The American Issue 723 July 2013

July 2013

THE TRANSATLANTIC MAGAZINE

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EATING OUT • SPORT WHAT’S ON • EDUCATION MUSIC • REVIEWS ARTS CHOICE

THE BIG CHEESE Interviewed: the American who beat the Brits in their ancient cheese chase

New York Doll Sylvain Sylvain chats to The American Author Emily Winslow talks crime in Cambridge PLUS: OUR EXCLUSIVE US/UK ORGANIZATIONS GUIDE

WIN! Tickets for Passion Play and Chimerica

Are you a U.S. Citizen living in the UK or Europe and looking for employment?

Unitek Technical Services, a global provider of supplier management, development, and related technical services to aerospace corporations around the world is currently looking for: Supplier Quality Engineer – West of London, UK The candidate must be experienced in managing the quality performance of suppliers supporting a variety of aircraft structures, systems and components manufacture.

• Must be highly knowledgeable in Root Cause and Corrective Action (RCCA).

• Background managing AS9100/AS9120/ISO Aerospace Sub-Tier Suppliers, Evaluating AS9102 First Article Inspection Reports, Lean Processes, QMS Auditing, Supplier Assessments and Supplier Improvement Activities.

• Travel is required within region.

Quality Inspector – Rome, Genoa and Saronno – Italy • Must have experience performing first article inspections per AS9102, in-process and final inspections.

• The ability to read and understand complex engineering drawings, specifications, geometric dimensioning and tolerances per ANSI/ASME Y 14.5.

• The ability to perform mechanical measurement for verifying the compliance of complex machined, formed, cast, forged, and assembled aircraft structure.

• Preferred candidate will be fluent in English and Italian.

Please forward CV’s to carol.grela@nts.com or laura.brown@nts.com To learn more about Unitek Technical Services visit www.nqa-uts.com

QUALITY PEOPLE, QUALITY RESULTS | NQA-UTS.COM

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The American ®

Issue 723 – July 2013 PUBLISHED BY SP MEDIA FOR

Blue Edge Publishing Ltd.

Old Byre House, East Knoyle, Salisbury SP3 6AW, UK Tel: +44 (0)1747 830520 Publisher and Editor in Chief: Michael Burland michael@theamerican.co.uk Editor: Richard L Gale editor@theamerican.co.uk Advertising & Promotions: Sabrina Sully, Commercial Director advertising@theamerican.co.uk Subscriptions: theamerican@blueedge.co.uk Editorial contacts: Virginia E Schultz, Food & Drink (USA) virginia@theamerican.co.uk Michael M Sandwick, Food mms@theamerican.co.uk Mary Bailey, Social mary@theamerican.co.uk Richard L Gale, Arts richard@theamerican.co.uk Alison Holmes, Politics alison@theamerican.co.uk Jarlath O’Connell, Theater jarlath@theamerican.co.uk

Please contact us with your news or article ideas ©2013 Blue Edge Publishing Ltd. Printed by Advent Colour Ltd., Portway Ind. Estate, Andover SP10 3LU www.advent-colour.co.uk ISSN 2045-5968 Main Cover Image: Kenny Rackers (photo courtesy of www.gloucestercitizen.co.uk); Circular Inset: Emily Winslow in Cambridge (© Helen Bartlett); Square Inset: Sylvain Sylvain (© Heartonstick)

@TheAmericanMag

T

his month marks the date it all began – Independence Day. Unfortunately the USAF has canceled its annual July 4th celebrations at RAF Feltwell in Norfolk “as a matter of fiscal responsibility.” The event, which usually features fairground rides, fireworks, musicians and displays by USAF and RAF’s jets, has been inviting local people along since the 1960s. The USAF says it remains committed to the local community and that it will “re-evaluate based on the next fiscal year budget.” For now we have some more July 4th ideas in our Diary Dates, so check ’em out.

We just heard the sad news that Slim Whitman, one of country music’s most popular artists, died at the age of 90 in Orange Park, Florida. Our thoughts are with his wife of 67 years, Alma, and their son and daughter.

This month we welcome Nellie Bailey, a former teacher, who has advice on cultivating language skills in young children, and Charles Dubow, a former big cheese at Forbes magazine, on the changes in ‘his London’ from the ’80s to the present day. And talking of big cheeses, we also have an exclusive interview with Kenny Rackers, the American who beat all comers in the the annual Gloucester Cheese-Rolling race!

Enjoy your magazine,

Michael Burland, Publisher michael@theamerican.co.uk

Among this month’s contributors

New Jersey-born Pennsylvanian Pete Lawler lives in the East End of London with his Irish wife and London-born son. London suits him, with no plans to leave any time soon.

The only American in a busy Cambridge office, Jeannine Wheeler loves comparing the two ‘languages,’ which sometimes gets her into, as they say here, ‘a spot of bother.’

The American’s theater reviewer Jarlath O’Connell turns his spotlight on the British scene.

His pithy and witty reviews tell you what’s hot – and, just as importantly, what’s not.

Don’t forget The American online: www.theamerican.co.uk The entire contents of The American and www.theamerican.co.uk are protected by copyright and no part of it may be reproduced without written permission of the publishers. Whilst every effort is made to ensure that the information in The American is accurate, the editor and publishers cannot accept responsibility for any errors or omissions or any loss arising from reliance on it. The views and comments of contributors are not necessarily those of the publishers.

July 2013 1

The American • Issue 723 • July 2013

In This Issue...

Regular Sections 4 News 8 Diary Dates 25 Wining & Dining 28 Arts Choice 31 Coffee Break 32 Music

38 41 49 51 57 65

Book Reviews Theater Reviews DriveTime Sports American Organizations The A-List

36 Sylvain Sylvain PHOTO © PUNKASSPHOTOS.COM

3 Win a Pair of Tickets to see Chimerica Win two seats for the political thriller that’s wowing critics – including ours (page 42)!

12 The Fall of the Galveston Giant The concluding part of the story of World Heavyweight Champion Jack Johnson

14 My ’80s London American novelist Charles Dubow is back in the UK. Has it changed since his ’80s stay?

16 American Cheese Racer

“I believe in reincarnation, but just in case it doesn’t happen I’m gonna have a damn good time here while I’m around this Earth” 18 Tell me a Story Nellie Bailey offers advice on cultivating language skills in young children

20 Roamin’ Holiday James Carroll Jordan heads for the Med on another working cruise

24 Magic of the Roundabout

© 2011 CLIVE BARBER

Realtor Kenny Rackers explains how he won one of Britain’s weirdest sporting contests

Jeannine Wheeler’s just dizzy about British rotaries

The ex-New York Dolls guitarist and songwriter tells us about his new single, forthcoming album and current tour

38 Interview: Emily Winslow The American author talks about her Cambridge crime novels

43 Win a Pair of Tickets to see Passion Play A chance to see Zoë Wanamaker’s latest hit role in the West End

51 Bye Bye Beckham David Beckham hangs up his cleats... but is this the end for the Man U and MLS hero?

52 Eagle-Eyed Darren Kilfara looks back at Justin Rose’s US Open win, and introduces us to one of his favorite golf locations: Kintyre

54 Reasons to be Cheerful Part one of our NFL season build-up brings solace for fans of the league’s underdogs

53 The Golf Trip: Kintyre

56 Sideline The NFL’s hinting more games for London... but could another league go pro here first?

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A gripping mulTi-lAyered Thriller’ Thriller’ A gripping mulTi-lAyered TWO PAIRS OF A gripping mulTi-lAyered Thriller’ ‘A Triumph.

TICKETS TO SEE time out

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A gripping mulTi-lAyered Thriller’ CHIMERICA

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‘A gloriously rich, astonishingly mind-expanding play’ GuARDiAN

‘A gloriously rich, astonishingly mind-expanding play’ GuARDiAN ‘A landmark production’ GuARDiAN

‘A gloriously rich, astonishingly mind-expanding pla

‘A gloriously rich, astonishingly mind-expanding play’ ‘A landmark production’ GuARDiAN ‘A landmark production’ stANDARD ‘A eveNiNG landmark production’

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WIN TICKETS

HOW TO ENTER:

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sTricTly limiTed seAson from 6 AugusT theatre For a chance to win one ofharold two pairs of pinter Email your answer anddirecTed contact details (name, daytime phone number) by lyndsey 084address, 4Turner 871 7622 | chimerica.co.uk top price tickets to see the critically to theamerican@blueedge.co.uk with CHIMERICA COMPETITION in the sTricTly limiTed seAson from 6 AugusT acclaimed play Chimerica 084 at the line; or send a postcard to: CHIMERICA COMPETITION, The American, 4 871 7622 |subject chimerica.co.uk Harold Pinter Theatre, London (valid Old Byre House, Millbrook Lane, East Knoyle, Salisbury SP3 6AW, UK; to arrive Mondays to Thursdays August 6GuARDiAN, eveNiNG to 24, by mid-day August 1. You must be 18 years old or over to enter this competition. stANDARD, DAily teleGRAph, suNDAy times, 2013), just tell us: Only one entry per person per draw. The editor’s decision is final.

In which year did the Tiananmentime out, suNDAy expRess, DAily expRess, the ARts Desk Terms and conditions: Tickets valid for selected performances (exclusions will Square protests happen? apply). Subject to availability. No cash alternative. Non transferable. Additional GuARDiAN, eveNiNG stANDARD, DAily teleGRAph, suNDAy times, expenses are the responsibility of the prize winner. Promoter reserves the right to A) 1981 B) 1985 C) 1989 B) 1993 time out, suNDAy expRess, DAily expRess, the ARts Desk exchange all or part of the prize to that of equal or greater value.

harold pinter theatre

sTricTly limiTed seAson from 6 AugusT 084 4 871 7622 | chimerica.co.uk

harold pinter theatre

sTricTly limiTed seAson from 6 AugusT 084 4 871 7622 | chimerica.co.uk

© MARK HINTSA

The American

Travel In Style...

The SS Delphine, a WWII flagship is to be sold as a private yacht at a cost of £50m. Motoring mogul Horace Dodge’s expensive toy became a flagship of the US Navy during the war. It now has two VIP cabins, nine double bedrooms (en suite), a gym, jetstream pool, and smoking room (Is that wise? Didn’t she once catch fire and sink?).

Built in 1921, she sank five years after her launch (ah, see!), but was restored before coming under the command of Admiral Ernest King, commander in chief of the US fleet. More recently the 258 foot-long yacht has been a passenger liner, following a refit 10 years ago that earned a ‘Best Refit’ medal. There’s room aboard the Delphine for 150 guests and a 24-man crew. She has most recently been moored off the coast of Tunisia, and is being sold through auction house James Edition (www.jamesedition.com)

...Or Not

Readers traveling in France this summer may like to note new low-cost TGV trains with adult tickets from €10 and children’s tickets from €5. The catch: the new Ouigo service is no-frills – limited luggage allowance, no restaurant, and tickets available only via www.ouigo.com.

4 July 2013

NEWS

US soldiers were remembered at a ceremony in Weymouth PHOTO COURTESY OF VIEW FROM WEYMOUTH

Weymouth Observes US Memorial Day

T

he Dorset coastal town of Weymouth commemorated US Memorial Day, May 27 with a ceremony and official wreath laying at the town’s American War Memorial on the esplanade. Local veterans, residents and associations paid their respects to the hundreds of thousands of US soldiers who left the ports at Weymouth and nearby Portland to take part in the D-Day landings in 1944.

Incoming Mayor of Weymouth and Portland, Cllr Ray Banham, said “Weymouth and Portland has a long and proud relationship with the US and allied forces. This important commemoration gives the borough an opportunity to pay its respects and strengthen the relationship with our American compatriots.”

The original memorial plaque, presented by then American Ambassador John G Winant, has been in Weymouth since August 1945, and is part of an annual US Memorial Day remembrance for American WWII casualties.

ACA: “IRS Unfairly Targeting US Citizens”

A

merican Citizens Abroad (ACA) has presented evidence that the IRS is unfairly targeting US citizens in a letter to Congressional officials investigating the agency. The ACA letter points to the IRS’s administration of the Overseas Voluntary Disclosure Program (OVDP). ACA Director Jackie Bugnion has described the OVDP as a form of “entrapment”, after individuals who sought to become compliant with taxes, due to error or emission, under the erswould travelling in France this sum-penalty of 20% of the program were told they be given a standard like to note low-cost highest value of their mer bankmay accounts over finew ve years.

TGVIRS trains adultordinary, tickets from Bugnion said that the has with “treated hard-working Americans children’saccounts tickets from like criminals. Most of€10 theand unreported were€5.pension funds and Theused catch: newexpenses Ouigo service basic financial accounts forthe living and were not being used no-frills limitedtoluggage allowto hide assets.” To readisthe ACA’s– letter Congress, go to http://americansaance, no restaurant, and tickets. broad.org/files/3713/7029/4847/irsabuseletter.pdf available only via www.ouigo.com

Buying & Selling USA Stamps, Covers & Postal History YORK STAMP & COIN FAIR York Racecourse Grandstand, York YO23 1EX 19 – 20 July Stephen T. Taylor 5 Glenbuck Road Surbiton, Surrey KT6 6BS Phone: 020 8390 9357 Fax: 020 8390 2235 info@stephentaylor.co.uk www.stephentaylor.co.uk Your American Dealer in Britain

EXPAT NEED? CHECK ASSIGNEE SELECTED? CHECK TAX ADVISER? CHECK One of the less appealing things about sending your people overseas is that you, or they, suddenly have to become experts on the local tax system or risk falling foul of the law, incurring extra costs - or both. With BDO however, you and your people can can benefit from coordinated tax advice. Advance planning will save you time and money benefit and our specialist tax advisers are well equipped to ease the burden.

Through BDO, the world’s fifth fifth largest accountancy network, our Expatriate teams can provide you with assistance all over the world. To find find out more about the tax service that travels with you, please contact Andrew Bailey on Scott Wickham on+44 +44(0)20 (0)207893 78932946 2766 or andrew.bailey@bdo.co.uk scott.wickham@bdo.co.uk BDO’s Expatriate Tax service is run by our Human Capital team, which also provides a full range of expertise in employment tax, reward planning and pensions.

www.bdo.co.uk www.bdo.co.uk seperately authorised and BDO LLP and BDO Northern Ireland are both separately regulated by the Financial Services Authority to conduct investment business.

The American Left, top: Brooklyn’s PS 244 conducts experiments with static electricity.

Left, below: The same experiment at sister school Risley Avenue Primary School in London

Dull, Boring... and Bland

Readers may recall the ‘twinning’ of Dull (in Scotland) with Boring (Oregon, USA). There may soon be an Australian addition to the family. The 6,000-population town - or shire, to be accurate - of Bland, New South Wales is seeking to link up with its tediouslymonikered counterparts. It is named after William Bland, a colonial era surgeon who was convicted of killing a sailor during a duel, deported, later pardoned, and later still founded the Australian Medical Association.

Hardly a bland life!

Margaux-Alix Gardet (second left) with parents, brother and friend

Photographer raises £6,000 for Sri Lankan Orphanage Franco-American photographer Margaux-Alix Gardet has raised over £6,000 for Bethlehem Orphanage, Wanathamulla, Sri Lanka with her solo exhibition, Between You and Eye, at the Baku Restaurant in Sloane Street, London. Margaux-Alix, who is currently studying at Chelsea College of Art and Design captured portraits to illustrate “the face of Sri Lanka”. Sri Lanka’s births to deaths ratio, 3:11 was worsened by the 2004 tsunami which left 5,275 children without parents. www.margauxalix.com

6 July 2013

Ben Franklin Transatlantic Lesson Plan

B

enjamin Franklin House in London has developed a programme which allows US and UK schools to link up and learn about the life of Benjamin Franklin and his efforts to strengthen Anglo-American relations.

The ‘Sister Schools’ programme pairs a London school with one in the United States, and provides the basis for its students to take part in a short series of lessons focused on shared heritage, citizenship, science and innovation. Each lesson is tailored to support the UK National Curriculum and the curricula in participating US schools.

The latest pairing is between Weston Park Primary School in Haringey, London and Public School 255 in Brooklyn, New York. For approximately six weeks in June and July, over two hundred 10 and 11 year olds from both schools will participate in the collaborative curriculum, with a dedicated web portal allowing articles, drawings, photographs and videos to be posted and shared by both schools.

There are a number of US schools keen to take part in the programme, and Benjamin Franklin House is always looking for more London based schools to join in. For more information, contact Stephen Wilson, Education Manager, via education@benjaminfranklinhouse.org or +44(0)20 7839 2013.

ACWRT Conferences

T

he American Civil War Round Table will be celebrating their 60th anniversary at their 2013 conference to be held in Oxford on July 26-28. Speakers will include Brigadier-General Parker Hills (US Army retired); Lt Col Joe Whitehorne (US Army retired); Major-General John Drewienkiewicz (British Army retired) and Jeremy Mindell.

Topics include Vicksburg, Chickamauga, Gettysburg, and European reactions.

Brigadier-General Parker Hills will also be speaking at the West Coast Civil War Round Table Conference later in the year, which will be held aboard a cruise liner journeying from Long Beach, California to Mexico. www.acwrt.org.uk www.civilwarcruise.org

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The American

Your Guide To The Month Ahead

See our full events listing online at www.theamerican.co.uk Get your event listed in The American – call us on +44 (0)1747 830520 or email details to editor@theamerican.co.uk Andrew O’Shaughnessy – The Men Who Lost America Benjamin Franklin House, 36 Craven Street, London WC2N 5NF www.benjaminfranklinhouse.org July 1 Andrew O’Shaughnessy discusses his new book, The Men Who Lost America, (reviewed in this issue) which looks at the role of the British Empire in the Revolutionary War. RSVP: info@benjaminfranklinhouse.org

Pow Wow Bush Farm Bison Centre, West Knoyle, BA12 6AE www.bisonfarm.co.uk info@bisonfarm.co.uk July 13 to 14 All are welcome to the Pow Wow. Sunday 14th has a fun musical evening and anyone can join in and play flutes or drums. See the farm’s famous bison as well as elk, raccoons, guanaco, rhea, prairie dogs and chipmunks then wander around 30 acres of old oak woodlands with picnic & play areas. There is a display of Native American art and artefacts together with information of the history of bison and you can buy bison or elk meat. Camping available.

8 July 2013

Henley Royal Regatta Henley on Thames, Oxfordshire RG9 2LY www.hrr.co.uk July 3 to 7 One of the best known regattas in the world, 5 days of international competition plus fashion and Pimms!

Annual IEA Hayek Memorial Lecture Church House Conference Centre, Westminster, London SW1P 3NZ www.iea.org.uk July 3 This year’s speaker is Grover Norquist, the president of Americans for Tax Reform, the advocacy group he founded in 1985, his subject The Leave Us Alone Coalition vs The Takings Coalition: The On-going Struggle.

Punch and Judy at Osborne House Osborne House, York Avenue, East Cowes, Isle of Wight PO32 6JX www.english-heritage.org.uk July 6-7 and 13-14 The private beach of Queen Victoria at her home on the Isle of Wight hosts two weekends of traditional Victorian fun, with skittles, a game of quoits, and Punch and Judy.

Alice’s Day Oxford City Centre, Oxfordshire OX1 www.storymuseum.org.uk/alice July 6 Alice’s Day celebrates the first telling of Lewis Carroll’s story, Alice in Wonderland. This year’s theme of ‘Nonsense’ sees a whirlwind of nonsensical free events across Oxford, including exhibitions, tea parties , street performances, talks and a topsy turvy trail through Oxford.

Lawnfest West Heath School, Ashgrove Road, Sevenoaks, Kent TN13 1SR www.lawnfest.co.uk July 6 Lawnfest is an annual charity music festival supporting the West Heath School for Traumatised Children. This year’s stellar line up includes Billy Ocean, Man Like Me, and Josephine – great music for a great cause.

Panerai British Classic Yacht Week Panerai British Classic Yacht Week Cowes, Isle of Wight PO31 www.britishclassicyachtclub.org/regatta July 6 to 13 No museum pieces here. The waters around the Isle of Wight, off the south coast of England, host a wonderful week of classic yacht racing, featuring

The American

beautifully designed and crafted wooden-built vessels from around the world being used the way their makers intended – in hot competition. Their big ‘Around the Island’ race takes place on July 7.

RHS Flower Show at Hampton Court Hampton Court Palace, Surrey KT8 9AU www.rhs.org.uk July 9 to 14 The Hampton Court RHS Flower Show combines horticulture and summer; music, food, shopping and plenty of displays on offer.

Coronation Festival Buckingham Palace Gardens, SW1A www.coronationfestival.com July 11 to 14 The Coronation Festival celebrates the 60th anniversary of the Queen’s Coronation with entertainment, shopping, and sampling opportunities in Food and Drink, Design & Technology, Homes & Gardens, and Pursuits & Pastimes.

Americana International 2013 The County Showground, Newark, Notts, NG24 2NY www.americana-international.co.uk July 11 to 15 The 33rd Americana International festival is a celebration of all things American. Legends and up and coming stars from the USA, UK and Europe grace the stage, including PJ Proby, Georgette Jones, Mandy Barnett, Carl Mann, and Will Banister. Alongside 5 stages, the show features US automobiles, hot rods and motorbikes, the 3rd American Fashion Show and much more for a great weekend.

INDEPENDENCE DAY EVENTS All July 4 except where indicated Democrats Abroad Picnic Portman Square Garden, London W1H 7BH dauk-picnic-2013.eventbrite.com events@democratsabroad.org.uk June 30 American food and drink to buy from select vendors, live music, and daylong games and activities for the kids.

All Americans are invited and you can bring guests of any nationality. 1pm to 5pm. RSVP by email or website.

Independence Day Celebrations at Sulgrave Manor Sulgrave Manor, Banbury OX17 2SD www.sulgravemanor.org.uk June 30

Independence Day Hot Dog Eating Competition The Blues Kitchen, 111 Camden High Street, Camden NW1 7JN www.theblueskitchen.com info@theblueskitchen.com The annual Hot Dog Eating Competition (pictured) is accompanied by music from The Brass Volcanoes.

4th of July Picnic American Museum, Claverton Manor, Bath BA2 7BD www.americanmuseum.org Bring a picnic rug or chairs and enjoy an evening of ‘50s and ‘60s classic rock ‘n’ roll and a BBQ.

Barbecue, US desserts, ice cream sodas, baseball, live music and battle re-enactment at the home of George Washington’s ancestors.

Independence Day Party Benjamin Franklin House, 36 Craven Street, London WC2N 5NF www.benjaminfranklinhouse.org

American Independence Day Celebration Ulster American Folk Park, Castletown, Omagh BT78 5QU www.nmni.com/uafp July 4 to 7

Cake and a glass of bubbly! 12-2pm.

Live Bluegrass and US Folk music, Punch & Judy and American games.

American Independence Day at Washington Old Hall Washington Old Hall, The Avenue, Washington Village, Washington NE38 7LE www.nationaltrust.org.uk At the Washington historic family seat, celebrate 4th July with US themed presentations and music from City Swing. 11am to noon.

Independence Day Run for Charity Wapping, London E1W 2QD www.rainbowtrust.org.uk Inaugural event, 5K and 10K runs, in aid of the Rainbow Trust, supporting families with a child who has a life-threatening or terminal illness.

American themed events include hot dogs, pretzels and special guests.

California Dreaming – Wine Tasting Masterclass Vinopolis, No 1 Bank End, London SE1 9BU www.vinopolis.co.uk An evening of American Wine Tasting, with six US wines to try.

May July 2013 9

The American

Goodwood Festival of Speed Goodwood Motor Circuit, Chichester, West Sussex, PO18 0PH www.goodwood.co.uk July 12 to 14 For the Festival’s 20th anniversary, Lord March promises a “Greatest Hits” of the past 20 years, bringing back some great cars, recreating legendary moments including US drag racer Bob Riggle’s incredible wheelies on the hill climb in a 1965 Plymouth Barracuda, plus an all-GT40 race.

Doggett’s Coat and Badge Race London EC4R www.doggettsrace.org.uk July 12 Held annually since 1715, rowers race between London Bridge and Cadogan Pier (Chelsea), the winner receiving a crimson red coat with a silver arm badge depicting Liberty, the horse of the House of Hanover.

Flying Legends Air Show Imperial War Museum, RAF Duxford, Cambridgeshire www.iwm.org.uk July 13 to 14 Historic and legendary aircraft take to the skies – see P-51 Mustangs, Spitfires and a whole lot more in action.

Dorset Seafood Festival Weymouth, Dorset DT4 8TJ www.dorsetseafood.co.uk July 13 to 14 American Museum in Britain Claverton Manor, Bath BA2 7BD www.americanmuseum.org info@americanmuseum.org Telephone: 01225 460503 Throughout July Housed in Georgian splendor at Claverton Manor in Bath, the American Museum in Britain remains the only museum outside the US to showcase the nation’s decorative arts. There are permanent exhibitions, craft workshops, Quilting Bees every Tuesday, kids’ activities and special events inc. July 4th Picnic Night (see Independence Day panel for more details); 14th Pablo Aguilar performs Mexican Ranchero songs; 25th Wild West Crafts.

10 July 2013

80 stalls of mouthwatering food, celebrity chefs, special menus and more means that the 6th annual Dorset Seafood Festival is the perfect place for fans of seafood, set around the quaint harbor in Weymouth.

Eastbourne Extreme Eastbourne, East Sussex BN21 www.visiteastbourne.com/extreme July 13 to 14 Air, land and water based outdoor pursuits at one of the largest free extreme sports festivals in the UK.

World Pea Shooting Championships Witcham, Cambridgeshire CB6 www.witcham.org.uk July 13

Held on the Village Green, Witcham, contenders from as far as the USA have competed in this unique event.

Music from America St Gabriel’s Church, 30 Warwick Square, London SW1V 2AD www.thecantusensemble.com July 13 Cantus Ensemble perform a concert of American works from composers including Samuel Barber, Leonard Bernstein, Moses Hogan and Eric Whitacre.

Hebridean Celtic Festival Stornoway, Western Isles, Scotland HS1 www.hebceltfest.com July 17 to 20 The 18th annual event, with a star studded line up including Van Morrison, US singer-songwriter Darrell Scott, and other artists celebrating Gaelic music.

Southern Cathedrals Festival www.southerncathedralsfestival.org.uk July 18 to 21 Cathedral music and choirs within three magnificent cathedrals; Chichester, Salisbury and Winchester.

Royal International Air Tattoo 2013 RAF Fairford, Fairford, Gloucestershire, GL7 4RB www.airtattoo.com July 20 to 21 The RAF Air Tattoo is a fantastic opportunity to see aircraft up close or in action, with exhibitions and flying displays. This year, two rarely seen American warbirds will participate in the flying display, along with a specially painted Tornado GR4 from the 617 ‘Dambusters’ Squadron.

The American

Glen Nevis River Race Glen Nevis, Fort William PH33 6SX www.nofussevents.co.uk July 20 Competitors navigate a two mile stretch of river on an air mattress (Lilo), in this extreme challenge.

History Live!

Kelmarsh Hall, Kelmarsh, Northamptonshire NN6 9LY www.historylive.com July 20 to 21 History comes alive at Kelmarsh.

Re-enactors will perform key historical moments, from the Imperial Roman army through to the Normandy landings in the 1940s.

There’s even a Victorian funfair and gymkhana.

World Snail Racing Championships Congham, Norfolk PE32 1AH www.scase.co.uk/snailracing July 20 More than 200 molluscs compete for the accolade of fastest snail.

Bristol Harbour Festival Various, Bristol BS1 July 26 to 28 In the festival’s 42nd year Bristol’s historic harbor becomes a patchwork of dance, theater, music, parties, markets, food, and historic boats.

International Jousting Tournament Hever Castle, Near Edenbridge, Kent TN8 7NG www.hevercastle.co.uk July 26 to 28 Pitting England against France, the Knights of Royal England present an International Jousting Tournament in the grounds of historic Hever Castle.

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The Story of Jack Johnson:

Part 2: The Fall of the

GALVESTON GIANT

After black boxer Jack Johnson’s journey from poverty to world fame read how it all fell apart.

A Senate call for his pardon is currently on President Obama’s desk.

J

ohnson was good-looking, dressed extravagantly in tailored suits, bought his women furs and diamonds, and chauffeured them around in the most expensive cars.

One of them was Brooklyn socialite Etta Duryea, the divorced wife of Charles Duryea, the first American

Jack Johnson wasn’t muscular by modern boxing standards, but he fought into his 60s PHOTO: LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

12 July 2013

manufacturer of gasoline-powered cars. By far the most beautiful, educated and refined of his women, she married the Heavyweight World Champion in 1911. An incensed Georgia Congressman tried to get a constitutional amendment banning racial intermarriage passed.

Etta’s family ostracised her, as did most white people and her husband’s black employees at the Café de Champion, his Chicago nightclub where she lived. Depressive by nature, this made her ill – compounded by Johnson’s continuous infidelities – and she committed suicide just over a year later. The news was vindication for the vast majority of Americans who believed miscegenation was wrong.

Any sympathy for Johnson after Etta’s death evaporated in a couple of weeks when he was seen around Chicago with an 18 year old white prostitute, Lucille Cameron. Chicago was outraged, and the authorities went all out ‘to get him’. First Lucille’s mother claimed Johnson held her daughter against her will. Then Chicago authorities shut down his popular club by rescinding its liquor license, citing Johnson’s ‘lowly moral character’. The abduction charge was dropped but he was again arrested in October 1912 for violating the Mann Act (or White-Slave Traffic Act) with Lucille. The act prohibited white

slavery and the interstate transport of females for “immoral purposes” but its vague immorality definition was used to criminalize forms of consensual sexual behavior. The case fell apart when she refused to testify.

Less than a month later he was similarly charged, this time centered on him sending $75 to his former lover, Belle Schreiber, who traveled from Pittsburgh to Chicago and had consensual sex with him in a hotel room. Schreiber used the $75 to buy train tickets for herself, her pregnant sister and her mother.

When a Madam in Pittsburgh threw Schreiber out on the streets after it was revealed she had a past relationship with Johnson, she asked him for money which she used to establish a Chicago brothel. This resulted in Johnson’s eleven count indictment.

Johnson married Lucille Cameron in December 1912, less than three months after Etta’s death; two Southern ministers recommended that Johnson be lynched rather than prosecuted. At the trial he admitted giving Belle the $75, but denied knowing it had been used to establish a brothel. The court dismissed four counts, but in June 1913 an all-white jury found him guilty on the remaining indictments. Sentenced to a year and a day in prison, Johnson fled the country with Lucille, possibly thinking his life was in danger. His

The American

On the centenary of his trial... “...we should take this opportunity to allow future generations to grasp fully what Jack Johnson accomplished against great odds and appreciate his contributions to society unencumbered by the taint of his criminal conviction. We know that we cannot possibly right the wrong that was done to Jack Johnson, but we can take this small step toward acknowledging his mistreatment and removing the cloud that casts a shadow on his legacy.”

– Senator John McCain Physical Culture for Edison Bell records (two copies still exist), whose release in September coincided with the start of WWI. The war collapsed the European boxing market entirely.

With money running out, the Johnsons sailed for South America.

Johnson lost his title in Havana, Cuba in April 1915 to American Jess Willard, given the nickname ‘The Great White Hope’. Some think Johnson believed if he threw the fight the charges against him would be dropped. The day after he lost, he tried to return to the US, but Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan refused to issue him a passport.

With most of Europe still at war, the Johnsons headed for Spain. He returned to England where he was expelled under the Aliens Restriction Act in 1916, by which time the six inch shells of Germany’s artillery were known as ‘Jack Johnsons’ to British soldiers at the Front – probably because they were big, black, fast and hit with considerable power.

They arrived in Mexico, but with few fights and less money, Johnson approached the US government in spring 1920 and agreed to surrender.

From the files he is said to have been truly sorry that he originally fled. On July 20, he stepped across the border at Tijuana into US custody, serving eight months in Leavenworth prison.

He became the physical director of

PHOTO: RICHIE-DIESTERHEFT

appeal went forward despite his absence, finding no evidence that he aided and abetted Belle’s profession as a prostitute, but upheld that he paid her to cross state lines for the purpose of sex: ‘the transportation of a white woman across state lines for immoral purposes’.

From Canada they journeyed to France, and then in August 1913 to England for some exhibition fights at theaters. They were canceled when the Variety Artists’ Federation, who saw him as an escaped convict who’d already served time in prison and no better than a white slaver, threatened participating theaters with their licenses. He still appeared, but in the auditorium. He put on boxing exhibitions, but wrenched his back in a car accident with a London taxi. He returned to France, where there was no legal segregation of races and where Johnson quickly became the darling of Parisian fight fans and the artistic avant-garde.

He set up fights and conducted personal appearances to establish his celebrity in Europe, earn money and irritate America. In November 1913, the International Boxing Union declared the World Heavyweight Title held by Jack Johnson to be vacant.

Johnson fought Jim Johnson (no relation) for the Heavyweight Title in Paris in December 1913 and won, but fractured his arm in a fight that was more like an exhibition match. It was notable as the first time in history that two blacks had fought for the World Heavyweight Title.

His status as a fugitive made him much less marketable as a boxer, and on January 7, 1914, Sporting Life published Johnson’s letter offering to fight anyone in the world for £6,000 and the championship. He found a few fights in Europe, returning to London in June where he recorded

the inmates, supervising track meets, baseball games, and fight training.

While behind bars he continued to track his business interests including a Harlem nightclub called Club Deluxe, and on his release he was met at the prison gates by a marching band and a horde of friends.

By 1921, Johnson had ended his exile, served his time, and began a new series of theatrical engagements and personal appearances.

He recorded for Ajax Records. He patented a wrench he designed in prison to tighten loose fastenings.

He was forced to sell his New York club to a Chicago mobster in 1923, who renamed it The Cotton Club. He fought occasionally and performed in vaudeville and carnival acts, even appearing with a trained flea act.

In 1924 he and his third wife were divorced and Johnson returned to boxing. In 1925 he married his fourth wife, Irene Pineau, whom he called the love of his life. He made his final ring appearance aged 67 on November 27, 1945, fighting three one minute exhibition rounds against

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two opponents in a benefit fight card for US War Bonds.

Run-ins with the law were confined to driving offences. Once given a $50 on the spot fine for speeding, he gave the officer a $100 bill, telling him to keep the change as he’d be breaking the speed limit on the way back. Five times cars rolled on top of Johnson. Five times he survived. The sixth time, June 10, 1946, he was less lucky. After racing angrily from a diner that refused to serve him, Johnson, now age 68, lost control of his car, hit a light pole and overturned on Highway 1, North Carolina. He was taken to the closest black hospital, Saint Agnes Hospital in Raleigh where he died three hours later. He was buried next to Etta Duryea Johnson at Graceland Cemetery in Chicago, in an unmarked grave, which subsequently was given a headstone just saying ‘Johnson’. Not one boxer, nor any floral tribute from colleagues, was at his funeral.

As John Lardner wrote in Newsweek after Johnson died, “Whatever you write about me,” Lardner remembered Johnson telling him, “Just please remember that I’m a man, and a good one.” H Johnson was inducted into the Boxing Hall of Fame in 1954, and is on the roster of both the International Boxing Hall of Fame and the World Boxing Hall of Fame.

In 2005, the US National Film Preservation Board deemed the film of the 1910 Johnson-Jeffries fight “historically significant” and put it in the National Film Registry.

The play, The Great White Hope,

by Howard Sackler (made into a movie in 1970, starring James Earl Jones) is based on his life.

14 July 2013

Then as now, the Stafford Hotel’s American Bar fills Charles with reassurance that some of his old London haunts endure

My ’80s London American novelist Charles Dubow called London home in the 1980s. He’s visited over here recently. Has it changed...?

I

lived in London from 1987 to 1989 in a flat off Sloane Square that overlooked the Duke of York’s Barracks. I had just graduated from college and, thanks to a small inheritance, had moved there to write a novel. Why London? Why not Paris or Rome? There are several reasons.

For one thing, despite what Mark Twain said, I spoke the language. For another, I had visited several times before and had a number of good friends there, primarily Old Etonians.

Last, I had spent the summer of 1986 studying at the University of London, and had fallen in love. My desire to reconnect with my former girlfriend, as much as anything, brought me back. That romance was never rekindled but my love affair with London burned bright.

Maybe it is age – I recently turned fifty – but the London I knew and loved in the late ’80s and early ’90s is barely recognizable today. My friends are now fathers and mothers.

Many are still married, some even to

their first husbands and wives. Most of them, however, don’t even live in London any more, driven out by high prices or family responsibilities.

Some have rusticated themselves to the wilds of Surrey or Oxfordshire.

Some have gone even farther away, to Cape Town or Cobble Hill. We all of us have lost hair or gained a few stone. The fun-loving young men of my youth are gone. The beautiful girls who laughed and drank and smoked Silk Cuts and danced barefoot at weddings are now marrying off daughters of their own.

Of course, that is not to say that London still doesn’t have its entitled youth – some of whom actually have titles – or that it’s no longer fun.

For people with a few extra dollars in their pocket, London has always been fun.

But I miss my London. The London of my youth. I first visited there in the early 1980s after my freshman year in college when there were still shops on King’s Road selling punk

The American

paraphernalia. An English girl I had been dating in East Hampton, where my family summered, gave me the name of a former classmate of hers at Wellington. I went to a beautiful house on Cheyne Walk to meet two girls, Olivia Channon and Rosie Johnston. They then whisked me off to lunch at an Italian restaurant nearby where we consumed several bottles of wine. The girls wanted to know where else I was going. “Oh you must stay at Cipriani’s,” they said, mentioning a name with which I was not familiar. When the bill came it was the equivalent of several hundred dollars, which was quite a lot back then, and as the only man it was clear that I was getting stuck with it. I had never paid anywhere near that much for a meal in my life.

Thank god for credit cards. Slightly tipsy, we then went to visit their friend Sebastian Guinness’s house, where we drank more. Gottfried von Bismarck was there as well and he had just returned from a trip to the US. As many readers will know, Olivia was to die a few years later of a heroin overdose at Oxford, Rosie was sent to jail for supplying the drug, as was Guinness. Bismarck himself died tragically in 2007. It was a little like spending the afternoon with Philby and MacLean before it was discovered they were traitors. I was relieved when I left. I could tell I was swimming in much swifter waters than I was used to.

When I returned after college to live here I was more confident and sophisticated. I now knew about wines, good hotels and the differ-

ence between side vents and center vents. I shopped on Jermyn Street and had friends who were members at White’s and Brook’s. Better still, many of these friends also had cars and places in the country where there was shooting on the weekends during the season or cricket in summer. On Saturday nights there were dinners at long tables where the men wore black ties and drank Famous Grouse and the women showed their cleavage and flirted while letting men light their cigarettes. Later, there was Kümmel and charades, and later still corridor creeping.

Of course, what makes London a great city is its endless ability to reinvent itself. Shops, restaurants, buildings, whole lives come and go but underneath there is a current of continuity. For every Swiss Re Building or London Eye there is Saint Paul’s and Buckingham Palace. Whereas people and places in New York City, where I live now, seem incapable of permanence, London still looks after her own. I am grateful that while the London restaurant scene has never been more vibrant, many of my old favorites are still standing

– if not better than ever. My former “local” restaurant, Foxtrot Oscar, is now owned by Gordon Ramsay and, dare I say, vastly improved.

Another favorite, La Famiglia, is still serving superb Vitella alla Casalinga on Langton Street. Wilton’s remains incredibly over-priced, as is Quaglino’s and Le Caprice. Also going strong are Le Gavroche and La Tante Claire, and Annabel’s, although critics have been saying it’s passé since long before I first went there.

There are other places whose names I have forgotten that no longer exist: a place on the Fulham Road of no special distinction except that I fell in love there one night when I was seated at a dinner party next to one of the most beautiful women I’d ever met in my life.

There are other places that still reassure me. The Stafford Hotel, which I love, especially its American Bar. The National Gallery, of course.

The soothing feeling of walking up Green Park to Piccadilly to buy a shirt or a cigar. The stately columns along the Mall. The Cenotaph. Foyle’s on Charing Cross. The dusty windows at Berry Bros. and Lock – and Harvie & Hudson and Turnbull & Asser, even if I am slightly confused by what is going there these days. If I wanted to have a new suit made

by Anderson & Sheppard, I wouldn’t be able to find it where it had resided for so long.

In 2005 it moved off Savile Row to 32 Old Burlington Street.

Like Charles, London’s Routemaster buses just couldn’t stay away PHOTO: CLIVE A BROWN

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Michael Jackson at Wembley in 1988 PHOTO BY LORENZO PASSERI

I know I am describing a fogeyish London but that’s the one in which I lived. That’s not to say I didn’t get down to Clapham or up to Holland Park, or even as far east as the Docklands. I saw Michael Jackson at Wembley and the original Echo & the Bunnymen at Royal Albert Hall. I kickboxed in Islington and danced at the Hippodrome. I walked constantly all over the city.

I knew streets and neighborhoods my friends who had been raised in London had never heard of.

But, besides the depressing fact that all the girls look so young these days, there are three things that strike me as especially different these days from the London I knew. For one, it’s eye-wateringly expensive. As a native Manhattanite, I am not a stranger to $20 martinis and $100 wagyu filets, but we seem provincial in our abilities to absorb, if not embrace, the staggering costs of going out, taking a taxi, buying a flat (renting a flat for

16 July 2013

that matter) that modern Londoners confront on a regular basis.

When I lived here, not only was the exchange rate more favorable but the overall cost of things was simply more affordable. It has become a city for the rich. Second, while this is happening in NYC too, London has also become a truly global city. Walk down the street, any street, and one is more likely to hear people chatting in Russian, Urdu or Hausa than in English. This has to do with the post-Big Bang years, post-colonial blowback and admission to the EU, of course, but the city does seem surprisingly less English to me these days. Last, and again, it’s happening everywhere, no one wears neckties any more.

In fact, I was lunching with my UK publisher the other day and both of us appeared sans cravat. When I lived here that would have no more happened than showing up without wearing pants.

I am not saying that any of these are bad things. They are just different. Like the music my teenage son listens to, however, try as I might, I just don’t get it. He has his music, I mine, although both have their virtues. It is the same with London. I prefer mine but by keeping an open mind can still discover unimagined beauty and the chance to fall in love with the city all over again. H Charles Dubow’s debut novel, Indiscretion, will be published

by Blue Door, an imprint of HarperCollins UK, on July 4.

Colorado Springs realtor Kenny Rackers recently won one of Britain’s oldest and weirdest sporting contests, the annual Gloucester Cheese-Rolling. He tells The American how he did it and the big idea that inspired him.

Kenny, congratulations. We’ve watched your winning run. It looks pretty scary. Have you recovered from your injuries?

I didn’t suffer too many - just a little sore, I guess.

How did you know about the race?

I first heard about it when I was doing a project in college about six years ago [Kenny attended the Military Academy at West Point] and I heard it was the craziest race in the world. I put it on my bucket list – not just to participate but to win it.

You did win, by a mile - not just the downhill race but the uphill one as well. How did you win so easily?

I trained very hard. I also did some practise runs before the race.

Have you done anything similar?

No, but I’ve played a lot of sports – I’ve played football, ran track & field, and I’m a skier. I never ran up and down hills before this!

Have you visited England before?

Never. I got to spend the day after the race in London, see the sights and went to a music concert.

It was a good time... minus the weather – it was raining all day. I went to England, some 4,000 miles, specially to do the race.

PHOTO: GLOUCESTERCITIZEN.CO.UK

The American

American Big Cheese Wins Ancient Race, Inspires A Million What did you win in the race?

I won an eight or nine pound Double Gloucester cheese. I got to take it home, but they lost my bags and I haven’t got it back yet – I’m a little worried about Customs! The goal is to bring the cheese back to America and have a big party for all of my fans and supporters.

What inspired you to attempt this crazy race?

I have a project, One In A Million, that’s about inspiring one million people worldwide to pursue their dreams. You can find more about it at my website and on Facebook, and I’m filming a documentary about it [see below for all three].

You won the uphill race by a considerable margin – was that harder?

It’s more grueling, it makes your legs burn, but I was confident because I’ve been a very good athlete my entire my life and I knew especially I was in control of that

race. I didn’t really give anybody a chance in the uphill race because I had trained so hard. I live at high elevation, in the Rocky Mountains, and for practice I ran up and down ski slopes. I knew most people wouldn’t be practising like I was.

I watched all the videos I could and tried to figure out the times I needed to run. At least in the last ten years no-one has run uphill that fast. Actually I ran faster times when I was by myself than in the races.

Will you defend your title?

I’d love to. At this point I’ll continue work on my documentary, celebrate the win and think about it.

[If Kenny does decide to come back and defend his crown, The American will let you know.]

Cooper’s Hill Cheese-Rolling

This historic event was a local affair, until the 1970s when Irish comedian Dave Allen featured it on his British TV show. It is an ancient tradition, with known history back to at least the 15th century and possibly emanating from a pagan fertility rite.

A large round Double Gloucester cheese is rolled down a hill so steep that it is said no-one can run down it without falling. Women, men, girls and boys compete for it in a variety of races. Cooper’s Hill is outside the village of Brockworth, near Gloucester in the Cotswolds region of England. In 2013 the competitors chased after a foam copy of the heavyweight cheese in an effort to make the event safer.

How did the locals – and other competitors react to a ‘Yank’ winning?

I met a lot of great people.

I didn’t think the local people would be so supportive of me – to them I was probably another ‘loud American’, I was never rude, but I have ‘American’ red, white and blue hair and wore American clothing. Everywhere I went people wished me luck, except right at the beginning of the race when a lot of my fellow competitors were like, “You have no chance, American!” I knew they were wrong, shook their hands, wished them luck and let my actions do the talking! It was amazing to have all the local support. And surprisingly there were at least 200 Americans there – I pretty much shook all their hands. H

See Kenny’s win at www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOCAMbZ140c For more information on Kenny’s One In A Million project, visit www.americancheeseracer.com facebook.com/americancheeseracer and his documentary at www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Mqui_pVnAE

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EDUCATION

Nellie Bailey offers advice on cultivating language skills in young children

a Story

W

hen we learned that we were expecting triplets during our routine 12-week scan, we were certainly surprised. As an American married to an Englishman, living far from my family support network, the thought of how we would cope with three babies and give them all of the attention and care needed was mindboggling.

Naturally, we were concerned about how to make sure that our children would have ample one-onone time with us. As an educator, I also wondered how we could best help them to meet their developmental milestones. In particular, many studies find that multiples may start out behind their singleton peers in their language development. This is often attributed to the fact that it is hard to speak to one baby when two, three, or more are demanding your time.

One of the best pieces of advice I was given (and all expectant parents know how much advice people want to share!) was to talk to my babies.

Carry on a conversation at all times, ask questions, tell stories, laugh with them, document what you see out the window, or what experiences you are having that day. Speak with emotion in your voice, and use your hands and your face to share how you might be feeling.

In the early days, with countless

18 July 2013

well-wishers and family members visiting, our daughters heard lots of conversation. After the first two months my daily help dwindled, and most days I was on my own with three tiny babies. It saved my sanity to just keep talking.

Once the girls started uttering words, full sentences were not far behind. Now they are six, and it’s hard for anyone else to get a word in! They carry on long and detailed conversations with almost everyone they meet.

Storytelling and Literature

Language is an important part of every young child’s life. Reading to them introduces the art of storytelling, and helps to develop their vocabulary and a love of literature.

They might not have sat listening intently, but I still read to my babies while they played, as well as at bedtime.

Our little English house is overrun with books, and we use every opportunity to try and expose our daughters to quality literature and children’s stories. Many libraries offer children’s story hours. When I returned to work, I made sure our nanny made a weekly trip to the

local library with the girls. Because of their early exposure to literature, they were eager and ready to jump into reading lessons when they entered kindergarten.

Giving children the opportunity to improve their sequencing and storytelling skills is another excellent step in their language development.

Using recent innovations such as games and apps for computers and tablets, children can not only read and listen to books, but also practice their own storytelling ability.

For example, my children love using a particular iPad app where they are given a set of ten picture prompts that they can weave into a creative story. They can record themselves telling the story and even email it to doting grandparents.

It’s exciting to see your child’s language develop daily as you encourage them to ask questions, make predictions, retell a favorite story, and extend their vocabulary.

Any opportunity parents provide for young children to cultivate their language skills, whether through conversation, books, or technology, will only help them as they progress through the early school years. H Former teacher Nellie Bailey is the Assistant Admissions Director at TASIS The American School in England, an international school located in Surrey for children ages 3-18.

IMAGE © 2009 RUSS ROBINSON PHOTOGRAPHY, INC.

Tell Me

The American

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Above: Jim Jordan enjoying a Nice day out (...smile, Jim!) Above: Porto, site of statues, Fado music and elusive bag sellers Below: The carvings of Cartagena, and (bottom of page) the Minerva

Roamin’ Holiday The American’s resident expat actor, James Carroll Jordan, heads for the Med on another working cruise.

Photos by Malcolm McKee happy and friendly. Our train was late

I

was lucky this time. I had an offer for an episode of Dracula, filming in Budapest, and Sod’s Law placed my latest trip on the liner Minerva right in the middle of Dracula’s shooting schedule. I almost cried in frustration, but after a multitude of earnest prayers, someone got sick on the set and my shooting date was pushed to June, way after the cruise ended. Sod off, Sod! I was so excited about the Med’s sun and sea and sights, that I took advantage of three days of the Surrey sun and ended up roasting myself.

My wife Jan said I looked like a tomato. Fortunately it calmed down by the time we landed in Italy and settled into the gorgeous Minerva.

It was early in the day and Rome was only a forty minute train ride away, so Jan and I headed off to The Eternal City. The sun was shining, the fields were lush and the people

20 July 2013

leaving, and packed full. We couldn’t figure out why, but when we finally arrived and walked to the Vatican, who was the first person we noticed?

The Pope! Walking about, talking and looking just like a Pope should.

I waved at him and said “YO!” – I’m pretty sure he yelled the same thing back to me in Italian (or maybe it was Latin). In any case that was very cool. I had to stop myself forcibly to not buy a gilded framed photo of the Pope from a jolly nun, one of thousands flogging them left right and center.

As we walked along the Tiber, it seemed that every five yards there was an ice cream stand. And at every one I felt compelled to buy us a cone.

You can’t go to Italy and not eat Italian ice cream, really you can’t. Then we lunched (even though we’d eaten on the ship) at a lovely Bistro down a picturesque alley. You can’t go to Rome and not eat in a Bistro. Really, you just can’t.

Lisbon, Portugal – remembered for its taps (well, by Jim and Jan, at least)

We made it back with a half hour to spare before embarkation.

To Corsica! Birthplace of Napoleon, garden of the Mediterranean, and to Bonifacio, a beautiful hilltop fortress set in the most sumptuous locale. I had been talking about taking Jan there since another cruise which she missed by flying to Florence for a gig.

Unfortunately I had a brainwave and took her on a boat ride to some rocks that were supposed to be fun to visit.

They weren’t and Jan wasn’t happy about missing Bonifacio. I pointed out that we boated all around it and it was just another cobbled village on a mountain, full of things for tourists to buy. I shouldn’t have mentioned the ‘things to buy’ – I heard about it all the way back to the ship.

Jan suffers dreadfully from sea travel. She started feeling a bit woozy just before the first show of the cruise and patches got her through that, but as we cruised up the Italian coast to Livorno, she felt worse. Deciding to get a shot from the ship’s doctor, she was grumpy, being sick, and insisted on a certain shot rather than the one I thought she was due to take. Luckily, arriving at Livorno, we had a full fun day in Florence. Jan had once sung there at a big birthday gala for a Russian

businessman who loved spending money and spoiling his wife by renting a palace and hiring thirty expensive entertainers (including Jan and the rest of our Shakespeare Review gang); she had been dying to show it to me ever since.

I wanted to buy a coin holder just like the one my Dad used to have.

He always said he got it in Florence, so here I was fifty years later looking for a coin purse. I found it and didn’t even flinch at the thirty Euro price tag. It was just like Dad’s!

We also bought the most expensive ice cream cones in the world. I gave the girl a twenty and got back five!

Before I could complain Jan was racing off to the bridge. She had seen something she remembered. And it was beautiful. The whole city was beautiful.

Off to sea again, to Nice on an overnight cruise. It went fine until nine that night when the wind came up and brought the waves with it.

After her shot, Jan should have been fine, but wasn’t. Thus followed hours of curses and regrets and promises to never cruise again. I was horrified!

No more cruises?! Eek! I nursed her through the night, but she had only firmed up in her resolve to never set foot on a ship again after this cruise.

Above: Streetlamps in Lisbon Below: The gardens of El Alhambra, a packed house at Cartagena’s ancient theater, and a shoe shop in Tangiers

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Fruit in the gardens of El Alhambra, once home to the Moors, and the great red fort itself, near Málaga, Spain

Fortunately we were moored in the bay of Nice with the Old Town just a short walk away. I cheered Jan up by taking her shopping – by the time we returned to the Minerva she was in fine fettle again. I suggested she might have had the wrong shot and talked her into taking a different one.

To her surprise, and my relief, she was just fine for the rest of the cruise.

Our next port of call was Cartagena in Murcia, Spain. It seems every port in the Med has a bunch of Roman ruins. This one had a wonderful city wall as well as a theater. After that was the most exciting stop for me: Málaga, and the great Red Fort known as El Alhambra. Home of the Moors, palace of their Sultan, and gilded prison of his hundred-womenplus harem. The gardens alone were worth the visit. It took a half an hour just to walk through them to get to the palace. And my God, the roses, I smelled every one. When we got to the palace and roamed around inside the harem I drifted back in time and imagined how things must have been – gaggles of lightly dressed houris calling gaily to me in various languages whilst bouncing around among the many fluffy silken pillows and divans... I believe a pillow fight was taking place in one of the fountains and the wives were getting very wet. I was just starting to order them all out of the fountain before

22 July 2013

they caught their death when Jan shouted in my ear, something like, “Jim!… I know what you’re thinking and you can just stop it!” With a sigh I continued our tour. The Alhambra is a truly magical place, and I honestly felt some of it.

From there we headed across the Strait of Gibraltar to Tangiers for a short day of sights and shopping – mostly shopping as there aren’t really many sights. I love the long robes, the leather bags and the Moroccan shirts. I got Jan a great leather bag that she’d wanted in Rome for a quarter of the price, some bangles and froo-fraws for friends and relatives and came back laden with stuff. Stuff which I had to sneak on board and hide in the cabin before Jan saw them. This I managed, as she was at her usual four o’clock tea. (Jan has an eclectic way of dieting. It seems to work for her!)

We cruised gently into the night up the coast of Spain to land at Lisbon, Portugal fresh and perky. Jan was over any seasickness and was hitting her stride. She was in Lady Be Good there a few years back and did the most amazing tap routine.

I remembered, as we went over places we had been before, how she was always practising her steps for that routine. Funny how places bring back odd memories, lovely memories for us, and we thoroughly

enjoyed Lisbon. I was content. I could go back home now.

But we had one more port of call.

Oporto! And boy am I glad we went there. Oporto (aka Porto) is stunning and beautifully laid out. The statues carved into the roofs of the great buildings were awe inspiring. But I was on a hunt for Fado, the local music, and a leather man-bag for me. I found my Fado CD but failed miserably in my quest for a shoulder bag. When I got back to the bus stop that would take us back to the ship, I noticed friends from the ship, Alan and his wife Jane, sitting on the bench, smugly stroking a shiny new leather man bag. Just like the one I wanted! The bus was just pulling up and there was no time for me to go buy one like his. I tried to tell Alan on the trip back to the ship that it really didn’t suit him and made him look gay. He took umbrage and when I offered to buy it off him he retorted that he couldn’t possibly sell it to me as it would make me look gay. I was stumped for a moment but came back with “Yeah, but in Hollywood you’re not famous if there aren’t rumors that you are gay!” “So?” “I’ve been trying to spread that rumor about me for years but nobody has believed me!” “So?” “So that man bag will help me get famous! How much do you want for it Alan?” …I didn’t get the bag. H

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The American

The magic of the T

he strangest thing I ever witnessed in England was a woman backing up on a roundabout. If you have ever seen or driven on a roundabout, you will know that this is strange behaviour indeed. A roundabout is a circle to be driven ‘round about’ simply by going round again.

While some Americans may consider these circular patterns contrary to good driving sense, I roundly disagree. The roundabout is arguably one of England’s greatest driving refinements. If you’ve ever driven in highly congested areas of the United States, you’ll know you can sometimes wait at a traffic light long enough to knit a sweater.

Although by 1980, all 50 states and the District of Columbia had enacted the right-on-red policy, American drivers remain captive to the red light at busy intersections.

roundabout

Jeannine Wheeler’s just dizzy about British rotaries

Not so in the UK, where one can slide into a roundabout and spill right out again – all without ever coming to a complete stop.

Once you master the etiquette – entering when there is a gap in traffic, giving way to traffic on the right, staying within your lane if it’s a double-lane roundabout and signalling to exit – you’ll embrace the concept as well.

Being originally from Massachusetts, I am no stranger to the roundabout, which we call a ‘rotary’ in the north-eastern United States. There are several differences between the two, but the basic concept is the same.

The modern version of the roundabout was developed by the United Kingdom Transport Research Laboratory in the mid-20th century and involves road traffic traveling in one direction (clockwise) around a central island, with priority given to the circulating flow.

Traffic entering the circle yields to traffic already in the circle.

A City of York windmill... it’s also an award winning roundabout!

PHOTO BY ALLAN ROSTRON

24 July 2013

Speaking of the central island, best practice is some greenery, a smattering of spring bulbs and perhaps a town monument. The idea, however, is not to make the spectacle too interesting so as to cause a dangerous distraction to drivers.

The exception might be the UK Roundabout Appreciation Society’s (yes, there is such a thing) 2013 ‘Best British Roundabout’, the Grade IIlisted Holgate Windmill in York, a fully restored 16th century working mill.

Modern roundabouts are popular all over the world, including in Australia, Belgium, China, Costa Rica, Cyprus, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Morocco, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland Portugal, Qatar, Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, the United Arab Emirates as well as the UK. The most roundabouts in the world? France, with more than 30,000 [...and just the Arc de Triomphe is frightening enough – ed.]. The US has been increasing its use of roundabouts – with about 3,000 by 2011, according to the New York Times.

Statistically, roundabouts are safer for drivers and pedestrians, requiring lower speeds at entry.

I once went round a roundabout five times in a row, hugging the middle lane in a tight determined circle, until embarrassment overcame me.

I am not sure this was legal, but it certainly was fun – a whole lot more so than Waiting for Godot at an American traffic light. H

The American

WINING & DINING

Big Easy Reviewed by Michael M Sandwick

I

f y’all wanna chow down on some real gulf coast home-style cookin’, this’ll be the place! The fact that it’s right smack in the middle of Chelsea makes it all the better. Now, we are not talking sophistication here, but the food is good and there is plenty of it. Modeled after the “crab shacks” of the gulf region in the US, it looks indeed like a shack. There are strings of colored lights, noise, chaos, lots of people whooping it up and everywhere you look, huge platters of food! America with a big A! And everyone was having fun!

The menu has a large selection of seafood and barbecue with just about every combination you can think of. Shrimp and chicken, chicken and ribs, steak and lobster… you get my drift. There are also specials every day, offering great deals. The Monday we were there was “the big pig gig”(£14.95) and lobster special (£19.95). I couldn’t bring myself to order the big pig gig, so I made my

friend do it. I had the two pound lobster. They were also offering three, four, five and six pound lobsters for the incredible price of £29.95 to £59.95, so I thought a mere 2 pounder was quite reserved of me!

Both specials included a drink. I had the house margarita. It was made with a mix but like I said, this isn’t sophisticated. It was cold and wet and made me feel like I was at a party.

We’d started with Boston clam chowder (£5.95) and voodoo shrimp (£8.45). Both were delicious. The soup was delightfully briny with a good balance of clams and potatoes and the lightly fried shrimp were very succulent. The sauce was tart and very spicy. They don’t call it voodoo sauce for nothin’!

Then came the main. They really are obscenely large portions. The lobster was a tad overcooked but the chicken and ribs were just right. The meat just fell off the bones and the barbecue sauce was tangy and deli-

332-334 King’s Road, London SW3 5UR www.bigeasy.co.uk cious. We could just barely eat it all so dessert was out of the question.

Eating at Big Easy is a real finger lickin’ experience and after my lobster, I needed to wash my hands.

Now, “big pig gig” on a dinner plate is fine, but I did not appreciate it in the loo – like I said, we’re in Chelsea, so the 19th century crab shack authenticity needn’t extend to the toilets!

If that isn’t a deal breaker, I do think Big Easy is a good place for a family meal or a party where you can eat, drink and make merry without breaking the bank. There is a fabulous wine list at very reasonable prices, a nice range of desserts at £5.50 and live music in the basement starting at 8pm. A second restaurant is opening in Covent Garden in the Fall.

July 2013 25

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Blackened salmon

O

riginally inspired by The Palm in Chicago, Christopher’s is another American restaurant that has recently undergone refurbishment. I have no idea what it looked like before, but the after is pretty sensational. Except for the light fixtures, which I find completely out of place. Thankfully, I’m not a design critic. The rooms are big, open and airy with sleek modern interiors and very little in the way of adornment. Downstairs, the Martini bar is a wonderful place for a cocktail and a light nosh. The mixologists (that’s newspeak for bartenders) have created a great list of unique cocktails. I tried one appropriately named the Journalist – gin, Cointreau, vermouth, orange juice and bitters. Delicious. At £10, a bargain compared to some of the trendier establishments of the moment.

A very grand staircase takes one up to the formal dining room where the floor-to-ceiling windows offer amazing views of Waterloo Bridge.

Light jazz was playing in the background but the acoustics are so fantastic that we were never bothered by the conversations of the tables around us and, joy of joys, we could actually hear each other. Brilliant!

The staff were extraordinarily friendly and their attire, like the rooms, was formal without being stuffy. Very comfortable. All in all, a place where one can relax.

The menu has also had a working-

26 July 2013

Christopher’s Reviewed by Michael M Sandwick

over... and very successfully. It is interesting and adventurous and does indeed offer a good smattering of American delicacies. Our starters were lobster bisque with lobster dumplings (£12) and crab cakes with red pepper mayo (£14). By itself, the bisque was very intense, almost a sauce rather than a soup. However, It worked very well with the dumplings, which were delicate and flavored with a touch of basil. The crab cakes were some of the best I’ve ever had, my own included! They were beautifully spiced and served with a wonderful tomato jam.

Next we simply had to try some of the USDA prime beef that seems to represent American cuisine. A 6 oz. rib-eye blackened with Cajun spices and served with classic béarnaise (£22) doesn’t get much better than this. To my dismay, my companion ordered the steak medium. To my delight, it was served rare anyway. The meat was so good we could, indeed would, have eaten it raw. As an accompaniment, we had parmesan truffle fries (£6). They sounded better than they were. There were slices of truffle but neither they, nor the flavor of the

18 Wellington Street, London WC2E 7DD www.christophersgrill.com

parmesan came through.

I had blackened salmon with jambalaya risotto (£19). Blackened fish, popularized by the great chef, Paul Prudhomme is classic Cajun cuisine.

There is no mistaking the name. Fish (or meat) is coated with either butter and spices, or sugar and spices, and cooked at a very high heat until blackened, giving the dish intense flavor while keeping the fish moist.

My salmon was delicious and cooked beautifully. It was not, however, black. If I had ordered browned fish, I would have been perfectly satisfied.

Desserts get 5 stars for presentation. Pecan maple pie and apple and blueberry cobbler, both at £8, were stunning works of art. Unfortunately, the taste didn’t measure up. They were both so beautiful that we expected intense bursts of flavor that we didn’t get. My theory is that they both needed more butter but then again, I am very Alice B Toklas in my style of cooking. Her advice whenever a recipe seemed a bit lacking, was to add either butter, cream or alcohol. And if that didn’t work, add all three!

The new interior of The Palm

TRACING the SOURCE

I

t’s no longer enough for a decent restaurant to serve an inventive dish with a name you’ve never heard before. Nowadays, a menu must include a rather lengthy description of where and how the food is sourced. Responsible, sustainable, local, organic, line-caught and diver-picked, it seems our foods must have a pedigree before they may be allowed to pass our precious lips.

Before I eat a steak, I want to know what the cow had for dinner and when it last had a massage!

A couple of months ago I had the good fortune to be invited to a press dinner at The Palm Restaurant (1 Pont Street in Belgravia – www. thepalm.com/London). The first Palm opened in NYC’s upper east side in 1926. Now it boasts 30 restaurants in the US as well as London, the only Palm this side of the Atlantic. A recent refurb had successfully spiffed the place up and the management was doing a series of dinners to showcase the restaurant. My night was USDA prime beef night. Lucky me.

Tom Hixson was brought in to teach us all about it. Tom is the third generation of butchers at Tom Hixson & Co., Smithfield Market, and just a youngster in historical terms. Smith-

field is the oldest meat market in the UK and livestock has been sold at the present site since the 12th century.

Tom is one of the few that specialize in USDA prime beef. The US Department of Agriculture has two grading systems. The one for wholesomeness is mandatory. The one for quality is voluntary. The voluntary system is paid for by the producers in order to ensure that their meat is priced accordingly. Prime, the highest grade, is generally reserved for hotels and restaurants and earns by far the best price. Choice and select are both excellent grades and sold to the general public. Standard and commercial are store brand grades and utility, cutter and canner are for ground beef and processed foods only.

Less than 2% of all beef in the US achieves the grade of prime which is based on marbling, color and maturity. In other words, it’s the fat!

Fat is what gives beef the desired marbling and more importantly, the flavor. Rib-eye has a large fat content and is therefore, according to many – myself included – the best steak.

If you are eating a piece of beef from the US, chances are it is Black Angus. The first four bulls were brought to Kansas in 1873 and

Above: Executive Chef Spencer Westcott shows Michael the broiler, specially imported from New York. It cooks Tom Hixon’s special steaks at over 2,200°F. Two... thousand... degrees. The surface of the sun is only 9,900°F. You don’t have to wait long for your steak at The Palm.

PHOTO: MICHAEL BURLAND

sparked such interest that it is now by far the most common breed both in North and South America. To put it in perspective, 80% of the 50 million cattle in Argentina are Black Angus!

Originally known as Angus Doddies, these animals were first bred in Aberdeenshire and Angus in Scotland. A man named Hugh Watson is credited with founding the breed, and his bull, Grey-Breasted Jock, led to a long line of “Jocks”, bulls who are now said to have blood lines in nearly every herd on the planet. His cow, Old Granny, was given the no. 1 slot in the Scottish Herd Book, founded in 1824. Old Granny sired 29 calves! There are other legends among the early Black Angus, but it is believed that nearly every herd can be traced back to Grey-Breasted Jock and Old Granny.

So the next time you tuck into a rib-eye at The Palm, you will know precisely where it was sourced! H – Michael M Sandwick

July 2013 27

The American

CHOICE Saloua Raouda Choucair

Tate Modern, Bankside, London SE1 9TG www.tate.org.uk To October 2013 Lebanese artist Choucair is being celebrated at Tate Modern at present, and if you’re unfamiliar with her textiles, jewelry, sculpture, drawings and paintings, this cross-section is a fine introduction to an artist who deserves vastly greater international recognition, as adept with modular sculpture as figurative painting. July offers the opportunity to combine a viewing with the opening month of Tate Modern’s Ibrahim El-Salahi exhibition (more of which next issue), together illustrating the artistic genius hiding beneath the surface of endlessly negative Middle-Eastern news headlines.

SR Choucair, Self Portrait 1943

© SALOUA RAOUDA CHOUCAIR FOUNDATION

28 July 2013

BP Walk through British Art

Tate Britain, Millbank London SW1P 4RG www.tate.org.uk The American understandably reports American works and collections on tour in the UK, but the recent rehanging of Tate’s collection of British art offers a good moment to focus for a month on the treasures right here on our doorstep every day.

Tate Britain’s decision to create a circuit of its great works in chronological order may seem a slightly vanilla approach, but in the quest to define what makes British art ‘British’ it is at least a point of agreement, leaving us to argue to what degree it may be parochial, epic, derivative or singularly inspired. The all-star line-up of Holbein, Bacon, Hirst, Constable, Waterhouse, Hockney, Riley, Freud, Hepworth, Hogarth, Rossetti, Epstein, Gainsborough, Millais, Turner and more should never seem dull, unsexy or staid, yet the new

Dame Barbara Hepworth, Pelagos 1946 © HEPWORTH ESTATE

circuit offers an opportunity for reappraisal, to be justifiably staggered by the contrast of sculpture and paint in stark proximity. Each Pre-Raphaelite masterpiece springs anew from the walls when mixed with contemporaneous artists who cared little for the Brotherhood, rather than walking into a forest of auburn-tressed lovelies and declaring this one better than that one. While the chronology denies the chance to juxtapose Fuseli’s nightmares with Dadd’s fairythemed madness, it’s a welcome remix of one of the world’s greatest collections, one we sometimes seem eager to overlook in favor of the latest shiny pop/fashion retrospective.

JMW Turner, Caligula’s Palace and Bridge, exhibited 1831 © TATE

The American

Above: Sir Stanley Spencer, A Village in Heaven 1937

Between The Wars / Radical Figures: Post-war British Figurative Painting Manchester Art Gallery, Mosley Street, Manchester, Lancashire M2 3JL www.manchestergalleries.org To October 2013 / March 2014 respectively

Francis Bacon, Lucien Freud and David Hockney again appear at the center of Radical Figures, which explores the new approach to figurative art that emerged after WWII, and continued up to the 1970s and ‘80s. The Manchester exhibition is enhanced by the concurrent Between The Wars, featuring amongst

Above: Michael Andrews, Four People Sunbathing 1955 © THE ESTATE OF MICHAEL ANDREWS, COURTESY OF JAMES HYMAN, LONDON AND THE ARTS COUNCIL COLLECTION, SOUTHBANK CENTRE, LONDON

© DACS

others works by Wyndham Lewis, and RJ Coxon. The two exhibitions together under the same roof offer an opportunity to examine growing abstraction and a representational shift between two eras of British art, both with figurative departures from the lingering Realism of pre-World War depictions, as well as topics of community and activity.

Patrick Caulfield / Gary Hume

Tate Britain, Millbank, London SW1P 4RG www.tate.org.uk To September 2013 Bringing our British art trail almost to the present, Tate Britain has exhibitions of two British contemporary artists whose work in paint, print and trompe l’oeil effects evoke pop art simplicity on both sides of the Atlantic (even if Caulfield identified Cubism and Modernism as the chief influences on his vibrant canvases). Hume, a generation later than Caulfield, was born in 1962, when Caulfield was already attending the Royal College of Art. One of the 1980s ‘Young British Artists’ alongside Damien Hirst, Hume’s work is often strikingly similar in its use of defined zones of color and disinterest in the mythological themes and landscape so prevalent in earlier British Art, while employing surface texture which Caulfield’s work lacks. Both exhibitions can be accessed with a single ticket.

Above: Patrick Caulfield, Pottery 1969 © TATE

Above: Gary Hume, Blackbird 1998 PRIVATE COLLECTION

July 2013 29

The American

ART NEWS ROUNDUP

Marc Chagall, I and the Village 1911 © ADAGP, PARIS AND DACS, LONDON 2013 PHOTO © SCALA, FLORENCE

Chagall: Modern Master

Tate Liverpool, Albert Dock, Liverpool Waterfront, Liverpool L3 4BB www.tate.org.uk To October 2013 No British art connection here, just a fine excuse to visit Liverpool as over 60 works by one of the last century’s greatest painters are gathered for the first UK exhibition in fifteen years. Russian Jewish painter Marc Chagall’s glowing canvases echo Fauvism and expressionism, while favoring folklore over idealism. This exhibition examines Chagall’s time in Paris before WW1 as well as in Russia during the revolution, and his humanity is in stark contrast to other artistic ideals afoot in Europe, such as Italian Futurism, while the artistic influence of Futurism’s cousin, Cubism are still present.

George Catlin in Birmingham

Finally, a reminder that George Catlin: American Indian Portraits moves this month to the Birmingham Museum (www.bmag.org.uk)

30 July 2013

Above: The wireframe elegance of the latest temporary Serpentine Gallery Pavilion in London’s Kensington Gardens, as designed by Japanese architect Sou Fujimoto.

Artist’s impressions have been available for months, but rarely has a tangible structure been rendered to match the fragility and mathematical otherworldliness of Fujimoto’s steel lattice. Perhaps one of the outdoor photo ops of the summer? IMAGE © 2013 IWAN BAAN © SOU FUJIMOTO ARCHITECTS.

British Art Sales

One of Britain’s favorite landscape paintings, Constable’s Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadows (pictured right) has been ‘saved for the nation’ by an alliance of Tate, National Museum Wales, the National Galleries of Scotland and a group of regional museums (see extensive caption, below), including Salisbury’s own. The price? £23.1 million. It was estimated to be worth £40m had it reached the open market, where it might have fallen into the hands of dastardly American collectors! Incidentally, if you are an American collector, Christie’s and Sotheby’s have an estimated £250m worth of art headed for the gavel this summer, including David Hockney’s Double East Yorkshire.

More info at www.sothebys. com and www.christies.com

Above: A new portrait of Kevin Spacey as Richard III in the 2011 Old Vic Theatre production will feature in a display of Jonathan Yeo’s work at the National Portrait Gallery in September. © JONATHAN YEO

Above: John Constable, Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadows oil on canvas 1831. Purchased by Tate with assistance from the National Lottery through the Heritage Lottery Fund, the Manton Foundation, the Art Fund and Tate Members in partnership with Amgueddfa Cymru-National Museum Wales, Colchester and Ipswich Museum Service, National Galleries of Scotland, and Salisbury and South Wiltshire Museum, 2013 H

The American

Coffee Break QUIZ

Julius Caesar is the Roman everybody can name... or can they?

PHOTO: ANDREAS WAHRA

In the last of our month-inspired testers, we’re seeking out the Julians, Julies and Juliets (...and other variations!)

2 Julie Newmar famously played Catwoman in the

Answers to Coffee Break Quiz & Sudoku on page 65

3 Around which planet does the moon Juliet orbit?

It happened 50 years ago...

4 Who originated the role of My Fair Lady’s Eliza

14 July 16: English musician and remixer Norman Cook

5 What sort of creature is King Julien XIII?

15 July 24: Another nickname: NBA great Karl Malone

1 The month of July is named after Julius Caesar.

But what was his first name?

Batman TV series. Name the five other actresses who have played the role on TV and film (excluding animations).

Doolittle on Broadway?

6 Which author was thrown in jail for the last 13 years

of his life after publishing the novel Juliette?

was born. By what DJ name is he known?

was born this day. By what nickname is he known?

16 July 25: Three nations initialed the first ever agree-

8 In which story does Jules Verne reveal the history of

ment banning atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons, the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. Which of the following wasn’t (and still isn’t) among them?

9 In which incarnation of the Star Trek Universe

A) The USA C) France

7 Name the frontman for rock band The Strokes.

Captain Nemo?

would you find Dr Julian Bashir?

B) The USSR D) The UK

10 American jazz singer and actress Gayle Peck was

famous for singing Cry Me A River. By what other name is she known?

It happened 100 years ago...

11 July 8: St Louis housewife Pearl Curran first tells of

her Ouija board communications with “Patience Worth”, who would later publish novels and poems from the grave (allegedly) through Curran. Which toy company owns the Ouija board trademark?

A) Hasbro B) Mattel C) Ideal

12 July 18: Which US comedian was born Richard

5 6 8 1 6 4

2 8 7

Bernard Eheart on this day 1913?

A) Red Grange B) Red Skelton C) Red Buttons

13 July 24: American biophysicist and biochemist

Britton Chance was born this day. Additionally he was a gold medal-winning Olympian in Helsinki 1952, but in which field of sport?

A) Sailing B) Boxing C) Shooting

9 1 8 4

3 6 9 1 2

7 9 6 4 5 3 7 5 1 July 2013 31

The American

MUSIC Beck: Song Reader Live at the Barbican

At the end of 2012 Beck Hansen put out a unique album in the form of an illustrated book of individual pieces of sheet music, none of which have ever been released or recorded before. Published by Faber, Beck says, “These songs are meant to be pulled apart and reshaped.

The idea of them being played by choirs, brass bands, string ensembles, anything outside of traditional rock-band constructs – it’s interesting because it’s outside of where my songs normally exist... I think some of the best covers will reimagine the chord structure, take liberties with the melodies, the phrasing, even the lyrics themselves. There are no rules in interpretation.” You can see current interpretations at www.songreader.net. Now, at the Barbican, a stellar-line up of artists including Beck himself, Jarvis Cocker, Franz Ferdinand, Beth Orton, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Joan As Police Woman, Conor J O’Brien (Villagers), Michael Kiwanuka, The Staves, The Guillemots, Pictish Trail and James Yorkston bring Song Reader to life.

July 4th, London, Barbican Hall.

Beck

32 July 2013

The Rolling Stones in the ‘60s by Philip Townsend

LIVE AND KICKING Carnaby Sound

Be part of Swinging London in this free one-day music festival that celebrates the famous street’s ten decades of music with live music from musicians and singers covering the whole range of genres that have been played in the area, from Jazz and Blues to Mod, Urban and Rock, plus alfresco dining, complimentary drinks, shopping offers and promotions from the shops, bars and restaurants in the area. The first Jazz club, Murray’s, opened on Beak Street in 1913. Carnaby was a Mecca for the stylish: Mods, hippies, The Beatles and The Rolling Stones in the 1960s, and later Punks and New Romantics.

There were clubs such as The Roaring Twenties and The Bag O’Nails where Jimi Hendrix, The Who and The Kinks played. July 6th, 12 to 7pm.

The Flamin’ Groovies First UK Shows In More Than 30 Years The Flamin’ Groovies return to Britain!

The Cyril Jordan, Chris Wilson, George Alexander line-up that rocked the UK, Europe and the US from 1971 to 1980 are back in action with the addition of Victor Penalosa on drums.

After going back into the studio to finish up long lost recordings and cutting some new material, they’ve recently toured Japan and Australia and played a hometown show in

San Francisco. Shake Some Action on June 30th at Hard Rock Calling, London, Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park and July 2nd Scala, London.

Charlie Landsborough Amateur Choir Challenge The venerable British country artist tours this Fall (October 8th to November 3rd) to support his 29th album Silhouette. It’s a tour with a twist: each gig will be opened by a leading local choir. A former teacher, Charlie recognises the role of music and choirs in the community. Why not enter yours and give him backing from a real American community choir. Choirs have to submit a recording of one of Charlie’s songs (he’s recorded over 150) and the proceeds (£25 per entry) go to Children In Need. Charlie will be donating the royalties for a year from one of his best loved songs, Special, to the charity. The winning choirs get to perform on stage and the overall winner receives £1000. Entries must be in by July 31st. Send them to Charlie Landsborough Enterprises Ltd, PO Box 155, Wirral CH31 9AS. Entry Forms and more info are at www.charlielandsborough.com.

Love Supreme Jazz Festival

What’s this? A three-day, greenfield, boutique jazz festival in the UK? Yes, and one set against the gorgeous

backdrop of an Elizabethan manor house, Glynde Place near Brighton, East Sussex. Opera and even folk and rock music have classy country house/park festivals, and with the right line-up (a jazz not too extreme) this concept could work. The line-up includes Bryan (Roxy Music) Ferry & The Bryan Ferry Orchestra, Chic Feat. Nile Rodgers, Jools Holland, Brand New Heavies, Melody Gardot, Branford Marsalis Quartet, Marcus Miller, Courtney Pine, The Soul Rebels (eight-piece high energy New Orleans funk brass band), Eric Bibb and double-bass playing chanteuse Esperanza Spalding. July 5th to 7th.

BOOK AHEAD Black Sabbath

Ozzy Osbourne, Tony Iommi and Geezer Butler are on their first tour together in decades. (See review of the new album 13, right). UK tour dates: December 10th, London O2 Arena; 12th Belfast Odyssey Arena; 14th Sheffield Motorpoint Arena; 16th Glasgow Hydro; 18th Manchester Arena; 20th Birmingham LG Arena; 22nd NIA Birmingham.

Bob Dylan

After Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Switzerland, The Netherlands, Italy, Belgium and France, he’s coming to... Blackpool??? For those who don’t know, Blackpool is like Coney Island but without the class.

And the dogs. The Opera House where Bob is headed is part of the Winter Gardens, usually home to ‘end of the pier’ comedians, but joking aside it’s a lovely theater. The UK leg of the tour is: November 18th, 19th & 20th Glasgow, Clyde Auditorium; 22nd, 23rd & 24th Blackpool, Opera House; 26th, 27th & 28th London, Royal Albert Hall.

Black Sabbath

13 Mercury Records Hard Rock? Heavy Rock? Heavy Metal? (Just) Metal? Who cares about the terminology. Black Sabbath are and always were the guv’nors of loud, riff-driven rock music. And unlike their emulators they were always more than merely heavy. Tony Iommi’s riffs are often funky where others are clunky, and his love of classical and jazz guitar has always shone through.

So what are the old codgers doing putting together their first album with Ozzy Osbourne in 35 years, a period during which the band and Ozzy have separately put out some pretty good music, but (Randy Rhoads-era Ozzy aside) they just weren’t Sabbath? Creating a genuine Black Sabbath record, that’s what.

Thank God (or the devil) for Rick Rubin, who has coaxed some of the liveliest, nastiest playing out of Iommi and bassist/lyricist Geezer Butler for decades. Butler says that when they convened in the studio Rubin played them their legendary debut album and told them to “unlearn everything” that’s happened since and pretend this was their sophomore effort. This ploy to get the old fire into their hearts and playing worked. Rubin’s not afraid to use modern studio tools so he creates a modern rather than vintage soundscape, but he is

ALBUM THEOF MONTH working with proper earthy ingredients. The overall effect is of songs from Vol. 4 with the more edgy sound of Sabbath Bloody Sabbath – the band at their peak. The only thing missing is Bill Ward’s inventive, swinging beats, unique in hard rock, that replacement drummer Brad Wilk (Rage Against the Machine) can’t match despite plenty of straight-ahead drive.

There are musical nods to the past, but not due to any dearth of ideas - I can just see Iommi’s smile as he inserts references to their best-loved riffs into the new, alongside the thunderstorm and church bell FX that hark back to their debut album and Ozzy yelling ‘Alright now!’ just like on Sweet Leaf.

The End Of The Beginning (including the telling lyric ‘Rewind the future to the past’) and lead single God Is Dead?, both multi-riffed and over eight minutes long, bode well, then Loner snarls and jumps. Jazzy acoustic number Zeitgeist is reminiscent of Planet Caravan. Age Of Reason features a wild Iommi solo soaring over a particularly intense, growling bass line. Damaged Soul is probably the standout track, featuring mega-heavy bluesy bass, guitar and harmonica.

So, 13: a 52 minute, 8-song (plus 4 bonus tracks in the deluxe edition) history lesson? No – a great heavy rock album from the band that started it all. – Michael Burland

July 2013 33

The American

Barbra Streisand Questioner: After an illustrious 50 year career are there any other mountains you’d like to climb?

Barbra: Mountains? I don’t even want to climb the stairs. Why do ya think I came in on an elevator?

This reply to a question, left in advance by an audience member, sums up what was great about Barbra Streisand’s return to London.

We saw something of the old Barbra, before she became an institution: quick-witted, impish, sardonic, but now relaxed and, finally, enjoying herself doing live performances. Her first London concert in 1994 was like the arrival of the Queen of Sheba, as was her return in 2007, but this time, the European tour has an almost laid back feel – as laid back as you can get with a 60-piece orchestra and a choir of 100. She is Barbra after all.

Barbra’s liquid golden voice is still present. Considering she is now 71, this is astonishing and on the odd occasion when the voice does fray at the edges, it actually makes for a richer experience for us all, adding some warmth to the often pristine sterility of many later recordings. Her ease, innate musicality, and actor’s ability to interpret a lyric are a joy to behold, her only sin not being ‘in the moment’ now and again, and being easily distracted. However, when you can pick up and change gear like she can, this is a minor quibble.

Her song list was superbly judged.

Wisely avoiding trotting out the hits like some lame comeback act she instead went for a range of standards.

She did bow to audience pressure and did a pre-arranged snippet of Woman in Love but said that it wasn’t a song for her to sing now. She took

34 July 2013

Amanda McBroom

By Jarlath O’Connell

Crazy Coqs cabaret at Brasserie Zédel, Piccadilly Circus, London

The O2, London

Sinatra’s Nice and Easy and in a superb arrangement by MD Billy Ross, made it her own. My Man and Jimmy Webb’s Didn’t We were also beautifully served. Of the back catalogue, she felt compelled to deliver Evergreen and People and a particular highlight was Lost Inside of You, accompanied by the great trumpet player, Chris Botti, a rising star.

She ended with two exquisite tributes to Bernstein with Make Your Garden Grow and an encore of Some Other Time. For the former, she was backed by the huge London Oriana Choir, who seemed to be held back just when their massed forces were needed most, a mistake her previous MD, the late great Marvin Hamlisch, wouldn’t have made and it reminded us what a debt she owed to him. She repaid that debt in the show though, with a stunning The Way We Were.

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© 2013 DAVE J HOGAN

MUSIC REVIEWS

manda McBroom can write, sing and entertain – not always the case with great songwriters.

Her recent week at the Art Deco splendor of Brasserie Zédel was an object lesson in the art of cabaret.

It doesn’t have to be “a woman in a frock singing the Great American Songbook” as someone once dismissed the format to me. Instead, Amanda demonstrated that cabaret is a vibrant art form.

Probably best known as the composer of The Rose, a huge hit for Bette Midler, her work has been recorded by a wide range of artists who’ve connected with her simple melodies and down to earth lyrics.

She presented a perfectly balanced programme of her own work, of standards and some new discoveries, amongst them: a slowed down Porter’s I’ve Got You Under My Skin revealing the heartfelt anguish beneath the flippancy; her own Old Love, a sweetly tuneful tale; of Melody Gardot’s If The Stars Were Mine she commented: “You can tell she’s young, she writes in pastels. It takes a long time to write in red”. A tribute to Jacques Brel included an entrancing Ne Me Quitte Pas – what a relief to know someone understands that that song never meant If You Go Away, but rather Don’t Leave Me Now, which is something else entirely.

It’s been 12 years since Amanda was last in London and the doyenne of the Crazy Coqs, Ruth Leon, must be applauded for getting her back. Ruth is on a one-woman mission to enrich our lives with great cabaret performances. H

The American

Sylvain Sylvain The rock and roll survivor tells The American about still creating music forty years after The New York Dolls– and being carded when he wants to buy beer

Above: The New York Dolls in their pomp (Sylvain, second right)

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Below: Sylvain is still with us, still writing great music, and now rocking stages in the UK PHOTO: PUNKASSPHOTOS.COM

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he myth says The New York Dolls flamed white-hot for a short time then burned up... they’re probably all dead by now... Well, no. Sylvain Sylvain, guitarist, songwriter and chief image-instigator for the notorious Dolls is still very much alive, and touring Britain in July.

The Dolls’ unique blend of ’60s girl-group songs, scuzzy rock and roll, and trash fashion had an effect out of proportion to their record sales, ticket sales and longevity. Does he still see their influence around today?

“Oh yeah. It was only two albums,” says Sylvain, “and we were around from ’71 to ’75, but if you look at the people we influenced, they started bands like Blondie and all the others from New York. The New York Dolls were like gods in England, because we were on the BBC! Bono says U2 were influenced by The Ramones.

Well, there wouldn’t have been a Ramones if there wasn’t a New York Dolls,” he laughs.

“The public and the business give us names because they have to package it. They can call me anything they want, as long as they call me. I really think it’s rock and roll. It’s not raaawk, and it’s not just roll. And I hope it’s based on the blues. It’s not a rock and roll song if it doesn’t have any blues in it. And you gotta have fun.

I believe in reincarnation, but just in case it doesn’t happen I’m gonna have a damn good time here while I’m around this Earth.”

For a quintessential New Yorker, it might surprise people that Sylvain is a first-generation American. “My family are Jews, our family name is Mizrahi, and we lived in Egypt. French was my first language – in the Middle East you spoke English or French. My dad worked for the British government during World War II. Finally, the Egyptians threw us out in the ’50s.

The American Sylvain (left) with the New York Dolls in 2011

UK dates: July 5th Bristol, The Fleece; 6th Harlow, The Square; 13th Belfast, Empire Music Hall; 19th Leeds, The Cockpit; 20th Blackburn, King George’s Hall; 25th London, 100 Club.

The American will be at The Fleece in Bristol and we’ll report on the gig for you. For ’70s rock fans, The Fleece is also featuring Martin Turners Wishbone Ash show on October 4th.

“We lived in Paris from 1958 until 1961. There was a movie theater in Montmartre that had King Creole, the Elvis Presley movie. All the kids would bring along their bongos and acoustic guitars and we’d sing along with Elvis. I went ‘wow – I wanna do this!’ France and England were huge on Eddie Cochran too. If The New York Dolls are an influence to The Ramones and Blondie, Eddie Cochran was the influence to Sylvain Sylvain.

I rip him off every second I can!”

When he was ten, the family moved to the States, to Buffalo, New York, then Brooklyn. “The Beatles came over – I was so in love with them. Then on the Ed Sullivan Show, ‘the ugliest band’ – The Rolling Stones. The British Invasion was a major thing. Before that I loved – I still love – the girl groups, the Ronettes, The Supremes, and especially The Shangri-Las. We just lost Shadow Morton, who produced The New York Dolls’ second album, Too Much Too Soon. He produced and wrote for The Shangri-Las [among many others – ed].

“I went to Quintano’s School for Young Professionals in New York, and met Mike Brown, who was in The Left Banke [Walk Away Renée]. He knew I was in a band with the original Dolls drummer, Billy Murcia, and he introduced me to his father, Harry Lakowski, who worked in the Brill Building. We auditioned in his room

© LIBERTINUS

and I sang Michelle, by The Beatles, and he signed us right there. I was too young, so my father had to sign for me – I still have the contract. So me and Billy Murcia were in the studio before we started to put together The New York Dolls.”

Sylvain’s working on a solo album, The Monkey Never Dies. There’s a digital single out, Leaving New York. I tentatively suggest that it was not what people might expect from a former New York Doll. It’s an elegiac ballad, sensitive even. But his versions of his songs often have a tender feel; his version of Frenchette is melancholy, where David Johansen [Dolls lead singer]’s is more upfront rock. “When I record, it comes natural, and the song dictates how it sounds. Each song should have its own magic, you shouldn’t put every instrument on it just because all the guys are in the band. David’s more... ‘stadium rock’.

But he gets his way – you don’t play with Johansen, you work for him.

Now, when you work with Sylvain, you play with him!

“On my British tour I’ll be doing some electric shows in the larger venues, and some acoustic shows.

They go well because I can talk to the audience, tell my stories. Somebody

wrote me, ‘Thank you for letting us put our arms around your stories’...

You Can’t Put Your Arms Around a Memory is a tune that [former Doll] Johnny Thunders wrote, and I do it in my show. I do some Dolls tunes, and Femme Fatale by The Velvet Underground – I bring a slice of New York from that time. On the electric dates I’ve got a great band, me on guitar, Gary Powell from The Libertines on drums, and the bass player is a surprise – I can’t tell you, heh heh heh” Finally, what’s the best thing about being Sylvain Sylvain? “The best thing? I’m 62 years old now and I still get carded when I buy beer.

On Wednesdays they give a senior citizen discount and when I checked out I asked for my discount. The lady didn’t believe I was over 55 and I had to show her my driver’s licence. Now every time I go in she says, ‘This guy’s got the gene in him – they should bottle it!’ H Read the extended interview online – www.theamerican.co.uk – with more about why The New York Dolls ended, what happened when a BBC presenter called them ‘Mock rock’, Kiss, a band called The Pox, how Sylvain nearly became a Sex Pistol and more.

July 2013 37

The American

Emily Winslow American crime author Emily Winslow’s first two novels have been released in the UK for the first time. The Cambridge resident tells The American about murder in Academia

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mily lives in Cambridge, England with her British husband Gavin and two sons. Her first book, The Whole World, was published in America in 2010, with The Start of Everything released in January in the States. Her two Cambridge-set crime novels are finally out in the UK. The Whole World begins with an American Cambridge student, Polly and the disappearance of her boyfriend Nick. One of the distinctive things about Emily’s mysteries are that the chapters are written from the viewpoints of several characters.

We asked her how that came about.

“I was writing The Whole World in Polly’s point of view. When I got to the point where I end her section, I was thinking about how I was going to express to the reader what had happened to Nick – the central question of Polly’s section. Everything I considered for how she was told or overhears or figures out sounded implausibly convenient. I finally came to the conclusion I had to put readers in Nick to see that what he did was inevitable.

“I like symmetry and I knew I was aiming for 300 pages, so I said, right, I did 60 pages of Polly, I’m going to to do 60 pages of Nick, and three other narrators. I structured the rest of the story to be symmetrical.”

Emily was a puzzle designer for periodicals for a while. Does that love of symmetry stem from that?

38 July 2013

“Absolutely. Everything should be neat in some way. The story is messy, the characters are messy, but the reason reading something so chaotic is pleasurable is because it is being framed in a form and in that way it is actually satisfying and comforting, because of the structure.”

Americans in Cambridge

Was beginning The Whole World (see last month’s review) with American characters a case of writing what you know, of being a young American and observing the city – introducing Cambridge as much as Liv and Polly in the opening chapter?

“I had just moved to Cambridge.

I’d been writing for years and doing magazine work and designing puzzles and having success, but I wanted to write novels. I was having real trouble seeing a story through to the end with settings, places that I knew. I knew them so well that it was almost overwhelming to attempt to describe them, because there was nothing to hold on to, nothing stood out.

“I came to Cambridge in 2006.

The town has an amazing history, over 800 years in terms of building and traditions, all that depth and architecture. The university dominates the city even when you’re not part of the university. More than half the people I meet are in some way attached to the uni. There was just

so much to figure out: how it worked and what are all these places, and just the usual American-comingto-England – not saying ‘pants’ or ‘fanny’… so I was trying to figure it all out and explaining it to friends back home, and that’s how The Whole World started. Because you do need to know a place pretty well if you’re going to set a whole book there, but it was also strange and new, and that newness allowed me to pick out things to describe and express. It was textured to me, not just ‘well of course it’s this way’.

“It feels endless to write about because of all these people in different disciplines who are quite brilliant, and you’re just tripping over them!”

Does setting the novels in a university city make it easy to get under the skin of the place? And how much did she raid her husband’s experience in the way Cambridge works?

“I would ask him things all the time, but then again we had just lived in America for seven or eight years, so he is no longer any use to me in terms of British vocabulary. If I say to him ‘Would a British person use this word?’, he’d say ‘Darned if I know!’ He’s far too American – he’s a dual citizen at this point.

“I don’t feel like a foreigner at all!

Part of it is although I am a foreigner, Cambridge is made of foreigners, so being a foreigner here is just being a Cambridge person. I tried to join the internationals group at our church, and they won’t let Americans join it – we’re not foreign enough!”

As The Whole World progresses, Emily turns to characters with English voices, while in The Start of Everything characters are entirely non-American. Does this represent a growing confidence in writing through English characters?

The American

“Yes it’s growing confidence, but also I felt it would be a crutch to always throw in an American... as well as unlikely. Good Lord, I wanted to, because I do like that opportunity for an American voice. I felt like in The Whole World that was perfectly fine, to introduce the American audience to the city. But I felt in The Start of Everything I just had to dive in, be brave and go ‘full English’.”

At the very centre of most crime novels is the ‘investigator’. In Emily’s books two British cops – Morris and Chloe are recurring characters, but in each book other characters pursue their own investigations too. Are we moving past the age of a writer having a singular ‘sleuth’?

“I don’t think we’ll ever move past it because some people simply love it and it will always be an interesting point of view, but I certainly welcome the idea that more and more books will explore other points of view – witnesses and those affected by the crime and family members. It’s just so rich, I can’t resist, I love my investigators very much which is why they come back in the books. They anchor it.”

Why did Emily choose crime as a genre?

“It’s two things. One is because it’s a puzzle and puzzles are always fun and satisfying, and the second thing is that the stakes are high, important things are happening, and there’s nothing more important than life and death.”

Right: Emily Winslow in her adopted city of Cambridge. © HELEN BARTLETT BACKGROUND IMAGE © ESTRELLA BIBBEY

Psychology drives Emily’s stories.

Where does that come from?

“I trained as an actor and that is the absolute best training in psychology I can imagine, because you have to go inside all these different people and justify their choices as logical for them and embody them not just in what they are doing, but who they are physically, your voice, costume choices, hair and make-up, so it was an acting background definitely.”

In one interview, Emily suggested that when her sons reach college age she’ll relocate to the States. In fifteen years from now might we be reading a novel about British expats in New Hampshire or New Jersey?

“Gosh, I have wondered that – what will I do when I’m not here any more? But I think probably in 15 years it’ll be fun and exciting to try something else... or I’ll consider myself such an expert on Cambridge I’ll just keep it going!” H The Whole World was released as a paperback in the UK on June 24.

The Start of Everything was released in the UK in hardback the same day.

BOOK REVIEW The Start of Everything Emily Winslow Allison & Busby, hardcover, 350 pages ISBN-13: 978-0749014056 In Emily Winslow’s second psychological thriller set in Cambridgeshire, detectives Morris Keene and Chloe Frohmann follow elusive clues from the decomposed body of an unknown girl found in fenlands to the apartments of a country manor.

This is no country house mystery, however. With a tangentially connected secondary mystery even wilier than the first, Winslow deftly delivers a complex tale with the psychology of each character scrupulously drawn. As with her first novel, The Whole World, she succeeds in telling the story while switching between the viewpoints of several characters, including both a victim and the guilty party, without showing her hand, nor frustrating the reader in the process – a neat trick! Where the author’s first novel broke events into five sections, each with its own voice, here Emily dances fluidly between short chapters of different viewpoints, creating a kaleidoscopic view of events that might so easily have jarred. They don’t. They intrigue.

With a third novel already in the works, this is a crime series to investigate. – Richard L Gale

July 2013 39

The American

BOOK REVIEWS George Washington: Gentleman Warrior

By Stephen Brumwell Quercus, hardback, 486 pages, £30.00 ISBN: 978 1 84916 546 4

The Men Who Lost America

By Andrew Jackson O’Shaughnessy (UK) Oneworld Publications, hardcover, 480 pages, £30 / (USA) Yale University Press ISBN: 978 1 78074 246 5 Two books bracketing the same subject, each complementing the other and both dispelling core beliefs about the Revolutionary War. Firstly, George Washington was a peaceable farmer and American patriot who was forced by circumstance to take up arms and fight the evil British oppressors. Brumwell focuses on the early part of Washington’s life, in which he aimed to be a gentleman with status and material wealth, and a warrior. A loyalist, he fought for George II against the French and their Indian allies. Aged 22, Washington became Colonel of the Virginia Regiment, experiencing successes and defeat and seeing the horrors of war including the scalping of prisoners. Eventually the French were repelled and the disputed territories pacified. One thing that aggravated this hot-headed, talented young soldier was that lower-ranked British regular officers could overrule him, a mere colonial militia officer.

Resigning his commission aged 26, for 17 years he became the archetypal gentleman farmer, serving in Virginia’s House of Burgesses. His warrior’s reputation led the Second Continental Congress to appoint him Commander-in-Chief of the

40 July 2013

Continental Army. In a final twist, this gentleman warrior who distrusted the political classes became the new nation’s first president.

O’Shaughnessy looks at the war from another angle. Did incompetence and arrogance lead the British Empire to lose its American colonies?

By telling the tales of ten British leaders O’Shaughnessy shows that George III, Prime Minister Lord North and their generals were mainly able and effective, winning many battles.

The revolutionaries’ victory was due, he argues, to the genius of Washington, the passion of the American fighters, and the lack of enough troops to occupy the land; the British believed that the majority of Americans were loyalists who, once the rebels were defeated, would settle quietly into colonial bliss. Oh, how wrong. – Michael Burland

Indiscretion

by Charles Dubow Blue Door, hardcover/ebook, 386 pages, £12.99/£7.99 ISBN: 978 1 78074 246 5 Maddy and Harry Winslow are the couple who seem to have it all: charisma, beauty, charm, intelligence, wit, athleticism, and a deep love and devotion to each other.

Old money Walter has adored his childhood friend Maddy all his life, and delights in being a part of the Winslow’s life, and godfather to their

precious only child. Both Maddy and Walter inherited houses in East Hampton, where the story centers.

Walter chronicles the carefree days on the beach, the boating expeditions, boozy houseparty weekends in East Hampton, and the arrival of a newcomer to their midst who at first delights with her youth and intelligence, but then disrupts the idyll and shatters the group.

I savored every phrase of the clean, elegant prose as the seamless plot flows from New York and East Hampton to Rome, Paris and back again. The characters became my old friends with whom I’d lost touch, Walter’s singular narration a catch-up conversation we had sipping whisky one long evening in his study.

A new American literature classic, this should be on the high school curriculum in years to come. Gatsbyesque, it chronicles the sweeping away forever of a carefree, more innocent way of life, allegorically charting the heady days before the 21st Century Financial Crash (although this is not mentioned) and its aftermath. I’ve no doubt Claire will be analysed by literary professors as a metaphor for the new wave of financial instruments that took the unwary old financial houses down. Maybe that’s why Charles Dubow had to wait to write his first novel. Timing is Everything, as country singer Garrett Hedlund’s song says. – Sabrina Sully

The American

Strange Interlude O

National Theatre – Lyttelton • London South Bank, London SE1 9PX • Reviewed by Jarlath O’Connell

’Neill’s creaky curiosity from 1928 gets a lavish treatment at the National Theatre, but they get the tone fatally wrong.

“Excuse me while I have a Strange Interlude” quipped Groucho Marx in a wide-eyed aside to the camera, demolishing the ladies he’s just been conversing with. It was a perfect parody of the technique O’Neill employed in this experimental piece where characters stop mid conversation to make frequent asides to reveal their inner thoughts.

It tells the story of the eternally unhappy Nina and the three men who love her: prissy bachelor Charles, adventurer Ned and geeky, guileless advertising man Sam who persuades her to marry him. Nina is a “modern” woman who takes what she wants from the men in her life. Radical in its time, today she comes across as unsympathetic and selfish.

Much of the critical response to this staging has applauded the fact that Simon Godwin has cut a 5-hour marathon down to 3:20, as if getting one’s train was more important than serving the work. In achieving these efficiencies Godwin has witlessly trashed O’Neill’s intentions by speeding the play up. This frantic pacing fatally ratchets up the melodrama, which then boils over into farce. At this pace O’Neill’s mini soliloquies come across as tart, comic asides. Playing it for laughs is not the same as drawing out (any) humor within it. Soutra Gilmour’s set, while historically perfect manages to be both huge and cramped at the same time,

adding to the general awkwardness.

Anyone who saw its last West End/Broadway outing in 1985 has the memory of Glenda Jackson in the lead burnished in his or her heart.

There, it was done unequivocally as tragedy and audiences coped, even for five hours. Here, poor Anne-Marie Duff and her fellow cast members are completely at sea.

There is no doubt the play is a problem; considered against the great O’Neill canon it probably should remain in the bottom drawer.

It reeks of cod Freudianism (much in vogue at the time), in exploring premarital sex, Oedipal longings, hereditary insanity and abortion, but it deserves a staging solution that at least tries to meet O’Neill half way.

The disjunction between the angst of the characters and the social chitchat they express is a difficult one to pitch for the actors, and Charles Edwards comes off best as Nina’s wittily urbane and devoted friend Charles. “What am I doing here?” he wails in an aside and gets the biggest laugh of

the night. Laughs, in O’Neill? Darren Pettie, who has the swagger and charisma of a young Clark Gable is perfectly cast as the dashing Ned. Other supporting parts are less fortunate, particularly the mother-in-law (Geraldine Alexander). Her encounter with Nina, where they seal their pact of secrecy against Sam, is unintentionally hilarious and is played with such Am Dram po-faced-ness it could be a French and Saunders parody.

Because the actors don’t have to reveal any underlying emotion (it’s done for them in the asides) the piece is quite barren. There is no guesswork for the audience and so no engagement. This distancing isn’t Brechtian, it’s just clumsy.

By the last act we have shared in the full course of an entire lifetime of these characters and in any effective staging this would be a moment of great poignancy. Here instead we’re left checking our watches and wondering if we might make that even earlier train.

July 2013 41

PHOTO: ©JOHAN PERSSON

By Eugene O’Neill

THEATER REVIEWS

The American

Chimerica :©

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ucy Kirkwood is just 29; her new play, a co-production between the Almeida and Rupert Goold’s company Headlong, is a total triumph.

What’s most surprising is its daring ambition and what is great is that it succeeds. It explores the complex symbiotic relationship between the US and China (the clumsy title is taken from historian Niall Ferguson’s book The Ascent of Money), but does so through focusing on stories of people caught up in this maelstrom.

Set in Beijing and Manhattan and switching between 1989 and the run up to Obama’s re-election, the play takes the form of a quest. Idealistic photojournalist Joe (Stephen Campbell Moore) was on a Beijing hotel room balcony in June 1989 photographing that solitary man, carrying just a pair of shopping bags, who confronted the tanks which were literally crushing the rebellion in Tiananmen Square. Joe is a fictional amalgam of six real photographers

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By Lucy Kirkwood Almeida Theatre, London (Transfering to the Harold Pinter Theatre in August) Reviewed by Jarlath O’Connell

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and the play is a speculation.

Fascinated with what might have happened to the forgotten hero of the Square we follow Joe’s close friendship over 24 years with Zhang Lin (Benedict Wong), a local fixer come schoolteacher, as they try to track down the Tank Man whom Joe thinks re-surfaced in New York.

Written out of official Chinese history Tank Man is now being expediently forgotten by the West also.

Joe and his hardboiled journalist sidekick Mel (Sean Gilder) scour Chinatown following leads, in the process stretching the patience and generosity of their editor Frank, who is struggling with the timidity of his paper’s nervous owners and their Chinese investors. Trevor Cooper is at his scene-stealing best here as the wily New Yorker who has to give Joe the odd reality check.

Kirkwood expertly weaves the personal and the political and tackles issues such as the veracity of photojournalism, the infiltration of Western market segmentation techniques in China (and whether they’d work), the politics of pollution in a city literally choking from “progress”, the suppression of news and internet in China, and the deadly hand of corporate self censorship in the West. In all this, however, she never loses sight of the need to flesh out fully human characters, all with their own flaws and contradictions A good example is the English marketing dynamo Tessa (Claudie Blakley) with whom Joe has a tryst.

In thrall to the gospel of the market and wide-eyed with glee at the sheer potential of China, a country that went “from famine to Slimfast in a generation”, she reprimands Joe for his sanctimoniousness. Blakley shines during a scene when she has a Damascene conversion during a Powerpoint presentation.

Central to its success is Es Devlin’s stunning design, enhanced by Finn Ross’s projections. The stage is dominated by a huge white rotating cube, with inlaid rooms, on the sides of which are projected large b&w contact sheets of the glimpses of Manhattan or Beijing, all marked up with a red pen. Rarely has a design conceit been so apt.

Lyndsey Turner’s direction has the dynamism of Enron (a previous Headlong hit) but it is never flippant and the performances she elicits from a large ensemble cast, who double up roles, are a joy.

The tragedy of Joe’s quest in the end is that he misses what’s right under his nose. The reveal here (without giving the plot away) has the narrative kick of a great thriller; it will be a hit movie before very long. H

The American

Competition

WIN A PAIR OF TICKETS FOR

See the production the critics are calling ‘The perfect West End Production, Zoë Wanamaker is Superb’ (The Sunday Times) and ‘Mercilessly Brilliant’ (The Financial Times)

C

© JOHAN PERSSON

omfortably married for 25 years, Eleanor’s world is turned upside down when her husband begins an affair with their young friend Kate.

As the lies mount up, the marriage is stripped bare, revealing illicit desires and hidden passions. A potent mix of desire, intimacy and deception, this modern classic by Peter Nichols (Privates on Parade, A Day in the Death of Joe Egg) and winner of the Evening Standard Award for Best Play makes a much-anticipated return to the West End, and is directed by David Leveaux (Arcadia, Betrayal, The Real Thing).

Zoë Wanamaker (Harry Potter, My Family and Arthur Miller’s All My Sons) and Owen Teale (West End and Broadway’s A Doll’s House, RSC’s King Lear and Sky1’s Stella) are joined on stage

by Samantha Bond (Downton Abbey, Outnumbered, Miss Moneypenny in James Bond), Oliver Cotton (BBC’s Ripper Street, The Dark Knight Rises), Siân Thomas (Donmar’s Richard II, Merlin, Harry Potter) and Annabel Scholey (Lady Anne opposite Kevin Spacey in Richard III, Eastenders, Jane Eyre).

www.passionplaylondon.com Owen Teale, Zoë Wanamaker and Annabel Scholey in the Duke of York’s Theatre production of Passion Play

THE QUESTION: For a chance to win one of two pairs of tickets to see Passion Play at the Duke of York’s Theatre, London (valid for any Mon-Thurs evening performance or Saturday matinee until August 2, 2013), just tell us: Where was actress Zoë Wanamaker born?

A) Somerset, England B) New York City, NY C) Chicago, Illinois HOW TO ENTER: Email your answer and contact details (name, address, daytime phone number) to theamerican@blueedge.co.uk with PASSION PLAY COMPETITION in the subject line; or send a postcard to: PASSION PLAY COMPETITION, The American, Old Byre House, Millbrook Lane, East Knoyle, Salisbury SP3 6AW, UK; to arrive by mid-day July 14. You must be 18 years old or over to enter this competition. Only one entry per person per draw. The editor’s decision is final. Terms and conditions: Tickets valid for selected performances (exclusions will apply).

Subject to availability. No cash alternative. Non transferable. Additional expenses are the responsibility of the prize winner. Promoter reserves the right to exchange all or part of the prize to that of equal or greater value.

July 2013 43

PHOTO: ©JOHAN PERSSON

The American

To Kill a Mockingbird Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre, London • Based on the novel by Harper Lee Adapted for the stage by Christopher Sergel • Reviewed by Michael Burland

U

nder Timothy Sheader, the Open Air Theatre has become one of the most interesting and exciting venues in the capital, and his production of Christopher Sergel’s adaptation of the classic Harper Lee book maintains their winning streak.

The theater’s beautiful setting, excellent facilities and helpful, cheerful staff always make a special evening, but how does a quintessentially American tale work here?

The fictional town of Maycomb, Alabama, is represented on a sloping stage by simple childlike chalk drawings, drawn out before your eyes as the play starts, by the minor cast members. Three young actors play each of the three children’s parts. Atticus Finch’s eight year old tomboy daughter Scout was played on the night we went by Eleanor Worthington-Cox, a star in the making. Feisty, funny, clever and curious, she is totally believable and holds the stage whenever she is on. Even at the beginning of the pivotal lynch mob scene all eyes were on her as she sat quietly on a chair upstage,

44 July 2013

legs swinging, eyes fixed on the grown-ups’ idiocies.

The lead in this impressive ensemble, ‘first among equals’, is Robert Sean Leonard, who ‘wrestles with the ghost of Gregory Peck’ [as he told The American in our chat before the run started]. He needn’t have worried: he comes out ahead in a subtly powerful performance.

Leonard succeeds in making Atticus a believable human being caught in a Southern Gothic nightmare, a good man but no saint, struggling to bring up two kids alone with help from the nanny, Calpurnia. His rumpled cream suit and horn rimmed spectacles are a clear nod to Peck, as is his underplayed stillness and ‘grace under pressure’, but Leonard makes the part his own. Richie Campbell’s Tom Robinson – crippled and wrongfully accused – is gripping, dignified and resigned to his fate. Rarely put on in London, To Kill a Mockingbird is a staple of the US stage. Did this production deserve to be seen by Americans over here too?

Without a doubt, yes. H

Harry Melling as Lamb in Harold Pinter’s The Hothouse PHOTO: ©JOHAN PERSSON

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pening the programme for Jamie Lloyd’s second production of his Trafalgar Transformed season, my heart sank. It contained essays on Pinter and politics, torture in Turkey and the abuses of Guantanamo. I feared I might be in for a grim evening.

The shock, however, was that this nearly forgotten gem from 1958 is just side-splittingly hilarious.

There is, of course, humor in (nearly) all Pinter and those who can’t find it shouldn’t be directing him, but here Jamie Lloyd puts the emphasis firmly on the comic and serves up a production – beautifully designed by Soutra Gilmour – with echoes of Orton at his best.

Written between The Birthday Party and The Caretaker and shoved in a drawer because he considered it unworthy (the idealistic young author damned it as “satirical and useless”), the play didn’t see the light of day until 1980 and, shamefully, it has had only one other outing in the West End. However, Pinter’s anxiety about the piece did lift in the aftermath of revelations about the abuses of psychiatry in Soviet mental health institutions, when it became apparent that his little

The American

The Hothouse

By Harold Pinter • Trafalgar Studios, London, SW1A 2DY • Reviewed by Jarlath O’Connell

play had proved to be rather scarily prophetic.

Here though, the crumbling institution is quintessentially British and Jamie Lloyd’s Rank movie-style production makes it even more so.

Pinter carefully surveys the intense collegiate relationships between the staff and their utter indifference to their patients, whom we never see and who are designated by numbers rather than by their names. We hear the odd wail and it becomes clear that electric shock therapies are carried out after one of the more keen young staff blithely volunteers as a guinea pig. The appropriately named Lamb, wonderfully played by Harry Melling, is a keen-to-please, camp, ball of energy.

Here nobody speaks any truth, even for a second, and language is the main weapon.

The lethal swish of British understatement and sarcasm is deployed with great panache and Pinter gives even his supporting characters some glorious arias of

verbiage, packed full of euphemism and caustic wit. John Heffernan is a particular delight as Lush, a rebellious dandy, who reaches heights of comic brilliance which only Kenneth Williams could have attained. His gift for physical comedy is gloriously evident too in a hilarious drunken cake fight.

At the head of this permanently sinking ship is Roote, and Simon Russell Beale triumphs as this blustering and tetchy ex-Colonel.

Channelling Captain Mainwaring from Dad’s Army, he combines both verbal and physical dexterity and delivers a performance that is utterly sublime. Clearly losing his grip, he’s informed on this day (and Simon Russell Beale as Roote and John Simm as Gibbs.

PHOTO: ©JOHAN PERSSON

it is Christmas Day, no less) that one patient has died and another has had a baby. “But how?” he demands of his assistant Gibbs (John Simm).

“She had an accomplice sir”!

Cleverly cast against type, TV star Simm is the perfect foil for Russell Beale and brings a creepy punctiliousness to the ruthless, clipboardwielding bureaucrat. Indira Varma too is a sheer delight as the vampish Miss Cutts, the apex of the love triangle.

As an indictment of the madness of institutional bureaucracy the text couldn’t be bettered and it speaks to us today as we witness chaos in one great British institution after another.

Here though, Lloyd has unleashed the full comic potential of the piece and while some might bemoan how this production neglects the chilling undercurrent of the play, these folk can, after all, settle for those programme notes. H

The American

The Amen Corner

By James Baldwin • The Olivier Theatre, National Theatre, Upper Ground, London SE1 9PX • Reviewed by Pete Lawler

“I

narrative together, often uniting characters, obscuring the significance of certain moments for others, and finally intensifying the dark tragedy and emptiness we are left with at the end. One can sense the early gospel influence on Baldwin juxtaposed with the jazz about which he was so passionate, furtively snaking its way through the communal chorus symbolizing freedom of expression.

The set is meticulously designed

by Ian MacNeil, immersing you in austere spirituality while cleverly employing a two-level stage with the interior of the church above Margaret’s apartment, conveying the oppressive nature of religion. It becomes a visual metaphor adding to the pathos at the end, showing the stark opposition between unquestioning faith and wretched grief.

The acting is superb, Marianne Jean-Baptiste playing Sister Margaret with such tightly contained energy simmering beneath her persona as spiritual leader that we know immediately that this is an individual who

PHOTO: RICHARD H SMITH

left because I was driven out, because my homeland would not allow me to grow in the only direction in which I could grow.”

So said James Baldwin, African American author of Go Tell It on The Mountain, of his reasons for leaving America at the tender age of 24. And so these themes of isolation and displacement resonate powerfully and relentlessly in Rufus Norris’ current production of The Amen Corner, into which Baldwin poured all of his expatriate and existentialist angst.

Set in an evangelical church in 1950s Harlem, the play portrays the struggles of ‘Sister’ Margaret Alexander, the church’s severe pastor, from tireless leader at the heart of her community delivering sermons about the evils of alcohol and jazz clubs to tragic heroine confronting the demons of her past and a life based on deception.

From the opening scene, in which the cast belt out a soulful number with the London Community Gospel Choir, the play is underpinned with a rich musicality that threads the

46 July 2013

fights a constant, passionate internal conflict. There is a riveting physical ferocity about Jean-Baptiste’s performance that induces fear, at times contempt, and ultimately a wellspring of deeply felt pity for the way in which this character becomes persecuted.

Lucian Msamati is in turns mischievously ribald and paternally nurturing as her estranged jazz musician husband, while Eric Kofi Abrefa captures with beautiful clarity the tumultuous internal conflict with which David, Margaret’s 18 year old son, struggles, negotiating between duty and ambition. It is a strong and inspired performance from such a young actor, in which he uses a restless physicality to show us an individual grappling with an ever more constrained existence and an ever increasing desire to free himself.

My only slight misgivings center on Cecilia Noble’s sweetly sycophantic, two-faced Sister Moore. Noble is obviously a gifted character actor, with a uniquely throaty, high-pitched delivery, but she does play every line for great, big, hearty belly laughs.

Much of the action requires this sort of hamming, but there were moments I felt like Noble could have done with toning down, as it threatened to undercut the tension of some parts and over-conditioned the audience to laugh irritatingly at inappropriate moments.

None of this mars the fact that at the end, we are left with a devastating and cleansing catharsis in an absorbing and phenomenal night of theater that should not be missed. H

PHOTO: MARTY SOHL

The American

THEATER PREVIEWS The London Coliseum, St Martin’s Lane, London WC2N 4ES www.eno.org Two programmes from July 3 to 7 As we may have mentioned in The American before (last issue and in February – don’t say we didn’t tell you!) the Boston Ballet is in London for the first time in 30 years as part of their 50th birthday celebrations.

Programme 1 includes Vaslav Nijinsky’s Afternoon of a Faun, George Balanchine’s Serenade and Symphony in Three Movements and resident choreographer Jorma Elo’s Plan to B. Programme 2 includes Christopher Wheeldon’s complex Polyphonia, Jirí Kylián’s beautiful masterpiece Bella Figura and William Forsythe’s kinetic The Second Detail.

The Ladykillers Vaudeville Theatre, Strand, London WC2R 0NH www.vaudevilletheatre.org.uk Main run July 10 to October 26 After the 2004 Hollywood version of the 1955 original, this exquisite black comedy returns to its British roots in stage form – now in the West End after a UK tour. A cast of scoundrels (comedy actors Ralf Little, Simon Day and John Gordon Sinclair amongst

them) take refuge in the house of an innocuous little old lady who discovers they are not what they seem.

Their subsequent resolution to get her out of the way results in a series of humorously inept attempts on her life that backfire with the deadly inevitability of a teen slasher movie wearing a tweed hat.

The Color Purple Menier Chocolate Factory, 53 Southwark Street, London SE1 1RU www.menierchocolatefactory.com July 5 to September 14

A Doll’s House Duke of York’s Theatre, St Martin’s Lane, London WC2N 4BG www.dukeofyorkstheatre.co.uk August 8 to October 26 After two sell-out runs last summer and in March, we thought we’d give you a little forewarning that it returns to the Duke of York’s Theatre for a 12 week run this August, with ticket’s starting at £10. The Ibsen classic stars Hattie Morahan and Dominic Rowan (both pictured right).

PHOTO: ©JOHAN PERSSON

Boston Ballet

hero David Tennant (Hamlet) tackles the first of a new RSC ‘Henriad’. Richard II has long had to play prequelic ‘Hobbit’ to the Henry trilogies’ ‘Lord of the Rings’, thanks to schoolroom obsession with young Prince Hal and Falstaff. However, with Tennant as R2, Michael Pennington as John of Gaunt, Oliver Ford Davies as the Duke of York, and Nigel Lindsay as Bolingbroke, Shakespeare’s tale of power and plotting will be getting the star treatment. Book tickets very quickly for one month runs in Stratford Upon Avon and London.

Tony Award-winning John Doyle (Road Show) directs the European premiere of Alice Walker’s Pulitzerwinning and life-affirming tale, with a cast including Cynthia Erivo (The Umbrellas of Cherbourg) as Celie and Nicola Hughes (Olivier nominated for Porgy & Bess) as Shug.

Richard II Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford Upon Avon and Barbican Theatre, London www.rsc.org.uk October 10 to January 25 Even more forewarning for this one, however, as ex-Doctor Who turned stage

July 2013 47

The American

St James Theatre, 12 Palace Street, London SW1E 5JA www.stjamestheatre.co.uk July 2 to August 10 Young beauty Lili (Emily Taaffe) struggles to escape the clutches of her domineering German-Jewish mother Eva (Diana Quick) with the charming – too charming? – Nick (Luke Allen-Gale). Director David Grindley’s ongoing success continues its journey from Broadway (via Bath), as a 1960s summer in the Catskill Mountains arrives in the West End with rave reviews in its wake.

Daytona Park Theatre, Clifton Terrace, Finsbury Park, London N4 3JP www.parktheatre.co.uk July 10 to August 18 The small-scale but impressively supported Park Theatre will stage the world premiere of Oliver Cotton’s new play of ballroom dancing and unexpected reunions. Stars Maureen Lipman (Oklahoma! and the BBC’s Ladies of Letters), Harry Shearer (This Is Spinal Tap, The Simpsons) and RSC veteran John Bowe, while the director is David Grindley (The American Plan, see above).

Emily Taaffe as Lili in The American Plan PHOTO: © JANE HOBSON

Right: Anna Chancellor and Toby Stephens in Private Lives

Private Lives Gielgud Theatre, Shaftesbury Avenue, London W1D 6AR www.privateliveswestend.com To September 21 Noël Coward’s comedy of manners (aren’t they all?) stars Anna Chancellor and Toby Stephens as a divorced couple who trip over each other in the adjoining suites of a French hotel while on their respective honeymoons with new spouses. In so doing, they discover that their turbulent relationship hid a passion whose fires are not yet doused. The play has regularly delighted audiences on Broadway and the West End since its debut in 1930 and this transfer was a sell-out at the Chichester Festival Theatre.

Dirty Dancing Piccadilly Theatre, 16 Denman Street, London W1D 7DY www.piccadillytheatre.co.uk July 13 to February 22, 2014 For anybody averse to babies being put in corners, Dirty Dancing returns from a UK tour to the West End this month, retaining the visually appealing pair of Paul-Michael Jones and Jill Winternitz (cuter than Jennifer Grey? Maybe) in the central roles of Johnny and “Frances” (who?)

48 July 2013

PHOTO: © TRISTRAM KENTON

The American Plan

Beyond London: Highlights

The Chichester Festival Theatre (www.cft.org.uk) – always worth following, as Private Lives proves – has Barnum under its ‘Theatre in the Park’ tent July 15 to August 31, directed

by Olivier Award winner Timothy Sheader (see To Kill A Mockingbird, page 44) and starring American Christopher Fitzgerald (Wicked, Young Frankenstein) as the titular showman. The Theatre Royal, Bath (www. theatreroyal.org.uk) has begun its summer season, with Trevor Nunn already helming Noël Coward’s Relative Values starring Patricia Hodge, Caroline Quentin and Rory Bremner, to be followed by Bernard Shaw’s Candida, the story of a clergyman witnessing his marriage under threat from a teenage poet, and Shakespeare’s King Lear with David Haig (2011’s The Madness of King George), both in July. August beckons Lindsay Posner directing Georges Feydeau’s A Little Hotel on the Side.

The American

DRIVE TIME

Porsche 911: 0-820,000 in 50 Years T

he Porsche 911 is a record breaker. The figures above are not a weird acceleration statistic, but the number that makes it the world’s most successful sports car.

Over 820,000 911s have been built since 1963.

The official line is ‘For five decades, the 911 has been the heart of the Porsche brand,’ but that wasn’t always the intention. Sales declined during the 1970s, in 1979 Porsche made plans to replace it with the 928 - a larger, roomier, more refined, comfortable, luxurious, front-engined grand tourer. It had a water-cooled V8 that outgunned the 911’s air-cooled flat six but it didn’t handle like a sports car and did not fare well in racing.

The last 911 was to have rolled off the produciton line in 1981.

But buyers voted with their wallets and Porsche decided to revitalize the 911 instead. Peter W Schutz, Porsche’s CEO between1981 and 1987, recalled, “The decision to keep the 911 in the product line occurred one afternoon in the office of Dr. Helmuth Bott, the Porsche operating board member responsible for all engineering and development.

I noticed a chart on the wall of Professor Bott’s office. It depicted

the ongoing development schedules for the three primary Porsche product lines: 944, 928 and 911. Two of them stretched far into the future, but the 911 program stopped at the end of 1981. I remember rising from my chair, walking over to the chart, taking a black marker pen, and extending the 911 program bar clean off the chart. I am sure I heard a silent cheer from Professor Bott, and I knew I had done the right thing. The Porsche 911, the company icon, had been saved, and I believe the company was saved with it.”

The 911 has always been a sports car, rather than a supercar, and this distinction has made it so successful.

Ferry Porsche summed up its unique qualities thus, “The 911 is the only car you could drive on an African safari or at Le Mans, to the theatre or through New York City traffic.”

It has succeeded in many genres of motorsport, from GT racing to the Paris-Dakar Rally and Porsche, known as a race-winning company, owe much of that success to the car: a good two thirds of the 30,000-plus race victories achieved by Porsche to date have been by 911s.

The 911 has been developed through seven generations, from the debut model 901 at the IAA

International Automotive Show in September 1963, to the current model internally designated the 991, longer, wider, with a water-cooled engine, larger tyres and an ergonomic interior.

Porsche are celebrating the anniversary by sending a 1967 model 911 on a world tour to events in Pebble Beach, California, China, Goodwood in the UK, Paris and Australia and many more international fairs, historical rallies and motor sport events. You can follow the car’s progress at porsche.com/follow-911.

Until September 29 there’s also a special exhibition featuring the history and development of the 911 at The Porsche Museum in Stuttgart.

The source: the Prototype Porsche 911 Type 8 pictured in 1964. Simply genius.

July 2013 49

PHOTO: GEOGRAPH.ORG.UK

The American

Euro Drink-Drive Limits

The French government has shelved plans to fine drivers for failing to carry a breathalyzer kit in their car. Despite the postponement, it’s still the law that drivers carry the kits, so the advice from British authorities is still to carry one in your car while in France.

The French drink-drive limit is around half that of the UK. The idea of a typical Frenchman weaving contentedly down the road after a wine-enhanced lunch is now part of history. A typical penalty for drink-driving in the country is a €135 fine (£116/$185) plus penalty points on your license. If your blood/alcohol levels are over the the current UK limit you could face fines of up to €4,500 (£3,900/$6,240) plus two years imprisonment.

Here’s a list of current European drink-drive limits to make your continental driving safer. For comparison, in the US you are guilty of ‘illegal per se’ driving with a blood-alcohol concentration by volume of 0.08%, the same as the UK (some US states have lower limits where an accident occurs): 0.08%: (aka 80mg per 100 ml of blood): Liechtenstein , UK 0.05%: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Portugal, Switzerland 0.04%: Lithuania 0.02%: Norway, Poland, Sweden 0%: Czech Rep, Russia

50 July 2013

Honda NSX UK-only pre-orders

H

onda’s NSX concept, unveiled at the Detroit Motor Show in 2012, sparked such a reaction that Honda (UK) has opened a pre-order bank for the supercar. For a deposit of £5,000, potential owners can be among the first to get behind the wheel when it hits showrooms in 2015. Over 20 deposits have been put down despite customers not having seen what the production version will look like or even knowing the eventual price. Industry gossip suggests a 911-undercutting £75,000, but don’t be surprised if it ends up around £95k.

The NSX will be powered by a mid-mounted, direct-injected V6 engine mated to a hybrid all-wheel drive setup using a unique double electric motor system. The global R&D team was led by Honda R&D Americas in LA and the NSX will be manufactured at a new production facility in central Ohio.

The UK has form in leading the way for Honda supercar ownership. The 1990 NSX attracted 25 pre-orders twelve months ahead of its UK launch. It went on to spend fifteen years in production, selling 18,000 units globally.

Beaulieu Autojumble

L

ocated in the New Forest near Brockenhurst, Beaulieu is the ideal spot for an autojumble, not least because the National Motor Museum is right alongside. Featuring cars from around the world, the museum is a treat. A 1903 Cadillac, 1904 Pope-Tribune and ’65 Shelby Cobra make up a fraction of the museum’s ample collection of historic motors and speed machines, including the Bluebird-Proteus CN7 which attempted the land speed record at Bonneville, Utah in 1960.

During the Autojumble the whole estate sparks into life with memorabilia and motor parts. For the classic car owner it’s a great way to find that rare, missing component, everything from upholstery to exhaust systems. For the motoring enthusiast it’s a day of pure immer-

sion. The scale of the show means you’re likely to find something you’ll want to take home; maybe even a classic car (or at least a miniature!).

There’s also access to the Palace House, the Motor Museum, Beaulieu Abbey, the gardens, children’s activities and a monorail. The day is what you make of it; a quiet stroll through tranquil gardens, a tour of historic buildings, or a day for engines, ignitions, tail-lights and towbars. Plan ahead for the Beaulieu International Autojumble on September 7-8.

The American

Ambassador of the sport: David Beckham visiting Marines and sailors from 1st Marine Logistics Group (Forward) at Camp Leatherneck, Afghanistan, May 23, 2008 PHOTO BY LCPL. KHOA PELCZAR / US MARINE CORPS

Bye Bye, Beckham...

David Beckham’s recent retirement marks the end of an era for both European and North American soccer.

Gary Jordan reflects on the career of the Man U and MLS great.

Beckham spent four years in Madrid, his reputation enhanced, and in his final year helped the ‘Galacticos’ to the La Liga title.

There was an inevitability about Beckham’s next move. The USA national team were EN M making waves, and Major League Soccer was becoming very popular. For a long time, going to America to play was seen as the end of a career, a quick payday, a last chance to be the headline act. The MLS is now seen as a good, healthy, competitive league. When Beckham signed for the Los Angeles Galaxy, he did so knowing there would be a bulls-eye on him, from all areas of the game.

He arrived Stateside to not only extend his career, but also to put MLS on the map and show that this was a growing league that could be taken seriously. The Galaxy were a founding member of MLS but hadn’t won the Cup for almost a decade; they needed Beckham as much as AR

rowing up, there was nothing the young David Beckham wanted more than to be a professional footballer. Born and raised in the East End of London, his life was nothing more than kicking a ball around, something that eventually would bring global fame and recognition. He signed schoolboy terms on his 14th birthday with Manchester United, the team that his parents had followed and that had inspired the young David.

It wasn’t long before he won his first honors with the club that helped mould his career into one of huge acclaim. He won the 1992 FA Youth Cup the same year he made his debut for the Red Devils, before going on to sign professional papers.

Between 1993 and 2003, Beckham made 262 first team appearances, scoring 62 goals for United. He was an important part of the side which won an historic Treble in 1999, winning the English Premier League, FA Cup and UEFA Champions League.

By the time he decided to leave Manchester for Real Madrid, he had helped United to become the dominant force in English football, winning six league titles in eight years.

©G

G

he needed them. The Galaxy were a decent team, but the play and influence of their new superstar made them irresistible, going on to win the MLS Cup in each of his last two seasons. The MLS is no longer seen as a poor cousin in the football world, and Beckham proved he could still play at a high level. Whatever Beckham’s ambition was in America, he had achieved it.

With Manchester, Madrid, LA and his later, career-concluding spell for Paris St Germain, Beckham became the first player to win domestic titles in four different countries.

A regular in the England national team during his time at Manchester, Madrid, Los Angeles, and loan spells with AC Milan, only a severe Achilles injury denied him adding to his record appearance tally for an outfield player (115), having scored 17 times for his country.

David Beckham had a major impact on each team and league he played in. He has been a gifted player, a style icon, and a well respected ambassador. H

...Hello, Beckham?

And David Beckham’s Stateside story may not end with his playing career.

As this issue of The American was being compiled, there were reports that Beckham was investigating a contract option for his own MLS franchise, for the fixed fee of $25m, with Miami in the frame. Beckham’s US odyssey may soon begin anew.

July 2013 51

The American

Eagle Eyed A well made Merion: Darren Kilfara finds five talking points from the 113th National Open The Winner

In its own way, Justin Rose’s Sunday at Merion was every bit as special as Adam Scott’s at Augusta. Rose hit only two bad lag putts and one truly poor shot (from the bunker at #14) all day. His ball-striking was pure enough to make Ben Hogan smile – OK, maybe just nod once in approval – from the grave; in particular, his approach at #18 was a worthy successor to Hogan’s famous 1-iron in 1950. He bounced back from his first three bogeys with immediate birdies, two of which he followed with additional birdies as well. His win felt…just right. He was due, and he delivered, and I’m really happy for him. Now, will a single major quench his thirst, or can Rose rise again and kick on from here?

The Runners-Up

Jason Day has now played in 11 majors and finished second or third four times. He’s 25 years old; his best days surely lie ahead.

As for Phil Mickelson? If the hole were a quarter-inch wider he’d have won by 10 shots, but he just couldn’t get enough good putts to drop.

More worryingly, he still makes too many silly Sunday mistakes, both physically and mentally: the wedges he hit on #13 and #15 were ghastly, and the double-bogeys he made in not knowing how to cut his losses at #3 and #5 cost him the tournament.

Plus, does anyone really need five wedges? One down with one to play, don’t you need a driver in your bag?

When asked what he’ll take away from Merion, he responded simply “heartbreak”, and I fear Mickelson will become this century’s Sam Snead; not the worst golfing fate by any means, but his US Open chances are running out.

The Course

Merion simply doesn’t work as a modern tournament venue – its main property is too compact for silly things like hospitality tents, practice ranges and spectators. I’m afraid we’ll never see the world’s best golfers there again, but wow, what a swan song: among recent US Open venues, I rate only Shinnecock

Left: Darren Kilfara offers his best Ben Hogan moment on a Merion fairway

52 July 2013

Hills more highly. Both architects and administrators should study Merion’s wonderfully sloping terrain very closely to understand how a soft, 6,996-yard course with perfectly puttable greens managed to defend par so successfully. (Hint: acreage is overrated).

The USGA

Kudos: The USGA’s gamble in returning to Merion succeeded, and Mike Davis’s familiar course setup helped produce another memorable tournament. (Who doesn’t like watching pros hit drivers into par 3s?) Brickbats: Saturday’s final threesome of Mickelson, Luke Donald and Billy Horschel took 170 minutes to complete nine holes. I’ve played with Scots who complain when 18 holes take that long; the USGA’s new campaign to fight slow play is off to an inauspicious start.

The Tiger

For the first time in his life, Tiger Woods looks mentally trapped. He’s on the back nine of his career, his body looks increasingly frail, and he’s still four down in majors to Jack Nicklaus. He cares about four events each year, and it shows: the Players Championship and the Farmers Insurance Open don’t get him closer to the magic number of 19. If your life depended on it, would you bet on Tiger to win his next major before he misses his next major cut? Muirfield is up next, and I know where my money is.

The American

The Golf Trip: Kintyre

14th hole from the tees with the village of Machrihanish in background, Machrihanish Dunes Golf Club © 2011 CLIVE BARBER, COURTESY OF SOUTHWORTH DEVELOPMENT

So you have a few spare days for a golf trip with your buddies. Where should you go?

This is the first article in an occasional series which will offer some possible answers.

I

lived in London for four years. To maintain my sanity, every spring I escaped the city by journeying to Machrihanish. This involved a long train ride to Glasgow, an even longer bus ride to Campbeltown, and seven days spent almost entirely between course, clubhouse and B&B. The bus can be replaced with a (beautiful) flight, and more luxurious accommodation is now available, but Kintyre’s back-of-beyond charm was and is always worth the effort to get there.

There are now three courses worth playing on the peninsula. The newest, Machrihanish Dunes, was designed by David McLay Kidd – of Bandon Dunes fame – and opened in 2009. Though its conditioning is yet to fully mature, the design testifies to the wonderful state of modern golf course architecture: of its 259 acres, only seven were disturbed during its construction. This creates a wild ride

up, down and around some of the most spectacular golfing terrain I’ve ever encountered; some may think it too wild in places, but the 13th hole in particular – a short par 4 with a green angled like the 10th at Riviera, only surrounded by tall dunes instead of bunkers – showcases the fun you can have along the way.

The original Machrihanish course remains one of the great coastal gems in Britain. From the opening tee shot, over a corner of North Atlantic beach, the first eight holes weave effortlessly through the dunes in an adrenaline rush of linksland ecstasy. From the ninth, the course leaves the coastline and becomes more refined, but no less interesting; only on the green of the par 5 12th have I ever intentionally bashed a putt 20 feet past the hole, trusting the steep slope behind to apply a boomerang effect. (It did.) Only its

final two holes are mundane; the first 16 are memorable.

Those are the two heavyweights, but Dunaverty – at the southern tip of Kintyre – is a sporty bantamweight.

Would you normally play a 4,800-yard par 66 on a golfing holiday? Probably not…but for Dunaverty, you should make an exception. You’ll never play a better collection of driveable par 4s (five of them, to be precise); the 7th may be the best par 3 in Argyll; you’ll never see par 3s like the 4th and 10th anywhere else; and the views, across Sanda Island to Ireland on a clear day, can be mind-blowing. Check your preconceptions at the door, and you’ll be happy you did. H Darren Kilfara formerly worked for Golf Digest magazine and is the author of A Golfer’s Education, a memoir of his junior year abroad as a student-golfer at the University of St. Andrews.

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Reasons TO BE cheerful

In the first part of our NFL 2013 season build-up, we start with the league’s cellar-dwellers, finding three reasons for each to turn it around this season

R

eally? The Jaguars and Chiefs (both 2-14) turning it around this year after their horrible seasons last year? It may seem unlikely for both – and the rest of the teams opposite – to contend in 2013, but just think back all the way to... last year. Of the three worst records of 2011, the Indianapolis Colts went from 2-14 to 11-5 and a playoff berth. The St Louis Rams, 2-14 in 2011, were one tie (against San Francisco) from an even record in 2012. And the 3-13 Minnesota Vikings leaped to 10-6 and a wildcard berth. In fact, of ten teams going 6-10 or worse in 2011, just three repeated the feat last year. So, don your rose-tinted spectacles and enjoy the warm summer rays of optimism.

Jacksonville Jaguars

One of the NFL’s most underdiscussed receivers, Cecil Shorts III, logged seven scores and almost 1,000 yards in his second year, with an average of 17.8 yards per snag © RICK WILSON/ JACKSONVILLE JAGUARS

54 July 2013

1. A new regime. Owner Shahid Khan now has GM David Caldwell and coach Gus Bradley in place to clear the stink of 2012.

2. No new QB. The Jags committed to another patient year of Blaine Gabbert/Chad Henne rather than be drawn into the QB class of ’13. At this early stage of rebuild, continuity is actually a plus.

3. MJD is back... probably. If the bar-fight story resolves without serious repercussions, expect 16 games of Maurice Jones-Drew instead of 6.

That’s a whole different team.

Kansas City Chiefs

1. Alex Smith arrives as the new franchise QB having looked like a bona fide starter in 2011 and early 2012 with the 49ers. He’s veteran leadership for a stable of... well, stable receivers in Dwayne Bowe, Jon Baldwin and Donnie Avery.

2. The rest of the roster. Corners Brandon Flowers, Dunta Robinson, Sean Smith, plus Eric Berry at strong safety is a real good secondary, there’s an underrated LB corps, a 1500 yard back. This is no rebuild.

3. Andy Reid. The old Eagles coach has a road map for the playoffs and the players to go there.

The American

New York Jets

1. Rex Ryan is focused on defense.

Most of the draft was spent on defense, and at their AFC championship-contending best, defense was the reason they were there.

2. There’s life beyond Revis Island.

Darrelle Revis is gone, but the DBs played fine when he was injured in 2012 and they added Dee Milliner.

3. The offense never was much good.

Sanchez was, even in the good years, no better than solid. Last year, fully distracted, he was horrible. The Jets still started 3-3 (almost 4-3) before an injury-torn WR corps dumped them to a 6-10 record.

Buffalo Bills

1. A fresh start at coach. Chan Gailey felt like a stop-gap. Doug Marrone feels like a direction, and an offenseminded coach for a team with...

2. A fresh start at QB. The cutting of Tarvaris Jackson this month illustrates the Bills are happy with Kolb v EJ Manuel for the start. Don’t doubt it: EJ is the guy. And we saw last year how good rookie QBs can change the NFL landscape in a heartbeat.

3. A maximized CJ Spiller. I wanted to say Robert Woods here because the rookie WR is going to have impact, but Spiller is a fantasy ‘must’ for the season. He gave way at odd times to Fred Jackson last year, but Marrone will emphasize the better athlete for 2000+ combined yards.

Oakland Raiders

1. It’s Matt Flynn or it’s Tyler Wilson.

If Flynn doesn’t show plenty of what he teased back in Green Bay, Wilson will be given an early shot... and the Arkansas alum might be the first real fit the Raiders have had in years.

2. The secondary. In a division with Peyton Manning and Philip Rivers, an overhauled secondary will help.

Mike Jenkins, Charles Woodson and Tracy Porter arrive, and if rookie DJ Hayden’s ongoing injury complications straighten out, Oakland are set.

3. New focus. Parting company with Rolando McClain, Darrius HeywardBey, even Carson Palmer all draws a line under costly moves of the past.

Zach Ertz to Brent Celek at TE. 3. The pieces might jell this time.

Many of the big signings of the past two years just didn’t settle. The likes of LB Connor Barwin, NT Isaac Sopoaga and SS Patrick Chung all point to solid play and a team mentality.

Cleveland Browns

1. Megatron. Calvin Johnson almost hit 2000 yards in a down year for TDs. 2. The defensive line is still fierce ...and now younger at DE. Rookie Ezekiel Ansah and ex-Seahawk Jason Jones join the cast of QB-blasters.

3. Strength of schedule. The Lions have one of the easiest non-division slates. Even the Bears and Vikings look like wobbly divisional rivals.

1. The coaches. Rob Chudzinski, a former hit as Browns OC, returns as head coach, but Ray Horton (DC) and Norv Turner (OC) were nice hires too.

2. The pass rush will be better.

Ex-Raven LB Paul Kruger arrives, they used the no.6 pick on LSU’s Barkevious Mingo, plus ex-Raider DL Desmond Bryant brings inside pressure.

3. Brandon Weeden. It’s only been one year with Weeden, and his age creates impatience, but he could really click with Norv Turner.

Tennessee Titans

1. The line. Andy Levitre arrives from Buffalo and FSU’s Chance Warmack was drafted for the other guard position. Results should be immediate.

2. The line... helps the run game.

Chris Johnson was a 2000 yard rusher in 2009, Shonn Greene a 1000-yarder the past two seasons.

3. The line... helps Jake Locker.

Rookie Justin Hunter is added to his targets, and Locker has to start finding them for the Titans to progress.

Philadelphia Eagles

1. Chip Kelly’s offense may not look as wild and wacky as it did in college, but the freshness of it will still give defenses fits to begin with.

2. The skill positions are loaded.

If the O-line can just find something, there’s Michael Vick, DeSean Jackson and Jeremy Maclin outside, LeSean McCoy and Bryce Brown in the backfield, and they added rookie

Detroit Lions

Tampa Bay Buccaneers

1. They weren’t so bad in 2012. Yes, last in their division, but a 7-9 record, and a points difference of minus-5.

2. They’re equipped to man cover.

They drafted CB Johnthan Banks, traded for Darrelle Revis, and signed ex-49ers safety Dashon Goldson.

3. Now or never for Josh Freeman.

They also drafted Mike Glennon.

A shot across the bow for Freeman to put it all together this season.

Arizona Cardinals

1. Another new regime. Bruce Arians brings assistant coach Tom Moore and OC Harold Goodwin (formerly Colts OL coach) with him from Indy.

2. Carson Palmer = stability. Palmer is no longer a headline act, but he’s a genuine starter while the Cards have been a smudge at QB for a while.

3. Closer games. A change to a 3-4 base defense, the bolstering of the secondary with Antoine Cason and Yeremiah Bell, and the arrival of steady runner Rashard Mendenhall means the Cards at least will stay in touch in games in 2013. H

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The NFL’s sending love letters to London again. But they may not be the only league on the horizon, says Richard L Gale

N

ot everybody wants to allow American football out of America. The comments about pints of ale and fish and chips, rediculous [sic] prices, and how England plays futbol not American football (we speak Spanish here? who knew?) flowed thick and fast online in the aftermath of yet more pro-London quotes from Roger Goodell this past month. Per Bart Hubbuch’s report for the New York Post, Roger romanced: “It’s clear to me there’s a strong fan base over there ... If we go to three London games, what we’ll likely do is ask Jacksonville to potentially play two or ask three different teams to host.” Asked about a London franchise, he replied “That’s what we’re working towards”.

He didn’t write it on headed notepaper but Roger’s making the trajectory pretty clear: It’s gone from one game to two, they’re looking at three, and they might not stop until it’s eight. Stateside nay-sayers trotted out incredulous comments, including one online wit suggesting Brits didn’t know the difference between QBs and hot dog vendors (they do, though by all means ship more hot dog vendors), and queries about the logistics of international flight (though NFL players don’t exactly fly British Airways economy class). Still, a couple of regularly retorted ‘wait ups’ can’t be denied: (1) Would the NFL really put a team in London while there are none in LA? and (2) How The Belfast Northstars would any overseas team compete

56 July 2013

with Stateside teams in free agency?

The first one’s easy. Either (a) they let a team move to LA, or (b) who cares about LA, when there’s 80,000 tickets sold in London?

Question two is a killer, though.

The NFL may be caught in a no-man’s land between a London franchise doomed to be hamstrung in free agency and an NFL Europe reboot where, at least in recent years, the NFL hasn’t proven its international case anywhere except London. And even in London, NFL Europe’s presence 20 years ago was short-lived.

It’s time the NFL stopped talking London and started talking about the UK. Rather than a third game in the ticket-comfy sanctity of Wembley, the NFL needs to experience that third game in, say, Manchester or Cardiff, both with magnificent stadiums.

You won’t find fans like these anywhere but in London (wait... are they wearing kilts?)

PHOTO: GARY BAKER

However, the NFL is not the only football league looking overseas.

The Arena Football League isn’t just looking at it, they’re doing it, with AFL Global planning a China-based sub-league as soon as next year.

According to Ron Jaworski, AFL Global Partner, ‘regular columnist for China Daily’, former Eagles quarterback and PTI pop-up expert, AFL Global “have formally signed on to develop an United States-style arena football league” in China.

It may be early days, and the league may be little more than a semi-pro novelty to begin with, but if an organization based in Philadelphia is willing to make the effort to expand its form of the game twelve time zones away, in a foreign language, in a communist country, it isn’t a stretch to suggest that they have their eye on London, Frankfurt, Berlin, Edinburgh, and a whole host of cities just 5-6 hours away, where American football already has roots, and where venues that fit their form of the game exist in abundance.

London will get a professional American football franchise. Just don’t assume that for all of Goodell’s London love, that means the 100yard version arrives first. H

The American

American ORGANIZATIONS

www.dulwichpicturegallery.org.uk/support_us/ american_friends.aspx

An index of useful resources in the UK

ESSENTIAL CONTACTS Here are some crucial telephone numbers to know while you are in the UK. EMERGENCIES Fire, Police, Ambulance

999 or 112 (NOT 911)

TRANSPORTATION London Underground 020 7222 1234 www.tfl.gov.uk National Rail Enquiries 08457 4849 50

www.nationalrail.co.uk National Bus Service 0990 808080 www.nationalexpress.com TELEPHONES Direct Dial Code, US & Canada Operator Assistance, UK Operator Assistance, Int. International Directory Assistance Telephone Repair

American Friends of the Donmar Inc. Stephanie Dittmer, Deputy Director of Development 020 7845 5810 sdittmer@donmarwarehouse.com www.donmarwarehouse.com/p46.html

American Citizens Abroad (ACA) The Voice of Americans Overseas, 5 Rue Liotard, 1202 Geneva, Switzerland +41.22.340.02.33 info.aca@gmail.com www.americansabroad.org

American Friends of the Jewish Museum London Stephen Goldman Tel. 020 7284 7363 stephen.goldman@jewishmuseum.org.uk www.jewishmuseum.org.uk/american-friends

American Friends of Chickenshed Theatre U.S. Office: c/o Chapel & York PMB293, 601 Penn Ave NW, Suite 900 S Bldg, Washington, DC 20004 UK Office: Chickenshed, Chase Side, Southgate, London N14 4PE 0208 351 6161 ext 240 AdamG@Chickenshed.org.uk www.chickenshed.org.uk/659/individual/ american-friends.html

For more details go to

www.theamerican.co.uk and click on Life In The UK

American Church in London Senior Pastor: Rev. John D’Elia.

Music Director: Anthony Baldwin.

Sunday School 9.45am Sunday Worship 11am, child care provided.

79a Tottenham Court Road, London W1T 4TD (Goodge St. tube station) Tel: 020 7580 2791/07771 642875 churchsecretary@amchurch.co.uk www.amchurch.co.uk

American Institute of Architects Benjamin Franklin House, 27 Old Gloucester Street, London WC1N 3AX. Tel: 0203 318 5722 chapterexecutive@aiauk.org www.aiauk.org

American Friends of the Lyric Theatre Ireland Crannóg House, 44 Stranmillis Embankment, Belfast, BT9 5FL, Northern Ireland Angela McCloskey info@americanfriendsofthelyric.com www.americanfriendsofthelyric.com/

American Friends of the Almeida Theatre, Inc. Kenneth David Burrows, 950 Third Avenue, 32nd Floor, New York, NY 10022, USA or Lizzie Stallybrass, Almeida Theatre, Almeida Street, London N1 1TA, UK www.almeida.co.uk/supportus/individual-support/ american-friends

MEDICAL ADVICE LINE NHS Direct delivers 24-hour telephone and e-health information services, direct to the public. www.nhsdirect.nhs.uk 0845 4647 and being phased in for non-emergencies: 111

CIVIC & SERVICES

American Friends of the British Museum Mollie Norwich. The British Museum, Great Russell Street, London WC1B 3DG. 020 7323 8590 www.britishmuseum.org

American Red Cross RAF Mildenhall Tel: 01638 542107, After Hours 07031 15 2334 red.crossv3@mildenhall.af.mil

001 100 155 153 151

American Friends of ENO – English National Opera Denise Kaplan, American Friends Coordinator London Coliseum, St. Martin’s Lane, London WC2N 4ES 0207 845 9331 Americanfriends@eno.org www.eno.org/support-us/individual-giving/ american-friends/american-friends.php

American Friends of Contemporary Dance & Sadler’s Wells U.S. Office: Celia Rodrigues, Chair 222 Park Avenue South, 10A, New York, NY 10003 +1.917.539.9021 americanfriends@sadlerswells.com www.sadlerswells.com/page/american-friends UK Office: 020 7863 8134 development@sadlerswells.com American Friends of Dulwich Picture Gallery Kathleen Bice, Development Officer, Members and Patrons 020 8299 8726

American Friends of the National Portrait Gallery Stacey Ogg and Charlotte Savery, Individual Giving Managers 020 7312 2444 individualgiving@npg.org.uk www.npg.org.uk/support/individual/ americanfriends.php

American Friends of the Philharmonia Orchestra, Inc. Jennifer Davies, Development Director jennifer.davies@philharmonia.co.uk www.philharmonia.co.uk/support/friends/afpo/ American Friends of the Royal Court Theatre U.S.: Laurie Beckelman, Beckelman and Capalino +1.212.616.5822 laurie@beckcap.com UK: Gaby Styles, Head of Development, Royal Court Theatre 020 7565 5060 gabystyles@royalcourttheatre.com or info@afrct.org

American Friends of the Royal Institution of Great Britain U.S.: c/o Chapel & York Limited, PMB #293, South Building Washington, DC 20004 UK: The Development Office, Royal Institution of Great Britain, 21 Albemarle Street, London W1S 4BS 020 7670 2991 kdodd@ri.ac.uk www.rigb.org

July 2013 57

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American Friends of the Royal Society http://royalsociety.org/Overseas-Donations American Friends of St. Bartholomew the Great U.S.: John Eagleson 2925 Briarpark, Suite 600, Houston, TX 77042 UK: 20 7606 5171 admin@greatstbarts.com

American Friends of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust U.S.: John Chwat, President 625 Slaters Lane, Suite 103, Alexandria, VA 22314 +1. 703.684.7703 info@americanfriendsofsbt.org www.americanfriendsofsbt.org American Friends of the Victoria and Albert Museum, Inc. U.S.: Diana Seaton, Executive Director 61 Londonderry Drive, Greenwich, CT 06830 +1.203.536.4328 diana.seaton@afvam.org www.afvam.org UK: 020 7942 2149 American Friends of Wigmore Hall U.S.: c/o Chapel and York, 1000 N West Street Suite 1200, Wilmington DE 19801 UK: 020 7258 8220 mhosterweil@wigmore-hall.org.uk American Museum in Britain Director: Dr Richard Wendorf Claverton Manor, Bath BA2 7BD. 01225 460503. Fax 01225 469160 info@americanmuseum.org www.americanmuseum.org American Women Lawyers in London www.awll.org.uk info@awll.org.uk American Women’s Health Centre 214 Great Portland Street, London W1W 5QN. Obstetric, gynecological & infertility service.

020 7390 8433 www.awhc.co.uk Anglo American Medical Society Hon. Sec.: Dr. Edward Henderson, The Mill House, Whatlington, E. Sussex, TN33 0ND. 01424 775130. ed@themillhouse.eclipse.co.uk Association for Rescue at Sea The UK’s Royal National Lifeboat Association does not have an American Branch but if you wish to make a tax-efficient gift to the RNLI, contact AFRAS. Secretary: Mrs. Anne C. Kifer P.O. Box 565 Fish Creek, WI 54212, U.S.A. 00-1-920-743-5434 fax 00-1-920-743-5434 email: ackafras@aol.com Atlantic Council Director: Alan Lee Williams.

185 Tower Bridge Road, London SE1 2UF 0207 403 0640 or 0207 403 0740.

Fax: 0207 403 0901 acuk@atlantic-council.org.uk

58 July 2013

Bethesda Baptist Church Kensington Place, London W8.

020 7221 7039 office@bethesdabaptist.org.uk Boy Scouts of America Mayflower District Field Executive: Wayne Wilcox 26 Shortlands Road, Kingston, Surrey KT2 6HD 020 8274 1429, 07788 702328 wpwilcox@gmail.com BritishAmerican Business Inc. 75 Brook Street, London, W1K 4AD. 020 7290 9888 www.babinc.org ukinfo@babinc.org British American-Canadian Associates Contact via The English Speaking Union – esu@esu.org CARE International UK 10-13 Rushworth Street, London, SE1 0RB 020 7934 9334 www.careinternational.org info@careinternational.org Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints 66-68 Exhibition Road, South Kensington, London SW7 2PA 020 7584 7553 adcockmp@ldschurch.org https://lds.org.uk http://mormon.org Church of St. John the Evangelist Vicar: Reverend Stephen Mason.

Assistant Priest: Reverend Mark Pudge.

Assistant Curate: Reverend Deiniol Heywood.

Hyde Park Crescent, London W2 2QD Tel: 020 7262 1732 www.stjohns-hydepark.com parishadmin@stjohns-hydepark.com Commonwealth Church Rev. Rod Anderson, PO Box 15027, London SE5 0YS www.savestmarks.com Democrats Abroad (UK) Box 65, 22 Notting Hill Gate, London W11 3JE Regular updates on events, chapters throughout the UK (and specific email addresses), and DAUK newsletters: www.democratsabroad.org.uk Register to vote and request an Absentee Ballot: www.votefromabroad.org Tel: 020 7724 9796 www.democratsabroad.org/group/united-kingdom Farm Street Church 114 Mount Street, Mayfair, London W1K 3AH Tel: 020 7493 7811 www.farmstreet.org.uk Federal Voting Assistance Program (FVAP) Department of Defense, 1155 Defense Pentagon, Washington DC 20301-1155.

Director: Ms. Polli K. Brunelli UK Toll Free Tel: 0800 028 8056 US Toll Free Tel:1-800-438- VOTE (8683). www.fvap.gov vote@fvap.ncr.gov Friends of St Jude London Debbie Berger Tel. 07738 628126

debbie.berger@stjude.org www.friendsofstjude.org/london

Grampian Houston Association Secretary: Bill Neish 5 Cairncry Avenue, Aberdeen, AB16 5DS 01224-484720 wineish@sky.com International Community Church (Interdenominational) Our Vision: “Everyone Mature in Christ” (Col. 1:28) Pastor: Rev. Dr. Barry K. Gaeddert Worship on Sundays: 10.30 am at Chertsey Hall, Heriot Road, Chertsey, Surrey KT16 9DR Active Youth programme.

Church Office: 1st floor, Devonshire House, 60 Station Road, Addlestone, Surrey KT15 2AF. 01932 830295. churchoffice@icc-uk.org www.icc-uk.org Junior League of London President: Jennifer Crowl 9 Fitzmaurice Place, London W1J 5JD. Tel: 020 7499 8159 Fax: 020 7629 1996 jrleague@jll.org.uk www.jll.org.uk Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation 19 Angel Gate, City Road, London EC1V 2PT. Tel: 020 7713 2030 Fax: 020 7713 2031 info@jdrf.org.uk www.jdrf.org.uk Liberal Jewish Synagogue 28 St John’s Wood Road, London NW8 7HA Services 6.45pm Fridays and 11am on Saturdays except for first Friday each month when service is held at 7pm with a Chavurah Supper.

Please bring non-meat food dish to share.

020 7286 5181 ljs@ljs.org Lions Club International Lakenheath & District 105EA, 15 Highfields Drive, Lakenheath, Suffolk IP27 9EH. Tel 01842 860752 www.lionsclubs.org Lutheran Services, St Anne’s Rev. Timothy Dearhamer.

Lutheran Church, Gresham St, London EC2.

Sun 11am-7pm.

Tel. 020 7606 4986 Fax. 020 7600 8984 info@StAnnesLutheranChurch.org www.StAnnesLutheranChurch.org Methodist Central Hall Westminster, London SW1H 9NH Services every Sunday at 11am and 6.30pm.

Bible study groups & Monday guilds also held.

Tel: 020 7222 8010 www.methodist-central-hall.org.uk church@mchw.org.uk North American Friends of Chawton House Library U.S. Office: 824 Roosevelt Trail, #130, Windham, ME 04062 +1.207 892 4358

The American

UK Office: Chawton House Library, Chawton, Alton, Hampshire GU34 1SJ 01420 541010 www.chawton.org/support/nafchl5.html

Republicans Abroad (UK) Chairman Dr. Thomas Grant chairman@republicansabroad-uk.org www.republicansabroad-uk.org Rotary Club of London 6 York Gate, London NW1 4QG. Tel. 020 7487 5429 Royal National Lifeboat Institution Head Office, West Quay Road, Poole BH15 1HZ 0845 045 6999 www.rnli.org.uk The Royal Oak Foundation Sean Sawyer, 35 West 35th Street #1200, New York NY 10001-2205, USA Tel 212- 480-2889 or (800) 913-6565 Fax (212)785-7234 ssawyer@royal-oak.org www.royal-oak.org St Andrew’s Lutheran Church Serving Americans since 1960. Whitby Road & Queens Walk, Ruislip, West London.

(South Ruislip Tube Station). Services: 11 am 020 8845 4242 pastorvan43@hotmail.com www.standrewslutheran.co.uk Other Lutheran Churches in the UK www.lutheran.co.uk T.R.A.C.E. P.W. (The ‘original’ Transatlantic Children’s’ Enterprise reuniting children with G.I. father’s and their families) Membership Secretary: Norma Jean Clarke-McCloud 29 Connaught Avenue, Enfield EN1 3BE www.tracepw.org normajean78@hotmail.com

United Nations Association, Westminster branch Chairman: David Wardrop 61 Sedlescombe Road, London SW6 1RE 0207 385 6738 info@unawestminster.org.uk www.unawestminster.org.uk www.wethepeoples.org.uk USA Girl Scouts Overseas – North Atlantic Stem Kaserne Bldg 1002, Postfach 610212 D-68232, Mannheim, Germany. +49 621 487 7025. girlscouts@cmtymail.26asg.army.mil www.norags.com

SOCIAL American Club of Hertfordshire President: Lauryn Awbrey 63-65 New Road, Welwyn, Herts AL6 0AL 01582 624823 amclubherts@aol.com

American Expats of the Northwest of England The Ruskin Rooms, Drury Lane, Knutsford, Cheshire WA16 6HA. expatsnw@gmail.com American Friends of English Heritage 1307 New Hampshire Avenue, N.W. Washington DC 20036.

202-452-0928. c/o English Heritage, Attn: Simon Bergin, Keysign House, 429 Oxford Street, London W1R 2HD. 020 7973 3423 www.english-heritage.org.uk American Professional Women in London Rebecca Lammers, Flat 9 Hanover Court, 5 Stean Street, London, E8 4ED 075 3393 5064 abwinlondon@gmail.com www.meetup.com/American-Business-Womenin-London/ www.facebook.com/groups/293890040710041 Twitter: @USAProWomenLDN American Society in London c/o The English Speaking Union 37 Charles Street, London W1J 5ED info@americansocietyuk.com 020 7539 3400 American Stamp Club of Great Britain Chapter 67 of the American Philatelic Society.

Hon. Publicity Secretary: Stephen T. Taylor 5 Glenbuck Road, Surbiton, Surrey KT6 6BS. 020 8390 9357 American Womens Association of Bristol awabristol_membership@fawco.org American Women of Berkshire & Surrey P. O. Box 10, Virginia Water, Surrey GU25 4YP. www.awbs.org.uk awbscommonground@yahoo.co.uk American Women of Surrey PO Box 185, Cobham, Surrey KT11 3YJ. www.awsurrey.org American Women’s Association of Yorkshire The Chalet, Scarcroft Grange, Wetherby Road, Scarcroft, Leeds LS14 3HJ. 01224 744 224 Contact: Carol Di Peri

The Anglo-American Charity Limited Jeffrey Hedges, Director.

07968 513 631 info@anglo-americancharity.org Association of American Women in Ireland aawireland@fawco.org Association of American Women of Aberdeen PO Box 11952, Westhill, Aberdeen, AB13 0BW email via website www.awaaberdeen.org British Association of American Square Dance Clubs Patricia Connett-Woodcock 87 Brabazon Road, Heston, Middlesex TW5 9LL 020 8897 0723 tricia_baasdc@btinternet.com www.squaredancing.co.uk Canadians & Americans in Southern England 023 9241 3881 contactcase@casecommunity.com Canadian Womens Club 1 Grosvenor Square, London W1K 4AB Tues – Thurs 10.30-3.30 0207 258 6344 info@canadianwomenlondon.org www.canadianwomenlondon.org Chilterns American Women’s Club PO Box 445, Gerrards Cross, Bucks, SL9 8YU membership@cawc.co.uk www.cawc.co.uk Colonial Dames of America Chapter XI London.

President Anne K Brewster: AnneBrewster@hotmail.com Daughters of the American Revolution – St James’s Chapter Mrs Natalie Ward, 01379 871422 nattyward@aol.com or UKDARStJames@aol.com http://mysite.verizon.net/jean.sutton/main.htm Daughters of the American Revolution – Walter Hines Page Chapter Diana Frances Diggines, Regent dardiana@hotmail.co.uk www.dar.org

The American Women’s Club of Dublin P.O. Box 2545, Ballsbridge, Dublin 4 IRELAND www.awcd.net info@awcd.net

Daughters of the American Revolution – Washington Old Hall Chapter, North Yorkshire Mrs. Gloria Hassall, 01845 523-830

American Women’s Club of London 68 Old Brompton Road, London SW7 3LQ. 020 7589 8292 awc@awclondon.org www.awclondon.org

Delta Kappa Gamma Society International Great Britain President: Mrs. Sheila Roberts, Morvan House, Shoreham Lane, St. Michaels, Tenterden, Kent TN30 6EG email: saroberts123@aol.com www.deltakappagamma.net

American Women’s Club of Central Scotland P.O. Box 231, 44-46 Morningside Road, Edinburgh, EH10 4BF info@awccs.org www.awccs.org American Women of South Wales 07866 190838 awsouthwales@fawco.org

Delta Zeta International Sorority Alumna Club Mrs Sunny Eades, The Old Hall, Mavesyn Ridware, Nr. Rugeley, Staffordshire, WSI5 3QE. 01543 490 312 SunnyEades@aol.com

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The East Anglia American Club 49 Horsham Close, Haverhill, Suffolk CB9 7HN Tel: 01440 766 967 Email: eaacexpats@karej.co.uk

Petroleum Women’s Club Contact: Nancy Ayres.

Tel: 01923 711720 nanayrs@btopenworld.com Petroleum Women’s Club of Scotland pwcscotland@yahoo.co.uk www.pwcos.com

English-Speaking Union Director-General Peter Kyle Dartmouth House, 37 Charles Street, London W1J 5ED. Tel: 020 7529 1550 Fax: 0207 495 6108 esu@esu.org Friends of Benjamin Franklin House Director: Dr. Márcia Balisciano Benjamin Franklin House, 36 Craven St, London WC2N 5NF 0207 839 2006 www.benjaminfranklinhouse.org info@benjaminfranklinhouse.org Hampstead Women’s Club President - Betsy Lynch. Tel: 020 7435 2226 email president@hwcinlondon.co.uk www.hwcinlondon.co.uk High Twelve International, Inc. Local Club Contact – Arnold Page High Twelve Club 298 Secretary, Darrell C. Russell, 1 Wellington Close, West Row, Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk, IP28 8PJ Tel. 01638 715764 email: russelld130@btinternet.com.

International American Duplicate Bridge Club Contact: Mary Marshall, 18 Palace Gardens Terrace, London W8 4RP. 020 7221 3708 www.ycbc.co.uk/american.htm Kensington & Chelsea Men’s Club Contact: John Rickus 70 Flood Street, Chelsea, London SW3 5TE. (home): 020 7349 0680 (office): 020 7753 2253 johnrickus@aol.com Kensington & Chelsea Women’s Club President: Susan Lenora. Tel. 0207 581 8261 president@kcwc.org.uk Membership: 0207 863 7562 (ans service). membership@kcwc.org.uk New Neighbors Diana Parker, Rosemary Cottage, Rookshill, Rickmansworth, Herts WD3 4HZ. 01923 772185 North American Connection (West Midlands) PO Box 10543, Knowle, Solihull, West Midlands. B93 8ZY T: 0870 720 0663 info@naconnect.com www.naconnect.com Northwood Area Women’s Club c/o St John’s UR Church, Hallowell Road, Northwood, Middlesex HA6 1DN 01932-830295 info@northwoodareawomensclub.co.uk www.northwoodareawomensclub.co.uk

60 July 2013

Air Force Sergeants Association European Division Timothy W. Litherland CMSgt, USAF (ret).

Chapters at RAFs Alconbury, Croughton, Lakenheath, Menwith Hill and Mildenhall. tim_lith@msn.com www.afsadiv16.org American Legion London Post 1 Adjutant: Jim Pickett PO Box 5017, BATH, BA1 OPP Tel: 01225-426245 www.amlegionpost1london.org.uk info@amlegionpost1london.org.uk

Pilgrims of Great Britain Allington Castle, Maidstone, Kent M16 0NB. Tel. 01622 606404 Fax. 01622 606402 sec@pilgrimsociety.org

Propeller Club of the United States – London, England propellerclubhq.com

Royal Society of St George Enterprise House, 10 Church Hill, Loughton, Essex IG10 1LA. Tel.+44 (0) 20 3225 5011 info@royalsocietyofstgeorge.com www.royalsocietyofstgeorge.com

Bentwaters/Woodbridge Retirees’ Association President: Wylie Moore. 2 Coldfair Close, Knodishall, Saxmundham, Suffolk, IP17 1UN. 01728 830281

Stars of Great Britain Chapter #45 Washington Jurisdiction. Lakenheath, England sogb45@yahoo.com http://starsofgreatbritainchapter45.com

British Patton Historical Society Kenn Oultram 01606 891303

St John’s Wood Women’s Club Box 185, 176 Finchley Road, London NW3 6BT membership@sjwwc.org www.sjwwc.org

Brookwood American Cemetery (WW1) Brookwood, Woking, Surrey GU24 0BL 01483 473237 www.abmc.gov/cemeteries/cemeteries/bk.php

Thames Valley American Women’s Club Contact: Miriam Brewster PO Box 1687, Maidenhead, Berks SL6 8XT. 0208 751 8941 www.tvawc.com membership@tvawc.com

Cambridge American Cemetery (WWII Cemetary) Superintendent: Mr. Bobby Bell.

Asst. Superintendent: Mr. Tony Barclay.

Coton, Cambridge CB23 7PH. 01954 210350

UK Panhellenic Association Contact Susan Woolf, 10 Coniston Court, High St. Harrow on the Hill, Middlesex HA1 3LP. 020 8864 0294 susanrwoolf@hotmail.com

Commander in Chief, US Naval Forces Europe Naval Reserve Detachment 130, Recruiting Officer: LCDR Thomas D. Hardin, USNR-R. 020 7409 4259 (days) 020 8960 7395 (evenings).

United Kingdom Shrine Anglian Shrine Club (Master Masons) Secretary: Charles A. Aldrich, 6 Mill Road, Lakenheath, Suffolk, IP27 9DU 01842 860 650 caaldrich@btinternet.com

Eighth Air Force Historical Society UK Representative: Mr. Gordon Richards and Mrs Connie Richards 14 Pavenham Road, Oakley, Bedford MK43 7SY. 01234 823357.

W.E.B. DuBois Consistory #116 Northern Jurisdiction Valley of London, England, Orient of Europe Cell: 0776-873-8030 mjack36480@aol.com Women’s Writers Network Cathy Smith, 23 Prospect Rd, London, NW2 2JU. 020 7794 5861 www.womenwriters.org.uk info@womenwriters.org.uk

MILITARY AFJROTC 073 Lakenheath High School. Tel: 01638 525603

Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association London Chapter Secretary: CW04, A.H. Cox, USN, Navcommunit Box 44, 7 North Audley Street, London W1Y 1WJ. 020 7409 4519/4184 www.afcea.org.uk london.sec@afcea.org.uk

Friends of the Eighth Newsletter (FOTE News) Chairman: Mr. Ron Mackay. 39b Thorley Hill, Bishops Stortford, Herts CM23 3NE. 01279 658619.

Joint RAF Mildenhall/Lakenheath Retiree Affairs Office Director: Col. John J. Valentine, USAF (Ret) Unit 8965, Box 30 RAF Mildenhall, Bury St. Edmonds, Suffolk, IP28 8NF Tel. (01638) 542039 rao@mildenhall.af.mil Marine Corps League Detachment 1088, London, England

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Commandant Mike Allen Creek Cottage, 2 Pednormead End, Old Chesham, Buckinghamshire HP5 2JS detachment1088@mcl-london-uk.org www.mcl-london-uk.org

Mildenhall Retirees Association President: Jack Kramer 6 Nunsgate, Thetford, Norfolk 1P24 3EL

USNA Alumni Association UK Chapter Pres: LCDR Tim Fox ’97, timfox97@hotmail.com Vice Pres: Miguel Sierra ’90, mrsierra@chevron.com Treas/Membership Coord: Bart O’Brien ’98, bartonobrien2@yahoo.com Secretary: Matt Horan ’87, matthoran@btinternet.com

Navy League of the United States, United Kingdom Council Council President: Steven G. Franck steven.franck@googlemail.com www.navyleague.org

Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States Commander: Ernest Paolucci 24, rue Gerbert, 75015 Paris, France 00 33 (0)1.42.50.96.34

Non-Commissioned Officers’ Association (NCOA) – The Heart of England Chapter Chairman: Ronald D.Welper.

Pine Farm, Sharpe’s Corner, Lakenheath, Brandon, Suffolk 1P27 9LB. Thetford 861643.

The Chapter Address: 513 MSSQ/SS, RAF Mildenhall, Suffolk.

Western UK Retiree Association President: R. Jim Barber, MSgt (USAF), Ret Phone: 01280 708182

EDUCATIONAL

Society of American Military Engineers (UK) UK address: Box 763, USAFE Construction Directorate.

86 Blenheim Crescent, West Ruislip, Middlesex HA4 7HL London Post. President: W. Allan Clarke.

Secretary: Capt. Gary Chesley.

Membership Chairman, Mr. Jim Bizier.

ACS International Schools ACS Cobham International School, Heywood, Portsmouth Road, Cobham, Surrey KT11 1BL 01932 867251 ACS Egham International School, Woodlee, London Road (A30), Egham, Surrey TW20 0HS. 01784 430800

US Army Reserve 2nd Hospital Center 7 Lynton Close, Ely, Cambs, CB6 1DJ. Tel: 01353 2168 Commander: Major Glenda Day. US Air Force Recruiting Office RAF Mildenhall, 100 MSS/MSPRS, RAF Mildenhall, Suffolk, 1P28 8NF. 01638 542290

Retired Affairs Office, RAF Alconbury Serving Central England POC: Rex Keegan Alt. POC: Mike Depasquale UK Postal Address: 423 SVS/RAO, Unit 5585, Box 100, RAF Alconbury, Huntingdon, Cambs PE28 4DA Office Hours: Tuesday and Friday, 10:30am–2:30pm 01480 84 3364/3557 Emergency Contact: 07986 887 905 RAO@Alconbury.af.mil 2nd Air Division Memorial Library The Forum, Norwich, Norfolk, NR2 1AW 01603 774747 www.2ndair.org.uk 2admemorial.lib@norfolk.gov.uk USAF Retiree Activities Office Director: Paul G Gumbert, CMSgt (USAF), Ret 422 ABG/CVR Unit 5855, PSC 50, Box 3 RAF Croughton, Northants NN13 5XP Phone: 01280 708182 e-mail: 422abg.rao@croughton.af.mil

US Merchant Marine Academy (Kings Point) UK Chapter President: Allison Bennett bennett.ac@gmail.com Facebook: Kings Point Alumni - London/United Kingdom

ACS Hillingdon International School Hillingdon Court, 108 Vine Line, Hillingdon, Middlesex UB10 0BE. 01895 259771 www.acs-england.co.uk

AIU/London (formerly American College in London) 110 Marylebone High Street, London W1U 4RY. Tel 020 7467 5640 Fax 020 7935 8144 www.aiulondon.ac.ukadmissions@aiulondon.ac.uk Alconbury Middle/High School RAF Alconbury, Huntingdon, Cambs, PE17 1PJ, UK. www.alco-hs.eu.dodea.edu AlconburyHS.Principal@eu.dodea.edu American Institute for Foreign Study 37 Queensgate, London SW7 5HR 020 7581 7300 www.aifs.co.uk info@aifs.co.uk American School in London 1 Waverley Place, London NW8 0NP Tel: 020 7449 1200 Fax: 020 7449 1350 www.asl.org admissions@asl.org American School of Aberdeen Craigton Road, Cults, Aberdeen.

01224 861068 / 868927.

Benjamin Franklin House 36 Craven Street, London WC2N 5NF. Tel 020 7839 2006 Fax 020 7930 9124 info@benjaminfranklinhouse.org

Boston University – London Graduate Programs Office 43 Harrington Gardens, London SW7 4JU. 020 7244 6255 www.bu.edu/london British American Educational Foundation Mrs. Carlton Colcord, 1 More’s Garden, 90 Cheyne Walk, London SW3.

020 7352 8288 www.baef.org anncolcord@compuserve.com BUNAC Student Exchange Employment Program Director: Callum Kennedy, 16 Bowling Green Lane, London EC1R 0QH. 020 7251 3472 www.bunac.org enquiries@bunac.org.uk Centre Academy London 92 St John’s Hill, Battersea, London SW11 1SH Tel: 02077382344 Fax: 02077389862 info@centreacademy.net www.centreacademy.net Centre Academy East Anglia Church Rd, Brettenham, Ipswich, Suffolk IP7 7QR Tel: 01449736404 Fax: 01449737881 admin@centreacademy.net www.centreacademy.net Central Bureau for Educational Visits The British Council Director: Peter Upton 10 Spring Gardens, London SW1A 2BN 020 7389 4004 Wales 029 2039 7346, Scotland 0131 447 8024 centralbureau@britishcouncil.org Council on International Educational Exchange Dr. Michael Woolf, 52 Portland Street, London WIV 1JQ Tel 020 7478 2000 Fax 020 7734 7322 www.ciee.org contact@ciee.org Ditchley Foundation Ditchley Park, Enstone, Chipping Norton, Oxon OX7 4ER. Tel 01608 677346 Fax 1608 677399 www.ditchley.co.uk info@ditchley.co.uk European Council of International Schools Executive Director: Jean K Vahey Fourth Floor, 146 Buckingham Palace Road, London SW1W 9TR Tel 020 7824 7040 www.ecis.org ecis@ecis.org European-Atlantic Group PO Box 37431, London N3 2XP 020 8632 9253 justinglass@btinternet.com www.eag.org.uk

July 2013 61

The American

Florida State University London Study Centre Administrative Director: Kathleen Paul 99 Great Russell Street, London, WC1B 3LH. Tel 020 7813 3233 Fax 020 7813 3270 www.international.fsu.edu/london/ intprog1@admin.fsu.edu Fordham University London Centre Academic Coordinator: Sabina Antal 23 Kensington Square, London W8 5HQ 020 7937 5023 londoncentre@fordham.edu www.fordham.edu Harlaxton College UK Campus, University of Evansville Harlaxton Manor, Grantham, Lincolnshire NG32 1AG. Grantham 4541 4761.

Tel 01476 403000 Fax 01476 403030 harlaxton.ac.uk.

Huron University USA in London 46-47 Russell Square, Bloomsbury, London WC1B 4JP Tel +44 (0) 20 7636 5667 Fax+44 (0) 20 7299 3297 folu@huron.ac.uk www.huron.ac.uk Institute for Study Abroad Butler University, 21 Pembridge Gardens, London W2 4EB 020 7792 8751 http://www.ifsa-butler.org/england-overview.html Institute for the Study of the Americas Director: Professor James Dunkerley.

Tel 020 7862 8879 Fax 020 7862 8886 americas@sas.ac.uk www.americas.sas.ac.uk International School of Aberdeen 296 North Deeside Road, Milltimber, Aberdeen, AB13 0AB 01224 732267 www.isa.aberdeen.sch.uk admin@isa.aberdeen.sch.uk International School of London 139 Gunnersbury Avenue, London W3 8LG. 020 8992 5823. www.islondon.com mail@ISLondon.com International School of London in Surrey Old Woking Road, Woking GU22 8HY Tel +44 (0)1483 750409 Fax +44 (0)1483 730962 www.islsurrey.com mail@islsurrey.com Ithaca College London Centre 35 Harrington Gardens, London SW7.

Tel. 020 7370 1166 www.ithaca.edu/london bsheasgreen@ithacalondon.co.uk Marymount International School, London Headmistress: Ms Sarah Gallagher George Road, Kingston upon Thames, KT2 7PE Tel: 020 8949 0571 info@marymountlondon.com www.marymountlondon.com

62 July 2013

Missouri London Study Abroad Program 32 Harrington Gardens, London SW7 4JU. 020 7373 7953. www.umsl.edu/services/abroad/universities/ molondon.html web_office@umsl.edu Regents American College Inner Circle, Regent’s Park, London NW1 4NS. 020 7486 9605. www.regents.ac.uk exrel@regents.ac.uk Richmond, The American International University in London Richmond Hill Campus,Queen’s Road Richmond-upon Thames TW10 6JP Tel: +44 20 8332 9000 Fax: +44 20 8332 1596 enroll@richmond.ac.uk www.richmond.ac.uk Schiller International University Royal Waterloo House, 51-55 Waterloo Road, London SE1 8TX. Tel. 020 7928 1372 www.schillerlondon.ac.uk admissions@schillerlondon.ac.uk Sotheby’s Institute of Art Postgraduate Art studies, plus day /evening courses 30 Bedford Square, London WC1B 3EE Tel: 0207 462 3232 www.sothebysinstitute.com info@sothebysinstitute.com Southbank International Schools Kensington and Hampstead campuses for 3-11 year olds; Westminster campuses for 11-18 year olds.

Director of Admissions: MargaretAnne Khoury Tel: 020 7243 3803 Fax: 020 7727 3290 admissions@southbank.org www.southbank.org TASIS England, American School Coldharbour Lane, Thorpe, Nr. Egham, Surrey TW20 8TE. Tel: 01932 565252 Fax: 01932 564644 http://england.tasis.com ukadmissions@tasisengland.org University of Notre Dame London Program 1 Suffolk Street, London SW1Y 4HG 020 7484 7811 london@nd.edu http://www.nd.edu/~ndlondon/lup/future/ introduction.htm US-UK Fulbright Commission Dir. of Advisory Service: Lauren Welch 020 7498 4010 Dir. of Awards: Michael Scott-Kline, 020 7498 4014 Battersea Power Station, 188 Kirtling Street, London SW8 5BN www.fulbright.co.uk Warnborough University International Office, Friars House, London SE1 8HB. Tel 020 7922 1200 Fax: 020 7922 1201 www.warnborough.edu admin@warnborough.edu Webster Graduate Studies Center Regent’s College, Regent’s Park,

Inner Circle, London NW1 4NS, UK. Tel: 020 7487 7505 Fax: 020 7487 7425 www.webster.ac.uk webster@regents.ac.uk

Wickham Court School, Schiller International Layhams Road, West Wickham, Kent BR4 9HW. Tel 0208 777 2942 Fax 0208 777 4276 Wickham@schillerintschool.com www.wickhamcourt.org.uk Wroxton College Fairleigh Dickinson Univ.,Wroxton, Nr. Banbury, Oxfordshire OX15 6PX. Tel. 01295 730551 http://view.fdu.edu/default.aspx?id=326 admin@wroxton-college.ac.uk

ALUMNI ASSOCIATIONS Alliant International University (formerly United States International University) England Chapter Alumni Association Chapter President: Eric CK Chan c/o Regents College London, Inner Circle, Regents Park, London, UK University: www.alliant.edu chane@regents.ac.uk Amherst College Bob Reichert RAreichert26b@aol.com Andover/Abbot Association of London Jeffrey Hedges ‘71, President 07968 513 631 hedgeslon@hotmail.com Association of MBAs Leo Stemp, Events Administrator Tel 020 7837 3375 (ext. 223) Fax 020-7278-3634 l.stemp@mba.org.uk Babson College Frank de Jongh Swemer, Correspondence W 020 7932 7514 babson.alumni@btinternet.com Barnard College Club Hiromi Stone, President.

Tel. 0207 935 3981 barnardclubgb@yahoo.co.uk Berkeley Club of London Geoff Kertesz Email: berkeleyclublondon@gmail.com http://international.berkeley.edu/LondonClub Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/ groups/223876564344656/ Linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/groups/BerkeleyClub-London-4186104 Boston College Alumni Club UK Craig Zematis, President +44 7717 878968 BCalumniclub@gmail.com www.alumniconnections.com/olc/pub/BTN/cpages/ chapters/home.jsp?chapter=41&org=BTN

The American

Boston University Alumni Association of the UK Will Straughn, Snr International Development Officer, University Development and Alumni Relations, 43 Harrington Gardens, Kensington, London SW7 4JU 020 7244 2908 020 7373 7411 bstraugh@bu.edu Brandeis Alumni Club of Great Britain Joan Bovarnick, President http://alumni.brandeis.edu office@alumni.brandeis.edu Brown University Club of the United Kingdom President: Tugba Erem Vice President: Caroline Cook Secretary: Pinar Emirdag Treasurer: Mikus Kins Events: Ramya Moothathu Communication: Patrick Attie Alumni Club & Liaison: Vanessa Van Hoof Former President: Ed Giberti edgibertiwgcuk@aol.com.

Brown Club UK, Box 57100, London, EC1P 1RB contact@brownuk.org www.brownuk.org Bryn Mawr Club President: Lady Quinton. c/o Wendy Tiffin, 52 Lansdowne Gardens, London SW8 2EF. Wendy Tiffin, Secretary/Treasurer wendytif@ukgateway.net Claremont Colleges Alumni in London Hadley Beeman hadley_beeman@alumni.cmc.edu Colgate Club of London Stephen W Solomon ‘76, President 0207 349 0738 swsolomon@hotmail.com Columbia University Club of London Stephen Jansen, President london@alumniclubs.columbia.edu www.alumniclubs.columbia.edu/london Cornell Club of London Natalie Teich, President nmt4@cornell.edu www.alumni.cornell.edu/orgs/int/London Dartmouth College Club of London Sanjay Gupta, Officer Andrew Rotenberg, Officer sanjay.gupta.96@ alum.dartmouth.org andrew.l.rotenberg.92@alum.dartmouth.org www.dartmouth.org Delta Kappa Gamma Society International For information about the Society in Great Britain go to our website www.deltakappagamma.org/GB. There are links to all the USA and other international members’ sites.

Delta Sigma Pi Business Fraternity London Alumni Chapter. Ashok Arora,

NYU Alumni Club in London Jodi Ekelchik, President alumni.london@nyu.edu

P O Box 1110, London W3 7ZB. 020 8423 8231 bertela@yahoo.com www.dspnet.org

NYU STERN UK Alumni Club Matthieu Gervis, President sternukalumniclub@hotmail.com

Duke University Club of England Ms Robin Buck buckrobin@yahoo.com Tim Warmath timwarmath@yahoo.com Kate Bennett jkbennett@btinternet.com www.dukealumni.com/england

Ohio University UK & Ireland Frank Madden, 1 Riverway, Barry Avenue, Windsor, Berks. SL4 5JA. Tel 01753 855 360 Fax 01753 868 855 frank@madant.demon.co.uk

Emory University Alumni Chapter of the UK Matthew Williams, Chapter Leader 079 8451 4119 matthew.eric.williams@gmail.com www.alumni.emory.edu/chapters-and-groups/ chapters/international.html

Penn Alumni Club of the UK David Lapter Tel. 07957 146 470 david.lapter@alumni.upenn.edu

Georgetown Alumni Club Alexa Fernandez, President GeorgetownLondon@Yahoo.com

Penn State Alumni Association Penn State Alumni Association Ron Nowicki - 0207 226 7681 pennstatelondon@yahoo.co.uk www.alumni.psu.edu

Gettysburg College Britt-Karin Oliver brittkarin@aol.com

Princeton Association (UK) Carol Rahn, President Jon Reades, Young Alumni carol.rahn@orange-ftgroup.com jon@reades.com www.alumni.princeton.edu

Harvard Business School Club of London www.hbsa.org.uk Harvard Club of Great Britain Brandon Bradkin, President president@hcuk.org www.hcuk.org

Rice Alumni of London Kathy Wang Tel. 07912 560 177 kathyw@alumni.rice.edu

Indiana University Alumni club of England Anastasia Tonello, President 020 7253 4855 iuinlondon@yahoo.com www.alumni.indiana.edu/clubs/england

Skidmore College Alumni Club, London Peggy Holden Briggs ‘84, co-ordinator 07817 203611 peggyhbriggs@gmail.com Smith College Club of London Kathleen Merrill, President smithclubgb@googlemail.com http://alumnae.smith.edu

KKG London Alumnae Association emilymerrell@gmail.com LMU Alumni Club London (Loyola Marymount University) Kent Jancarik 07795 358 681 kent@jancarik.com

Marymount University Alumni UK Chapter President: Mrs Suzanne Tapley, 35 Park Mansions, Knightsbridge, London SW1X 7QT. Tel 020 7581 3742 MIT Club of Great Britain Yiting Shen Flat 8a, 36 Buckingham Gate, London SW1E 6PB Tel: 0789 179 3823 yshen@alum.mit.edu http://alumweb.mit.edu/clubs/uk/ Mount Holyoke Club of Britain Rachel L. Elwes, President rlelwes@yahoo.com Karen K. Bullivant Vice-President kkbullivant@alumnae.mtholyoke.edu www.mtholyoke.co.uk Notre Dame Club of London Hannah Gornik , Secretary ND_Club_London@yahoo.co.uk

Stanford Business School Alumni Association (UK Chapter) Robby Arnold, President Lesley Anne Hunt, Events robby@blueyonder.co.uk lesley.hunt@blueyonder.co.uk www.stanfordalumni.org.uk Texas Tech Alumni Association – London Chapter David Mirmelli, Ferhat Guven, Bobby Brents president@texastechalumni.org.uk www.TexasTechAlumni.org.uk Texas Exes UK (UKTE) President: Carra Kane 7 Edith Road, Wimbledon, London SW19 8TW 0778 660 7534 carrakane@alumni.utexas.net www.fornogoodreason.com/UKTEMain.htm Texas A&M Club London Ashley Lilly, Co-President Devin Howard, Co-President london@aggienetwork.com http://clubs.aggienetwork.com/londonamc/

July 2013 63

The American

The John Adams Society Contact: Muddassar Ahmed c/o Unitas Communications, Palmerston House, 80-86 Old Street, London EC1V 9AZ 0203 308 2358 johnadamssociety@unitascommunications.com www.johnadamssociety.co.uk Tufts - London Tufts Alliance Vikki Garth Londontuftsalliance@yahoo.com UK Dawgs of the University of Georgia Rangana Abdulla ukdawgs@hotmail.com UMass Alumni Club UK Julie Encarnacao, President (0)20 7007 3869 julesje32@gmail.com University of California Matthew Daines (Program Director) 17 Bedford Square, London WC1B 3JA 020 7079 0567 matthewdaines@californiahouse.org.uk University of Chicago UK Alumni Association President c/o Alumni Affairs and Development – Europe University of Chicago Booth School of Business Woolgate Exchange, 25 Basinghall Street, London EC2V 5HA Tel +44(0)20 7070 2245 Fax +44(0)20 7070 2250 www.ChicagoBooth.edu University of Illinois Alumni Club of the UK Amy Barklam, President 07796 193 466 amybarklam@msn.com

US Merchant Marine Academy (Kings Point) UK Chapter President: Allison Bennett bennett.ac@gmail.com Facebook: Kings Point Alumni - London/United Kingdom USNA Alumni Association, UK Chapter President: LCDR Greta Densham ‘00 (gretaj@mac.com) Vice President/Treasurer: Tim Fox ‘97 (timfox97@ hotmail.com) Secretary: Mike Smith ‘84 (Mike.Smith@polycom.com) Facebook Group - USNA Alumni Association, UK Chapter Vassar College Club Sara Hebblethwaite, President 18 Redgrave Road, London, SW15 1PX +44 020 8788 6910 sara.hebblethwaite@virgin.net Warnborough Worldwide Alumni Association c/o International Office, Friars House, London SE1 8HB Tel. 020 7922 1200 Fax. 020 7922 1201 http://www.wwaa.info/ admin@warnborough.edu Wellesley College Club Ana Ericksen, President. ana@ericksenuk.com Wharton Business School Club of the UK Yoav Kurtzbard, President Claire Watkins, Administrator 020-7447-8800 ykurtzbard@youngassoc.com cwatkins@youngassoc.com Williams Club of Great Britain Ethan Kline: ethankline@gmail.com

University of North Carolina Alumni Club Brad Matthews, Club Leader 2 The Orchards, Hill View Road, Woking GU22 7LS brad.matthews@alumni.unc.edu http://alumni.unc.edu

Yale Club of London Joe Vittoria, President president@yale.org.uk Scott Fletcher, Events events@yale.org.uk Nick Baskey, Secretary secretary@yale.org.uk www.yale.org.uk

University of Michigan Alumni Association Regional Contact: Jessica Cobb, BA ’97 +44 (0) 788-784-0941 jesscobb@yahoo.com http://uk.groups.yahoo.com/group/umich_uk_alumni/

Zeta Tau Alpha Alumnae Kristin Morgan. Tel: 07812 580949 kristinamorgan@gmail.com www.zetataualpha.org

University of Rochester/Simon School UK Alumni Association Ms. Julie Bonne, Co-President 0118-956-5052 julie_bonne@yahoo.com

ARTS North American Actors Association Chief Executive: Ms. Laurence Bouvard Americanactors@aol.com 07873 371 891

CIVIL WAR SOCIETIES

University of Southern California, Alumni Club of London Jennifer Ladwig, President Chuck Cramer, Treasurer usclondon@gmail.com www.usclondonalumni.org

American Civil War Round Table (UK) Sandra Bishop, 5 Southdale, Chigwell, Essex IG7 5NN sandra-bishop@hotmail.com www.americancivilwar.org.uk

University of Virginia Alumni Club of London Kirsten Jellard, 020 7368 8473 londonuvaclub@yahoo.com http://members.aol.com/UKUVACLUB/UVA-london.htm

Southern Skirmish Association (SoSkan) Membership Secretary, Bob Isaac, 3 Hilliards Road, Uxbridge, Middlesex, UB8 3TA email membership@soskan.co.uk

64 July 2013

SPORTS Eagles Golf Society Sharon Croley c/o Eventful Services, 49 Hastings Road, Croydon, Surrey CRO 6PH sharoncroley@blueyonder.co.uk English Lacrosse PO Box 116, Manchester M11 0AX 0843 658 5006 info@englishlacrosse.co.uk www.englishlacrosse.co.uk British Baseball Federation/ BaseballSoftballUK 5th Floor, Ariel House, 74a Charlotte Street, London W1T 4QJ. 020 7453 7055 British Morgan Horse Society 01942 886141 www.morganhorse.org.uk admin@morganhorse.org.uk Ice Hockey UK 19 Heather Avenue, Rise Park, Romford RM1 4SL Tel. 07917 194 264 Fax. 1708 725241 www.icehockeyuk.co.uk ihukoffice@yahoo.co.uk Infinity Elite Cheerleading (founded by C.A.C) Mondays 4.30-8.30 – Maiden Lane Comm. Centre, 156 St. Paul’s Crescent, London NW1 9XZ. Tumble: Thursdays 6-8 – Paget Centre,18-28 Randells Rd, Islington, London N1 0DH. Tel. 077 9132 0115 http://londoninfinityelite.clubbz.com www.facebook.com/InfinityAllstars Herts Baseball Club Adult & Little League Baseball www.hertsbaseball.com LondonSports Instruction & competitive play in baseball, basketball and soccer, boys/girls aged 4-15, newcomers or experienced players. Sports in a safe, fun environment.

We welcome children of all nationalities. www.londonsports.com vll@me.com London Warriors American Football Club Contact: Kevin LoPrimo info@londonwarriorsafc.co.uk www.londonwarriorsafc.co.uk Mildenhall EELS Swim Team International and local competitions for ages 6-19.

Contact Coach Robin flv4@hotmail.com

Every effort is made to ensure that listings in the information guide are correct and current. If your entry requires amendments please notify us immediately.

We rely on you to keep us informed. Telephone 01747 830520, Fax 01747 830691 or email us at orgs@ theamerican.co.uk. We would be pleased to receive news or short articles about your organisation for possible publication in The American.

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55 Baker Street, London W1U 7EU 020 7486 5888 info@bdo.co.uk www.bdo.uk.com

Lidgate Butchers Organic meats from a 150 year old business now run by the the fifth generation of the same family.

110 Holland Park Avenue, London W11 4UA Tel. 0207 727 8243 www.lidgates.com

Jaffe & Co., incorp. American Tax International Comprehensive tax preparation and compliance service for US expatriates in the UK and Europe.

America House, 54 Hendon Lane, London N3 1TT 020 8346 5237 www.jaffeandco.com

LEGAL

Xerxes Associates LLP Fixed Fee US & UK Individual Tax Compliance, Consulting & Planning.

Tel: +44(0)207 411 9026 Fax: +44(0)207 411 9051 www.xerxesllp.com

ANTIQUES & COLLECTABLES Stephen T Taylor Your American stamp dealer in Britain since 1995.

5 Glenbuck Road, Surbiton, Surrey KT6 6BS 020 8390 9357 info@stephentaylor.co.uk www.stephentaylor.co.uk

DRIVING INSTRUCTION Alison Driving School A well established, well known International Driving Instructor covering the area south and west of London, ideal for new drivers and for Americans who want to drive in the UK. www.alison-driving-school.co.uk alisondrivingschool@yahoo.co.uk 01784 456 037, cell 07956 220389

EDUCATION Florida State University in UK Over 50 years of experience in international education.

99 Great Russell Street, London WC1B 3LA 020 7813 3223 www.international.fsu.edu

Kingsley Napley LLP Family lawyers with particular experience in dealing with cases involving Americans living here and abroad.

020 7814 1200 www.kingsleynapley.co.uk

MEDICAL & DENTAL The American Women’s Health Centre (AWHC) OB GYN Based in the West End of London, at the heart of medical excellence in Britain.

Third Floor, 214 Great Portland Street, London W1W 5QN 020 7390 8433 info@AWHC.co.uk www.awhc.co.uk

Jim Garnett - Cameraman 27 years’ experience in television, magazines and newspapers – Full professional gear in both NTSC [USA/Canada] and PAL formats. Used by ‘Entertainment Tonight’, CBC, CTV National, CTV Toronto, CTV Sports, Global TV and Channel Zero.

Tel. 07930-100909 http://jimgarnettphotography.blogspot.co.uk

COUNSELLING AND PSYCHOTHERAPY Transitions Therapy Psychotherapy & Counselling for Expatriate Individuals, Couples, Families & Adolescents in the West End. London, England, United Kingdom 07557 261432 in the UK or 0044 7557 261432 from another country.

Skype sessions available around the world. transitions_therapy@hotmail.com www.transitionstherapy.co.uk

To find out whether you’re eligible to advertise your products and services here, and for rates, call Sabrina Sully on +44 (0)1747 830520. You’ll reach Americans living in and visiting the UK as well as Britons who like American culture and products.

Coffee Break Answers

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1. Gaius; 2. Eartha Kitt (TV series), Lee Meriwether (Batman, TV spin-off feature film, 1966) Michelle Pfeiffer (Batman Returns, 1992), Halle Berry (Catwoman, 2004) and Anne Hathaway (The Dark Knight Rises, 2012); 3. Uranus; 4. Julie Andrews; 5. A ring-tailed Lemur (in the Madagascar animations); 6. The Marquis de Sade; 7. Julian Casablancas; 8. The Mysterious Island – his exact background is a mystery in Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea; 9. Deep Space Nine; 10. Julie London; 11. Hasbro; 12. Red Skelton; 13. Sailing; 14. Fatboy Slim; 15. The Mailman; 16. France.

July 2013 65

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