KCW Today December/January 2017

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News Today 50

( E XC E P T W H E R E S O L D )

five years fifty issues

E-mail: news@kcwtoday.co.uk Website: www.kcwtoday.co.uk Advertisement enquiries: editor@kcwtoday.co.uk Subscriptions: news@kcwtoday.co.uk Publishers: Kensington & Chelsea Today Limited

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Editor: Kate Hawthorne Art Director & Director Tim Epps Deputy Editor & Head of Business Development Dr Emma Trehane Business Development: Caroline Daggett, Antoinette Kovatchka, Architecture: Emma Flynn Art & Culture Editors: Don Grant, Marian Maitland Astronomy: Scott Beadle FRAS Ballet/Dance Andrew Ward Bridge: Andrew Robson Business: Douglas Shanks Chess: Barry Martin Contributing Editors: Marius Brill, Peter Burden, Catherine Godlewsky, Derek Wyatt Classical Music: James Douglas Crossword: Wolfe The Dandy: John Springs Dining Out: David Hughes Editorial: Polly Allen, Ione Bingley, Catherine Godlewsky, Natanael Mota, Fahad Redha Events: Leila Kooros, Fahad Redha Fashion: Polly Allen Feldman Reviews: Max Feldman Beauty: Jayne Beaumont I wish I had written that: Dudley Sutton Motoring: Don Grant, David Hughes, Fahad Redha Music: James Douglas News, Online Editor & Arts Correspondent: Max Feldman Poetry & Literary Editor: Emma Trehane MA Ph.D Political Editor: Derek Wyatt Science & Technology: Ione Bingley, Natanael Mota Sub-Editor: Leila Kooros Sporting Calendar Compiled by Fahad Redha Travel: Lynne McGowan, Cynthia Pickard

Contents News Statue & Blue Plaque News International Opinion & Comment Features Business & Finance Astronomy Science & Technology Education Dining Out Fashion & Dandy Lifestyle Events Arts & Culture Classical music Architecture Dandy Illustrations Arts & Culture Travel Health Motoring Sport Crossword, Bridge & Classified Chess

Stop the World I Want to Get Off

Cover picture credits Gene Wilder: The Film Stage Cornwall: Mike Lacy Migrant Boat: Ggia Fidel Castro: ATG The Donald: Gage Skidmore Team GB: Michael Zemanek Brexit Flag: Free To Use Teresa May: Splash David Bowie: Ron Frazier Mo Farah: Wikicommons, Martin Ramm Zika Mosquito: Centre for disease control

Prince: Paisley Park Records Syria: Jordi Bernabeu Farrús Andy Murray: Kirsty Wrigglesworth Alan Rickman: Marie-Lan Nguyen Leonard Cohen: Rob Verhorst Muhammed Ali: Free To Use David Cameron: Tim Ireland England Rugby Team 6 nations: Mark Pygas Forest fires: Wikicommons Bob Dylan: Wikicommons

I

shall be glad to be welcoming in 2017 in Havana. I have just about had enough of 2016.

It started so well. England won the Six Nations after the most appalling display at the rugby World Cup which they were hosting. Clearly, the English football team wanted to better that effort and duly lost to Iceland (the country not the retailer) at the Euros.

One way and another Europe has dominated the year.

The referendum ended the political career of David Cameron. It was brutal.

His political life had hardly started. True, he had been Prime Minister from 2010 -2015 but only because the Lib Dems had gone into coalition for which Nick Clegg’s opportunism finally saw the

strange death of Liberalism. I am more sanguine about George Osborne and think his best is yet to come.

At a Breakfast the morning after the 2010 general election I was asked: “What happens next?” I said “If Gordon Brown had any sense he would resign at lunchtime. HRH would then summons

Strikes and fare hikes cause chaos on trains and Tube

31st December-2nd January 9th-14th January A new compensation scheme for Southern’s season ticket holders has been promised for January, whilst an improved ‘Delay Repay’ compensation scheme was introduced on 11th December to reimburse a portion of fares to anyone whose train is delayed by 15 minutes or more. Southern’s parent company, GTR, also offered a one-off compensation package to season ticket holders for 2016 disruption.

Southern Rail chaos, tube strikes and a depleted Piccadilly line has left commuters facing a bleak Christmas, whilst January’s planned increase of rail fares and Tube fares has prompted further anger from rail users.

Due to ongoing disputes between drivers, train guards and management, Southern Rail customers have suffered months of delayed and cancelled trains, and several strikes, inciting anger from Mayor of London Sadiq Khan, as well as co-leader of the Green Party and Brighton MP Caroline Lucas, and MP for Mid Sussex Nicholas Soames.

Network Rail’s increased train fares meant an average price hike of 2.3% from 2016 prices, and a 1.8% rise on Southern and Gatwick Express services.

Whilst these figures didn’t come close to the 6.2% price hike in 2011, they weren’t welcomed by the Rail, Maritime and Transport Union (RMT), the Transport Focus watchdog or the Campaign for Better Transport.

“Much more needs to be done by train operators and the Government to give passengers a truly affordable railway,” said Lianna Etkind, of the Campaign for Better Transport. Whilst the Rail Delivery Group defended the new pricing structure, Mick Cash, general secretary of the RMT, called it “another kick in the teeth for British passengers”.

By Polly Allen

Southern Rail strikes announced for December and January include: 13th-14th December 16th December 19th-20th December

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online: www.KCWToday.co.uk

by Derek Wyatt

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Kensington, Chelsea & Westminster Today

Cameron and ask if he could make a minority government work.

He would have said ‘Yes’ ”.

The reason I thought that was because we were not yet out of the Recession (as we all know we are still not out of the Recession) and a minority government would have to find a middle way which would be good for the country. It just goes to show how little I know about politics.

Fast forward to that fateful day on 23 June, 2016 and hardly, a day has gone by without a Brexit story. It has seeped into every corner of our collective lives. It is never ending.

The referendum result surprised Londoners. It also surprised other liberal leaning cities like Edinburgh, Cambridge, Oxford, Bath and Bristol.

It was, if you were a Remainer, possibly the most dysfunctional campaign any London Underground users face an average price rise of 1.9% from 2nd January 2017, along with an average weekly capping increase of 1.9%, and 1.8% for season tickets.

Whilst most single and pay-asyou-go Underground fares and Transport for London (TfL) rail fares have been frozen, the following routes increase by 10p for adults, 5p for half-fare adults and 5p for children in peak times: Liverpool Street and Cheshunt (and intermediate stations) Shenfield and Zone 2 or Zone 3 Day Travelcard tickets increase by 1050p for adults, and 10-30p for children (except for off-peak child travel in Zones 1-9). Meanwhile, adults using Group Day Travelcards see a rise of 10p in Zones 1-6 only.

Daily capping involves the following price rises: Adult rate daily caps increase by 10p - 30p within Zones 1-9, and 10p-50p for

of us are likely to experience in our life time. The European cause was left like mustard on the edge of the plate.

Six months on, my best bet is that we shall have a second referendum. Theresa May, our new PM, always knew that she had to complete the negotiations before she turned her eyes to campaigning for the next general election in 2020.

She does not want an election which is in effect a referendum on a ‘Euro coitus interruptus’. Nor does she want a succession of legal challenges in 2019 which ironically would end up in the European Courts.

So, she has to do the deal on coitus interruptus pretty damn quickly. It is not possible. It will take at least five years. The PM might want to do it in two parts: the political first, as that is relatively easy, and the economic second which is not. So Part 1 by 2019 and Part 2 by 2024. I would not bet on it.

The grit in the oyster is a certain Donald Trump. His reason to be is Pax Americana but it is too late. We are already sipping at the saucer of Pax Confuciusa. America with a late bolt for tariffs, walls, fences, privileges and who knows what, is a country which has not understood that all empires fall.

Of this wonderful country in which I live, we are destined to lose our veto at the UNO, lose our way in Europe and lose our influence forever. I thought we were wiser.

These are more worrying times than any British politician dare admit.

Illustration © Jonnohills

December 2016 / January 2017

Image © Josh Hicks

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journeys including travel beyond Zones 9 Child rate off-peak daily caps are frozen at £1.50 in Zones 1-9 and at £8.60 for Zones 1-9 (+ Watford Junction). For Zones 1-9 (+Hertford East and Shenfield), daily caps increase by 5p - 25p Half adult rate daily caps increase by 5p-25p. This includes peak daily caps for 11-15 year olds Whilst TfL has frozen fees for many customers on trams and ferries, costlier Tube tickets are yet another issue for London’s many rail users. For updates on the progress of strike negotiations and further industrial action please go to www.tfl.gov.uk

December 2016 / January 2017

Kensington, Chelsea & Westminster Today

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News Sadiq Khan announces record £770 million

Image © Alex Lentati

for London cycling schemes alongside new crime prevention initiativess

By Max Feldman

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adiq Khan has announced an annual £154 million spending on cycling in London over the next five years, including new routes in Hammersmith and the West End. Khan said in a statement on Monday December 5 that the cash injection into cycling is to help Londoners get about quickly without having to use a car, bringing both health benefits and continuing his policies for improving air quality. The announcement came only a day before the Mayor plans to take control of London’s suburban railways were derailed by Transport Minister Chris Grayling.

The new investment, part of the Transport for London (TfL) draft Business Plan, also features provisions for creating more pedestrian crossings and pavement space. Now reaching a total of £770 million, the amount nearly doubles the £79 million per year spent over the last mayoral term, which places London roughly level with the Netherlands for money spent for cycling.

The Mayor will also be appointing a new walking and cycling commissioner for London who will be an advocate for active travel in London. The new plans include phase two of the North-South Cycle Superhighway from Farringdon to Kings Cross, which will start construction in 2017.

It also includes the extension of the East-West Cycle Superhighway from Lancaster Gate and work to deliver Cycle Superhighway 11 from Swiss Cottage to the West End, which Mr Khan has given his endorsement for.

At least 20 more Quietway routes will be planned, making cycling safer and easier in different parts of London including Hammersmith. The Business Plan also confirms funding for two new Cycle Superhighways. Consultations will begin next year on Cycle Superhighway 4 from Tower Bridge to Greenwich and Cycle Superhighway 9 from Olympia

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December 2016 / January 2017

News towards Hounslow.

In a later meeting the Mayor also committed £72 million over the next four years to help prevent crime across London, maintaining recent levels of investment despite significant pressures on the policing budget. His new investment will help to deliver local services including support for victims of domestic and sexual violence, knife crime prevention and rehabilitation of offenders within the community. Khan spoke about the new initiatives claiming “This new approach to funding strikes a balance between maintaining crucial local programmes while supporting collaborative work between different areas and organisations.”

The Mayor said: "I said in my manifesto that I’d be the most procycling Mayor London has ever had.

Today I’m delighted to confirm that TfL will be spending twice as much on cycling over the next five years compared to the previous Mayor.”

"Making cycling safe and easier can provide huge benefits for us all; improving our health, cleaning up our toxic air, and helping tackle congestion."

A guide to Christmas tree recycling

By Catherine Godlewsky

This season, show the environment some goodwill by recycling your Christmas tree and evergreen decorations. Here is our guide to your local council recycling programmes as well as the independent collection services available to the festive environmentalist.

Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea

The RBKC will offer Christmas tree collection and drop off services from Tuesday 3 January – Wednesday 18 January. Collected trees will be shredded and composted.

Collections will be available upon request; to arrange a collection, contact Streetline at 020 7361 3001 or at streetline@rbkc.gov.uk, and leave the tree at the boundary of your property so that it is visible from the kerb before 07:00.

Westminster

Westminster offers tree recycling at one of the borough’s collection sites; trees less than seven feet high can be put out with a yellow sticker as part of the normal collection service. For more information, check the Westminster council website at http://cleanstreets.westminster.gov.uk/ christmas-tree/.

Hammersmith and Fulham

In Hammersmith and Fulham, Christmas trees will be collected for composting from the kerb over a twoweek period. Contact Hammersmith and Fulham council website at https://www. lbhf.gov.uk/recycling-and-rubbish.

Wandsworth Wandsworth offers a free recycling pickup. Contact: Wandsworth council at http://www.wandsworth.gov.uk/waste.

Lambeth

Recycling between 4 and 29 January.

Alternatively, Lambeth Reuse and Recycling Centre or one of the collection points. Contact: https://www.lambeth. gov.uk/rubbish-and-recycling or contact streetcare@lambeth.gov.uk.

Airbnb to police 90 day London rental limit

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By Ione Bingley

In a dramatic shift in policy, Airbnb has agreed to police the newly set yearly rental limits on the number of days that you can let out your property in London and Amsterdam.

The new rules state that you can only rent out your property, using the short stay rental app Airbnb, for 90 days a year in London and 60 days a year in Amsterdam.

Airbnb has been embroiled in continuous struggles against local authorities and their regulations as it grew, in cities such as New York, San Francisco, Barcelona and Berlin. The app has been blamed for removing available housing stock for would-be locals by driving up rents, emptying the local community from city centres and the drying up of the long-term rental market in Reykjavik, Iceland.

A quarter of London listed Airbnb properties were rented for over three months last year, many illegally and in breach of an act in place to stop landlords becoming unofficial hotels. Critics are worried that misuse of the app is putting undue pressure on an already squeezed housing supply.

“The problem was that a website that was about people making a little money letting out rooms was being abused by professional landlords turning their properties into hotels by the back door,”

said Labour’s housing spokesman on the London assembly, Tom Copley, who campaigned for the change.

The new agreement, which comes into force in 2017, means that Airbnb will be responsible for making sure that the hosts stick to local limits for shortterm rentals unless they have the proper licenses.

A statement explained that the regulation will “make it easier for hosts in London to act in the best interests of everyone in the city”.

Some positive analysts hope that the move will allow Airbnb to get its regulations under control before its proposed IPO.

Invest Today in Tomorrow

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he team at KCW Today (Kensington, Chelsea and Westminster Today) would like to invite our readers to be involved in the paper’s future, and the future of print, by supporting our expansion plans with investment for 2017 and beyond.

The paper’s reputation is such that it has built partnerships and business relationships with some of the country’s most distinguished institutions and businesses such as; The Royal Academy of Arts, The Royal Opera House, the V&A, Shakespeare’s Globe, The English Ballet, BFI, Westminster Abbey, Houses of Parliament, The Royal Colleges of Art and Music, Oxford University, Gresham and Imperial Colleges, TFL, Greater London Authority, Metro Bank, Drummonds, Barclays, Santander, Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, The Royal Brompton Hospital, The Royal Marsden, The Lister, the Institute of Cancer Research, Chelsea Physic Garden, Trinity Hospice, BUPA and many, many others societies, educational establishments, businesses and organisations both private and public.

We are looking for investment in return for equity in the paper to assist in taking the publication into more areas of London and beyond. There is room and demand amongst readers for an alternative, variegated, intelligent, independent print publication, which has a deep interest in current affairs, culture, education and international and national news. People are demanding change and it’s time for a different platform to

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help with this important and necessary transitional period.

We have a long way to go but we have the team, the skills, knowledge and the passion to succeed. We believe firmly that print, especially our monthly newspaper, is here to stay and we have a strong online presence to support the editorial and its rapidly growing visitors.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with our newspaper’s content you can see some print editions online here: www. kcwtoday.co.uk/archives/ Our media pack which details stockists, circulation details are visible on our media pack under the advertising section of our online publication www. kcwtoday.co.uk

A short history Kensington, Chelsea and Westminster Today is a 72-page monthly newspaper that serves the boroughs of Kensington, Chelsea and Westminster, and beyond. In its sixth year the newspaper enjoys a readership of circa 80,000, has built loyal relationships with some of the country’s most important institutes, and established longterm relationships with multiple high-end stockists throughout both boroughs. The company publishes, designs, writes, produces, edits and distributes the title. The newspaper is a free publication which generates revenue from advertisers based on its content and circulation in print and on our online platform; www.kcwtoday.co.uk.

Each printed edition includes News, Features, International, Opinion, Business and Finance, Education, Health, Arts and Culture, Events, Literature, Poetry, Music, Dining Out, Travel, Fashion, Motoring, Chess, Crossword and Sports pages.

Would any interested parties please contact editor@kcwtoday. co.uk or call on 0790 365 5331 to discuss the opportunity further.

Kate Hawthorne, Editor

Image © Gordon Illg

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Wildlife Photographer of the Year: People’s Choice Award shortlist announced

By Ione Bingley

The Natural History Museum’s Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition has announced the shortlist for the People's Choice Award. The winning decision is now in the hands of the public as they are encouraged to vote for their favourite photo.

Members of the general public can

choose from the People’s Choice Award shortlist online until 10 January 2017.

The winning image will be announced early next year once the vote has been counted.

Alongside the People's Choice Award, an exhibition of 100 of this year's Wildlife Photography of the Year award winners is being held at the London Museum until 10 September 2017. The world-famous photography competition boasts nearly 50,000 entries from 95 countries.

"Judged by a panel of international experts, winning images are selected for their creativity, originality and technical excellence," says the museum.

Cast your vote at: http://www.nhm. ac.uk/visit/wpy/community/peopleschoice/2016/index.html

December 2016 / January 2017

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News

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he London Hospices Choir joined forces with Paul Carrack to release an original recording of the popular single The Living Years paired with a music video shot at Clapham’s Royal Trinity Hospice.

The London Hospices’ Choir is made up of 300 patients, families, staff, and volunteers from eighteen London hospices, which has provided a positive effect on the hospice community that has inspired members and the public alike.

“I have been given a new lease of life being part of the London Hospices Choir. St Joseph’s Hospice has been like a family to me, and now I feel like I am part of a huge extended family with 300 people all wanting to give something back to these wonderful places,” said 94-year-old choir member Lillian John.

The hospice choir’s goal is to make their original recording of The Living Years this Christmas’s number one track, the choir has launched the Say it in the Living Years campaign under

Number of plastic bags on UK beaches halves in one year

By Ione Bingley

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he number of plastic carrier bags found on UK beaches dropped by almost half between 2015 and 2016, according to a range of surveys carried out by the Marine Conservation Society (MCS).

The figures are published in the MCS Great British Beach Clean 2016 report. In 2015 there were, on average, 11 plastic bags per 100 metres of coastline cleaned, but in 2016 there were under seven, the lowest number in over a decade.

It is thought that the drop comes from the 5p levy on single-use carrier bags that was introduced in October last

#hospices4xmasno1 to encourage hospices to share special messages from hospice patients or family members.

“The Living Years has been an important song for me for many years, but this is the version that means the most. Recording it with this incredibly special group of people for such a worthwhile cause has created some kind of magic. It’s a powerful and inspiring track, and I hope that everyone gets behind it this Christmas,” said Paul Carrack, the lead vocalist on the original hit.

The London Hospice Choir’s The Living Years track is available for purchase on Amazon and iTunes after its release on 16 December 2016, and all sales profits will be divided among the eighteen hospices involved in the choir.

year, after heavy lobbying from MCS. “In the last decade, our Great British Beach Clean volunteers have found an average of ten single use carrier bags for every 100 metres of coastline cleaned,” said MCS Beachwatch Manager Lauren Eyles. “This year, for the first time since the charges were introduced, we’ve seen a significant drop in the number and that can only be as a result of the 5p charge which is now in place in all the home nations.”

This is good news for marine wildlife as turtles mistake plastic bags and balloons for their jellyfish prey, and the items can block their digestive systems leading to death from starvation.

It has also recently been shown that some species of seabirds are particularly attracted by the scent of this plastic ‘food’.

Beaches in England and Northern Ireland saw the biggest drop in the number of plastic bags found during the September clean up. In Wales, where the charge has been in place for five years, the number, just under four bags for every 100 metres cleaned, is significantly lower than in any other year since 2011 However, while the Great British Beach Clean volunteers did find a 4 percent decrease in beach litter overall, they lamented the huge quantity of rubbish that they found while cleaning the British beaches including a 15 percent rise of general beach rubbish in Wales and the Southwest.

More children inspired to read

Councils bring in an extra £60m

by Charity expansion

By Ione Bingley

Following its success in Hammersmith and Fulham, Children’s literacy charity, Doorstep Library, has expanded its home-reading support programme into Westminster. The move will benefit around 40 families and 96 children by lending books and reading support to parents.

Delivering trained volunteers into the homes of young children to read to them and with them, the charity works to inspire a love of reading and to address the literacy deficit often present in children from the most disadvantaged backgrounds.

“By bringing books and the joy of reading directly into these homes, we’re breaking the link between poverty and illiteracy; we’re inspiring both children and parents to embrace reading and the life transforming effect it has,” said Doorstep Library Director, Katie Bareham.

Doorstep’s new programme will be based out of the Queen’s Park Children’s Centre on the Mozart Estate

from parking charges and fines in 2015/16

By Max Feldman in northwest Westminster. The area is in the top 30 percent most deprived in England and contains the highest proportion of children living in incomedeprived households in England.

According to Save the Children’s Read On. Get On. Report 2014, four out of ten children on free school meals still struggle with reading by the age of 11.

“This is about the joy, the fun, the escape provided by a good book and by going into the homes, we’re able to introduce this idea directly to the parents,” said Doorstep Library Marketing and Fundraising Coordinator, Elizabeth Whelan. “It’s a privilege to be invited into these homes and it has proved as rewarding for the volunteers as it is for the children.”

More than 60 Doorstep Library volunteers have supported more than 350 children and their families this year, borrowing 12,000 books to do so.

For more information on volunteering with the Doorstep Library visit: www. doorsteplibrary.org.uk

LONDON H O M E FO OT BALL Traffic Watch Dec 10 Arsenal v Stoke City 15:00 Dec 11 Chelsea v West Brom 12:00 Dec 13 Fulham v Rotherham Utd 19:45 Dec 14 QPR v Derby 19:45 Dec 17 Fulham v Derby County 15:00 Dec 18 QPR v Aston Villa 12:00 Dec 26 Arsenal v West Brom 15:00 Dec 26 Chelsea v Bournemouth 15:00 Dec 31 Chelsea v Stoke City 15:00

Image © Ben Saunders

release ‘The Living Years’

By Max Feldman

News

Jan 1 Arsenal v Crystal Palace 16:00 Jan 2 Fulham v Brighton and Hove Albion 15:00 Jan 2 QPR v Ipswich 15:00 Jan 22 Arsenal v Burnley 13:30 Jan 22 Chelsea v Hull City 16:00 Jan 28 QPR v Wigan 15:00 Jan 31 Arsenal v Watford 19:45 Feb 4 Chelsea v Arsenal 15:00

Compiled by Fahad Redha

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he amount of money councils in England generated from parking charges and fines has risen by more than £60m in the past year, according to new research.

The RAC Foundation said local authorities made a surplus of £756m in 2015/16; 9% higher than in 2014/15.

Director Steve Gooding said the "eye-wateringly large" amounts was a reflection of the increasingly fraught competition for parking spaces.

Westminster tops the country for parking charges, collecting a total of £55.9 million in fines, with Kensington and Chelsea in second place at £34.2 million.

Image © Pitchero

London Hospices Choir and Paul Carrack

December 2016 / January 2017

However the Local Government Association have responded to the figures by insisting that councils did not make a profit from parking. The surplus figure was calculated by looking at the income councils received from parking charges and penalty notices, minus their running costs.

Income was up by 4% and costs fell by 2% in the past year, according to the RAC, while the surplus figure was 34% higher than in 2011/12. The LGA, which represents councils in England and Wales, said local authorities must "strike a balance" when setting charges to ensure there were parking spaces available and traffic was not held up Transport spokeswoman Judith Blake added: "Income from on-street parking charges is spent on running parking services and surpluses are spent on essential transport projects, such as tackling the £12bn roads repair backlog, creating new parking spaces and providing subsidised bus travel for children or elderly residents."

The Department for Communities and Local Government said it was supporting a private member's bill by Conservative MP David Tredinnick to make it easier for English councils to lower parking charges at short notice.

A spokesman added: "We've been clear councils shouldn't use parking as a cash cow and many recognise the benefits that reduced or free parking has on encouraging footfall on the High Street."

to achieve their potential

Epic CIC began life as the Royal Borough’s youth service. A while ago I was summoned to the Chief Executive’s office for a conversation that went like this: “We love the youth service but we cannot afford it any more so you are going to have to find a way of running it with a lot less money”. The Council was of necessity taking a hard look at its financial outlay. I knew also that if we wanted to maintain a viable youth support service, only a radical solution would suffice.

The Chief Executive’s challenge led directly to the creation of Epic CIC, the UK’s first independent youth service mutual and community interest company. We went live on the 1 January

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online: www.KCWToday.co.uk

Epic CIC inspires young people Epic CiC is an innovative organisation based in Kensington and Chelsea. Its mission is to inspire young people to achieve their potential. This is the story of Epic CIC as told by its MD, Brendan O’Keefe.

Kensington, Chelsea & Westminster Today

2014. Our aim is to establish a thriving social enterprise combining the best of the public sector ethos with a strong commercial dynamic. We have employees elected to the Board of Directors who sit alongside NEDs recruited from the local business community. The employees ensure the views of staff are represented (the mutual element) and the NEDs provide strong commercial acumen.

We support 4000 young people annually, helping them to overcome barriers in order that they may achieve their dreams and ambitions. It can come as a surprise to some that the Royal Borough has so many children and young people with significant support needs but this is undoubtedly the case. 24% of children under 16 in the Royal Borough are officially designated as living in poverty.

The young people we support face a

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range of challenges; unemployment, lack of qualifications, mental health problems, living with a disability, substance misuse issues, youth crime and gang problems and others. Our starting point is always to focus on young people’s potential rather than exclusively on problems and deficits. We work to raise aspirations and ensure that young people become assets in their community rather than burdens.

It’s an approach that pays dividends. 99% of our service users rate us as ‘good to excellent’.

In our new independent guise we are able to attract funds from sources

previously unavailable. We welcome the continued financial support from the Council but like all councils, the Royal Borough is faced with significant financial challenges. The independent mutual model provides us with the opportunity to bridge the financial gap. For example, we have just been announced as a Santander charity partner for 2017. Santander will bring both financial support and volunteers to work with young people.

We see the Epic mutual model as the way forward not just for youth services, but for large swathes of the public sector.

The Government is keen to promote this model and the Royal Borough is in the forefront of this exciting innovation.

We are always delighted to hear from anyone interested in supporting, sponsoring or volunteering with Epic’s services.

If you would like to find out more, visit our website www.epiccic.org. uk or contact Brendan O’Keefe brendan.o’keefe@epiccic.org.uk

You can also follow this link to our social impact report: epiccic.org.uk/user_uploads/files/ EPIC%20Report%20WEB%206_7.pdf

Images © EPIC

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Statue & Blue Plaque

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in comedy, appearing in School for Scandal as Mrs Teazle. Richard Daly was manager at Drury Lane and she had one of her numerous affairs with him and one of her many illegitimate children.

When Drury Lane was being rebuilt Dorothy acted at the Haymarket and Covent Garden. She also worked for a Theatre Company run by Tate Wilkinson and about this time became known as Mrs Jordan, presumably for respectability. She

STATUES

he Greater London Council erected a Blue Plaque at 30 Cadogan Place, Chelsea in 1975 honouring Dorothy Bland, later known as Mrs Jordan. She was a beautiful Irish actress and courtesan who became the long term mistress and companion of the Duke of Clarence, before he became King George IV. They had ten illegitimate children, all of whom took the name Fitzclarence.

Dorothy, sometimes known as Dorothea or Dora, was born in Waterford in Ireland. Her father was Francis Bland, a stage hand and her mother was Grace Phillips, an actress. Her parents were married but her father's father declared the marriage void owing to the young age of his son. Dorothy’s father left his family to marry an Irish actress. He did provide for them, but they were very poor. Dorothy’s mother put her on the stage at the age of thirteen, having worked for a short period as a milliner in Dublin.

Dorothy made several successful stage appearances, firstly in Dublin as Phoebe in As You Like It and later in Leeds. She had an excellent figure and especially attractive legs. She needed spectacles, but they mostly stayed in her pocket! Dorothy appeared at Drury Lane Theatre in A Country Girl as Peggy. She stayed at Drury Lane for fourteen years and proved herself talented

A Conversation With Oscar Wilde

By Maggi Hambling Adelaide Street, WC2

chose 'Jordan' seeing her escape from Ireland across the water as like crossing the river Jordan in the Bible.

An affair with Charles Doyne followed ( he did actually propose marriage, but was rejected). This was followed by an affair with Sir Richard Ford which produced three illegitimate children.

Being so pretty, lively, intelligent and an actress brought her to the attention of the Duke of Clarence, and they started an affair which was to last for twenty years and produce ten illegitimate children. They all took the name Fitzclarence. They made their home at Bushy House which was developed for them by Sir John Soane and where she entertained royally for the Duke there.

The Press intimated she had abandoned her children to be with the Duke. This was not so. Provision had been made for them.

Initially she was not popular with the Press, who depicted her as a chamber pot! In those days they were actually called jordans! When

T

his sculpture has provoked more controversy than most in London, in recent years with the caustic chief drama critic of The Daily Telegraph from 1991 to 2014, Charles Spencer, saying he would dearly love to smash it, along with the sea-shell on Aldburgh beach called The Scallop: ‘As ugly from afar as it is kitsch at close quarters.’ In her enfant-terrible inpetuous way, she has come up with something that is both thought-provoking and unattractive. A Conversation With Oscar Wilde (18541900) features Oscar’s head emerging from a green granite sarcophagus, smoking a cigarette, looking like a Medusa made from squeezed paint tubes, cast in bronze. The great Irish playwright is emerging, in essence, to engage the person(s) sitting on the tomb-like bench in conversation. It is playful, witty and in keeping with Maggi’s barking view of life and death.

It was the film-maker, author and artist, Derek Jarman who first championed the idea of a memorial to the Ango-Irish playwright and author, who had many memorable plays to his name and many West-End hits to his credit, including Lady Windermere’s Fan, An Ideal Husband and The Importance of Being Ernest. There is quote from the former play inscribed in the granite,

the Press realised she was living with the Duke they left her alone.

Dorothy enjoyed his status and warm nature. He had left the Navy and needed an anchor and a home. She stopped him drinking too heavily and generally advised him well.

She performed good works founding a free school for girls and a female friendly society. She was very generous to her daughters.

Eventually the Duke and Dorothy were not spending much time at Bushy House.

He was under pressure to find a rich wife.

They separated in 1811. He made a legal financial settlement for her and she was granted custody of the daughters. The sons stayed with their father. He stipulated she was not to return to the stage. However, poverty drove her to do this. Her sons inlaw were very demanding in their requests for money from her.

Dorothy Bland fled to France in 1815 and died at St Cloud near Paris in 1816.

The National Portrait Gallery has several portraits of this beautiful mistress to a future King.

That future King, George IV, commissioned Sir Francis Chantrey to make a statue of her to be placed in Westminster Abbey as a memorial. This did not happen. The statue passed to the first Earl of Munster, who bequeathed it to Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II in 1975.

It now resides in Buckingham Palace.

William Hazlitt, Essayist, said of Dorothy Bland (–Mrs Jordan), “Her face, her tears, her manners were irrestible. Her smile had the effect of sunshine, and her laugh did one good to hear it” Marian Maitland “We are all in the gutter but some of us are looking at the stars’” After Jarman’s death in 1994, a Statue for Oscar Wilde committee was formed, including the actors Dame Judi Dench and Sir Ian McKellen, the poet Seamus Heaney, and chaired by Sir Jeremy Isaacs. Twelve sculptors submitted their work, but it was Hambling who won through with her somewhat eccentric design, and the resulting piece was unveiled

by Stephen Fry in 1998 on the 98th anniversary of his death, at which Isaacs said,‘I believe that this statue sees a great day for the theatre, for London, for Ireland, for Oscar Wilde’s family and for all those people who admire both the man and his work’. Maggi had been an admirer of Wilde for some time and had previously drawn and painted him. As she explained, ‘The idea is that he is rising, talking, laughing, smoking from this sarcophagus and the passerby, should he or she choose to, can sit on the sarcophagus and have a conversation with him.’ Both Oscar and Maggi enjoy smoking, but his cigarette is currently missing, and has been replaced many times since its instalation. This statue will continue to divide opinion.

Goodness knows what his portrait bust looks like in the attic.

Don Grant

Dementia residence chefs create bespoke menus

to stimulate happy memories

Photograph © Don Grant

Blue Plaque: Dorothy Bland.

Mrs Jordan

Image © National Portrait Gallery

News

The award-winning hospitality team at Chelsea’s new dementia residence, Chelsea Court Place, are working to raise the standards of institutional catering, changing the future of food nutrition in care for the aged.

In a time where many care homes and hospitals are being scrutinised and penalised for poor food quality, variety and hygiene, the chefs at Chelsea Court Place are striving to achieve excellence and culinary enjoyment to enrich the lives of every resident and guest.

In addition to the basic enjoyment of eating quality, nutritious food, taste has the ability to trigger memories of life experiences, stimulating the happiness and comfort that is pertinent in people afflicted by Alzheimer’s disease and dementia.

The daily menus are created in response to the tastes and preferences of individual residents, who all receive an in-depth analysis from the hospitality team before moving into Chelsea Court Place. Their nutritional needs are evaluated in detail as well as their gastronomic preferences, favourites and comforts, including the meal they had on their wedding day. This information enables the team to curate bespoke dishes for each individual and to ensure optimal nutrition is maintained and meal -times are enjoyed.

Executive Chef Matt Dodge believes that good nutrition is paramount in protecting the immune system, keeping young or old individuals healthy and happy.

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International

VISIT OUR G A L L E RY O N

World Festivities Chirstmas is perhaps the most popular Christian holiday. Non-christians also celebrate it in part, making up a total of 2 billion people worldwide.

Nearly every culture and creed has exciting holidays and traditions during winter season, and some of these are mentioned below.

Omisoka 29-30 December Japan’s New Year’s Eve, O-souji, is a cleansing ritual, similar to Spring cleaning. Purified house entrances are adorned with shimekazari. Temple bells strike 108 times to see out the old year.

Mawlid an-Nabi 11-12 December Birthday of Prophet Muhammad, set on the 12th day of the third month of the Islamic calendar. It is accompanied by ceremony, songs, and reading the poem“Qasida Burda.”

Las Posadas 16-24 December Mexicans at home and abroad commemorate the travels of Mary and Joseph on their way to Bethlehem for nine days with nightly processions, reenactments, and piñatas filled with toys and sweets.

Wigilia 24 December Poland’s Christmas Eve begins when family and friends break the Oplatek wafer, wishing well upon each other in the upcoming year. It is followed by a meatless feast of more than seven courses including kartofle potato, sledzie herring, or pierogi dumplings.

Hanukkah (Chanukah) 24 December-1 January Hanukkah, or Chanukah, commemorates the victory of the Maccabees over the Syrian army in 165 BC and the rededication of the Temple in Jerusalem. Celebrations often see the lighting of a hanukkyah, traditional foods such as latkes potato pancakes sufganiyot donuts, games and singing.

Kawanza 26 December-1 January Pan-African holiday Kawanza focuses on family, community, and preserving

December 2016 / January 2017

International

culture. Each day of the week-long holiday is marked with a symbolic candle and reading one of the principles of Kawanza.

Catherine Godlewsky

020 7738 2348

By Ione Bingley

I

t has been a year since the world’s first comprehensive climate agreement, the Paris Agreement, was drafted to address the imminent issue of climate change by keeping global temperatures “well below” 2°C more than pre-industrial levels, reducing human emissions and shifting to a green economy. Since its creation, it has been

Armenian Apostolic Christmas 6 January The Armenian custom begins with feast to Jesus’s birth and baptism by John the Baptist. Christmas Eve sees the lighting of the lamps service, followed the next day by family visits and Armenian food.

Elderly in Japan exchanging driving licenses for ramen discount

Orthodox Christmas 7 January For 16 countries, including Russia, Ethiopia, and Greece, Christmas is celebrated on 7 January. Each country celebrates the Orthodox Christmas with different traditions, such as the Ethiopian tradition in which revelers wear white to church services and then join a sporting tournament, but most celebrations involve feasting and a manger scene.

Chinese New Year 28 January China’s lunar calendar years are named after their zodiac. 2017 is the Year of the Rooster for example. It is a time for family reunion, beginning as far as three weeks in advance. Traditional celebrations include fireworks, lanterns, parades, buying new clothes, decorating with lucky red, prayer, and exchanging red envelopes.

Nowruz March 20, 21 or 22 Persian lunar new years are a celebration of the end of Winter, starting on the first day of Spring. It is a holy day in Zoroastrianism and observed in Iran and its neighbours. Silver bearded Amu Nowruz brings children’s gifts, there are “shaking the house” cleans and Haft Seen table settings are made.

Can Trump trump climate change?

By Catherine Godlewsky

* 1 0 % E X T R A F R E E W I T H R E F C O D E : KC W1

376 K I N G ’ S ROA D, C H E L S E A , LO N D O N S W 3 5UZ 0 2 0 7 3 51 3 13 3 I I N F O @ C H E L S E A . K A L L K W I K . C O . U K K A L L K W I KC H E L S E A I W W W. C H E L S E A . K A L L K W I K . C O . U K *S U B JECT TO TERM S AND CONDITION S . S EE IN STORE .

Elderly people in central Japan are being offered discounts at ramen eateries if they turn in their driving licenses.

Japanese police have launched a programme that will offer drivers over the age of 74 a fifteen percent discount on ramen meals at the popular restaurant chain Sugakiya in exchange for their license, according to a report by the Japanese Jiji Press.

To show support for the programme, 97-year-old Buddhist priest Taa Shinen publicly gave up his license, saying that “It’s

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approved by 112 of the 197 member parties including Britain, China and the US. In November, delegates from almost 200 nations met for the most recent annual climate change conference, COP22, in Morocco to discuss global emissions and the particulars of the Paris Agreement. However, news of the election of Donald Trump as presidentelect of the US dominated the COP22 talks with many members seriously concerned about Trump’s plans to pull the US from the Paris Agreement at the soonest possible moment.

Trump’s stance on climate change appears to have softened somewhat since his election announcing that he stupid to try to maintain your licenses just out of pride.”

During the past year, 270,000 elderly Japanese people have turned in their driving licenses, but that number is less than six percent of Japan’s 4.8 million license holders over the age of 75.

The issues surrounding elderly drivers are increasing as Japan’s population ages; according to the Japan Times, the number of over-75’s with valid driving licenses has doubled in the last ten years and the percentage of accidents involving this demographic has risen from 7.4 percent to 12.8 percent during that time.

Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe called an emergency meeting in November to discuss the dangers of elderly drivers, taking into consideration the issues of senile dementia and how family members of the elderly driver are affected by accidents.

The Japanese town of Iruma is using technology to address the problem of wandering in dementia. Attaching a small QR code to the thumbnails of dementia sufferers, police are able to scan the code, revealing personal details and addresses that can help to reunite them with their carers. The stickers last two weeks on a fingernail and are not dislodged by washing.

“Being able to attach the seals on nails is a great advantage,” said an official in Iruma. “There are already ID stickers for clothes or shoes but dementia patients are not always wearing those items.”

now has an “open mind” on the Paris Agreement. This is a far cry from 2012 when he denounced climate change as a conspiracy, tweeting “the concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive”. And during his campaign, Trump promised to cut all climate aid to developing nations, slash clean energy funding and eliminate all climate change research conducted

by NASA as part of a crackdown on “politicised science”.

Despite various British political naysayers declaring climate policy over, including the Executive Director of Europe Economics and an architect of George Osborne’s austerity theory, Andrew Lilico, who declared on the ConservativeHome website: “the Paris Accord is done and global climate change action altogether is pretty much finished for the foreseeable future”, the Paris Agreement appeared to stand strong with every attending minister signing the ‘Marrakesh Proclamation’: “We welcome the Paris Agreement, adopted under the Convention, its rapid entry into force, with its ambitious goals, its inclusive nature and its reflection of equity and common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities, in the light of different national circumstances, and we affirm our commitment to its full implementation.”

The UN Special Envoy for Cities and Climate Change and Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg believes that the US will meet climate goals regardless of Trump’s appointment of climate sceptic Scott Pruitt as the next administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency. In his first public comments since Trump was elected, Bloomberg said that cities and businesses will keep reducing emissions because it’s in their self-interest Prime Minister Theresa May is due to visit the new president of the United States in January where it is understood that she will try to use her influence to further soften Trump’s attitude to climate change.

Speaking in the House of Commons, Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson warned against “premature” judgements condemning Trump’s climate change policies cautioning that they might threaten the UK’s ability to influence US actions in the future.

“It is important for us in this country to use our influence, which is very considerable, to help the United States to see its responsibilities, as I am sure they will,” said Johnson.

The details of the Paris Agreement are set to be completed by 2018 with a review of the progress in 2017. The hope is to create a fair “rulebook” that all the participant nations are committed to following.

Estonian president says Estonia does not fear migration or Russia

Scottish coral reefs at risk from climate change

By Max Feldman

By Polly Allen

Estonia’s president, Kersti Kaljulaid, has written an open letter counteracting media claims that much of Europe was ‘racked with fears about migration or Russia’.

Kaljulaid’s response to the damning piece by EurActiv was clear: ‘Estonia is in no way wracked with fears about either migration or Russia’. Furthermore, she believes refugees can be integrated in Estonian society.

Whilst acknowledging the global ‘unpredictable security climate’, the president insisted Estonia is not ‘cowering in the corner’. Kaljulaid also highlighted Estonia’s UN and NATO work.

The stance on Russia was clear: ‘we are aware of our geographic location and under no illusions about our neighbour.

Yet we are no more concerned than other allies’

Scottish deep-sea coral reefs are under threat from the consequences of climate change, according to a new study.

Marine scientists at Edinburgh University have produced research which warns that changes to winter weather conditions could threaten the long-term survival of coral populations, upsetting fragile ecosystems that support an array of marine species.

A spokesman for WWF Scotland said: “This research highlights the need for greater action to address climate change and the importance of having a coherent network of well-managed, properly-resourced marine protected areas.”

Corals allow diverse forms of marine life to thrive by building reef structures that provide protection from predators and safe spaces to reproduce.

Image © Gage Skidmore

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Opinion & Comment

MARIUS BRILL’S

MEMEING OF LIFE Meme: An element of a culture or system of behaviour passed from one individual to another...

Christmas Ghosts

A

Illustrations © Alice Stallard. alicestallard.com

s this year grinds to an end, you’re not alone in thinking “thank fuck for that.” It is a truth almost universally acknowledged that 2016 has been one of the crappest in recent history. Now, when the media traditionally do their rundowns of the year, all they can show is the world’s run down. It’s been a car crash year, whether it’s the whitelash rise of Farage and Trump, the deaths of icons from Bowie and Cohen to Wood and Wogan and even the Brazilian football team, or just because Inferno, one of the most ludicrous films in history, was released. It seems the unpalatable prospered and the good died.

Now is the time to think of them.

The dead have a history of being summoned up as the year draws to its end. The Christmas ghost story is a meme that stretches back much further than Dickens’ Christmas Carol. A quarter of a century before Shakespeare wrote his Winter’s Tale, it was already a tradition for

Barnabus in Marlowe’s The Jew of Malta (1589) who says, “Now I remember those old women’s words, Who in my wealth would tell me winter’s tales, And speak of spirits and ghosts that glide by night.”

It’s no coincidence that James Joyce’s The Dead is set at a Christmas time gathering.

In my own family it is Uncle Edgar who lives with the dead and loves to tell stories of our ghosts. He’s a fanatic for family trees and history, but then there’s not much to do out in the steppes of Norfolk where he lives, where the earth is steel hard in winter, the air is so cold just breathing in hurts and breathing out creates a fog thicker than Katie Hopkins.

From his front window you can see for miles over the frozen levels, each tree a craze of lines in the flat December daylight.

Every other Christmas we schlep up to his house, a pretty converted vicarage with timber beams and a roaring fireplace beneath a mantelpiece hung with paperchains and festooned with Christmas cards mostly addressed to “Dear Valued Customer”. And every year there’s some relative he has discovered in the annals whom he reckons could just be a Royal bastard but more usually,

020 7738 2348

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Opinion & Comment with a bloodline chockful of cads and bounders, was a right royal bastard.

Edgar lives alone but he always invites his mate Steve to Christmas. Steve’s a single dad with a tiny daughter called Emily who is the proud product of parental overcompensation. ‘Spoilt’, is too slight a term, like slightly off milk; Emily is the full Petri dish of bubonic fungal growth. Last year she was dragging around one of the most expensive dolls known to humanity, an “American Girl” almost as big as her. The sort that have such realistic eyes you will them to blink. But Emily had absolutely no sense of value. The doll was clearly pretty new when I saw it but she had already smashed the right side of its face, the head was cracked and deformed. She didn’t care.

I had come up ahead of the rest of the family to help Edgar with the dinner and avoid having to go with the rest of my family “last minute” gift shopping.

Emily answered the door and sneered at my Tesco shopping bags. “Where are the presents?”

“Nice to see you too.” Inside, I pulled my frost bitten muddy shoes off and traipsed the shopping bags to the kitchen. Emily stayed in the front hall, heaving her doll on to a chair. I put the food away while she gave her American Girl a gruesomely detailed lecture on road safety.

Edgar came in. “I thought I heard someone.” He gave me a hug. “You’re the first then?”

“Came to help with the food.”

“Plenty of time for that.” We went through to his living room where the fire was already roaring.

We drank and chatted as the light faded outside and Edgar told the story of a distant cousin of my great grandfather who had been a very successful medium when Spiritualism was all the rage.

Recently he’d found an old newspaper clipping about a spirit visitation she had conjured up but I never got to hear his ghost story because it was then the rest of my family turned up, setting off a maelstrom of voices and activity. It was just before dinner when my youngest asked about Steve, who still hadn’t come down.

“Oh,” Edgar sighed, “he’s, he’s not coming.”

I wondered for a moment if something bad had happened; that was why he was looking after Emily.

“Emily, you know Emily,” Edgar said.

We all nodded. “Last week she had an accident. Just outside here. He pointed at the dark window and we all looked up for a moment to see our reflections in the black glass. “Playing with a doll. Run over. By a van. Crushed her skull. Steve’s just not up to anything. She was his life.”

“But...” I started looking around for Emily.

I ran to the front hall. The doll was still there on the chair by the door. The head crushed, the plastic skull cracked, the glass eyes staring.

Who wants to be a billionaire?

DUDLEY SUTTON’S I WISH I HAD WRITTEN THAT

By Peter Burden

Those of the World’s population who like to apply a little intelligent analysis to current affairs were left deeply flummoxed by the extraordinary decision taken by the American electorate on November 8th. Their choice of the Great Pussy Pouncer for President was, for many in both the US and in Britain, frankly incomprehensible. It’s hard to say who comparable over here might have generated the same blend of mirth, incredulity and dismay. There are a few candidates, for sure, although none of them could ever have been nominated here, let alone voted in as Premier. Or could they? For who could have guessed that 38% of the British people would vote to commit national hara kiri by leaving Europe?

Imagine any of our home-grown billionaires proposing themselves for President as Mr Chump did: Sir Philip Green, for example, or the TV Reality Show Star, Lord Sugar (the obvious comparison), and several others who might have had a go.

Sir Richard Branson, if he weren’t English, would love to be President; or Sirs Dave and Fred Barclay (on a twin ticket), or the world’s polluter in chief, Bernie Ecclestone, or David Beckham (though he’s worth only half a bill and someone would have to revoice his speeches). Then there’s the distinguished social reformer, Mike Ashley (who, like the Pussy Pouncer, enjoys speaking frankly), or, more likely, Richard Desmond, or even the Pouncer’s new best friend, Nigel, the infamous Anglo-Oik. These are all absurd options, of course; however we have been warned not only by the American electorate but also, more distressingly, by our own that strange things can happen in this era of collective, hideously ill-informed global anti-establishmentism. The sense of unreality this has created has been heightened in Britain by the complete disappearance of our former premier and architect of the tragically ill-structured referendum that has allowed a minority of the British people to bundle us all out of Europe.

Now, of course, every commentator in the universe has been trying to fathom how the always preposterous prospect of ‘President’ Trump has become a reality.

This conundrum has become even more bizarre now that he seems to be backtracking on most of the extravagant and more ridiculous pledges he made to the US people in the course of his campaign.

This series of u-turns and voltefaces over Obamacare, the Mexican Wall or banging up Hillary for her

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THEY'RE FETCHING IN IVY AND HOLLY

By Charles Causley 'They're fetching in ivy and holly And putting it this way and that.

I simply can't think of the reason,' Said Si-Si the Siamese cat.

'They're pinning up lanterns and streamers.

There's mistletoe over the door.

They've brought in a tree from the garden.

I do wish I knew what it's for.

'It's covered with little glass candles That go on and off without stop.

They've put it to stand in a corner And tied up a fairy on top.

'They're stringing bright cars by the dozen And letting them hang in a row.

Some people outside in the roadway Are singing a song in the snow. obscure misdeeds suggest that the Pussy Pouncer simply conjured up promises which he knew he couldn’t or wouldn’t keep simply because he judged that just enough of the American people wanted to hear them. More bizarrely, though, it seems likely that they knew they were being lied to; and they didn’t mind, for they and us, and most of the advanced world are so used to being lied to that we are inured to it. For decades now the advertising industry which plays a potent and nefarious role in shaping prevailing culture has extravagantly and persistently lied to its audiences, and it’s as if we’ve come to expect it.

A simple example of the effectiveness of a well-turned lie was the marketing of Le Piat d’Or, a branded French wine of pedestrian quality in a distinctive bottle that appeared in Britain in the 1980s. It was cleverly promoted by enticing TV commercials featuring French folk as stereotypical as those in Peter Mayle’s cliché-ridden Year in Provence. The big lie was that ‘Les Francais adore le Piat d’Or’. The truth was that the French did not adore Le Piat d’Or because they’d never seen or heard of it. It seems likely that a lot of the punters who went out in hordes to buy it from the supermarkets didn’t really believe the lie, but appreciated that they were being deceived in a charming and seductive way. In the same way, there are legions of ageing men who are happy to believe that a certain ‘men’s’ hair dye “only targets the grey.” Impossible, of course, but the lie clearly has great appeal for some of our top entertainers, like Sir Cliff, and Sir Mick, who looked even more vain and foolish when their colleague, Sir

Tom abandoned the whole charade and became his far more wholesome, grizzled old self again.

There was an echo of this mendacity in our own recent referendum during which the xenophobes and little Englanders were happy to believe untruths put about by the Brexiters, because they were untruths that resonated with their own prejudices.

In other words, whether you are an advertiser selling hair-dye that will miraculously reverse the ageing process, or a politician peddling a self-serving policy masquerading as a benefit to a large chunk of the electorate, you may lie with impunity, provided that you are using attractive, comforting, user-friendly inexactitudes.

Politicians have always lied; we know and understand that, and while the anti-establishmentists want a new set of politicians like Farage and Trump, they also want them to carry on that particular political tradition. And as a seasoned American huxter with the morals of city hoodlum, the President Elect is probably as good a liar as you could find anywhere in the world.

www.peterburden.net

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'I saw all the children write letters And - I'm not at all sure this was wise They posted each one up the chimney.

I couldn't believe my own eyes.

'What on earth, in the middle of winter, Does the family think that it's at?

Won't somebody please come and tell me?'

Said Si-Si the Siamese cat.

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Features

Features

Rejection of hope:

In air we trust

By Ione Bingley

Obama and the Republicans

By Max Feldman

I

F

or a president who was written off as a doomed lame duck sometime around 2011 when the Republican party seized back control of Congress, the actual amount which Obama has accomplished can take you by surprise. Beyond the controversial (and frankly compromised) affordable health act which took up most of his contemporary column ink he quietly reduced unemployment from 7.8% to 4.9% (and falling), successfully bailed out (and saved) the American Auto industry, reached a nuclear deal with Iran, appointed two women to the supreme court, tripled renewable energy sources like solar and wind power and presided over the legalisation of gay marriage.

However the sky high expectations brought about by the popular movement behind his 2008 election (Obama himself has said that he has often seemed to act as “a blank screen on which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views”) meant that disappointment and disillusion were the only practical outcomes.

The Obama presidency also took place during a period where the mainstream media began to lose its grip on the general public in an unprecedented fashion. Carefully researched facts could be ignored in favour of a teaming multitude of fake news sites that published clickbait headlines that didn’t even bear a nodding acquaintance with the truth.

The proliferation of patently untrue conspiracy theories such as the ‘birther’ movement (who claimed that Obama was born in Kenya and thus ineligible for the presidency) managed to dominate public consciousness (President-Elect Donald Trump was a prominent birther) in a way that would be unimaginable even as recently as 2007. Complicating matters was Obama’s perceived aloofness, affected in part in order to attempt to smother accusations that he was allowing his racial identity to effect his decision making process, which as a technique that ended up pleasing neither side, liberals felt disenchanted that Obama wasn’t the leftist avatar of change they’d anointed him as and the right remained threatened by what he was perceived as representing.

Of these two responses to Obama’s premiership it was the Republican party whose behaviour has had the largest effect on American political and public life. Riding a wave of alienated voters enflamed by the nascent post-truth news reporting of Fox News and their ilk,

the Republican reimagined themselves as something closer to saboteurs than a party in opposition. Throwing themselves into fevered opposition of any and all legislation or policy decisions emerging from Obama to subvert the President eventually turned the very idea of non-partisan politics into something of a joke. After the 2010 midterm elections where the Democrats suffered some of the biggest losses since the great depression, the Presidency and the Republicans have tussled for political control in a battle with all the dignity of a drunken brawl. Before the midterms, Republican minority leader Mitch McConnell expressed his intention to make Obama a “one term president” and former Republican House Leader John Boehner went as far as to say that due to the looming Healthcare reforms that "This is not a time for compromise...

We’re going to do everything -- and I mean everything -- we can do, to kill it, stop it, slow it down."

This wasn’t just related to partisan issues like healthcare. Fewer district and circuit court judges were confirmed in President Obama’s first term than in the first terms of the previous three presidents, thanks to Senate Republicans’ stall-and-delay strategy.

A majority of Obama’s uncontroversial first-term judicial nominees, those who were both reported by the Senate Judiciary Committee and confirmed by the full Senate overwhelmingly, took over 200 days to be confirmed. Since Republicans took charge of the Senate in 2015, judicial confirmations have virtually ground to a halt. According to the Alliance for Justice, Senate Republicans are “on pace for the lowest number of judicial confirmations in more than 60 years.” The nadir of

this policy came with the infamous government shutdown of 2013 where the Republicans forced the workings of government to grind to a halt for 16 days as a last ditch attempt to break what they disparagingly dubbed ‘Obamacare’.

Even in the last days of the Obama presidency we’re seeing the continuation of these politics of obstruction with the still ongoing blockade on the Supreme Court nomination to replace the archconservative Antonin Scalia (who died in February) which ignored Obama’s compromise choice of Merrick Garland in favour of political gridlock. Prior to Donald Trump’s electoral victory senior Republicans like John McCain were going as far as to claim that this stalling would proceed indefinitely in the event of a Clinton victory “I promise you that we will be united against any Supreme Court nominee that Hillary Clinton, if she were president, would put up”.

As a result of this historically nearly unprecedented hostile Congress, Obama increasingly began to use his executive privilege to govern like a monarch, via executive orders. As a result as his premiership has worn on it increasingly felt like Obama was effectively ruling alone. As ever the perceived aloofness in legislates based on his feelings of personal moral and political authority on a multitude of controversial issues ranging from abortion to gun rights, has had the knock on effect of turbocharging the fires of paranoia and alienation over government overreach amongst his critics. Regardless of the absurdly partisan waters in which Obama was obligated to swim, he wasn’t exactly without his own disappointments.

Guantanamo Bay remains open, Wall Street has run rampant in a historic stretch of regulatory and prosecutorial

inaction and the betrayals on securitystate issues like drone assassination, secrecy and surveillance have been a hard pill to swallow for even his most dedicated supporters. The ‘blank screen’ has proven a far greater willingness for ‘business as usual’ style politics than the message that he ran on would ever have suggested.

However despite these disappointments he has governed with an intelligence and style that will only be thrown into sharper relief by the incoming, notoriously thin skinned, Donald Trump. He faced an extraordinary challenge, entering the White House as the first AfricanAmerican president at a time when the economy was in ruins and the culture wars were spiralling out of control.

His political path forward has always been a tightrope where both ends threaten to burst into flames at any moment. A presidency weighed down by corruption, indecisiveness or personal weaknesses would have been a disaster and he was able to avoid each with striking alacrity. In addition his flagship healthcare initiative, even in its current, Republican mutilated form was an incredible achievement in a country that effectively still views even the slightest whiff of socialism to be political (if not actual) suicide. Obama’s calm unruffled approach to the tsunami of hatred (both racially motivated and not) and vicious, laughably untrue rumours (that he was a secret Muslim, that he was born in Kenya etc ad infinitum) has been a masterclass in statesmanlike grace. The 44th President of the United States was mortal and occasionally fallible, but has proved a credit to his office. By contrast the 45th seems to be determined to reduce the presidency to an ugly joke.

t has proved a telling couple of years for the growing air pollution disaster faced by city-dwellers worldwide.

And in a year that has, according to the UN, been consistently the hottest on record and the third in a row of recordbreaking years, it seems that the effects of human emissions have moved from a prediction to a reality.

It has been over a year since the Volkswagen scandal or ‘dieselgate’ revealed that, contrary to popular belief, diesel cars are the main emitters of toxic nitrous oxides and city inhabitants have begun to suffer the effects.

In the largest study of its kind with data from cities across Europe, longexposure to air pollution and traffic noise was linked to a greater incidence of high blood pressure. Further scientific papers this year have linked air pollution to an increased risk of mortality from several cancers including those not directly caused by pollution; stroke, kidney disease and dark facial skin spots, in addition to the respiratory and cardiovascular disease links already known.

Higher air pollution days in Shanghai, China were also shown to decrease the efficiency of workers, reducing their work speed and concentration when compared to lower pollution days. This pioneering study from Tom Chang of the University of Southern California showed the potential for air pollution to affect, not only the individual, but also the economy.

This year, the World Health Organisation (WHO) revealed that 92 percent of the world’s population is exposed to unsafe levels of air pollutants with one in seven children vulnerable to the effects of air pollution worldwide, according to UN children’s charity UNICEF. “Air pollution is a major contributing factor in the deaths of around 600,000 children under five every year,” said UNICEF executive director Antony Lake.

The majority of these tragic and untimely deaths occur in South East Asia where, in November, Delhi saw its residents “cowering by air purifiers” in a bid to protect their children and elderly from soaring levels of the most dangerous particles. To understand the health consequences, scientists were looking back to the fallout from London’s Great Smog of 1952 that is believed to have caused as many as 12,000 premature deaths with the knock-on health effects, such as asthma, still present in London’s population today.

It came as welcome news then, for city-dwelling Britons, and in particular Kensington, Chelsea and Westminster

December 2016 / January 2017

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online: www.KCWToday.co.uk residents who have been living in the most polluted areas of London for the past four years, that the government is being forced to address the air pollution problem more actively. This followed a High Court ruling, brought by environmental lawyer group ClientEarth, that claimed the government, up to now, had been doing the minimum possible to avoid fines from the European commission, rather than addressing the issue “as soon as possible”.

Following the court ruling at Prime Minister’s Questions, Theresa May indicated that the government would respond positively, with new proposals: “We now recognise that Defra [the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs] has to look at the judgement made by the courts and we now have to look again at the proposals we will bring forward. Nobody in this house doubts the importance of the issue of air quality. We have taken action, there

announced that ‘Clean Air Zones’ are to be established in five cities; Birmingham, Leeds, Nottingham, Derby and Southampton by 2020. By encouraging the replacement of old, polluting vehicles with new cleaner models, the government hopes to reduce the health impacts of target areas within the cities that currently suffer air quality problems.

Local authorities have also been encouraged to copy the Clean Air Zone initiative in their own jurisdictions.

“We need to tackle air pollution and creating Clean Air Zones will improve the quality of life for people who live and work in our towns and cities, both now and in the future,” said Environment Minister Thérèse Coffey. “Real progress has been made, but there is more to do, which is why we have also committed more than £2 billion to greener transport schemes since 2011.”

According to the Transport Minister John Hayes, “the number of ultra-low

is more to do and we will do it.”

It has been 17 years since rules were approved to clean up our air, however, ClientEarth CEO James Thornthon is adamant that the government has continued to break its own and the EU’s laws to cut financial costs at the expense of our health.

“Health is more important than Treasury bean-counting and ministers should, urgently, put health first,” said Thornton. “We all, children and adults alike, have the right to breathe clean air.”

In their 2015 election manifesto, the Conservative party promised to “make motoring greener and promote cycling, to protect your environment”. To achieve this, the party declared that they were aiming “for almost every car and van to be a zero emission vehicle by 2050”.

The government has since pledged a £35 million package to boost the uptake of ultra-low emission cars with thousands of new electric charge points to be installed across the UK. This funding is part of the £600 million government investment promised to promote ultra-low emission vehicles by 2020.

The government has also recently

emission vehicles on our roads are at record levels and new registrations have risen by 250% in just over 2 years.” But as Central London is still one of the most polluted areas in the UK, clearly there is still a way to go.

The accession of self-confessed “greenest Mayor ever” Sadiq Khan to the title of Mayor of London in May this year, brought the dream of a cleaner, greener London a step closer to a reality. Since he took office, Khan has pushed through an additional £10 tax on older more polluting cars entering the congestion charge zone at any time of day. The ‘T-Charge’ is to come into effect in October 2017.

Following the Clean Air Zone example, In addition to the T-Charge Khan has set in place plans for an Ultra-Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) in central London to come into effect by 2019. Khan also hopes to extend the ULEZ to the North and South Circulars citing City Hall research that shows that “people living in London’s most deprived communities, often by busy roads, are on average exposed to 25 per cent higher levels of harmful NO2 pollution”.

The immediate effects of traffic

restrictions on air pollution were neatly demonstrated in November on one of Europe’s consistently busiest and most polluted streets, Oxford Street.

King’s College London saw the level of toxic NO2 drop by a third when Very Important Pedestrian (VIP) day closed the street for a whole Sunday allowing shoppers to roam the street and enjoy the Christmas lights unhindered by traffic.

Living Streets, the UK charity for everyday walking says this new evidence demonstrates why Khan’s commitment to enforce a vehicle-free Oxford Street by 2020 is so important and is urging the Mayor, TfL and Westminster Council to take action before Crossrail opens in 2018, bringing an estimated 150,000 more people a day onto London’s most famous street.

“Putting walking first throughout London’s centre will help create a world-leading city where people have the freedom to breathe fresh air, experience our iconic streets and stay healthy; not just during one-off days, but all year-round,” said Living Streets Chief Executive, Joe Irvin.

However, the government’s decision to back the Heathrow expansion did come as a potential blow for the zero emissions camp, despite claims from the Department of Transport that “modernising the use of our air space will boost the sector and will help to further reduce noise and carbon emissions”.

While the government originally claimed that a new runway at Heathrow could be delivered within the UK’s carbon obligations, various government advisors including chairman of the committee on climate change and former Conservative environment minister, Lord Deben are now adamant that a third runway will lead to even higher levels of toxic air in an area where pollution is already well above legal levels for NO2 emissions. And would put undue pressure to lower the emissions of other sectors to honour Britain’s commitment to its own Climate Change Act 2008 and the recently ratified UN treaty, the Paris Agreement on climate change.

United against the new runway, City Hall with TfL has since joined Hillingdon, Richmond, Wandsworth and Windsor and Maidenhead Councils, and Greenpeace as they prepare for a joint legal challenge to overturn the expansion.

The latest report published by the European Environment Agency states that air pollution is responsible for 50,000 premature deaths in the UK a year and the second highest number of deaths in Europe from nitrogen dioxide pollution. The report also highlights the severe knock-on economic impacts from the loss of human productivity and the agricultural losses caused by air pollution.

While air quality policies across Europe have shown that pollution levels can be controlled, we will have to wait and see whether the government is able to protect ourselves and our children from the disastrous effects.

Image © Rajat Gupta

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Business & Finance

By David Barrie

the silent corporate raiders

By Douglas Shanks

A

young Austrian client rang me up the other day and asked me for help with her domestic rates. I told her we’re accountants; someone else deals with rates. Who? No idea. So Doug, you deal with personal tax, corporation tax, fuel tax, VAT, insurance tax, other indirect taxes, PAYE and national insurance, selfassessment, partnership tax, tax on benefits and LLPs and sundry other taxes but not rates? The other taxes are set nationally; rates are a local government tax. But they’re a tax, and you don’t deal with them.

Well, yes. And you don’t even know who does? If you were a business you could try ringing a surveyor, I said helpfully.

Domestic rates? No idea...

The other problem with business rates are these helpful companies that cold-call. The ethics of the contingency rates-rebate boiler-house industry are for others; hearsay tells us to put the phone down, with many horror stories of clients being small-printed.

The networking dinner I always attend is the Vistage Alumni hosted by that giant of a man, physically and as a personality, Charles Llewellyn. This year I met Matthew Kirby, Head Yak Driver at Chozen, founder of my favourite fast-food emporium, and delighted in showering him with praise. Aiming never to be negative, I do try and utter only genuinely-believed positive: the brownrice option, the generous portions, the excellent and varied sushi, breaded prawn and chicken side dishes, the noodles and the salads. Hannah and Kirsten enjoy an early evening burger in Beaconsfield, when collected from work, for the latenight big-Jag Edinburgh dash. Chozen’s outlet at the service station is one of its best, and is an authorised paternal travelling feast; so everyone’s happy.

I first fell in love with Chozen during half-a-dozen happy years working in Borough Market, before Hannah moved in, and I grabbed the opportunity better to get to know No1 (chronologically) daughter, and moved HQ home. I said to Matthew I was surprised he’d given

up what was an ideal site at the top of Borough High Street, pretty much a flagship. The quality of the food sat well alongside the various wonderful but pricey independent outlets in the market, emphasising the value for money that Chozen represents. Matthew said that the rent was being tripled from £50,000 to £150,000 so that would make the site uncommercial. I said I would have thought such a site could take a £100k hit. Yes, Matthew agreed, but not £200k, taking into account a corresponding hike in business rates; particularly bearing in mind it wasn’t likely to end there.

So that’s it: a successful young business pushed out by business rates. By that stage I’d pressed most of Matthew Kirby’s buttons: “Business rates is almost a stealth tax, often applied without logic. Take our Beaconsfield and Cobham locations.

Absolutely identical in footprint and other factors (both in service stations) and pretty similar. Rates increase in April 2017 will be a very modest 2.5% in Cobham, and 104% in Beaconsfield!

Ridiculous. We will have to fight the latter and share any relief with the surveyor. So much for the government trying to look after the High Steet. No rates on the internet so retailers once again disadvantaged. End of rant”. www.chozen.co.uk I can’t be the only accountant outraged by our own complicity. For years we’ve been telling ourselves rates are someone else’s problem. My Austrian client is right. Firms up and down the country are waking up, ensuring clients gain the same level of protection from the business rates, as they do from revenue and customs and all the other iniquitous disingenuous stealth-raiders. The state can stick its ingenuous ‘immoral avoidance and evasion’ rhetoric. It takes too much and wastes it. Accountants in blue woad are bouncing back to flush out iniquity. With Trump shaking up America like it’s 1776, ‘no taxation without representation’ has never felt a more relevant anti-establishment battle cry.

Douglas Shanks is DSC Metropolitan’s purple-faced railing-at-the-rates-withswagger-and-attitude partner.

December 2016 / January 2017

Business & Legal Angel Investing

Business rates

020 7738 2348

Since the financial crisis of 2008, the alternative market for private investment in enterprise has grown dramatically.

Record low interest rates, increasingly generous tax reliefs under Enterprise Investment Schemes, stress tests on banks and a change in attitude towards entrepreneurship have been key.

Alternative finance business lending is now more than 12% of the market for lending to all small businesses in the UK – and it is experiencing eye-watering year-on-year growth.

‘Crowdfunding’ enables individuals to back products or services for equity, in shares, or debt, in bonds or minibonds. Equity-based investment trebled in value to over £300m in 2015, with online platform Seedrs recently reporting results from its portfolio of an overall 14% annualised rate of return. Five years ago, there were just a handful of plucky startups in the sector. Equitybased crowdfunding was just 0.3% of the total start-up and early stage equity investment in the UK. Today, it is almost a fifth.

‘Peer-to-peer’ lenders match savers, who are willing to lend, with borrowers – either individuals or small businesses.

Zopa and Funding Circle, the two biggest lenders in the UK, report that they have facilitated loans valued at over £4bn. According to analysts AltFi, absolute returns are just over 5%.

Then there are ‘angel’ investors.

There are some 18,000 active ‘angels’ in the UK, who invest an average of £47,000 every year into early-stage businesses, says the UK Business Angels Association. Individual angels are making more investments than ever and the Association reports average returns of 15%-20% p.a. when invested across a portfolio.

Two years ago, I founded a network of angel investors in West London, with support from the Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea. Members of Wild Blue Cohort seek profit on their investment but also a more vibrant entrepreneurial economy; and local, on our doorstep, if possible. Members have invested in 11 companies to date, with 4 new deals about to close. Investments range from £10,000 to £200,000+, have created well over £2m+ in value and 35+ new projected full-time jobs.

The popular image of angel investing is of an elite gin-Jag-golf-club millionaire with piles of cash, confronted by a nervous, rambling entrepreneur intent on revolutionising home shelving or the safety of garden sheds.

Reality could not be more different.

Think of the Chief Financial Officer of a cloud computing company, or alumni of a global private equity or venture capital firm; and an

ambitious, progressive entrepreneur set on displacing a market leading firm, removing intermediaries in transactions, achieving fast growth and winning guidance and support, not just cash off the table.

Over the last twenty years, the rise of Silicon Valley, global banking, the development of computing and corporate culture have transformed entrepreneurship, the nature of wealth and its investment.

Angel investors offer entrepreneurs a sizeable lump sum, as individuals or a syndicate, but also sector expertise. Eight members of Wild Blue invested recently in an online ‘marketplace’. Two investors joined the Board of the company and a third is acting as an informal advisor.

Technology, healthcare, online marketplaces, e-commerce businesses, education, food and drink companies have been favoured by angel investors in recent years. Businesses that appeal have an inspirational, trustworthy entrepreneur, a clearly addressable market and solve a defined problem. They are able to scale quickly, attract new investors and have a clear ‘exit’ strategy.The age of raising finance for your business on the fairway of the 18th hole is well and truly over. It is now about online clicks, links and a flight of local angels schooled in the new economy.

David Barrie is founder/CEO of Kensington-based angel network Wild Blue Cohort http://wildbluekc.com .

Membership enquiries: david@wildbluekc.com.

Investment enquiries: deepali@wildbluekc.com

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Pre nuptial agreements

By Hal Branch

U

ntil relatively recently the English Court did not recognise pre-nuptial agreements on divorce. However, following the case of Radmacher v Granatino in 2010, prenuptial agreements are now something to be thought about for a couple entering into marriage. The happy, but yet unmarried couple, are often hesitant to consider a pre-nuptial agreement in view of it seeming unromantic. However, there is also the argument that such an agreement can provide clarity for the parties, particularly where one of them is significantly wealthier than the other.

A pre-nuptial agreement makes it clear that a couple are marrying for love and not for any other reason. In the unhappy circumstances of a divorce, a pre-nuptial agreement ensures that the individuals receive that which they had agreed to and can save on legal fees and stress in what otherwise may have been a lengthy and acrimonious fight over the division of assets.

A well drafted pre-nuptial agreement should consider; a) the pre-marriage assets of the parties; b) the assets accumulated during the marriage; c) anticipated changes in the agreement in

Hal Branch, Partner, LSGA

the event that the husband and wife have children.

To ensure that the Court will accept the pre-nuptial agreement as binding, it must have been entered into by each party with a full appreciation of its implications. This requires that each party is separately represented by a solicitor and that both give full disclosure of their own assets.

It is very important that these procedures are followed as, strictly speaking, the parties cannot by agreement oust the jurisdiction of the Court to decide on the appropriate division of their finances.

In an act of fairness, the Court may be required to award an element of compensation to the financially weaker party, contrary to the agreement,

if the pre-nuptial agreement gave an unfair advantage to the stronger party. Ultimately, the Court will give appropriate weight to an agreement by considering whether it is fair and represents the true intentions of the parties. A pre-nuptial agreement is therefore a useful means of setting out your intentions and seeing them actioned if the marriage breaks down.

LSGA gets straight to the heart of the matter Our lawyers specialise in: high value residential property, commercial property, company and commercial work (and related corporate finance), employment law, commercial litigation, property litigation, personal injury, professional negligence, medical negligence, criminal, divorce and family work.

LSGA Solicitors.

35 Piccadilly London, W1J 0LP Tel: 020 7851 0100 Email: info@lsga.co.uk Fax: 020 7851 0136

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Astronomy

020 7738 2348

December 2016 / January 2017

Science & Technology Helix Nebula

By Scott Beadle FRAS

A visual snapshot of the end of our Sun

D

eep in the far south of the zodiacal constellation Aquarius lies NGC7293 the Helix Nebula. This object illustrates one of the best examples of the last stages in the evolutionary track of a star similar to our Sun. It was discovered in 1824 by Karl Ludwig Harding during his early sky surveys but missed by our own great star finders Sir William Herschel and John Herschel probably due to their using high powered telescopes with narrow fields of view whilst the object has a quite large surface area and low surface brightness.

Sir William Herschel first used the term planetary nebula because he thought these objects resembled the fuzzy disc shape of the outer planet Uranus, which he had recently discovered. We now know these nebulae are not related to planets in any way.

Instead, they represent the far end of the evolutionary cycle of stars similar in mass to our Sun. Our galaxy holds more than 200 billion stars, and likely only 10,000 are planetary nebulae. The answer to this rarity lies in the fact that on a galactic timescale, these nebulae are like puffs of smoke lasting only tens of thousands of years before dissipating.

The twisted appearance of the Helix Nebula in images leads to its name. From our earthly perspective, we seem to be looking into spreading shells of gas. As a result, the ring like structures of the nebula looks as if they are twisted.

A few years ago, the Hubble Space Telescope revealed an incredible amount of detail in the Helix. Because of that image the nebula earned the nickname The Eye of God. Fortunately, the Helix is one of the nearest planetary nebulae known, a mere 700 light years away allowing it to be imaged in unprecedented detail.

Astronomers have discovered thousands of knotlike structures that appear to have Top: NGC7293 Composite Image: NASA/Hubble/Cerro Tololo Middle: Infrared Image: NASA/JPL/Spitzer Space Telescope Comet shaped knots: blue-green Dust shield surrounding White Dwarf: Red Bottom: Ultraviolet radiation from the central white dwarf bombards the rest of Helix Nebula causing it to glow: NASA/GALEX Right: Curious cometary knots are gas and dust driven out by the highly energetic stellar wind of the central white dwarf star. NASA/JPL

long ‘comet’ tails. These tails are much larger than our solar system’s vagabonds.

Recent images resolved the knots as large as twice the size of our solar system, with tails stretching some 160 billion Kms (100 billion Mls). Astronomers estimate there are more than 20,000 knots, and perhaps as many as 40,000.

Planetary nebulae represent the last stage in the life of a sun-like star. Think of the events that led up to the star’s transformation as a metamorphosis, like a butterfly emerging from its chrysalis.

For about 10 billion years, a star like the Sun transforms hydrogen into helium at a fairly steady rate. Eventually the star begins to swell and becomes a red giant. After millions of years, the star will begin to shrink until the temperature and internal pressure become so great that the helium at the star’s core starts fusing into carbon. For about 100,000 years, the star yo-yos back and forth as it shrinks and swells. Near the end of this process, the star puffs off its outer layers of gas.

Ultraviolet radiation from the stars extremely hot core excites the hydrogen, nitrogen, and oxygen in the expanding shell. The gas glows from this radiation, which allows the observer to glimpse the thin layer of material that the stellar remnant is blowing off. When our Sun develops into a planetary nebula, it will engulf the inner planets, Mercury, Venus, Earth, and possibly Mars in this deadly transformation.

The progenitor star that created the Helix Nebula may have surged off its outer layers 12000yrs ago and had another shedding about 6000 years ago, so these multiple shells are now embedded in each other, which is why images show two distinct rings in the Helix.

In about 5 billion years, our Sun will transform itself into a planetary nebula, but first it will become a monstrous, bloated red giant star. In his story The Time Machine, H.G. Wells placed his traveller on a beach during our star’s transformation: “I stopped very gently and sat upon the Time Machine, looking around…. Overhead it was a deep Indian red and starless, and south-eastward it grew brighter to a glowing scarlet where, cut by the horizon, lay the huge ball of the Sun, red and motionless”.

A striking image of our star during its final chapter. Melancholy, yes, but how fascinating it is that we can gaze into the night sky and see the future in the past.

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Confucius bird fossil’s preserved feathers contain traces of colour

Image © Xiaoli Wang. Institue of Geology & Palæontology, Linyi University

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By Natanael Mota

T

his 10-15cm Eoconfuciusornis bird on the right was alive 130 million years ago. It was discovered in the paleontological treasure trove called the “Early Cretaceous Jehol Biota” ( Jiufotang formation) in the provinces of Hebei and Liaoning, China. Chinese and U.S. scientists analysed the feathers in search of a protein called beta-keratin (not carotene found in carrots), that held colour molecules called melanosomes. The curiosity of the scientists was less restrained on this particularly well-preserved specimen. They used a destructive technique called electron microscopy to chip a thin layer off the surface of the fossil in exchange for deeper knowledge and the ability to tell the difference between original and microbe-made melanosomes. The Eoconfuciusornis is the oldest known avian after the proto-bird Archaeopteryx. Paleontologists think the bird may have been brown and black in colour and whilst the study is not conclusive, it points in the same direction. The same technology was used to study ancient human DNA and can be used on other dinosaur specimens to study the evolution of feathers.

In 1928 Bristol born Paul Dirac discovered the existence of antimatter. His electron equations contained a negative solution, which opened the doors to the previously unknown zoo of antimatter.

Electrons, neutrons, protons and so on... all have a corresponding character in Alice’s Wonderland of antimatter.

When matter and antimatter touch, both cease to exist, creating a release of energy. This is the far-fetched premise for the antimatter bomb of Dan Brown’s Angels and Demons.

The antielectron particle was named as “positron” by the scientific community.

Positrons were finally documented at the California Institute of Technology in 1932 by Carl David Anderson when studying cosmic rays. They are used in PET (positron emission tomography), for example, to diagnose cancer in detailed 3D images of metabolic activity

in the human body.

Like antimatter and matter, Russian cosmologist Igor Novikov’s white holes are the antithesis of black holes.

Novikov saw white holes as the other side to the solution of Einstein’s field equations. In the same way that black holes are the physical effect of extreme gravity where matter and light cannot escape from, white holes would be timereversed and theoretically expel matter, so that nothing could ever enter them, until they “explode and disappear”.

As much as a physicist would like to study them, there is no known natural way to bring one about. It cannot exist in empty space and to date it is only theoretical. The beginning of the Big Bang could allow for it, but any interaction with matter could destabilise a white hole. Matter would be absorbed by its gravitational field and turn them back into “a sort of black hole”, as Novikov put it, making them elusive by nature.

Scientists have theorised that at the other end of a black hole could be a white hole (connected by a wormhole), possibly even birthing an altogether new universe. Some question whether the Big Bang itself was caused by a white hole.

The absence of white hole behaviour in our telescopes is a mystery similar to antimatter. The matter we and our Universe is made of should have been created with equal amounts of antimatter in the Big Bang. And yet there is a whole universe made of matter, a seemingly possible impossibility. This is called the Baryon asymmetry, or, origin of matter problem, one of the great mysteries in Physics. Particle physics laboratories like CERN hope to one day tell us more about these cosmological conundrums.

If you would like to know more, you can start with Black Hole Physics: Basic Concepts and New Developments by I. Novikov and V. Frolov, partially available for free on Google Books.

RESEARCH NEWS Historical, astronomical and biblical records suggest that the star of Bethlehem that led the three kings to baby Jesus in his manger may not have been a star at all, but was, in fact, an extremely rare planetary alignment occurring in 6 B.C., the likes of which may never be seen again. University of Notre Dame Evidence in a chunk of bedrock drilled from nearly two miles below the summit of the Greenland ice sheet suggests that the sheet nearly disappeared for an extended time in the last million years or so. The finding casts doubt on assumptions that Greenland has been relatively stable during the recent geological past, and implies that global warming could tip it into decline more precipitously than previously thought. Nature Evolutionary changes to insulin regulation in two of Australia’s most iconic native animal species, the platypus and the echidna, could pave the way for new treatments for type 2 diabetes in humans. The findings reveal that the insulin produced in the gut of the platypus to regulate blood glucose is also, surprisingly, produced in their venom. Scientific Reports The Great Barrier Reef of Australia has suffered the worst bleaching on record this year. In the reef ’s worst-hit Northern section, 67 percent of the corals died, 6 percent of the central section perished and the Southern reef continues to be in good health. Bleaching is caused by the sustained rise of water temperature and, with 2016 as the hottest year on record, scientists have warned that recovery could be difficult if climate change continues.

ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies Solar-panel roads are to be built on four continents in 2017. To resist the weight of traffic, several types of plastics are layered to create a clear and durable casing.

The electrical wiring is embedded in the road and the contraption is topped by an anti-slip surface made from crushed glass. The 2,800 square meters of solar panels are expected to generate 280 kilowatts at peak, with the installation generating enough to power all the public lighting in a town of 5,000 for a year. Wattway

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December 2016 / January 2017

Kensington, Chelsea & Westminster Today

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Education on education for their children that’s built on a combination of holistic and traditional values, catering specifically to the needs of modern children.

I want our education to be exciting and relevant to our times. My decade at Winchester especially taught me how independent education needn’t be too closely tied to government guidelines. I hope our students will never be bored, will look forward to going to school, and will be proud to have attended Eaton Square Upper School, Mayfair for the rest of their lives.

What will the focus of the new school be?

A

s Eaton Square Upper School, Mayfair prepares to open its doors in September 2017, we speak to the new Headmaster, Phillip Williams, about his vision for London’s new independent senior school.

Why have you moved to Eaton Square Upper School?

I have always loved working in central London and I want to devote my professional life to education. Having the opportunity to not only join a very well-respected and prestigious group of schools, but to also join just as the senior school is launching, is such a huge honour and incredibly exciting.

I also felt the ethos and values of Eaton Square Schools’ governing body resonated with my own. The new school represents a unique opportunity to design an education tailored precisely to the early twenty-first century, whilst still maintaining many of the core qualities we have always held dear. We want to design a school and education that is in line with the trends for the future, while building on firm foundations of timeless values.

What do you hope to achieve at the new school?

There are very few independent coeducational senior schools in central London and none in Mayfair, so first and foremost we want to ensure we are fulfilling a very clear need for more schools that can meet the requirements of families in the area.

I hope that in a few years’ time, Eaton Square Upper School, Mayfair will be the first choice not just for parents in and around Mayfair, but for any London parent seeking a well-rounded, hands-

December 2016 / January 2017

Education

As with all of our schools, our focus is always to provide students with the very best education possible. We understand that all children are individuals with their own specific needs, challenges and goals – therefore, we want to create a learning environment that recognises these individual needs and is tailored as much as possible to each student.

It’s so important that pupils are afforded the opportunity to develop at their own pace and in an environment they feel comfortable with. If children feel rushed, unhappy or stressed, their learning is ultimately the first thing to suffer. Therefore, we want to make sure all our students are as happy as possible and start and end their day with a smile.

This family-driven ethos has always worked well for us and is something that will definitely be integral to Eaton Square Upper.

Chelsea Nanny The Holiday Season

O ea pen U to in pp ns g er S R qua ep Sch eg re te o is u m ol te pp be rt e od r.s r 20 ay ch 17 oo ! ! l

A new senior school for Mayfair

020 7738 2348

‘Every child, every single child has the capacity to excel.’

Eaton Square School is an independent, coeducational Nursery, Pre-Preparatory and Preparatory school in the heart of central London, educating children from the age of 2 ½ to 13 years old.

Open Mornings Monday 27th February ~ Thursday 25th May Booking is essential

Please contact us today for more information or to book a visit.

79 Eccleston Square, London SW1V 1PP

T: 020 7931 9469

E: registrar@eatonsquareschool.com

www.eatonsquareschool.com

T

he time has come. Having worked for American Mom looking after the Brats for a few years now, I am frustrated to find that I have run out of excuses not to join them on holiday at their chalet in Switzerland over Christmas and New Year. I imagine that the only thing worse than spending Christmas with my own dysfunctional family is to be forced to spend Christmas with someone else’s dysfunctional family. I am right. Although as my brother astutely points out; at least I’m getting paid to spend time with the latter. In that, the trip does have one redeeming quality.

It doesn’t take much, however, for me to begin to feel as though I would pay a hefty sum of money not to be heading

Kensington, Chelsea & Westminster Today

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out to the Swiss Alps. Annoying as my own family are, I find that I’m jealous at the thought of them convening in the countryside to argue with each other without me. As we wait to board the plane, the Small One sits astride his Trunki and repeatedly wheels it into my left shin. My irritation increases with each impact. Hoping that skiing might be the one activity that tires him out, I give him a mild telling off while fantasising about him collapsing with exhaustion at the end of each day on the slopes.

My fantasy does not materialise.

The only thing that gets the Small One more pumped up than the altitude is the firework display on New Year’s Eve. Keeping an eye on him and preventing him from toppling over the side of the chalet balcony is a job that would keep two people busy. As it is, American Mom has also asked me not to let the Eldest out of my sight. The chalet boy gave him a bottle of the chalet wine and he was apprehended sneaking off to share it with a girl from his ski school group.

The Middle One’s behaviour is exemplary all week. The fact that she’s quietly watching old episodes of One Tree Hill on the brand new Macbook Pro she got from Father Christmas definitely has something to do with it. On the last day I receive a message from a friend inviting me skiing in January. Seeing as I’ve done zero skiing on this trip I’m keen to go. I mention it to American Mom as we wait for a taxi to collect us from Heathrow. With characteristic American Mom logic, she argues that now I’ve had a ‘holiday’ I won’t need to go away again until they’re in the States for the summer. It’s going to be a dry January for me and I’m not even giving up booze.

What makes Eaton Square Upper school different?

One of the most exciting and unique things about Eaton Square Upper is that we are starting completely from scratch, yet we still have the benefit of belonging to a very well-established network of feeder schools. This means we can be extremely flexible when creating the right kind of culture, whilst taking all the very best qualities from our existing schools and replicating them.

Our location is something we are also very proud of. 106 Piccadilly is a stunning, Grade I listed building, overlooking Green Park. It has a wonderfully rich history, features of which can be seen in every single room; from the ornate ceiling murals and cornicing, to the grand stone staircase with a wrought iron balustrade. Having such a fantastic location means we’ll be able to take advantage of a wealth of resources right on our door step. So whether it’s sports lessons in Green Park, drama workshops in local theatres or simply soaking up the culture of one of the world’s most exciting multi-cultural cities, we’re in the ideal position to do it all.

Get in touch today to find out more about our new school and how to register.

Eatonsquareupper.school

Scholarship Nursery & Pre-Preparatory School, W2 – ages 2 - 6 years Preparatory School, SW7 – ages 6 – 11 years

Open Mornings Wednesday 1st March ~ Wednesday 7th June

without the misery

Hyde Park School offers your child a unique, well-rounded education in a friendly and caring environment, with all the benefits of central London right on our doorstep.

Hyde Park School, Queen’s Gate 24 Elvaston Place London SW7 5NL registrar@hydeparkschool.co.uk 020 7225 3131

Hyde Park School, Marble Arch The Long Garden, St George’s Fields Albion Street, London W2 2AX admissions@hydeparkschool.co.uk 020 7262 1190

Contact us today to arrange a visit to our exceptional school!

www.hydeparkschool.co.uk

HAMPTON COURT HOUSE Co-educational independent school for ages 3-18

Entry at 9+, 11+ and 13+ | Daily bus service from Kensington | Open Day: Saturday 4 March Register or book a private tour at hamptoncourthouse.co.uk

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December 2016 / January 2017

Kensington, Chelsea & Westminster Today

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Education

020 7738 2348

Education

Short Online Courses • Apply Now • www.conted.ox.ac.uk/on51

Literary Courses and Events

By Catherine Godlewsky

T

his issue’s collection of literary events and courses highlights the vibrancy of London’s literary scene throughout the darkening winter months.

Crime Classics Weekend Join the British Library for a special course focusing on classic British crime novels with award-winning crime novelist Martin Edwards. Register on the British Library’s website (www.bl.uk) or via email or phone.

21 & 22 January 11:00-16:00 Email: boxoffice@bl.uk T: 01937 546546 Cost: £165.00 (£140.00 concessions) Harry M Weinrebe Learning Centre The British Library 96 Euston Road London NW1 International Conference on English Language, Literature and Linguistics The 19th annual conference brings leading academic scientists, researchers and research scholars to London to share their research and ideas with each other and the public. Topics that will be discussed cover all aspects of language and linguistics, including mythology, language teaching, business communications, sociolinguistics, and propaganda among many others. The conference will be held at the Holiday Inn London, Wembley; book tickets online at the World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology’s website (www.waset.org).

19-20 January London Children’s Books Fair Explore contemporary children's literature at the first London Children’s Book fair.

Some of the most original and creative contemporary children’s book authors and publishers will be in attendance for book signings, workshops, and a live drawing session. The event is free for the whole family.

16-17 Dec Parasol Unit 14 Wharf Road London N1 7RW Faber Academy Faber Academy offers in person and online writing courses for all levels of authorship in the areas of fiction, novel writing, editing, and creative writing. Check out their website (www.faberacademy.co.uk) for more information or to register for a course.

Email: academy@faber.co.uk T: 020 7927 3868 Bloomsbury House 74-77 Great Russell Street, London

December 2016 / January 2017

Did Sir Walter Scott Invent Scotland?

The Museum of London hosts this free lecture by Dr Juliet Shields that examines the relationship between author Sir Walter Scott and Scotland as a part of the popular imagination. Doors open 30 minutes before start time and close when the lecture hall is full.

17 January 13:00-14:00 Museum of London 150 London Wall London EC2Y 5HN

Goldsmiths University of London Goldsmiths University of London offers short courses in fiction, short stories, London literature, writing ethics, scriptwriting and many other areas of English studies. Check out their website (www.gold.ac.uk) for a full course listing.

Email: course-info@gold.ac.uk T: 020 7919 7171 Goldsmiths University of London New Cross London SE14 6NW

The New Poet’s Prize Celebrate 2016 winners of the Poetry Business New Poets Prize and hear winning poems read by their authors.

Tickets are free but must be reserved via email.

11 January 20:00 Email: specialedition@poetrylibrary.org.uk Southbank Centre Royal Festival Hall Belvedere Rd, Lambeth London SE1 8XX

TS Eliot Prize Review and Reading with the Poetry School Join the Poetry School for the TS Eliot Prize Review and Reading as poets shortlisted for the prize read their works, competing for the £20,000 prize money that will be awarded the next day.

15 January 14:00-15:00 Cost: £8 Southbank Centre Level 5 Function Room at Royal Festival Hall Belvedere Rd, Lambeth London SE1 8XX

Natural Born Storytellers Come to the Camden Comedy Club for the Barking up the Wrong Tree open spoken word event where only true stories are allowed. Tell your own story or let others tell you theirs.

21 Dec 19:45-22:00 Cost: £5 The Camden Head 100 Camden High Street London, NW1 0LU Stories on a Sunday with Giles Abbott Join professional storyteller Giles Abbott as one of only twelve fortunate guests at the Last Tuesday Society for an unforgettable evening of tales. There are two sessions per evening, but places fill up fast.

8 January & 12 February 18:00-18:45 & 20:00-20:45 Email: info@thelasttuesdaysociety.org T: 020 7998 3617 Cost: £10 (£5 concessions) The Viktor Wynd Museum of Curiosities, Fine Art & Natural History 11 Mare Street London E8 4RP Shakespeare’s Sonnets and the Use of Personification Visit the Museum of London for a free lecture by Professor Belinda Jack on personification in Shakespeare’s sonnets.

Doors open 30 minutes before start time and close when the lecture is full.

24 January 18:00-19:00 Museum of London 150 London Wall London EC2Y 5HN RAW (Real InterActive Writing) Visit this free monthly poetry reading and workshop designed to bring informality and raw emotion into the poetic experience.

2 January 19:30 Abbey Tavern, 124 Kentish Town Rd, London NW1 Email: rawpoetry@rocketmail.com

City University of London The City University of London offers fiction and non-fiction writing short courses as well as courses in many other areas of poetry and English studies. For a full listing, check their website (www.city. ac.uk).

Email: shortcourses@city.ac.uk T: 020 7040 8268 City University of London Northampton Square London EC1V 0HB Travel Writing Workshop Join travel writing master Peter Carty for a four-evening course in the craft of travel writing. For more information or to register online, visit www.travelwritingworkshop. co.uk.

25 January-15 February 19:00-21:00 Email: travelwshop@gmail.com Cost: £125 Free Word Centre 60 Farringdon Road London EC1R 3GA Mythology Bites Celebrate Nordic mythology at this free, all-day event composed of 15-minute sessions of two Nordic myths each.

14 January 12:30-16:45 Southbank Centre Foyer Spaces Belvedere Rd, Lambeth London SE1 8XX Free Tea at Three Come to Dr. Johnson’s House museum for their Free Tea at Three event; have tea in the parlor where Dr. J. indulged his own famous love of tea.

Free (with admission) every Wednesday in January Dr. Johnson’s House 17 Gough Square London EC4A 3DE Chibundu Onuzo Welcome to Lagos Join award-winning novelist Chibundu

Onuzo and editor, literary critic and former deputy editor of Granta musician Ellah Allfrey to explore music and literature of Lagos at this free event.

28 January 17:30 – 19:00 Southbank Centre The Clore Ballroom at Royal Festival Hall Belvedere Rd, Lambeth London SE1 8XX Jane Austen Society Study Day 2017: Jane Austen: Writing to the End This study day hosted by the Jane Austen Society will celebrate Austen’s achievements during the last years of her life and her contributions to modern literary heritage. To register, visit the School of Advanced Study’s website (www. sas.ac.uk).

11 Feb 2017 at 09:00 to 11 Feb 2017 at 17:00 £35 standard, £25 *JAS members / unwaged, £15 students Email: IESEvents@sas.ac.uk The Court Room, First Floor, Senate House, Malet Street London WC1E 7HU Virginia Woolf Society Birthday Lecture The Virginia Woolf Society invites the public to attend a lecture by author and translator Susan Sellers. To purchase tickets, visit the Institute of English Studies website at www.ies.ac.uk.

28 January 14:00 – 18:00 Cost: £20 (£15 concessions) Institute of English Studies Senate House Malet Street, London WC1E 7HU Burns Night at the Ceilidh Club To celebrate the birthday of poet Robert Burns, the Ceilidh Club is hosting a party that includes music, dancing, haggis, and readings of Burns' poems.

28 January 19:00 – 23:00 Cost: £34.50 (£22 concessions) Hammersmith Town Hall London W6 9JU Imagine Children's Festival Celebrate storytelling at this tenday storytelling festival for children.

Most events are free, although special performances require tickets. Tickets can be booked at the Southbank Centre’s website (southbankcentre.co.uk).

9-19 February Southbank Centre Belvedere Rd, Lambeth London SE1 8XX Words That Travel Explore the diversity of African poetry with a cast of young African poets at this free event hosted by Afrikult at the SOAS University of London. For more information, see Afrikult’s Facebook page at www.facebook.com/Afrikult.

21 January 12:00- 22:30 SOAS, University of London London WC1H 0XG

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Short Online Courses • Apply Now • www.conted.ox.ac.uk/on51

Adult Education Listings

By Catherine Godlewsky

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hether you wish to learn to business leadership skills or jewelry making, this month’s varied listing has something to keep you busy this winter.

Unless specified, courses must be pre-booked, all costs include materials, and courses are suitable for beginners.

Evening Language Courses

The University of Westminster offers evening language courses in over twenty languages, including Arabic, German, Spanish, Romanian, and Farsi. For a full listing, see the university’s website at www. westminster.ac.uk.

T: 020 7911 5000 Cost: £225 for one term, £530 for the year University of Westminster 309 Regent Street London W1B 2HW

Speedlights, Flashguns and the Strobist Photographer

The London College of Communication offers this two-week course in photography technique. The course will focus on flash lighting technique and how flash, exposure, and other lightings can be used to affect an image.

Course starts 28 January T: 020 7514 6500 Email: info@lcc.arts.ac.uk Cost: £366 London College of Communication Elephant and Castle London SE1 6SB

Cuisine Technique Essentials

Le Cordon Bleu offers this course of four sessions of 2 1/2 hours each. All ingredients and equipment are included, and participants learn kitchen skills including knife skills, stocks, butchery, pasta, poultry, sauces, shellfish, meat, vegetables and pulses.

Course starts 17 January Cost: £395 Le Cordon Bleu 15 Bloomsbury Square London WC1A2LS

Women for the Board

For women preparing to join or who have recently joined a board, the University of Westminster offers a core six-day programme that covers board and personal presence, board finances, integrity and ethics, board meetings and negotiating a board position.

Course starts 18 January T: 020 7911 5000 Cost: £395

University of Westminster 309 Regent Street London W1B 2H

Introduction to Guitar Making London Metropolitan University offers this course in guitar making for complete beginners, concentrating on shaping techniques and designed to result in a complete guitar over the course of a year with subsequent enrolment in more advanced guitar crafting classes.

Course starts 17 January Cost: £435 London Metropolitan University Old Castle Street London E1 7NT

Autodesk Autocad Computer Aided Design The London College of Communication offers this course that will cover creating plans, elevations, sections and details through technical drawing using one of the leading CAD design products.

721 January T: 020 7514 6500 Cost: £445 London College of Communication Elephant & Castle London SE1 6SB

Anglo-Norman London Come to the Museum of London for this history course offered by the Birkbeck University of London that examines the history of London from 1000-1200 in context of English history on a larger scale.

The course also draws on the over 12,000 artifacts from the Anglo-Norman period at the Museum of London.

Course starts 9 January Cost: £625 150 London Wall London EC2Y 5HN Anthropology of Social Media: Why We Post The University College London offers this five week online course that discusses why social media has become so culturally ubiquitous and how social media affects our lives. For more information or to register, visit the university’s web site at www.ucl.ac.uk.

Course starts 16 January Email: l.haapio-kirk@ucl.ac.uk Cost: Free, but registration required Communicating Difficult Messages The University of Westminster offers this one-day leadership course designed to improve communication skills in business situations through developing a calm and non-confrontational manner and learning different techniques for effective communication.

17 January 9:30-17:00 T: 020 7911 5000 Cost: £250 University of Westminster 309 Regent Street London W1B 2HW

Introduction to Makeup The London College of Fashion offers this five-week course introducing the industry and beauty of makeup with practical techniques and guided practice.

Course starts 5 February

Cost: £725 London College of Fashion Lime Grove 40 Lime Grove White City, London W12 8EA

Chinese Export Ceramics Christie’s offers a two-day course focusing on Chinese export ceramics since the 16th century. Participants will learn directly from specialists in the field and will understand today’s renewed market interest in Chinese ceramics.

16-17 February 10:00-16:00 Cost: £600.00 Christie's King Street London 8 King St, St. James's London SW1Y 6QT Cheese Making Class By the end of the single session at the Micro Dairy, participants will have tasted, learned about, and created cheese.

Participants will also enjoy a catered vegetarian lunch and take home materials to make more of their own cheese.

7 January 9:30-16:00 Email: info@wildescheese.co.uk T: 07758 755 248 or 07984 098 629 Cost: £150.00 The Micro Dairy Units 9 and 10 Frontier Works 33 Queen Street London. N17 8JA

Start up and run your own Fashion business The Fashion Retail Academy offers an intensive five-day course that will give participants the tools they need to start and run their own successful fashion business 23-27 January Email: shortcourses@fra.ac.uk T: 020 3040 2884 Cost: £495 Fashion Retail Academy 15 Gresse Street, London, W1T 1QL Terrariums Workshop Spend an afternoon making your own Tinyjohn Terrarium at London Terrariums and learn about terrarium science and care.

8 January 12:30 Email: hello@londonterrariums.com T: 44 7961 441803 Cost: £41.70 Smug 13 Camden Passage London N1 8EA

Understanding the history of feminism: An evening class with Dr Hannah Dawson Join Dr. Hannah Dawson for an examination of feminism through a historical lens as well as explore the modern impact of gender.

24 January 18:30- 21:30 Cost: £49 (includes VAT, booking fee and drinks) The Guardian, Kings Place 90 York Way London N1 9GU Six Week Intensive Stand Up Comedy Course Join the Comedy School for a six-week comedy course that covers all aspects of stand up, including gathering material, developing performance skills, discovering a comic attitude, developing joke structure,

and creating a stage persona 2 February-9 March T: 0207 486 1844 Cost: £265 (£220 concessions) The Comedy School 14-15 Gloucester Gate London, NW1 4HG

The Original Chocolate Workshop My Chocolate hosts a workshop guided by professional chocolatiers that involves the history of chocolate, chocolate tasting, and creating personalized chocolate treats, truffles, and goody bags.

18 December T: 020 7269 5760 Cost: £49.00 My Chocolate 10c Branch Place London N1 5PH Ballroom and Latin American Dance for Beginners Morley College offers this comprehensive dance course in which participants learn steps, rhythm and technique for the basic figures of ballroom dancing.

9 January-27 March Cost: £115 (£90 concessions) Morley College 61 Westminster Bridge Road Lambeth, London SE1 7HT

Idea Store The Idea Store offers a variety of short courses in everything from upholstery and stained glass to project management and bookkeeping. For a full listing, see their website at www.ideastore.co.uk.

Registration is required in advance for the spring term, which starts 9 January.

T: 020 7364 5665 Idea Store Whitechapel 321 Whitechapel Road London E1 1BU

Enameling Short Course for Beginners Holts Academy offers this short course to introduce participants to enameling; participants will create 2-3 pieces during the course through sifting and wet packing methods and will receive a certification from Holts Academy upon completion.

For more information, visit www. holtsacademy.com.

Applications being accepted now for the spring term beginning on March 25 T: 020 7405 0197 Cost: £299 (includes materials) Monday Mix This course from the Art Academy explores the various forms of art and is designed to help participants find what kind of art appeals to them by exposing them to as many different conceptions of art as possible. Participants will try their hands at painting, sculpture, drawing, printmaking, and more.

16 January-20 March 17:45-19:30 T: 020 7407 6969 Cost: £260 The Art Academy Mermaid Court 165A Borough High Street London SE1 1HR

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Education

020 7738 2348

Education

Access to Higher Education • Art & Design Beauty Therapy • Business Studies & Management • Childcare • Counselling Digital Media & Video Production ESOL / EFL • English & Maths • Fashion Fine Art • First Aid • Glass Making Graphic Design • Hairdressing • Health Humanities • Interior Design & CAD

UK education rankings stagnating

according to new global figures

By Maysaa Jankara

T

he United Kingdom still lags below the top ten leading countries at education and has made little progress in international rankings since results three years ago, according to the newly released influential Pisa leaderboards.

These rankings, determined by tests run by the OECD and taken every three years by 15 year olds in over 70 countries, have become increasingly influential on politicians who see their countries and their policies being measured against these global school league tables.

The UK remains far behind top performers such as Singapore and Finland, but also trails less renowned education systems like Vietnam, Poland and Estonia.

The OECD's education director, Andreas Schleicher, describes the UK’s results as “flat in a changing world”. Whilst the new rankings have seen results in science rise from 21st to 15th globally,

Discover a World of Possibilities

Jewellery • Law • Midwifery • Millinery Music Production • Nursing • Painting & Drawing • Paramedics • Photography Pottery & Ceramics • Printmaking Psychology • Radiography • Science Social Science • Sport & Fitness • Sport Science • Teacher Training • Watercolour Website: KCC.AC.UK

December 2016 / January 2017

T: 020 7573 5333

E: info@kcc.ac.uk

at the Language Centre, SOAS University of London

Learning a language opens up a huge new world of thrilling possibilities, and language scholarship has been one of the mainstays of academic life at SOAS University of London since its inception.

SOAS offers students the opportunity to study an unparalleled range of nonEuropean languages, all of which may be studied without any prior knowledge.

As part of a degree at SOAS it is possible to include one or more of most of the major languages of Africa, Asia and the Middle East, both ancient and modern. Languages within degree programmes are taught in the various regional centres of the Faculty of Languages and Cultures. The majority of these degrees are four-year degrees and include a year abroad, where it is possible to study the language immersed amongst native-speakers.

SOAS students have access to dedicated language laboratories and two open access resource rooms, plus a recording studio for the production of audio, video and online materials.

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online: www.KCWToday.co.uk maths has slipped a place to 27th and with reading rising a place to 23nd. After the last round of rankings, published in 2013, there were warnings from ministers in England that results were "stagnating" and reforms were promised to match international rivals.

The Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa) was initiated in 1997 and provides education rankings based on international tests taken by 15-year-olds in maths, reading and science.

Nick Gibb, England's School Standards Minister, described the results as a "useful insight" and showed the need to "make more good school places available" in grammar schools. He announced £12m to support professional training for science teaching.

However contradictory to the Pisa rankings, Northern Ireland primary school pupils have recently been acclaimed as the highest achieving in Europe for maths according to the Trends in International Maths and Science Study (TIMSS) Results show that Northern Ireland pupils are able to solve problems involving whole numbers, understand geometric properties of shapes and angles, and to interpret and use data in tables and graphs to solve problems.

TIMSS takes place once every four years with more than 600,000 students participating. The tests are run by the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement in the Netherlands and Boston College in the USA.

For students where a language is not a core element of their degree, through the Language Entitlement Programme (LEP) SOAS gives students the opportunity to include language learning as an extra activity entirely free of charge Additionally, the SOAS Language Centre is unique in offering a wide range of short courses, certificates and diplomas in a range of major international languages, including Arabic, Chinese, French, Japanese, Korean, Persian, Spanish and Turkish, plus a wider selection of world languages including Sanskrit, Swahili, Hindi, Tamil, Tibetan, Nepali, Burmese, Indonesian, Tagalog and Thai. The Language Centre also offers recognised postgraduate qualifications in Teaching Arabic or Chinese as a Foreign Language.

Taking a language diploma at the Language Centre is an excellent way to progress to an undergraduate degree.

Classes run for all levels from complete beginners to advanced level, and are taught by experienced native speaking teachers, in a fun and interactive learning environment on a central London campus. Weekend and evening classes are available, so that it is possible to work and study at the same time.

What better way to kick off the New Year than to discover a new world by learning a language? https://www.soas.ac.uk/languagecentre

Science gifts for boys

push girls away from engineering

By Daisy Brennan-Ablitt

Boys are three times as likely to receive science and maths toys for Christmas than girls, according to recent research carried out by the Institute of engineering and Technology (IET).

It reveals that only 11 per cent of science, technology, engineering, and maths (STEM) toys are listed for girls, whereas 31 per cent were listed for boys.

The gap between gendered toys could be helping to steer girls away from jobs in engineering and technology. At present, women account for only nine percent of Britain’s engineers.

“Societal stereotypes driving these gendered listings could be having a knock-on effect for the next generation of engineers, especially girls, impacting their future career choices,” warned the IET. However, another study by the IET showed that 39 percent of primary school girls admitted to enjoying ICT and computing with 38 percent claiming to enjoy maths and 36 percent, science, but only seven percent of parents said that engineering would appeal to their daughter as a career.

"The research shows girls clearly do have an interest in science, technology and engineering subjects at school so we need to find ways to help this to translate into a higher number of women entering the industry," said toy engineer and IET spokesperson, Mamta Singhal.

“The toy industry is changing slowly and over the years more gender-neutral toys such as science kits have started appearing. Toys can really influence what a child does in later years, therefore STEM toys are a natural move for the industry.”

Make your New Year’s Resolution a reality

Learn a New Language at the Language Centre, SOAS University of London Easily accessible Central London location Expert, experienced, native speaker teachers Fun, interactive, communicative classes

Courses begin 16th January - Register Now • World Languages: - Modern Standard Arabic, Arabic Dialects, - Qur’anic Arabic and Arabic Calligraphy, - Chinese, Japanese, Korean, - Persian, Kurdish, Sanskrit, Swahili, Twi, - Hindi, Urdu, Tamil, Nepali, Tibetan, - Burmese, Indonesian, Tagalog, Thai, - and many, many more.

• European languages: French, Spanish • All levels from Complete Beginner to Advanced • Assessments for non-beginners available by appointment • Diplomas leading to BA degrees – funding available Enrol online or to find out more Check out our website: soas.ac.uk/languagecentre Phone: (0)20 7898 4860/4828 or visit our office 11.00-18.00: SOAS Language Centre, 22 Russell Square, London, WC1H 0XG. Also find us on Facebook at SOAS Language Centre or on Twitter @soaslangcentre

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December 2016 / January 2017

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020 7738 2348

December 2016 / January 2017

Dining Out

Dining Out

Afternoon Tea,

Marriott Sprowston Manor

the Capital Hotel Knightsbridge.

By David Hughes

Kensington, Chelsea & Westminster Today

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online: www.KCWToday.co.uk

Golfing, Spa & Country Club Hotel

By David Hughes

T

A family-owned and run 5 star boutique hotel in Knightsbridge

T

he Capital is one of only 3 “Pride of Britain” hotels located in the centre of town, and they all have an element of Edwardian country house elegance to them. Nathan Outlaw, renowned fish specialist, heads up the fine dining kitchen, but for this seasonal afternoon tea Claire Clarke has been drafted in for her pastry expertise.

Finger sandwiches provide the traditional savoury starter, and the bread is made on the premises in four styles: turkey and cranberry is served on white, cucumber on Matcha tea, egg & mayo on brown and smoked salmon on a white tinged with beetroot.

Unquestionably the green Matcha tea steals the show for looks and intrigue, however it doesn’t convince as well as the other three. Beetroot cured smoked salmon has been around for a while,

The perfect place to entertain family and friends this winter

wilight was falling as we turned into the approach to the hotel, and as soon as you are past the modern signs at the entrance, cruising gently down the formal drive to the manor, you are looking at the grand brick façade and planted centrepiece to the carriageway front.

There’s plenty of parking, but when a space suddenly appeared right out front by the Christmas tree, I thought “perfect” Sometimes small pieces of serendipity like this just seem to make things all fall into place. A short walk to reception, and soon we are installed into the Walpole suite.

I don’t know if that particular former prime minister ever laid his head on a pillow here, but the booklet of Historical Notes in the room tells you this house has had plenty of famous owners and visitors over the years. What’s certain

though is that you get the same standard of luxury; huge bed, finest linens, posh French soaps and that very modern ‘essential’, two TVs. There’s a big dinner party booking for 7.30 tonight, so we elect to go earlier.

M starts with scallops, black pudding balls and cauliflower purée. Bar the purée being a bit cool this got high marks. I’m very much in favour of letting the ingredients show their origin, so whilst my crab and baby prawn fishcake was perfectly acceptable, blending the contents to a paste seemed a slightly missed opportunity. A coarser, more rustic approach would allow each flavour to come to the fore individually, and let the piquant lime crème fraiche dance alongside.

Continuing the local produce theme for the mains, we chose Norfolk leg of lamb steak, and the Norfolk pork belly

£29.50 per head / £39.50 with a glass of Champagne T: 020 7589 5171

38C Kensington Church St, Kensington, London W8 4BX FINE DINING FROM ALEXANDRIA

Afternoon Tea by critically-acclaimed Pastry Chef Claire Clark served this December in The Sitting Room

“Transport yourself to Alexandria” Unique in London, our restaurant in Kensington offers fine dining from Alexandria, the iconic city where European and Middle Eastern cultures have merged for eternity. restaurant, bar and private dining room

Alexandrie Restaurant 38C Kensington Church St, London W8 4BX 0207 937 2244 / www.alexandrie.co.uk

22-24 Basil Street Knightsbridge SW3 1AT

020 7591 1202

www.capitalhotel.co.uk

Old Jamaica rum and raisin chocolate.

M’s Tia Maria Eton Mess was a stacked and semi deconstructed crunchy pile of sweet meringue and piquant raspberries, and provided a fine bookend to the meal.

All that remained now was to head up to that fluffy pile of pillows and dream some sweet dreams.

Confession time. M had plans for a morning swim and a steam, but I was just too comfy to be moved before breakfast.

I’m slightly ashamed of my sabotage now as there’s a wonderful indoor pool just off from the main reception that I should have taken advantage of, but there’s something about the allure of a good breakfast in the country that’s nigh on impossible to resist.

Go for: great service, indulgent long weekends and golfing breaks, conferences and trips to nearby Norwich.

T: 01603 410871

Alexandrie

With Private Dining by Michelin starred

and infusing the bread with beetroot is equally pleasing.

The rest of the plates are adorned with some exquisitely made cakes that mimic decorative baubles. It’s a very pretty display, but you will need a properly sweet tooth for all but the excellent plain and fruit scones and the pink champagne jelly, which is one of the best that I have tried.

Maiden aunts wanting to indulge their favourite little ones, families on shopping expeditions who need a bit of calm space that is so rarely found just yards from Harrods, and those who just want to escape for an hour or two have up until the 31st of December to catch this festive menu.

and cheek. Once again, M has the edge over me, with the braised pork being melt in the mouth, the Chantenay carrots flavoursome and crunchy, and the apple mash with just a hint of tartness. Given the aspirations of the menu, putting lamb leg steak with chips on an evening menu had me wondering what fine dining twist would be bought into play, but somehow it looked a bit more ‘pub lunch’ rather than evening meal. The flavours were fine, but there’s room here to be a bit more imaginative.

To offset this slight disappointment, a special mention here to the bin end specials on the wine list. A lone bottle of Veramonte Chilean Cab Sav was priced at a beyond reasonable £15, and was delicious. A slice of Wensleydale blue and a glass of port preceded a Pear tatin, with its scoop of brandy and pudding ice cream nostalgically reminding me of

2 course lunch set menu

£10 pp* When booking by phone quoting “KCW Today” * Usually £13.95 pp

Egypt, Alexandria. In your mind’s eye you can smell the heat coming from the dusty streets, the secret passages that lead to hidden courtyards, the bustle of the port, and perhaps a bit of diplomatic intrigue too. Hold that thought; in fact, park it completely.

38C Kensington Church St has none of these things.There are no models of the Sphinx, or tourist papyrus, but what you do get is starched cloths, a classy modern interior and an impeccable welcome that blends the best of traditional Egyptian cuisine with some of its cosmopolitan past.

Alexandria’s diverse background brings many culinary influences, which are all drawn upon in this menu. Starting with traditional flat breads with dips, I moved on to truffled cauliflower veloute, not a staple of the average Nile dweller, but stellar nonetheless. My companion, all blond tresses and a troubled heart went for the beetroot cured smoked salmon.

This comes with charred cucumber, spiced yogurt and semi-sun dried tomatoes, and the bit I pinched was delicious.

I also ordered the ethical foie parfait, one Egyptian spiced, the other French style. Blondie opted for the Harissa-spiced poulet au pistou, a spiced chicken roulade, potato gratin and mushroom sauce with a nicely browned off gratin, and a good depth of flavour. The mushroom sauce

showed more than the harissa, so those looking for some punchy spice need to let the chef know.

My marinated ox cheeks, Puy lentils, carrot and orange carpaccio, topped with gremolata showed all the delightful influence of the northern Mediterranean shores. Giving in to some gentle persuasion from the management, we also shared some Keba Eskandarani (pan fried chicken livers with onions and green peppers) Allow yourself to be persuaded too. At £10, it’s a steal.

For desserts I had to have some Om Ali. It’s very much in the local style, and not overpoweringly sweet. Naturally there’s a story to it, involving a dead ruler, two wives and a spot of murder. To celebrate the demise of Om Ali (wife number 1), Shagaret El Dorr (wife number 2) commissioned a dish of baked sweetened milk with pistachios, raisins and chopped almonds, to be distributed throughout the land with a gold coin. That’s a vote winner in anyone’s book! David Hughes Bookings on 020 7937 2244. alexandrie.co.uk for menu Festive menu available to end of the month

December 2016 / January 2017

Kensington, Chelsea & Westminster Today

www.KCWToday.co.uk

Fashion N.Peal

Johnstons of Elgin

Luxury Luggage

Cashmere accessories:

‘I do not believe in God. I believe in cashmere’ Fran Lebowitz, author and cultural commentator, once famously said; there are many who’d agree with her. Here’s how to embrace a little softness during these colder months.

Scottish cashmere is some of the finest around. Brora balances on-trend pieces, such as this navy and peach zebra print scarf, with timeless classics (£149, brora. co.uk and at 8 Symons Street). Johnstons of Elgin is another Scottish favourite, with a kaleidoscope of cashmere gloves from £29-49, including fingerless and quilted styles (johnstonscashmere.com and at 77 Bond Street).

N.Peal specialises in Mongolian cashmere; its flagship store was established in Burlington Arcade in 1936 (npeal.com). Aside from ready-to-wear pieces, such as beanie hats (£69-99), N.Peal offers bespoke hand-knitted cashmere sweaters in over 30 colours.

For longevity beyond winter, try a silk and cashmere blend. Fellow Burlington Arcade residents Berk have some brilliantly muted colours for subtle scarf wearers, including dark denim and ‘Army’ Anya Hindmarch

By Polly Allen

You’ve got your slice of winter sun or winter skiing booked, but there’s one big thing left to consider before you travel: does your luggage make the cut?

Whatever your taste, there’s a luxury luggage brand to fit.

Luggage for minimalists and traditionalists

Rimowa recently won a legal battle to trademark its ribbed rigid suitcases.

They’re fuss-free but strong, and available in a muted colour palette, including silver and matte black (prices from £320, at the Rimowa Concept Store, 153a New Bond Street). For something similarly robust, try Antler (antler.co.uk) or the lifetime guarantee of Briggs & Riley (briggs-riley.com).

Where else for traditionalists to look first than Louis Vuitton? If your budget stretches, this is the most glamorous way to transport your travel essentials (Zephyr 55, £2,470, uk.louisvuitton. com). To ramp things up a notch, don’t wheel the suitcase yourself , have your staff take care of that. Globe-Trotter (globe-trotter.com), known for elegant trunks, comes a close second, especially its recent Missoni collaboration. Visit Smythson (smythson.com) and Aspinal

December 2016 / January 2017

Fashion Dandy out in the cold

The ultimate winter warmers

By Polly Allen

Chinti & Parker

020 7738 2348

Ally Capellino

Lulu Guinness

By John Springs

I Brora

Lily Gardner

khaki (£179.95, berkcashmere.co.uk).

To cheer you up on dark days, look to Lily Gardner for this colourful silk and cashmere Ovett scarf, by Wallace Sewell (£150, lilygardner.com and at Chelsea Farmers’ Market, 125 Sydney Street).

Karl Donoghue’s cashmere lambskin earmuffs, available in three colours, are a fun alternative to hats (£125, selfridges. com) and can be combined with matching mittens (£170, plumo.com).

Lastly, once you’ve come in from the cold, unwind with Chinti and Parker’s cashmere eye mask (£45-55, chintiandparker.com/uk). (aspinaloflondon.com) to pick up classic luggage tags and passport covers.

Packing for a weekend away? Anya Hindmarch’s new Walton weekend bag is just the ticket (£950, anyahindmarch. com). It can be personalised with your initials too. Alternatively, grab a hardwearing Teddy ripstop holdall, by Ally Capellino, in khaki or navy (£185, allycapellino.com), which is veganfriendly, or follow the crowds and pick a large Le Pliage bag by Longchamp (£70, uk.longchamp.com), which folds down neatly when not in use. Backpack fans should add the black leather Saxby rolltop, by Weldon Bags, to their list: its padded interior protects laptops of up to 15”, and it has hidden easy access pockets. A lifetime guarantee comes as standard (£215, weldonbags.com).

Stand out on the baggage carousel You could never miss a Lulu Guinness case gliding around the carousel, thanks to its patent finish and embossed lip pattern. This design comes in three sizes and colours (shown here: large spinner case in red, £245), each with a striped lining and a set of three matching drawstring bags for small accessories (luluguinness.com).

For child-friendly baggage, Trunki may be inexpensive but it leads the way, especially with themed designs like the Gruffalo (£44.99), or the chance to design your own model (from £44.99, trunki.co.uk). If your prodigy turns up their nose at a ride-along case, give

Berk

them the official Lamborghini Huracán trolley bag range for children (£69, lamborghinistore.com/uk). Older kids might prefer the Samsonite Darth Vader suitcase range (£89-95, samsonite.co.uk) or Ted Baker’s stylish floral cases (from £199-295, tedbaker.com/uk).

Trunki

Missoni

t was a tradition that although you would keep good suits, tweeds, evening wear, etc. for practically a lifetime and maybe even longer, an overcoat would be looked on as having to be replaced each season when it reaches a moribund state. It’s true that a couple or so years of heavy winter wear can take its toll; pitching and rolling, pulling at the stitching and yanking at the seams, and as an outer garment one invariably tends to be a little thoughtless and chuck it around a bit. That’s why I’ve never been that keen on softer materials such as every moths’ favourite chowdown, cashmere, for an overcoat. It will eventually mould itself around the shape of the suit underneath, which causes problems when you wear a different suit, it creates confusion in the cloth and it will wilt under such trauma. But if you feel the need to warm up during a cold snap, which is usually during the aesthetically challenged “festive” and “post-festive” period, get a coat with some proper structure and some survival instinct built into it; for example a heavy tweed, with a working button hole.

I have a favourite ancient American

Kensington, Chelsea & Westminster Today

29

online: www.KCWToday.co.uk overcoat from the Depression era made from “iron cloth”: Thick brillo pad type wool that performs so well it could stop a bullet yet has the appearance of brushed astrakhan. In a cold Easterly it doesn’t do much better than a Norfolk jacket would, but you can add a bowler to it easily enough. What with the proliferation of beardies, fur trim on overcoats is becoming increasingly popular; just double check that the salt and pepper of the facial hair doesn’t collide with the colour of the fur. dsquared2 (www.dsquared2.com) does a ski parka, complete with fur collar on a short checked coat for £1,405.00; a sort of upmarket version of the type of car coat with the imitation sheepskin that was popular in the 1970s, when you really needed to be able to cantilever oneself gracefully into a tiny Morris 1100, complete with a heating system comprised of a modified domestic electric fan that gave everyone chapped lips.

Then you’ll need a good polo neck sweater; and the beard here comes in useful. The polo neck can sometimes act as a shelf for a slight double-chin on a naked face, especially with a heavier cotton or wool. It would seem that especially around these parts of London, winter garb is very much becoming modified ski gear, some of it looking sudatory, uncomfortable and unflattering.

There’s a price to pay for putting on an

awful beanie ski hat with a ridiculous “bobble”, and the infestation is getting worse despite your author’s campaign against them at the end of last season.

Despite the ridiculous myth, hardly any body heat is dissipated through the top of the head, otherwise wouldn’t the beanie people have steam coming out of their ears? Apparently the bobble device is there simply to look “cute” which says all that can be said.

Most ways of really staying warm that work are quite simply too boring: i.e. taking a cold bath and laying off

alcohol. Others simply don't work at all, such as the Perthshire Vulcanised Hot Water Bottle Vest; warm water freezes faster than when it’s cold, so you end up wearing a giant ice cube. Or you could borrow from the inventiveness of the priest Lord William Cecil and his home heating device that involved naked electric light bulbs housed in a hockey mask and attached to the stuffing under his armchairs. “Don’t worry, dear boy” he reassured a slightly alarmed houseguest, “with these central heating systems, safety must go to the wall”. llustration © John Springs

28

Cutler And Gross Celebrate Vision

S

ince 1969, Knightsbridge Green has been synonymous with two gentlemen, Mr Cutler & Mr Gross. Two young opticians with a true vision and united by the frustration of standard frames on offer for their clients, the duo began to design and create their own frames in the workshop above their opticians shop. They rather enjoyed the worlds of fashion and style who began to flock to Knightsbridge for the duos beautiful one-off frames.

Through the next few decades Cutler & Gross were somewhat alone in the world of eyewear and continued to create beautifully hand crafted frames in the finest Italian acetates.

With time the demand became a little too much for their one frame maker George Smith and they began to work with Italian factories in the region of Cadore in the Dolomites. A long standing relationship with local frame makers began and Cutler And Gross now own their own factory in the same region, supplying their beautifully crafted frames to over 800 internationally renowned retailers as well as their own stores.

You can still walk into Cutler & Gross Knightsbridge and find clear, elegant, modern design. The frames are made to the duo’s exacting standards by a team who have been long established at the Knightsbridge Ophthalmic practice. Set in the recently renovated consulting room designed by Piers Gogh in the early 70s, Mr Scinaldi continues to examine the alumni of the worlds of Fashion and Art using a combination of the latest Essilor technology and the original Trial Set lovingly used by Mr Cutler & Mr Gross. If you’re lucky he will suggest you need a new set of spectacles.

For an appointment please contact 020 7581 2250 shop@cutlerandgross.com/cutlerandgross.com 16 Knightsbridge Green London SW1X 7QL

16 Knightsbridge Green London SW1X 7QL T: 020 7581 2250 shop@cutlerandgross.com/cutlerandgross.com

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December 2016 / January 2017

Lifestyle

Prime London service, global reach, outstanding property

Simba beds Sleeping the Dream

I

t said on the box ‘Live. Sleep. Dream’, Five layers of comfort designed to fit you.

But, how does one choose a mattress?

How can you be sure that it will be comfortable enough? All of us have different shapes and some of us a multitude of different ailments which can be affected or caused by our sleeping

NEW YEAR

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Kensington, Chelsea & Westminster Today

habits.

Going to a major department store to buy one was not an option for me.

Buying this way just causes anxiety. Too many people milling around coupled with self-conscious ‘lying down’ moments which don’t tell you anything at all. It has hall marks of failure tattooed to the task.

With this in mind I decided to search online to find a product which held some form of reassurance attached to their marketing that I could give my money to. Simbabeds.com came up impressively first on all my searches, had the right sort of imagery, so I started to read the blurb.

It reads as follows: “The Simba mattress contains a

SALE NOW ON

importers of quality hard wood and exotic furniture

www.gilatimur.co.uk

50A WALSWORTH ROAD, HITCHIN, HERTS. SG4 9SU T: 01462 441115

unique combination of 2500 conical pocket springs, which individually adjust as you sleep, and responsive memory foam which moulds to your body shape, all engineered into 5 layers including a unique super ‘comfort layer’. Its hypoallergenic airflow sleep surface provides freshness and temperature control.

The mattress was created from data taken from 10 million people with the ‘Sleep to Live Institute’. “ Quite a statement.

But does all of this make for a good night sleep, I asked?

Next I looked at their testimonials and it was then I was impressed. There were hundreds of contented users who had left reviews, and yes, for the record, a tiny handful of malcontents. But these were reassuring, too, as what came across was the genuineness of the users. On top of this Simba offer 100 night’s sleep on their mattresses and if you are not happy at the end of the term you can return them. This did it for me. Here was a real chance to try out a mattress.

The mattresses came delivered in boxes and when opened just rolled out and ‘rose to their correct height’. I was fascinated and delighted by this selfraising technique. I have now enjoyed over two weeks restorative sleep on my mattress and my guests have had the benefit of the same. We won’t be returning them and I have left a testimonial on their website too.

“A good night’s sleep is about the biggest all-round health boost you can get” “A great night’s sleep, the first in decades” “I’m a morning person, but since sleeping on a Simba I can’t wake up” “I would recommend a good alarm clock with this mattress” “It arrives compressed in a box so there’s no battle getting it upstairs” “I no longer wake up with aches and stiffness”

The Most Advanced Mattress in the World Introducing the Simba Hybrid® Mattress.

2,500 conical springs and responsive memory foam, rigorously tested. So you’re supported, no matter what you get up to. simbasleep.com Next Day Delivery

100 Night Sleep Trial

December 2016 January 2017 CHRISTMAS FAIRS AND FESTIVALS December 10, 11, 17, & 18 Osterley Park Christmas by Design Explore Robert Adam’s beautiful interiors celebrating Christmas in a traditional manner with ‘sights and smells evoking the senses and feeling of nostalgia’.

Jersey Road Isleworth TW7 4RD 020 8232 5050 Ends December 14 Hanukkah The Jewish Festival of Light Trafalgar Square A celebration around the world where synagogues and community groups organise events with lighted candles, Jewish food, music, dancing and games.

London celebrates Chanukah, the Jewish Festival of Light in Trafalgar Square where the first light on the ninebranched menorah is lit to celebrate the beginning of the festival; an additional light will be lit each night of the eightday celebration.

WC2N 5DN 020 7983 4000 Ends December 18 Sutton House Christmas Market themed around pantomimes which will run each Saturday and Sunday until December 18.This National Trust Tudor manor house will offer jewellery, ceramics, cards and fashion. The house itself will be transformed with each room decorated in a different pantomime theme.

2 & 4 Homerton High Street Hackney SW8 3JD 020 8986 2264 New Year’s Eve Fireworks Spectacular display of fireworks after Big Ben strikes twelve: It is the largest annual show presented by the Mayor of London. It is ticketed and one can sign up at london.gov.uk/nye If you don’t get a ticket you can watch the display on television or find a likely spot from a window.

New Year’s Eve Ball Natural History Museum Last Dance with Dippy; First-ever New Year’s Eve Ball hosted in collaboration with Guilty Pleasures. A complimentary drink on arrival, explore the Dinosaur Gallery, have your face painted and dance the night away. Bars open throughout the night and you can upgrade your ticket to include a threecourse meal.

8.00pm- 1.00am Cromwell Road SW7 5BD 020 7942 5511

Ends January 2 2017 Winter Wonderland Hyde Park Free to Enter BUT certain attractions get fully booked and require payment.

A mass of Christmas-themed activities and fun including ice skating, Zippo’s Circus, a huge Christmas market. Skate on the ice rink, and watch Nutcracker on Ice or go on an Arctic Adventure past icebergs and ice sculpture to the Magical Ice Kingdom, see acrobatics at the Cirque Berserk, and take a seat on the Giant Observation Wheel for a seat 60m above London.

For the little ones there is ‘The Sooty Christmas Show’, Santa Land to meet Father Christmas and the Traditional Fairground. Try German sausages and gluhwein at the Bavarian Village.

Hyde Park W2 2UH Ends January 5 2017 Christmas Lights Oxford Street, Regent Street, Carnaby Street and the West End The largest Lights installations in the City with more than 300,000 Christmas lights and sixteen spirits. In Carnaby Street the quirky lights are reminiscent of the Swinging Sixties inspired by the V&A’s exhibition You Say You Want a Revolution.

GISELLE MARY SKEAPING’S CLASSIC BALLET

“SPLENDIDLY ATMOSPHERIC” FINANCIAL TIMES

11 – 22 JAN ballet.org.uk/giselle

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RAYMOND GUBBAY AND THE ROYAL ALBERT HALL PRESENT

Ends January 8 2017 Christmas in Leicester Square A Christmas market, a Santa’s Grotto, and a speigeltent with a programme of Christmas shows, a bubble act and the world famous La Soiree Circus.

Ends January 8 2017 Southbank Centre Winter Market Christmas market which is a collection of chalets selling gifts and crafts, family rides, carol singers, foodstuffs and lights.

MUSIC December 15 Christmas Carol Singalong Royal Albert Hall Kensington Gore SW7 2AP 020 7589 8212 December 15 Viva Cuba Ronnie Scotts Live Cuban bands and DJs from 6.00pm3.00am Every Friday.

47 Frith Street W1D 4HT 020 7439 0747 December 15 Music for the Moment Wigmore Hall A concert for people living with dementia and their families, friends and carers.

3.00pm

LIGHTS • LASERS • FIREWORKS MUSIC • DANCE • OPERA • BALLET The Nutcracker Suite and Pas de Deux Sleigh Ride Die Fledermaus Overture Act 1 Finale from La bohème Sorcerer’s Apprentice Theme from Harry Potter Black Swan Pas de Deux and Finale from Swan Lake John Rigby conductor Claire Rutter soprano Peter Auty tenor The Jingle Belle Dancers Star Soloists from The Russian State Ballet of Siberia Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra

27, 29 & 30 DECEMBER royalalberthall.com 020 7838 3100

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December 2016 / January 2017

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Kensington, Chelsea & Westminster Today

Prime London service, global reach, outstanding property

020 3553 7147 waellis.com

WESTMINSTER ABBEY

36 Wigmore Hall W1U 2BP 020 7935 2141 December 15 The Joy of Christmas Royal Festival Hall Andrew Lumsden conducts the Philharmonia Orchestra with Keri Fuge soprano, and Maria Fontanals-Simmons mezzo-soprano in a programme of carols, Vivaldi, Bach, Gruber and Handel.

3.00pm Southbank Centre 020 7960 4200 December 15 A Winter Union Cecil Sharp House An evening of folk music from Christmas and the Winter Solstice featuring Megson, Hannah Sanders and Member of the Willows; six leading lights of the British folk scene.

2 Regent’s Park Road NW1 7AY 020 7485 2206 December 15 Messiah Royal Albert Hall 500 voices of the Goldsmiths’ Choral Union, English Concert Chorus and Highgate Choral Society with Rebecca Evans soprano, Jennifer Johnston mezzosoprano, Timothy Robinson tenor, Alastair Miles bass with Brian Wright conducting.

Kensington Gore SW7 2AP 020 7589 8212 December 16 Branco Stoysin Royal Albert Hall Self taught guitarist blends lyrical original compositions with arrangements of traditional folk music from Serbia and the former Yugoslavia.

Kensington Gore SW7 2AP 020 7589 8212 December 18 Festive Gathering Cecil Sharp House A Christmas concert by the Cecil Sharp House Choir led by Sally Davies will perform cappella arrangements of traditional seasonal songs, carols and wassails from the British isles and beyond. Kennedy Hall will fill with folk dancers, singers and musicians.

2 Regent’s Park Road NW1 7AY 020 7485 2206 December 18 Sunday Concert The Foundling Museum Pianist Richard Allum returns to accompany viola player LisLis Peskett with a programme that includes Handel, Frank Bridges and York Bowen.

40 Brunswick Square WC1N 1AZ 020 7841 3600

December 18 A Ceremony of Carols Westminster Abbey The choristers of the Abbey under the conductor James O’Donnell sing Benjamin Britten’s sequence of carols for treble voices and harp which is preceded by a reading of the Christmas Proclamation.

20 Dean Yard SW1P 3PA 020 7222 5152

CHRISTMAS AT WESTMINSTER ABBEY

December 23 Handel’s Messiah St John’s Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and Polyphony with Katherine Watson soprano, Iestyn Davies countertenor, Gwilym Bowen tenor, Neal Davies bass with Stephen Layton conductor.

Smith Square SW1P 3HA 020 7222 1061

December 20 Classic Carols Royal Albert Hall Presenter and broadcaster Alan Titchmarsh lead the audience through a programme of seasonal and traditional Christmas music with the London Philharmonic Orchestra. 7.30pm Kensington Gore SW7 2AP 020 7589 8212 December 20 & 21 The Three Kings: The Sixteen Cadogan Hall A varied and diverse programme which includes traditional carols, Palestrina and Lassus and songs from Ireland, England and Bohemia as well as lesser known modern pieces such as the 21st-century composer James Bassi’s Quem Pastores Laudavere.

Sloane Terrace SW1X 9DQ 020 77730 4500 online booking: cadoganhall.com/choral

Sunday 18th December 5.45 pm A Ceremony of Carols, Westminster Abbey Benjamin Britten’s much-loved sequence of carols performed by the Choristers of Westminster Abbey with harpist Lucy Wakeford 6.00 pm Service of Lessons and Carols, St Margaret’s Church

December 21 Mahan Esfahani harpsichord Wigmore Hall In the next five seasons at Wigmore Hall, Mahan will explore Bach’s works for harpsichord starting with the Goldberg Variations .

36 Wigmore Street W1U 2BP 020 7935 2141

Saturday 24 December Christmas Eve Noon Crib Service, Westminster Abbey 4.00 pm Service of Lessons and Carols, Westminster Abbey Tickets available 6.00 pm First Eucharist of Christmas, St Margaret’s Church 11.30 pm Christmas Midnight Mass, Westminster Abbey Tickets available

December 22 Father Christmas & Paddington Bear’s First Concert Cadogan Hall A Christmas treat for all the family, featuring narration by comedian Jack Dee and live accompaniment to Raymond Briggs animated film Father Christmas.

1.30pm & 4.30pm 5 Sloane Terrace 020 7730 4500 December 22 Googoosh Live in London SSE Arena An Iranian actress and extremely popular singer with her own unique style who was at the height of her success in prerevolutionary Iran. After many years of silence, she has made a comeback and has successfully toured the States, Europe and the Middle East.

Engineers Way Wembley HA9 0AA 0844 815 0815

December 22 The Glory of Christmas Royal Albert Hall Seasonal and traditional music that captures the spirit of Christmas and carols for all, featuring the Royal Albert Hall Grand Organ. 7.30pm Kensington Gore SW7 2AP 020 7589 8212

Friday 23rd December 6.00 pm Service of Lessons and Carols, Westminster Abbey Tickets available th

Sunday 25th December Christmas Day 8.00 am Holy Communion (BCP), Westminster Abbey 10.30 am Sung Eucharist, Westminster Abbey 11.00 am Matins, St Margaret’s Church 3.00 pm Choral Evensong, Westminster Abbey

December 23 and 24 Carols by Candlelight Royal Albert Hall Classic carols staged in full 18th century costume in a candle-lit setting, and also Handel, Mozart, Corelli, Pearsall, Cullen and Mozart with the Mozart Festival Chorus and Mozart Festival Orchestra conducted by Steven Devine.

Readings by Bernard Cribbins.

Kensington Gore SW7 2AP

FAIR WINTER 24 -29 January 2017 Battersea Park, London

WEDNESDAY LATES

020 7589 8212 December 28 E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial in Concert Royal Albert Hall The popular film is shown with John Williams’ Academy Award winning score performed live by the Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra conducted by David Newman in synch to the film projected on the huge HD screen. 1.15pm & 6.15pm Kensington Gore SW7 2AP 020 7589 8212 December 17 - January 2 2017 Million Dollar Quartet Royal Festival Hall The hit musical with songs of Elvis, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins and starring Martin Kemp featuring Blue Suede Shoes, Fever, Hound Dog, Great Balls of Fire and Walk the Line, Southbank Centre 020 7960 4200 December 30 & January 1 - 5 Booker T Jones Ronnie Scott’s Ranked as one of the 100 greatest songs of all times, the million-selling Green Onions celebrates its 50th anniversary; it

HIGHLIGHTS OF WESTMINSTER ABBEY AFTER HOURS

£10

Visit

17 £15in/£ner D

See the Coronation Chair, Poets’ Corner and Grave of the Unknown Warrior

Visit £10 adult/£5 child (4.30 pm – 7.00 pm, last entry 6.00 pm)

Dine in the Cellarium Café & Terrace – the 14th century monks’ cellars hidden in the Cloisters

Set menu £15/£17 (5.00 pm – 9.00 pm, last order 7.30 pm)

Visit the shop for Abbey-inspired gifts

Abbey Highlights tickets: Available on the door

Until Wednesday 1 February

Cellarium bookings: www.cellariumcafe.com

st

www.westminster-abbey.org

ONE FREE ENTRY WITH THIS AD

ANTIQUES AND 20TH CENTURY DESIGN FOR INTERIOR DECORATION

All are welcome, but to ensure your place at services marked ‘Tickets available’ apply online: www.westminster-abbey.org/events/christmas Westminster Abbey is open daily for visiting except Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and Sundays K&C

www.westminster-abbey.org

decorativefair.com DF_Kensington&ChelseaMag 160x260 WIN 17.indd 1

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December 2016 / January 2017

l

Craftsmanship

l

Heritage

THE MAYFAIR ANTIQUES & FINE ART FAIR being 50 years since the 12-bar blues with a ripping Hammond Organ was recorded

by Booker T & The MG’s for Stax.

Booker went on to become one of the architects of the unique Memphis soul sound with artists such as Otis Redding, Bill Withers, Wilson Pickett, Sam and Dave and many other artists. Not only a songwriter, he was also a producer, an arranger and an instrumentalist.

47 Frith Street Soho W1D 4HT 020 7439 0747 December 18,19, 21, 22, 23 & January 5 Carol Singing Hampton Court Palace Annual carol singing round the Palace courtyards accompanied by the Epsom and Ewell Silver Bands.

Molesey, East Molesey KT8 9AU 020 3166 6000 January 11 The Co-chairman’s Recital Leighton House Mary Bevan soprano, Thomas Gould violin and William Vann piano perform a programme that includes work by Vaughan Williams, Robert Schumann, Reinecke and Part.

12 Holland Park Road Kensington W14

8LZ Booking: 07582 116 743 or 020 7602 3316 December 17, 20, 22, January 8, 11, 14, 17 Der Rosenkavalier The Royal Opera House Andris Nelsons conducts two starry casts including Renee Fleming, Alice Coote and Rachel Willis-Sorensen in Robert Carsen’s new production of Richard Strauss’s delightful operatic comedy.

Bow Street WC2E 9DD 020 7304 4000 January 14 Prokofiev’s Romeo & Juliet Royal Festival Hall Sergei Prokofiev’s Romeo & Juliet by world-renowned conductor Teodor Currentzis and his music Aeterna orchestra, a series of sonnets and readings from Shakespeare’s plays will also be performed by Ralph Fiennes, highlyacclaimed Russian actresses Chulpan Khamatova and Dina Korzun (Peaky Blinders) in aid of Gift of Life.

Southbank Centre SE1 8XX 020 7960 4200 January 17

IN ASSOCIATION WITH

THE LONDON MARRIOTT HOTEL GROSVENOR SQUARE, LONDON W1K 6JP

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12.00 - 21.00 11.00 - 18.00 11.00 - 17.00 THE

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1767: A Retrospective Wigmore Hall Three of the UK’s most exciting young singers, Gemma Summerfield soprano, Stuart Jackson tenor, and Ashley Riches bass-baritone join in a programme which includes Mozart, Gluck, J.C. Bach, Arne and Haydn. The Orchestra of Classical Opera is conducted by Ian Page.

26 Wigmore Street W1U 2BP 020 7935 2141 January 20 Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra Cadogan Hall Edward Gardner conducts the Orchestra with Truls Mork on the cello in a programme of Grieg’s Peer Gynt Suite No 1, Elgar’s Cello Concerto and Bartok’s Concerto for Orchestra.

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Sloane Terrace SW1X 9DQ 020 7730 4500 January 21 Van Diemen’s Land St John’s Notes Inegales, a ten-piece band led by Sam Lee, the Mercury Prize nominated folk singer present an evening of music based on traditional music from downunder.

Smiths Square SW1P 3HA 020 7222 1061 January 24 Pierre-Laurent Aimard and Tamara Stefanovich St John’s Piano duo play Brahms’ Sonata in F minor for two pianos Op.34b and Messiaen’s Visions de l’Amen.

Smith Square SW1P 3HA 020 7222 1061 January 13, 18, 23, 27 & 30 Written on Skin Royal Opera House George Benjamin conducts a superb cast that includes Christopher Purves, Barbara Hannigan, Iestyn Davies in the first revival of Martin Crimp’s highly acclaimed opera.

Bow Street WC2E 9DD 020 7304 4000 December 13, 16 January 26 28, 31, Il Trovatore Royal Opera House The first revival of David Bosch’s new production for the Royal Opera with two casts including Maria Agresta, Lianna Haroutounian, Anita Rachvelishvili, Dmitri Hvorostovsky, conducted by Richard Farnes Bow Street WC2E 9DD 020 7304 4000 EXHIBITIONS Ends December 15 Lost in Space The Stash Gallery Works by the multi-talented Tony Common who is capable of painting miniatures and also gigantic murals, but these are normal size and eminently desirable.

Open Tuesday-Saturday 5-11pm 30 Prescot Street London E1 8BB Vout-O-Reenees.com Ends December 17 Sean Scully Timothy Taylor Gallery The 71 year old painter remains as fresh and rewarding as ever “unashamedly emotional and spiritual”.

15 Carlos Place W1K 2EX 020 7409 3344 Ends December 30 The Hive Kew Gardens The structure of the hive is inspired by scientific research into the health of bees and the important part pollination plays in their lives, as well as ours. It is an immersive sound and visual experience.

Richmond TW 9 3AB 020 8332 5655 Ends December 31 Around Abstract Art 1920-1935 Tate Modern An exploration of development of abstract art in the years between the two World Wars and how the name became favoured over ‘constructive’ or ‘concrete’ art.

Bankside SE1 9TG 020 7887 8888

Ends January 8 Feeding the 400 The Foundling Museum The exhibition brings alive the connections between what, where and why the foundlings ate what they ate; the beliefs and science that underpinned these decisions and the physiological and psychological effects. Archival material, paintings and objects like tableware are on show.

40 Brunswick Square WC1N 1AZ 020 7841 3600 Ends January 8 Christmas Past: 400 Years and Seasonal Traditions in English Homes The Geffrye Museum Authentic festive decorations, lighting, music, and greenery give visitors an insight into how Christmas has been celebrated for the past 400 years. It also demonstrates how the popularity of Christmas has waxed with the Stuarts and Victoria and waned under the Puritans.

A full programme of events will include craft fairs, festive evenings, carol singing and workshops.

136 Kingsland Road Hoxton E2 8EA 020 7739 9893 January 6 - 15 London Boat Show ExCEL London’s biggest boat show with over 500 exhibitors showcasing the best in watercraft innovations, equipment and holidays as well as interactive experiences and trying out the latest in boating technology.

1 Western Gateway Royal Victoria Dock E16 1XL 020 7069 5000 Ends January 15 2017 Bedlam: the Asylum and Beyond Wellcome Collection The exhibition follows the rise and fall of the mental asylum, taking Bethlem Royal Hospital as a starting point, it juxtaposes historical material and medical records with individual testimonies and work by artists such as Richard Dadd, Eva Kotatkova, and David Beales.

183 Euston Road NW1 2BE 020 7611 2222 Ends January 15 Adriaen van de Velde: Dutch Master of Landscape Dulwich Picture Gallery Over 60 paintings and exquisite preparatory drawings by the painter and draughtsman; one of the finest landscape artists of the Dutch Golden Age. Gallery Road SE21 7AD 020 8693 5254 Ends January 15 Beyond Caravaggio National Gallery

Image © Ione Bingley

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A peaceful retreat

found in the London Wetland Centre

By Ione Bingley Entering through the gates and into a quiet, avian oasis just by the river in Barnes, South West London, you could be forgiven for thinking that this peaceful paradise teeming with nature had been mercifully left undisturbed for hundreds of years while the rest of England’s capital city sprung up around it.

Developed across the site of four disused reservoirs and spanning 43 hectares, the London Wetland Centre, however, is just a couple of decades old. Founder of the Wildfowl and Wetland Trust (WWT) Sir Peter Scott, Thames Water and Berkley Homes came together in a unique partnership to restore the wetland area for native and migrating species in 1995.

Today, the area is thriving and makes for a welcome break from the buzz of the city. Opened by Sir David Attenborough in May 2000, the London Wetland Centre is split into two distinct regions; one filled with exotic kept birds, where you can hop between continents from the Pantanal in South America to the Mongolian Steppes in Central Asia, taking in the stunning plumage of every bird in between.

The second area is the main wetland, dotted with hides that face the marshy plain and river, juxtaposed by a backdrop of the London skyline. Keen bird-watchers

The last chance to see around 50 paintings by the revolutionary artist and his followers.

Trafalgar Square WC2N 5DN 020 7747 2885 Ends January 19 Touch: Maggie Hambling Works on paper by an artist who is well known for her sculpture, paintings, printmaking and installations, but drawing remains at the heart of her work. On show here are drawings and prints, many never before exhibited.

Great Russell Street WC1B 3DG 020 7323 8299 January 16-22 The London Art Fair Business Design Centre 125 Galleries to wander through showcasing museum-quality contemporary artworks and pieces from today’s leading artists, works from the early 20th century to the present day includes photography, sculpture, painting and ceramics.

52 Upper Street Islington N1 0QH

and novices alike can peer through binoculars to enjoy the travails of herons, ducks and geese as they go about their business, blissfully undisturbed by humans. The lucky few may even get the rare chance to see a sand piper, well-camouflaged bittern, or a member of the peregrine falcon family that has made its unlikely nest on the roof of Charing Cross Hospital, visible across the way.

The Wildfowl and Wetland Trust is a conservation charity that continues to save delicate wetland ecosystems across the world, essential for the continued survival of many beautiful and rare types of bird. The Trust runs nine centres in the UK that help to give visitors a deeper understanding of the birds that they are assisting to conserve just by paying the entrance fee.

The London Wetland Centre presents the unique opportunity for Londoners to step off the hectic streets and into a nature reserve, showing how development and conservation can exist harmoniously side by side and bringing both adults and children closer to nature in an unparalleled, city day out.

0870 405 0449 Ends January 22 Picture from Punch Cartoon Museum An exhibition includes work by some of Britain’s greatest humourous artists; H.M. Bateman, Norman Thelwell, Ronald Searle, Fougasse and many others.

35 Russell Street WC1A 2HH 020 7580 8155 Ends January 22 Ardizzone: A Retrospective House of Illustration Over 100 pieces, the first retrospective in 40 years of “The supreme contemporary example of the genuine illustrator’; Maurice Sendak’s judgement of that artist’s work. Best known for his lineand-wash drawings.

2 Granary Square King’s Cross N1C 4BH 0844 844 0253 Ends January 22 Rodin & Dance:

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The Essence of Movement The Courtauld Gallery The first major exhibition to examine Rodin’s fascination with dance and bodies in extreme acrobatic poses. These works, known as The Dance Movements, were discovered after the artist’s death and give a rare insight into the artist’s practices; terra cotta and plaster alongside remarkable drawings.

Strand WC2R 0RN 020 7848 2526 Ends January 29 Intrigue: James Ensor

by Luc Tuymans Royal Academy An exhibition curated by the Belgian Luc Tuymans which shows Ensor as an outsider innovator who rebelled against the art of the late 19th century which influenced the development of Expressionism. He is known for his macabre paintings of carnivals and skeletons.

Sackler Wing Burlington House W1J 0BD 020 7300 8000 Ends February 5 Picasso Portraits National Portrait Gallery More than 75 works that cover the

evolution of the artist’s style through the portraits of his friends, family, lovers and self-portraits which reveal his creative processes as he moved freely between life-drawing, humorous caricature and expressive painting from memory.

St Martin’s Place WC2H 0HE 020 7306 0055 Ends February 5 The Vulgar: Fashion Redefined Barbican Art Gallery A journey through the history of fashion from the Renaissance to the present day exploring excess and perceived ‘Vulgarity’, looking at ‘Good Taste’ from different points of view. A display of historic and contemporary costumes by designers Dior, Westwood, Moschino, Chloe, Lagerfeld and Chanel, curated by Judith Clark and psychoanalyst Adam Phillips.

Silk Street EC2Y 8DS 020 7638 8891 Ends February 26 Shaping Ceramics Jewish Museum From Lucy Rie to Edward de Waal, an exploration of the work of these pioneering ceramicists which traces their influence on subsequent generations of ceramic artists whose Jewish heritage

has shaped their work. Spanning over 80 years, the exhibition covers 13 ceramicists.

Raymond Burton House 129-131 Albert Street NW1 7NB 020 7284 7384 For more info about talks and workshops jewishmuseum.org.uk/ceramics Ends February 26 You Say You Want a Revolution?

Records and Rebels 1966-1970 V&A A major exhibition focuses on the significance and impact of the late 1960s through some of the music like A Change is gonna Come, the Paris protest in May 1968, the Woodstock Festival of 1969 and objects relating to fashion, film, design and politics.

Cromwell road SW7 2RL 020 784 2000 Ends February 26 South African Art British Museum An exhibition that dates back 100,000 years showing some of the world’s oldest art objects up through the precolonial and then the colonial period and apartheid to the present day.

Great Russell Street WC1B 3DG 020 7323 8355 Ends February 28 Painters’ Painters Saatchi Gallery Duke of York Square King’s Road SW3 4RY 020 7811 3070 Ends March 12 Undressed: a Brief History V&A Museum The evolution of underwear design from the 18th century to the present day with over 200 examples highlighting the themes of innovation and luxury.

Cromwell Road SW7 2RL 020 7942 2000

In the steps of the

SUNDAY 12 MARCH 2017 at 7pm London Coliseum A ballet gala celebrating the legacy of the legendary Ballet Russes – featuring well-loved favourites, rediscovered repertoire and contemporary pieces inspired by this great tradition.

Tickets: £25-£145 (plus booking fee)

Ends March 1 2017 Maps and the 20th Century: Drawing the Line British Library Learn about the use of cartography for a wide range of purposes and see a selection of Nazi war propaganda and never before displayed Ministry of Defence educational charts.

96 Euston Road NW1 2DB 020 7412 7332 Ends March 5 2017 Paul Nash Tate Britain The most comprehensive exhibition of the work of the Official War Artist of 1917 including landscapes of the English countryside, early drawings, surrealistic paintings and his works on the horrors of war.

Millbank SW1P 4RG 020 7887 8888 Ends March 12 Hair by Sam McKnight Embankment Galleries A major exhibition celebrating the master

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Kensington, Chelsea & Westminster Today

hairstylist Sam McKnight’s 40-year career. He has been at the forefront in the creation of fashion’s iconic images and memorable hair-styles; photographs, magazines, original catwalk outfits from Westwood and Chanel as well as commissioned wigs and hairpieces.

Somerset House Strand WC2R 1LA 020 7845 4600 Ends March 26 Australia’s Impressionists The National Gallery The first UK exhibition to focus on this subject.

Trafalgar Square WC2 020 7747 2885 Ends April 2 Robert Rauschenberg Tate Modern Preceding Warhol and Emin, the Texan Rauschenberg was the original Pop artist using performance, found objects, newspapers, mass, popular and trash imagery, he produced witty thoughtprovoking paintings and silkscreen prints including large scale pop art prints picturing the famous.

Bankside SE1 9TG 020 7887 8888

100 objects from literature, film, taxidermy, and photography to examine our ideas about other animals and the consequences of these for ourselves and our planet.

183 Euston Road NW1 2BE 020 7611 2222

including sportswear, printed day dresses, beaded evening wear, velvet capes and silk PJs. Illustrations by Gordon Conway and photographs by Beaton, Man Ray and Baron de More.

83 Bermondsey Street SE1 3XF 020 7407 8664

Ends May 2 Memorial: a Tribute to Taxidermy Horniman Museum An exhibition by ethical taxidermist Jazmine Miles-Long who ’aims to challenge perceptions of the art by recreating historic works from the Horniman’s collection to explore the process of taxidermy’.

100 London Road SE23 3PQ

Ends January 15 Feminist Avant-Garde of the 1970s Photographers’ Gallery Photographs, films, videos, collages; 150 major works by 47 artists from the Verbund Collection in Vienna produced at the time when gender equality, emancipation and civil rights became part of the Protest Movement.

16 -18 Ramillies Street W1F 7LW 0845 262 1618

February 7-May 29 David Hockney Tate Britain A Major retrospective spanning the artist’s entire career.

Millbank SW1P 4RG 020 7887 8888

Ends April 2 Luc Tuymans: Glasses National Portrait Gallery The artist has selected from his portraits, only those ones where the sitter is wearing glasses.

St Martin’s Place WC2 020 7306 0055

February 15 - June 11 Wolfgang Tillmans Tate Modern This exhibition covers the artist’s work from his last show at Tate Britain fourteen years ago.

Bankside SE1 9TG 020 7887 8888

Ends April 17 The Remarkable Life Story of Emma Hamilton National Maritime Museum Emma was one of the most famous international beauties of her time and this exhibition traces her career from rags to riches and back to poverty again bringing together over 200 objects, paintings by Sir Joshua Reynolds, and Sir Thomas Lawrence, and letters between Emma and her lovers.

Greenwich SE10 9NF 020 8312 6565

Ends September 10 Wildlife Photographer of the Year and other events Natural History Museum Amazing photography with some startling images including a virtual reality experience diving beneath the waves to the Great Barrier Reef.

Cromwell Road SW7 5BD 020 7942 5000

April 23 Fear and Love: Reactions to a Complex World Design Museum The first exhibition at the newly-opened museum contains eleven installations by some of the world’s leading designers and architects and involves globalisation, recycling and love in the era of social media. Be prepared for a sentient robot, a Mongolian yurt and Hussein Chalayan’s ‘devices able to detect and project your emotions’.

224-238 Kensington High Street W8 6AG 020 3862 5937 December 1-May 21 2017 Making Nature: How We See Animals Wellcome Collection The exhibition brings together over

Ongoing Designology London Transport Museum Discover the art and aesthetics behind the functional and familiar at the Museum; the exhibition explores how design is encountered in everyday journeys. Highlights include the ephemera of travel, tickets and historic maps, old bus timetables, the original drawings for the Arnos Grove and Sudbury Art Deco stations.

Covent Garden Piazza WC2E 7BB 020 7565 7298 FILM/PHOTOGRAPHY Ends January 15 1920s Jazz age Fashion and Photographs Fashion and Textile Museum An exhibition of ready-to-wear and haute couture fashion from 1919 to 1929; the decade after WWI offered a whole new way of dressing. Over 150 garments

Ends April 16 The Fantastic Barbican World The Barbican In the foyer is a celebrations of this famous modernist architecture and design which explores Chamberlin, Powell and Bon’s effort ‘to combine spaciousness with high density development’. A 16 feet 8 inch model of the original plan comprised over 2000 flats and maisonettes for 6,500 occupants; they wanted to build a large-scale landmark avoiding the monotony associated with high-density developments.

Silk Street EC2Y 8DS 020 7638 889 Ends August 28 Edmund Clark: War of Terror Imperial War Museum With photography, videos, documents, graphic visualisations, the artist photographer reveals the hidden and controversial methods used by states to protect their citizens. See the facilities of Guantanamo Bay and read the letters censored by the military, see how a man lives in the UK under a Home Office Control Order. Find out about ‘the processes used to detain and transfer people suspected of terrorism without legal procedure’.

Happy Christmas.

Lambeth Road SE1 6HZ 020 7416 5000 THEATRE Ends December 17 Underneath Soho Theatre Pat Kinevane’ s solo play directed by Jim Culleton has dark humour and ‘is a blackly comic, rich and vivid tale of a life lived with a secret, a testament to the people who live on the fringes.

21 Dean Street W1D 3NE 020 7478 0100 Ends December 22 After October Finborough Theatre

SNOWDROP DAYS 2017

Sat 28 Jan to Fri 3 Feb, 10am–4pm

See snowdrops in innovative displays around the Garden, enjoy tours of the collection and browse a selection of winter flowering plants for sale.

Sloane Sq/South Ken Bus 170 www.chelseaphysicgarden.co.uk KCW advert CPG Snowdrops.indd 1

After 80 years Rodney Ackland’s play is put on again. Set in Hampstead 1936, a playwright struggles with poverty and dreams of an West End hit to help his bankrupt mother and his family and friend; an opening is scheduled which will determine the future.’ A play that is almost autobiographical’ 118 Finborough Road SW10 9ED 0844 847 1652 Ends December 22 The Sewing Group Royal Court A woman arrives in a pre-industrial English village with a desire to learn how to live a simple life, but soon she upsets the equilibrium.

Sloane Square SW1W 8AS 020 7565 5000 Ends December 23 King Lear Barbican Gregory Doran directs Antony Sher in one of the greatest parts ever written, in a production by the Royal Shakespeare Company.

Silk Street EC2Y 8DS 020 7638 8891 Ends January 1 The Snowman The Peacock Theatre Raymond Briggs’ perennial Christmas favourite with music and lyrics by Howard Blake.

Portugal Street WC2A 2HT

17/11/2016 15:48:55

020 7863 8222 Ends January 7 2017 Bollywood Jack Tara Theatre A pantomime with Kipling’s poetry and an East-West culture-clash, glittering costumes a dame, and songs that will make you want to dance. by Farrukh Dhondy. All ages.

356 Garratt lane SW18 4ES 020 8333 4457 Ends January 14 The Children Jerwood Theatre downstairs Two retired nuclear scientists live alone in an isolated cottage by the sea as the world around then crumbles; they are content with their yoga and yogurt until their peace is destroyed by a friend arriving with a request.

Royal Court Sloane Square SW1W 8AS 020 7565 5000 Ends January 14 Wild Honey Hampstead Theatre

By Michael Frayn based on a nameless play by Chekhov, directed by Howard Davies with Jonathan Ken is a tale of Russian life, desires, misunderstandings and nostalgia; a comedy of errors.

Eton Avenue Swiss Cottage NW3 3EU 020 7722 9301

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Ends January 29 Peter Pan Goes Wrong Apollo Theatre Not a pantomime. Mischief Theatre production returns; a troupe of amateurs want to put on Barrie’s play, but everything goes wrong that can. ‘Slapstick anarchy ensues’. Age 8+ Shaftesbury Avenue W1D 7WS 0330 333 4809 Ends February 5 Babe, the Sheep-Pig Polka Theatre Can a pig make it in a dog’s world and when his farmyard friends are in trouble can he save the day? Based on the classic children’s novel, this has laughter, thrills, puppetry and music.

240 The Broadway Wimbledon SW19 1SB Age 5-11 020 8543 4888

Ends February 18 Art Old Vic Translated by Christopher Hampton from the play by Yasmina Reza with Paul Ritter, Tim Key and Rufus Sewell and directed by Matthew Warchus, a play about art, friendship, tolerance and prejudice.

The Cut SE1 8NB 0844 871 7628 Ends February 26 How to Hide a Lion Polka Theatre Based on a book by Helen Stephens, adapted and directed by Peter Glanville with music and songs Barb Jungr. Playful humour as a young girl tries to help a lion to hide with puppetry and original songs.

Ages 1-6 240 The Broadway Wimbledon SW19 1SB 020 8543 4888 December 20 & 21 A Christmas Carol with Simon Callow The Arts Theatre

ORDER, ORDER Book your tour today

TALKS British Museum Free lunchtime Gallery talks of 45 minutes each with guest speaker or curator.

Tuesday to Friday 13.15 Free 20 minute tours focussing on highlights every Friday evening. 5pm & 5.30pm, The Parthenon. 6.30pm & 7.00pm, The Enlightenment Great Russell Street WC1B 3DG 020 7323 8000

26 January 2017 Dee Burrowes: How to be proud of yourself The Lecture Club “Dee’s mission is simple. She helps individuals to achieve positive, lasting change for themselves by building relationships with people and their teams.” Talk by life coach Dee Burrowes with a percentage of the entrance fee donated to the Alzheimer’s Society and complimentary wine & refreshments. £12 with a pre-printed ticket (£15 on the door).

9 Ilchester Place W14 8AA thelectureclub.com

Science Museum Unexpected Science Meet people with fascinating jobs where you might not expect to find maths and science at play. Find out about the skills they use on a daily basis and you might be surprised to find you already have some of them. The drop-in talks are 11am, 12.15pm and 1.15pm Prebook session in Wonderlab: The Statoil Gallery to participate Meet the Creators of the Wonderlab: Statoil Gallery and ask them anything you’ve ever wanted to know about creating a gallery. 10.30am & 12.45pm Each session is 20 minutes long and has places for 30 students plus accompanying teachers.

Must be pre-booked 020 7942 4777 Exhibition Road SW7 2DD December 15 1016: The Forgotten Conquest of England and Cnut’s Reign British Museum 2016 marks the millennium of the conquest of England by Cnut (r.10161035) who was one of the most successful of the early kings of England. Gareth Williams of the British Museum explores Cnut’s conquests and achievements.

13.30 - 14.30 Free: Booking essential BP Lecture Hall Great Russell Street WC1B 3DG Booking: 020 7323 8181 or online tickets@britishmuseum.org January 4 Building St Paul’s Cathedral: 1666 to 1711 Museum of London Archaeologist John Scholfield will show how the new cathedral rose to dominate the part of the city destroyed by the fire and how it became ‘the nation’s church’.

3.00pm.

150 London Wall EC2Y 5HN 020 7001 9844 January 10

Immunologist Professor Benjamin Wilcox and Dr Karin Straathof from UCL Ormond Street Institute of Child Health discuss the latest research findings on re-educating our immune systems to recognise and fight cancer. 6.30pm-8pm 6-9 Carlton Terrace SW1Y 5AG 020 7451 2500

020 7219 4114 Christie’s Lates: The Alpine Late Christie’s South Kensington 85 Old Brompton Road, London SW7 3LD Tuesday 10 January 2017 6.00-8.30 pm Free entry, cash bar If you can’t get to the slopes this January, come enjoy the après-ski vibe at Christie’s instead. Nicky Dobree, of Nicky Dobree Interior Design, will be on hand to explain how she creates cosy corners in some of the world’s most luxurious ski chalets.

Hear a talk by poster expert Paul Rennie, watch snowflake-making demonstrations by Poppy Chancellor of Poppy's Papercuts, and enjoy a cocktail masterclass hosted by renowned West London institution Bluebird Chelsea.

Highlights of the Interiors auction, including the Ski Sale, will also be on view. Find out more at www.christies. com/lates Christie’s Lates are brought to you

by Christie’s South Kensington and Strutt & Parker, exclusive UK Affiliate of Christie's International Real Estate.

January 10 Brian Cox presents Science Matters Royal Festival Hall More and more jobs are performed by machines; even creative tasks are carried out by them. Should we be worried about artificial intelligence taking over or are there bigger and more imminent challenges that advances in machine learning are presenting here and now?

A discussion with Professor Jon Crowcroft from Cambridge and Professor Joanna Bryson from Princeton University.

19:30pm - 21pm, £7.50 - £15.00 Southbank Centre Belvedere Road Lambeth SE1 8XX 0844 875 0073

2 February 2017 Damian Culhane: How to thrive under stress-What you need to know about superfood!

The Lecture Club “Damian discovered the power of superfoods and how they enabled him to

January 24 Can Our Immune Systems Fight Cancer The Royal Society

February 8 Stephen Brookhouse: Waving or Drowning Fyvie Hall Can architectural education survive the tide of global procurement? The majority of projects are now in the Middle and Far East and UK-trained architects and construction professionals are in demand as never before.

Regent Campus 309 Regent Street W1B 2HW 020 7911 5000

Compiled and edited by Leila Kooros and Ione Bingley.

With assistance from Fahad Redha

returns to Chelsea Physic Garden

By Ione Bingley Due to Chelsea Physic Garden’s unique warm microclimate, visitors will be able to see snowdrops in January, before the rest of the country, as part of the garden’s annual Snowdrop Festival.

Once again Head Gardener Nick Bailey and his team will be creating an innovative display, elevating the snowdrops so that visitors can admire their intricate details up close. This year, the garden has also promised an unexpected injection of colour to these typically white icons of spring.

The Snowdrop Trail will lead you around the garden’s collection of over 120 cultivars and species, highlighting their provenance, breeding and distinctive patterns, with a team of volunteer guides giving free tours of the garden’s displays and winter interest areas.

The Growing Friends volunteers will also be selling a huge selection of rare and unusual snowdrops and spring bulbs in the plant marquee, providing the public an opportunity to adorn their own gardens with interesting snowdrop cultivars.

The garden’s Tangerine Dream Café will be serving a selection of warming lunches

and snacks and the Book & Gift Shop will be selling a range of garden and snowdropthemed books and gifts Entry costs £10.50 for adults and £6.95 for children, students and jobseekers and is free to Friends of the Garden.

Throughout the event there will be snowdrop themed walks, talks and workshops including: Joe Sharman, Monksilver Nurseries, Sensational Snowdrops talk, Saturday 28 January John Grimshaw, Galanthus Galore talk, Sunday 29 January Head Gardener Nick Bailey Best in Snow tours, TBC Snowdrop-inspired one-day workshops (pre-booking required): Sue Bishop: Snowdrop Photography, Sunday 29 January, 10am – 4.30pm Lucy T Smith: Painting Snowdrops, Friday 10 February, 9.30am-4pm Both at £105 including lunch.

RHS

January 12 Something in the Air: The insidious Challenge of Air Pollution Barnard’s Inn Hall.

Professor Carolyn Roberts Although smoke from burning forests and photochemical smog from Beijing and Delhi are visible from space, most of the air pollution in cities such as London is invisible even at ground level. WHO suggests the cost within Europe alone amounts to $1.6 trillion with massive implications for health. Can anything realistically be done about it?

6.00-7.00pm Holborn EC1N 2HH 020 7831 0575 January 24 The Jewish History of the Tower Tower of London Find out the part the Tower played in Jewish history and the important role the Jewish community continues to play in London today. 7.00-8.30pm EC3N 4AB 020 3166 6000

survive in extreme conditions. Damian will be sharing his inspirational story - including insights on how to sustain energy whilst under stress.” Talk by Damian Culhane with a percentage of the entrance fee donated to the Alzheimer’s Society and complimentary wine & refreshments. £12 with a preprinted ticket (£15 on the door).

9 Ilchester Place W14 8AA thelectureclub.com

LONDON

Ends February 4 An Inspector Calls Playhouse Theatre Stephen Daldry’s National Theatre adaptation of JB Priestley’s thriller won 19 major awards.

Northumberland Avenue WC2N 5DE

Simon Callow returns to his role as Scrooge. Join in the Christmas festivities.

6-7 Great Newport Street WC2H 7JB 020 7836 8463

Snowdrop Festival

SHOWS

Reindeer guest appearance 12 – 4pm

RHS London Christmas Show Perfect for last-minute gifts Sat 17–Sun 18 Dec, 10am–5pm (Fri Late 16 Dec, 6–9pm)

London Wetland Centre

Royal Horticultural Halls

St James’s Park

rhs.org.uk/londonshows

London Victoria

RHS Registered Charity No: 222879/SC038262

Ends January 22 Lazarus Kings Cross Theatre Based on the book The Man who Fell to Earth focuses on a man unable to die, is haunted by a past love. A musical

by David Bowie and Enda Walsh and directed by Ivo Van Hove.

King’s Boulevard N1C 4BU 020 3137 7420

Image © CPG

KC W To d a y Q u a r te r P a g e

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2017 Season

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December 2016 / January 2017

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Rauschenberg Tate Modern Until 2 April 2017 Admission 18.50 tate.org.uk

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his is Tate Modern’s Big Autumn show and is the first posthumous retrospective, and the largest exhibition of the artist's work, for more than 20 years. Just glancing into the first couple of galleries, and seeing the vibrancy, the colour, the vigour and the audacity, it is well worth the wait. This is a joyful and exciting show, and one can sense the fun he had experimenting with different mediums and collaborating with other artists, like Jasper Johns, Cy Twombly and Susan Wiel, or avant garde dancers and composers like Merce Cunningham and John Cage.

He seemed to be a man without a comfort zone to be out of, allowing him to produce innovative and startlingly

original ideas; he was at the forefront of twentieth century art for six decades.

Looking around today's contemporary art scene, one realises not just what a colossal influence he was, but also, how little is original, from Tracey Emin to Damien Hurst.

Not only was he one of the painters to veer away from Abstract Expressionism, having spent some time under the ex-Bauhaus tutor Josef Albers, he became one of pre-cursors and founding fathers of Pop Art in America and used media, trash and found objects in his work, being labelled a Neo Dadaist on the way, along with Jasper Johns. In 1990, he created the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation (RRF) to promote awareness of the causes he cared about, such as world peace, the environment and humanitarian issues.

Rauschenberg became well known for his ‘Combines’ of the 1950s, in which non-traditional materials and objects were employed in innovative combinations. Rauschenberg was both a painter and a sculptor and the Combines were an amalgam of both, but he also worked with photography, printmaking, papermaking, and performance art, particularly with Cunningham and

Arts & Culture Trisha Brown Dance Company. He was awarded the National Medal of Arts in 1993, and he became the recipient of the Leonardo da Vinci World Award of Arts in 1995 in recognition of his more than 40 years of art-making. The Tate exhibition celebrates each stage of his varied career, from his early experimentation with everyday materials, textiles, photography using lightsensitive blueprint paper, basic drawing, transfer drawing, silkscreen, and, as Albers taught, “open the student’s eyes to the phenomena around him and to his own living, being and doing.”

He embraced technology and formed ‘Experiments in Art and Technology (E.A.T.)’, a non-profit foundation that fused the interaction between engineers, artists and the science industry, and, within three years it had attracted 2000 engineers, and as many artists, across the globe. He was invited to witness the launch of Apollo II by NASA, and was asked to create a drawing for a microchip that would travel to the moon. His contribution was a straight line, while Andy Warhol drew a penisshaped rocket, or it could have been a rocket-shaped penis. Such was his fame, he was asked to design covers for Time Magazine,and albums for his friend David Byrne of Talking Heads, although one design for Time, featuring Bobby Kennedy, Martin Luther King, space exploration, the Vietnam War, race riots and Janice Joplin was rejected on the grounds that it was too down-beat, showing a dystopian view of the end of the sixties.

After being disillusioned with what was happening to his world, in 1971, he moved to Captiva Island in Florida, where he set up both home and studio, and from there, set off on many global travels.

He went to the textile city of Ahmedabad in India, being captivated by the colour and texture of silk. In his Jammers series he produced new, rather than found, materials, and their lightweight nature and strident colours were immediately easily transportable, recalling his set designs of the 1950s for Merce, and they worked together again over twenty years later. He was asked to visit the oldest paper mill in the world, in the Anhui Province of China, and created the Rauschenberg Overseas Cultural Interchange, in response to the many restrictions placed on Chinese citizens. In 1985 he visited his home state of Texas, and, produced a series of metal signs, oil cans and

car parts, called the Gluts, following the oil crisis of the 1980s, which epitomise Pop Art, with their high-gloss paint finish and strong graphic content. He never gave up innovation, and, even after a couple strokes 2002, he continued to produce prints, using assistants and his enormous bank of digital imagery.

There is an unnecessary debate in the art world about his sexuality and why he was not ‘outed’ in his lifetime. He married Susan Wiel early on and had a child, but he also lived with both Jasper Johns and Cy Twombly, although what effect that had on his work is somewhat spurious. One critic even went so far as to say that the his iconic Monogram, depicting an Angora goat with a car tyre around his belly was a sure sign that he was gay. Suffice to say that we are thankful that his output was so enormous and wide-ranging. He is playfully quoted as saying, “All I’m trying to do is get everyone off the highway, and if anybody follows my lead, they will soon be lost too”. Rauschenberg lived and worked in New York City as well as on Captiva Island, Florida until his death from heart failure on May 12, 2008.

Don Grant

Kensington, Chelsea & Westminster Today

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online: www.KCWToday.co.uk

Arshile Gorky

Fruition Through Complexity

By Nouneh Sarkissian

“I see my life as an artist, as having gone through three main experiences. The first is simplicity, the time of purity.

The next is a time of confusion caused from the ordeal of the search for truth. The last is mastering extreme complexity.

The last is fruition.”

Arshile Gorky Robert Rauschenberg Bed 1955 The Museum of Modern Art, New York Gift of Leo Castelli in honour of Aldred H. Barr, Jr. © Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, New York. Image: The Museum of Modern Art, New York/Scala, Florence

Robert Rauschenberg Retroactive II 1964 Oil and silk-screen ink print on canvas 213.4 x 152.4 cm Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. Partial gift of Stefan T. Edlis and H. Gael Neeson © Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, New York. Photo: Nathan Keay © MCA Chicago

Arts & Culture

December 2016 / January 2017

Image © Artists' Rights society. Water of the Flowery Mill

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rshile Gorky was born in 1904 to Shushanik and Sedrak Adoyan, in a little Armenian village of Khorkom near the city of Van, in the Ottoman Empire. Born as Vosdanig Adoyan, a name he later thought unsuitable. He changed it to Arshile Gorky, which to him sounded more artistic. Besides, gorky is the Russian word for ‘bitter’, a word defining his emotions and state of mind at that period.

In early childhood Gorky’s life was idyllic under the protection of his mother. He was a boy of artistic abilities with an attentive and watchful mind, grasping every detail around him, such as the relief on the wall of the monastery, the miniature illustration in the Gospel of the village church, the butter churn in the kitchen, the pattern on his mother’s apron. The details appeared as shapeless formations and coloured patches much later in his works.

The peaceful family life in Khorkom was interrupted in 1915 during the Armenian Genocide when the severe persecution of Armenians by the Young Turks’ Government in the Ottoman Empire forced Gorky together with his mother and sister to move to Yerevan, where after years of hardship his mother died of starvation in his arms. Gorky was only fifteen.

In 1920 Gorky and his sister arrived in the United States of America. Gorky entered the Rhode Island School of Design. Later he continued his studies at the Grand Central School of Art. In the eyes of his contemporaries he was a strange foreigner with a funny accent, bold and authentic looks, a strong voice, exemplified by his singing of harmonious Armenian melodies and unconventional dancing. He kept his studio impeccably clean and tidy with all the brushes washed and the pencils always sharpened. This was how he attracted many bohemians and soon

was accepted in the group of artists like John Graham, Max Ernst, Breton, Miro, Duchamp and by the critics Harold Rosenberg and Julien Levy. Years later he had his followers in the group; de Kooning, Pollock, Matta and Rothko.

As all great artists, Gorky went through phases. ‘I was with Cezanne for a long time…’ he said once. He was devoted to Ingres and Uccello and finally Picasso. Copying works of these artists matured his colour palette and drawing skills.

After years of hard work, Gorky found his signature style, a symphony of amazing biomorphic shapes. It was a new way of expression. Images were born in the artist’s subconscious, then after being profoundly meditated upon by the artist, they were applied on paper or canvas in oil, ink or crayons.

The ‘archetypes’, as per Carl Jung’s term, images and motifs from unconscious were emerging into Gorky’s conscious mind. In an amazing drawing and painting technique, masterpieces such as Water of the Flowery Mill, (1944), How My Mothers Embroidered Apron Unfolds in My Life, (1944), The Plough and the Song (1947), Agony (1947) have been created.

Gorky’s art illuminates light and a limitless sensation of beauty and radiance. His pieces are very sensual and sexual, puzzling the viewer. One can’t just pass by Gorky’s works, as they make the viewer stop and solve the puzzle.

In 1945 Gorky already had his unique style. He was, albeit, unaware

that his work was going to start a new movement in American Art, Abstract Expressionism.

Gorky was tall and handsome.

He had an open face with thick dark moustache and deep large sad eyes. He sometimes wore a black velour hat pulled low over the eyes and a black overcoat tight under his chin.

His appearance was dramatic and one of his friends recollected a scene in a museum, when he appeared beneath one of the spotlights. A woman crossed herself, then apologised. “For a moment,” she said, “I thought you were Jesus Christ.” “Madam,” Gorky said, “I am Arshile Gorky.” That was how he confessed his total devotion to art.

Speaking as, he thought, he was not less than Jesus Christ in his art. Gorky, indeed, was getting ready to sacrifice himself to Art. In 1946, twenty-seven of his paintings, all the valuable work of recent years, were destroyed by a fire in his studio in Sherman, Connecticut. Gorky overcame this and started to work with doubled energy.

However after this unfortunate event fate continued to intervene: Gorky was diagnosed with cancer. This was followed by a car accident, which paralysed his neck and painting arm. Then Gorky’s wife Agnes Magruder who was having an affair with Robert Matta, left him, taking their two daughters Maro and Natasha.

In 1948, at the age of 44, Gorky hanged himself in their barn in

Connecticut. He wrote on the wall ‘Good bye, my Beloveds.’

Gorky’s works are masterpieces where the intertwined lines and colour patches create the mysticism of abstraction and an enigmatic aura. The artist had reached the most important level of aesthetics where he was able to transfer his emotions from the depth of his soul onto a canvas.

There are no lies or pretence in Gorky’s work. His paintings and drawings are real, sincere and unprotected, like a knobbed pile of naked nerves. Gorky made visible what was invisible through his purity and maturity, as well as his complexity and fruition, through his Art. Gorky’s work is currently being exhibited as part of Abstract Expressionism at the Royal Academy until January 2nd.

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December 2016 / January 2017

Kensington, Chelsea & Westminster Today

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Arts & Culture

National Maritime Museum Park Row, Greenwich.

London SE10 9NF 4th Nov 2016-17th April 2017

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mma Hamilton was likened unto a Greek Goddess by the most famous Portrait Artist of the day, George Romney, compared to an Ancient Greek Sculpture by the famed Antiquities Collector, Sir William Hamilton, painted joyously by Joshua Reynolds and greatly beloved by the ‘greatest naval hero in history’, Horatio, Lord Nelson.

Yet, her beauty brought her only ephemeral happiness and security.

Penury, debt and death in self-imposed exile was her eventual fate, deserted by benefactors and the Muses.

The Exhibition, Emma Hamilton.

Seduction and Celebrity, tells the extraordinary story of her life through two hundred exhibits, some are on loan from private lenders and collections, others from the Museum’s own collection. On view are antiquities and fine art which inspired her Attitudes work, costumes that reflect her influence on contemporary fashion, together with prints which spread her image across the

world. The exhibits also include song books, many letters, decorative objects and the evocative uniform, worn by Nelson, which she had to sell to survive.

Objects that can be safely attributed to Emma are rare as she died in poverty; the Exhibition provides a splendid opportunity to see them.

Quinton Colville, Curator, hopes that Emma Hamilton is presented in her true light, not merely as the supportive mistress of a great man. She was an accomplished performer, leader of neoclassical fashion, a vivacious hostess.

In Naples she wielded political influence through her friendship with Queen Carolina, sister of Marie Antoinette.

Emma was ambitious for herself and she encouraged Nelson to claim fame and glory. The way in which she crossed social boundaries and convention was remarkable.

Little is known of Emma’s early life, she was born in Ness, near Neston in the Wirral. Her father was a blacksmith who died when she was two months old, and she was brought up by her mother and grandmother in Wales. Her birth name was Amy Lyon which she later changed to Emma Hart. She had no formal education and had ‘live in’ jobs in Chester and London.

The Exhibition reveals she came to the Covent Garden area and Drury Lane Theatre and was at one time a dancer and model at The Goddess of Health and Hymen, which was run by ‘quack’ Doctor James Graham. Covent Garden was a meeting place for actors, artists and celebrities and it also featured low life where women were exploited for sex.

John Collet’s painting, Covent Garden Piazza and Market reveals the

December 2016 / January 2017

Arts & Culture

Image © Tate. Emma Hart as Circe. George Romney

Emma Hamilton.

Seduction and Celebrity

020 7738 2348

atmosphere well.

Emma met a young nobleman, Sir Harry Fetherstonhaugh and became his hostess at his estate, Uppark, in the South Downs. She is reputed to have entertained his guests by dancing naked on the dining room table. She became pregnant with his child at sixteen years old and was abandoned. Pompeo Batoni’s portrait shows him as a handsome man.

Emma was soon befriended by the Honourable Charles Francis Greville.

He arranged care for her child whom she saw occasionally and Greville introduced her to the artist George Romney.

George Romney was fascinated by her and saw in her the ideal of beauty which combined the regular features of ancient Greek sculpture and the chestnut coloured hair of Ruben's voluptuous models. He painted her many, many times, often as famous figures from classical times. He made her famous and she became his Muse. On view is Romney’s Emma as the Spinstress which reveals her as herself, young, charming and loving. In contrast, Emma as Circe shows her as that character, a stunning full length painting. Notice the drapery evoking Greek sculpture. Emma as a Sibyl and Emma as Cassandra both on view are striking examples of Romney’s paintings of Emma posing as figures from the classical past.

Many other artists painted Emma. In fact, she was said to have been ‘the most painted woman in British History.’ Sir Lawrence Thomas painted Emma as La Penserosa and Joshua Reynolds painted Emma as a Bacchante, both these works are in the Exhibition.

As the Exhibition reveals Greville was seeking a rich wife and Emma

was not suitable so he sent her to Naples to visit his Uncle, Sir William Hamilton, who was the British Envoy.

She was unaware she was expected to be Sir William’s mistress, believing that Greville was to accompany her to Naples.

However she improved herself and learned much from him. She was now in her twenties and created her own art form, Attitudes in which she dressed in different costumes and mimed famous people, often dancing too. This art form was called mimoplasty and the Grand Tourists adored it. There are several exhibits of Attitudes including Pietro Novelli's Emma performing her Attitudes and many drawings. Sir Joshua Reynolds fine portrait, Sir William Hamilton is on display.

Emma was much feted in Naples and a success with Sir William’s eminent guests who included European Royalty.

In 1791 Emma and Sir William were married and she became Lady Hamilton.

She was twenty six and he was sixty.

In 1798 Horatio, Lord Nelson, following his great victory at the Battle of the Nile came to Naples amid a panoply of celebration and welcome, partly organised by Lady Hamilton in his honour. A painting of the scene is attributed to Giacomo Guardi called The Arrival of Vanguard with Admiral Nelson at Naples, 22nd September,1798 is memorable. Leonardo Guzzardi’s RearAdmiral Sir Horatio Nelson shows his courage shining through his war wounds.

Lady Hamilton and Lord Nelson fell in love, a love affair that lasted six years, an affair which the world will never forget. They were both emotional, had a strong sense of humour, were super energetic and hungry for fame.

They travelled back to England with Sir William and Emma set up Merton Place, in the Wimbledon countryside where she lived with Nelson. There is a print after Edward Hawke Locker in the exhibition. Nelson was away for years at a time fighting the Napoleonic Wars.

There are many letters he sent her on view. In 1801 their daughter, Horatia, was born in secret. She was given over to a nurse and Emma was not allowed to acknowledge she was the mother.

There is a lovely picture of Horatia by an unknown artist on display.

Lord Nelson died at the moment of victory at the Battle of Trafalgar. His pig-tail was sent to Emma and it is a particularly evocative exhibit, as is his uniform.

Nelson had made provision for Emma and Horatia, but cruelly, his wishes were ignored. She tried to keep up appearances, but failed. She descended into poverty and was condemned to the Debtors’ Prison.

Emma, Lady Hamilton died in self imposed exile in Calais in 1815, deserted by benefactors and the muses.

Marian Maitland Enquiries: 020 8858 4422 www.rmg.co.uk/emmahamilton

Flaming June: The Making of an Icon.

Leighton House Museum.

Until 2nd April. 2017.

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Victorian painting of a sleeping beauty, adorned in a diaphanous, glowing gown, seemingly made of shimmering orange sunshine, awoke the world as she posed beside the sea, apparently the Mediterranean, in her flowing classical style garment. The year was 1895 and this painting inspired the most images ever made of British Art. She was ubiquitous, appearing on posters, album covers and setting the scene for photographs of celebrities. The painting changed hands several times and eventually vanished for many years.

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There is an interesting story around it and an aura of mystery.

The exhibition, Flaming June: The making of an Icon, reveals how the story began when she was painted by Frederic, Lord Leighton, at his home, Leighton House in London. He called her Flaming June and she has no Mythological or Biblical connections like many of the works of this great Victorian artist. She represents an ‘ideal’. ‘June’ could be a reference to the month or a nickname for the model, who may have been Dorothy Dene, who frequently posed for Lord Leighton. The pose is based on Michelangelo’s sculpture, Night.

At the time Lord Leighton was President of the Royal Academy and he submitted Flaming June for the Summer Exhibition of 1895. He was not well, suffering with heart problems, and it was among the last of his submissions.

William Luson Thomas, who owned The Graphic, a weekly pictorial paper, bought the painting. Shortly afterwards Lord Leighton died and Thomas made a poster image of the painting and displayed it in the window of the Graphic

offices so it was clearly visible to the vast crowds who were watching Lord Leighton’s Funeral Procession. In 1905 the painting was bought by Watneys, the Brewers, who loaned it to the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford whence it vanished.

The demand for this style of work was fading and modernism was becoming popular.

In 1962 the painting came to light during demolition work in London.

Its rescuer, an Irish builder, passed it to a framing shop in Battersea where it was placed in the window. The young Andrew Lloyd Webber longed to purchase it, but was unable to raise a loan of £50 from his grandmother, who was not prepared to have such Victorian junk in her home! The painting was bought by a Mayfair hairdresser, who passed it to Jeremy Maas, an eminent historian and art dealer. Finally, the painting was sold to Luis A. Ferre, Founder of the Museo de Arte de Ponce in Puerto Rico. He was a very keen collector of Victorian Art and adorned the cover of his book, Victorian Artists with the painting of Flaming June.

The painting is on loan to Leighton

House for the Exhibition in which its story is told. It is displayed with The Maid with Golden Hair, Twixt Hope and Fear, and Candida. These paintings are on loan from private collections and Lachrymae is from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

This is a great opportunity to see Flaming June where she was created, in the very home of the artist who created her.

She has returned, albeit for a short time, like Persephone, Demeter’s daughter, to bring sunshine into our wintry days.

Marian Maitland.

The Exhibition is sponsored by Investec Wealth and Investment and supported

by Cockayne-Grants for the Arts and London Community Foundation.

Leighton House Museum 12 Holland Park Road.

London W12 8LZ museums@rbkc.gov.uk Open daily 10.00 am until 5.30 pm except Tuesdays.

December 2016 / January 2017

Kensington, Chelsea & Westminster Today

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Arts & Culture

Arts & Culture

By James Douglas

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f Trump’n’Brexit reflects the expiring rage of an ageing demographic visiting a vindictive sick joke on those they're about to leave behind, Editor-Kate and I thought we’d end the year focussing on youth and the future of classical music.

Royal Academy of Music Marylebone Road London NW1 5HT

Turning to the RAM, inspired by Professor Emeritus of Strings David Strange FRAM at Plus One’s opening the other day, his enthusiasm reflects well on the state of the younger generation.

(Surely democracy can only work if everyone has the vote. How on earth did we manage to disenfranchise the under eighteens, for whom Trump’n’Brexit really matters?) Drifting back to (Classical) Music ….

RAM’s website is excellent. Booking instructions and geographical directions are commendably arcane but reasonably easy to follow with a little application.

A couple of upcoming performances jumped out at me, and within twentyfour hours I was heading over to Marylebone for my first visit to the Duke’s Hall. Given that some venues I’ve been extolling for years take these columns for granted, with more than one front of house openly resenting “free” press tickets, (have they any idea how much effort these articles take?), I was

touched by Fliss Maidment’s response to the initial approach. Joining me for a drink she updated me on the impressive building developments, which taken with the Duke’s Hall organ, funded by a subscription led by Sir Elton John, will make the Marylebone Road site a most impressive facility.

Johann Sebastian Bach An Wasserflüssen Babylon, BWV 653 Charles-Marie Widor Organ Symphony no.8 in B, op.42 no.4 James Orford, Joseph Beech, Graham Thorpe and Marko Sever organ Duke’s Hall Royal Academy of Music Marylebone Rd London NW1 5HT 21 November 2016 We’re used to good value but this gig was actually free, beautifully played, and for a particularly inclement winter Monday evening, surprisingly packed.

The Bach was of course divine, but the Widor equally entertaining. The organ is stunning, and seeing it played, dramatic performance art, never mind the music.

Other RAM spring season highlights include …

Jacques Offenbach Orphée aux enfers Royal Academy Opera Hackney Empire 291 Mare Street London E8 1EJ

The Royal Academy Opera offers us the perfect excuse for, again a first for me, a visit to the legendary Hackney Empire for Jacques Offenbach’s famous opéra bouffe, Orpheus in the Underworld. I don’t know a whole load about Offenbach other than it’s a great name, so I’ll avoid risking plagiarism and lift straight from the RAM website: This irreverent satire was unleashed on Parisian audiences in 1858 to a combination of shock and delight: ‘a profanation of holy and glorious antiquity’, ‘a coarse and grotesque parody’, said the critics. Its many memorable set-pieces include the risqué Galop Infernal, better known as the ‘cancan’ , one of the most famous dance tunes of all time.

This new production is conducted

by Gareth Hancock, Director of Royal Academy Opera. The director, Martin Duncan, promises to bring us an entertaining show that is ‘funny, colourful, all-singing and all-dancing’.

Tickets around £20 plus or minus a fiver. Buy now from the Hackney Empire Box Office: www.hackneyempire. co.uk, telephone 020 8985 2424 While on the other side of Hyde Park …

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart La finta giardiniera Michael Rosewell & Harry Fehr Royal College of Music Britten Theatre 28 November 2016 As winter sets in, collegiate optimism pervades the RCM, a multi-venue destination including two stunning halls, the gorgeous hidden gem that is the evocatively intimate Britten Theatre, and the impressive Amaryllis Fleming Concert Hall. Bumping into Home House Robin on my way over to Wembley for-some-Englandv-Scotland-ritual-humiliation, duly

administered, a night out at Mozart’s early comic opera La finta giardiniera appealed.

This was a truly super-slick performance, with fabulous prequel scenes during the overture, and then bang! Mozart’s largely forgotten first opera came swaggering into life, as a faultless cast and orchestra (as usual) hit the ground running in the first scene proper, with an opening number that’s pure rock’n’roll. On reflection in the bleak light of day, it must take some stamina for a small cast to maintain that tempo, full-on flat-out for three hours.

They always do the comedy well at the RCM, but with La Finta, despite all the challenges of a tortuously complex plot, the timing was absolutely spot-on, a notoriously difficult trick to pull-off over the course of a full three-hour marathon.

It’s invidious to pick one person out from a great production but much of the humour was generated unscripted by Harriet Eyley’s excellent Serpetta.

The whole prodigy thing about Mozart can never be overdone, but at times it’s assumed to the point of being forgotten. La finta giardiniera was written and premiered when Mozart was 18. It’s a good, pretty much note-perfect three hours long; Chopin’s entire oeuvre was a little over twenty hours …It is to RCM’s young cast’s huge credit they did their time-shift contemporary justice.

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BRICKS AND BRICKBATS

BY EMMA FLYNN

Designing a new Future: London’s new Design Museum

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With last year’s delightful Die Fledermaus and Albert Herring, followed by this year’s highlights (to think I’ve lived to see Steve Reich performing Clapping Music …), scan RCM’s offerings on its website with confidence. www.rcm.ac.uk Looking slightly ahead, and sticking for no particular reason to the RCM Opera School, book early to avoid disappointment (RCM shows are regularly selling out), on 5 or 6 April 2017 (7pm), end the old fiscal year or celebrate the new, with Rameau’s Les fêtes d’Hébé, in the Britten Theatre.

Having recorded my gratitude for the reception at the RAM, it would be churlish not to acknowledge the magnificent support we get from the RCM (represented by Fiona Bell on the night), a standard that’s been maintained throughout my second sojourn (with apologies to the Moody Blues, a final first).

Images © Chris Christodolou

Image © Royal Academy of Music

Monday 6 February 2017 Friday 3 February Saturday 4 February 2017 (all 7pm) Sunday 5 February 2017 (4pm)

The Future Now

December 2016 / January 2017

Images © Deezen

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fter 5 years of tantalising rumour, the Design Museum has finally opened its doors at its new home on Kensington High Street. Housed in the grade II* listed Commonwealth Institute building, the Museum has succeeded in bringing the landmark back to life after over 10 years of neglect.

Following an investment of £83m, a complex renovation has transformed the structure into a space capable of housing a world leading institution dedicated to contemporary design and architecture.

The project has seen some of the world’s leading designers, manufacturers and patrons come together to collectively create the London design hub. With architectural and structural expertise from OMA, Allies and Morrison and Arup, they have succeeded in restoring the building’s spectacular concrete roof and distinctive facade. Remodelling the interior, architect John Pawson has created a striking oak-lined atrium, which contrasts and enhances the original roof structure. Many others have also contributed: there is a permanent collection designed by Studio Myerscough, way-finding by Cartridge Levene, and furniture by Vitra. It is an outstanding example of interdisciplinary collaboration, which exemplifies how the museum has operated since its inception.

Founded by Sir Terence Conran, the Design Museum started out in 1981 in an unused and dilapidated space in the basement of The Victoria and Albert Museum. Previously named the Boilerhouse Project, the gallery aimed to promote a better understanding of the commercial and cultural benefits of good design. In 1989 the project metamorphosed into the Design Museum, and it found a permanent home in a former banana factory at Shad Thames, Bermondsey. In a move back near its origins, the Design Museum has gained over three times as much exhibition space in a much more accessible location.

The new museum sits at the southern entrance to Holland Park, and forms the heart of the new Holland Green Residential development. Following the terms of the Section 106 agreement for the housing scheme, the Design

Museum was granted a 175-year lease of the listed Commonwealth building.

The site masterplan and residential buildings were designed by OMA to complement the original building. As explained by OMA Partner, Reinier de Graaf: “The new museum is flanked by the new residential blocks; like discreet servants, their restrained, orthogonal geometries pose a contrast to the dramatic hyperbolic lines of the historic exhibition hall’s roof.” The site is tight, and the new residential blocks play a critical role in framing the new museum and creating a connection to Kensington High Street that is sure to encourage footfall. The complex renovation of the museum saw the team work together to bring the landmark back into use. The original concrete floors were removed and replaced in order to provide the load bearing capacity required of a modern museum. This engaged radical

engineering techniques to prop the roof on a temporary steel structure 20 metres above the ground. The original façade was also replaced to significantly improve its insulation standards and allow daylight into the interior. This however came with its own challenges; meticulous detailing to resemble the blue skin of the original façade. To call the building a refurbishment is an understatement; the new Design Museum is in fact almost an entirely new building.

The Design Museum is the first major public work of John Pawson, an architect known for producing simple yet sensuous spaces of a refined quality.

Inside the museum, Pawson has created a spectacular atrium, with striking views up to the iconic hyperbolic paraboloid roof above. A “cathedral of design”, as described by Sir Terence Conran, the space is monumenal. Resembling an “opencast mine”, visitors are able to navigate the oak clad space level by level, visiting galleries, learning spaces, events spaces and libraries as they go. All the while, the anticipation of reaching the extraordinary roof above intensifies.

Learning is at the heart of the new building. The gallery continues to provide an important resource for students, designers and the public to stimulate design awareness and discussion. Educational spaces are woven through the museum, encouraging and promoting an engagement with the process of design. For the first time in its history, the Design Museum’s Design Residency scheme, which provides designers “with time and space to research and consider new ways of progressing their work and practice” actually resides on site. Located in the midst of the space, it provides an international showcase for new designers.

The museum’s commitment to fostering culture and creativity is reflected in annual exhibition of the Beazley Designs

of the Year, which forms part of the opening programme. Comprising over 70 nominations, the exhibition celebrates the best designs from around the world over the last 12 months. It extends across a range of categories including architecture, fashion and product design.

In January a winner will be selected in each category and one overall winner will be announced.

Walking around the nominations, one is filled with an overwhelming sense of optimism; that the new generation of designers is keen to make a difference.

Projects include: a sexual health testing kit, a flat pack refugee shelter, trainers made from recycled fishing nets and a number of new community projects and buildings. Despite their diversity and varied scale, the vast majority of the designs have one thing in common; a desire to make positive social or environmental change. The exhibition successfully reiterates the Design Museum’s fundamental message; that good design can improve people’s quality of life. With the new Design Museum, this message is now centre stage, on the world stage, and that is exciting.

A space built by generosity; the new Design Museum reveals its own generous heart. In Sir Terence Conran’s words: “Design is about optimism and this is what this space is about… I hope we can educate inspire and delight future generations to come.” It is space that encourages hope for the future at a time when we really do need it.

The Design Museum is located on Kensington High Street and is open from 10:00-18:00. Last admission is at 17:00. Current exhibits include: Fear and Love: Reactions to a Complex World, Beazley Designs of the Year, and the Design Museum’s free permanent display: Designer Maker User.

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Arts & Culture 1

The Dandy

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4

Ardizzone: A Retrospective

The Visitors’ Book

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Government to give more than £300 million

Limited edition prints signed by the artist, £130 plus post & packing contact: johnsprings@aol.com.

Size: A3 unframed on 300 gsm watercolour archival grade paper

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Kensington, Chelsea & Westminster Today

online: www.KCWToday.co.uk

Although it has been open for a couple of years, The House of Illustration is still not really on the map. It occupies an old building next door to St Martin’s and Central School of Art in the Alphaville of King’s Cross and was the brainchild of Sir Quentin Blake and other illustrators.

It is the first museum of its kind in the world, apart from possibly the Society of Illustrators in New York. When one is asked to name illustrators of childrens’ books, Blake is certainly one of the

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December 2016 / January 2017

Arts & Culture The House of Illustration Granary Square, King's Cross Until 22 January 2017 Admission 8.25

A selection of drawings from our regular Dandy artist as Limited Edition prints

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020 7738 2348

to music and arts programs

By Catherine Godlewsky

The Department for Education announced on 18 November 2016 that the government will give more than £300 million over the next four years to a program network of 121 music education hubs designed to increase participation in music and the arts among children aged 5 through 18.

This funding will be administered by the Arts Council England, which has already distributed the government’s £271 invested in music hubs between 2012 and 2016. Past funding has set up programmes like the Oldham Music Club scheme that provides music sessions for children with special needs, and the new funding will be applied to similar projects focusing on the six

first that springs to mind with Edward Ardizzone close behind. Maurice Sendak is also in the frame, with his Where the Wild Things Are. Not that Ardizzone was specifically a children's artist. He was an official war artist, as well as designing advertising posters for Guinness, Johnnie Walker and Ealing Studios, along with Edward Bawden, John Piper, Eric Ravilious and Mervyn Peake, as well as drawing London street life and and its pubs. His style is reminiscent of Honoré Daumier, with his use of light and shadow, and the same regard for the characters who populated mideighteenth century Paris.

All his drawings and paintings have a common thread, and that is one of humanity and the affection he seems to have for the human race as a whole.

His work has a charm that delights and a skill that portrays all kinds of people, including children, drunks, sailors, soldiers, prostitutes and rich businessmen, for whom he had little regard. Apart from twenty or so books of his own, the most famous being those featuring Tim and Ginger, he illustrated books written by such notable authors as H E Bates, Graham Greene, Cecil DayLewis, Walter de la Mere, Robert Graves and Dylan Thomas, for whose drawings for A Child's Christmas in Wales are nothing short of enchanting, and which was his last major work.

He was elected as full member of the RA in 1970 and was awarded a CBE in 1972 . He died of a heart attack in 1979 and he is commemorated by a blue plaque in Elgin Crescent, where he lived.

Don Grant

recently announced opportunity areas that currently are most challenged in terms of social mobility.

“Music and the arts can transform lives and introduce young people to a huge range of opportunities - whether that is learning to play a musical instrument, understanding local heritage or attending a world-famous dance school. We’re investing more than £300 million over the next 4 years so that those opportunities are open to all, not just the privileged few,” said School Standards Minister, Nick Gibb.

Such an investment is predicted to not only give more underprivileged children access to the arts, but to put them on the same level of access with children of more privileged backgrounds by providing grants that will give talented youths the opportunity to attend world-class institutions like the Royal Ballet School.

A further £4.1 million a year until 2018 will be shared by six new cultural education programmes, which will focus on heritage, dance, art and design, film and museums. For more information on the programmes that the funding will assist, visit Arts Council England’s website at www.artscouncil.org.uk.

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Jon Lys Turner Constable ISBN 978-1-47412166-0 392 pp. £20

This is an eye-opener of how badly those fabled Bohemians behaved in the fifties and sixties. Some of us think we party hard, drink industrial quantities and pursue hedonistic and promiscuous lifestyles, but we are mere babies in comparison. In their hayday, both Richard Chopping and Denis Wirth-Miller each had sex with servicemen, snipping a memento of each liaison from his uniform and put into a battered old biscuit tin; when the author inherited their archive, he found that the tin contained over two hundred buttons. At the centre of this decadent tale is Francis Bacon; the subtitle reads In Francis Bacon’s Shadow. Chopping and Wirth-Miller were both innovative and talented artists, with the former rising to fame with the cover for Ian Fleming’s new book Goldfinger. The villain was named after the architect Ernö Goldfinger, who had knocked down some old cottages to accommodate his new house in Willow Road, Hampstead, now the only modernist house open to the public. When Goldfinger considered legal action, Fleming threatened to change the character’s name to Goldprick, which had the desired effect.

The author of this book befriended Richard Chopping back in 1981, when he was at the Royal College of Art, and he inherited the pair’s personal archive when they died, from which he has produced this revealing and riveting book.

Most of the action centres around The Storehouse in Wivenhoe and its string of decadent visitors from the worlds of art and literature from the Colony Club in Soho and Bloomsbury.

Each visitor signed The Book, leaving behind a catalogue of the great, the good and the not-so good of the English art scene, including Francis Partridge, the last of the Bloomsbury Group,The Scottish Roberts, Colquhoun and MacBryde, John Nash, Ivon Hitchings, Duncan Grant, Vanessa Bell, Cecil Beaton, Augustus John, John Minton, Keith Vaughan and R A Butler. The two hosts in Wivenhoe became friendly with another famous East Coast couple, Peter Pears and Benjamin Britten, exhibiting their paintings at the first Aldeburgh Festival of Music the Arts in 1948 and again in 1954. They were then introduced to Randolph Churchill, the ‘stubborn,

ruthless and rude’ son of the ‘resolute, ambitious and witty’ wartime leader, Sir Winston. He was universally disliked, causing Evelyn Waugh to remark on hearing that he had a benign tumour removed, ‘It was a triumph of modern science to find the one part of Randolph that was not malignant and to remove it.”

Waugh was one of his closest friends.

The couple’s relationship with Bacon involved art, gambling, drinking, arguments and sex, although when Bacon and Wirth-Miller finally ‘tried it in turns’ it was ‘bread with bread’ and ‘no good for either of them’. Each in turn, saw fame and modest fortune come and go, Wirth-Miller in particular being a slave to fashion, orchestrated in some small way by the upwardly-mobile interior designer David Hicks, who Chopping believed to be ‘obviously gay’, but married into royalty, by proposing to Pamela Mountbatten, Prince Philip’s first cousin. The trio’s drinking was getting out of hand, even by Bacon’s standards, but they continued on their not-somerry way, rowing, fighting, making-up, falling out again, with many alcoholfuelled hissy fits and sulks. They all went to Paris for Bacon’s retrospective at Le Grand Palais in 1971, along with Bacon’s erstwhile lover, and model for many of his paintings, George Dyer. During a drunken orgy, Dyer took some pills and died, slumped over the hotel toilet, which cast a shadow over the proceedings.

When Bacon died of a heart attack in Spain in 1992, the couple’s lives began to unravel. Each, in turn, became ill, with Wirth-Miller needed care, but still the scale of drinking and violence went unabated. Chopping had a bad fall, and there is a question mark hanging over the incident as whether he fell or was he pushed? He died in hospital in 2008 and his partner two years later, a week before his ninety-fifth birthday.

This publication of their account rescues them from obscurity, having once been at the epicentre of English art for six decades.

Don Grant

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Arts & Culture

December 2016 / January 2017

Arts & Culture

Maps and the 20th century: Drawing the Line

By Catherine Godlewsky

The Maps and the 20th Century: Drawing the Line exhibition at the British Library offers a unique view of the not-sodistant past, displaying the ideas of the Twentieth century through the eye of the mapmaker.

The exhibit’s displays show the progression from the ornate and often purposefully inaccurate or simplified maps of the 16th century to the highly technical topographical maps of the 1980s to the GPS systems sold in the 1990s. To highlight the changes that have taken place in the art of mapmaking, curators have paired familiar modern maps with earlier versions, as in the three-dimensional maps of the 1950s displayed with the plastic three dimensional maps of the 2000s.

However, the exhibition shows more than simply map technique; the curators also show how maps have influenced and been influenced by war, discovery, movement and migration, industry, peace, and imagination. This focus on the ideas and events that provided the cultural context of the maps on display brought an unexpected human element to a topic that is also highly technical.

As each year of the Twentieth century saw conflict, the maps of the period reflect the ever-changing political boundaries and political agendas that kept the world in turmoil. Maps from both the First and Second World Wars are on display as well as maps from other major and minor conflicts, including the

Second Boer War, the Vietnam War, the Cold War, and conflicts in Northern Ireland and the Middle East. These maps are emotionally charged relics of past suffering, such as the 1918 trench map of the British front lines with handwritten notes of “full of dead” or “badly shelled” over some of the trench markings, a 1944 topographical British map of the Auschwitz concentration camp, or an American 1951 poster map of Soviet Gulag camps.

However, not all war maps were accurate depictions; many were designed as propaganda, as in the case of the 1943 American poster map that showed Berlin at the centre of the map with the slogan “Target Berlin.” Other wartime maps took the form of political cartoons, with one German piece of propaganda showing a giant spider in the colours of the Union Jack tangling Europe in its web.

The Twentieth century also saw dramatic increases in travel and the introduction of new transportation methods. From the first edition of London A-Z published in 1948 to Harry Beck’s original 1931 sketch of the London underground, the demand for and production of accurate maps as transportation guides grew along with the introduction of easy and affordable travel.

The exhibition also highlighted the role of maps in Twentieth century industry and politics, in which maps were used as support for global industries that required logistics planning, and as methods of creating political arguments.

For example, Ordnance Survey maps like those on display from the collection of Sir John Betjeman provided detailed guides of retail store locations and helped businesses plan delivery routes, while maps like the 1914 American map showing the progress of the Votes for

Women campaign in each state were used to support and inspire political change.

However, not all maps convey real information, and the exhibition also celebrated maps that chart the imagination of their creators, such as E.H. Shepard’s map of the Hundred Acre Wood in the endpapers of the 1926

edition of A.A. Milne’s Winnie the Pooh or the map of the fictional San Serriffe island that the Guardian published as an April Fools’ joke in 1977.

Maps and the 20th Century: Drawing the Line examines the complex intersection between politics, business, conflict, and change that shaped the Twentieth century and continues to influence modern conceptions of space and its impact. The exhibition is open daily until 1 March 2017 from 9:30 to 16:30; full price tickets are £12.00, but concessions are available. To learn more about the exhibit or to book tickets, visit the British Library’s website at www. bl.k/whatson.

www.cannedart.co.uk

15th century books survival and detection techniques

lunchtime talk at the British Library

By Catherine Godlewsky

CannedArt.co.uk has available two collections of Limited Edition tin cans relabelled with works of art produced by established artists, all members of the Chelsea Arts Club At only £7.00 each plus £2.80 P&P they make ideal Secret Santa or original Christmas presents for your discerning friends and family.

Look on the website at the 12 days of Christmas and the Set of 7 in the Whimsical collection. There are limited editions of 50 of each can and on the website you also have the ability to purchase the signed original or limited edition prints of each artwork.

These are bound to become collectibles just think of Piero Manzonis tinned faeces and Warhols Campbell Soups!

But stocks are very limited so register and order as soon as possible on the website with your name address and email and quoting “KCWT” for fast delivery

www.cannedart.co.uk

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s part of the British Library’s ongoing Feed Your Mind lunchtime talks series, Maria Alessandra Panzanelli Fratoni from the University of Oxford presented her research on fifteenth century books.

Fratoni is a part of the 15cBooktrade project that seeks to scientifically examine the impact of books printed between the invention of the printing press in 1450 and the year 1500, called incunabula, on the transmission of ideas that laid the groundwork for modern society.

“We can construct the social and cultural environment in which books were written and also used over the centuries,” said Frantoni when speaking of the unique research of 15cBooktrade.

Fratoni described the known collection of incunabula, highlighting the British Library’s own impressive collection. The Library currently owns more of the approximately 28,500 editions of incunabula than any other library in the world; although it may not have as many copies as other libraries, its collection is the most varied in terms of editions.

Fratoni explained a few of the methods used to date and trace original

incunabula throughout places and time, with the simplest method of identification being ownership marks such as a coat of arms, stamp, book plate, or inscription. Fratoni also described the more complicated methods of finding the provenance of a book via examining its binding, print and decorative style, dating of materials, or the excruciatingly long and difficult process of gathering historical records, letters, or sales receipts to positively identify the edition.

Fratoni’s specific interest within the field of incunabula is studying the first printed editions of medieval authors, an area that most medieval scholars neglect in favour of examining manuscripts. Thus, the work of Fratoni and her colleagues is a new approach to a traditional field, and by examining individual copies rather than authorial manuscripts, these scholars present known information about medieval texts through the lens of places and owners as well as authors.

To demonstrate her work, Fratoni presented a case study of three original editions of De Evangelica Praeparatione

by Eusebius Caesariensis and showed how each of the three volumes was bought by a different collector and travelled throughout Europe as either a useful text or a collector’s item. Using the new online research database compiled by 15cBooktrade, Fratoni presented the information with the database’s revolutionary colour coded charting tools that make the complex ownership of old volumes easy to visualise. For example, one of the case study volumes of De Evangelica Praeparatione is currently owned by the British Library, having been printed in Genoa, brought to a Venetian monastery in the eighteenth century, purchased by scholar and collector Charles Burney, and finally purchased by the British Library in 1818.

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online: www.KCWToday.co.uk “Much has already been written about the printing revolution, but we are trying to prove it with data. Why is it a revolution? Who were the authors who received more editions and were more read at the time? Who were the readers?

How many women read and owned books? How many religious institutions, or universities, scholars, professionals, and so on? We are trying to do this so as to understand this period of time that is so important to the European and Western civilisation,” said Fratoni.

The British Library’s Feed Your Mind lecture series presents more lectures like Fratoni’s on a regular schedule, including The Alien, Foreigner, Migrant: The language of immigration in the Victorian media talk coming up on December 5.

For more information, visit the British Library’s website at www.bl.uk or call 01937 546 546.

Images © V&A Museum Left: Harry Beck's original 1931 sketch for his iconic map of the London Underground Above: USSR Polar location stereographic projection map

Kensington, Chelsea & Westminster Today

Thomas More’s Magnificent Utopia

at the Museum of London

By Catherine Godlewsky

As part of the Gresham College lecture series and the Being Human Festival, Dr Richard Serjeantson presented Thomas More’s Magnificent Utopia at the Museum of London. November 2016 marks the 500th anniversary of Utopia’s first publication in 1516, but not the end of its influence as a work of literature or political commentary.

Serjeantson began the lecture by laying out the context of Utopia’s publication, describing the political landscape of More’s time through an imaginative historical reconstruction of one of the book’s first readers. Such a reader would have been aware of the rapidly expanding boundaries of trade, the increasing emphasis on learning and scholarship, and the changing conceptions of the geographical world that changed maps from a Ptolemaic Europe to Amerigo Vespucci’s globe.

Thus, the idea of a faraway island with an entirely different social system was within the realm of possibility for More’s contemporaries.

However, even assuming that More’s readers shared the changing renaissance attitude towards the world, Serjeantson argued that Utopia’s views of communal living, the lack of private property, a republican form of government, the importance of education for women, and the other radical differences between Utopian and European society shocked More’s first readers as much as they continue to shock modern ones.

Today, the idea of owning nothing

and taking meals in common while engaging in a just and hardworking society recalls the negative connotations of communism, making it difficult for modern readers to receive More’s presentation of the perfect commonwealth as an ideal or even desirable society.

“The point is not that we, or our prosperous City Mercer in 1516, might find Hythloday’s ideas [of Utopia] ‘unrealistic: they appeared no less unrealistic at the time. The point is the challenge that they throw down,” said Serjeantson.

The two-book structure of Utopia highlights this challenge. Book 1 is composed of a conversation between well-known humanist printer Pieter Gillis, imaginary traveler Raphael Hythloday, and Thomas More himself that describes renaissance Europe’s troubled politics. The trio debate English thieves, the danger of participating in a council of the French King, and the “miserable poverty and destitution” that faced Europe. Book 2 contrasts these issues with Hythloday’s account of the perfect Utopian society where each citizen lives in a three-story brick house with a garden, only works six hours a day, and never experiences hunger or want.

“A question that Utopia often raises for its readers, as this lecture has perhaps raised for you, is the question of practicability: could the arrangements of this best commonwealth ever be realized?

The answer to this question is surely that they are no more possible now than they were in 1516. But that may not be the point…. What Utopia offers us is not a blueprint, but a magnificent destination that we might aim for even as we know it will never be attained,” said Serjeantson.

More’s intent in writing Utopia may have been merely to ironize Europe, but to Serjeantson and many other modern or contemporary readers, Utopia challenges the very ideology behind our capitalist civilization.

The Museum of London hosted this lecture as a part of their ongoing talks program, which provides a platform for experts to discuss history, politics, fashion, business, literature, and more.

The Museum partners regularly with Gresham College to provide these lectures for free; the next Gresham lecture at the museum is Shakespeare’s Sonnets and the Use of Personification to be given by Professor Belinda Jack on 24 January.

To attend other lectures hosted

by Gresham College, including the upcoming Did Walter Scott Invent Scotland by Dr Juliet Shields or Roman Singing and its Influence Across Europe by Christopher Page, visit www.gresham. ac.uk to view the full lecture schedule.

To see other upcoming talks at the Museum of London, including Building St. Paul’s Cathedral: 1666 to 1711 by archaeologist John Schofield, visit www. museumoflondon.org.uk for their events listing.

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Literature

December 2016 / January 2017

Poetry

A Christmas Carol

By Max Feldman

In our monthly feature on classic literature Max Feldman is haunted by the spectres of poverty and inequality as he uncovers the origins of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol initially released on December 19th 1843.

‘A Christmas Carol’ is so embedded into our cultural DNA that there are many people who would never consider cracking the spine of a Dickens (or watching a Muppet-orientated adaptation) who know its story inside and out. Dickens penned it at a time where his popularity was beginning to wane, and as a result he felt he needed to produce a tale that would prove both profitable and popular. However rather than a simple hack job from a writer fearing the onrush of irrelevancy, A Christmas Carol was firmly rooted in the spirit of Dickens’ social critiques which had only grown more pointed as he got older.

His desire to affect social change through his writing was deeply ingrained thanks to his own horrific childhood experiences with extreme poverty. Whilst Dickens' own humiliating experiences are not directly

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described in A Christmas Carol, his conflicting feelings for his father as a result of those experiences seem to be principally responsible for the dual personality of the tale's protagonist, Ebenezer Scrooge. In 1824, Dickens' father, John, was imprisoned in the Marshalsea Prison which forced the 12-year-old Charles to take lodgings nearby, pawn his collection of books, leave school and accept employment in a blacking factory.

The boy had a deep sense of class and his own intellectual superiority and was entirely uncomfortable with both the backbreaking work and the company of older factory workers who mocked him as “the young gentleman”. As a result of this treatment, he developed nervous fits.

There was no release when his father was released at the end of a three-month stint and young Dickens was forced to continue working in the factory. This

rejection deeply scarred the young boy, leaving him with confused feelings towards his father, both loving and demonised him. It was this psychological conflict that was responsible for the two radically different Scrooges in the tale; one Scrooge: A cold, stingy and greedy semi-recluse, and the Scrooge that he becomes: a benevolent, sociable man, whose generosity and goodwill toward all men earn for him a near-saintly reputation.

In his adult life Dickens was keenly touched by the suffering detailed in the February 1843 parliamentary report exposing the effects of the Industrial Revolution upon poor children. In response Dickens planned in May 1843 to publish an inexpensive political pamphlet tentatively titled, An Appeal to the People of England, on behalf of the Poor Man’s Child, but changed his mind.

Dickens instead realised that a far more

effective way to reach the broadest segment of the population with his social concerns about poverty and injustice was to write a deeply felt Christmas narrative rather than political pamphlets and essays. The spectral wasted figures of the ghost children Ignorance and Want who cling on to the ghost of Christmas Present (often deemed too frightening for family film adaptations) are some of the clearest manifestations of the stories fiery polemical roots.

According to historian Ronald Hutton, the current state of observance of Christmas is largely the result of a mid-Victorian revival of the holiday spearheaded by A Christmas Carol.

Hutton writes that Dickens “linked worship and feasting, within a context of social reconciliation”. In advocating a humanitarian focus of the holiday, Dickens influenced many aspects of Christmas that are celebrated today in Western culture, such as family gatherings, seasonal food and drink, dancing, games and a festive generosity of spirit. Whilst the festive cheer that Dickens helped to bring about shows no signs of diminishing, Ignorance and Want cling onto the present ever tighter. As we move into 2017, it’s worth considering that A Christmas Carol’s lessons are still as relevant as ever.

“I saw the interview with Algy Cluff in the Spectator and dashed out to buy this. A brilliant, short read, not a word wasted, happily free of self-pity or the ‘I was right’ tone of manyfold autobiographies, full of good gossip and some telling insights into a lost world.”

Order your copy at www.getonwithit.online or call: 020 7887 2631

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S 2016 DRAWS TO A CLOSE and we look forward to the coming year The Darkling Thrush by Thomas Hardy (18401928) seemed a fitting choice for this month’s poetry page.

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online: www.KCWToday.co.uk

The Darkling Thrush

By Thomas Hardy

The poem was written in 1899 but not published until 29th December 1900. We begin with Hardy leaning on a wooden gate watching the sunset on the last day of the nineteenth century. The first two stanzas promote a dark and lifeless atmosphere with little hope for the future. ‘The land’s sharp features seemed to be/The Century’s corpse outleant’ is a powerful metaphor. Hardy makes the clear association between the beautiful yet unforgiving Dorset landscape, that was so deeply rooted in his poetic imagination, with the political failings of the nineteenth century, which saw so many of his native countryman left impoverished and destitute. As we see the sun set on harsh times the poem changes direction and the mood is lifted. The symbol of the thrush in the third stanza brings the poem to life, as Hardy is left contemplating the possibility that through its song, the Thrush knows something he doesn’t, that there is hope of a better century ahead.

There is no questioning that many share Hardy’s view on that last day of the nineteenth century about events that have happened in 2016. It is a year that has witnessed a series of astonishing and extreme events and unforeseen deaths. However, as Hardy recognised I leant upon a coppice gate When Frost was spectre-grey, 116 years ago, there is no reason to write off brighter days ahead.

And Winter's dregs made desolate Therefore may 2017 guide you all to the happiest of days and The weakening eye of day. surround you with the warmest of affections.

The tangled bine-stems scored the sky

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UR SPECIAL WISHES FOR Christmas and New Year from all the team here at KCW Today.

Children’s Drawing Competition Become a published artist

Illustrate Dudley Sutton’s poem below. We will select three images and publish them in our February edition. Artwork should be submitted to: The Editor, KCW Today, 80-100 Gwynne Road, London SW11 3UW. They can be in any medium on A4 sized paper or board. If you would like your artwork returned please include a stamped, addressed envelope with the appropriate postage.

Entries must be submitted no later than 21st January, so get drawing!

In Africa they dug a pool beneath a tree to keep it cool.

They pinned a sign upon that tree ‘this pool is crocodile free’.

They did not notice in the weed a crocodile who could not read.

by Dudley Sutton

Like strings of broken lyres, And all mankind that haunted nigh Had sought their household fires.

At once a voice arose among The bleak twigs overhead In a full-hearted evensong Of joy illimited; An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small, In blast-beruffled plume, Had chosen thus to fling his soul Upon the growing gloom.

The land's sharp features seemed to be The Century's corpse outleant, His crypt the cloudy canopy, The wind his death-lament.

The ancient pulse of germ and birth Was shrunken hard and dry, And every spirit upon earth Seemed fervourless as I.

So little cause for carolings Of such ecstatic sound Was written on terrestrial things Afar or nigh around, That I could think there trembled through His happy good-night air Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew And I was unaware.

Word from the Mountain

Twenty-One Poems of Mayo

by John Armstrong

Word from the Mountain: Twenty One Poems of Mayo is a new collection of poetry by John Armstrong that takes the spoken word to new performance heights.

Armstrong’s conception of Western Ireland offers a moving and distinctive portrayal of the lives, histories and characters of the common man set amidst the gruelling yet striking landscape of County Mayo

Now available to purchase. £9.99 + £1.50 P+P UK. E: info@johnarmstrongpoet.com www.johnarmstrongpoet.com Running time 1hr.

Compiled & Edited by: Dr Emma Trehane MA PhD

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Arts & Culture REVIEWS

Trainspotting Waterloo Tunnels Running Time: 90 minutes

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Image © In Your Face

hen Trainspotting was first released in 1993, it was a bombshell on a British literary scene that was in danger of becoming overly staid and middle class.

Author Irvine Welsh’s white hot, opiate damaged prose was a brutal revelation that plunged readers into the nihilistic degradation of Edinburgh’s heroin scene with a novel that was both funny, disgusting and tragic and yet somehow darkly glamorous (if commercialised selfimprovement is effectively masturbatory, self-destruction can paradoxically come across as an act of self-assertion). The 1996 Danny Boyle film adaptation kicked this tortured logic into (sigh) higher gear with a bombastic thrill ride of a movie that was (unfairly) accused of cynically glamourising the junkie lifestyle. The film has become almost synonymous with the least irritating aspects of the 90s obsession of Cool Britannia (the dictionary definition of damning with faint praise), as for all of Trainspotting’s status as a cult institution, it is inextricably tied to its time. As a result, the announcement of Trainspotting 2 has been met with a mixture of emotions. Considering how epochal the original novel and film combo are, will any attempt to recapture the same lightning in a new syringe just be as a sad and regressively nostalgic affair as Welsh’s own sequel novels turned out to be?

Whilst this is a question that won’t be answered until February 2017, those looking to refresh their memory of why the original was so groundbreaking can do so with the full-throttle immersive theatrical version currently camped out in

the Waterloo Tunnels. The key word here is immersive, a potentially quite alarming directorial choice in a play that abounds with violence and drug use. Thankfully there are no ushers aggressively pushing gear on unsuspecting audience members but even so the play certainly doesn’t take the softly, softly approach. Cast members crawl through the audience, drunkenly flirting, flinging effluence and at times outright threatening (my friend was subject to a nightmarish face-to-face monologue delivered by the psychopathic Begbie (Chris Dennis, pure menace), which seemed to quiver on the edge of actual physical violence). With the action taking place in the round, the line between audience and actor is blurred to the point of incoherence. Staking out a twisting path which zig zags between X-Rated slapstick (if you view male nudity and fake faeces being flung into the crowd as a step too far, then you should avoid this play with extreme prejudice) and harrowing, unblinking views into a world without hope but overflowing with emotional pain.

The play primarily serves as an adaptation of the book (including several sequences not present in the film) and folds several characters into each other, most notably Spud, Renton’s (Gavin Ross, a clear highlight) best mate is combined with the unfortunate Tommy (Greg Esplin) a decision which succeeds in almost unintentionally creating a far more rounded character than either would individually. The scenes themselves seem to be crafted in this vein (no pun intended) blurring into each other in a sickly fashion which helps to build a sense of druggy dislocation, which whilst initially feeling slightly confusing adds to the overall atmosphere of the production. Whilst the film adds a certain notably attractive devil may care nihilism, the play version ends up focusing on the tragedy of the circumstances even to the point of a radically changed ending, which unexpectedly proves more effective and shattering than the original. The ‘in your face’ (which is literally the name of the theatrical company) nature of the play and the dark subject matter will put some off, but for those who are able to look into the dark underbelly of human nature will find the results intoxicating.

Arts & Culture Image © De Laurentiis Entertainment Group

Feldman MAX

December 2016 / January 2017

The Dead Zone

Director: David Cronenberg The Dead Zone is one of the very few Stephen King adaptations that manages to capture the author’s signature sense of inexplicable, internal/external terror, The Dead Zone stands as one of David Cronenberg’s most straightforward and eerily effective early works. Trimming King’s source material down to its lean essence, and benefiting from the lack of his imaginative monsters, which never properly translate to the screen, the film concerns Maine schoolteacher Johnny Smith (Christopher Walken), who turns down an offer to stay the night with his girlfriend Sarah (Brooke Adams), subsequently gets into a traffic accident, and awakens from a coma five years later with the gift of second sight. Far from a blessing, however, the power proves to be a damnable curse, turning Johnny into a freak show whose time and attention is coveted by many, but only for their own selfish ends. As the man’s vision expands, his life shrinks down to nothing, an isolated existence which Cronenberg depicts through direction that routinely lingers on the empty silences between words and the distant whooshing of wintry New England wind.

Cronenberg’s icy directorial detachment lends The Dead Zone a haunting creepiness, greatly amplified by Walken, whose halting verbal rhythms and glassy stare imbue Johnny with an alienated (if not outright alien) quality.

His resurrection laced with biblical connotations, Johnny eventually helps the police solve a serial-killer case; he also reconnects with Sarah, who, during his coma, got married and had a child.

Without ever pressing its thematic concerns too strenuously, the film develops into a tale about mortality, and the decisions we make to give our fleeting lives purpose. Those issues are

most fully wrestled with during the film’s final third, when Johnny comes into contact with a senatorial candidate named Stillson (Martin Sheen), and “sees” that the man’s election will result in global calamity (“the missiles are flying hallelujah, hallelujah!”). Considering the preceding story’s overarching aura of doom, it’s no surprise that tragedy inevitably ensues. Nonetheless, Cronenberg deftly finds a way to end his film as he began it: on a subtle, allegorical note of Christ-like grace.

The film’s vignette-like style (one could see it easily working as a tv series) leaves The Dead Zone room to breathe that is rare to find in more recent horror (or more recent movies period) which ends up being one of its central strengths. Stillson is slowly built up over the course of the entire film by small dialogue mentions and campaign signs, but only actually appears in the storyline as a major force by the third act. As a result the audience is subconsciously primed to react in a way that most films would struggle to reach, and Martin Sheen turns in a frankly frightening performance as the psychotic populist.

What makes this revival so well timed is the quite alarming parallels that Stillson bears to Donald Trump, almost to the point where it makes the scenes featuring him feel queasily unpleasant as Cronenberg unwittingly cuts far too close to the bone for comfort. Even though Johnny’s quest to stop Stillson from being elected at all costs is portrayed as a life or death struggle for the fate of the entire world, that’s probably where the similarities between Trump and Stillson end…right?

Nocturnal Animals

Director: Abel Gance Running Time: 330 minutes (Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here)

Bobby Andes (Michael Shannon), is completely fictional. It’s easy to go on and on about the parallels and implications, some of which only sink in on a second viewing. For example, there’s the way that the character of Tony comes to closer resemble the sensitive young Edward physically (shaving his beard, for instance), while his personality moves in the opposite direction, becoming more obsessive and alienated. The takeaway is that Susan initially recognizes Edward in Tony’s cowardliness and then projects the Edward she knew onto the fictional character’s eventual violence.

Is the book, the Nocturnal Animals within Nocturnal Animals, really an attack on Susan, disguised as the story of a man avenging his wife? Does Edward’s selfdestructive path represent the figurative self-destruction of the author, who has betrayed the gentle idealism Susan remembers to write a lurid crime novel to get back at her? Is the lack of a parallel character to Hutton, Susan’s second husband, an intentional snub? And what does it all amount to, aside from a very elegantly executed postmodern exercise?

Nocturnal Animals is more tightly controlled than A Single Man especially in the portions depicting Tony’s novel, which suggest that Ford could make a very good straightforward thriller if he ever felt like it. But like Ford’s debut, Nocturnal Animals treats film as a medium of luxury, where the emotive and the self-indulgent cross paths. He is primarily a sensualist. He likes expensive modernist houses and redheads, and doesn’t stress plot points as much as moments, like a man’s hand tapping threateningly on the roof of a car or a pair of headlights reflecting off the polished gate of a mansion, briefly blinding the driver.

Nocturnal Animals’ ensemble cast is strong (the often undistinguished Aaron Taylor-Johnson gives his best performance to date as the villain of the novel), but its psychology is conveyed through a mix of irony and fetish, both of which require a certain distance. In a way, Ford writes himself into the story, changing the social milieu and settings of Tony And Susan to reflect his own life as a child of the suburban Southwest and a onetime art history student in New York (like the film’s Susan) who became richer than Croesus in an industry of styles and changing tastes.

This is fitting: Nocturnal Animals only appears personal if read with that already in mind.

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Napoleon

Running Time: 116 Minutes Director: Tom Ford

“I’m too cynical to be an artist,” muses a character at around the midpoint of Nocturnal Animals, the second feature by the fashion designer Tom Ford, perhaps winking to the audience of this arch and self-conscious film. For Nocturnal Animals takes dilettantism as a principle; Ford, who previously directed A Single Man, is a mimic and an unapologetic aesthete, and his liberal adaptation of Austin Wright’s novel Tony And Susan operates on the cusp of satire, playing with insincerity and indulgence as it conveys the workings of a reader’s imagination. Its three interrelated stories reflect and obscure one another in equal measure: a Los Angeles drama about the ennui and mores of the modish rich, focused on a gallery owner married to a nearly bankrupt businessman; a violent thriller about a family man seeking revenge against Texas hicks, which is actually a novel manuscript by the gallery owner’s estranged first husband; and a failed romance, set in the early years of the relationship between the former couple, childhood friends from Texas who reconnect in New York.

Ford, who also wrote the screenplay, teases and insinuates the similarities between these narratives in largely visual terms. Amy Adams plays the gallery owner, Susan, whose reading of the manuscript (also called Nocturnal Animals) is implied through casting: The protagonist, Tony, is played by Jake Gyllenhaal, who also plays Susan’s ex-husband, Edward, the author of the novel; his wife by Isla Fisher, who looks like Adams from the right angles; their daughter by Ellie Bamber, who bears a passing resemblance to India Menuez, who plays the college-age daughter of Susan and her second husband, Hutton (Armie Hammer). Everything here belongs in scare quotes, because the characters and events that the viewer is led to presume inspired Tony’s Cormac McCarthy-esque tale of backcountry evil and self-destructive retribution are introduced with a delay, implying that the flashback narrative (which starts later in the film and plays out from Susan’s point of view) is itself colored by the fictional.

These are framing devices for other framing devices; the already heightened level of suggestion is complicated by the Neon Demon-esque artificiality of the Los Angeles-set portions, and the fact that the most fascinating and ambiguous character in this triple-layer metanarrative, the mustachioed Texas lawman

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To the average cinema-goer the phrase “five and a half hour silent movie” provokes the same cognitive response as a rattlesnake’s hiss (or a Trump voter): An immediate desire to run screaming in the opposite direction. As a result the best film screen in cinemas this year is likely to only be seen by those brave cineastes who are capable of overcoming this (perfectly understandable) Pavlovian response and sit down for the new restoration with Abel Gance’s 1927 silent epic about the rise of Napoleon.

Initially conceived (in the manner of Icarus) as merely the first of a colossal six film cycle, Napoleon only covers the first 26 years of the Corsican general’s life. From the vicious isolation of his boyhood in a bleak military academy to the glory of his stunning victories leading the revolutionary armies into Italy. Much like the brain trust behind films like Transformers 2: Revenge Of The Fallen, Gance believed in spectacle above all else, unlike said brain trust however, he happened to be a genius level auteur.

Some of the shots in Napoleon seem like they were shot sometime in the distant future not close to a hundred years in the past. Cameras dart and weave schizophrenically, past and future blur into each other and stream of consciousness imagery strobes and kaleidoscopes ghostlike over the action, and that’s only the first scene (which is nothing more dramatic than a childhood snowball fight.)

Considering that we live in an era where people tend to know more about retweets than Robespierre, anyone who isn’t au fait with revolutionary France is in for a slightly surreal time of it, as Gance’s approach to historical film making tends towards

the impressionistic, even somewhat hallucinogenic. After the berserk melée of the snowball fight, we’re taken on a rollercoaster ride through key events in the French revolution which range from a somehow threateningly avuncular Danton unveiling The Marsaillaise to a sinister Robespierre signing death warrants whilst wearing a rather natty pair of dark spectacles with the young Napoleon at its centre. A blazing galaxy in the shape of a man, the adult Napoleon (as portrayed by Albert Dieudonné who amusingly bears an uncanny resemblance to Noel Fielding) is less a man than a simmering volcano, disrespected by all yet haughtily aware of his own strategic genius, he bestrides Gance’s tapestry like a colossus.

If all of this seems rather over the top that’s because the film practically demands such extravagances. Constant classical opuses soundtrack huge battles swarming with what seems like hundreds of extras, rage for uninterrupted 45 minute stretches yet Gance’s virtuoso camerawork causes the ostensibly punishingly long length practically a non-issue. Napoleon was made at the end of the silent movie era and didn’t come close to recouping its budget (a fact which doomed Gance’s vision of five further continuations) and was very nearly lost to the world, which would have been a nearly unthinkable tragedy for the world of film. There are flaws to be found of course; there is a half hour segment that features Napoleon wooing his wife that seems to have been transplanted in from another, significantly worse, film. This comes right at the end of the film and seems to nightmarishly suggest to a virgin viewer that after over four hours of investment Napoleon might suddenly unwind, but thankfully the final section which features Napoleon’s Italian campaign is a tour de force, when the screen spreads into a triptych, providing a panoramic view of the bloody battle that seems unmatched in cinema’s history. If you can summon up the will to commit to Napoleon and aren’t dancing in the aisle by the time the three screens turn tricolour red white and blue, I’ll eat my tricorn hat.

Napoleon is showing Sundays at the BFI

Image © Focus Features

December 2016 / January 2017

Image © Gaumont

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Travel

Hot Spring Heaven

Gaia Hotel in Taipei, Taiwan

By Lynne McGowan

S

omething sinister and magical has always surrounded sulfur, a diabolical element used over the centuries in everything from fireworks to fermenting wines.

Thrown up from the earth’s fiery bowels, sulfur is found only in volcanic regions but also happily exists in each of us helping to manufacture hair, nails and feathers if you’re a bird.

Natural sulfur was found in China as early as 6th Century BC and was a prime ingredient in the Taoist quest for immortality together with other components like arsenic and mercury; these lethal elements were mixed in secret formulas for potent elixirs and incenses. During the Qing Dynasty rule (1683-1895) Chinese venturers from Fujian in 1697 mined the yellow sulfur in the North of Taiwan with the help from the local aboriginals to replace 300 tons of sulfuric powder lost in a catastrophic explosion. Mined in hellish conditions, the old English biblical word for sulfur is ‘brimstone’, and you can see

why when visiting the historical mine in Beitou: ancient yet still alive with steam smoldering like smoke from the nostrils of a sleeping dragon.

Gaia Hotel is located in mountainous Beitou, north of Taipei and hot springs are the big attraction here. In 1886 the first hot spring hotel was set up by a Japanese business man from Osaka, various army grandees missing their onsens followed suit and the area soon blossomed into a community of geisha ‘clubs’ and later on into a tourist hotspot.

Medicinal claims for sulfur are debatable but a good soak in the thermal mineral water is more heaven than hell.

In the Gaia, every guest room has its own private white sulfur hot spring bath. My preference is to indulge in the outdoor hot springs lolling about on big smooth rocks, the water appearing to gush up from the core of the earth. ‘Gaia’ means land or earth in Chinese and much was first heard about it in the West from James Lovelock’s theory in the late 1960s. He posited that both organic and

inorganic components of planet earth have evolved together for survival as a living, self-regulating entity, forever re-adjusting and re-balancing to achieve homeostasis.

For a touch of personal re-balancing in Taiwan, the Gaia Hotel is not a bad place to begin. Stepping into the foyer one is greeted by a vast, shimmering chandelier with over 1300 small crystal glass balls and 660 clear vertical threads symbolising in Chinese ‘Everlasting love’ and ‘Fortunes’ respectively. The hotel owner commissioned the lamp, together with many other works of art sprinkled throughout, her touch evident from the choice of art works to the novel brown paper sacks covering unsightly fire hydrants. Beyond, a lofty library with shelves climbing to a dizzying height of 30 metres was inspired by the British Museum. Thousands of multilingual books crowd the vertiginous shelves and I was told the owner had especially tracked down a book for a guest desperate for the sequel; now that’s what

I call service.

Naturally, guests stay at the Gaia Hotel to indulge in the serene sanctuary of the spa where skillful hands stroke and knead or they can wander through into the spacious hydropool area with a bewildering choice of jets and spurting spouts. After a hard day of massaging and hot springs, a refined and restorative afternoon tea is served Claridges style from the in-house bakery.

Down below, a large chilled cellar room housing nearly as many red wines as glass balls serves connoisseurs in a private dining room next door aptly named Bacchus, complete with hanging antler lamps and a solid table the depth of a butcher’s block. Disappointedly, we didn’t dine in the Bacchus but all three regular restaurants were highly commendable, our favourite being the Italian Piacere mostly because the manager offered a choice of three very respectable red wines including a 2011 Aruma Malbec by the glass instead of the usual house. In fact, the entire staff were gracious with smiles and bows, all credit to general manager Chris and his team of delightful girls on the desk who made us feel at home. Above all, it must go to the lady owner herself who like the Greek Goddess Gaia has imbued the hotel with her spirit of generosity lending it an atmosphere of hospitality beyond the usual expectations.

Images © Gaia Hotel

Travel

December 2016 / January 2017

By Cynthia Pickard

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Varanasi, City of Light n previous visits to India I have always shied away from the idea of dealing with the ‘full on’ nature of Varanasi, but this time I felt strong enough.

Varanasi is supposed to be one of the oldest living cities in the world, an important spiritual and religious centre since the sixth century BC, every Hindu feels they should come here at least once in their life and immerse themselves in the Ganges, and if they can also be cremated here, so much the better, they will receive enlightenment. There is definitely a magical feeling about the river; first viewed further north, looking so wide and clean and freely flowing, a wonderful turquoise colour with the blue sky reflected in it too, it is easy to understand why it is so admired and worshipped. Compared with other dried up river beds, and contrasting with the surrounding deprivation and dust, the Ganges radiates the strong feeling of a life force. People are eager to immerse themselves in the river, to scoop up the water in their hands to drink it and believe that it’s impossible to catch any

The English winter is often held to be bleak, cold and uninspiring but I have always argued that it IS incredibly inspiring; it inspires you to fly to another country ASAP! When I trade the grey skies, cold rain, ugly offices and uglier officemates for a few weeks racing about the Swiss Alps each December, it is always with great satisfaction.

However in my rush to get as far from the grimy Circle Line as humanly possible I always forget a very important fact every year. I will remember it with a terrible sinking feeling as I’m strapping my skis on and my feet suddenly feel as though they are in a bizarre vice. I have forgotten wearing my ski-boots for any length of time is an exercise in masochism . Whether or not they were actually forged in hell to punish me for sinning in a former life I will never know, but they invariably cramp my style (pun sadly intended) and by the end of the holiday I have to hobble back to the joys of British winter rather more ignominiously than I might like.

Thankfully, this year, things will finally be different. Whilst being hosed with

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Kensington, Chelsea & Westminster Today

illness from it. Despite the fact it looks so clean, I personally wouldn’t. During the monsoon the river rises by 40 feet and covers the steps of the 70 odd ghats.

The town, built on the left bank of the river is a mass of temples and shrines to the many deities, ashrams and lodgings rain on High Street Kensington I came across Altimus, a combination high end sports and shoe store and decided that it was high time to finally deal with my old nemesis once and for all.

When I entered, I was surprised by an offer of a free ‘biomechanical assessment’.

Considering the tumbleweed blowing through my bank account after the holiday bookings this was particularly gratifying! On being examined by the well informed and enthusiastic staff, it became apparent that I had slightly misaligned arches, which probably helped to explain why my old boots seemed to have so much in common with medieval torture devices. The staff soon pointed me in the direction of a pair of top of the line ski-boots that were perfectly aligned to my feet which left me feverishly excited to slip them on, a far cry from the wincing struggle to which I’d become accustomed.

In addition to finally being freed from my self-inflicted torments, I decided to look deeper into their extensive skisection discovering a pair of high end of X-Socks Ski Metal from X-bionic, which are a pair of socks that could probably survive a nuclear apocalypse. Designed to protect every part of the foot whilst keeping it aerated, I got the feeling that far from hobbling my way home I’d end up walking better with better posture than I’d had in my life.

Other than my chosen socks/body

for the thousands of pilgrims who arrive daily. Despite the crazy traffic jams, for a city of four million inhabitants it’s very traditional and hasn’t progressed into the 21st century as much as elsewhere in India.

In the evening there is a huge gathering at the main Dashaswamedh ghat for the ceremony of Arti, prayers chanted by the priests to send the river to sleep.

In the early morning light as the faithful come down for sacred bathing armour there was also an almost intimidatingly large selection of heated socks with silver impregnation, all of which seemed about a million miles away from the usual Christmas disappointments! Now that I’m properly kitted out and free from the malign

and purification in the river, the sun rises as a pale pink disc through the mist and the buildings take on a warm glow. Orange clad sadhus line the paths to the ghats holding out their tin plates for contributions.

A boat rows us along the river to view the burning ghats where smoke rises day and night and huge piles of wood lie ready for the next immolation. There are four kinds of people whose bodies don’t get burnt; sadhus, children under five years old, people who have died of diseases like cholera and those who have died of snake bites, the last are laid on top of rafts in case they might only be in a coma and will wake up again, by which time they could be a long way down river.

Walking back through the narrow alleyways crowded with stalls selling flowers and sweet offerings to pilgrims I notice a shopkeeper unwrapping a chocolate bar and feeding it to a cow lingering nearby, another step to enlightenment.

Cynthia Pickard travelled with Wild Frontiers Adventure Travel Ltd. www.wildfrontierstravel.com T: 020 7736 3968 grip of my old boots, there’s going to be nothing to give me the blues when I’m back on the slopes this year.

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Images © Cynthia Pickard

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The Lister’s leading light

By Ione Bingley

A

former theatre nurse, CEO of The Lister Hospital, Suzy Jones understands the running of a hospital right from the front line. Care, above all, is what patients remember about their hospital experience and Jones knows exactly what it takes to deliver top quality care.

the patients’ stress and the unnecessary burden on the NHS. “We are able to take care of our patients throughout their entire journey.

This includes the most complex of patients that either require critical care as part of their planned admission or even if they become unwell during their treatment that they subsequently require critical care, ” explained Jones.

The ITU has helped Suzy Jones develop the specialties offered by the hospital like chest-related surgeries,

Predatory bacteria can fight superbugs

including lung surgery, as well as complex reconstructive surgery and sarcoma surgeries, all of which require intensive aftercare. They have also begun to treat mesothelioma, cancer caused by exposure to asbestos that is still being mined in parts of the world today.

“We have a surgeon who specialises in the treatment of mesothelioma so patients come from Australia, New Zealand, all over the world to be treated here,” said Jones.

By concentrating on in-house treatments and care, Jones has also been able to maximise their imaging and radiology services and provide a new 24-hour ‘GP Rapid Access’ initiative allowing patients to be admitted out of hours.

“We have an amazing relationship with the Chelsea GPs, when they need to admit patients we have consultants available 24/7. We have several consultants in all the key specialties on call to meet the needs of the community, amongst them a general surgeon, physician, gynaecologists ophthalmologists, gastroenterologists and full x-ray services for rapid diagnoses,” said Jones. “It’s easy when the team are good and all of these areas have got fantastic clinical leaders.”

New Oncology Centre on Sydney Street

For Jones, the continued evolution of

GP crisis reflects NHS’ problems

by Libby Keys

By Catherine Godlewsky

P

redatory bacteria could be used to combat antibiotic-resisting superbugs, according to a new study published in Current Biology.

Researchers from Imperial College London and the University of Nottingham used a predatory bacterium that feeds on other bacteria, Bdellovibrio bacteriovorus, to kill samples of the Shigella bacteria that causes 160 million cases of food poisoning each year. The experiment showed that the population of Shigella in a laboratory dish decreased by 4,000 times its original size when the predatory bacteria was introduced.

The research team also tested the predatory bacteria as treatment for Shigella in Zebrafish larvae with positive results; while only twenty-five percent of larvae survived a Shigella infection after three days of no treatment, sixty percent of larvae that were given a dose of Bdellovibrio bacteriovorus survived the infection. There were no observed side effects in the treated Zebrafish, and scientists noted that the predatory

T

effects of ageing. For the best results, treat the face as a whole, lifting mid-face areas, then lifting the lower face and jaw line for a fresher and plumper look.”

The Cosmetech, Chelsea Private Clinic is a Consultant Surgeon-led clinic which specialises in non-surgical antiageing solutions, health and wellbeing.

Their experience within the NHS and private sector includes managing facial trauma, facial deformity, cosmetic dermatology and scar revisions. Mr Songra Consultant Surgeon in head, neck and facial surgery, is on the UK’s anti-wrinkle validator panel, which assesses safety and the ability of practitioners in administering antiwrinkle injections for cosmetic purposes.

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Health

CEO Suzy Jones

Located next to Chelsea Bridge and, internationally, the choice healthcare destination for celebrities and royalty alike, The Lister is highend healthcare and its Jones’ job to make sure that she is running a tight ship.

During her four years at the helm, she has overseen the Lister’s move from primarily a fertility and day care hospital to one that is able to treat more specialties to the highest level of complexity. Perhaps most impressively, the Lister now includes a six-bed intensive care unit (ITU), avoiding the standard transferral of the most serious cases to an NHS hospital, reducing

Kensington, Chelsea & Westminster Today

bacteria worked with the fish’s immune system.

“It may be unusual to use a bacterium to get rid of another, but in the light of the looming threat from drug-resistant infections the potential of beneficial bacteria-animal interactions should not be overlooked,” said Dr Michael Chew from the Wellcome Trust medical research body.

Bdellovibrio bacteriovorus has been shown to kill many kinds of harmful bacteria, including E. coli and Salmonella. Although there will need to be more safety testing before Bdellovibrio bacteriovorus is used on humans, researchers suggested that it may be useful for treating infected wounds because it can be easily injected into a specific area.

“We are increasingly relying on lastline antibiotics, and this innovative study demonstrates how predatory bacteria could be an important additional tool to drugs in the fight against resistance,” said Dr Chew.

A recent poll from the British Medical Association GP survey shows that 84 percent of GPs consider their workload “unmanageable”.

The survey drew responses from over 5,000 English GPs and results showed that eight out of ten GPs consider their workload either unmanageable or excessive. Only one in 10 GPs described their workload as manageable.

The BMA says that the results are “unsurprising”, citing “chronic underfunding, staff shortages and rising patient demand especially from an ageing population”.

“There are around 40 million more GP consultations taking place each year than there were a decade ago,” said committee chair of BMA, Dr Chaand Nagpaul.

The 40 million extra GP appointments coincide with the nation’s ageing population, which has seen an increase in admissions across the board.

The difficulty lies with the NHS not being able to staff enough doctors to cater for the increase. This increase is

the hospital is key and a highlight for 2017 will be the opening of their new oncology centre on 102 Sydney Street with Leaders in Oncology Care (LOC).

In addition to their current diagnosis and surgery services, from May, the Lister will have a new oncology service line working in partnership with LOC to care for patients undergoing oncology treatment.

Due to its brilliant reputation for looking after, not only its patients, but also its staff, The Lister is able to work with cream of the crop consultants from around Britain, and the world, who apply there for practicing privileges. Jones puts this down to the family atmosphere that the hospital enjoys due to its small size, exceptional patient care and consistently cutting-edge treatments often acting as the pilot site for new projects.

Under the umbrella of the Hospital Corporation of America (HCA) that presides over a prestigious network of some of London’s most respected hospitals, Jones believes that the support and funding from the HCA has been invaluable in their development.

“We have the capital and support from the HCA, the drive for innovation, and that absolute red line for the quality of patient care, nothing matters more than that. For us, it’s about moving forward and constantly striving for exceptional care ,it feels really great just to be part of it.” also visible in surgery that saw a 27 percent increase in surgical admissions between 2002 and 2014, according to the Royal College of Surgeons.

“The knock-on effect is working 1214 hour days. By then, you are so tired that your clinical decision-making skills are not great. You’re not able to give the best to your patients and it’s not a safe environment to be working in” said GP and chair of BMA subcommittee that represents locum and salaried GPs, Dr Zoe Norris.

“I think the NHS is sleepwalking into disaster in England and in Scotland it is seriously under threat. I don't believe that we have an unsolvable problem, but I do think that we need to be much clearer about practicing evidence based policy making and making sure that we are not wasting time and resources with meaningless party political pledges,” said GP and author, Dr Margaret McCartney.

The Department of Health believes that the problem is being addressed.

“We are investing in primary care precisely to relieve pressure on the front line, which will improve patient safety – with an extra £2.4billion of funding, 5,000 more doctors in general practice and 1,500 more pharmacists in surgeries by 2020,” said a Department of Health spokesman. “We’re expanding the workforce so well-resourced GPs can give even higher standards of care.”

Image © Lister Hospital

Health

December 2016 / January 2017

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A fresher look without surgery

The Consultant Surgeon led team at Cosmetech has perfected the art of the non-surgical facelift. Here Consultant Surgeon Mr Ashok Songra talks about the perceptions of beauty and why he refuses to go beyond what looks natural.

he Cosmetech team have a reputation for creating some of the most natural-looking cosmetic work in the business. With a loyal following of people at their Holywood and Chelsea Private Clinics who discreetly maintain their youthful looks. Their signature work is ‘the natural look’ ; the treatment results are so good that people know you look good but they don’t know why!

Their dislike of expressionless, overplumped faces has shaped the signature style. “The techniques we use are more advanced and focus on preventing the signs of ageing by maintaining the skin and supporting the underlying structures of the face,” says Mr Songra.

“We can now delay the ageing process and preserve a face as it is for the next 10 years.

“With so much awareness of cosmetic treatments, clients now come to us with a better understanding of cosmetic treatments than ever before. They don’t always want to go under the knife for many reasons; health, fear or simply social pressure. With such a variety of non-invasive treatments available today, we’re now able to achieve an excellent natural-looking face-lift without surgery and have developed a combined therapy face-lift. Symmetry and proportion are key to a natural attractive look, because as we age we lose natural volume in the face. Hyaluronic acid dermal fillers from a substance that occurs naturally in the body gently replaces what the skin has lost, lifting deep folds and halting the

Q. What can anti-wrinkle injections do?

A. They can maintain the brow position and prevent the ingraining of lines.

Advanced anti- wrinkle injections also help prevent lower jowls developing.

Combined with dermal fillers they can prevent the need for surgery in later life.

Q. How do they work?

A. Anti-wrinkle injections are a purified protein that’s injected in tiny quantities into face muscles to soften lines and wrinkles. You’ll see improvement three days to two weeks after treatment. It usually wears off in 3-4 months.

Q. Are anti-wrinkle injections safe?

A. Yes. They’re licenced for ages two and over. We have over 30 years of clinical data proving their safety.

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Services available at the clinic include: Anti- wrinkle injection / Dermal Fillers, PDO Thread Lifts, Colonic Hydrotherapy, Manual Lymphatic Drainage Massage, Acupuncture, Cryolipolysis, Hair Styling and Colouring technician, Skin Rejuvenation, Nutritional Consultations, Osteopathy, Cosmetic Skin Tag and Mole Removal.

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the Hospital with a charitable conscience, delivering clinical excellence within a culture of kindness

C

linical excellence, a culture of kindness and a charitable conscience – these three pillars underpin the vision of King Edward VII’s Hospital, a highly regarded private hospital and registered charity operating in the Harley Street medical district.

Should I be worrying about my forgetfulness?

An educational talk by Dr Claudia Wald

For the past 68 years, the Hospital has been located on Beaumont Street and is currently headed by Chief Executive Andrew Robertson. Since joining King Edward VII’s in 2014, Mr Robertson’s focus has been to improve the Hospital’s services and facilities by investing in its people and technology. Next year welcomes the beginning of a £25m redevelopment project comprising a

Chelsea Court Place is proud to be hosting an educational programme to support everybody affected by Alzheimer’s disease and dementia and those with concerns about their memory.

Esteemed Consultant Psychiatrist Dr Claudia Wald will be talking about memory loss, dementia, Alzheimer’s disease, how to access help and latest treatments, plus answering all of your questions.

Date: 12th January, 2017 Time: 4pm Venue: Chelsea Court Place, 234A Kings Rd, London SW3 5UA

LIMITED SPACES AVAILABLE

Call now to reserve your space

03331 221 598 email info@chelseacourtplace.com

Kensington, Chelsea & Westminster Today

major refurbishment of the Hospital including two new Operating Theatres, 28 new consulting rooms and a new diagnostic centre.

Equipped with state of the art facilities, the Hospital is renowned for its superb standard of nursing, and is the only Hospital in the UK where consultants are invited to practice. This ensures that King Edward VII’s works with the very best in each respective medical specialty and the Hospital offers a wide range of surgical and medical services with a strong emphasis on the following areas:

• • • •

Pain and Neuroscience Breast Orthopaedics Gynaecology (under the

• • • •

General Medicine Ophthalmology Urology ENT

umbrella of Women’s Health)

standard of care throughout the patient journey, and to practising the culture of kindness for which the Hospital is renowned.

This culture of kindness is reflected in the Hospital’s status as a registered charity which provides subsidised medical treatment for veterans under the

Andrew Robertson says: “They [the patients] talk about the Hospital with such love and passion. It pushes me to work hard to maintain these high levels of satisfaction and reminds me what a privilege it is to work in this Hospital.”

Like their Chief Executive, the staff at King Edward VII’s Hospital are committed to maintaining the highest

Helping you take care of yourself World class clinical care in west London Kensington’s Bupa Cromwell Hospital offers an exceptional healthcare resource for Londoners. Whether using private health insurance or ‘self-funding’, our worldrenowned services are available to everyone, and just a five minute walk from Kensington High Street, Earl’s Court or Gloucester Road. private GPs with walk-in appointments the latest diagnostic technology, with no waiting times and quick results London’s leading consultants, with appointments available at short notice

Chelsea Court Place is a premium care home and day club, catering to the unique needs of individuals with Alzheimer’s disease and dementia

tailored health screening packages to suit every need Women’s Health Centre with female-only specialists Call us on 020 7460 2000 or email info@cromwellhospital.com to discuss your healthcare needs.

www.chelseacourtplace.com | 03331 221 598

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Health King Edward VII’s

My Memory & Me

December 2016 / January 2017

bupacromwellhospital.com

Hospital’s Centre for Veterans’ Health.

The charity has been running for over a century, offering an automatic 20 per cent discount on hospital costs to veterans. The connection to the armed services is an intrinsic part of the biological makeup of the Hospital says Mr Robertson: “Working with the armed services is part of our DNA and everyone at the Hospital believes it is a privilege to serve those who have suffered through serving us.”

King Edward VII’s Hospital is constantly seeking new ways to reach out to veterans and tell them about the services it provides, and the efforts are starting to pay off as more applications are coming in for subsidised treatment.

Whether in its charitable work or when caring for insured or self-paying patients, King Edward VII’s Hospital focus is to offer outstanding private health care to its patients for years to come.

Images © KE VII Hospital

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A Gift of Royal Fern

by Jayne Beaumont We’re heading towards the end of the year and what a year it’s been in so many ways!

The Beauty industry continues to produce a growing array of skincare elixirs but the mainstays of a healthy skin haven’t changed. Here, I would like to recap on what those ingredients are and why we should always ensure they are in our daily regime.

First on my list is Elastin. As the word suggests it works to maintain the elasticity of the skin so it can ‘snap back’ into place as it does when the skin is young. However, the sobering reality is that we produce less of it as we age that results in sagging under the eyes, along the jaw line and in the neck area. Using a cream or preferably a serum containing ‘retinol’ each day will help you stimulate its production.

Next, there is Collagen. Without collagen our skin is destined the have the texture of an old leather bag. What a thought! It is the most important protein in our body as it holds everything together like a scaffold providing

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Health

By the Beauty Editor

O

Skincare Necessities

020 7738 2348

A J A PA N E S E BEAUTY BOX!

by Jayne Beaumont smunda Regalis is Royal Fern.

It was one of the first plants to seed itself in the Earth’s soil more than 400 million years ago and has many rejuvenating properties that have maintained its strength and growth over the millennia.

The natural substances of Royal Fern were brought into the science of skincare

by Germany’s renowned dermatologist, Dr.Timm Golueke who wanted to make a product that was soothing for his patients yet improved the quality of their skin.

Through independent scientific studies, he found that ‘fern extracts’ positively influence the skin by protecting its DNA and in doing so, protects against light-induced skin ageing. They not only prevent the reduction of collagen and elastin but also stimulate the production of new collagen.

In addition, their huge anti-oxidant potential ensures that existing damage is repaired and new damage is prevented.

Furthermore, the fern regulates moisture and has an anti-inflammatory as well as an anti-bacterial effect that combats

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stress and negative environmental influences.

Advancing his research, Dr. Goleuke sought assistance of an internationally recognised chemist specialising in antiaging to investigate the phenomenon of the fern. This resulted in the discovery of the very substances that strengthen the biologically active anti-ageing effect of the fern. Hence, after four years of working together, they created the Royal Fern Complex.

It is simply made as a nourishing all-in-one cleansing balm, a skin cream, strength and structure. Fortunately, there is a rare family of ingredients that dermatologists agree stimulate collagen production and cellular regeneration known as retinoids. There are a myriad of creams and serums available nowadays as the benefit of retinoids was discovered back in the 1970s and have been developed and honed with the use of better technology ever since. There are also various laser and other salon treatments available to stimulate the production of collagen.

Both Elastin and Collagen production is substantially effected by too much exposure to the sun. Therefore, it is necessary to apply a moisturiser that has at least a SPF Factor 30 sunscreen and contains broad-spectrum formulations with Helioplex or Mexoryl.

Of course, smoking and sugar are also very damaging.

an intense serum as well as an eye cream.

Stored in liposomes, it reaches deep into the skin and has a deferred release over a period of twelve hours ensuring the skin has long-lasting protection. Although direct and easy in its application it is intensely complex in the benefits it provides. It is a unique product that works on both sensitive and normal skin.

Royal Fern Complex is available from www.royalfern.com and at selected places in London.

Price range: £65-£200.

Vitamin C is essential for Collagen and Elastin production.

A daily supplement of 500 grams is recommended as well as eating Vitamin C-rich foods such as broccoli, kiwi fruit, bell peppers and citrus fruits.

Hyaluronic Acid (HA) is vital for a healthy skin as it helps to retain over a 1000 times its weight in water within cells making it an excellent moisturizer resulting in increased smoothness and a softening and decreasing of wrinkles by plumping the skin. It also works as an antioxidant and free radical scavenger, maintaining skin elasticity, cushioning joints and nerve tissues. Notably HA has an anti-bacterial and anti-inflammatory effect as well as maintaining the fluid in the eye tissues.

Our bodies naturally produce it but its production is halved by the time we reach our mid 40s. Therefore, we shouldn’t ignore keeping it at a level to maintain healthy tissue. It is found in many creams these days but can also be taken orally. It can also be injected.

Anti-oxidants are the super heroes

This is a pretty and interesting, introductory present of Japanese skincare for the open-minded who would enjoy such a surprise.

It is made by DHC, a very popular brand in Japan reflecting its people’s discerning taste and their exacting quality standards that result in carefully formulated products. Nourishing plant extracts brought together with cutting-edge scientific research create unusual, effective and safe products.

This box contains a deep cleansing oil, a creamy mild soap, nourishing, reviltalising eye sheets and oil blotters that are very good for enhancing make-up throughout the day. It’s excellent value for £13.

The DHC Bento Box is available from various online suppliers. Just ‘Google’ DHC bento box availability

of the skin as they fight the so-called demonic free-radicals that cause damage at the cellular level as well as block an enzyme known as elastase that breaks down elastin. They are very dangerous to the body’s tissue and have been connected to premature aging as well as cancer. According to leading New York dermatologist, Howard Stern, anti-oxidants work better in a formula with vitamins A, C, beta-carotene and co-enzyme Q10 that are capable of counteracting the damaging effects of oxidation.

They are absorbed into the body’s system by eating foods that contain high levels of anti-oxidants. The highest levels are found in Goji berries, wild blueberries, dark chocolate, pecans, artichokes, elderberries, kidney beans, cranberries and blackberries. They are also found in many common herbs such as oregano, basil, turmeric and ginger.

Moisturiser is the most ignored component of fighting free-radical damage probably because we regard it as ‘the icing on the cake’. A good moisturiser naturally helps to protect the hydration of the skin. Dehydration of the skin leads to oxidative stress that generates free-radicals. Without moisture the skin isn’t able to repair itself and suffers even more damage. The best kind of protective moisturiser will contain cholesterol, ceramides, essential fatty acids and niacinamide. Take a moment and look at the labelling!

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The superior quality of the ultra thin wall needle allows treatment to be uncomplicated, simple and safe. The fine threads are inserted into the underskin fatty tissue, or directly into the muscle to improve skin structure, elasticity, colour and tighten pores.

Cosmetech Chelsea Private Clinic - services available include: Anti-wrinkle injections / Dermal fillers / Colonic hydrotherapy / Manual lymphatic drainage massage / Acupuncture / Cryolipolysis / Hair styling and colouring technician / Skin rejuvenation / Nutritional consultations / Osteopathy / Cosmetic skin tag & mole removal / Semi-permanent makeup.

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08/09/2016 12:35

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Health advice from Chelsea Outpatients Centre, part of HCA Healthcare UK

T

he Winter season is upon us. West London’s streets are full of people rushing around buying Christmas presents, tottering off to Christmas parties and sitting down to indulgent festive feasts.

Healthy Lifestyle

I

t’s a time of year when our health naturally becomes more of a priority: the colder weather can affect us or loved ones, many of us indulge in more rich food and alcohol than usual and come the New Year many of us will adopt new health regimes to kick-start 2017. It’s also a time of year where time is precious and seeking healthcare advice can be put off until normal life resumes in January. In Kensington & Chelsea, that doesn’t have to be the case.

Tucked away in the heart of Chelsea is the Chelsea Outpatient Centre at 280 Kings Road, where clinicians are on-hand to advise, diagnose and treat conditions across a range of disciplines.

Here you can book an appointment, meet your clinician, receive a rapid diagnosis and start your treatment plan (if required) often all in the same day.

Peace of mind.

Operated by The Lister Hospital and part of HCA Healthcare UK, the Chelsea Outpatient Centre’s rapid diagnostics use the latest technology to give an, often same-day, diagnosis, while treating you with the best care and attention.

“I think what people enjoy most about the facility is its convenience, speedy diagnoses and the calm, relaxing atmosphere. You avoid having to travel into Central London and there’s always a friendly face, whether you’re speaking

Same or next day appointments, healthcare delivered with care.

Image © Lister Hospital

Keeping well this winter

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ebike

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to the receptionists, the nurses or one of the consultants,” says Consultant Gastroenterologist at the Chelsea Outpatient Centre, Matthew Banks.

Once a diagnosis has been made, your treatment at The Lister Hospital will begin immediately. You will receive the best private healthcare from renowned physicians and consultants across different medical disciplines, ensuring you make the best recovery possible.

Staying healthy this winter

“During the Christmas season, in the gastroenterology clinic I tend to see an increase in patients with reflux or heartburn, caused by the excesses of the season; rich foods, too much alcohol, and smoking,” adds Banks.

“There are things you can do to limit

the chances of heartburn, such as eating less foods that are high in oils and fat and avoid eating rich food too late in the evening. You should try to leave at least three to four hours before lying down after a big meal. You should also watch your alcohol intake; if you drink more than recommended, you should try to take a couple of days off alcohol where possible. But most of all, enjoy yourself !”

Whatever you need this winter, The Chelsea Outpatient Centre is here to ensure you are able to make the most of the festive period.

To learn more about the patient services and journey offered at The Lister Hospital, call 020 7730 8298 or visit our websites: www.thelisterhospital.com and www.chelseaoutpatientcentre.com.

Experience private healthcare, without compromise. Located in the heart of Chelsea

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To book an appointment visit www.chelseaoutpatientcentre.com or call +44 (0)2038 113 118

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Zooming into the future

on a Volt Kensington Ebike

By Ione Bingley

E

ver the seeker of new experiences, I jumped at the chance to give a Volt electric bike a run around.

Expecting a variation on a heavy and unwieldy scooter, I was pleasantly surprised when a chic, step-through, ladies’ bike appeared, complete with a leather saddle and handlebars, fitted lights and front and back mudguards.

The one key difference: a brushed metal battery and motor neatly stowed behind the seat post and barely noticeable.

Featuring eight gears, four speeds and a small speedometer screen, when compared to my back-to-basics, single speed bike, the Volt looked like the Starship Enterprise. However, once I had donned my matching brown leather helmet and hopped aboard, it proved, perhaps unsurprisingly, as easy as riding a bike.

The electric-ness of the bike manifested itself by giving my pedal pushes an extra go-faster thrust, meaning that for each small push you get varying degrees of zoom forward, depending on your speed setting. Heavy traffic along the Kings Road meant that I kept my speed on the lowest setting, one, and enjoyed a gentle helping hand as I weaved through the cars.

Bored with the slow progress and keen to push the Volt to its limits,

I headed to the park to put the ‘Kensington’, literally, through its paces.

The old girl requires a few perfunctory pedals before the speed kicks in so, finding myself a straight stretch of paved path, I gave a couple of necessary pushes, raised the speed to the max, level four, and away I shot.

Unassisted by excess peddling and on flat ground, the Kensington is programmed to reach around 15 mph, but with a bit of extra human pedalpower I managed to get up to 17.4 mph, which did actually feel pretty fast and certainly gave some spectator pigeons a shock, if nothing else.

As a veteran cyclist and perpetual arriver to work panting and in a muck sweat, I would recommend the Kensington to any commuter looking to avoid the public transport crush, but keen to avoid breaking a sweat on the way in.

Giving a whole new meaning to ‘too posh to push’, the Volt electric bike is also perfect for anyone looking for a gentle ride that’s easy on the knees or wanting a helping hand to get back in shape. However, if you’re hoping for a workout, the temptation to flip the speed to four and zoom off into the distance is too great to resist.

The future’s green, the future’s ebike

Following a trip to China, where electric bikes are as common as the London pigeon, the Metcalfe brothers decided to test the technology back in the UK. Founded in 2008, Volt is now the biggest electric bike manufacturer in Britain and is seeing the trend take hold.

Even one of the great minds behind the

prolific Brompton folding bike, Will Butler-Adams, believes that in the near future every bike is going to be an e-bike.

“We see it as an alternative to commuting, you can wear a suit comfortably and you’re not going to sweat. It’s greener than driving, it’s still good exercise and at 7 or 8 pence for a full charge, the running costs are ridiculously low,” explains Co-founder Lyle Metcalfe.

While the Metcalfes sold around 4,000 ebikes in 2016 with 90 shops across the country, compared to the rest of Europe, Britain has been slow on the uptake. This year in Germany the value of electric bike sales have overtaken that of traditional models for the first time and the trend is upwards.

Boasting a wealth of happy customers on independent product review sites, such as TrustPilot, Volt offers a range of styles for both men and women, road and mountain, and even a folding model.

“The customers absolutely love them and for many it’s life changing.

It’s a great way back into exercise,” says Metcalfe. “Ebikes are fantastic for getting people out of their cars and on to the saddle. If even a fraction of the country decided to ride an electric bike as an alternative to driving or using public transport to get to work, we would be healthier, save more money and do wonders for the environment.”

For more information: www.voltbikes.co.uk or 020 7378 4728

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December 2016 / January 2017

Motoring

From the Back Seat

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LONDON’S ROLLS-ROYCE & BENTLEY SPECIALIST established 1977

Part 38

By Don Grant

O

n Whit Monday evening 1966, Bette Hill, Dad, Eba and a sprinkling of children, piled into the Astoria at Finsbury Park to watch the sesquicentennial Indianapolis 500 live via Early Bird satellite. Dad didn’t go to Indy that year, but, somewhat unusually, decided to write the race report from the comfort of a cinema seat. It would seem that the Indy 500 was a bit like the Grand National, where any number of runners, including favourites, can fall at the first fence, and indeed, eleven cars were eliminated on the first lap in a multiple pile-up. Jackie Stewart, in his first Indy, had the race in the bag until, with a few miles to go, he lost oil pressure, and had to push his car into the pit area and walk home.

In a way, Graham inherited the race, and by driving smoothly, and avoiding trouble, he came through to win. One critic said, somewhat unkindly, that he did not have to overtake anyone to get to the chequered flag.There was an extraordinary atmosphere in the theatre, even though the action was happening three thousand miles away. Jackie was voted ‘rookie of the year’ over Hill. Bette organised a colossal surprise party at their house in Mill Hill, with a disco in the garage, to celebrate Graham’s win on his return. Jimmy Clark was there with Colin Chapman, whose Lotus had come second, and who had lodged a protest thinking that, in more mayhem, they were the winners. Jimmy actually spun twice during the race, but managed not to hit the wall, and keep the engine running. Chapman’s protest was overruled, and Graham didn’t seem to harbour any hard feelings. He notched up over $150,000 in prize money, against Jimmy’s $76,000, so perhaps he could afford to be magnanimous. A few years ago, I was invited to return to the house, onto which an English Heritage blue plaque had been applied, in a celebration at which many of the Hill’s family and friends were present. A few, like Les Leston, with his wife Doreen, John Coombes, Peter Jopp, Keith Smith, and David and Liz Piper, were all at the party nearly forty years before. Bridget, Damon and Samantha were all at both, although, Samantha, to whom Eba was godmother, was only one year old at the time, and didn’t make an appearance.

One dismal, wet and foggy night in late November 1975, I had dropped in to pick up some paints from Eba’s house in North London, and we were sitting in front of the fire with my sister

Rolls-Royce GT1 diagnostics for Rolls-Royce Phantom and Ghost.

Full body off restoration.

Graham Hill, dad, Colin Chapman and Jack Brabham at the Lotus boss's new villa in Spain

Simone, having a glass of wine, when the phone rang. It was Herb Jones, a quiet American, who said that there had been a dreadful accident. Graham had crashed his plane coming in to land at Elstree Aerodrome and all six on board were killed. We rang my brother Gregor and immediately got in the car and drove through the thick fog up to the Hills’ house in Shenley, picking him up on the way. The scene when we arrived was out of Last Year at Marienbad, an impenetrable French nouvelle-vague film, with people standing motionless in various parts of the house. There was a buffet, with waitresses serving drinks, and gradually more and more people arrived. It was all very quiet to begin with and then it became more animated. I think we all were in a state of suspended disbelief, all bound together with Bette and the children as the tragedy unfolded. Apparently, Graham, an experienced pilot, along with Tony Brise, a talented up-and-coming driver and two mechanics, Terry Richards and Tony Alcock, the car’s designer, Andy Smallman, and team manager Roy Brimble, were killed outright, when the plane hit some trees on Arkley golf course in thick fog, on their way back from testing at Paul Ricard circuit in the Var in the South of France. The evening had turned into a bit of a gathering, with friends, family and neighbours

gravitating towards the house. I even heard someone say, as she stumbled out into the night, “Don’t forget to call us if you need us to do anything, Bette, and thank you for a lovely party.” Bizarre.

Poor Bette. Poor children. Damon was only 15 years old when the news filtered though. Their father was more than just a dad; he was a household name, an incredibly well-known and successful driver, and a very funny man.

The parties they gave at Lyndhurst were lavish, and sprinkled with big names, not just from motor racing, but from other sports and show business. He was a funster, but after he retired from driving, life got a bit more serious, with the business commitment of building a successful F1 racing team. They were golden days when Graham won his fifth Monaco Grand Prix and then the Indy 500, with guest appearances on TV quiz and chat shows, with a dry, laconic manner, suave looks and acerbic wit. He had a sharp temper, as I found out when I inadvertently sat on his umbrella, which was lying on the back seat of his Mk II Jaguar when he gave me and Gregor a lift home after some ‘do’. He used to call me Ace, which I thought was as close as one could get to an affectionate nick-name, until I heard him call somebody the same thing, but I thought I had manfully let that one go. Doubly stung, I thought I had

got my own back when I drew a biting caricature of him in Autosport, but he loved it, much to my annoyance. Damon has just written his autobiography called Watching the Wheels, and it is not the usual ego-fuelled celebrity celebration of a successful career. Instead, he examines his depression, anxiety and panic attacks after winning the World Championship in 1996 aged 32, much of which can be traced back to the aftermath of his father’s death. The unravelling and ultimate loss of the family funds, through lack of proper insurance cover on the plane and subsequent legal wranglings, did not help the grieving process.

Having beaten the reigning champion, Schwindlermeister Michael Schumacher, Damon learned that he was to be dropped by Frank Williams in a most perfunctory manner, and he then drove for Arrows in an underperforming car, and subsequently for Jordan, for whom he managed just one win at Spa. From then on, his enthusiasm waned and he hung up his helmet, admitting that there was more to life than racing cars. A few weeks ago, Nico Rosberg retired, having won an exhausting Championship from his nemesis Lewis Hamilton, to ‘spend more time with his family.’ At 31, he has his life back again, just as Damon discovered when he stopped racing. Both made it out the other side. Alive.

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December 2016 / January 2017

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By Fahad Redha

W

hile the organisers of Formula E discuss a new location for the London leg of the race, we thought we’d take a look at some of the other motoring events happening around London in 2017.

Kicking off the year from the 2326 of February is the London Classic Car Show in Excel. Expect to see all manner of legendary models including Jaguar E-Types, as well as some newer models that have started climbing in price. It’s also home to companies like EZ Power Steering that specialise in installing modern systems for older cars.

This makes it one of the best places for anyone looking to restore or ‘restomod’, where modern parts are installed on older cars.

Battersea Park will once again host the London Motor Show from the 5 till the 6 of May. As great as it is for the enthusiast, the last event saw the new TVR debut, it’s also a chance for potential consumers to get a preview of some new models. So, while you may not get to hear a screaming Lamborghini or mint condition Lancia, you may just

December April/May2016 2011/ January 2017

Sport

Motoring 2017 The year of the car show

020 7738 2348

see your next car.

Later in the year, Alexandra Palace will likely once again host the Classic & Sports Car Show.

The Goodwood Festival of Speed and Goodwood Revival will also be returning. On the 23-25 of June and the 10 of September respectively; “an extravaganza of sound and colour” will race around the picturesque Chichester estate.

It may also be streaming live on YouTube so if you can’t go, you can still experience some of it. All manner of cars and motorcycles, from turn-of-the-century racers to modern, state-of-the-art hypercars will be heading down the little track. The current record holder is the McLaren P1 LM which ran 47.07 seconds, beating the Nissan GT-R’s 49.27 second run.

From the 21-23 of June, Silverstone Classics will bring enthusiasts together at the fabled Grand Prix Circuit just weeks before it hosts the British Grand Prix.

Now in its 27 year, the three-day festival

By Fahad Redha

S

and Lamborghinis will be joined by some of the new kids on the block.

These will likely include the Swedish Koenigsegg, and the Italian Rimac, both of which have brought incredible leaps in technology.

Throw in the Regent’s Street Motor Show, the London to Brighton Veteran Car Run, and the almost daily events at the Ace Café, and London should be on any enthusiast’s map.

ince 1934, the Walter Lawrence Trophy, named for builder and cricket enthusiast from Hertfordshire, has been awarded to the fastest century, 100 runs in a single inning by one batsman, in English county cricket.

Sir Walter Lawrence died in 1939 and his son, Guy, did not share his father’s passion for the sport. As a result, there was no presentation until 1965 when Guy’s son-in-law inherited the Trophy. The following year, he reinstated the award with the help of MCC and Brian Johnston cricket commentator, author, and TV presenter, among others.

Loughborough MCCU’s Rob White has won this year’s MCC Universities Award with a score of 174, made at Haselgrave Ground, on June 8 against Leeds/ Bradford MCCU. White’s innings was scored off 219 balls, including 18 fours and 4 sixes and, despite the game being drawn, helped Loughborough secure the 2016 MCCU 2-day Championship. Rob’s 174, the 20 year old’s second century of the season,

Sports fixtures London Home Football

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The Walter Lawrence Trophy

is one of the world’s biggest classic motoring events.

Salon Prive, England’s own Concours of Elegance, will have, on display, some of the rarest and most valuable cars ever made, including cars like Ferrari 275 GTB/4 and the Aston Martin DB4 GT Zagato. Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire is a fitting place for this calibre of machine. There will also be a supercar day where the latest Ferraris

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Dec 14 QPR v Derby 19:45 Dec 17 Fulham v Derby County 15:00 Dec 18 QPR v Aston Villa 12:00 Dec 26 Arsenal v West Brom 15:00 Dec 26 Chelsea v Bournemouth 15:00 Dec 31 Chelsea v Stoke City 15:00 Jan 1 Arsenal v Crystal Palace 16:00 Jan 2 Fulham v Brighton and Hove Albion 15:00 Jan 2 QPR v Ipswich 15:00

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Kensington, Chelsea & Westminster Today

meant that he pipped his team mate Basil Akram, who had been leading the competition since early-season with a score of 160.

Worcestershire’s Tom KohlerCadmore launched the 2016 NatWest T20 Blast competition in explosive fashion with a 43-ball hundred to lead the challenge for this year’s Walter Lawrence Trophy. The 21 year old smashed 5 sixes and 13 fours in his century helping to post an unassailable total of 225-6 for Worcestershire Rapids in their 38-run victory over Durham Jets at New Road on May 20. The opener went on to score 127 from 54 balls, including 8 sixes and 14 fours, the highest score for the county in 14 years of T20 cricket.

It was a night of double celebration for Kohler-Cadmore, nicknamed ‘Pepsi’, who’d shaved his head to raise money for Cancer Research after team-mate Tom Fell suffered a second cancer scare before the start of the season, as Worcestershire announced before the match that Fell had been given the all-clear .

Now in its 82nd year, the Walter Lawrence Trophy, awarded for the fastest hundred of the season, is open to all domestic county competitions as well as One-Day Internationals, T20 Internationals and Test Matches in England.

England opener, Tammy Beaumont has surged into pole position for this

Jan 22 Arsenal v Burnley 13:30 Jan 22 Chelsea v Hull City 16:00 Jan 28 QPR v Wigan 15:00 Jan 31 Arsenal v Watford 19:45 Feb 4 Chelsea v Arsenal 15:00

Rugby

Courtesy of BBC Sport Dec 23 Northampton v Sale Sharks Dec 24 Saracens v Newcastle Wasps v Bath Exeter v Leicester Dec 26 Bristol v Worcester Dec 27 Harlequins v Gloucester Dec 30 Newcastle v Wasps Dec 31 Bath v Exeter Jan 1 Sale Sharks v Bristol

Gloucester v Northampton Leicester v Saracens Worcester v Harlequins Jan 6 Newcastle v Bath Jan 7 Gloucester v Worcester Harlequins v Sale Sharks Northampton v Bristol Jan 8 Wasps v Leicester

Autosport International

Jan 12-15 NEC Birminham

Golf

Courtesy of BBC Sport Dec 1-4, 8-11, 12-15, 19-22, 26-29 PGA European Tour Dec 2-4, 8-10, Jan 5-8, 12-15, 19-22, 26-29 USPGA Tour

Tennis

Courtesy of BBC Sport Jan 1-7 Hopman Cup

Cycling

Jan 10 British Cyclocross

Photograph © www.mattbright.com

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year’s Walter Lawrence Women’s Award with a dazzling innings of 168 not out, scored against Pakistan Women in the Third One-Day International at Taunton on June 27.

A proverbial thorn in the Pakistan Women’s side, the 25-year-old Kent Women opener had scored 70 in the First ODI, and 104 in the Second, during which she shared an opening stand of 235 with Lauren Winfield.

Tammy’s unbeaten innings of 168, scored from 144 balls and including 20 fours, earned her the Player of the

National Championships Shrewsbury Jan 28 Challenge Mallorca: Trofeo CamposSantanyi Ses Salines

Mallorca Jan 29 Challenge Mallorca: Trofeo Pollença Port de Andratx Mallorca Jan 30 Challenge Mallorca: Trofeo Serra de Tramuntana Mallorca Jan 31 Challenge Mallorca: Trofeo Playa de Palma Mallorca Jan 31 Grand Prix Cycliste la Marseillaise France

Horse Racing

Ascot Dec 16-17 Christmas Racing Weekend Jan 21

Match award, as England wrapped up the series with a decisive 3-0 victory.

The quartet of Walter Lawrence Trophy awards, supported by Veuve Clicquot, encompass four distinct areas of the game: the Walter Lawrence Trophy, for the fastest century of the season; the MCC Universities award for the highest score by a batsman from the six MCC Universities against the first-class counties or in the MCCU Championship; The Walter Lawrence Women’s Award for the batsman who makes the highest individual score in a season from the ECB Women’s OneDay Cup and all England Women’s matches played on home soil, and, finally, the Walter Lawrence Schools Award for the highest score by a school batsman against MCC.

Clarence House Chase Raceday Exeter Jan 17 January Jumps Kempton Park Dec 14 AWT – Twilight Dec 20 Afternoon Flat Dec 26-27 32Red Sandown Jan 7 32Red Day Feb 4 Betfred Day

Motorsport

Until the end of March Frozen lake driving experience Sweden belowzeroicedriving.com

Cresta Run

Until March 05 St Moritz cresta-run.com

Alpine Skiing Until March 3

Courtesy of Eurosports

Hockey

Until March 25 Women’s Hockey League Until March 26 Men’s Hockey League englandhockey.co.uk

Bobsleigh

Until March 19 World Cup Feb 4-5 Para World Championships thebbsa.co.uk

Marathons in the UK Dec 18 Portsmouth Coastal Waterside Marathon Jan 14 Endurancelife Dover Marathon Feb 4 Endurancelife South Devon Marathon marathonrunnersdiary. com

Compiled by Fahad Redha

Kensington, Chelsea & Westminster Today

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Crossword & Bridge This is the fifty second Wolfe Cryptic Crossword

www.leaandsandeman.co.uk/Fine-Wine.

106 Kensington Church St, London, W8 4BH. T: 020 7221 1982. Contact Sandor.

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(8) 9 Was a bit of horseradish included in the beginning. (6) 10 Cook better tart. (8) 12 Big Buck ’n Dec’s mate describe lack of current. («8) 13 Champers with a trendy concert makes for a flirty girl. (6) 15 Lilac art? Guru described as bucolic.

(12) 18 Put salt and pepper on flea and alien for long term travel pass. (6,6) 21 Cyder I repoured for chilling agent.

(3,3) 22 Musical kitchen equipment. (8)

24 Drink dispenser Ian may see better after visiting one. (8) 25 Armed conflict in Sussex. (6) 26 Giving way whilst producing financial gain. (8) 27 To start with particularly sad and lonely musical songs are in the OT. (6)

Down

1 Non bucolic fellow urbanite (8) 2 Sea crew I arranged for a know all. (8) 3 Initially read nothing about one of the four major macromolecules essential for all forms of life (11,4) 5 I managed a country in the Middle

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(3,3) 8 High praise given to one too late. (6) 11 Let go to mix the Clans up. (7) 14 The west african country worth one hundred and five pence. (7)

16 Framework outlining the bare bones.

(8) 17 Malodorous colleagues of Billy Bunter. (8) 19 Folly of extreme stupidity. (6) 20 in the beginning many young rogues told lies even for a flower. (6) 23 The thread of the tale. (4)

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South 1 NT

West led ♠Q and declarer - for fear of never making it - correctly won ♠K. With eight top tricks, and several chances for nine, declarer cashed♥AKQ. West discarded ♦3 on the second heart, and ♣4 on the third. Declarer then cashed dummy’s ♦AK, and followed with ♣AK. Neither queen appeared, so his chances seem to have run out. In desperation he exited with ♠8.

West, delighted, won♠9 and started cashing his top spades. He led ♠A, and East discarded ♥10; he followed with ♠J, and East discarded ♥J. His last two cards were ♠10 and ♦8, and East’s last two cards were ♦Q and ♣Q. At this point he led ♠10, and East had to make another discard. But which queen to let go; what on earth was his partner’s last card?

After much soul-searching East discarded ♦Q, and declarer threw ♣J. At Trick 13 West led ♦8, but it was declarer who, out-of-the-blue, made the last trick (and his contract) with ♦J. Superficially East made the blunder, throwing the wrong queen away at the penultimate trick. But West made a far more culpable error. He knew, as soon as declarer did not cash a ninth trick, that his partner’s hand was all winners; he should not have cashed his ♠10 at the penultimate trick giving his partner a chance to go wrong - rather leading ♦8 for East to win the last two tricks with ♦Q and ♣Q. ANDREW’S TIP: Make partner’s life easy in defence. When partner’s hand is all winners, stop cashing your winners and instead lead over to his. Then watch him smile appreciatively.

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Showdown Tournament, St. Louis in which Anand, 46 years old, took top spot with 15/24 points and $60,000, an amalgamation of points from Rapid and Blitzplay matches respectively. Topalov finished bottom, 8/24 pts $20,000, Nakamura 14/24 pts. 2nd. $40,000 and Caruana, 3rd 11/24 pts. $30,000.

Hikaru Nakamura’s comment following the match typifies the sportsmanlike dignity that pervades chess at its best when he said, “Congrats to Vishy on winning The Champions Showdown.He played the best chess by a country mile!”.

The 10th game of the current World Chess Championsip is the focus of the following puzzle.

Black has played 58......d4, trying to protect his d-pawn with cover from his knight on f5, but given white's fire power in the centre this seems over optimistic, with both white's rook on b5 and knight on c5 able to join in the attack on d4.

However, white’s next move played the expected psychology differently, and started a demolition of Karjakin's defences, and leading ultimately to a very deserved win for white. What was it?

Answer upside down below.

CHESS

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fter a drawn eleventh game, Magnus Carlsen and Sergey Karjakin are even-stevens as they go into the final game of their 12 round World Championship Chess Tournament held in New York.

Following the 11th, Carlsen said, “It's so close now that anything can tip the scales!” The first seven games were drawn with Karjakin winning the 8th.

Karjakin's revered reputation for strong defensive strategy suggested that his win and control of the match through defensive play would frustrate Carlsen's comeback. For some the match seemed to be over, Karjakin just having to sit tight to win outright. The 9th Game proved to be just that: a draw with only three to go. However, chess has a magical enigma, buried deep into its historical, classical and journeyful soul.

Those pundits who dryly demean chess as akin to watching paint dry, miss the catastrophic eruptions that see human endeavour, in the face of the calamitous, turns the odds on its head, and wins the day!

There is something akin to a celebration and a genuine uplifting of the human spirit when such an upset is witnessed directly. So it was that against the predictions, prognosis and diagnostics, Carlsen rallied through a 6.5 hour, 75 move 10th game (without breaks) to win and even out the scoreline to 5 points all. Monday 28th November was set for the final game of the Classical 12 round section of the Championship, with tie-breaks to follow, if this is drawn with 6 pts each. Carlsen is playing white and will have the incentive to win, whilst Karjakin as black will have the strength of knowledge that his earlier win was also with black, which gives Carlsen something to ponder. His overarching Viking sensibility to win every time he plays, leads him to overreach, when a draw is inevitable.

This has been Carlsen’s Achilles Heel at times, and may be a characteristic of the youthful ages of both competitors, Magnus being 25, two of the youngest ever achievers of the Grandmaster title.

Carlsen when he was 13 years of age, and Karjakin, the historical youngest at the ripe old age of 12 years and 7 months! This championship has, from some chess sources, been criticised on the grounds that the number of games is too short, since in the past, championships have been 24 and 20 games long, which gives a greater incentive for attacking chess, since losses

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online: www.KCWToday.co.uk

Chance, if but for a Champion

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By Barry Martin

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The following type of misdefence has occurred countless times - which defender was most at fault?

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December 2016 / January 2017

Chess

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Christiana Ning of W7 by email was, notwithstanding one wrong answer, last month’s winner, congratulations. Please let me have any comments or suggestions you may have and remember if you haven’t totally finished the whole crossword still send it in as the first correct or substantially correct answer picked at random will win a prize of a bottle of Champagne kindly donated by Lea and Sandeman send your grids either by post to Wolfe, at Kensington and Chelsea Today 80100 Gwynne Road London SW11 3UW or scan it in and send by email to wolfe@kcwtoday. co.uk.

020 7738 2348

Stop Press: The 12th. game ended in the predicted draw.

One Grandmaster and chess columnist said. “It was a dreary draw that denied description!” The Championship will precede to a tie-break with rapid and blitz games to decide who shall wear the Crown.

Late News: Carlsen wins 3-1 in rapid games tie-break, to retain the world championship title!

can be adjusted through further play. It is also noticeable that Agon’s prematch fanfare of a championship ‘fit for the i-pad generation’, and various world wide celebrities making the first move for each round, for example, have hardly dented the world wide media outside of the chess world's normal trafficking through chess dedicated websites. One would hardly know that this World Chess Championship was taking place at all!

The draw in game eleven saw the Berlin Defense in operation again, and which has been in use in a majority of the games of this Championship. The 2000, World Chess Championship Title Match, played at The Riverside Studios, Hammersmith, London, (at which I was the official artist), also saw the Berlin Wall Defense used to great dexterity by Vladimir Kramnik, the contender, who denied Garry Kasparov's great tactical abilities with this stubborn defense. Kramnik wrestled the crown from Kasparov's head to become world champion, and Kasparov’s immense

reign was over. In the current World Match the 11th game ended in a draw after 34 moves. At the post match conference, Karjakin stated, “I was not very impressed with the way I played but at least the draw was normal”, which begs the question of why should that be normal? In Karjakin’s mind-set, playing for the draw is normal in part because of the shortness of the number of games now played in such world championships and (as mentioned above) the youthfulness of the two players has also been commented on in that their whole short lives have been centred on learning and playing chess and there is little tension outside of the game itself that has been character forming, and which may add to the approach they may take to the game.

Whilst all eyes and the internet catchment focus has been on the World Championship in New York, other tournaments with strong play have also been in action. One such event which has just finished is The Champions

Image © IPA

December 2016 / January 2017

Answer, 59.Rb6! doubling up Carlsen's attack on e6, which black can defend with Kt.g7, but he relinquishes his cover on d4! Instead, black played 59....Rc7, attacking white's knight on c5, which is desperate and gives up his pawn on e5 in doing so. This is a blunder! 60. Kt. xe6, Rc3. 61. Kt.f4! Rhc7. 62. Kt. d5, forking black's rook's, another blunder by Karjakin! 62.....Rxd3. 63. Kt.xc7! closing in on the black King, 63. ..Kb8. 64. Kt.b5, Kc8, which is forced as 65 .a6 is pending and would be very uncomfortable for black! However this allows white to take, 65. Rxg6..... and black’s position is fairly hopeless, with the faintest of hope hanging on his d-pawn? 65....

Rxf3, clearing the way to advance his d-pawn. 66. Kg2, Rb3, attacking b5. 67.

Kt.d6+,Ktxd6. 68. Rxd8,Re3, attacking e5. 69. e6,Kc7. 70. Rxd4,and black’s last ‘real’ hope disappears! 70....Rxe6. 71.Rd5, and black’s pawn on h5 is now under attack! 71...Rh6. 72. Kf3, with white’s extra pawn and control of the middle of the board, Karjakin could easily have resigned at this juncture, since only a massive blunder by the World Champion would have saved him! 72.....Kb8.

73.Kf4, Ka7. 74.Kg5, Rh8. 75.Kf6.... resigns.

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December 2016 / January 2017

Kensington, Chelsea & Westminster Today

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