950, and Dunn assumed Smith-Clarke's position as chief engineer, remaining in that position until 1959.

De Freville's first engine design was a four-cylinder engine with aluminium pistons and pressure lubrication, which was unusual for that time. The first car model using de Freville's engine was the Alvis 10/30. It was an instant success and established the reputation for quality workmanship and superior performance for which the company was to become famous. The original 10/30 side-valve engine was improved, becoming by 1923 the overhead valve Alvis 12/50, a highly successful sports car that was produced until 1932. Around 700 of the 12/50 models and 120 of the later Alvis 12/60 models survive today.

1927 saw the introduction of the six-cylinder Alvis 14.75 and this engine became the basis for the long line of luxurious six-cylinder Alvis cars produced up to the outbreak of the Second World War. These cars were elegant and full of technical innovations. Independent front suspension and the world's first all-synchromesh gearbox came in 1933 followed by servo assisted brakes. The Alvis 12/75 model was introduced in 1928, a model bristling with innovation, such as front-wheel drive, in-board brakes, overhead camshaft and, as an option, a Roots type supercharger.

As with many upmarket engineering companies of the time, Alvis did not produce their own coachwork, relying instead on the many available coachbuilders in the Midlands area, such as Carbodies, Charlesworth Bodies, Cross and Ellis, Duncan Industries (Engineers) Ltd, E. Bertelli Ltd, Grose, Gurney Nutting, Hooper, Lancefield Coachworks, Martin Walter Ltd, Mayfair, Mulliners, Tickford, Vanden Plas, Weymann Fabric Bodies, and William Arnold Ltd. Several cars also survive with quite exotic one-off bodywork from other designers such as Holbrook, a U.S. coachbuilder.[2]

In 1936 the company name was shortened to Alvis Ltd, and aircraft engine and armoured vehicle divisions were added to the company by the beginning of the Second World War. Smith-Clarke designed several models during the 1930s and 1940s, including the six-cylinder Speed 20, the Speed 25, and the Alvis 4.3 Litre model.

Second World War lubrication, which was unusual for that time. The first car model using de Freville's engine was the Alvis 10/30. It was an instant success and established the reputation for quality workmanship and superior performance for which the company was to become famous. The original 10/30 side-valve engine was improved, becoming by 1923 the overhead valve Alvis 12/50, a highly successful sports car that was produced until 1932. Around 700 of the 12/50 models and 120 of the later Alvis 12/60 models survive today.

Car production was initially suspended in September 1939 following the outbreak of war in Europe, but was later resumed and production of the 12/70, Crested Eagle, Speed 25, and 4.3 Litre continued well into 1940. The car factory was severely damaged on 14 November 1940 as a result of several bombing raids on Coventry by the German Luftwaffe, although ironically the armaments factory suffered little damage. Much valuable cutting gear and other equipment was lost and car production was suspended for the duration of the war, only resuming during the latter part of 1946. Despite this, Alvis carried out war production on aircraft engines (as sub-contractor of Rolls-Royce Limited) and other aircraft equipment.

Car production resumed with a four-cylinder model, the TA 14, based on the pre-war 12/70. A solid, reliable and attractive car, the TA 14 fitted well the mood of sober austerity in post war Britain, but much of the magic attaching to the powerful and sporting pre-war models had gone and life was not easy for a specialist car manufacturer. Not only had Alvis lost their car factory but many of the prewar coachbuilders had not survived either and those that had were quickly acquired by other manufacturers. In fact, the post-war history of Alvis is dominated by the quest for reliable and reasonably priced coachwork.

1950s

Smith-Clarke retired in 1950 and Dunn took over as chief engineer. In 1950 a new chassis and six-cylinder 3–litre engine was announced and this highly successful engine became the basis of all Alvis models until production ceased in 1967. Saloon bodies for the TA 21, as the new model was called, again came from Mulliners of Birmingham as they had for the TA 14, with Tickford producing the dropheads. But with the first of these committing themselves in October 1954 to supply only Standard Triumph who purchased it in 1958 and the second being acquired by David Brown owner of Aston Martin Lagonda in late 1955, it was becoming clear that new arrangements would have to be made. Some of the most original and beautiful designs on the 3 Litre chassis were being produced by master coachbuilder Carrosserie Herman Graber of Switzerland and indeed these often one-off–designed cars are highly sought after today. Graber had begun to use TA 14 chassis soon after the war building three Tropic coupés which were much admired. When the Three Litre chassis was introduced his bodies displayed at the Geneva Motor Shows in 1951 and 1952 attracted sufficient interest for Graber to set up a standing order of 30 chassis per year. Swiss-built Graber coupés were displayed on the Alvis stand at both Paris and London Motor Shows in October 1955.

With a licence in place, from late 1955 all Alvis bodies became based on Graber designs however few chassis and few bodies were built over the next two years. Around 15 or 16 TC108/Gs were built by Willowbrook Limited of Loughborough and Willowbrook was subsequently taken over by Duple Coachbuilders. Over the same two years Graber built 22 TC 108Gs and complained that if he had received chassis he would have committed himself to buying 20 a year. Only after late 1958 with the launch of the TD 21 did something resembling full-scale production resume as Rolls-Royce subsidiary Park Ward began to build the new bodies now modified in many small ways. These cars, the TD 21 and its later variants, the TE 21 and finally the TF 21 are well built, attractive and fast cars. However it was clear by the mid-1960s that with a price tag of nearly double that of the mass-produced Jaguar, the end could not be far off.

From 1952 to 1955 Alec Issigonis, the creator of the later Mini, worked for Alvis and designed a new model with a V8 engine which proved too expensive to produce.

1960s

Rover took a controlling interest in Alvis in 1965 and a Rover-designed mid-engined V8 coupé prototype named the P6BS was rumoured to be the new Alvis model but with the takeover by British Leyland this too was shelved. By the time the TF 21 was launched in 1966, (available, like its predecessors in both saloon and drophead form and with either manual or automatic gearbox), the model was beginning to show its age despite a top speed of 127 mph – the fastest Alvis ever produced. With only 109 sold and with political troubles aplenty in the UK car manufacturing business at that time, production finally ceased in 1967.

In 1968, a management buyout of the car operations was finalised and all the Alvis car design plans, customer records, stock of parts and remaining employees were transferred to Red Triangle.

1970s to present

As part of Rover, Alvis Limited was incorporated into British Leyland but was bought by United Scientific Holdings plc in 1981. Subsequently the company's name was changed to Alvis plc. Alvis plc acquired British truck manufacturer Universal Power Drives in 1994, naming their new subsidiary Alvis Unipower Limited. The trucks were subsequently branded as Alvis-Unipower. In 1998, Alvis plc acquired the armoured vehicle business of GKN plc, and the main UK manufacturing operation was moved from Coventry to Telford. The site of the Alvis works in Holyhead Road is now an out-of-town shopping complex, but its name, Alvis Retail Park, reflects the heritage of the site. In 2002 Alvis plc purchased Vickers Defence Systems to form the subsidiary Alvis Vickers Ltd, which was in turn purchased by BAE Systems in 2004. BAE Systems ended the use of the Alvis distinctive red triangle trademark.

In 2009, Red Triangle negotiated the legal transfer of the Alvis car trademarks. The following year, the company announced that the 4.3 Litre Short Chassis tourer would once again be available. All Alvis' records remain intact at the company’s Kenilworth headquarters along with a large stock of period parts. One of the men to have worked on the very last Alvis car produced in 1967 is still retained by Red Triangle in a training capacity. Built to the original plans, the new car has been named the "Continuation Series", to reflect the 73-year interruption in its production between 1937 and 2010. It differs only in detail from the pre-war examples: for emissions, the engine is governed by an electronic fuel injection system with electronic ignition, brakes are hydraulic rather than cable, the steering column collapsible and the rear light arrangement reconfigured to conform to modern standards.

1935 Alvis 4.3 Litre

1936 Alvis Speed 20

1936 Alvis Speed 25

1948 Fourteen drophead coupé-cabriolet

1952 Three Litre sports saloon

Three Litre TC 21/100 Grey Lady sports saloon

1957 Three Litre TC 108G fixed head coupé

1967 Three Litre series IV drophead coupé or cabriolet